Transcript of The White House UFC Fight, SpaceX’s Big Pop, and Fox’s Roku Deal

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Hi everyone, this is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Oh, do we have a lot to talk about. Wow.

A lot. A lot. Well, look, Anna, but first off, where are you?

I'm in New York.

Well, I know that. You're at the Equinox Hotel.

Oh, thanks for telling everybody. Yes.

Well, I'm sorry. You're not that important. That's not a security risk.

I get it.

A bunch of gay men are gonna show up and ask for autographs?

I'm gonna tell everyone where you are all the time.

Please.

I'm not that important. I'm gonna like put a tracker on you.

I'm not that important.

I try very hard not to say where you are.

Yeah, find the nearest bar.

Don't get hostile. Where did you go to the like, did you finally go to that stupid UFC thing last night?

I did not go.

I did not go. Oh, well, you have the energy of it.

I came home early. I told you this, to watch the World Cup with my boys.

Oh, good.

And it was a mistake.

It was a mistake. I got that. Yeah. But are you enjoying the World Cup anyway?

Oh, it's fucking amazing. Netherlands and Japan was an amazing game. And I know you're very excited about this. Scotland's victory over Paraguay, 1-nothing. Scotland has so much momentum. You heard it here first. I think they're gonna beat either Morocco or Brazil. And if Scotland makes it to the— if Scotland makes it to the quarters or the semis, I'm taking my kids to Boston and we're gonna go see it. So I'm just so—

Oh, all right.

That sounds fun. Sounds like a good thing. It sounds very wholesome.

And also the US. The US had a big victory. They did.

They did.

So anyways, I'm all about the World Cup.

Well, good. Then did you watch the Knicks or not? Did you care?

I hate to say it 'cause let me put it this way. I'm super excited about New York. I fucked up leaving. I'd love to be in New York right now 'cause I think the city is electric.

Yeah, it is.

I don't care that much about basketball, so I basically watched it on TikTok and—

It was a nice win though. It was a nice win.

It's great for the city. The city seems like everyone is really unified. It feels very, kind of demonstrates the power of sport.

Yeah.

Feels really good. You're there.

I am. I'm not gonna be here. I'm going, I'm gonna meet you in Cannes, but I'm going early to Paris to, with my kids. Cannes. Cannes, whatever, Cannes. Anyway.

Well, that's right. We're gonna be in the south of France together.

That's right, we are, exactly. So— Are you bringing the kids? Yes, I am. The little ones, not the big ones.

You gotta learn how to travel. The point of travel is to escape the children.

No! I like my kids. Let me get to the point. The Knicks. So, it turns out I was sitting next to a Knick all day during that Devil Wears Prada thing. I didn't recognize Karl-Anthony Towns. I was sitting with him all day. I had no idea. He was so sweet when he was being interviewed.

They're usually pretty easy to spot, especially in contrast to Kara Swisher.

I know, but you don't— I guess, but I just don't— Like, I just didn't know. I knew he was a sports figure. Anyway, he was sitting next to me all day. I look like such an idiot. But he was so— They were all so good. I don't usually watch basketball, but I have to say, of all of them, I like basketball the best if I have to watch something. I thought it was very heartening. Everybody, everyone watching it from the streets and just New York, really. It makes me want to live here now, I have to say. I shouldn't say that too loudly around Amanda.

You do live there now.

I know, but I mean full-time. Like, I was like, "It's such a nice vibe." New York has such a great vibe. And in a contrast, the UFC really soiled itself with that idiot player saying that terrible thing about— Michelle Obama.

He's not a player, he's a fighter, but yeah.

Fighter, whatever.

That was weird. No doubt about it. That was unfortunate.

Let me lay out what happened. President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday ringside with this UFC Freedom 250 where fighters compete in front of a crowd of 4,300 with the actual White House as a backdrop as a marketing thing. There's a lot of marketing going on, whether it was Bud Light or whatever. Meta did something very laudable. They were giving these glasses to blind service members. I think they're, Their brand took a hit for being associated with it. Anyway, the guest list reads like a who's who of power, tech, and money. Zuckerberg was there, who is a big fan. And I, this is the only thing I genuinely like about him. I'm glad he's committed to that, whatever. Joe Rogan was there, as you said, Cabinet Secretary Sanders, Lindsey Graham looked very happy surrounded by muscled men. Of course, Paramount CEO David Ellison was in the audience as the event streamed exclusively behind a Paramount+ paywall. Nothing says the people like a paywall. We'll talk about that more in a minute because You know, again, this one fighter grabbed and took this cheap shot at Michelle Obama, which is part of a conspiracy theory among the right, and they think— they seem to be obsessed with her and, and the Obamas.

Um, now UFC CEO Dana White later told Time magazine, "Everyone knows my position on free speech, but I hate that kind of nonsense." I don't think you need to defend free speech, Dana. It's just— can't you just say this is like horrible? Like, they always have to like find some dumb excuse.

That's a I think that was a good comment from him.

I guess, it's the least he could do.

But we disagree on this because I actually think, well, we're gonna, I think the event was a win for the White House. Mm-hmm, I do. And distinct to that dumb moment, which will get a lot of play. But look, I think that essentially just the way Tucker Carlson is trying to shore up the Nick Fuentes manosphere part of the party, there's still a large segment of America that wants to embrace some form of masculinity and feels like it's been shoved aside. And I feel the same way about masculinity that David Frum feels about the border, and that is if progressives don't enforce the border, fascists will. And if Democrats can't come up with some sort of symbolism or role models that demonstrate strength and service as masculinity, then the Republicans are gonna fill that hole with violence and misogyny, which is exactly what they're doing.

Mm-hmm.

And unfortunately, it not only highlights this performative, weird, dominant, misogynistic form of masculinity that is just, in my opinion, absolutely the terrible role model for young men. It highlights to me that Democrats haven't been able to identify anything around an aspirational viewpoint around masculinity.

I'm gonna push back. Trump is down 10% among young men over the past few months. It's way— they're way down on Trump.

It's not because of this event.

No, I'm just saying, it's just, I think this version of masculinity, you know what a better version? Were the Knicks, the way they were. And I'm not— I'm taking away the owner, who I don't particularly like, but I thought they display, you know, a lot of, like, support of women. If you notice, there was a lot of mothers. There was a lot of sisters. There was a lot of—

Agreed.

They always talk about, you know, the guy, the main guy Brunson was, you know, he gave up a big pile of money to have other people on the team, including Kat, Karl-Anthony Kat.

Well, he wants the ring. He wants a ring.

He wants a ring, of course. But it's like, it just shows, like, the difference of the watch world. Parties was really rather significant. And so if you want a version of masculinity, that's a version of masculinity that is very sporty, very masculine. It did a lot to heal the male loneliness epidemic. Have you seen people out in the street like that? Men out in the street like that?

I absolutely love it.

Yeah.

I don't think there's any way to not highlight the Knicks, their players, New York, what have you. Again, look, I think that event and the pageantry and the flyover, I think there's a large segment of America that likes that stuff.

I like a flyover, by the way. I'm not saying I don't like a flyover. I think there are ways into this that are very, very clear that you can support things. I think it's, here, this is Monica Hass in the Washington Post. I think she did a great job. And she also is a big supporter of MMA, by the way. She likes it. The problem isn't the fighting on the lawn. People who love the UFC have had to sit through decades of presidents inviting Poets and cellists and opera singers to the White House, and the turnabout is fair play. The problem with Sunday's broadcast wasn't the fighting. The problem was the tonally incoherent emulsion of patriotism and bloodlust, history and buy this crap, an event happening for the people but tucked behind a Paramount paywall. I think that exactly, that's what it felt like. It felt like— And by the way, all the cheap seats, they were stuck in that one area of— They weren't at the White House, which was— This is what she also wrote, "What do we make of this other than this is America? Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses advertising Bud Light and trucks in Loud We Trust.

Bring me your ring girls dressed skimpily in sequined stars and stripes, and your men with cauliflower ears and a bunch of sailors dancing to YMCA." I just— There was such an— I don't know. I do contrast these things. I also contrast the World Cup too, which looks wonderful and diverse and interesting. And the crowds are— I don't know. It's just— There is a way to appeal, and I think Democrats should embrace it. Embrace it. But this was grotesque. And it got— the center of attention will be this idiot. This idiot who's had his head hit too many times, making an incredibly misogynistic— it's racist, it's anti— it's just like gross. And no man doing anything. That's what it is.

That's what it is. Yeah, look, her comments, her assessment is really, I don't know, the reporter's commentary is really, really impressive. And I do agree the World Cup and the Knicks are better. Look, at the end of the day, just politically, Kara, it was a total distraction and occupied the news cycle from the fact that we have a shitty memo of understanding on something actually a lot more important.

Yes, we will get to that, yeah.

So just from a distraction standpoint, I think it was a whim. If they hadn't had that event, the media would've been much more focused on something that has much larger implications from the world, and that is Donald Trump walked into a, you know, a car dealership demanding a Ferrari and is leaving with a Camry 'cause he's figured out he has bad credit.

That he's overpaying for. Yeah. Yeah.

That we're just giving them everything. At a minimum, and they probably wasn't strategic planning the timing, but I think that, I think anything that distracts from this memo from the standard.

Even if it's a terrible statement, I get it, I get it. Well, we've got a lot to talk, we're gonna talk about that. The Trump administration, by the way, is fighting with Anthropic again. And SpaceX, of course, went public. That seems like 100 years ago. But, you know, speaking of Paramount with, It got Justice Department approval. The merger has just cleared a key hurdle. The DOJ says its review found the roughly $110 billion deal is unlikely to harm competition for consumer or consumers, removing a major federal obstacle. The deal isn't done yet though. The state attorney general, including California, are still reviewing the transaction and could challenge it. David Ellison said the merger remains on track to close by September. He's got to because after that, a so-called ticking fee would kick in, making the acquisition more expensive. European regulators are still weighing approval. Mm-hmm. What's interesting to me is that the Justice Department apparently shut down its investigation into Paramount's bid to buy Warner Brothers before career staffers even had a chance to weigh in. And those lawyers weren't just skeptical of the deal, they were actually leaning towards recommending the DOJ sue to block it, arguing that combining two of Hollywood's biggest studios would be bad for competition.

But with the Ellisons and Trump, the fix apparently was in. I think, you know, this, we'll get to the Roku deal, which actually Fox just bought Roku, but these mergers are just coming fast and furious. And I think no one was surprised by this. It's a question of if the states or European Union can slow this thing down. But are you, you were concerned with Netscape with higher prices. How do you feel at this moment?

Netflix with higher prices? Yeah, the reality is if the economists I talk to say that it's hard to, It's hard to say these guys have a monopoly when you look at the fact that the combined viewership still won't rival YouTube's. When you look at the revenue, it's nowhere near what the revenue is for, you know, the media companies, the tech media companies we talk about. So you can accuse them of overpaying. I had a chill run down my spine over the weekend when I read that Mark Thompson is being considered as kind of the manager they need to come in for CBS News.

Holy moly. The only one. Actually, the others who they mentioned said no, but go ahead. Go ahead.

But it just, all of a sudden it sent a chill down my spine. I'm like, what? The Ellisons own CNN? I was like, it hadn't fully dawned on me. But from a straight regulatory standpoint, there was really no, in my opinion, valid reason to block it. And by the way, I've switched on that. I was worried about the consolidation of media, but when you include competitors around watch time revenues, there wasn't, there really wasn't an economic argument. Now, in terms of mergers, you're gonna see a flurry of them because anyone who's thinking maybe we'd like to buy companies, they're like, let's do it while the doing is good. Because if you get a Democratic administration in there, you, you're gonna have much more scrutiny around these mergers. And I mean, you already see it. You already see, you already see attorney generals, AGs in blue states getting much more excised about this merger than, the federal guys, but it's going through and it'll be really interesting to see what kind of the first moves are or ramifications of this consolidated company.

Well, they've got that debt to deal with. As you know, I've just recently interviewed a whole bunch of big media company, just media people, and they're all like, "This debt is fucking ridiculous." Most of them are very much focused on the debt and the math of the situation. I think they'll have to make enormous cuts. And you know, a lot of the rest, speaking of distraction, a lot of the rest, it's a distraction. With the CNN thing, Well, you know my feelings on that. I'm leaving as soon as I can.

So you're out. You're out of CNN.

Yes. Yes.

You've been trying to talk me into doing shit at CNN for 24 months.

No, that was before. You're not listening to me. Do you ever— Do you invest in our relationship? I've been saying it publicly for a while.

Well, that's why lesbians have the highest rates of divorce, 'cause both of them are listening.

Yes.

It's important that in a relationship that the man not listen a lot. That's key to the survival.

Well, I'm glad you said that.

That's key to the survival of our relationship. There's a lot of shit that just runs right over my head. Let me try to outline it.

I don't wanna work for the Elisons and I don't wanna work for their handpicked minions 'cause I think they're incompetent. That is what I've said over and over again. And I like, I love working with the people at CNN. I very much like Mark Thompson and I hope they put him in charge.

Yeah, smart guy.

I think he would do a great job. I just don't see any way that these people make good decisions and I don't trust them. That's it. I just don't, I don't wanna work for tech people. You know, they're more than, they can, you know, I don't know. There's just, I'm just not staying. There's lots of places to go. Like you, I think TV's great, but it's not that great, like, to put up with this shit. Like, I don't— that's one thing. I like, you know, I like making that series. I just, you know, I don't— except if I owned it. If they want to buy it, they can buy shit off of me if they feel like it. But other— but I don't want to be in— I don't want them to own something of mine.

You don't think— see, I would argue for Kara Swisher, if they gave you an agreement to work at CNN and said, you know, like, we're just— this is the editor, this is who's in charge of your stories, Why wouldn't you? You don't think you'd be able to fashion an agreement?

I don't think they would do that. I don't think they would do that. Like, if they would pay me every time a person I don't like talks to me, I guess. But no, at this moment, no. Not the way they're behaving right now. And this, by the way, this whole like—

Pull a Leslie Stahl. Demand to stay because you'll protect CNN from these evil—

I am not, I don't think I have that power to do it. Anyway, there's lots of other options. And I'm under contract with them until the end of the year, and I'm hoping they'll let me out early because I don't want to affiliate with them. That's all. I left Murdoch too. This is not a new, fresh thing for Kara Swisher to flounce out and do better. No one cares, but it says something.

I just want everyone to know I'm absolutely a whore. An expensive whore. So, Ellison's, you have my number.

Oh, oh, I heard about that. Let's not get into that issue.

You have my number.

Yeah, they called you. I know that. I was defending you on that. By the way.

I appreciate that.

They had your number. You don't, we don't need TV at this point.

Honestly. We are TV, just with much better economics. We are TV.

It's just, it's like a headache and then I have to see them. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Fox is buying Roku. Support for today's show comes from Atio, the AI CRM. Every business has a CRM horror story. Too much admin, too little signal, never telling you what you actually need to know. How do teams know where to focus? The ones winning have it figured out. They're using Atio. Connect your email, calls, and product data, and Atio instantly builds your CRM with complete context. Then you ask Atio to plan your next move, prep for meetings, spot deals at risk, and draft outreach. Atio searches, updates, and creates across your data to accelerate your workflow. Join 8,000 companies using Atio to scale without the chaos. Try Atio free at atio.com/pivot.

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It's a big play for average advertising-based television. Just so you know, Fox gets access to over 100 million households worldwide. Lots of people use this, combining its live news, sports, and Tubi streaming service with Roku's massive platform. The combined company would become the third largest player in US television by share of viewing, putting real pressure on the likes of YouTube and Netflix. It's— I, I've always liked Roku. Roku will operate under the Fox umbrella with Roku founder Anthony Wood, who's a really interesting person, joining Fox's board in a subordinate role. That's interesting. Fox's shareholders own about 73% of the combined company. with Roku shareholders holding the remaining 27. And the deal still needs to sign off from both shareholder groups and regulators. It's interesting because they deliver all the networks into living rooms. You know, they're like— it's almost like a cable company in a weird way. I use— I think I'm using my Roku in Brooklyn, like, because I didn't want to get the cable bundle or something like that. I haven't hooked it up yet, but I've always liked Roku. I don't use it that much, but I thought Anthony did a nice job.

And I'm just curious, you know, he can't get any bigger, presumably, is why he's selling. I think it's a great move.

I think it's a great move.

Yeah.

Something I didn't see coming. And the moment I looked at it, I'm like, this makes all sorts of industrial logic.

Who else could have bought Roku? Just before you move on from that, who else?

Well, there's the obvious, like, there's the obvious Warner Brothers, Paramount.

Yeah.

Disney. I mean, this is an, they have assets that are incredibly important. I mean, they have a ton of first-party data. They have first-party data across 100 million households, which is a really strategic asset. It gives Fox a direct viewer relationship that cable and broadcast never offered advertisers, right? So, 'cause you had the cable company in the way. Fox projects $400 million in run rate cost synergies.

They needed this. They needed this.

It's a really savvy, bold move.

It is. I thought, oh my God, Malcolmson is doing a good job.

Yeah, it just makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

What's interesting is they actually sold their shares in Roku at $58 a share to fund their acquisition of Tubi. And now they're buying back in at $160. Fox will own roughly 73% of the combined company.

Yeah. No, no, no. But wait, I just said, but they had had shares before?

Yeah. So my understanding is that Fox actually, they had Roku shares in March of 2020 and they sold them at $58 a share to fund their half a billion-dollar Tubi acquisition.

Yeah, which has been very helpful to them.

So look, this is a company that's making a big, bold bet, recognizing their core business is in structural decline. I think it's really— like, I think the folks at Fox are really smart.

Yeah, this is a smart move. I thought that. That's exact— I'm like, huh. But it is a big bet on advertising-based versions of this, right? 'Cause Roku is advertising-based and it's not subscription-based. So—

But here's the thing. If you look at the trends, subscription has been eating into— subscription streaming has been eating into linear advertising-supported TV for the last 20 years. In 2024, it stopped gaining share. It's like 50/50 right now.

Too much, yeah.

So, I mean, for example, I don't know if our listeners know this, they can watch Pivot or Prop G Markets on Roku. It's available. We have a channel on Roku.

Mm-hmm.

And it gets huge, huge viewership.

Is it a significant revenue generator?

Their total revenue is around $4.7 billion.

For you, for you being on it.

Oh no, it's, we launched 2 months ago, but my attitude is if you look at enterprise value, just, and I'm trying to be transparent about what we're trying to build at Prophecy Markets and what we're trying to build at Pivot, If you're— the way you increase enterprise value and increase the multiple on your EBITDA is one, by right now adding subscription revenue, which we're doing on Substack, and two, having alternative distribution and different— differentiating your media mix or your revenue mix. So what starts small, I think we'll do, you know, $100,000 or $300,000 in revenue from Roku ad or advertising on Roku by serving all of our Pods on Roku. But what you want is when you— if you ultimately are thinking about enterprise value, it's a multiple of your profits and your growth. But what increases the multiple is how enduring that revenue is, i.e., as much subscription revenue as possible, and also a diversified set of revenue streams.

Right.

Yeah, I see.

So my attitude is while it's been an effort to reformat our content and put it on Roku, it's absolutely worth it because what you wanna say to a potential investor or acquirer is look at all these different points of distribution and types of revenue mix that create a more, you know, a more enduring company. But just to get back to Roku, $4.7 billion in total net revenue, up 15% year over year. Platform revenue of $4.1 billion, that's up 18%. Gross profit of $2 billion, up 15%. Last year was their first GAAP profitable year. The company reported net income of $80 million in Q4 alone. So it's kind of hit that tipping point. Yep. And again—

Small but sustainable profit.

Over 100 million households have Roku by, at the end of 2025. And device hardware still runs at negative gross margin, but they sell hardware at a loss to capture platform users. I would argue that Roku is arguably the most important media company that people have never heard of.

Now, let me just point to another person, Anjali Sud, a young woman, chief executive officer of Tubi. She— This is a free ad-supported streaming service they have. And she was the previous CEO of Vimeo, but she's expanded the user base. I think it's 100 million users, and it's the most watched free TV streaming service. It's very quirky, and you can find all manner of stuff on there. But I think the two of them are very savvy.

They're both incredibly smart.

Like, That's the thing. And I think one of the things I'm not, you know, Lachlan Murdoch, I just think was born into his job. But these are two, one of the things I just interviewed Peter Chernin for my podcast today, another smart former Fox executive. One thing that Rupert's been good at is executives. Like, they're very sharp. And you should listen to Chernin one, 'cause I think it was a great interview. But, you know, just really smart executives. And this is the case anyway. Very smart. You can also, by the way, watch us on YouTube. By the way, we're very, Promiscuous. The entire— Scott and Kara are very promiscuous. Anyway, let's move on to the other one. We like this deal. SpaceX, of course, this seems like 100 years ago, officially public. And as one Scott Galloway predicted, it did indeed close up on its first day of trading. And you had said it was gonna be about 20% and not more, which is interesting. It was at 19-point-something percent. Shares are at a high of $177 at the time of this taping after the company's public debut on Friday, making the current market cap $2.32 trillion.

You thought it might be a scam. Scotch under, under 2. His first day on the market, over 500 million shares traded hands. A lot of movement here. Elon himself, of course, crossed the milestone thanks to the pop, becoming the world's first trillionaire. There were some notable buyers. Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person, bought over a billion-dollar stake in the company, and Cathie Wood's ARK Investment bought more than $500 million worth of stock. So go through if there's anything surprising there, 'cause venture— and also venture funding for US space technology firms excluding SpaceX jumped $7.5 billion in 2023 from $2.1 billion $1.5 billion the previous years, probably. We'll see if that goes anywhere 'cause it's also a money, can be a money furnace as you, the word you use. But any thoughts on where it is right now?

So I thought that the bankers and Musk and look, I think the most significant thing here is that this, we've never seen such engineered manufactured scarcity. There was tens of billions of dollars of demand for this IPO that has never existed for an IPO before. And then you combine it with the fact that unlike other IPOs that went public on the NASDAQ, it didn't have to float more than 10%. It only floated 5%.

Yeah.

Very scarcity, as you said.

So you've just created manufacturer scarcity. Now, to be fair, it's up again today.

Mm-hmm.

So this has created a level of excitement in the market. I do think you have to highlight the positives here, and that is I never wanna be someone that demonizes success. There are 14 new billionaires in Texas that you've never heard of. Those people will give money away. They will start new businesses. Something that's uniquely American is that we continue to produce companies like this and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. It's gonna create a lot of economic growth. You're gonna see a surge in philanthropy from Berkeley to the University of Texas.

Mm-hmm.

It inspires a lot of people. It is, there's a lot of positives here and we're seeing venture funding increasing in, you know, space-related projects. So there's a lot to like here. You know, I don't like the manufactured scarcity and the, what I'll call the overlying narrative of sort of like the hero's journey here.

Right, and the numbers at certain businesses are not great.

Yeah, look, this, from a valuation standpoint, and this is what Musk is always talking about, Musk has been able to do is to create this narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history. So, but right now the stock is trading 30% above the IPO price. And then he has also, again, and I'm, I go back to governance, there's all these different lockups. Like if you trade on a certain platform and you bought shares through direct share purchase on a certain platform, they technically don't have a lockup. Up, but, but they, if they sell their shares, they can't trade on the platform before, which is like a soft lockup. There's certain criteria around when you can sell if the stock is up a certain amount, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. To be fair, Elon's locked himself up. I doubt he's planning to sell. He'll just borrow against his stock. But what they've effectively done, which you're not supposed to do, is they've created different classes of shares, which you're not supposed to do. So again, I find that this is, this is really inspiring and important and going to be great for economic growth on certain levels.

I also believe that this entire sector is gonna have not a collapse, but a pretty serious drawdown when people after 2 or 3 earnings calls are forced to justify anything resembling a future that involves the kind of earnings built into this thing.

Right. And then the rush to space technology firms, same thing. They're gonna overinvest, which is normal. Normal, like I would assume, presumably.

And that, and quite frankly, that's one of the great things about America 'cause we overinvested in the internet and the technology survived and a lot of those companies came back and that investment was good. But you didn't wanna be one of the investors overinvesting initially.

Toys.com, yeah.

Yeah, so, but I said, somebody called me and I said this on Pivot. Someone called me and said, I have allocation, should I take it? And I said, take it and trade out on the first trade.

Although if you buy it and trade out, you don't do as, most people don't do as well except in certain cases, right? There were all these like really interesting statistics of buying and selling that were not good in the long run over time. It's just you've gotta hit the exact right one or you lose money most of the time.

This was different because, so first off, trading out, trading out, you get short-term capital gains at a higher rate. So there's a lot of evidence that shows that just generally with investing, you're better off just buying and trying to never sell. It's just trading, trading is a difficult thing. Is a difficult game. I thought, and I said this, I said they're going to manufacture a 20% pop. The bankers and everyone are figuring out a way to create a supply-demand imbalance that will exactly peg this at a 20% pop. What's impressive and punctures that theory is that it's up another 11% today. And the thing that also, just the thing that deserves a nod is the best VC in the world is not Andreessen Horowitz or whoever initially funded SpaceX.

Thiel, founders fund.

Well, it's, in my opinion, it's Uncle Sam. And that SpaceX investors and the banks taking SpaceX public should remember that we would not be here today without grants from the federal government. In 2008, SpaceX was on the verge of bankruptcy and would likely have run out of money if not for a grant from NASA. And the golden law of—

Same thing with Tesla.

And then the golden law of stupidity here, Trump is trying to cut NASA's funding by more than 20% this year.

Same with mRNA technology, same with— the government is one of the greatest investors of all time, if you could think about it that way.

Best VC in history, whether it's medical research for our universities or electric charging stations, what, you know, and they would argue back, well, they're gonna get their bite, they're gonna get enormous return through tax revenues. The big debate this will stir is in America, we've been talking about for decades now, what's dominated the conversation is how you create wealth. The conversation that is superseding that is what you should do with wealth once you have it. And so right now, Elon Musk could buy all of Manhattan, every building, every condo, every park with his— that's how much money he has right now. And whether or not this level of concentration of power power, which comes in a capitalist society from money, presents a risk. And I'm of the mind that I think it's important that eventually, and I'm in favor of eventually having trillionaires, but we should have guardrails over the power and progressive taxation, which we don't have right now.

Can I just say one thing I'm gonna push back on, and that you've created all these rich people are gonna give to charity. If you look at the statistics, I don't think they're gonna be charitable. I don't think they're gonna do good things. I just don't. I don't think this class, I don't think Elon Musk has had a very good record. So I just, I'm not expecting these people to be. I think they're gonna be on an ongoing quest for more money and more power and more consolidation. So I'm not impressed with their charitable thoughts. And I'm glad they're creating jobs, but they would immediately cut you if they had to. That's why I just don't think they have that.

You're talking about, okay, but I think we need to parse that. And that is, if you look at billionaires and their wives, the wives have hands down been more philanthropic. And it doesn't, and the quote unquote billionaire masters of the universe have not acquitted themselves well on a lot of levels. But there's just no doubt this type of wealth creation event is gonna result in a surge in philanthropy. It just does.

Hopefully.

Because—

That would be great.

You're gonna have a lot of people who wake up and have $20 million and think, I'm gonna give $2 million to the local food bank, or I'm gonna give $50,000. I talked to, who, you know, I'm, I'm involved with the University of California. They're all revising their giving goals up for next year because of the IPOs coming down. The, and they have so many alumni. I'm not talking about Elon Musk. I think it would be, you could, you could make a credible argument that he's not the most philanthropic person. I get that. And you can definitely make an argument that Mackenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are more philanthropic than their husbands. But when you see these types of liquidity events, local philanthropies surge in terms of—

That would be great.

In terms of money. There's, look, there's, for all of SpaceX's problems and income inequality, there isn't a nation on Earth that wouldn't kill to have those problems.

I would agree. I just think it's gonna go into political activism in a way that could be deleterious to most of us.

Oh, I—

That's where it's going. It's not going to helping a kid.

Hey, let's be clear. Sure. Elon Musk, in my view, can probably decide who the next president is.

Yeah, that's correct.

Yeah, he spent $250 million and had influence on the election. Maybe he didn't decide it, but he had influence on it.

Exactly.

What happens if he decides to put 2.5% of his net worth or $25 billion or 100 times what he spent last time.

Oh, he's a freight train.

And also to be fair, are we comfortable? And he deserves credit. One of the things that he doesn't get enough credit for is he has turned off Starlink for Russia. And it has put Russia at a severe disadvantage to Ukraine. And I think that is a wonderful thing and he deserves credit for it. Having said that—

Except if tomorrow he changes his mind.

Well, that's exactly right. Having said that, at is should that power reside in a private citizen that has no government or electoral oversight. No, it should not. But the— look, it's a ton of economic growth. The banks made a shit ton of money. You have a lot of people, 4,000 people became millionaires on Friday.

I get it, I get it. I hope they're better at it. I just think I'm not even— Musk is one thing, but I'm worried about others that aren't quite brought. I just like, I always, whenever I see a box, I think the Ulines, the Ulines, U-L-I-N-E. I don't know how to pronounce it, but they're like huge givers to crazy right-wing causes. And so I just am like, oh God, the boxes, the this, the that. Anyway, I, I just hope that they, um, that they are charitable. Yeah, I hope that they're charitable. That's, that's what I hope. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, we'll talk about the Trump administration coming for Anthropic yet again.

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Before.

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The Trump administration issued an order barring all foreign nationals from having access, including Anthropic's own non-US employees, including— there's a lot of them at the top— essentially forcing the company to take it offline. The decision was probably made after a conversation with Amazon's Andy Jassy, who told officials researchers in his company got fabled to provide information to be used in cyberattacks. Anthropic went, uh, sent staff to Washington to meet with the White House officials to try to fix the dispute. I'm sorry, I just think they're waiting for an excuse here, um, to get Anthropic. Um, I think maybe Jassy might have said this, but the minute they could, they jumped on Anthropic. And, uh, and of course Anthropic's making the argument that every other model can do this too. Um, and they're just cherry-picking. Um, by the way, the company is also being sued for its $1,200 a month AI plans with consumers alleging it oversold the usage allowances it offered. So, uh, so that's that. And then, by the way, a coalition of states' attorney generals have opened an investigation into OpenAI. The company was served with a subpoena seeking, uh, documents related to its activities and impact on users, including activity related to minors and seniors, handling of health data, and company policies.

Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging, uh, the two, uh, knowingly released an unsafe product. Um, that's an interesting— that's a separate thing. But this Anthropic attack by the White House is really interesting. Uh, of course, they were just waiting for something to come at them, as usual. David Sachs just lies in wait.

Yeah, the— I had mixed emotions here because I, I think it's a good thing. I'd like to think that the government's involvement in acting crisply around the threats of AI is overdue. So I applaud the government moving in crisply and saying, "We need to shut this down until we understand it better." I applaud that. The problem is I don't trust these people. I don't know what their motivations are. I don't know if they're genuinely concerned about the wellbeing—

No, the answer is no.

—of society, or if this is just politically motivated trying to shut down one company because you have political donors at the other. And supposedly, I just got off, I just had Ian Bremmer on the pod, talking about Iran, he said at the G7 meeting, the shutdown of Anthropic was a bigger topic than the memo of understanding in Iran because if you're a foreign company and you've deeply integrated Anthropic into your workflow and all of a sudden it's turned off, you know, it's like, okay, does this mean the government has a kill switch for AI that when whoever it is is angry at them, them just turns it off. So this is, again, this all comes down to the same fucking thing. You don't trust these people.

And why isn't there a congressional, like, that everybody has to live by? Why does Andy Jassy make— have a conversation? I'd like to hear from Andy fucking Jassy right now. What did he say? Why does he, like, why did he— They're an investor in Anthropic, by the way, so I'm not sure I even trust that story. I don't even know if I trust the Jassy part of the story. I'd like him to speak out. Publicly about it. But yeah, I agree, I don't trust these fuckers, and I think they're doing it to kneecap Dario because he's been a nuisance for them.

Yeah, he's not their chosen— he's the one that said no on self-healing, or, you know, on, on weapons or privacy violations. So he's on their shit list. And, you know, I love the idea, but Dario and Anthropic would say, perhaps correctly, that these same jailbreaks are things that— the reason why they shut down are available on other models.

Again, they're not a perfect company. I get that they're being sued for over-allowances.

I just think there's going to be.

They are in the front, and they are not going along with this administration. So you're going to see all manner of nonsense attacking them. And some of it, you know, you know, I don't think they're perfect. I don't think, you know, I think he can be a little bit, you know, righteous, but at least it's righteous for the right things on some level. And I just think this is, as I said, this is not about national security. This is about a beef and a rumble between different Silicon Valley That's, it seems to be.

We need a panel or a regulatory body that's bipartisan with experts, economists, philosophers who say, okay, maybe it shouldn't take 10 years to release an AI model for the public similar to the way it does for drugs, but we need 30 days in an institution or an agency represented by, that briefs Congress that says, okay, before you release anything, it's gotta go through this 30, 60, 90-day screening where we bang the shit out of it And everyone is subject to the same regulatory approval. And that kind of regulatory certainty is good for the economy. It's good for companies. They want to know what rules they're playing by. They don't want to have to think, "Jesus Christ, do I got to go to a fucking UFC fight?" Or fear that they're going to turn off my, you know, my next version of this product. But supposedly it's created chaos abroad because a lot of companies—

Sure is, yeah.

And even defense departments and NATO members decide to use Anthropic into their scenarios planning or to figure out when to turn off and on power that runs into hospitals. And all of a sudden they've gotta go, "Okay, you mean one guy based on criteria we can't figure out has, again, a kill switch on an important technology in there?" But to me, if you read David Sacks' stupid excuses, he's such a pompous ass, and I just trust none of this.

They do not care about all of us. They care about this Silicon Valley beep. And you can feel like the hand of others here.

It's just, you don't trust them. Like you said, I think you put your nose their nose on it.

Now, what's more serious are these lawsuits, you know, in terms of how good their product is and whether it's accurate or not. I just, you know, that's to me where some of the real issues are going to come with all these companies, all the social media companies, everybody else. It's impact, whether it's data centers or miners or bad health stuff or bad data. But unsafe products is actually where I think the action is.

This is also— I think this is headed one way, and And that is it'll probably result in the administration putting all sorts of restrictions on like Chinese open-weight models trying to come into the US and disrupt what is becoming an increasingly difficult case to justify the ROI on these token expenditures. And so this is, again, gonna take on its own sort of tariff feel and geopoli— It helps a company like Mistral out of France France, who is not subject to the same things, although supposedly that's inferior technology. I'll be very— I wouldn't be surprised at all if all of a sudden Trump decides these Chinese— that American firms can't use these open weight models coming out of China. But this is the next big political football, I think, is who and how gets to use American AI firms and what AI models are allowed into the US.

I do think these safety things are building with parents and everyone else. I just do. I think that, as you said, the brand AI has gotten so many hits. It's almost like this idiot who got hit in the head and said racist and misogynistic things at the UFC fight. It just is getting— it is getting a bad rep, and there's gonna be legal implications, I think, 'cause I think people are upset and angry. And it's not, as Mr. Wonderful says about his data centers, "The Chinese' fault. It's your own." Mm-hmm. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first?

You go first, Kara.

This is— I'm gonna do a win and a fail together because one of the things around this UFC thing is Meta's used the opportunity to do PR for itself, which, fine, I don't really care, around this giving blind veterans these glasses, right? These glasses that help them navigate. I think this is a great thing. I don't care if it's a PR thing. I don't care. I don't care any manner of it. I do think— I know, and Amanda was actually telling me, this is really helpful for people who have disabilities like blindness, these glasses. I think all of them, not just Meta's, but everybody's, not these Ray-Ban ones, but I suspect Apple will have a lot of utility for people who are blind. I think it's very exciting, and I think it's a good thing. Look, I don't mind if you use PR for doing that. Like, I get it, and it's fine, and it helps people, and I give it a lot. This was an effort pushed by Dina Powell, who they just hired, and— Good for her. It's a good effort, and they should do a lot of these things. Nonpartisan would be great.

They don't have to just mob up with Trump all the time. They should go with everybody to do these things to help people. And again, I don't care if they get a PR win off of it. That's fine by me. What I think is that them doing it during this UFC fight took the focus off the veterans in that way. You know what I mean? Because it just is like, "Ugh, God, didn't you expect that something terrible would happen here?" And so, as I said, As I said, I really do admire Mark's like of MMA. It's kind of like the— one of the most human things about him. But it just was like, here's something that's for good, and then you get this idiot say something and create all manner of problems for them. So it was a good attempt, and then it got drowned out. Something good got drowned out. And again, I don't even mind if you trot Ivanka Trump out. I just— I don't love it. Yeah. But whatever, for these kind of things. But if it helps these veterans, a good thing. I just think it got in the way of what the veterans— they were trying to do for veterans, which I think is a real thing.

But they should do a lot more nonpartisan things that helps the rest of us. But any, you know, as they say, anything Trump touches turns to shit. And that's— I felt that. My dad's a— was a veteran. I have a lot of family members who are veterans. I wanted to be a veteran. As I always say, I would have been being— I would have been an admiral about to be fired by Trump right now if that— if I had had my career choice. But it was— I, I, I really felt bad that this was— got sucked up into this ridiculous nonsense at the White House with UFC.

I just— the vision of you being an admiral, I don't—

I would be an excellent admiral.

Yeah, I know.

I would. By the way, Dana White's on the board of Meta too, just so you're aware.

Right.

That's win and fail because I was like, "Ugh, here's something good." And here it got sullied. And the story, as usual, went off onto another way. And I don't blame the media for it. I don't blame— this guy said something so terrible and grotesque at the White House. This is where this woman used to live, you fuckers. Like, back off. Like, and say you're sorry. Say you're fucking sorry for that piece of shit. Anyway, go ahead.

Okay, my win here is the social media ban in the UK.

Oh yeah.

Britain just announced the world's strictest teen social media law, going further than Australia, the country that inspired all of this. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, and X will be banned from offering services to under-16s. As someone who has a 15-year-old in the house, I can tell you that I think the most negative anxiety-inducing thing in our household is our 15-year-old's usage of social media. And people say, "Well, that's a parenting thing." No, they pay for the tube with their phone. If you tell them not to use social media, they're isolated from their friends and become more depressed. Mm-hmm. This needs to be a collective ban, and that's what the prime minister here did. There is no reason, no justification for anyone under the age of 16 being on any social media platform. Some people will say, what about YouTube? Fine, put out a kids— put out a kids version of YouTube. I'm down with that. But this goes into effect in spring of 2027. Um, overnight it curfewed curfews and infinite scroll limits under consideration, or excuse me, overnight curfews and infinite scroll limits are under consideration. Liability falls on platforms, not on children or parents.

It's consistent with Australia's approach, which fines companies up to $50 million for noncompliance. It needs to be a percentage of revenues, I would argue. And then Britain's existing Online Safety Act has already cut its porn sites by a third and raised the share of children encountering age checks online from 30% to 47%. Spain, Greece, Slovenia, and France are already pursuing similar bans. And Australia's 2020— December 2025 law has officially triggered a global cascade. And a study of 18 to 24-year-olds found out that not using social media for one week significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety anxiety by 16%, depression by 25%, and insomnia by 15%. This isn't just a win for teen mental health. This is a win for democracy. The more time you spend on social media, the less you believe in democracy.

You know, can I— One thing you point out, if they had gone and tried to make a safe product, like, that's— You know what they're gonna do? They're gonna say, "It's not gonna work in Australia. It's not gonna work." That's their argument. It's never about that this is deleterious. And by the way, speaking of which, that movie's coming out, The Social Reckoning, which is the part 2 of The Social Network. Jeremy Strong from Succession is playing Mark Zuckerberg, as I noted last week. Why do they never talk about the thing? They just say how it doesn't work and how it does this and this and that, but they never want to talk about the thing, which is, are you hurting people with your unsafe products?

Yeah, but again, I think— I don't think we should fall into the trap of believing that the owners of McDonald's or Ford are gonna figure out, are gonna focus on anything other than what car do Americans wanna drive, what's the design, and we don't give a shit that it gives you diabetes. We just want basically a food orgasm in your mouth. It's up to us as voters, and we have done this, to implement, to appoint really smart people who decide to devote their lives to government and regulatory concerns to protect the wellbeing of the Commonwealth. If we're waiting on these companies to start thinking about the safety and harms of their product, good fucking luck.

True, but look at the cost we pay for obesity and fat. Like, why do we keep doing this to ourselves? That's the thing.

I agree, but when you say we doing it to ourselves—

No, the voters.

The capitalist system is companies are rapacious, engage in full-body contact violence, not worried about other people, worried about getting a product that commands margin. And quite frankly, that works as long as you have regulatory bodies ensuring that opiates don't gut, you know, small towns in Appalachia. But again, asking, we can ask the question, we can all hope for a guy who's in charge of AI with hushed tones who just adopted a baby boy and he's concerned about AI And this really attractive woman who says, "We need to do better and we are open to regulation." They're all fucking whores. And we have built a whorehouse and the whorehouse works, but you have to have a cop.

Can I quote you on that? "We have built a whorehouse and the whorehouse works." Go ahead.

The whorehouse works.

That's your next book, "The Whorehouse Works." Well, it's funny.

I was just at a wedding in Amsterdam and the Rosewood there used to be an orphanage and then a whorehouse. And I thought, well, that's a pipeline.

Oh God. Oh my God, I can't believe you just said that. Anyway. I think I know that answer, but go ahead.

I get mad at us. They're doing their job and we keep trying to shame them into thinking about the safety of their product. You know, you're right.

You're right.

You don't think, you think McDonald's is just gonna decide we need to have salads. It's just the right thing to do.

It did, remember it didn't work?

Yeah, well, I mean, anyways, we need economic incentives and regulations that punish these people and create disincentives. Win Prime Minister Keir Starmer. My fail, I just spent the most wonderful week in Northern Europe. I was in Stockholm and then I was in Amsterdam. And Sweden is growing, it's kind of the non-European European country. It's growing 2.5%. It is actually produced, despite having the population of North Carolina, it's produced companies including King, Klarna, Spotify, Ericsson. They produce a ton of unicorns.

Very clever.

And they have the industrial might or productivity of Germany with some of the innovation of Silicon Valley and the social policies of Bernie Sanders. And then you go to Amsterdam where they have become kind of the ground zero for data centers in Europe. They have ASML. If NVIDIA is the picks and shovels, ASML makes the picks and shovels. Productivity is up 2.5%. The economy is strong there. These are some of the wealthiest countries in the nation, and they settle an argument. And this is my fail. America has tried to convince its population that you can't have billionaires and universal healthcare. Bullshit. Yes, they can. These companies prove you can have really wealthy people and you can have— Yes, yes, they can. Universal pre-K. —and you can have child services. And I spent some time with the founder and then the people running Spotify this weekend. And they were all in the Valley. They all moved back to Sweden where they are paying much higher taxes, and they're fine to do it because they trust that the government is gonna spend their money well. They trust that being able to ride a bike to work and have a kid with special needs is gonna be taken care of.

And they have a— and I did not see a single homeless person, by the way, in Stockholm. Granted, that's probably not indicative of all of Sweden. And granted, do they have problems with immigration and housing prices that follow prosperity? 100%. But we need to stop in America believing that there's a myth that inequality, that inequality and billionaires and unicorns demand a rapacious lack of a safety net.

Yeah, I said the same thing about Korea when I was there. They're healthier. Oh my God, it's so, universal healthcare for one, but the other stuff.

Great one.

Anyways, I love, I had such a nice time. I was so blown away.

I'm glad.

By Sweden and my, I was actually at my best friend's son's wedding, Jack Markman, this incredibly impressive young man that reminds me of my, he's like the mini me of my friend. And I had time, I spent, I did myself a favor. I spent, I went early and I left late and I spent time in both of those places. They are such incredible places. Incredibly lovely places.

I'm glad you went.

Anyways, they trust that their governments are gonna spend their money correctly. They trust each other. They trust— There's also really strong governance such that they attract foreign investment 'cause they know they're not gonna get fucked by a corrupt government or a corrupt politician.

Yeah. They also just convicted in Norway the princes, I think, stepsister.

I saw that.

I mean, they just— Look, when you do bad things, things you get no matter where you are. You get not all the time.

Okay, Prince Andrew.

I know, I agree with you on that.

I don't even—

I mean, I agree, but he was— But it's heading that direction. It's heading—

But he was removed. They kicked him out of— they defrocked him or whatever the fuck they do with the monarchy here.

Yeah, but no, he's being investigated finally. But you're right, 100%, fair point.

Well, he'll pay a bigger price than any of those billionaires on that island.

That's true. That is true.

Anyways, my win, my fail is is this false dichotomy we've talked Americans into believing that you can't have billionaires and really robust capitalism and growth and not have universal healthcare and childcare. You absolutely can. And the Netherlands and Sweden produce that or prove that in spades.

Yep. And in America, you don't have to insult a very impressive Black woman in order to feel like more like a man.

You in fact act like an idiot. What an idiot. What a fucking idiot. And by the way, Michelle Obama does demonstrate more masculinity. Service, strength than that dude. Uh, you know, anyway, I, I can't even— I saw that and I thought, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, thank you. What, what the— like, what, what does that guy have daughters? Okay, any of them. Are you gonna wait for some fucking idiot to start saying stupid shit about your daughter?

Yeah, I just— anyways, oh, we don't like them.

Arnold Swisher, take It's over.

Thank you. By the way, I like MMA, but fuck that guy anyway. And by the way, Dana White, say something stronger. Like, even stronger. Like, kick that fucker out. Okay, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to ny mag.com/pivot, send a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on On, I spoke to Peter Chernin, one of the producers of the hit film Backrooms. He talked— this legendary— a very media executive, entertainment media executive. He talked about how studios are rushing to sign YouTubers and why that's a mistake. Let's listen to a clip.

Every single meeting in Hollywood over the last 10 days has been, "Find me my YouTuber." That's not the smartest thing on Earth. You know, it's no different than saying, "Find me a sequel to something else." You know, it's worth noting, we spent 3 years on this project. You know, we spent— We spent a period of time chasing it. We spent a long time working on the script. We spent another year on production. And, you know, it's not just saying bet on a YouTuber. It's not just saying bet on some— It's betting on a very specific piece of content and betting on a very specific piece of talent.

He is a class act and so smart. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday.

Today's show is produced by Lara Namath, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Additional assistance from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Ernie Jatad engineered this episode. Thanks to also Drew Brose, Mia Severo, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kourouj, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, I will see you later in the week.

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Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? The best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.