Elon Musk’s Political Spending Spree Is Over | Pivot

Kara Swisher 0:00 ... my Top Gun shirt. See it?

Scott Galloway 0:02 Oh, God. That's literally the worst spring break I've ever seen.

Kara Swisher 0:05 (laughs) (instrumental music) Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, and I'm Tom Cruise.

Scott Galloway 0:17 (laughs) You're excited about that, huh?

Kara Swisher 0:18 I am. I'm g- I got the 10 o'clock show. I'm going to the late show. It's three hours fucking long, do you know that? Two hours and 49 minutes.

Scott Galloway 0:25 Wow.

Kara Swisher 0:26 I know. Could be a lot of Tom Cruise.

Scott Galloway 0:28 That is a lot of, that is a lot of Tom Cruise.

Kara Swisher 0:30 Right.

Scott Galloway 0:30 You're a big fan though.

Kara Swisher 0:32 I'm not a fan of him as a person, the Scientology part, but I love all his movies.

Scott Galloway 0:35 Oh, the whole woke conditioning thing. He doesn't, he doesn't-

Kara Swisher 0:38 No, it's not-

Scott Galloway 0:38 ... pass my purity test, so I need to condition everything.

Kara Swisher 0:39 No, I don't think it's a very good group of people from all that I've read. It's not a purity test.

Scott Galloway 0:43 He's, but-

Kara Swisher 0:43 Well, neither is the Catholic Church.

Scott Galloway 0:45 He sounds like a pretty nice guy, though, no?

Kara Swisher 0:46 He's always... He really sells these movies, I have to say. He's out there. He's in theaters. He, like, he does the work. Uh, he is a very hardworking, massive celebrity I have to say.

Scott Galloway 0:57 He really is the, kinda the movie star that defines our generation at least.

Kara Swisher 1:01 Absolutely.

Scott Galloway 1:03 Um, anyway, I'm a, I'm a... Uh, I don't love Tom Cruise movies, but I'm a huge Tom Cruise fan. I just think he's, he works so hard.

Kara Swisher 1:11 Tom Cruise.

Scott Galloway 1:11 I love that he has a certain fidelity to movies and the big screen, and he's trying to promote theaters.

Kara Swisher 1:16 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:17 And everything I've heard about him anecdotally about people who have interactions with him, is that he's a very lovely guy.

Kara Swisher 1:25 Yeah, hard worker. Hard worker.

Scott Galloway 1:26 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:26 That's what I appreciate.

Scott Galloway 1:27 Yeah. So, yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:27 That's what I'm gonna say. And I like the movies. I'm sorry. I love all the movies he's in. I, there's not a movie... I was just thinking of rewatching Taps. Do you remember Taps? That was really... Even though he got famous in Risky Business, Taps, he played a crazy, over-the-top, uh, military school cadet. And, and Tim Hutton, remember they took over the school in the name of the-

Scott Galloway 1:46 I do remember it. As a matter of fact-

Kara Swisher 1:48 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:48 ... this is how things change. The star of the movie who got paid more was Timothy Hutton. He was-

Kara Swisher 1:52 Hutton, right. That's what I said, yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:52 ... the heartthrob at the time.

Kara Swisher 1:53 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:53 And also, the other guy who was number two-

Kara Swisher 1:56 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:56 ... behind Tom, or n- uh, ahead of Tom Cruise in terms of the billing was Sean Penn.

Kara Swisher 2:00 Sean Penn, you're right. That's right. And it was all, like, what did they do and this and that. But Tom Cruise was the crazy one who-

Scott Galloway 2:06 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 2:06 ... like, was all in. Like, he was fan- he was fantastic in Born on the Fourth of July.

Scott Galloway 2:10 He should've-

Kara Swisher 2:11 He was great in Tropic Thunder.

Scott Galloway 2:13 He should've won an Oscar for that. I think Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were denied Oscars and Oscar nominations 'cause they're so good-looking.

Kara Swisher 2:20 'Cause they're so good-looking, yeah.

Scott Galloway 2:21 I think that Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July was absolutely... He, he-

Kara Swisher 2:25 Great.

Scott Galloway 2:25 ... he was out, uh, uh... That was such a moving performance. There's a scene in that-

Kara Swisher 2:30 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 2:30 I remember. There's a scene in that where he comes home.

Kara Swisher 2:33 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 2:33 You know, it's, it's based on a guy I think Ron Kovac who was paralyzed in the Vietnam War. And there's such a moving scene between him and his father. You know, the mom is sort of overbearing, and the dad's a softie. And this kid, you know, he's a kid back from Vietnam, and he has this wonderful, um, um... As I think about it, actually I love Tom Cruise as an actor. There's a scene where he's, like, you know, putting him to bed and hooking up his catheter, and he's, like, sobbing, and he's like, "Dad, who's ever gonna love me?" So powerful. And then another great, uh, really powerful scene is from a great movie called Magnolia which he didn't get-

Kara Swisher 3:08 Oh, yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:08 ... the credit he deserves.

Kara Swisher 3:08 Another great movie. He was great.

Scott Galloway 3:10 Where he's, um, next to his, uh, dying father who abandoned him. He's... Uh, obviously I, I, I... (laughs) I have some-

Kara Swisher 3:18 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:18 ... some of my own father issues.

Kara Swisher 3:20 Got daddy issues.

Scott Galloway 3:20 But he really is, as I think about it, really an outstanding actor.

Kara Swisher 3:24 Anyway, I'm very excited, and I'm s- I'm gonna be up very late, but I'm super

Kara Swisher 3:29 excited to go. One quick note before we move on about an extreme escalation in the Trump Administration's war with Harvard. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, also known as ICE Barbie, and that's a compliment, ordered her department to terminate Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effectively barring the university's ability to admit foreign students. Harvard says it has nearly 10,000 people in its international academic population. And in an unusually petty move for the Trump administration, which has, specializes in petty moves, uh, they have attacked Harvard in this way that really, uh, could hurt a lot of foreign students. I think probably this will not happen. I think Trump administration will back down as it always does. It's just another salvo that it likes to do publicly. Uh, probably, if they keep at it, it will go to the Supreme Court, um, and which is interesting because four of the nine justices went to Harvard Law School, and two of them also went to Harvard College. The rest went to Yale and other, you know, important universities around the country. Um, I do think that eventually, the Trump administration is gonna pay for this kinda behavior and will lose, lose, lose, lose, lose again in court. Anyway, um, I have a quick update for you on the fake Scott scam that's floating around on Instagram.

Scott Galloway 4:42 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 4:42 Um-

Scott Galloway 4:42 And all the... Kara Swisher's so powerful. (laughs) You connect me with literally, like, uh...

Kara Swisher 4:49 Top people.

Scott Galloway 4:49 Anyways, go ahead. Tell 'em the story.

Kara Swisher 4:50 So you had complained about this. This is fake Scotts, and I think it's absolutely something to complain about. I have the same issue on Amazon with fake Kara Swisher books. Um, they don't take the care to get them down, and I think you made the very salient point that you don't see this in the New York Times or MSNBC or CNBC, but these are-

Scott Galloway 5:07 Or Snap or even YouTube.

Kara Swisher 5:08 Anything. What is... Tell them what happens. There's fake Scotts selling investment advice, right?

Scott Galloway 5:13 A bunch of my friends texted me and said, "Have you seen this?" And some even said, "Should I do this?" And I click on it, and it's an AI-generated Scott saying, "Please sign up for my WhatsApp group," and there's a fee involved, "where I will share with you two to three stock tips every week."

Kara Swisher 5:29 Right.

Scott Galloway 5:29 And it was everywhere.

Kara Swisher 5:29 Good idea for us to do that, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway 5:31 Well, it was everywhere, and it was a scam. And that is just terrible-... for my brand. And I, I, we purposely, uh, I don't, we don't take crypto investments. We turn down a lot of money, and I'm, we- we're even quite cautious about, uh, doing financials 'cause w- I take very seriously that I want young men to have economic security. And I think there's a bunch of grifters out there that have moved from finance to health, who basically claim they can outperform the market if you just send them your 49 bucks, and they'll give you insider stock tips. Or that you can't trust the industrial food complex, so buy their fucking ridiculous supplement even though they, they, they, they, they failed biology in high school. And I'm very sensitive to the fact that young men can be very seduced by this, and I think, uh, we both take economic viability very seriously in young people.

Kara Swisher 6:17 Yes.

Scott Galloway 6:17 And so the fact that I'm out there-

Kara Swisher 6:18 Only yoga pants for our customers. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway 6:21 But there's literally probably tens of millions-

Kara Swisher 6:23 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:23 ... of people who have seen me trying to shill a fucking investment-

Kara Swisher 6:27 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:27 ... form on WhatsApp. That is just not, and most of 'em don't realize it's a scam. They just ignore it. That is not good for my brand. That inhibits my ability to make a living. That hurts my brand equity, my reputation. It, that is the definition of libel and defamation. And they, they can, with u- AI, figure out if someone in your house is about to go to a Beyonce concert, but they can't find (laughs) , they can't take that one ad and p- send out a crawler across their network and go, "Anything saying this is fake, and we're gonna pull it down right away." They could do that in about a fi- if they took two minutes of an engineer's time or two hours of an engineer's time to do it across everyone, they could get rid of all this shit. But instead, they throw up their arms and say, "It's just too complex." And then they send me-

Kara Swisher 7:11 Or, "We've gotten most of it." That, that's what sets you off.

Scott Galloway 7:13 That was my favorite.

Kara Swisher 7:14 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 7:14 "While some still remains." I'm like, "Oh, okay."

Kara Swisher 7:17 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 7:17 "So you've taken the knife 90% of the way out."

Kara Swisher 7:20 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 7:20 "But some still remains." Anyways, these people, you texted them. Immediately, they got back to you.

Kara Swisher 7:25 They texted me.

Scott Galloway 7:26 I have been-

Kara Swisher 7:26 And then I texted you, but anyway.

Scott Galloway 7:28 I have been screaming into-

Kara Swisher 7:30 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 7:30 I have been, you know, barking at the moon trying to actually go through the, you know, the channels here, trying to get anyone's attention. And in about a hot minute, you got two people, who I'm sure are lovely, nice people with good kids who are mendacious fucks hurting the world. Um-

Kara Swisher 7:46 Sorry, Andy. (laughs) I told you. Anyways.

Scott Galloway 7:48 No, I'm sure they're lovely people. Everyone I meet from Facebook is super lovely.

Kara Swisher 7:51 What happened?

Scott Galloway 7:52 Oh, I haven't texted them back. I'm scared.

Kara Swisher 7:54 What, did you ... (laughs) You were supposed to talk to them-

Scott Galloway 7:56 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 7:56 ... on the phone. He was like, "I wanna talk to you now," and you didn't talk to him?

Scott Galloway 7:59 Yeah, yeah. No, I got, I got distracted last night.

Kara Swisher 8:01 Oh.

Scott Galloway 8:01 I had, I stayed up late. I watched m- last two episodes of Friends and Neighbors. I'll call them today.

Kara Swisher 8:05 All right. You do that. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 8:07 I'll call them today.

Kara Swisher 8:07 'Cause there's something ... You know, at the very same time something happened with your thing, Walt couldn't get back into Facebook when he got a new iPhone, and they had put him on a security list by accident, uh, some weird security list. So, I think that didn't get fixed either, but he was a l- whole lot nicer about the situation than you were. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 8:25 Well, even, even, even Alphabet has figured out a way not to have-

Kara Swisher 8:28 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 8:28 ... this shit-

Kara Swisher 8:29 Yep.

Scott Galloway 8:29 ... on their network, right?

Kara Swisher 8:30 They need to fix this. One of the things that I was telling Amanda about it, and I said, it, it, she said, "Not everyone knows Kara Swisher, or, um, or w- if you fix it for one, why can't you fix it for everybody? That shouldn't be the way customer service works." They should take everything down. There should be no mistakes.

Scott Galloway 8:46 It would-

Kara Swisher 8:46 It's not in The New York Times-

Scott Galloway 8:47 It can't be that hard!

Kara Swisher 8:48 ... it's not in magazines, it's not ... Uh, I know it's a harder, difficult, more difficult thing, but that's the business you've chosen. And therefore, you need to keep your place clean.

Scott Galloway 8:57 Uh, see, I don't think it'd be that hard. I think they could so easily-

Kara Swisher 8:59 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 9:00 ... upload that video to AI and say, "Look for the attributes, the sentence structure-"

Kara Swisher 9:03 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 9:04 "... the, the photo resolution, everything."

Kara Swisher 9:05 Yep, they give them a lot of outs.

Scott Galloway 9:06 "And go identify this everywhere and pull it down."

Kara Swisher 9:07 They give these makers a lot of outs. Like, I think it was whatever strikes that they get. Anyway-

Scott Galloway 9:12 But they did ask me if I'd s-

Kara Swisher 9:12 You better fix it, boys, 'cause-

Scott Galloway 9:14 They asked me-

Kara Swisher 9:14 ... Scott Galloway is not happy.

Scott Galloway 9:15 They asked me if I'd signed up for face scan or something?

Kara Swisher 9:18 Yeah. I don't think so.

Scott Galloway 9:18 I'm like, "No." I don't even know what you're talking about.

Kara Swisher 9:19 No, don't do anything like that. Like, you mer- you know how Amazon now has a hand scan at Whole Foods? And someone was like, "Would you like to try it?" I said, "As fucking if I would give my hand print to Amazon."

Scott Galloway 9:30 A hand scan?

Kara Swisher 9:30 I'm like, "No." Although, I do, I do the-

Scott Galloway 9:33 Well, I don't know.

Kara Swisher 9:33 ... Clear, don't I, so do I really care?

Scott Galloway 9:34 I pay a lot of people a lot of money to put their hands on me. Um-

Kara Swisher 9:37 Okay, okay. All right. We've got a lot to get to today, including Target struggles, um, and OpenAI making a deal with former Apple designer Jony Ive with a photo that looked like he was marrying Sam Altman. It was

Kara Swisher 9:49 a lovely photo. Uh, but first, Elon Musk says he plans to significantly reduce his political spending moving forward, saying in an interview with Bloomberg at the, the Qatar Economic Forum, "I think I've done enough." I think we all think that. This after he poured over $290 million in the 2024 election to support Trump and Republicans. He also spent roughly $25 million on that Wisconsin Supreme Court race that he, like, shit the bed. Uh, the cheese head hat, the whole thing. He shit the bed, essentially. Things got a little testy in that same interview when he was asked about Doge saving less than originally promised. It, the whole thing was friggin' testy. What a little baby, what a little wussy baby he is. Okay, let's listen.

Narrator 10:29 I wanna ask you about the total amount that you're planning to save through Doge's work. Before the election, you said it was going to be at least two trillion. The number currently on doge.gov is $170 billion. That's a big change. What happened to the two trillion?

Elon Musk (in inserted interview clip) 10:48 Well, do you expect it to happen immediately?

Narrator 10:50 Well, is it going to happen? Because Doge is supposed to run till next July.

Elon Musk (in inserted interview clip) 10:54 But, um, what, what do you say about ... I mean, your question is absurd in, in, in its fundamental premise. Um, are you assuming that, that on day, you know, in, within a few months, there's an instant two trillion saved?

Narrator 11:04 No, uh, not at all. I'm just asking you, is that still your aim then?

Elon Musk (in inserted interview clip) 11:07 So, have we not made good progress given the amount of time?

Narrator 11:07 Is that still your aim, to get to two trillion?

Elon Musk (in inserted interview clip) 11:11 Have we not made good progress given the amount of time?

Narrator 11:14 That's exactly what I'm asking. So, is it still your aim to go from 170 billion to two trillion?

Elon Musk (in inserted interview clip) 11:21 Uh, the, the ability of, of Doge to operate is a function of whether, uh, the government, and this includes Congress, uh, is willing to take our advice.Uh, we are not the dictators of the government, we are the advisers. (screen whooshes)

Kara Swisher 11:38 This is such horseshit. I mean, he closed down a ton of stuff. He didn't do well. That's all. It's, it's th- just like the Cybertruck, this was a flop so far. Um, and of course Congress has to pass it, but he ran through an- all the government cutting things, closing things, firing things. He had plenty of power. He, and he had the, the president of the United States behind him, so he was running rampant. What happened is, he ran rampant, he did stupid things like the chainsaw thing, he pushed around, and now there's story after story coming out about what a fucking nuisance he was to these people. Ran over Co- Congress, ran over, um, uh, cabinet members, did stupid things, made idiotic mistakes. He's not getting to two trillion. And the entire interview was just ridiculous, saying, "Tesla's doing great." He's just such a, it's such horseshit. This guy is full of horseshit. He, this was a failure. It was too bad. As we all say, good thing to cut things, and, um, he didn't reach his goals, and even the 170 billion dollars is questionable. I'm sure he's cost the, the US taxpayer money, but he got his. He got his regulatory relief. He's gonna probably be part of that golden dome thing. He will probably benefit in lots of ways with Starlink and everything else. So, let's just say, um, he got his. So one headline described this interview as, "A billionaire man-child, Elon Musk, gives his most petulant interview to date." Uh, I think that was correct. Scott, any quick thoughts? And then, uh, we'll talk about, uh, the Tesla part.

Scott Galloway 13:00 Well, just some data. It, this has backfired. It was initially the best investment anyone had made for a quarter of a billion dollars and sort of the promotion of Tesla and the belief of the markets that this would pay off, because we had gone to a kleptocracy. It's now the rivers have reversed and the tide has turned entirely against him, and this has arguably been one of the greatest brand destructions. And Tesla w- was a great brand. According to Axios-Harris Poll, Tesla has fallen from the eighth most reputable brand in 2021. I mean, that's in the company of, you know, Amazon and Coke and Apple. Well, it's fallen from eighth to 95th. And also, we talked a lot about this, their revenue was down 20%. Do you realize Tesla, despite the fact it trades at 150 times earnings and most automobile companies trade at 10, Tesla's sales are declining faster than any automobile company in the world? They declined 20%. Uh, profits are down 71. Sales-

Kara Swisher 13:55 Hmm.

Scott Galloway 13:56 You wanna talk about s- sales declines, down 59%-

Kara Swisher 13:59 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 13:59 ... year on year in France, 81% in Sweden, 74% in the Netherlands. It's, their sales have been cut in half in Switzerland, 33% in Portugal, and their sales are down by two thirds in, um, Denmark. And, uh, eh, wha- what I don't get is, he's such a, he is a brilliant guy, but w- he's alienated his core demographic about-

Kara Swisher 14:20 And he's alienated the Republicans. L- you should read these stories.

Scott Galloway 14:22 Well, yeah, but the Republicans doesn't, he's alienated the wrong people.

Kara Swisher 14:24 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 14:25 That third- three quarters of Republicans would never consider buying an EV.

Kara Swisher 14:28 Right.

Scott Galloway 14:28 So he's cozied up to the people who aren't interested in EVs. And then California, which is the biggest EV market in the US, Tesla sales in the state have dropped almost, have dropped 12% and its market share has dropped almost 8%. A- and, and then let's just be clear about Doge. It's not saving the US money, it's costing money, because one of the recommendations they made was a plan to cut the IRS by 50%, which would essentially lead to a $400 billion increase in uncollected taxes. So if you're talking about effect on the treasury and our receipts, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say it is 150 billion. Well, but if you lose 400 billion in uncollected taxes, that's a quarter of a, that's a quarter of a trillion dollar net loss to the US government. So you're, you're down about one and a half or two trillion dollars over the next 10 years because Doge has emasculated our ability to collect taxes from the people who know 'em. And I'm writing a newsletter this week called Toligarchs. Tran- I think there's this transnational oligarchy class that's emerging where people get so rich they can afford their own security and their own rights, their only, their own family planning, their own schools, and as a result, they have less of a vested interest in the wellbeing and democracy of their native country. Anyways... And the, the problem is, or w- how this has arisen is the following. And that is, what you see in America, and this has happened consistently, is that as income inequality has, has increased, a smaller and smaller group of people who are unified in their love of low taxes and getting richer continue to weaponize the government. And the result is, as wealth concentrates, political spending capacity increases, which secures policy outcomes that further concentrate wealth, and you enter into a doom loop. The share of wealth at the top 0.1% since 1980 has tripled, their share of wealth. Political spending has increased 17 times in real terms on inflation-adjusted basis. So that means cor- and what do you know? Combined corporate and top, uh, top individual tax rates fell from an average of 58 to 29%. So as the 0.1% gets wealthier over the last 40%, their effective tax rate has been cut in half. So you just see a correlation here. And that is, unless you step in and redistribute income from corporations and the 0.1% to the middle class, they increasingly... And, and I lived this firsthand. It's just, when you're paid not to understand something, it's really easy to not understand it. And people can talk about, oh, income inequality, but at the end of the day, they vote for candidates and give money to candidates who are gonna find a way to continue to cut their taxes. We have to have class traitors. We have to have rich people, uh, you know, FDR was a class traitor, Truman was a class traitor, who turn around to these very rich people and these special interest groups and these lobbyists and say, "No, you're gonna hate me. I appreciate all the money you gave to me, but you're gonna hate me. I'm coming for your ass."

Kara Swisher 17:25 So, so when, when he asked, was asked about returning to Tesla and his commitment to the, um, the company, Baby Huey attempted his usual brand of awkward comedy. Check it out. (screen whooshes)

Narrator 17:34 Do you see yourself, and are you committed to still being the chief executive of Tesla in five years time?

Elon Musk (in a different inserted clip) 17:43 Yes.

Narrator 17:44 No doubt about that at all?

Elon Musk (in a different inserted clip) 17:48 Well, no, I might die. (audience laughing)

Kara Swisher 17:53 (laughs) Um, you know, I think, uh, one of the things that I don't believe is he will stop his, his financial involvement in politics. Back in March of 2024, he said he wouldn't be donating to either candidate in the presidential election. I called that horse shit then, very clearly, uh, that he was obviously gonna back President Trump because it was an existential crisis for him to be atta- for a Harris presidency, and that's exactly what he did, and he lied about it. He just lied about it. Um, his posts on X have become less political in recent months. A Washington Post analysis found under 20% of his posts are now about Doge or politics, while more than half are about tech and his businesses. Um, I- I, this interview was such a disaster. The reporter was trying her best to try to get an answer out of him. And then in a separate t- interview on CNBC, he should just shut up, he also said, "Robo-taxis will be driving around Austin in June, and LA and San Francisco after that." I would not get in a robo-taxi because they haven't had any... They, and even one of the, the people who was doing this said they were years behind Waymo, and I was reticent. I, I, I now go in Waymos quite confidently, but I would never get in one of these. Um, and before we move on, I just want to note that in that CNBC interview, Elon was asked about his plans to combine Tesla and xAI, a merger I predicted a few weeks ago. He didn't rule it out completely. Let's listen to what he said.

Elon Musk (in a different inserted clip) 19:12 It's not out of the question, but that would have to be something that the Tesla shareholders would vote, would wanna vote for, so.

Scott Galloway 19:17 Understood. So, but it's not something you're thinking about doing?

Elon Musk (in a different inserted clip) 19:21 It's, it's not currently, it's not currently pl- (laughs) there, there are no plans to do so.

Scott Galloway 19:25 Right.

Elon Musk (in a different inserted clip) 19:26 It's not out of the question, but o- obviously it would require Tesla sh- shareholder support.

Kara Swisher 19:30 Well, that means yes, obviously.

Scott Galloway 19:32 Yeah, I-

Kara Swisher 19:32 Uh, yeah.

Scott Galloway 19:33 ... 100% agree. The, uh, the only pushback I would give here-

Kara Swisher 19:35 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 19:35 ... and I think some of, uh... (sighs) and I share this bias, but I think, I think, I think your bias is coming out here, and that is against Elon, which I share. But one, I do think he should continue to do interviews. I think he gets so much free attention.

Kara Swisher 19:49 Hm.

Scott Galloway 19:49 He still has a big fan base.

Kara Swisher 19:51 It does. You're right.

Scott Galloway 19:51 And just that level of awareness and free media around Tesla all the time, and SpaceX, and attention, I do think that is worth billions of dollars and he should probably continue to do it. Should he be coached a little bit better about things to say? He was coached there when he said, "Well, shareholders would have to approve it."

Kara Swisher 20:06 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 20:06 That's not true. He can muscle around his board, but that was the smart thing to say.

Kara Swisher 20:10 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 20:11 The other thing is, I, I, I disagree. I think a lot of people... You may not, that you didn't say, "A lot of people." You said you wouldn't. A lot of people will try self-driving from Tesla. Uh, a lot, they, they, they, I don't think they're gonna take to get into a Tesla.

Kara Swisher 20:20 I didn't think they wouldn't. I'm just telling you as someone who's ridden in the earliest ones til now, they simply aren't safe enough. They are not safe enough.

Scott Galloway 20:27 You... So, I think I, I agree, uh, so I, I, I believe that you wouldn't. I think there's a lot of people that will, will try-

Kara Swisher 20:33 Yes.

Scott Galloway 20:33 ... an autonomous Tesla. That's it.

Kara Swisher 20:35 Yeah, I just don't think... Uh, listen, he was saying robo-taxis are coming, uh, in, in, by this date, and that was eight years ago, and it was a date. It just, he, this is just, it's... Waymo has written circles around him in this issue, and so have others, by the way. There's some Amazon efforts. There's Aurora. Um, everybody has moved forward here, and for him to pretend that they're not extraordinary... It's the same thing with AI. Like, look, he was extraordinarily late with Grok. Good catch-up, sort of, I guess. The, although the numbers are pretty low, um, compared to other things. But he, he just declares things. It drives me fucking nuts, and that might be biased. I just wouldn't... I, I don't think he should. I think he should go away for a while and keep quiet. That's, I, I get what you're saying, but every... I think he became a nuisance at the White House, and now there's-

Scott Galloway 21:19 Well, he's out. He's... But we predicted this when, uh, and I, the exact moment was when I saw that, whatever it is, the head of the province in Ontario said it was, he was canceling his SpaceX contract. I'm like, "He's out. He'll leave government." Once he sees that happening, he's out. He's gonna, he's gonna pull a Vivek. Vivek was fired, but basically, he's gonna fade to black, and he did. At, literally from that moment on, he started fading back into the bushes. And your analysis was the correct one, and that is, they don't want him around, but they're scared of him because of his money and his platform. But he's out. He's gone.

Kara Swisher 21:51 This is what he should do. Let me tell you, leave on a positive note here.

Scott Galloway 21:54 Sure.

Kara Swisher 21:54 He should work on his fucking cars and not make shitty cars. And the reason why Tesla's not doing well is 'cause the, it, it is an old car. The, it's a very good car, but it's something, it's not a fresh car. And the Cybertruck is a, you know, sorry, that was his mid-life crisis, I guess. Not a good car. He should make good products and roll them out. That's what he should do. That's what he was good at, and now he, all he... And he's bad at government, he's bad at m- a lot of things. He's, he's bad at media. Uh, he should go back and do the things he does best, which is be very bold about cutting edge products, and then improve Starlink, improve the Tesla product. There's no way he couldn't come back, Tesla couldn't come back from this if they made good cars. But they aren't, and so he could blame all the protests. He can blame anyone else. But the, the

Kara Swisher 22:42 responsibility lies with him. Um, speaking about responsibility, we're learning more about former President Joe Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis. Biden did not receive his diagnosis until last week, and his last known PSA screening, that's what they use to do these, was in 2014, according to a spokesman. That is an astonishing thing. I cannot believe that. Uh, you, you had noted this and I was shocked, again, when I saw that. That information comes amid ongoing speculation about a possible cover-up, including from President Trump, who claims somebody is not telling the facts. He, he would know about that. Medical experts point to guidelines that advise, uh, against PSA screenings for men over the age of 70, I guess. He's the president, though. Though some people are raising questions about whether Biden as president should have still been screened, such as you did. You also spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper on Prof. G this week. Jake is the co-author of the new book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Uh, let's listen to the clip of when he talks, uh, about what it means for Democrats.

Narrator 23:43 All of Democrats right now are being blamed for-... the Biden fiasco, and by that I mean his decision to run for reelection and his decision, uh, to hide his deterioration. As our reporting suggests, this was the fault of President Biden, his wife, and his son, and, like, a number... A few top aides. But this isn't necessarily something that could be laid on the feet of every single elected Democrat in the country. My personal view is that until the Democratic Party reckons with that, people are gonna have a very difficult time trusting them on anything.

Kara Swisher 24:20 So, what do you think about the, the screening? And then tell me a little bit about your thoughts here.

Scott Galloway 24:27 (sighs) Look, so I've tried to be... I think like a lot of people during COVID, I decided I was a junior epidemiologist-

Kara Swisher 24:33 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 24:33 ... and what I realized is I had no fucking idea what I was talking about.

Kara Swisher 24:36 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 24:36 So when it comes to medical advice, I try to be more measured. And, uh, w- what I'll say as a citizen who gets regular prostate exams and even has a regular MRI that looks and images my prostate, and the PSA test is a blood test. That's it. It costs 100 bucks. I, I... It just seems weird to me that this guy wasn't getting the most robust scans in history and PSA tests all the time-

Kara Swisher 25:00 As president.

Scott Galloway 25:02 As president. Your brother immediately reached out to me and said, "It's not unusual for a man of this age to find out in a screening that it is this advanced." And I, I believe Dr. Jeffrey Swisher, who spent a decade of his life studying these issues, over my instincts. Having said that, I, I, I still think this is just incredibly odd, and we don't... There's so much understandable and deserved affection and goodwill towards Joe Biden right now, but this is the reality. He has ruined his legacy. This is what he'll be remembered for. He'll be remembered for the guy who fucked up and got an insurrectionist elected. This is, this is the fine point on his career that will be the thing that he was known for, our years of public service-

Kara Swisher 25:47 Plus he stopped him and then he got him elected, right? He stopped him initially.

Scott Galloway 25:50 And he would have gone down a hero. Eh, this was such incredibly poor judgment, and it brings up two issues around how we move forward. The first is, and we talked about this last week, when age... If we're gonna have age limits on the lower end, we need them on the upper end. And two, the Democratic Party needs to recognize that one of the greatest tools we have in history, in terms of our democracy, is the primary process. The primary process is such full body contact violence and incredible competition that it matures not only the right person but the right person for the moment. No one had heard of Barack Obama. No one had heard of Bill Clinton. No party, no... The, the Democratic Party wasn't gonna pick either of those people. But you know what? They just rose every week and did the work, and America fell in love with them. So when the Democratic Party tries to clear Bernie Sanders out of the way for Secretary Clinton, or, or, or Barack try, you have to let, let our primary process run. And the fact, in my opinion, another mistake they made, in addition to this consensual hallucination we all entered in with each other, is that I think they should have had a super Shark Tank-like mini primary-

Kara Swisher 27:00 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 27:01 ... rather than just anointing-

Kara Swisher 27:02 You had talked about that. You re- yeah.

Scott Galloway 27:02 ... Vice President Harris.

Kara Swisher 27:04 I remember.

Scott Galloway 27:04 I think they could have made it. We... And, and I want to be clear, I don't think we're g- I don't think we're guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking. I was Saturday afternoon quarterbacking.

Kara Swisher 27:12 Yeah, you were.

Scott Galloway 27:12 I said have a mini Shark Tank-like primary with the best eight candidates, go from ed... To two debates with eight, then to four, then to two. It would have dominated the media cycle.

Kara Swisher 27:25 Yep.

Scott Galloway 27:25 And by the way, Trump was dominating it because they were afraid to let Joe out of the basement.

Kara Swisher 27:30 Right.

Scott Galloway 27:31 We would have... Democrats would have dominated and, and who knows? Maybe it would have been Vice President Harris that would have matured. I don't think she would have, but the woman-

Kara Swisher 27:37 She needed more time.

Scott Galloway 27:39 Well, eh, eh, the bottom line is, uh, we don't want to acknowledge this, she's not a great candidate. I think she did a good job given the hand she was dealt with, but this is a candidate who didn't make it to Iowa four years earlier, which says to me America didn't think of her as a great candidate. If you had-

Kara Swisher 27:54 Yeah. I thought she did a lot better. The first 60 days I thought were terrific. I thought-

Scott Galloway 27:58 Look, I, I-

Kara Swisher 27:59 ... for her.

Scott Galloway 27:59 ... I, I think given the hand she was dealt, Vice President Harris... First off, I think one of the great performances in political history-

Kara Swisher 28:06 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 28:07 ... was her debate.

Kara Swisher 28:08 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 28:08 I, I think the amount of pressure that she must have felt, and for her to show up and be that composed, that articulate, that, that deft, practicing with two screens, I thought that was one of the great performances in political history. The reality is she was not a strong candidate and, and President Biden and his family's narcissism have severely fucked this country. Severely. And that is his legacy, and we want to have... And I will get shit for this, 'cause people are correctly feeling empathy for him, but his legacy, in my view, has been ruined by this.

Kara Swisher 28:39 Can I bring that up? Because I got to tell you, uh, it, it continues. Uh, we were pretty outspoken, you first and then I, uh, you convinced me, um, of, of, of his need to step down, uh, at the time. And we got so much endless shit... You remember how much endless shit we got. It's driving me nuts. I have blocked so many people on all the social networks because they just can't... They, they do have a derangement syndrome. I was like, "You can't say to yourself what a fuck up this was because, you know, because it's not the point." I think we should move on, by the way. I think we've got to move on quickly and there's lots of ways to do that. We made a mistake. We needed to do this. We're gonna do things differently. We're so sorry. Please trust us again, and here's how you can trust us, by doing, as you said, a robust primary. Correct? We're go- Here's some answers from us. Here's what we're gonna do. This guy... A- and also saying out loud, "Joe Biden betrayed us." Right, right? Just say it. Sorry he's sick, but this is the way it is. He's, he's done that. And we-

Scott Galloway 29:39 Betrayal is a strong word. He screwed up and we went along with it.

Kara Swisher 29:41 Oh, he screwed up. Okay, he screwed up and we went... Okay, betrayed is not the right word. Right. Okay. But that said, like, stop it you people. Like, you, you yelled at us when we said, which, which would have been a much better outcome, especially you, Scott. You were really out on that limb. And I'm not giving you cred, it's just you were right. And, um-... and, and, and now to, like, do the same thing 'cause you're obsessed we can't, we c- ... It's the same problem we had. We can't say anything 'cause, because Trump. Yes, we can say things.

Scott Galloway 30:10 Look at the shit Tapper's getting right now.

Kara Swisher 30:11 Yeah, yeah, he is. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 30:11 People are so angry at him-

Kara Swisher 30:13 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 30:13 ... people are so angry.

Kara Swisher 30:14 They are.

Scott Galloway 30:15 By the way, just ... I, I, I ... Th- th- we should point out or try and use this for some good about the importance of a prostate exam. And you know, you know, how you can tell or how I can tell it's gonna be-

Kara Swisher 30:26 Oh, no.

Scott Galloway 30:26 ... a really great prostate exam?

Kara Swisher 30:27 (laughs) Oh, no.

Scott Galloway 30:30 (laughs) Ask me how.

Kara Swisher 30:31 How? (laughs)

Scott Galloway 30:32 I feel two hands on my shoulders.

Kara Swisher 30:34 Oh, my God. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 30:36 By the way, if Patrick comes over and gives me-

Kara Swisher 30:39 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 30:39 ... an in-home prostate exam-

Kara Swisher 30:40 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 30:40 ... I think I should be reimbursed by my insurance.

Kara Swisher 30:42 Okay. Okay.

Scott Galloway 30:43 I think, um ...

Kara Swisher 30:44 Uh, getting back to Tapper. The other thing is, I still ... I've just gotten several of these new, these books on the presidential race and stuff like that, and I do have to say, there's a lot of news in a lot of these, they're all under embargo and stuff. But y- ... Sometimes you feel like maybe you should've said it at the time. Like, you know, when ... Reporters have to do ... And here's where I do think the media is culpable. I think a lot more reporters knew about this, and several did some great pieces, um, talking about this, but they got relentlessly pummeled when they did. Um, and-

Scott Galloway 31:16 You were called an -ist.

Kara Swisher 31:17 What?

Scott Galloway 31:17 The moment you said any- ... You were called ... No one wants to be called an -ist.

Kara Swisher 31:21 Right. Ageist.

Scott Galloway 31:21 No one wants to be called a sex- sexist or ageist, ageist. But immediately, you were called-

Kara Swisher 31:26 You were.

Scott Galloway 31:26 Uh, you were called an ageist.

Kara Swisher 31:27 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 31:27 Right away. "Oh, you're an ageist."

Kara Swisher 31:29 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 31:29 "You don't think, you got don't think you can do it."

Kara Swisher 31:30 But reporters got the pressure, and in that way, they really have to just push back and, and keep going. And they're not a, they're not a creature of Trump if they ... The guy was the president and they should've done a good job covering him, despite the fears of Trump. And that's the, that's just the way it's gotta be. I'm sorry. There's no ... "By all means necessary," is not the way the Democrats could conduct themselves. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the

Kara Swisher 31:54 bond market gets a little yippy again. Scott, we're back. Republicans in the US House of Representatives passed President Trump's big, beautiful tax bill on Thursday morning with a 215 to 214 vote. I mean, it was one, one person. The stocks slid this week with the DOW dropping over 800 points on Wednesday as bond yields spiked following a weak auction of the 20-year Treasury bonds and concerns about the budget bill. I mean, this is just what you're talking about, selling out the, the poor to feed the rich. The 10-year and 30-year bond yields also jumped sharply, a very disturbing indicator. The 30-year rising above 5% to its highest level since October 2023. The sell-off isn't just a US story. Bond yields are rising globally too, with Japan and the UK seeking similar moves. The bond market got yippy back in April as Trump put it, which led him to pause the tariffs. Um, I'd like you to explain what's going on, uh, without a penis joke and as pithy as you can be-

Scott Galloway 32:49 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 32:49 ... for the people who don't understand it.

Scott Galloway 32:51 Well, look, this is, and several non-partisan economic think-tanks have said that this, this tax bill is the greatest transfer of capital and, you know, money from poor to rich in history. And adding five trillion to the debt, which will increase interest rates for everybody and young people. It's basically a deferred tax on young people such that, uh, the, the ... It's very simple to understand this tax cut. The top 5% are getting a tax cut, the bottom 95% are getting a tax increase. And I was hopeful that this thing was gonna be rejected. I thought the arguments were just so insane and cruel that they weren't going deep enough in the cuts. But effectively, uh, I was with Anthony Scaramucci last night, who I just continue to be so impressed with. I think he's so thoughtful. And he brought up something so interesting, he said, "Look, you had ... Effectively, you had ... Republicans were fiscal budget hawks."

Kara Swisher 33:52 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 33:52 "They were very concerned about the deficit. And Clinton, who was a moderate, figured out a way to have a surplus. And Al Gore said, 'With my economic plan, over the next eight to 10 years, we're gonna have four to $5 trillion in surpluses.' Bush won, and that was really the pivot point, 'cause what Bush, Bush did was the following. He convinced, he decided - and the American public has gotten used to this - he decided, 'We can have our cake and eat it too.' And what he did was, he decided to go to war and lower taxes at the same time. And nothing really happened in the short term to the markets 'cause we have built up so much, uh, borrowing capacity 'cause of the responsible fiscal approach of our predecessors, and the result is, when we decided during, uh, uh, W's administration that we could cut taxes and spend more, we began, um, essentially a downward spiral of fiscal irresponsibility that Democrats and Republicans have both taken a play from. That the haunting or the negative impact of deficits don't come to fruition during my administration, so whatever, I'm just gonna keep everybody happy. I'm going to ... The far-left and the far-right meet around, 'I know, let's cut taxes,' and 'I know, let's increase social spending.' By the way, government expenditures are up $200 billion since Trump took office per- compared to last year. And also, Biden, despite railing against th- the billionaire class not paying enough taxes, during the Biden administration, taxes went down. So this is a continuation of the same irresponsible fiscal behavior, but this is a focus, and this kind of embodies what America has become a- about, and that is the bottom 95% are here to optimize the lifestyle and economics of the top 5%. And one of the reasons we do this is 'cause the Republicans are very good at representing the top 5% and convincing the top 50 that they'll be there, that Americans are so optimistic, they believe at some point, they might be in the top 5%. And because Democrats, quite frankly, just don't wanna be serious about, about ... Neither side wanna be serious (laughs) about either raising taxes or cutting spending. Ne- neither is willing to have a serious conversation. The dem- best the Democrats will do, will say, "At some point, when I interviewed leader, Leader Jeffries, um-"... uh, with Jess. He said, "Well, at some point, we should probably have that conversation, but no Democrat will stand up and say, 'We probably need to means test Social Security.'" The only person I've found who's being kind of responsible is Senator Chris Murphy. He's actually naming programs we should, we need to take a hard look at, but th- th- just-

Kara Swisher 36:27 Well-

Scott Galloway 36:28 ... this is a transfer of wealth.

Kara Swisher 36:29 ... bond market. Explain what the bond market's saying very quickly.

Scott Galloway 36:31 Oh, the bond market is saying that this irresponsible fiscal behavior makes that, means that lending money to US companies and to the US government is now riskier, meaning that you need to get paid more to take that risk.

Kara Swisher 36:46 Right.

Scott Galloway 36:47 And effectively, what you have is, um, the bond y- the 30-year treasury is at 5.09%, and that's the greatest or the highest it's been since October of '23, and this impacts... This means you're paying more for your student loans, your credit cards, your mortgages, and companies are less inclined to borrow money to grow because it's more expensive. In other words, everything everywhere gets a little bit more expensive. Now, that's okay if you're the 5% getting a huge tax credit because, uh, I don't have student loans. My mortgage, if it goes up 25 bps, that still will be overcompensated by the tax cut that I will get. But the n- bottom 95% see their taxes go up and see an increase in costs across their debt instruments, and their kids are really gonna have a tough time because essentially ha- you know, uh, uh, th- the government... The fastest-growing expense line in the government budget right now is the interest on our debt. It's not investing in infrastructure. It's not social services to keep seniors out of poverty. It's... Uh, uh, so we're moving towards, and this is how nations fail. Nations don't fail because they get invaded. They fail because they go broke.

Kara Swisher 37:56 Go broke. That's what we're doing.

Scott Galloway 37:57 And-

Kara Swisher 37:57 And we're not creating the economic opportunity because-

Scott Galloway 38:01 That's right.

Kara Swisher 38:01 ... we have, we're paying interest rates. That's r- it's usury against ourselves, which is really astonishing. Anyway, we'll see what goes on. They're gonna pass it, but that was a tight vote. I, you know, again, I have to insult all the congressional Republicans who pretend they're hawks. Fuck you for voting for this. Like, if you really cared, you would do something not like this, but you did it anyway. I don't know what deal you got or whatever promise, but it's

Kara Swisher 38:25 all nonsense if you don't stick to your guns on this stuff. Um, iPhone designer Jony Ive and his design firm are taking over creative e- design at OpenAI, this is an interesting story, speaking of expansion, to develop consumer devices and other products. Ive's, Ive's design firm and OpenAI's, uh, CEO, Sam Altman, have reportedly been working on a device that moves beyond screens, including headphones and other devices with cameras. Ive will also work on future versions of ChatGPT, audio features in its OpenAI's app. Ive also leads Ayo, a company founded to design and develop a new family of AI products. OpenAI will require Ayo in an all-equity deal valued at $6.5 billion. So here we are. We have Jony Ive coming back, the obviously famous iPhone guy, um, aluminium. Um, uh, I just want to note, I spoke to Ive at Code in 2022. He was on a panel about Steve Jobs with Lorraine Powell Jobs and Tim Cook. It was the last Code session ever, and I was... Because Jobs was the first one. Um, I asked him about intentionality and responsibility when designing tech products. Let's take a listen.

Jony Ive (in short inserted clip about AI / unintended consequences) 39:33 There will always be unintended consequences, some of them, um, wonderful and some of them not wonderful. And, and I think the issue is, is just how, you know, your, your decision in terms of what responsibility you need to shoulder. I think the more powerful... I mean, there's wonderful historic, um, precedent for powerful tools, um, having that, you know, that, um, ability to be used in both ways. Um, but I think it, it's, you know, the consequences, uh, at the end of the day, I, I think it comes down to how you view your responsibility.

Kara Swisher 40:11 Yeah, he's a very articulate person about design. He also insulted the current, th- the cu- there was a Humane pin, a couple of pins. He thought they sucked. Um, but is it too early in the process here at OpenAI? They're clearly, as you noted, going consumer if they're bringing in Jony Ive. And I will note, Ive and Altman are very close friends, and again, the picture they took together was really kind of odd and interesting, looked like a, they were... It was like an engagement photo in the New York Times. What do you think about this?

Scott Galloway 40:38 Well, it is a big moment in business history because this is now the most expensive acqui-hire of all time-

Kara Swisher 40:44 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 40:44 ... at six and a half billion dollars. And at just 55 employees, that's 120 million per employee.

Kara Swisher 40:50 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 40:51 Actually, no, the biggest... Number three was Instagram. I think it was 20 people, uh, billion, so 50 million. This is now... I was wrong. This is now number two at 120 million per employee. Number one was Meta's acquisition of WhatsApp, which was purchased for over $300 million per employee. But this was an acqui-hire. They're getting stock. I don't think they're getting cash, but even if it gets cut in half or by 75%, I, I think OpenAI is dra- dramatically overvalued right now. But this is an acqui-hire, and I can see why... The justification is they got, they got a lot of press, a lot of awareness today. Quite frankly, this isn't a, as big a story as Google's, uh, announcement of some of their AI products yesterday. OpenAI stepped on it.

Kara Swisher 41:38 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 41:39 Basically-

Kara Swisher 41:40 Ah, yes.

Scott Galloway 41:40 ... it took the oxygen out of the room.

Kara Swisher 41:41 Good point.

Scott Galloway 41:41 It was... I don't know if they planned it, but it was quite brilliant. As soon as Google came out with this, they came out with this, this loved picture of them, and Jony Ive is a very compelling, charismatic guy, and they stepped all over-

Kara Swisher 41:53 They did.

Scott Galloway 41:53 ... Alphabet's big announcement, which, by the way, is a lot more meaningful- (laughs)

Kara Swisher 41:57 Yeah, that's a jobs move.

Scott Galloway 41:58 ... in terms of tech news.

Kara Swisher 41:58 That was a jobs move.

Scott Galloway 41:59 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 41:59 You know?

Scott Galloway 41:59 They stepped on it. They basically-

Kara Swisher 42:01 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 42:01 ... they basically said, "Now back, back, back of the bus."

Kara Swisher 42:04 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 42:04 Um, in terms of your story, uh, it... Look, good for Jony Ive. He's a, he's a visionary. This is him saying that if we can come up with a better user interface or some sort of hardware product, it signals to the market that there... more leadership. Is it worth six and a half billion dollars? That's a 2% dilution at a $340 billion... I mean, that's real fricking, uh, um, dilution, but if it gets them awareness and they can end up having a cleaner user interface on their search or-

Kara Swisher 42:33 They need it.

Scott Galloway 42:33 ... whatever product, you know, good for them. So...Look, I, I think it was a risk worth taking.

Kara Swisher 42:39 Talk about the consumer. The con- 'cause they're obviously leaning, and Jony Ive is the, probably the greatest designer in consumer technology history, right? One of them. I mean, beh- possibly the one. Um, and so this is the idea of how do you make AI useful, right? And so a lot of it is very kludgey, how you use AI. And those pins were just ridiculous. We made fun of them. Um, but there has to be some way because I have to say, I've been noticing, I mean, you use AI all the time. I'm really using it. I don't use Google Search anymore.

Scott Galloway 43:08 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 43:08 I use ChatGPT, like, for all, and they're, they're better answers. They really are. I, uh, and I, I, I, I'd like a little more information about the provenance of the information I'm getting sometimes. Um, but I feel pretty good about, uh, it's getting better and better, that's for sure. But how it integrates into ... Interestingly, my Apple things are getting useful. When, in my messages suddenly it said, "Your Amazon package is, is at your doorstep," and it never did that before. It's insert- AI is definitely inserting itself, trying to coordinate all my apps at this point, um, in a way that's much more actually useful. But do you think ... Th- th- they're going full consumer here, and they're hitting at phone makers, they're hitting at search, they're hitting at, you know, travel agencies. They're hitting at libraries. I mean, how do you look at this?

Scott Galloway 44:00 I, I mean, you could see an AI phone. And, and Jony Ive is one of probably the three or five, one of the three or five greatest consumer designers. I mean, I'll list off some others. Charles and Ray Eames, the furniture guys. Dieter Rams, uh, who was th- uh, kind of the original consumer design company, I think, was Braun. (laughs) They said that, you know, this stuff can be more interesting and not just functional and ugly and look like Soviets designed it. James Dyson, I think would have to be up there. Um, a guy named Achille Castiglioni, who was known for furniture and lighting. If you, you know, I love furniture, and I think some of the more interesting design i- in consumers has actually been in furniture of all places. But anyways, he's, he's right up there. I can see, I can see an AI phone. Uh, there's something about when you get a physical product that creates ... I was having lunch with, uh, Jordan Harbinger, who's this kid, and he's a great podcaster. And I just like him. I think he's a really decent, young man, 40 years old, young kids. And, and I said, my advice to him was, "You need to write a book," because, uh, something you can hold in your hands, it takes the podcaster and makes it, gives you a level of heft and gravitas. I kind of feel the same about a physical product for these digital-only companies, that if Google can put out an interesting laptop or a good phone, and the Pixel phone, while it hasn't really gotten any traction, is a great phone. It, it gives you a certain level of, I don't know, heft, gravitas that it takes you ... I mean, for God's sakes, Meta's been trying to figure it out. They might have it with their AR, AR, uh-

Kara Swisher 45:40 Ray-Ban glasses, actually.

Scott Galloway 45:41 Ray-Ban glasses.

Kara Swisher 45:42 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 45:43 But there's just a certain affinity or affection or gravitas you get when you have something people can hold in their hands-

Kara Swisher 45:49 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 45:49 ... or marvel at its beauty, 'cause you are limited in terms of what you can do in a digital interface.

Kara Swisher 45:54 In a d- you know what I was thinking? My iPhone suddenly feels older, too old. Like, it's, something else has to come. And I, for the first time, when I read this, even though Ive has sort of been through many cycles and he's sort of at the end of a very long and illustrious career, I think he's got one more in him. And like, it's, it, there, someone could supplant Apple. Someone could. You, that's what I thought of when I heard this.

Scott Galloway 46:19 Will. You know it'll happen at some point.

Kara Swisher 46:20 Yes, I know.

Scott Galloway 46:21 Just when?

Kara Swisher 46:21 But someone will. This, I never thought that, that it was r- I thought someone, of course, will. But now I'm like, "Oh, I can see it. I can see them making something I would buy." Anyway, we'll see.

Scott Galloway 46:31 So-

Kara Swisher 46:32 We'll see.

Scott Galloway 46:32 ... uh, I was, I'm an investor and was on the board for a couple years in a company called Ledger-

Kara Swisher 46:36 Right.

Scott Galloway 46:36 ... which is the kind of the premier hardware wallet for crypto.

Kara Swisher 46:38 Yeah, they're in a little trouble 'cause of some s- security issues, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway 46:42 Uh ...

Kara Swisher 46:43 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 46:43 I actually, I think, well, I-

Kara Swisher 46:45 A lot of their stuff got, uh-

Scott Galloway 46:45 It's still known as a, it's, it's still known as a secure store.

Kara Swisher 46:47 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 46:47 It's like 13% of all crypto is stored on these devices. Company's doing really well. I, I, I see, I see the numbers. But anyways, I left the board mostly 'cause I hate crypto and I should post it everywhere. So I wasn't a good fit (laughs) for that board. But, uh, you know who took my spot is Tony Fadell, uh, because the company realized he's been very involved in the design. And one of the things that, that Ledger Nanos do have on the competition is they just kind of feel better in your hand. They look cooler. And so they realized that the guy who, you know, the, the guy who was involved in the iPod and, uh, uh, I think he was involved in Nest, that it makes sense. These people, top-end designers are rock stars, and they can have a material impact on the perception. And when you have a tech company with people who brighten up a room by leaving it, having some of that sex appeal in the, in beautiful things, it, it, you know, it just, it, it ... I think, uh, as I just talk, process this, it probably is worth-... the 2% dilution when this company is trading at three. You know, OpenAI needs to maintain a lot of momentum and constantly be in the news to justify a third of a (laughs) trillion-dollar valuation right now.

Kara Swisher 48:00 Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's a b- it's a beau- I have one, it's gorgeous, and Tony is really great. The other one would be Yves Behar. There's a couple, um, but, uh, and then-

Scott Galloway 48:08 Oh, that's a good one.

Kara Swisher 48:09 ... uh, Susan Kare, who designed all the original stuff for Apple, all the iconic or, uh, iconic stuff for Apple. She did all the... Anyway, she, there's a couple of really f- well-known tech designers, and, um, uh, Ive is the very top of that pile, in any case. All right, Scott, let's go on

Kara Swisher 48:24 a quick break. When we come back, Google introduces AI Mode. Scott, we're back. Google has announced it will roll out its AI Mode, the new... It sounds so scary. A new search feature which will function like a chatbot to all users in the US. The feature will include personalized and automated email replies, can automatically purchase items when they're on sale, and with a new addition, uh, can click around the web for y- uh, for you, like to book travel. This is the idea behind all this stuff. For now, AI Mode will just appear as an option inside of Google Search. However, the group of the biggest news published in the US expressed disapproval in a statement on Wednesday saying the new feature deprives publishers of traffic and revenue. No shit. An internal document disclosing Google's antitrust trial this week revealed that the company decided against making publishers, asking publishers for permission to have their work featured in AI search features. Uh, talk a little bit AI Mode. I mean, again, they've got to, um, uh, they've got to, uh, this is, they've got to fight back 'cause they sort of are, have the pole position being the leader in search. They should be dominating this, and they're certainly not, um, although they're cert- they've certainly got a lot of power. So, talk about, would you use AI Mode to replace your other apps? I find myself using Google a lot less than a lot more in my experience, and I'm s- shifting over to ChatGPT and whatever's on Apple. And I ce- I guess, I'm, I'm just about to shift from Google Maps to A- to Apple Maps 'cause they've gotten as good, for example.

Scott Galloway 49:50 Hmm.

Kara Swisher 49:51 So, thoughts?

Scott Galloway 49:52 Well, the metaphor I use is that Google is big box, everything at the lowest price.

Kara Swisher 49:58 Walmart.

Scott Galloway 49:58 But there's some decision calorie expenditure. You have to decide which, which of the 45 brands of peanut butter you want. Whereas AI, especially retail, and so we're not gonna give you ans- every answer, we're just gonna give you the three best toasters or the one best, and that's specialty retail. I think there's room for both, but specialty retail took market capitalization away from big box, and I think that's gonna happen here. Having said that, I actually like the chat-like interface with Google Search. I use it. I find it's now at the top. They're integrating into the search, and they're saying, "Look, if you wanna go down the aisle and pick out which of the 100 toasters is fine, but we're doing, like, similar to what AI does, we're trying to at least start with what we think is the best toaster or the best answer." I also, one of my predictions in October for 2025 was I called it The Empire Strikes Back. I think, I think Alphabet is about to strike back, and I think still the largest concentration of IQ and even IQ related to AI is in fact at Alphabet. And also, the scale they have is, uh, uh, uh, uh, the scale they have, so just, just one piece of data here. There are 373 times more queries on Google than on OpenAI right now. Now granted, their search has declined, but I still think that Alphabet with their I- their IP, their IQ, their capital, and the interface they have, is still, I just, I think it would be very dangerous to count Alphabet out. And I believe that Alphabet's market cap will go up, and I think OpenAI's is gonna go down. And when I saw that product release yesterday of the different things, their, you know, their AI Mode, the chat-like interface, um, I think that, I, I thought it, I, I was blown away by that (laughs) for the, that, those product releases yesterday. I think it's really incredible-

Kara Swisher 51:52 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 51:52 ... what they're doing.

Kara Swisher 51:53 So d- did, did they not get stepped on? How do you look at that?

Scott Galloway 51:56 Oh, from a PR standpoint, they lost.

Kara Swisher 51:58 Yeah. Okay.

Scott Galloway 51:59 I mean, one guy, Jony Ive, and his $6.5 billion acquisition is the bigger news today. They released so much stuff that I think a lot of the stuff kind of stepped on each other. I would have paced it out, uh, and had a series of product releases, but some of the things, like, eh, basically putting a movie studio (laughs) on your phone, some of the, the, the stuff that feels like Midjourney but better, I, it just, some of the stuff they announced yesterday, I felt like I needed a few hours to really digest and understand, but I just got the sense they have all of a sudden, that they got the memo that they're behind and they need to catch up, and I think the distance between, that they're lagging OpenAI substantially narrowed yesterday, is how I, I w- did, did you see it and what did you think about it?

Kara Swisher 52:43 Uh, I think OpenAI's principal competitor is Google. That's it. That's it. I don't, I don't... Meta from the outside with the Open stuff, and they're certainly a player, but if I had to, the top three are those three, absolutely. Um, I did see it, and I do use, I, I think what I like about n- Google Search, and I still, I still use it, I'm just using it less, just slightly less. Uh, I c- I can, I wa- I feel my patterns, right? 'Cause I went, Google was the go-to period, and now it's not the go-to period. Uh, but I do like when you search for something, the questions they add, like, like, it, it anticipates your next question of why this is this, um, and why this is this. And so I like that. I think, I think Search is a lot more use- searchable and useful, and I t- never go down below the first six inches, right? Of the whole thing. I, they usually get my answer to me pretty quickly. Um, and so that's, that's great, except for everyone else below the line, right? Um, they are deploying it well. I, they still, still have a problem with design, you know? I, I always thought this was Apple's to lose in terms of delivering. I, Apple I don't think is...... doing anything that's really fantastic in terms of AI deployed to help me through my day. Uh, I think Chat PT- GPT is much more helpful, um, and, and I think they're kludgey too. I think they're all kludgey. So we'll see. I think obviously Google's, I think you're absolutely right. He- it's the empire strikes back, and they have to. And so they

Kara Swisher 54:07 have to get more dynamic, I suspect. Anyway, um, let's move on to the last thing. Democrats still want a Joe Rogan, Scott. Uh, since their loss in November, donor retreats and pitch documents have been full of asks for rich backers to contribute to the party's efforts to develop an army of influencers. Efforts include American Bridge, one of the largest Democratic donor networks, which has launched a plan for a nonprofit called Achieve Narrative Dominance, and aims to have a budget of over 70 million dollars. Project Echo, a new four-year, $52 million influencer program from the progressive nonprofit American Way, and several other smaller projects looking to amplify left-leaning influencers. Um, I'm just looking at the top charts. I'm just using podcasts, because there's lots of ways to influence on all, all the different platforms. But actually, Joe Rogan's dropped rather considerably. He's now down at six. Um, I think left-wing ones or left or softer ones are near the top. Uh, Good Hang with Amy Poehler is really burning the charts these days. The Daily is still up there. Obviously Megyn Kelly's still up there. But I gotta say, a lot, it's, it's not so much a right-dominated, um, uh, thing. Tyle- uh, Tucker Carlson's up near the top, but so is Michelle Obama right next to him. MeidasTouch is right there, um, along with, um, things like Diary of a CEO, you know, more the- or the crime ones that are up to the top. So, you know, I feel like, um, it's a mixed bag these days on a lot of these shows. Um, I don't know. What do you think? Should they try to do this? It seems kind of silly. It's sort of like making Fetch happen.

Scott Galloway 55:41 Yeah, I, I do think they dominate. There's been some ... So I think the, first off, I, I, I-

Kara Swisher 55:49 Pivot is 76, just so you know, in the world.

Scott Galloway 55:51 What is?

Kara Swisher 55:52 Pivot.

Scott Galloway 55:52 Pivot? We're 76 in the world? Yeah. Um-

Kara Swisher 55:53 Yeah, we're top 100. We're in the top 100.

Scott Galloway 55:56 Watch out, 75.

Kara Swisher 55:57 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 55:57 Um, the- but also we get hard-

Kara Swisher 56:00 We're higher than Charlie Kirk, so.

Scott Galloway 56:01 Well, but here's the thing. When you're Democratic, we're, you know, we're seen as center left to crazy left.

Kara Swisher 56:07 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 56:07 Uh, I won't say who's who. Um, but-

Kara Swisher 56:11 You.

Scott Galloway 56:11 (laughs) We have ... (laughs) I like that you said I'm a-

Kara Swisher 56:11 You've become much more liberal.

Scott Galloway 56:12 I'm a San Francisco lesbian.

Kara Swisher 56:14 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 56:14 Anyways-

Kara Swisher 56:15 I'm just saying.

Scott Galloway 56:15 ... the, um, the, uh-

Kara Swisher 56:16 Prop G is 87. I'm just... Sorry, go ahead. (laughs) Keep going.

Scott Galloway 56:20 What's Pivot?

Kara Swisher 56:21 Uh, Pivot is 76.

Scott Galloway 56:22 And Prop G's 87.

Kara Swisher 56:23 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 56:23 I love that you threw that in.

Kara Swisher 56:25 I'm just saying.

Scott Galloway 56:25 Oh my God, that's such a Kara Swisher thing. Oh, by the way-

Kara Swisher 56:27 Just saying.

Scott Galloway 56:29 Uh-

Kara Swisher 56:29 We're higher than All-In. Two bad boys.

Scott Galloway 56:32 The-

Kara Swisher 56:32 BBFFs or whatever you call yourself.

Scott Galloway 56:34 But we get, I mean, in terms of... I'm focused on money versus rankings. The Democratic podcasts get a much higher CPM, because the bottom line is Democrats listening to podcasts have more money than some of the Republicans listening to these podcasts. The- I do still think they dominate. Occasionally stuff is breaking through, like The MeidasTouch came out of nowhere into the top five. But a lot of the top podcasts, uh, like Steven Bartlett is pretty much middle of the road. He tries to be apolitical. I think he's gonna replace Joe Rogan. And I'm, uh, Joe Rogan, I, I kind of feel like we should all send Joe a, a royalty, because he kind of busted open the medium. I still think he's number one on, on most, uh, counts, if you really are honest over the medium and long term. Mel Robbins, who's broken through, but she's not, she's not political. Um, and, but there's, uh, Megyn does a great job on podcasts in terms of her viewership. Tucker's right at the top. It still pretty is, it still really is very right. Now, what the Republican Party does really well is the synchronicity between their think tanks, their media, their podcasters, and their candidates. The Democrats war within each other. I mean, if you think about even, there were four parties, uh, just a few years ago. There was the kind of George Bush, Mitt Romney Republicans, and MAGA, and then there's the Bernie, AOC side of the Democratic Party, and kind of the more moderate side. The right has consolidated around MAGA. The Romney, McCain, Bush Republicans are gone. They've been cast into the wilderness. And to a certain extent, that's an advantage, because they're all on the same page from a messaging standpoint and all speak to the same talking points. "I don't think it's good for America." Whereas the Democrats, we're still warring with each other. We're still saying, "Oh, you're my ally, but I don't like the way you're holding the gun." And we're spending a lot of time, you know, getting angry at Jake Tapper as opposed to re- saying, "Okay, let's focus on the fact that the biggest grift in history is taking place." So, uh, what I've thought about doing, and I've talked to some podcasters about, is, is as we go into '26, I want to be more coordinated around organizing with other kind of what I'll call like-minded podcasts. Because I do think podcasts are increasing their influence. And I've said that I think our revenues are g- in podcasting are gonna grow dramatically, because I think political candidates are gonna start transferring money from local news stations to podcasts based on Trump's genius move to go right into podcasting. But I think the left needs to be much more organized.

Kara Swisher 59:01 Yes, this is what I talked to you about, this idea of creating a consolidated, uh, about six months ago, this idea of bringing us all together, um, where we trade podcasts. The right does this beautifully.

Scott Galloway 59:11 Promote each other, highlight great candidates.

Kara Swisher 59:13 Right.

Scott Galloway 59:14 Maybe, maybe even circulate certain data that's super interesting that people aren't focused on. But everyone, I'd like to see everyone from kind of the, the smartless guys to Crooked Media. You know, those guys are so smart.

Kara Swisher 59:26 Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway 59:26 Let's just be a little bit more, you know, I was talking about-

Kara Swisher 59:29 I, I don't think we w- uh, the problem is, I don't think the left moves in lockstep in the same way. They are-

Scott Galloway 59:35 Exactly.

Kara Swisher 59:35 ... the house organs, right? And so when I was, I was talking to some rich people into doing this about six months ago, this idea. But it's really hard. What you have to do is more, uh, push each other. You know, I, we've had, I've had Julie Louise Dreyfus on our thing. We're gonna do, we're gonna do some things with Crooked, I hope, um, where we trade and push each other. It, the problem is, we don't coordinate with the Trump administration or whoever the Democrat, uh, in our case, whoever the Democratic adminis- We're not gonna go, "All right, Pete, what do you want us to do today?" the way the Trump...... people do with-

Scott Galloway 1:00:07 No, an autocracy is very efficient. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:00:09 ... with toxic- Yeah, it is. Right.

Scott Galloway 1:00:11 And, uh, I, I think that, uh, there's a certain... I think there's a certain elegance to wh- once you get... Uh, I think our messaging has to be more on point and more coordinated.

Kara Swisher 1:00:21 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:21 And we have to do a better job of building each other up and-

Kara Swisher 1:00:23 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:00:24 ... and highlighting Richie Torres or Wes Moore-

Kara Swisher 1:00:27 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:27 ... or Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer or-

Kara Swisher 1:00:29 Right. Right.

Scott Galloway 1:00:29 ... whoever it is. And start, and also highlighting the fact that, okay, while you were sleeping, you know, there was a million and a half dollar per d- uh, uh, I mean, uh, just some of the grift that we're-

Kara Swisher 1:00:41 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:00:41 ... constantly seeing.

Kara Swisher 1:00:43 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:00:43 Um, and just-

Kara Swisher 1:00:44 You did very, one of our most popular social things was Scott listing, um, all the grift, like in a list. It was really pop- just to bring it together.

Scott Galloway 1:00:53 Well, but there's, there's all sorts of great talking points.

Kara Swisher 1:00:54 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:54 He did a trip to the Middle East. But the two biggest economies in the Middle East, or the three biggest, are Turkey, Israel... Or Turkey, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Israel. And he avoided Turkey and Israel 'cause they're democracies and they wouldn't figure... They could not give him grift. Even Turkey couldn't give him a 747. There's no fucking way Israel would bribe him or his sons. So he skipped those countries. He went to the countries where the, the, the supreme ruler was willing to give them (laughs) a 400... uh, a billion dollar golf course, a multi-hundred million dollar Trump Tower, or a 747. That's what he picked up in those three countries. You know what he would have picked up in Israel? He would have picked up a trip to the border and, and, uh, and he's not... just of, of the Gaza border, which he's not interested in. He's actually not interested in actual defense.

Kara Swisher 1:01:43 Right. Or saving those... anybody there. Um, or settling anything there. Um, one of the things that was pretty heinous yesterday was it was a joke, as you're noting this, the head of South Africa, uh, made a joke, "I, uh, I don't have a plane to give you" and then Trump goes, "Well, I'd take it if you did." Um, by the way, that was... uh, he was spewing right-wing conspiracy stuff-

Scott Galloway 1:02:03 That there's a genocide against white people?

Kara Swisher 1:02:04 ... for the wrong country. It was for Congo. Even his conspiracy theories were inaccurate. Like, it was just full of nonsense. That was a white sp- And by the way, guess who I blame for that?

Scott Galloway 1:02:15 Who's that?

Kara Swisher 1:02:15 Some... a famous South African who was one of his advisors.

Scott Galloway 1:02:18 Oh, there you go.

Kara Swisher 1:02:18 Um, but anyway, you're right. You're absolutely right. I don't think we have to create a Joe Rogan. There's... that's not what we want. I mean, you could say Jon Stewart sometimes or John Oliver. They're... it's... they're all over the place. We have to create, to me, a, a 360 on every single social platform where, where we're not necessarily coordinating. I think you can't make fetch happen with the left. You can't. But we're really giving messages that... and, and drilling in, as Scott said, on grift, on... give messages of hope and give messages of, "These guys are crooks" over and over and over again. But coordination is not really a left thing to do.

Scott Galloway 1:02:54 But the, the way I presented it to-

Kara Swisher 1:02:56 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:02:56 ... the people I'm speaking to is that really good CMOs... Bad CMOs get a directive from, from the CEO and just take budget from the brands and then impose a series of guidelines around, "I want this type of advertising for this brand." And ultimately, they get fired because all the powers with the people making the money at the individual brands, they start to resent the CMO and he or she gets fired. Good CMOs become a center of excellence in, uh, basically shared services where they say, "I've done a bunch of work on media effectiveness and if any of the brands wanna come to me, I will provide you with this data." I think we need to be... we need a group of people that says, "We have some amazing candidates that are available for interviews. Up to you. Here they are. And we can make it seamless and easy for you. Every day, we're gonna send out a series of talking points and data that you may choose or may not choose to highlight in your stories. By the way, SmartLess, Pivot would like to promote you and promote certain episodes. Would you be interested in a reciprocal deal to re- promote them? And we're also gonna promote The MeidasTouch. Would you like to be part... all opt-in... Would you like to be part of a consortium that helps build each other's audience?" So share... almost like just a shared services where it becomes a pull as opposed to a push. But us lecturing at them saying, "Oh, you need to highlight this or talk this way," these people are gonna stick up the middle finger. These people-

Kara Swisher 1:04:10 Yep, exactly.

Scott Galloway 1:04:11 ... have their own businesses to run.

Kara Swisher 1:04:11 That's the problem. That's the problem. Um,

Kara Swisher 1:04:14 all right, one more quick break and we'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Scott Galloway 1:04:22 My prediction is that, um... uh, it goes back to a prediction I made in October of last year. And my prediction is The Empire Strikes Back. And I, I just want to be clear, my financial advice to anyone, especially a young person, is hope you go double platinum or sell your company, but just in case you don't, save 3% to 5% of your salary in a tax advantaged vehicle in low cost, diversified index funds, not only in the US but across the world. And by the time you're my age, even if you haven't gone double platinum or sold your business, you're gonna be fine. And try to resist the temptation of believing you're smarter than everyone else and do stock picking and limit that to 20% or 30%. And I do think it's worthwhile to take some of your money and do stuff 'cause it forces you to learn about the market. And also, quite frankly, it's fun. Anyways, that's my big asterisk there. Having said that, my prediction is that, um, Alphabet is gonna outperform the market. And if you look at Alphabet right now, they have so many incredible businesses. So the Google Cloud is a, basically a $43 billion business going to 50. And if you put the same multiple on that business that Oracle gets, you get about a $400 billion, a company worth about $400 billion. YouTube, which is essentially the biggest streamer in the world, if... it does $54 billion in business. If you apply that Netflix multiple, you get a 650 billion, so at $1.1 trillion. Waymo, in my opinion, let's not even count that. Uh, but I still think... I think that's worth a lot of money. I think the autonomous war is about to break out and the leader is going to be Waymo. And if they spin that out, I think that'll get a huge valuation. So essentially what you have is, at the most conservative level, Google is being...... Google's being valued at, uh, about 800 billion to a trillion, or four to five times revenues. And Chipotle and Coca-Cola ta- trade at six times sales, so, you know,, Cava trades at 10 times sales. So, a $200 billion, a $200 billion tech business that grew at 13% last year does not deserve a lower multiple than Coca-Cola merch- a mature food and beverage firm with less than 50 billion in revenue that grew 3%. So, if you do a sum of the parts analysis, it's undervalued. So, the question is, well, why is it undervalued? And the, the two reasons I think are one, the existential threat posed by OpenAI, which is a threat, but I think it's been overestimated, and two, the likelihood of antitrust and a breakup, which I believe would actually be accretive to shareholders if they were forced to spin some of these companies, 'cause they would be unlocked from this conglomerate tax that the company is paying right now. And my final point here is that right now Google trades at a PE of 19. The S&P 500 with its drawdowns trades at 24. So, take an average company in the S&P, a PNG or a Dow. Like, I don't know what company sort of embodies the S&P, but those are both great companies. But any average, quote-unquote, "average" company in the S&P is not nearly as impressive, isn't growing nearly as fast (laughs) , doesn't have nearly the margins of an Alphabet.

Kara Swisher 1:07:21 All right.

Scott Galloway 1:07:21 So-

Kara Swisher 1:07:22 Sundar Pichai thanks you.

Scott Galloway 1:07:23 Well, I really think this company of all of the big tech right now is the most undervalued, and it's being overly punished because of this existential threat of O- OpenAI and the notion of antitrust, one, I think is overstated, I think they are absolutely striking back in terms of AI, and two, I think antitrust, if it, if it, the law was passed and they had to spend something, would actually be accretive to shareholders. There is no reason. Alphabet, at the end of the day, is a much more impressive company than your average S&P company, and yet it's trading at 18 or 19 versus, uh, 25. And it's traded at an average of 26 over the last five years. And even this year, even with its bump up yesterday, it's down 12% year-to-date. It's, this is an impressive company that e- some, I think, is undervalued.

Kara Swisher 1:08:09 So, so interestingly, um, because Sundar Pichai is sort of never mentioned. You know, you give Satya lots of props. He's kind of a plodder. I know him very well. I've known him since he was a young, um, product manager on a bunch of stuff at Google. Um, he's kind of a plodder. He's always thought of as, doesn't make decisions fast enough. He certainly isn't a hand-waver about himself. You know, he's quite, he's a lovely person in, in terms of, of being, um, he's just a nice guy. He's just a really nice guy. So, he doesn't get the kind of props, and you're right, um, uh, it's, it's a difficult company to tell the story of 'cause there's so many parts of it. So, that's an interesting prediction. I think that's, that's interesting. But I, I will note, I use Google a lot less than I did. I don't know why. Um, but you're right. They, they have a lot of, they, they really, it's theirs to lose in many ways. But it's good they have competitors.

Scott Galloway 1:08:56 Let me, let me bring in a totally unrelated topic.

Kara Swisher 1:08:58 Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:08:59 So, Sundar Pichai and-

Kara Swisher 1:09:01 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:09:01 ... Satya Nadella, t- two guys who created unbelievable market cap-

Kara Swisher 1:09:05 Uh-huh.

Scott Galloway 1:09:05 ... hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs, incredible ecosystem, incredible shareholder value. Uh, Sundar's from Madurai, India, and, uh, uh, Satya is from Hyderabad, India.

Kara Swisher 1:09:16 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:09:17 I- the, the, the fact that we are not saying to every Indian (laughs) , "Co- golden visa for anyone?" I can tell you, and I get, I'm being, I'm being a racist here. I think the Indian population that immigrates to America is some of the most accretive, positive human capital flow in history. Walk around the halls of Stern. These Indian-Americans, these people who got to IT and then decided of all their options to come to America, they are a gift to America (laughs) .

Kara Swisher 1:09:51 At one point, uh, w- the, uh, the head of Microsoft, Sundar was a name that was floated as the head of Microsoft also because he hadn't gotten the CEO of Google job. Um, but, uh, yes, they're both really remarkable, uh, citizens of the United States and also immigrants. Um, and, uh, you know, uh, I've had lots of really interesting discussions with Sun- Sundar about the Tr- anti-immigration Trump stuff. But he's a quiet leader. We'll, I think he'll probably, you're right. The- it's theirs to lose. That's a really interesting prediction. My prediction-

Scott Galloway 1:10:19 Yes.

Kara Swisher 1:10:19 ... is that at 10 o'clock tonight, Kara Swisher will be so happy 'cause she's watching.

Scott Galloway 1:10:23 Oh, you're gonna? I'm curious. You gotta text me-

Kara Swisher 1:10:25 (laughs) .

Scott Galloway 1:10:25 ... and tell me what you think.

Kara Swisher 1:10:25 10 o'clock. I'll, I'll text you at 2:00 in the morning 'cause it's a three-hour movie. Anyway, 'cause it'll be, like, a half an hour of previews, I'm sure. Anyway, I'm so excited. I've got the, I bought the popcorn in advance and the drink, and I'm very excited to watch-

Scott Galloway 1:10:37 That's very exciting.

Kara Swisher 1:10:37 ... Mission: Impossible Final Reckoning. Anyway, uh, I feel like an ad for them, but I don't care. I love that movie. Anyway, I love the, the series. Anyway, uh, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Uh, okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is growing handily. Scott, we're actually dark next Tuesday for Memorial Day, but we'll have a great episode of Stay Tuned with Preet in our feed. We'll be back next Friday. Uh, Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway 1:11:11 Today's show was produced by Laura Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Kevin Oliver, and Corinne Roth. Ernie Neider tot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Beros, Miss Saverio, Dan Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishad Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. 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. Kara, enjoy the movies.

Kara Swisher 1:11:38 Hey, I have a little favor to ask you. Pivot is planning for the future of the show, and we want our listeners to be part of the conversation. That's why we're hoping you'll help us out by filling out a brief survey. Your feedback will help us figure out what's working, what's not, and how we can make Pivot even better. Just visit voxmedia.com/survey to give your feedback. That's voxmedia.com/survey.