Kara Swisher · 53:04
He didn't know how cars worked, which would made him seem older and more like an old man in my... I think that also was weird. His his discomfort inside of a car felt very... I don't know. It gave me, like, a like a Biden feel, like a a doddering old man kind of. And he's... I think he is much more vibrant, obviously, than Biden. Any other thoughts about this money that... That's going back and forth between these two?
Scott Galloway · 53:28
There's... It really is. I mean, it's it's so passe, but money in politics and just what feels like a straight pay for play. And all the incentives are... I mean, I've said this for a long time. The the thing that's always horrified me about our representatives and our congress is not that they're hoarse. Not that if you give them money, you get audience with I've known that for a long time. It's what incredibly cheap hoars they are.
Kara Swisher · 53:53
Yeah. Cheap hoars.
Scott Galloway · 53:54
And that is if you give 10 to $25 to every senator, I bet more than half would meet with you when you swung by Washington. And and influence is a function of proximity and intimacy. You have audience with people who get to who get to levy or are the arbiters of the largest person in history. So the incentives are... Jeff Bezos or or or Mark Zuckerberg look at these investments and go, this is the best investment in history. A million bucks for his inauguration campaign, and he stops threatening to put me in jail, or he's gonna not try and break me up, or he's gonna tell the FTC or the DOJ to hands off Amazon or whoever. This is the best money spent unless you have systemic laws and regulation that says, no. We pass laws that affect all companies. We're not allowed to play we're not allowed to play favorites. It's just a race to the bottom where everyone's like, alright. Let's give him a giant medal and award and build this gold statue of him and give $10,000,000 to his electoral campaign. And the problem is that favors the incumbents because they're the ones that have all the power. And anybody who says, no. I'm standing up for American values. I'm not gonna take this money. They're at a huge disadvantage, and we end up with a majority of our elected officials are willing to engage
Kara Swisher · 55:12
Cheap force.
Scott Galloway · 55:13
In this grift, in this trade.
Kara Swisher · 55:15
So As far as you can see. You know, it's interesting because there isn't a point to be made that, you know, other politicians are getting paid under the table, and this is explicit. But it's gross no matter how it happens, and it doesn't look like it's about the products. Right? It never it's not about what's best. It's what... Who can pay me the most, and that, you know, it... That's the... We're not focused on making things that are good. We're focused on who who owes the money, and that... We all know that about American politics, but it's not implicit or explicit. It's grotesque is what it is.
Scott Galloway · 55:48
You know who is... Just one example. You know who's doing this right? University of California. I owe the... I owe California taxpayers a lot. I've given some money to UCLA and to Berkeley, and both the chancellors of UCLA and Berkeley called me and said, one, thank you. And two, I just need you to know this. Your kid is less likely to get in now that you have given money. They are not only so, like, you know, worried about conflicts of interest and abusing the public purse that if you give over a certain amount of money to the University of California, the chancellor will call you and say, just FYI, your kid is now less likely to get in because we have to be so careful about conflicts and not abusing the public trust. And quite frankly, I respect it.
Kara Swisher · 56:29
Yeah. You could call your kid Swisher. You wanna change the kid's name to Swisher?
Scott Galloway · 56:34
Trust me. I'll I'll call you. That's right. You went to a private school where you can still just pay... You can do pay for play.
Kara Swisher · 56:39
Yeah. That's true.
Scott Galloway · 56:41
But this... That is how government... That is how you are supposed to respect the power of money you're given. This is... When he when he favors industries, he's spending your money. He's abusing your tax dollars.
Kara Swisher · 56:55
Totally. I I don't even know how much that cost. That probably cost... Like, it's... The amount of money this guy just throws away of taxpayer money, like, on golfing or his his dumb military flights of immigrants that that are overpriced and then does this, you know, it's just ridiculous. And, you know, and the only person that benefited was Elon Musk with the stock going up. Then somewhere, somehow, there's money in Trump's pocket every time.
Scott Galloway · 57:19
This was bad for the brand. I really do. I I think it just... I think it looked desperate. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 57:24
Yeah. Agree. You know? I real... Now that you really don't wanna own a Tesla. Alright. Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 59:35
Okay. Scott, let's hear your prediction and just say you thought that they're gonna break up. Do you still think that? You said Doe should be over and Elon would be gone. But let... Let's let's hear your prediction first.
Scott Galloway · 59:47
Well, that's that is my prediction, and that is it... There's not gonna be a breakup. I think that, essentially, people keep asking us, as Anderson did last night, when does the relationship end? I don't think the relationship ends with a bang. I think he just sorts... I think must just fades to black. One, if the president is really serious about the cabinet secretaries now get to make the final decision and Musk is just an adviser to them, that means nothing is gonna happen because these cabinet secretaries have a very difficult job. They need all of their staff. The savings are minimal in comparison to, for example, the increase in the deficits from the planned tax cuts. So they're... If Elon Musk comes back, he's not gonna come back with a thoughtful... You could probably cut a thousand of the 4,500 people from the Department of Education who have overseen national mandatory testing, which most people think has not worked. Right intentions has not worked. If he came back with thoughtful recommendations, the Department of Education might say, okay. That might make sense. But he's not he's not there to look at fraud and waste, which, by the way, we've got a clean bill of health on so far because I can't find as much as everyone had anticipated. But also, these are not... This isn't about an audit. This isn't about efficiency. These are political actions. When you cut off all USAID, it's a political action, and political actions are supposed to be left to our elected representatives representing the people. So if it was in fact about efficiency, fine. But what he said is if he, in fact, is honest about now he's just an adviser, he's gonna have no power. Nothing's gonna happen. And in addition, he is now probably doing the math and going, I miscalculated. There are... Not only is his Tesla sales being hammered, but what he's really scared of has happened, and that is the virus here has jumped the lab to Starlink. And that is a lot of big customers are now rethinking their Starlink relationship. So what initially was very accretive to his personal wealth has returned. He's lost all that money, and the momentum is downward. So I think he's basically gonna pull a Vivek and just slowly fade away out of... And I think Doge is gonna die a quiet death because he has... It looks as if his his his power has been emasculated. And two, he's just losing so much money right now because of the negative brand halo.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:07
Well, guess... And guess what country has alternatives? China. And Jeff Bezos is working on things. There's so... To Starlink. Now Starlink is dominant at this point, but... And he keeps saying there's no other alternative. He said that about Tesla. There's other alternatives. There's gonna be other alternatives, and then he is up the creek without that proverbial paddle. You're right. I agree with you. Interesting prediction. We'll see. There there is a staying power. There's a weird relationship happening between these two, though, that he stays there, that he's at the White House, the kids around. There's something much different here, but I would agree money. He's... He he almost teared up when he was talking about the money he was losing. Even the world's richest man doesn't like to lose tens of billions of dollars on any one day.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:51
So, Kara, you know what stock is up? The Starlink competitor in Europe, Eutelsat, has quadrupled in the last thirty days as these small inferior product competitors are now viable again because they have an enormous increase in interest from nations and companies that don't wanna work with Starlink. That stock has gone from a month ago. It was trading at a buck 20.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:13
Buy Europe. That's the Scott Galloway message.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:16
Today, it opened at $6.82. Yeah. So you're about to see a massive amount of capital. I mean, this is so bad for Starlink. You're about to see a massive amount of capital going to other satellite and communications providers that, quite frankly, weren't as competitive. They weren't as good
Kara Swisher · 1:03:36
No. As Starlink. Starlink's a superior product. And by the way, Tesla was a superior product, but he never... He hasn't improved it. And, again, as I say over and over again, a lot of people are banning Tesla because they're repulsed by Elon Musk, but they have not innovated their product. If you have a great product... And in this case, it's the repulsiveness and the danger if you go with him in this case, and that's why Europe is gonna abandon him. And so is Canada. As Canada has... It's not just that. And there's plenty of there's gonna be plenty of competitors in the Starlink business very soon.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:07
Anyways, there won't be a press there won't be a press announcement, but watch. In thirty or sixty days, Doja is gonna be surprisingly, like, not in the news.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:15
Okay. Alright. We'll see. I'd be interested. That would be great. And then they can go to Mars, and it'll be great for him to do that. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 Scott, that is the show. Are you... I... You're going... When are you going back to London? Soon at some point?
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 1:04:36
I'm going away for the weekend, and then I go back to London on Sunday. How about you? What are you up to?
Kara Swisher · 1:04:41
Oh, you know, I'm good. I'm I'm gonna... I'm moving my mom to Washington, as I told you. I'm picking her up today.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:46
And Yes.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:47
And then I will be in DC, but then I'm actually going on a little vacation myself.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:51
Where are going?
Kara Swisher · 1:04:52
Three... Puerto Rico with three of my four children. We're going, and we're gonna have a little LUK time and, and be in in Puerto Rico, which should be a state as far as I'm concerned. I'm excited. Amanda loves it, and so we're gonna go there. I'm I'm kind
Scott Galloway · 1:05:06
of enjoying Puerto Rico.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:07
I love Puerto Rico. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful place. It's a really nice place, and it's in these United States, and people should go there. People should go to all the places that were sort of hit by hurricanes too. I like going to places that are in The United States and also deserving of our attention. Anyway, I like... I'm not a big vacationer, so I'm
Scott Galloway · 1:05:28
excited too. The new tariffs on Champagne, I feel bad I'm gonna spend my time in Saint Bart's just to be a good citizen.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:35
Yeah. Okay. Alright. Alright, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. Read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:05:41
Today's show was produced by Lara Amenzuela Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mussaverio, Dan Shulan. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at n1mag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great time moving lucky.
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