Pivot · Nov 7, 2025

Mamdani's Win, Palantir's Stock Slide, and Tesla's Pay Package

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 50:04. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Kara Swisher · 50:04 Enormous risks here. Because Carp got very testy in a way that I was like, wow. You're usually quite controlled, and this was Scott Galloway · 50:11 Yeah. I thought that I thought that was a bad look for him. But Yeah. Burry, who is... He, you know, obviously made one of the best bets ever going short against the subprime market, and good for him. I love it when people do that sort of work. And the other guys that did that were John Paulson, a guy I actually worked for or consulted to for a couple years named Phil Falcone. There were two or three people that made kind of these historic bets against subprime mortgages. And again, could go out and short these things for no money because they were considered money good and bulletproof. And then they just started collapsing like it was a pyramid built on card, so to speak. Now, no investor gets a ride all the time. He's had a lot of big misses. He's shorted a bunch of companies that went up, so nobody knows. Kara Swisher · 50:56 He's Scott Galloway · 50:57 taking a risk here. I would argue this is a really good risk for a guy like that who has investors who are willing to take these kinds of risks. Kara Swisher · 51:04 And he's hoping to drive it down by pointing out the ridiculousness of it. Scott Galloway · 51:08 Well, I love I love it. I find it so fascinating when these companies go short. Then they put out really thoughtful, rigorous research showing why the company is dramatically overvalued. Yeah. And it's... It impacts the market. He didn't just say... He didn't just announce that he's shorting it. He has a very thoughtful, rigorous analysis, and the stock's down 11%. Kara Swisher · 51:29 Yeah. So he's done... I mean, he could probably be... You know? Anyway, it's a really interesting... We have to keep watching that company because question is, is it gonna be a meme stock for a long time? But we'll see. Very quickly, right wing civil war is erupting. This is... We'll talk about this on the road, I think, is erupting after Tucker Carlson's recent interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, where Fuentes called for an exclusive pro white Christian movement. The backlash has been swift with Republicans like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and speaker Mike Johnson condemning the interview. The Heritage Foundation is an open result... Vote after its president defended Carlson. For his part, Carlson says the uproar is really a fight over what happens after Donald Trump. I think he's absolutely correct. The guy who's head of the Heritage apologized again after all these people left. The whole... One whole group that focuses on antisemitism and heroin resigned. And so this is a a real open wound for the Republican Party, the the the flirtation with both antisemitism and white nationalism and racism. And I... This is gonna be a real fight going forward for them. And once Trump is... He's been able to hold it together, but they won't be able to hold this one together. Scott Galloway · 52:39 Yeah. Remember the Republican Party was putting out these memes or these images that said that said Trump, Elon, Kanye, that these are the three people that represent the Republican Party. Speaker · 52:50 Yeah. Scott Galloway · 52:50 Right? Yeah. I was on the phone two days ago with someone who runs or does comms for Democrats, and I said, you need to put out the exact same image, but instead have it be Trump, Epstein, and Fuentes. Kara Swisher · 53:05 Oh, interesting. Scott Galloway · 53:06 That's who you want Trump associated with. I'm like, go for Yeah. Go for the fucking jugular. It would be fair to visually associate them because he decided to associate with them physically, spiritually, intellectually. Yeah. And the most disturbing thing about that interview with Fuentes and Carlson... First off, Carlson really does deserve some pushback and legitimate criticism for platforming someone like this and enabling and laughing when he said the following. I'm a fan of Stalin. Yeah. There are... There's kind of a hard rock first ballot hall of fame of murderers in history. Kara Swisher · 53:45 Yeah. He's on the top. Scott Galloway · 53:46 Paul Pott, Hitler. They have nothing on Stalin. Kara Swisher · 53:51 Agreed. Scott Galloway · 53:51 And we like to kind of ignore Stalin a little bit because they were our friends back then, and they played a huge role in defeating Kara Swisher · 53:57 Hitler. But Scott Galloway · 53:59 he then went on to kill millions, Some say up to 20,000,000 people. This is a murderous maniac, and this young man is saying, I'm a fan. So I... Trump has this issue of, like, we want your votes, and we want you to think we're with you, wink wink, such that you get out and turn out the vote. But try to keep those views to yourself as opposed to coming out and saying, we're Republicans. And the GOP has a history of evaluating people based on their character and equality and pushing back on fascism and saying what this is. These people could not be more anti American Yeah. And against the values, not only of America, but the core values of the GOP. Kara Swisher · 54:48 Well, the old GOP. Let's just be clear because some people are back in Carlson, which is... You know, I don't I don't mind him interviewing him. I... He... It... And he's all kinds of assholes, but the way he did it again was like, woah. You could push back a little bit there. And the Heritage Foundation president, I think, will be out. I think he'll be out. I think this is a death knell for this guy. I don't know. I just felt very weird, the whole thing. We'll see what's happening. It's... It'll... This is a story that's gonna continue. Scott Galloway · 55:12 My favorite was Stephen Miller's wife when she was criticized for her comments saying it was antisemitism. Yeah. Said, what? Where'd that come from? Kara Swisher · 55:19 Where'd that come from? Scott Galloway · 55:20 Yeah. I don't think they even know you're Jew. What are you talking about? Kara Swisher · 55:23 Getting ratioed Scott Galloway · 55:24 all over place Kara Swisher · 55:25 by people. Stephen Schmidt, who's a very funny but sort of sometimes erratic guy, he's very funny, put up all these pictures of Steven Miller with creep and fascist and Nazi, and she all got all up. She's... Because she's trying to make make Megyn Kelly happen, I guess, around herself, which is impossible. And she's like... She said something, and and she goes, how how could you do this? And he wrote, because your husband's a Nazi. Like, this whole fight is not good for the Republican Party to be discussing how... Whether they're Nazis or not. Scott Galloway · 55:55 No. It's not a good look. Kara Swisher · 55:56 Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 57:58 Okay. Scott, we're gonna do a little differently today, for your prediction. We have a lot of predictions next week, but we're recording ahead of Tesla's annual meeting where shareholders are set to vote on Elon's $1,000,000,000,000 pay packages. A lot of people have gone against him, including these shareholder services. And Norway, I guess, there's a Norwegian investor that's that's out. I predict he's gonna get it. I predict he's gonna get it because all these... Now I'm paying attention to the stock market. Now there's all these calls at a higher level of buying a Tesla stock at $4.80, and it's at $4.62. I think people know, and I think he's gonna get it. Scott Galloway · 58:33 Yeah. It's... Well, look. Some things why it may pass. It is structured to be performance based. Yeah. And that is he's saying if he grows the market cap to $8,500,000,000,000, that he gets a trillion. So theoretically, you can support it. Right? And also, some people, including arguably the worst investor of the modern age, but the best brand builder, Kathy Wood from ARK Invest. Yeah. She's predicted a strong approval. She's a loyalist. She's a shareholder. Tesla's board and Musk are saying that the package may risk Musk's continued leadership if, in fact, he doesn't get it. Now major proxy advisory firms, and I've met with these guys when I was an activist, ISS and Glass Lewis, which quite frankly have diminishing power these days. They've recommended voting against the package, citing... You know, saying it's just ridiculously excessive and risks of dilution. And also, the term they use that I love is insufficient guardrails. I'm like, well, that's the mother of all understatements. And then there's a pretty big investor. I think it's called Norges or Norges Bank. Kara Swisher · 59:42 Yeah. It's this Norwegian group. Scott Galloway · 59:43 Yeah. They own about 1% of Tesla's shares, has declared it a vote against the proposal. Kara Swisher · 59:49 And So what's your prediction? Scott Galloway · 59:51 I think it's gonna be approved. But Yeah. Not overwhelmingly, but I think it'll be... Because keep in mind, if you bought shares... If you're a shareholder in Tesla right now, you've decided... You've gone in on Musk because Kara Swisher · 1:00:03 Yep. Scott Galloway · 1:00:03 You're not investing in a... There's no way you could justify investing in what is an automobile company because it makes no sense. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:00:09 He's... This company has consistently missed delivery deadlines. It's it's revenues on the automobile side are declining faster. Incredibly. You're basically betting on a... That this guy can pull another rabbit the size of Jupiter out of a hat, which he has done before. So they're kind of all in on this guy. Kara Swisher · 1:00:27 Yeah. This one passed. He's gonna get it. He's not gonna be a... Everyone's like, the world's first trillionaire. He's not gonna be a trillionaire until he pulls it off. Just so you know. Scott Galloway · 1:00:36 Yeah. He has to create an additional 7,000,000,000,000 in value. Kara Swisher · 1:00:39 But that stock's gonna go up, speaking of meme stocks. That's what I think. Scott Galloway · 1:00:42 So I just have no idea with this thing. So in terms of the stock price here, but it's... I think shareholders who have invested in a company at this type of valuation do not wanna wake up and hear hear that hear that Elon, you know, is out because he got angry. I don't... If he walks this thing Kara Swisher · 1:01:03 Of course, he'll walk. Scott Galloway · 1:01:04 God, it would be so interesting to see what happens to the stock. I don't think he's going to, but they just would rather say, okay. Look. If he creates 7,000,000,000,000... If Tim Cook went to Apple shareholders and said, it's worth 4,000,000,000,000 now. If I go to 12,000,000,000,000, I want a trillion. Kara Swisher · 1:01:19 They'd give it to them. Scott Galloway · 1:01:20 Theoretically Kara Swisher · 1:01:21 They'd give it to them. Scott Galloway · 1:01:21 That's not outrageous. What the problem is... We're focused on the wrong problem. And that is if Elon Musk makes a trillion dollars, in my view, he should pay an alternative minimum tax of 60 or 70%. Back — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 1:01:33 to that. The oligarchy and authoritarianism in grocery stores for poor people. Scott Galloway · 1:01:38 No. And and I and I want I want someone from the navy picking out my my cold cuts and fruits and vegetables. God. Oh Kara Swisher · 1:01:46 Oh, for goodness sake. It's like three stores. Scott Galloway · 1:01:48 I think someone from the IRS should be picking out my grapefruits. Kara Swisher · 1:01:52 I'm gonna do everything I can to get mom Domini come out to our show. Scott Galloway · 1:01:55 We'll ask him questions, and he'll say nothing, but he's good looking. Kara Swisher · 1:01:57 I should have someone who doesn't like you in every city. I hope to think about that. Scott Galloway · 1:02:01 That... That's gonna be pretty easy. You're not gonna have to reach very far, Karen. Kara Swisher · 1:02:05 That's true. Anyway, 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, are you ready for the tour? Are you ready? It's time to put your your head on for this. Are you ready for a week of Kara Swisher? Scott Galloway · 1:02:22 Yeah. I'm excited. It's it's gonna be great to see the Swishers. We got a whole gaggle coming with us. We... We're literally like Kara Swisher · 1:02:28 We a Scott Galloway · 1:02:28 gaggle. Rock... We're like a bad rock band in the seventies. Have groupies coming with us. I'm like, do wanna come? Like, sure. Kara Swisher · 1:02:33 Yeah. Sure. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. And we have some great people coming and showing up at each of the cities, and we still have a few tickets left in some cities, not many, especially Los Angeles and Chicago because they're much bigger venues. But go to pivottour.com for more info. Okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out, and I will see you Saturday in Canada. Scott Galloway · 1:02:59 Yeah. I'll see you soon, sweetheart. Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Corinne Roth. Earn Ears, Todd, engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, miss Averio, Dan Chelan, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Currah is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Speaker · 1:03:34 Fall has never looked or tasted this good. Sweetgreen's fall harvest menu is back with seasonal favorites dressed to impress and made to be devoured. Warm roasted sweet potatoes, crisp apples, maple glazed brussels, and crave worthy flavors in the autumn harvest bowl, maple glazed salmon plate, and roasted bacon brussels side. The season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:04:59 Visit blinds.com now to save up to 50% off-site wide during our annual [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:05:03 blowout sale.