Elon Musk's Daughter Calls Him 'Cringe' in New Interview | Pivot

Scott Galloway 0:00 If you wanna talk about electoral- e-e-electoral injustice, come over and we'll smoke cigarettes and have ice- ice cream and talk about all our bad boyfriends. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 0:06 (instrumental music) Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm in Puerto Rico.

Scott Galloway 0:20 So Kara, um, one night, I took home some girl who turned out to be a lady boy, which I-

Kara Swisher 0:27 Oh, no.

Scott Galloway 0:28 ... which I'd done before.

Kara Swisher 0:30 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 0:30 But this time, Kara, instead of-

Kara Swisher 0:32 No. No.

Scott Galloway 0:32 ... fucking the lady boy-

Kara Swisher 0:34 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 0:34 ... the lady boy fucked me. And it was kinda magical, and, and-

Kara Swisher 0:40 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 0:40 ... I got in my head what I really wanted was to be one of these Asian girls getting fucked by me-

Kara Swisher 0:48 Oh, no. No, no. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:48 ... and to feel that.

Kara Swisher 0:50 No. No.

Scott Galloway 0:51 Oh, that's my dramatic reading of The White Lotus.

Kara Swisher 0:53 Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway 0:55 Oh, did you see that scene?

Kara Swisher 0:57 I didn't. I- I've heard of it though. I've read of it, but-

Scott Galloway 0:59 Oh, my God, that guy is good.

Kara Swisher 1:01 Yeah. Wow.

Scott Galloway 1:01 Sam Rockwell.

Kara Swisher 1:02 Yeah. Okay, I was a little worried there, but I'm allow-

Scott Galloway 1:04 He was-

Kara Swisher 1:04 ... I'm allowing it. I'm allowing it.

Scott Galloway 1:06 He was, he was the deputy in Three Billboards and something.

Kara Swisher 1:09 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:09 He's a very good actor.

Kara Swisher 1:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:12 He's actually an outstanding actor. Anyways-

Kara Swisher 1:13 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:14 ... I, I don't wanna spoil it. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:16 Yeah, you just did. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:16 But it is outs-

Kara Swisher 1:18 That's right.

Scott Galloway 1:18 It is... It literally-

Kara Swisher 1:19 It's gotten a lot of attention, yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:20 I mean, let's be honest. Season Three is okay, but I carry the season. I've heard that.

Kara Swisher 1:26 Yeah. I've heard that.

Scott Galloway 1:26 It's true.

Kara Swisher 1:27 Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Scott Galloway 1:27 I have to acknowledge that. But this monologue from Sam R- Rockwell is a close second.

Kara Swisher 1:32 Anyway, uh, I'm in Puerto Rico. It's lovely here.

Scott Galloway 1:34 You're still there? Are you enjoying it?

Kara Swisher 1:35 Yeah, I'm going back today. It's l- I'd rather not go back at all, but, uh, but it's lovely. It's a lovely place. Food amazing. Uh, we got a great Airbnb. It was great, just a really nice... Uh, I had three of the four kids, and, uh, it's been lovely. Um, anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon's visit to the Pentagon, Tesla phasing more, facing more trouble, uh, uh, with a massive Cybertruck recall. I saw one Cybertruck here, by the way, Scott, in Puerto Rico.

Scott Galloway 2:01 Hmm.

Kara Swisher 2:02 Just that's it. That's all I've seen is one, but there's not that many that were sold apparently, as we turn to... as the massive Cybertruck recall has shown. Um, where are you right now?

Scott Galloway 2:12 Uh, I'm in the UK. I'm in London.

Kara Swisher 2:14 Oh, good. How's that going?

Scott Galloway 2:14 I had a really nice weekend. It was great. I had a nice weekend. Uh, our friends, Alenka and Nacho, our Argentinian friends, are visiting, and it's nice 'cause our boys all are close friends-

Kara Swisher 2:24 Oh.

Scott Galloway 2:24 ... and they just love to drink. Uh-

Kara Swisher 2:26 Oh.

Scott Galloway 2:26 ... as long as there's wine, they won't leave. And th- their accents get, their accents get thicker and thicker, and I don't know what they're saying-

Kara Swisher 2:33 Uh-huh.

Scott Galloway 2:33 ... but he laughs so wonderfully. It makes me laugh. That's nice.

Kara Swisher 2:36 Ah. That's nice.

Scott Galloway 2:37 It's nice. And I took them for a roast at, uh, Lower the Land, which is this pub owned by-

Kara Swisher 2:42 This is like a Sunday roast, that kind of thing?

Scott Galloway 2:43 Yeah, Sunday roast. Yeah. Owned by Guy Ritchie. It's a total British pub.

Kara Swisher 2:48 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 2:48 So yeah, I had a nice weekend.

Kara Swisher 2:49 Good.

Scott Galloway 2:49 And then I s- on Friday night, I took my youngest to see Team England play, um, Albania. And literally half of Albania came to see this game. I mean, they-

Kara Swisher 2:59 Oh.

Scott Galloway 2:59 ... these fans are so outta control.

Kara Swisher 3:02 Wow.

Scott Galloway 3:02 It's a nation of two million people, and I'm not exaggerating. It felt like half of them were at this game.

Kara Swisher 3:06 Oh, that's great.

Scott Galloway 3:07 Anyway.

Kara Swisher 3:07 That's good. That's fun.

Scott Galloway 3:08 It was kinda fun. Nice weekend.

Kara Swisher 3:08 Good. We went to the rainforest. We went to the beach, the rainforest. Ju- Puerto Rico's a beautiful place. It really is. It really is wonderful.

Scott Galloway 3:15 I've never been.

Kara Swisher 3:16 It's lovely. It's li- it's sort of, um, you know, it's like most tropical areas, but it's, um, it's really lovely and the people are wonderful. And, um, the food is strikingly good. Um, there's a lot of beans and rice and stuff like that, but it's been delicious. I-

Scott Galloway 3:31 I don't think of Puerto Rico as having great food, but that's just a brand perception.

Kara Swisher 3:34 I know. Neither did I, and I actually am been very pleasantly surprised, I have to say.

Scott Galloway 3:38 I don't go to the Caribbean unless it's St. Barts.

Kara Swisher 3:40 Oh, okay. I understand that.

Scott Galloway 3:41 By the way, if you fly through Puerto Rico, 'cause it's a US territory-

Kara Swisher 3:44 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:44 ... you don't have to clear customs.

Kara Swisher 3:46 Oh.

Scott Galloway 3:46 Also, the only story I have about Puerto Rico is-

Kara Swisher 3:48 All right.

Scott Galloway 3:48 ... I know two hedge fund managers that moved there-

Kara Swisher 3:51 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:51 ... because you can qualify for 2% taxation. It's a total tax avoidance move.

Kara Swisher 3:56 Yes, the Bitcoin people did it.

Scott Galloway 3:58 Except you have to stay there. You have to be there 183 days a year, and in both instances, they both moved back-

Kara Swisher 4:03 Oh.

Scott Galloway 4:03 ... 'cause they decided they like Puerto Rico but they don't like it that much.

Kara Swisher 4:06 Oh, yeah. It's hard... I think it's hard to do those tax moves. Like Monaco was another one, right? There's a couple th-

Scott Galloway 4:12 Oh.

Kara Swisher 4:12 ... that people call Florida obviously, and some-

Scott Galloway 4:14 You... It is the talk of the town here in London because of this thing-

Kara Swisher 4:18 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 4:18 ... called non dom-

Kara Swisher 4:20 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 4:20 ... where basically Keir Starmer and his government have decided no more tax, uh-

Kara Swisher 4:24 Avoidance.

Scott Galloway 4:25 ... advantage or avoidance for people who've been here-

Kara Swisher 4:27 Mm.

Scott Galloway 4:27 ... for longer than five years.

Kara Swisher 4:28 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 4:29 I have two friends. One has moved to Milan, and he's left his family here, and he can only be here 90 nights.

Kara Swisher 4:35 Oh, wow.

Scott Galloway 4:35 And then I have another who's moving. Um, he thinks he's gonna move to Madrid. Get this, Kara, in the last year, over 10,000 millionaires have left the UK.

Kara Swisher 4:44 Wow. Wow.

Scott Galloway 4:45 Isn't that crazy?

Kara Swisher 4:46 So they're doing it just to avoid taxes? To avoid... You know, on some level, it's sort of like they should probably lower taxes. At the same time, the tax avoidance schemes are so insane. I remember we had some stories when, in Puerto Rico, when a lot of the Bitcoin guys came here-

Scott Galloway 5:00 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:00 ... and they were sort of wrecking the place, and at the same time, were buying up la- buying up these expensive houses, and they were conducting themselves badly. And the whole thing was so icky, like the ways p- the, the, the, the gyrations people make to do this kinda stuff. It's a... It seems ridiculous on some level. I get the Monaco thing, and I know people, like different tennis stars, have lived in Monaco to avoid taxes and this and that. But, and that's a, that's sort of a... It's designed for rich people, I guess, that town, but (laughs) um, or that country, it's so small. Uh, but it seems so icky. It's in- I don't know. I guess, um-

Scott Galloway 5:36 I think it, I think it, I think it defines the term, the difference between it being right and being effective, and that is in the '90s or 2000s, I should say, Tony Blair passed a series of private property laws and said, "I don't care how you made your money. If you bring it to London and invest in businesses or buy a home here, no one can come forward and take it from you." And so London be- kinda became the most popular place in, in Europe and the Gulf-

Kara Swisher 6:00 Bullards.

Scott Galloway 6:01 ... to bring money. And quite frankly, it was really good for the UK economy, 'cause these are people who invest. They spend a lot of money. They spend... They create a lot of, like, usage and VAT tax revenue. They endorse or they patronize the local businesses. And it's, it's theoretically just makes sense in principle to say, "Okay, you should pay the same tax rates as people here because you're using our infrastructure." But the problem is, it's not effective 'cause rich people are very mobile. It's a tough one because while I understand the... I understand the logic behind it, the reality is they're gonna have less tax revenue for the NHS and for, for-

Kara Swisher 6:38 Yeah, I get it.

Scott Galloway 6:38 ... social programs.

Kara Swisher 6:39 I get it. I get it. I just... The Bitcoin ones were so un- unseemly here in, in Puerto Rico. I remember, uh, the stories. I was always felt dirty write-, you know, writing, 'cause they just, they're just terrible people that were, you know, avoiding taxes. And, and then a lot of it was bullshit, but some... Anyway, anyway, it's a lovely place. I recommend people going there. It is, it is not a garbage island. It's beautiful and the people are lovely. Um, and they're Americans, by the way. Um, but people always go, "Oh, you're going to a foreign country." I'm like, "No, Puerto Rico is American." And they should have... They should be the 51st state and they should get, uh, get representation, uh, as should the District of Columbia before we move into China and Greenland. Anyway.

Scott Galloway 7:18 Yeah, that's our... That's, uh, that's easily our biggest-

Kara Swisher 7:20 Thank you.

Scott Galloway 7:21 ... issue right now. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 7:22 Right. No, I'm just saying it's an issue.

Scott Galloway 7:24 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 7:24 I'd like to have a... I'd like to have my vote count. Scott, you get to-

Scott Galloway 7:26 Puerto Rico.

Kara Swisher 7:26 ... have your vote count, but I don't.

Scott Galloway 7:28 Your vote, your vote does count. Well, you're not Puerto Rican. What are you talking about?

Kara Swisher 7:30 No, I'm a DC resident. Mm-mm. We don't have... We have taxation without representation. We have a, we have a person in Congress, so does Puerto Rico, but we don't have... They don't... The votes don't count.

Scott Galloway 7:41 Oh, yeah, I don't understand that.

Kara Swisher 7:42 That's right, yeah. I don't either. I don't either. I would like... We're one of the biggest... We have many, many, many, many, much more of a population. Anyway, I shall not go on.

Scott Galloway 7:49 Well, okay, if we're gonna go down this route-

Kara Swisher 7:51 Right.

Scott Galloway 7:51 ... California, that has the population of 30 million, have two senators.

Kara Swisher 7:55 Yeah, exactly.

Scott Galloway 7:55 And Wyoming has one too.

Kara Swisher 7:56 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 7:56 I mean, there's a-

Kara Swisher 7:57 Wyoming and Montana do well.

Scott Galloway 7:59 Come over and we'll... Come over... If you wanna talk about electoral, uh, e- electoral injustice, come over and we'll smoke cigarettes and have ice, ice cream and talk about all our bad boyfriends.

Kara Swisher 8:06 I understand, but still, I would like to have my vote count. Anyway, uh, first, speaking of, uh, of politics,

Kara Swisher 8:12 bipartisan senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin plan to reintroduce a bill to sunset Section 230, I guess. Okay. The bill would give Section 230 an expiration date of January 1st, 2027, with the goal of pressuring big tech to engage in negotiations for new regulations. President Trump has long been an advocate for repealing Section 230, although he hadn't been before. He's changed like a lot of these politicians. He's not alone in that. Uh, Graham has introduced repeal bills multiple times. This one, you know, we'll see if it happens. Um, it's, it's, it's really a way to... Ugh, it's just not the way to go here, but there, there seem to be no other ways to go. We'll see if there will be new regulation. There's also a danger the Trump administration takes control over online speech. T- dirt take, which I think is the smartest, Democratic senators team up with MAGA to hand Trump a censorship machine. Um, it's really a problematic... It's, it's like taking out your liver, I guess, or whatever you need. What, what organ would you need? Your heart, um, to fix a real problem, um, of, of not, of these comp- these not being, uh, subject to any kind of litigation or, uh, regulation. Uh, so it's a really difficult situation. It would really affect their businesses in ways that are really quite profound. I don't know. What do you... What do you feel? I would read Mike Masnick on the entire thing. That's how I would, I would, uh, recommend.

Scott Galloway 9:33 I think Senator Graham is a really ineffective senator, in addition to having absolutely no moral compass or the ability for his constituents to discern who-

Kara Swisher 9:41 (laughs) Agreed.

Scott Galloway 9:43 He, he has less consistency or ability to figure out where he is or what he stands for than, um, Secretary Rubio. And this is just, this is just stupid, because the reality is Section 230, if you removed it totally, would gut some of our best companies. These are great companies, all right? I, I don't like them, you have issues with them, but without, without some form of, without some form of protection, uh, around their content, they go out of business the next day. They-

Kara Swisher 10:08 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 10:09 So, and, and in addition, this isn't serious, because they're saying until January 2027. The- so they're basically thinking this would prod them into negotiations. And what I really don't like about this is that we seem to value and understand the importance, and there is some value to kind of shock and awe and shoving stuff through. So they shock and awe around canceling all USAID. They shock and awe around rounding up innocents and deporting them to these hellscape prisons in El Salvador. But around going after those nice white people and shareholders, let's be thoughtful and measured and give them till January 2027 to deploy their lobbyists and weaponize and buy off government. They gave $62 million in lobbying next year. This... First off, somebody should have done shock and awe. Somebody like, uh, Senator Murphy or Senators Klobuchar should have gotten the support, and they probably could have, because this is a bipartisan issue, and said, "All e- algorithmically elevated content is no longer protected by 230," because that's a decision they make to elevate content.

Kara Swisher 11:15 Correct.

Scott Galloway 11:15 And they still would have protection around stuff. They still would have had the whole free speech argument. And the biggest argument here is around, against it, is around, well, it's you should have free speech. Fine. If you want to say mRNA vaccines alter your DNA, fine, but you shouldn't elevate it beyond its organic reach because it enrages people. So when you do that... And also bots don't have, in my opinion, don't have rights to free speech. So they could have come up with a thoughtful bill and gone shock and awe and just passed it. Instead, they come up with something stupid and give a warning, the same warning, the same due process that poor people aren't getting in our nation right now, that poor people abroad are absolutely not getting right now. But they've said, "Okay, let's put out something stupid that will never happen and give them the due process that they're not affording the people who aren't white, who aren't shareholders, who aren't corporations." This is total fucking bullshit and a waste of time and attention.

Kara Swisher 12:09 Yeah. I would agree, and again, I would recommend, there is a really good podcast that Mike Masnick has done, he's written a lot about this, um, I- I- years ago when they were doing this before, when they tried to do this again, um, they, uh, I had him on and a bunch of... and Jeff Kossoff and, and, and others who know a lot about it to explain why this is the- the- the- it's like, there's an expression, "Throwing a- a hammer at a piano to make music." Like it just doesn't make any sense.

Scott Galloway 12:36 I like that.

Kara Swisher 12:36 Um, and- and he- this is what he writes, "How did the once-obscure internet law become the target of bipartisan crusade? The answer reveals much about our current moral panic over social media and the dangerous appeal of quick-fix solutions, um, that makes them default to fix this. What people don't realize is that Section 230 isn't really the root of their concerns, and removing or even reforming it won't fix the people on the internet; in fact, it will certainly make things worse." Um, so I think it's really important to get yourself educated on this. This is not the solution. It- again, you're right, they could have passed all of the different bills Senator Klobuchar and others had around privacy, around all kinds of things, around some liability, um, that they never- they refused to do. They refused to do decent law and they- they have to use this as a cudgel? Like it's- it's ridiculous. They should be able, if they can be bipartisan, they should be bipartisan enough to pass a series of laws that put- that give these- that- that have teeth in them, that have, against these companies; privacy, algorithm transparency, anti-new- antitrust rules-

Scott Galloway 13:35 Why not an executive order here?

Kara Swisher 13:37 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 13:38 I mean, come on. Shock and awe- shock and awe across-

Kara Swisher 13:41 Right, right.

Scott Galloway 13:42 ... rounding up people, shock and awe at cutting off aid for malaria victims, but when it comes to corporations in Silicon Valley-

Kara Swisher 13:48 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 13:49 ... we're-

Kara Swisher 13:49 We're warning you.

Scott Galloway 13:50 ... proposing something stupid-

Kara Swisher 13:50 We're warning you.

Scott Galloway 13:50 ... that'll take effect in a year- in two years?

Kara Swisher 13:53 Why not have a regulation on privacy around a bipartisan-

Scott Galloway 13:56 Right now.

Kara Swisher 13:57 Right now. They could do it right now.

Scott Galloway 13:59 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 13:59 Uh, and this is what they're going for. This is just, they're so stupid.

Scott Galloway 14:02 Age gate, executive order.

Kara Swisher 14:03 Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway 14:03 No one under the age of 16-

Kara Swisher 14:04 Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway 14:04 ... is allowed on social media.

Kara Swisher 14:05 They could do that.

Scott Galloway 14:05 Boom, done. Tomorrow.

Kara Swisher 14:06 Yeah, yeah. I agree. This is really not the smart way to do it. Anyway, I urge you to learn about it because as it perhaps might have not been correct in the first place, it almost was impossible to create these companies without it at the same time (laughs) . So anyway, uh, difficult, difficult times.

Kara Swisher 14:24 Speaking of, uh, someone that Meta has made a bestseller, Sarah Wynne-Williams released Careless People, documenting her six years at the company earlier this month. She was there not- quite a bit ago, I think 2018 is when she left. Meta has recently successfully stopped Wynne-Williams from doing interviews based on a non-disparagement agreement signed at her termination. Wynne-Williams has filed an emergency motion to overturn the ruling, citing lack of proper notice and whistleblower protections. She apparently wasn't present at the- when they made the ruling. At the time of the taping, the book, uh, is number three on Amazon's Best Seller. I think it was, this was the strategy of this publisher, um, they didn't inform the company before. There was very, uh, there was a lot of, uh, of quietness around the, uh, release. They didn't seem to fact check. The ones I checked, they did not- the ones I- people I checked with, they did not call. Um, and, uh, and they have, um, you know, they- they- the company is very upset about the book and has been trying to stop it, and- and in the process has made it very popular. Um, she did a ser- a bunch of short interviews, there was one or two interviews before, um, but then has not been able to do that. But it hasn't stopped it. I think... I don't know. I- I think it's a- it's a problematic book. I have read it. Um, we can discuss it, Scott, if you want, 'cause you haven't read it, but, um, there's a lot of important stuff in this book, and at the same time, a lot of stuff that is not, would I say fact-checked is what I would say, um, and- and is questionable about her taking credit for certain things. I think some of the stuff, the personal stuff is, uh, should have been fact-checked. Um, there's some stuff about Joel Kaplan, um, about, uh, sexual harassment. There's some stuff about Sheryl Sandberg wanting her to sleep in a bed on a plane, which I think, I'm sorry, I don't believe. I believe it happened, I just don't believe the way Wynne- Williams is telling it. Um, although only people there would know, I guess. Um, and there, I think Facebook is reacting rather emotionally to this because of the personal stuff in it. But the stuff around China is really interesting. Um, it's really interesting that- their preparations to go into China, uh, but then they didn't, and I don't think she was there when they decided not to, so she doesn't know why they didn't, but they didn't do it. Um, but some of the stuff is really interesting, it gives you an insight to this company who are indeed careless people, um, but I'm not so sure this is the best narrator to tell it, although a lot of it is really important, uh, and lots of people I trust have, uh, mixed feelings on this book as I do.

Scott Galloway 16:58 Well, I'll put forward, I haven't read it, I've read a lot about it. I'll put forward a thesis-

Kara Swisher 17:02 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 17:02 ... and you validate it-

Kara Swisher 17:03 Okay.

Scott Galloway 17:03 ... or nullify it.

Kara Swisher 17:03 Okay.

Scott Galloway 17:04 Because you're just gonna forget more about this topic-

Kara Swisher 17:07 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 17:07 ... than I'm gonna know, and you know these people, I don't.

Kara Swisher 17:09 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 17:10 And that is, this reminded me a little bit of sort of one of the issues or I think dangers of Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. I think my thesis is she's mixing truth with bullshit here, and that is, I- I don't know Sheryl Sandberg. I know a lot about her, just following her career, but her making advances on female employees or Joel Kaplan, who I do not know but I've followed his career close- closely, him engaging in a pattern of sexual harassment. Quite frankly, a lot of this just didn't ring true, and it felt like... Quite frankly, I just read a lot of this. I- I love reading (laughs) about whistleblowers and Meta. Frances Haugen, everything she said just felt true, and she was measured and she was happy to say, "That's not true, that's hyperbole," whatever. This, quite frankly-... your bullshit sensors just go on high alert when you read about this stuff. It just, for me, didn't ring true.

Kara Swisher 18:08 Some of it.

Scott Galloway 18:08 What are your thoughts?

Kara Swisher 18:09 Some of it. Some of the memos she has are really important to read. Like, the- these are actual memos and things like that that, of how they did things. I just think it's her take on the s- she's always the hero in the story, and I, I, I know a lot of people who worked there who tried really hard to do the right thing, and I think in some places where they had successes, she takes a lot of the credit, and I think that's one of the things. Certain people like Katie Harbath, who I, who I like very much, um, who've been big Facebook critics, um, find issues with this, like the, in the telling of the stories. Now, it's a memoir, so this is her telling of the story, and I just wrote my own memoir, so I understand how people might not agree with my take on situations either. Uh, but, uh, but this, this has been met by a lot of people whom I trust, saying, "This is not the way it happened." Uh, that said, I think her vibe is absolutely correct. The sort of carelessness, I think, is absolutely true. I think, uh, you know, how they go about doing things is true. Uh, the China stuff is really interesting to understand. It, it's, it gives you great insight into the company, and that stuff is, I think, very much. The vibe is correct. The, it's sort of like... I, I don't, I also don't know why she waited so long if this was so critical. That's, of course, she's gonna ... th- that's, that's a Facebook argument, and I don't think it's a wrong one. Um, but I do think Facebook has reacted emotionally on, on this stuff and has made it into a bestseller, so more people are reading it because of the... 'Cause, 'cause one of the things, and I told this to, uh, someone from Meta, I'm like, they're like, "It's not trustworthy." I said, "Neither are you." So it's not, like, it's not like we trust Meta when they're actually-

Scott Galloway 19:46 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 19:46 ... telling the truth.

Scott Galloway 19:47 Good point.

Kara Swisher 19:47 And that's the problem, is that they, nobody has any trust for this company, and so you assume the worst of them. And in my case, I, I, I do think it does hurt for people who are critics of them when things aren't buttoned up, unfortunately.

Scott Galloway 20:01 That's right.

Kara Swisher 20:01 You have to be super buttoned up with these people.

Scott Galloway 20:03 100%.

Kara Swisher 20:03 And one of the, uh, uh, I was supposed to interview her, but there was way, way too many holes. I didn't feel like slagging her, and I didn't feel like defending Facebook. And, um, I, I just think she's got the vibe right. She's got the vibe right, that's for sure. Uh, I do, I-

Scott Galloway 20:16 But didn't it feel very, didn't it feel very sensationalist to you?

Kara Swisher 20:20 It did, it did. I, I, I, I hate to say that, but I really did. And the Sh- the Sandberg stuff is, you know, I'm a little kinder to her than you are. Um, but I can see how that happened, and the way she told it isn't correct. I can see, Sheryl's very, I would say sisterly or motherly with her employees, and all tech companies, and Facebook in- included, are far too familial with their employees. And especially in the early days, it was like a frat sometimes. Sometimes it was like a family, a dysfunctional family for sure. Not, not, Facebook wasn't as much of a frat as say Google was in many ways. Um, and I think there was a familiarity in those companies that has long gone now, but initially was, was present. And I think all these companies were sort of behaved in ways that HR would just blush at. And at one point, um, I, uh, there was a, uh, Meta, uh, it was Facebook at the time, person in HR, and they, they had just gotten there, and I said, "What, what's your job?" And she said, "I'm, I'm the vice president of keeping people from fucking each other." Like, and it was like, I laughed out loud, but it was, it's not, it was a very, um... And Facebook wasn't the worst of them, which is interesting as I recall. But, um, there was just a familiarity. So I could see her saying, "Oh, sleep in the bed, you're pregnant. Sleep in the bed. No, do it." Like, I can see her doing that in a very sisterly and motherly way. I can't see her, it, it, she-

Scott Galloway 21:43 She, she depicts-

Kara Swisher 21:43 She left it open.

Scott Galloway 21:44 ... it as a sexual-

Kara Swisher 21:44 I, but I don't think she's-

Scott Galloway 21:45 She depicts it as a sexual overture.

Kara Swisher 21:47 She kinda does.

Scott Galloway 21:48 It-

Kara Swisher 21:48 And, but I, it's not quite there. It, also, if you read it, it's sort of like, it, it's more invasive, I guess, than anything else, and it leaves the reader to decide what the, what the intent was. But, uh, let me just say, I could see Sheryl Sandberg being overly sisterly, motherly. I couldn't, this is just kind of ridiculous on some level.

Scott Galloway 22:06 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 22:06 And so even leaving it open really irritated me, I think, in a lot of ways. Although, again, I would read it, 'cause I think some of the memos and the vibe is correct. I think she does nail these people as the kind of vibe they have, which is-

Scott Galloway 22:19 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 22:20 ... whatever it takes. And I think that is, that, but that is not a new fresh piece of information for any of us. So I don't know. We'll see.

Scott Galloway 22:27 But to your-

Kara Swisher 22:27 Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway 22:28 But to your point, which I thought was a powerful one, is that when you're making accusations of someone being a sexual harasser or a bigot or, or, you know, being responsible for the coarsening of our discourse and enraging the population, I, I mean, I, I really don't think people have any sense of just how much damage (laughs) -

Kara Swisher 22:48 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 22:48 ... Meta has done to the US and the world-

Kara Swisher 22:50 Agreed.

Scott Galloway 22:51 ... pitting people against one another. I absolutely, 100% believe that Sheryl Sandberg likely saw research saying, "Oh, one in eight teen girls in the United Kingdom cite Instagram as a reason for their depression," and then her trying to wallpaper over it. I absolutely believe that Sheryl Sandberg saw research saying, and approved, saying, "We have this great new system of selling cosmetics and beauty products by identifying girls when they're feeling especially depressed and have especially low self-esteem at that moment, and then targeting them with beauty ads." I, I, all of that really rings true for me, that Sheryl Sandberg, while weaponizing the important discussion around gender balance in the workplace, decided to continue to deploy a business model that absolutely attacked the se- self-esteem of girls, resulting in a dramatic increase in self-harm. All of that rings 100% true to me.

Kara Swisher 23:42 Mm-hmm. That's why it's the vibe.

Scott Galloway 23:43 Some of this stuff, some of this stuff, I just can't imagine Sheryl Sandberg ever taking the risks. Or, uh, it, some of this stuff, it just didn't ring true. It felt-

Kara Swisher 23:53 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 23:53 It felt very gossipy, very sensationalist, meant to like feel more sinister and just sell more books, quite frankly. And the, the, I actually think this book does harm, because there's a lot of really credible people who have reported on what is going on inside of Facebook-And I think this helps Meta, because they can go, "We have critics that are just full of shit."

Kara Swisher 24:15 Yeah, uh, I think that-

Scott Galloway 24:17 So I think what it does is-

Kara Swisher 24:18 ... that was my concern. That was my concern.

Scott Galloway 24:18 ... it, it diminishes the, it diminishes the credible calls-

Kara Swisher 24:22 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 24:23 ... and accusations and findings that this company continues-

Kara Swisher 24:27 Yeah. And, and that's-

Scott Galloway 24:27 ... to levy tremendous damage on our society.

Kara Swisher 24:28 That's why I recommend reading it, because the stuff around the memos is really interesting and I, I found it, I found insight in it, that's absolutely sure. Anyway, we should move on.

Kara Swisher 24:36 Um-

Scott Galloway 24:36 Yep.

Kara Swisher 24:37 ... uh, speaking of which, another person, another piece of shit, uh, uh, in this case, um, not Facebook, uh, but RFK Jr.'s, uh, latest target is surprisingly one we can almost agree on, cellphones in schools, sort of. Talking about the risks of cellphone use for kids on Fox & Friends, Kennedy did mention depression and poor performance, but then what did he do? Let's listen.

RFK Jr. 24:59 Cellphones also produce electric, uh, magnetic radiation-

Narrator 25:03 Yeah.

RFK Jr. 25:04 ... which has been shown to damage, to, to do neurological damage to kids when it's around them all day, a- and to, uh, and to cause, cause cellular damage and even cancer. So-

Kara Swisher 25:16 And there he goes, down the highway. Research so far has not found an association between cellphone use and cancer nor DNA damage. Last year, the surgeon general, Vivek, uh, Murthy, called on schools to ban phones in classrooms for the good reasons which are depression and poor performance. Uh, that he had to do this, uh, oh, God, I wanna just s- I, I can't slap someone, I mean, uh, uh, I would like to virtually slap him for doing this, because it's an important issue, and as usual, he enters all kinds of conspiracy theories into it without, uh, you know, I, I, I don't know what to say. Just once again, this is the exact same thing, it's like he's making a good point and then down he goes, down conspiracy highway with his nonsensical bullshit. Your thoughts?

Scott Galloway 26:01 Uh, when I was in junior high school, I saw my first R-rated movie. Me and my best friend, Adam Markman, we would get bored after school and we would go into Westwood where they had all these amazing movie theaters, and still do, and we'd sneak into a movie theater.

Kara Swisher 26:12 Okay.

Scott Galloway 26:12 We'd find a way. We'd try and sneak into the back door-

Kara Swisher 26:15 I've done that.

Scott Galloway 26:15 ... or the front door.

Kara Swisher 26:16 Side door.

Scott Galloway 26:16 And we'd get kicked out. Yeah, side door, whatever it was, wait till the movie was letting out, the back door into the alley, sneak in-

Kara Swisher 26:22 Mm-hmm. Go to the bathroom.

Scott Galloway 26:22 ... and we snuck in, we snuck in accidentally into The Exorcist.

Kara Swisher 26:26 Oh.

Scott Galloway 26:27 And for about the next six years, I had to, like, sit in a corner to put my socks on.

Kara Swisher 26:32 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 26:32 I mean, I was so fucking freaked out.

Kara Swisher 26:34 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 26:35 That movie traumatized me for years.

Kara Swisher 26:37 That's a, that's a traumatizing... Mine was Halloween.

Scott Galloway 26:39 I remember-

Kara Swisher 26:39 Halloween was mine.

Scott Galloway 26:40 I was, I was 14, and for about two weeks-

Kara Swisher 26:42 Okay.

Scott Galloway 26:42 ... my mom would wake up in the middle of the night and look over and I'd be sleeping next to her bed. I just could not sleep alone.

Kara Swisher 26:47 Oh, wow. Funny.

Scott Galloway 26:48 And there's a, there's a scene in it where the, I think it's the priest, says the devil will mix in truth with lies to really confuse you. And here's a tough part about RFK Jr. is that he, I think he's actually really good on some issues and really articulate. He's very forceful about the industrial food complex and how it's optimized for profits and not for health and it's gone too far, and kids' health. I think he's really, I think he's really good on some issues. And then he goes on to say, as the person who's supposed to be measured in citing research, that this shit causes can- there's no- like you said, there's absolutely no, no evidence of that whatsoever.

Kara Swisher 27:27 He ruins it. He ruins it in a similar way, actually.

Scott Galloway 27:28 And loses a ton of credibility.

Kara Swisher 27:30 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 27:30 Anyways.

Kara Swisher 27:31 I just, I ag- that's a good, lovely story about The Exorcist, but again, mine was Halloween. Mine was Halloween. I hate that movie. Fucking movie. I love Jamie Lee Curtis, but I hate that movie. Um-

Scott Galloway 27:40 The guy in the hockey mask who won't stop coming back?

Kara Swisher 27:42 No, no, that was a different one. It's a hockey mask?

Scott Galloway 27:44 No, that's Halloween.

Kara Swisher 27:45 Is it?

Scott Galloway 27:46 Yeah, it's a chainsaw.

Kara Swisher 27:46 Okay. Yeah. Whatever. In any-

Scott Galloway 27:47 Oh, no, wait, that's, no, that's Friday the 13th, I'm sorry.

Kara Swisher 27:49 Yes, that's right. Yes. No, it's not. That's just-

Scott Galloway 27:51 No, you're right.

Kara Swisher 27:51 It's just whatever.

Scott Galloway 27:52 Jamie Lee Curtis. Ugh.

Kara Swisher 27:53 Ugh. She's great.

Scott Galloway 27:54 She's hot.

Kara Swisher 27:54 She's a great person. She's a great-

Scott Galloway 27:56 Is she?

Kara Swisher 27:56 ... person. Yes. I've interviewed her and-

Scott Galloway 27:58 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 27:58 ... have talked to her in the interim, and she's a wonderful, lovely, jolly, fantastic person. Um, in any case, RFK, we really think kids should not have phones in schools. You're now fucking wrecking it for us. Like, stop wrecking things for us. Uh, this is, this is gonna set it back, unfortunately. Same thing with, uh, I think careless people. But again, read it nonetheless. Uh, okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon Musk's visit to the Pentagon.

Kara Swisher 28:24 Scott, we're back. President Trump is denying a report that Elon Musk was set to be briefed on top secret war plans for China during a visit to the Pentagon last week. According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Elon's visit was just an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies, and smarter production. Trump was later asked about Elon's possible involvement in Chinese foreign policy during a presser. Let's listen to what he said.

Narrator 28:44 Uh, we don't wanna have a potential war with China, but I can tell you if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it, but I don't wanna show that to anybody. But certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He's a great patriot. He's taken, he, he's paying a big price for helping us cut costs and he's doing a great job. He's finding tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse. But I certainly wouldn't want... You know, Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that.

Kara Swisher 29:12 Well, at least Trump's telling the truth there, but I don't think he's telling the truth. Um, I think Elon has enormous access to intel. I think both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, I think, reported this. I think it was the New York Times. I c- uh, New York Times, I think broke it. Um, uh, I just think this is exactly what they were gonna do, and then they- and I don't believe Pete Hegseth, I don't believe Donald Trump, I don't believe Elon Musk. And so in this case, I believe the reporters and they probably pulled it back, the, the, the briefing he was gonna get. Uh, I think he's got his fingers in all kinds of stuff that has potential conflicts of interest. I don't even think they're potential. I think everything he's doing right now has massive conflict of interest. Um, s- any thoughts on this one? Because there's also one, of course, uh, SpaceX is positioning itself to get billions of dollars in new federal contracts or other support according to a report, again in The New York Times. NASA, the Pentagon, the FAA, and the Comm- Commerce Department are among the agencies with ongoing and new deals with SpaceX. SpaceX will also get a boost from Trump's new space-based missile defense project called the Golden Dome. Um, this is just, uh, ridiculous. Like, he's just so, he's got so many business interests and so many conflicts, Scott.

Scott Galloway 30:21 Well, I mean, if you think about the very founding of our nation, one of the pillars that our Constitution rests on is that people were trying to escape religious persecution, and they were visionary and said, "All right. We're, we're gonna try and set up a separation between church and state." And that has now been breached, and you could argue that a lot of, like, the political orthodoxy of the right is just white-

Kara Swisher 30:42 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 30:42 ... Christian nationalism. It's no longer even conservative ideals of small-

Kara Swisher 30:45 No.

Scott Galloway 30:45 ... government, strong defense. It's cr- it's white Christian nationalism. So that, that kind of wall has been breached. The other thing that people don't talk about, um, enough is the separation between, uh, business and state, and that is, they create an operating system for competition, for full body contact violence and competition. They don't pick winners and losers such that they reproduce the best companies in the world that are more prosperous and hopefully pay taxes to pay for schools, roads, and, and health benefits for veterans amongst other things. We've now breached that. I mean, that thing has just been overrun and essentially, the White House has decided, okay, the guy who gave us the most money, and probably put me in this chair, we're gonna become the marketing department for Tesla.

Kara Swisher 31:27 I know.

Scott Galloway 31:28 We're gonna do a used car lot bad cr- infomercial, late night TV commercial on Tesla. In addition, Musk comes out and says that the FAA is on the brink of near collapse. That causes panic. You don't need to make people who don't like to fly even more nervous claiming that the Verizon system is outdated. Then he has to come back and correct himself and go, "Oh, the current system is not from Verizon, but Verizon was picked to implement the new system." I mean, this is just-

Kara Swisher 31:56 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 31:56 ... you're not supposed to have, be the outsourced marketing department. Now, o- o- on a couple other levels here, there's a lot of stuff here, I think Doj's critical mistake, or one of their strategic errors, if they had started instead of with USAID, instead of starting with SNAP or veterans, if they'd started with the Pentagon, I think that actually for them would've been tactically very smart.

Kara Swisher 32:19 No.

Scott Galloway 32:19 Because I do think that, I do think there should be tighter integration between kinda that Silicon Valley ethos of innovation and our military industrial complex. I do think that some of the innovators in Silicon Valley, um, and the ability to build better weapons, I, I like that. I think that, I think that's a good idea, and I think if... There's probably a lot of waste you could find. I won't call it fraud, but a lot of waste-

Kara Swisher 32:47 Yes. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 32:48 ... you could find. There are ships being built that the Navy does not want, but because they bring billions of dollars to certain congressional districts, they refuse to pull the plug. And, you know, it, the, the commanders in the Navy, the admirals are saying, "We can't use these things. They're a liability." So they, they'd started with the Defense Department, it would've been better. And then this, j- just to go tactically again, he's either stupid or using it as a weapon of mass distraction from the fact that we're surrendering to Putin and, and massively running up our deficits, and that is the following: this notion of a golden dome. Okay. And they cite Israel. Israel has the Iron Dome. But just a few facts, the Iron Dome is very expensive and it only covers purposefully and logistically certain key popula- uh, population centers. The Iron Dome doesn't, it can't cover all of Israel. And by the way, Israel is the size of New Jersey.

Kara Swisher 33:43 Right.

Scott Galloway 33:43 They have ground defense systems, missile systems in place. To do that for America-

Kara Swisher 33:49 It's insane.

Scott Galloway 33:50 ... is feasibly right now impossible.

Kara Swisher 33:53 What was the Reagan one? What was the Reagan one? He had one.

Scott Galloway 33:56 The defense shield or the missile or the space shield, whatever it was.

Kara Swisher 33:58 Something like that, yeah.

Scott Galloway 33:59 But do you remember, they showed, they released a video of an invisible laser taking out a rocket on the launchpad?

Kara Swisher 34:06 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 34:06 Do you remember this?

Kara Swisher 34:07 Yes, yeah.

Scott Galloway 34:07 It showed them disintegrating a rocket on the launchpad. It ended up that that freaked out the Russians and they immediately went to work on this and started investing a ton of money. And a lot of people say that incremental investment in military and defense spending was too much for the Russian economy to-

Kara Swisher 34:24 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 34:24 ... to handle and actually led to the fall of the Soviet Union. Re- Reagan not only spent them into oblivion, he, he gave them the perception we were further... It ended up that that video was bullshit. We had nothing of the sort. But it freaked them out and got them (laughs) spending so much money that it supposedly bankrupted them. I, I, I think that's genius. I think that's the kinda shit you want our security apparatus doing.

Kara Swisher 34:48 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 34:49 Um, fooling the enemy into doing stupid things that hurt them.

Kara Swisher 34:51 Yeah. He did a lot of that. He did a lot of, like, noise-making and that caused the Russians to overreact.

Scott Galloway 34:56 Go here, go here, look over here, now-

Kara Swisher 34:58 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 34:58 ... spend here.

Kara Swisher 34:58 He did that a lot.

Scott Galloway 34:59 But anyone who understands defense systems or can just do, uh, any sort of scientific investigation goes, the idea of building a shield... I mean, maybe you put some of our universities and think tanks and scientists to work conceptually on this, but it, don't... It, the mother of all false equivalences, it's like, it's like... It's not even comparing... When you compare the Iron Dome in Israel to this concept they're talking about, the golden dome, it's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to aircraft carriers. You're talking about two entirely different things.

Kara Swisher 35:29 Yeah. And, and-

Scott Galloway 35:30 So...

Kara Swisher 35:30 ... I think let's get back to G- the grift of Elon Musk. I mean, I think when a-

Scott Galloway 35:34 Sorry.

Kara Swisher 35:34 ... it's just literally, he is, he cannot be in meetings like this. He should not be in meetings like this. He has already a- attacked people that are regulating him and cut their budgets so that they don't regulate him. He's already been involved in all kinds of things that have to do with his businesses, several of which are, is cratering. All the videos this week about Tesla's, like, being pulled apart by glue, and we'll talk-

Scott Galloway 35:58 Crazy.

Kara Swisher 35:58 ... about that in a minute.

Scott Galloway 35:59 Crazy.

Kara Swisher 35:59 We'll talk about that in a minute. It... Literally, get back to your business, sir, because really, a lot of your businesses should not be advantaged in this way. Maybe SpaceX is the best person for some of these things, but all of them? I doubt it. And I think one of the things, uh, that, that's happening here is he puts himself in, in a, in a place, and

Kara Swisher 36:17 one where he's explicitly trying to, to, to, to advantage himself. Uh, he's taking a page out of his 2024 playbook to influence Wisconsin's state supreme court election. What's he doing in there paying voters? His Super PAC announces offering $100 to re- to registered voters in Wisconsin who sign a petition opposing activist judges and register themselves or identify themselves. Elon-affiliated groups have now spent more than $13 million to get a GOP candidate Brad Schimel elected in the Wisconsin race for a judge's race and the reason is they want to just flip it from liberal to conservative. It's a four-three kinda situation. Um, he's very interested in Wisconsin. Why is that? Why do you think that is? 'Cause he's trying to save abortion, uh, y- uh, I mean, anti- he's trying to help anti-abortion forces? No. He's interested because Tesla's involved in a lawsuit which will go to the Supreme Court challenging a state law that prohibits car manufacturers from owning dealerships. He has a beef with Wisconsin around his own personal businesses and he's put enormous amount of money to get this one guy who is a Tr- a Trump acolyte into power. And that is that. That is what's happening there. And so he's gonna go around the country and do this, not just a- abroad, not just in China, not just everywhere else, where his, uh, self- interests take effect, he's going to, uh...... pump money into these things like these judgeships and these smaller things that will get him enormous payback. And it's just, it cannot be allowed to go on. It ca- it absolutely cannot. And, and I think the Democrats are fighting. There's enormous amounts of money going into this. I think $56 bil- million, it's a crazy amount of money, um, for a judgeship. Uh, it's just, uh, this guy has got his fingers in every pie, and it always goes right back to his self-interest, as far as I'm concerned.

Scott Galloway 38:04 Well, he's allowed to do it, and there's a lot of pharmaceutical-

Kara Swisher 38:07 Truce.

Scott Galloway 38:07 ... companies and, uh, you know, big tax spend, $60 or $70 million in lobbying.

Kara Swisher 38:13 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 38:13 It all reverses back to the same place. One, in terms of $13 million, Democrats should be able to match that, even though-

Kara Swisher 38:18 They are.

Scott Galloway 38:18 ... they're not the wealthiest people in the world, and they are. Uh, this all goes back to Citizens United. Unless we get money out of politics, like the majority of democratic nations do, and say, "All right," they, they, they ring fence the time of the election, the amount of political spending. Uh, you know, we're just not going... He, he's allowed to do this.

Kara Swisher 38:37 I know it.

Scott Galloway 38:38 And, and we position him as sinister. And the shock and awe of a third of a billion dollars and weaponizing his communication platform really quickly, quite frankly, was brilliant, it was strategic. And he got to put, because our electoral system is all fucked up, per your previous comments, and because money can run unfettered, he was able to probably decide who was president.

Kara Swisher 38:59 He did.

Scott Galloway 38:59 But he gets to do that just the way a couple of our very wealthy elected, uh, uh, v- very wealthy donors could probably do the same. The, what we're upset about is they're better at it right now. And until we reverse engineer to, uh... Unless you get, unless you do something to modify or overturn Citizens United, this is only gonna get worse.

Kara Swisher 39:20 It is. You're absolutely right.

Scott Galloway 39:20 And both sides will complain about it, but the reality is he's allowed to do this. We're allowed to do it back. We're upset. Quite frankly, they're just more brazen about it. But-

Kara Swisher 39:29 Well, I think the second step is, "And now I want all the contracts." And I get that some donors get contracts after they give giving, but not in the... This is, like, an unprecedented level of-

Scott Galloway 39:39 Well, he shouldn't be able to-

Kara Swisher 39:41 ... that.

Scott Galloway 39:41 ... use user con- congressional... I would've thought the Republicans had more self-esteem-

Kara Swisher 39:45 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 39:46 ... than to just let this guy kind of roll in and start making decisions on their behalf.

Kara Swisher 39:50 Mm-hmm. I believe so.

Scott Galloway 39:51 I mean, uh, that- that's a different level.

Kara Swisher 39:53 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 39:53 But the idea that he can win contracts by giving money to certain people? You know, welcome to America.

Kara Swisher 40:00 Yeah. I agree.

Scott Galloway 40:00 That's how American politics work.

Kara Swisher 40:02 But it's everywhere. And I think at some point-

Scott Galloway 40:04 Agreed.

Kara Swisher 40:04 ... this may, this may spur a lot of reform, which will be interesting, 'cause someone just went a little too far, I think, on these kind of things. Anyway, uh-

Scott Galloway 40:11 Hope so.

Kara Swisher 40:12 We'll see where this goes. It's gonna be on April 1st. He of course had Brad on X. Uh, do you, you saw that, uh, thing of X, the amount of how, how, how it's changed in terms of the, that there's mostly, uh, it's a MAGA echo chamber now? You saw the-

Scott Galloway 40:27 I don't read anything on X. I'm not on-

Kara Swisher 40:28 No, it's not on X.

Scott Galloway 40:29 ... it so I don't-

Kara Swisher 40:29 It was a, it was a chart which showed that 95% of the largest voices on there, besides Elon's the number one 'cause he facilitates it, so he is, he, like, pushes people towards his content-

Scott Galloway 40:39 And Kanye. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 40:40 Kanye. Whatever. There, it's 95% MAGA. It's crazy, like, right-wing stuff now. Not... It was pretty mixed, actually, for a long time, of, of screaming people, but now it's 95%, um, that. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, unfortunately there was a lot of Elon this week. Uh, more trouble for Tesla and Elon's daughter, what a, what a heroine, uh, speaks out.

Kara Swisher 41:03 Scott, we're back with more Tesla turmoil. Tesla's recalling 46,000 Cybertrucks. They really haven't sold that many. They were supposed to sell 250,000. That was an interesting number. Basically all of them because of an exterior panel that could fall off while driving. Meanwhile, Tesla owners are trading their cars at record levels amid Elon backlash, according to data from car shopping site Edmunds. Trump is also now threatening to send people convicted of vandalizing Teslas to prisons in El Salvador, which is bullshit, but whatever. It's really obnoxious that he did so. Uh, can... This is really interesting. Te- Elon addressed Tesla employees at an all-hands meeting last week saying they were in, still in good hands, and, "Hang on to your stock, even though the board is selling its stock." So, maybe not hang on to your stock, Tesla employees. Um, th- you know, there's videos all over the internet. My sons, m- n- cited them, uh, they're all watching them of Teslas fucking up and people pulling off things 'cause of the glue on the front panel or something, and the stuff like that. Um, it's getting all over the place. Um, meanwhile, um, well, let's talk about that. How do you look about this? 'Cause now the videos are going crazy. I mean, my, again, my sons just said, "Oh, have you seen these?" And they have c- seen all of them, which is really interesting.

Scott Galloway 42:10 Well, again, as a, as a general rule-

Kara Swisher 42:12 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 42:12 ... uh, just in terms of corporate governance-

Kara Swisher 42:14 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 42:15 ... when boards address employees, including the CEO-

Kara Swisher 42:18 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 42:18 ... you're not supposed to make stock recommendations.

Kara Swisher 42:19 No, you're not.

Scott Galloway 42:21 You're- you're just not... I mean, in the '90s, uh, uh, and this is one of... I've been wealthy three times, which means I lost it all twice. And one of the reasons I lost it all and ended up being worth -$2 million, uh, at a stage in my life where, you know, I was just starting to have kids, was when I was on the board of Red Envelope, and I had a bunch of stock. The gestalt and the pressure from your investors was, "Oh, you don't get to sell stock." I mean, when they sell stock, it's for diversification and business reasons. But as the founder or the chairman or the CEO, you s- you're sending the wrong signal. I thought you were in this to win it. That was... It, it's changed a lot now. Now entrepreneurs are allowed to do secondaries and get liquidity, and VCs will let you do that, because there's more competition, there's more capital than there are entrepreneurs. Back then, whether it was Sequoia or, uh, the, the people backing my companies, you were not supposed to sell s- They got to sell stock, but not you. And just in general, we also, when you're on public boards, um... You know, I remember when the New York Times went to three bucks a share, saying on the board there, you know, maybe we should, as a board, start to buy some shares. And Bob Denham, who was I think the lawyer for Warren Buffett, said, "We shouldn't pressure anyone, including each other, to buy stock." And you know what? I was wrong, he was right. This is people's personal...... the, the, the, you know, when the world's wealthiest man is telling you what to do with your own financial security-

Kara Swisher 43:52 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 43:52 ... it's really none of your fucking business, boss.

Kara Swisher 43:54 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 43:54 If, if they have shares that they've vested because they've worked there, y- y- I mean, Elon Musk does not care about you. And if you, you, you know, he, that's not appropriate for a board member, to be telling employees to hold onto stock or buy stock for their own benefit. That's for his own benefit. He wants his wealth to go back up. And also, just on a, just on a, a valuation basis, this company, even with its drawdown, it's still trading at, I think, at 120 or 130 times earnings. And its, its revenues... Tesla is about to be the auto company that is declining faster than any automobile company in the world, in terms of sales, and yet most of these companies trade at five to 20 times earnings, and it's j- it still trades at 130. So, uh, I mean, I would not get near this stock with a 10-foot pole, much less tell employees, who are probably have a net worth of maybe $400,000, maybe including their house, when you're worth $400 billion, or $300 now, you should not be telling them to hold on or buy stock. That's totally inappropriate.

Kara Swisher 45:04 A- agreed. And I think, you know, those shares, we'll see where these shares go. They have stuck in the $240s, sort of, pretty much. Um-

Scott Galloway 45:10 They've gone up, actually, in the last week.

Kara Swisher 45:12 They have.

Scott Galloway 45:12 Their earnings are covered in the last week.

Kara Swisher 45:13 They're still down 24 or 25% in the last month.

Scott Galloway 45:16 Still up for the year, though.

Kara Swisher 45:18 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 45:18 Still up 12 months.

Kara Swisher 45:18 Yeah, still up year to date, yeah, but-

Scott Galloway 45:19 But that's my point-

Kara Swisher 45:20 Well, no-

Scott Galloway 45:20 ... it's wildly overvalued. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 45:21 Year to date, they're down 34%.

Scott Galloway 45:23 Last 12 months.

Kara Swisher 45:23 Uh, one year, th- 12, 12 months-

Scott Galloway 45:25 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 45:25 ... are up 44%. Yeah, they are. So, we'll see. There, there was a big run up right after the, that they're sort of dealing with, and it's sort of, it's probably gonna stick down in the $200s, although some are predicting lower. And he'll do some nonsense, give, give some grok stock to it, you know, or something like that, like they did over on Twitter, where he, he, he larded it with grok stock and has made the, the valuation of Twitter go up. Um, one of the things that got a lot of... Besides these videos, which are getting a lot of attention, of people taking apart the Teslas, and especially the Cybertruck, and also doing... There was a Ford 150 versus a Cybertruck face-off that was very sad for Cybertruck, which, and very happy for the Ford 150. Um, uh,

Kara Swisher 46:08 there's, there's this interview that, uh, his estranged daughter, Vivian Wilson, uh, did for Teen Vogue, on the, and had a, was on the cover. Uh, Wilson... I love Teen Vogue, by the way, I think it's a really great publication. Wilson, uh, who is a trans woman, called her father "cringe" and "a pathetic man-child." She said she had not had a relationship with him since 2020. This apparently... And not a very good one before that. This apparently did not sit well with Elon, who deadnamed his daughter on X again, calling out the "woke mind virus" yet again, saying he was gonna kill it once again. He's also been amplifying a conspiracy theory about trans people vandalizing Teslas. Like, he went on a rampage. Um, I thought this interview was fantastic, it was very funny, it was, it was a gr- It was, like, a 20-year-old, um, uh, young person, just pretty cool, a pretty cool young person who also had a lot of wisdom, at the same time, really did understand herself in terms of not knowing everything. It was very self-aware in a really, I thought, a very smart way. It rem- It reminded me a lot of my own, uh, two older kids, just they're, they know what they don't know, but they also love to brag a little bit. And I thought it was a wonderful i- interview, and I thought the pictures were wonderful. And, um, and that she gets under his skin so much is really quite, uh, like, delightful on so many l- levels. And it's a, it's a big risk for someone like this. Uh, she lives in Japan, but, uh, she doesn't have financial links with him, but he's still a very powerful person. And obviously, it set him off quite a bit, uh, especially 'cause sh- she is everything... She is a delight online, and he is not. She is funny online, he is not. And so she's everything, she's everything he's wanted to be online, which is cool, I guess. Um, your thoughts?

Scott Galloway 47:49 Look, I generally think you cut a pretty wide berth into people's kids, and their relationship with their kids is sort of off limits.

Kara Swisher 47:56 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 47:57 Uh, but when you deadname your kid on a podcast and say that, that she is dead to you, um, you're opening yourself up for scrutiny. And in my view, you know, (laughs) when you talk about masculinity, when you talk about what it is to be a man, it can distill down to three basic points: you're a protector, you're a provider, and you're a procreator. Okay. Ground zero for being a provider as a man is you stand by your kids, full stop.

Kara Swisher 48:25 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 48:25 Y- I mean, you see all these parents in the courtroom when their kids have done horrible things-

Kara Swisher 48:31 Yeah. Same.

Scott Galloway 48:31 ... and you understand and empathize that they are going to side with their children, they're going to protect their children. So I had... When I was at South by Southwest, I had lunch with a friend, and he was talking about how his, um, daughter said that, um, uh, they wanted to now identify as a man. And it was very traumatic for the parents, not because they... You know, they're struggling with, all right, a person should be comfortable in their own skin. They're trying to put aside, they're, they're trying to say, okay, uh, one of the wonderful things about being a human and being in America is having the right to present you as you, you are most comfortable. At the same time, they're also worried that teenagers make bad decisions. And, th- th- you know, you could just understand, they're really, like, worried and upset about it. But the idea that this guy would ever be critical of his kid, th- they were just... He could just tell how much, uh, just how much pain he was feeling, because... Not because he didn't want to have a trans son, but because he wanted his kid to make the right decision and was concerned about his kid. And that's the right... That's what I think it means to be a mother or a father. You default to protection. And this guy does not default to protection. He is making his daughter's life-... harder. And that is exactly what it, that is exactly what it means to not be a man. I mean, this is, this guy is such a terrible role model. He is saying to other men, because of his incredible achievements, they look up to him and they are going to model him, that if your child makes certain decisions you don't agree with, you're going to publicly shame them and make their lives harder? So this is, I mean, this is just so wrong on so many dimensions. And he's just, again, I go back to the same thing, this guy's the worst fucking thing to happen to young men since, since porn, since, since old men deciding to protect their own land decided to send young men off to war. I mean, there are very few worse influences right now on young men-

Kara Swisher 50:40 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 50:40 ... than Elon Musk.

Kara Swisher 50:41 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 50:41 Anyways, I'm gonna go-

Kara Swisher 50:42 I would agree.

Scott Galloway 50:42 ... to my TED Talk.

Kara Swisher 50:42 I don't think it's working though. I have to tell you, my sons make constant... And they used to really like him, I have to say, they did. But now they're like lo- they'll, they trade back and forth all these videos on Teslas and stuff like that. And they were horrified by his response to the daughter. They thought the daughter was cool. Like, the daughter's fucking cool. Like, she really is. And again, what I really liked about it is she understood what she didn't know and she says like, "Maybe that'll change. Maybe I'm wrong." Like, she had more self-awareness at 20 years old i- in a very difficult position than he has had his whole life. So, let's just give kudos to her mom who, uh, who was, who sh- who was quoted in the piece, uh, and I thought was a wonderful piece, uh, essentially calling, uh, her daughter magical. And really won- it was a wonderful quote from the mother and sounds like... And I know Justine a little bit and, uh, is just really terrific and good- thank goodness for that. Um, in any case, um, uh-

Scott Galloway 51:40 I met her at TED. She seemed lovely.

Kara Swisher 51:41 She's lovely.

Scott Galloway 51:42 Smart.

Kara Swisher 51:42 She's really interesting.

Scott Galloway 51:43 Smart, friendly.

Kara Swisher 51:44 Smart and just-

Scott Galloway 51:45 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 51:45 ... well, obviously a great parent here in this situat- this really incredibly difficult situation.

Scott Galloway 51:50 I met Musk's first wife at TED. I think that's the whitest thing I've ever said.

Kara Swisher 51:53 Yeah, it is actually-

Scott Galloway 51:54 That may be.

Kara Swisher 51:54 ... I have to say. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 51:55 I'm translucent.

Kara Swisher 51:56 We're gonna move on.

Scott Galloway 51:56 I've become invisible.

Kara Swisher 51:56 We're gonna move on. Okay.

Scott Galloway 51:57 I've become invisible.

Kara Swisher 51:58 Anyway, uh, Vivian, great job.

Scott Galloway 51:59 Let's go to Wimbledon.

Kara Swisher 52:00 Great job, Vivian. We thi- we think you're amazing and we think your father's an asshole, just like you do. Anyway, uh, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

Kara Swisher 52:10 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first?

Scott Galloway 52:13 No, you go first, Kara.

Kara Swisher 52:15 I think you gotta give the w- well, I, I, there's one small win, which is this New York Times piece on Hooters becoming a refuge for young gay men. And it's this wonderful, uh, piece, uh-

Scott Galloway 52:24 I read it. Mm.

Kara Swisher 52:24 ... where a lot of dads apparently brought gay sons to Hooters trying to get them and the Hooters waitresses thankfully saved these gay people and were like, "Don't worry about it." Like, there was... It's this wonderful thing and it's, it was just... Uh, just go find it, Hooters gay men, and you will... It's a delightful read and thank God. And Hooters is on the precipice of bankruptcy apparently. But thank God for Hooters waitresses is all I have to say in that regard. Um, but I think you have to give it to the Severance, uh, season finale. I watched it here in Puerto Rico on Friday, uh, or Thursday.

Scott Galloway 52:55 Oh, you did? How was it?

Kara Swisher 52:56 Yeah. Amazing. Um, I'm not gonna give away too much.

Scott Galloway 52:59 Yeah, I heard it's great.

Kara Swisher 52:59 But, boy, is Ben Stiller one hell of a director and the writers and-

Scott Galloway 53:04 Did he direct this one? He hasn't directed all of them. He did?

Kara Swisher 53:06 He, he did. He did.

Scott Galloway 53:07 He did?

Kara Swisher 53:07 I believe he did. Yes. And it was... He directed a lot of them this season, more than he was supposed to, he told me. Um, but, um, he, i- it is just, s- wow, was it a mind fuck in a way that was really good. And it leaves open for a whole new season that is really great. I, I, I... It was not going the way you thought it was gonna go, uh, but it sort of did. So, it had a very satisfying and you didn't feel, uh, at a loss. And at the same time, it, it was a lot about, uh, innies and outties and the relationship you have with yourself. And it was real, the struggles you have with yourself. And it was, uh, there's so much to unpack and Patricia Arquette, every single person in it. Milchick, the guy who plays Milchick, did this incredible, uh, there's a marching band, the, there was a big fire and it just was, the whole thing was, uh, every single... There was, there was a goat lady. There was, there's so much to it. Every single character had their moment, and every single character took advantage of their moment in a really profound and wonderful way. And I couldn't recommend it more. Like, I have... It was really funny too. It was really funny and also heartbreaking and et cetera. Uh, and every character, uh, was wonderful. So, that, I just have to say that was such a win. And Hooters, also Hooters. Um, the fail, I think, I think I'll stick with this RFK-

Scott Galloway 54:24 Wait, can I comment on your wins?

Kara Swisher 54:25 Sure, yes. Please, go ahead.

Scott Galloway 54:27 So, I, I'm, uh, you know, I'm an enormous fan of Ben Stiller and he gives-

Kara Swisher 54:30 Yeah, we both are.

Scott Galloway 54:30 ... awkward Jewish guys hope-

Kara Swisher 54:32 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 54:32 ... that they can marry a hot, interesting woman. I've got to know his wife a little bit. She's very interesting. Also, very good-looking. Not that that's important. Um-

Kara Swisher 54:39 Okay, she's an actor too, but she's also wonderful, but go ahead. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway 54:43 What, like interesting and hot wasn't enough?

Kara Swisher 54:45 Yeah, okay.

Scott Galloway 54:45 Anyway, so-

Kara Swisher 54:46 Smart *******. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway 54:48 Um, just on the Hooters story, I read that, I thought it was really sweet. Um, I actually know someone who was a waiter at Hooters and was in a car accident and lost her leg and now she works at IHOP.

Kara Swisher 54:59 Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 55:02 (laughs) Come on.

Kara Swisher 55:04 You just waited for that. You don't wanna talk about profound...

Scott Galloway 55:06 I couldn't think about anything else-

Kara Swisher 55:08 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 55:08 ... when you were reading that win.

Kara Swisher 55:10 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 55:10 Also, also, I wanted... This is a joke. I went down and applied for a job at Hooters-

Kara Swisher 55:14 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 55:14 ... and they gave me a bra and they said, "Okay, fill this out."

Kara Swisher 55:16 Oh my God.

Scott Galloway 55:17 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 55:17 All right, we're done.

Scott Galloway 55:18 I know, and by the way, the story-

Kara Swisher 55:19 Uh, let me just tell you, Hooters waitresses rock. Did they just fucking rock?

Scott Galloway 55:22 Uh, well, I got, I got more stories here. One is true.

Kara Swisher 55:24 All right. Okay.

Scott Galloway 55:24 And also, uh, the reason they're deriding about it is 'cause Hooters is d- n- is declared bankruptcy. But I have an idea-

Kara Swisher 55:30 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 55:30 ... how to save the franchise. They should do home delivery of meals. They should, they could call it Boobereats.

Kara Swisher 55:35 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 55:36 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 55:36 Hmm.

Scott Galloway 55:37 Ah. All right, now the true part.

Kara Swisher 55:40 Too-

Scott Galloway 55:40 Now the true part of the story.

Kara Swisher 55:41 All right. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Galloway 55:42 Somebody... This is true. Somebody very close to me was a Hooters girl. You wanna take any guesses?

Kara Swisher 55:47 No.

Scott Galloway 55:47 Worked at Hooters-

Kara Swisher 55:48 Who?

Scott Galloway 55:48 ... through college.

Kara Swisher 55:49 Who?

Scott Galloway 55:49 ... uh, mother of my children.

Kara Swisher 55:51 Oh, wow. Oh, she did?

Scott Galloway 55:53 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 55:53 Wow.

Scott Galloway 55:53 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 55:54 Oh, good for her.

Scott Galloway 55:54 And occasionally, she still has the outfit, and occasionally puts it on and-

Kara Swisher 55:56 Well, I'm sure she was lovely like all these people in this piece, just lovely.

Scott Galloway 56:00 No, she wasn't lovely. She was fucking hot. Um-

Kara Swisher 56:02 So, no, I mean, lovely in terms of the way that she handled these... Anyway, they-

Scott Galloway 56:05 I'm not sure she was sitting down gay kids and telling them, "It's okay."

Kara Swisher 56:08 Well, they weren't.

Scott Galloway 56:08 I don't know if she-

Kara Swisher 56:08 They would just sidle up to them, saying, "Don't worry, kid, you're fine the way you are," that kind of stuff.

Scott Galloway 56:12 It is a sweet story, I'll give you that.

Kara Swisher 56:13 It is a sweet story.

Scott Galloway 56:14 It's a sweet story.

Kara Swisher 56:15 Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, actually-

Scott Galloway 56:16 All right. Thank you for that. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 56:17 All right. So fail. Um, I, um, I really, uh, uh, fail is that, that, that they really aren't finding as much, uh, for, of this Doge thing. I think it's an absolute fail. They are not finding as much fraud, waste, and abuse-

Scott Galloway 56:31 Oh, you think?

Kara Swisher 56:31 ... as we thought.

Scott Galloway 56:31 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 56:32 And especially at Social Security, like, they're, they're just not finding it. Like, uh, there's a great story in the New York Times, um, uh, that, uh, uh, at, at the Wall Street Journal and all of them, they're talking about how they're just not finding it, and especially in ma- claims of massive problems. The lying, the lying about... Reforming government is a critical, is a critical thing in our age. We should always be reforming government and making it better for people, 'kay, to get the- their, their, their stuff. They sh- they, um, it's, it's stuff you pay for. I'm very cognizant. Like, right now, the fact that we're paying for in- innocent people to be sent to El Salvador, uh, to this, this lunatic who runs that g- country, and I know he's liked there, but nonetheless seems like a lunatic, um, is heinous, is just heinous. So I just feel like this is always important to understand, w- why you, why, how government can work better. But this is, this isn't making an argument that government does work well. And I think that's great. But at the same time, just like, stop it. Just, you're, again, just like a lot of things, you're, we really care about government reform. You're fucking ruining it for government reform. That's my feeling. And I think we're gonna have a problem with it, with, 'cause this will, this will tarnish efforts like that g- to, for years to come. Uh, Scott, all yours. No Hooters jokes.

Scott Galloway 57:46 Well, if, if the, (laughs) if the audit, if this is an audit of the federal government, then the federal government comes out with a clean bill of health. They, they have struggled despite all of their lies, hyperbole, and the fact that this is the largest business in the world and the fact that it, there is a lot of largesse. There's a lot less waste and fraud than even Democrats, I thought, might, might be there. If, this is like going into the doctor's office and they do a full body cavity search of everything, and they give you a colonoscopy, and they take your blood, your urine, and it's like, "Okay, you're actually pretty good." So I think, if anything, Doge has found that, uh, no, there's not nearly as much fraud and waste as people, as people had feared. Anyways, my, uh, uh, my fail is the Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, uh, which has been tracking the missing children. Um, y- Russia has allegedly been kidnapping children from Ukraine and then, uh, bringing them back to Russia. And the Humanitarian Research Lab from Yale University had been tracking this. And the Humanitarian Research Lab, um, which by the way is still, you can still make donations, um, uh, says that more than 19,000 children have been deported to Russia and only about 1,236 have been returned. And according to the lab's research, the children have often experienced abuse, inadequate food, and have been cut off from their families as they are indoctrinated by Russia and often given military training. And a bipartisan group of lawmakers said it has, uh, reason to believe that the data from the depository has been permanently deleted. And what do you know? The Trump administration's cut up, cut off all funding here. And this could have devastating consequences. Like, these kids have literally been disappeared. And it's the same sort of thing that's going on right now where you have due process for tech companies, but a kid, and, uh, it's-

Kara Swisher 59:42 More than due process. It's-

Scott Galloway 59:45 And, and it, and, uh, a kid, uh, and Tim Miller did a great job on this. By the way, Tim Miller for the Bulwark Podcast, I decided he's my future ex-husband.

Kara Swisher 59:53 Yeah, he's handsome.

Scott Galloway 59:53 I'm, I'm in love with that guy.

Kara Swisher 59:54 Speaking of handsome.

Scott Galloway 59:55 Smart too, passionate.

Kara Swisher 59:56 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 59:56 But he's brought attention to this kid, this kid, I think his name's Andre, who's basically, uh, fled communist Venezuela and was rounded up and has been sent to this hellscape prison in El Salvador. And Tim went on his Instagram. I mean, uh, the kid is clearly gay and clearly not, uh, a member of a deadly Venezuelan gang. I mean, (laughs) and, and it, it goes to the same thing. All right, you're a Japanese dentist, you've been a great American citizen, but we're under threat, and we're gonna start putting you in internment camps. This is a form of that. Without due process, they are finding people. And of course, it's people who are poor and don't have Tim fighting for them, which he can't for every person, they're just gonna maybe disappear and never be heard from again.

Kara Swisher 1:00:45 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:45 But that along the lines of cutting funding from this fantastic organization of people at Yale trying to track down kids who've basically been kidnapped, people don't, Americans don't realize the price we're gonna pay from going from the good guys to the bad guys.

Kara Swisher 1:00:59 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:01:00 When you're big and strong and a good person, people want to be your friend, people want to be your ally, people respect you, people want to help you. When you're weak and small, and when you're weak and kind, people might be nice to you and feel sorry for you, but it doesn't have the same implication. When you're big and strong and mean, people start plotting against you behind your back 'cause you're seen as a threat. People start thinking, "You know, I'm gonna ignore those funds being funneled to s- to terrorist cell groups in the US. I am going to, I am not going to be as kind... I'm not going to help or protect American tourists when I see them under threat. I'm not inclined to do business with American companies." When you go from big and strong and trying to do the right thing to big and strong and just mean-

Kara Swisher 1:01:51 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:01:51 ... people start plotting again- people are gonna decide, "You know what?I'm gonna ignore that uranium, enriched uranium shipment to Iran. I'm just gonna ignore it.

Kara Swisher 1:01:59 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:02:00 I used to like those guys. I'd probably contact the U.S. Embassy and say, "Hey, FYI, confidentially, there's something going on here." People have no concept, I believe, of just how much damage over the medium and long term are done when you go from the good guys to the bad guys.

Kara Swisher 1:02:17 Agree.

Scott Galloway 1:02:18 And this is happening everywhere, and my loss is, I think it's National Security Advisor Waltz-

Kara Swisher 1:02:23 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:02:23 ... was on Face the Nation and refused to answer questions 'cause the reality is, he has no answers about why we're cutting funding-

Kara Swisher 1:02:29 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:02:29 ... to a database. And they're not only cutting funding, they're trying to delete the data.

Kara Swisher 1:02:35 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:02:35 So these, these Ukrainian parents can't even find their kids.

Kara Swisher 1:02:39 Right.

Scott Galloway 1:02:40 Uh, so in just a matter of, it feels like, of shock and awe speed, we're going from being the good guys to the bad guys.

Kara Swisher 1:02:48 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:02:48 And, and regardless of your morals, your ethics, that's just stupid. That's gonna im... We've gotten so spoiled to people giving us the benefit of the doubt, to people being-

Kara Swisher 1:02:56 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:02:56 ... nice to us abroad, to people wanting to work with American companies, to people informing our security apparatus when very bad people are trying to do bad things to us. There is... So my fail is just an unnecessary transition from being the good guys to the bad guys in, um, record time.

Kara Swisher 1:03:13 Record time.

Scott Galloway 1:03:14 Uh, my win is I do love these town halls-

Kara Swisher 1:03:18 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:03:19 ... uh, that, that a lot of Republicans where people are showing up in what I feel is a civil, a civil manner exercising their First Amendment rights. Uh, there's a lot of jeers and shouts, but they aren't being, uh, there aren't expletives. There have been no reports of violence. I think they're powerful. I think, I think the representatives hear them. It's gotta give it to Senator Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez for their Fighting Oligarchy tour, drawing record crowds.

Narrator 1:03:42 Today, we are here to say very loudly and clearly, no, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires run the government.

1:03:59 (cheering)

Scott Galloway 1:04:04 It feels really good to have what I feel is, like, a coordinated effective response.

Kara Swisher 1:04:10 Mm-hmm. I agree.

Scott Galloway 1:04:11 And it's powerful, and it's very satisfying, and they're doing a great job. And they're, you know, they're kind of touching on what I would argue are some of the, the, um, the key points here. I think they're doing a great job-

Kara Swisher 1:04:25 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:04:25 ... and the rallies are fun. They have sort of that, uh, quite frankly, that early Trump feel with a group of really impassioned people. So my win is Senator Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez, uh, and their Fighting Oligarchy tour.

Kara Swisher 1:04:39 Agreed. Of course, Trump is saying it's all fixed, and he would know. Anyway, it's not. It's really real, I have to say. It's really fun to watch. Oh, I love to watch democracy like that. I like screamy town halls. I love screamy city hall meetings too. Anyway, uh, it's a, that's a great one. Uh, we want... And they look fantastic, and they sound fan- and they sound fun. You're right, they sound fun actually. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on On With Kara Swisher, I talked to Álvaro Bedoya and Rebekah Slaughter, the two Democratic commissioners Trump fired at the FTC last week for without cause. Uh, they didn't even mention it. Let's listen to... Uh, it's o- it's an illegal act what he did, but let's listen to a clip.

Narrator 1:05:25 I fear that the next merger that comes before the commission, it's not gonna matter if it raises prices on consumers. It's not gonna matter if it screws over workers, not gonna matter if it screws over small businesses. The only thing that's gonna matter is which billionaires have the presidency around it and which way they can tug it.

Kara Swisher 1:05:40 It was a great interview. It's really interesting what's go- I'm sure they'll be, uh, they'll, they'll get their jobs back. But at the same time, the fact that he tried it is, is typical of Trump at this point. Okay, uh, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway 1:05:59 Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Todd Andrew did this episode. Julien Villard edited this video. Thanks also to Drew Gross, Miss Saverio, and Dan Schulman. Vishak Herwa 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 NewYork Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of your vacation.