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Scott Galloway: Elon Musk Defines Messiah Complex | Pivot

Kara and Scott unpack the FCC’s attack on Disney and what it means for media and free speech. Then, they break down a massive Big Tech earnings day, the AI spending arms race, and the "ketamine economy." Plus, Elon Musk takes the stand in the OpenAI trial, and Taylor Swift moves to protect her voice and image from AI. #pivot #podcast #karaswisher #scottgalloway #fcc #disney #bigtech #ai #ketamine #markets #elonmusk #openai #samaltman #taylorswift 00:00 Intro 00:18 FCC Comes For Disney 13:18 Big Tech Earnings 26:55 Elon Testifies 36:54 Taylor Swift Fights Against AI 47:36 Predictions Producers: Lara Naaman Zoë Marcus Taylor Griffin Todd Wiseman Vox Media's Executive Producer of Podcasts: Nishat Kurwa Subscribe to Pivot on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pivot/id1073226719 Subscribe to Pivot on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4MU3RFGELZxPT9XHVwTNPR Follow us on Instagram and Threads at: https://www.instagram.com/pivotpodcastofficial/ Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@PIVOTPODCAST Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email pivot@voxmedia.com

Kara SwisherhostScott Gallowayhost
May 1, 202657mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:000:18

    Intro

    1. KS

      You know what I thought about doing, Scott?

    2. SG

      What's that?

    3. KS

      I thought about going down to the courtroom when I was in San Francisco, 'cause I had some free time, and just sitting and waving at him. "Hey, girls. What up?" [upbeat music] Let's get to the news. Um, the FCC,

  2. 0:1813:18

    FCC Comes For Disney

    1. KS

      this story, Scott, has ordered Disney to file early renewal applications for its ABC-owned broadcast licenses. These are f- these are affiliates in different city, years ahead of the normal schedule. The commission is citing an ongoing investigation into Disney's DEI practices as justification. More notably, it comes days after Trump and Melania renewed a push to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air after he made a joke about Melania being an expectant widow. Uh, Disney is pushing back hard. The new CEO is not having it, and he's being supported by a range of companies and everything else. This is a step too car- far for our good friend and moron, uh, Bren- Brenda Carr, um, [chuckles] I'm calling him Brenda, um, who is a moron. He's a moron, and he's just such a nakedly political, although I wouldn't wanna see him naked, political person who is just carrying water for the Trumps. Melania doing this was, you know, fascinating. But, you know, Kimmel's just emboldened and has put out a series of things, and, uh, and no one's p- no one is putting up with this shit, and they're gonna lose. The FCC's gonna lose in court. But what a harassment of an American company, a classic American company. What do you think about this?

    2. SG

      Well, I actually saw Kimmel's response. I mean, the reality is late night TV is dying without the help of Brenda Carr.

    3. KS

      Sure. Exactly. Yeah.

    4. SG

      And i- in a weird way, it kinda helps. I think Jimmy Kimmel... All the late night people are extraordinarily talented. That is to be quick on your feet, hardworking, come up with new material every night. They're extraordinarily talented people, all of them across the whole spectrum.

    5. KS

      Right.

    6. SG

      And I'm actually trying to get Jimmy Kimmel to come be the interview for our l- uh, Property Markets Live in Satur- uh, in, uh, Los Angeles. Anyways, Jimmy, call me. So I think it'd be very interesting to have him talk about it. I think, I don't think Jimmy should've... He, I watched it where he addressed it and said, "Of course." I think he should just double down and say, "I stand by everything I said."

    7. KS

      He has.

    8. SG

      It's humor.

    9. KS

      He has.

    10. SG

      And-

    11. KS

      He has. And ensuing-

    12. SG

      And-

    13. KS

      ... skits are very funny. He did, he did-

    14. SG

      Well-

    15. KS

      He's done a series

    16. SG

      ... okay, this is, this is what's going on here. Fascism. So who said, "They're poisoning the blood of our country"? Oh, that was Trump.

    17. KS

      Oh, my God.

    18. SG

      Who described political opponents as vermin?

    19. KS

      Yeah. They... Oh, come on.

    20. SG

      Who told the squad to go back to where they come from? Who, who, who said that Adam Schiff was guilty of a crime that is punishable by death? That's treason. The dehumanization, the delegitimization, the exclusion, the criminalization, the existential threat framing, no individual in public office has done more of this-

    21. KS

      In the world

    22. SG

      ... than Donald Trump.

    23. KS

      Not pub- just public-

    24. SG

      So-

    25. KS

      Can I interject?

    26. SG

      Sure.

    27. KS

      One of the things that's incredible is that these are the free speech warriors, right? And I'm like, "Where are, where's all those folk? Where's the folk at the free press?"

    28. SG

      Oh, yeah.

    29. KS

      "Where's the folk? Where's Elon?"

    30. SG

      Comedy's illegal. Remember that one? Comedy should be legal again.

  3. 13:1826:55

    Big Tech Earnings

    1. KS

      Big Tech earnings. They're all over the place, which are, uh, are... Some are calling AI's moment of reckoning. First up, Alphabet. The company reported a 22% surge in first quarter revenue, with sales reaching around 110 billion. What a number. Net income was up 81% compared to the same period a year ago. Shares for Alphabet are up 15% year to date at the time of this taping. Microsoft, the company beat expectations with revenues increasing 18% year over year for the quarter. Capital spending for the company will reach 190 billion, though, this year, a 61% increase over 2025. Amazon beat expectations, expanding revenue in its cloud computing segment by 28% year over year. The company announced it expects to spend 200 billion on AI in 2026. And finally, Meta reported lower than expected CapEx, uh, missed on user growth, which is interesting. This is the first time. Which attributed in part to internet disruptions in Iran. They're blaming Iran. I don't think so. Daily active people was down over 5% over the fourth quarter. In better news, revenue climbed 33% from a year earlier, making it the fastest growing quarter since 2021. So what jumps out at you about these four, uh, uh, companies, besides their enormous spending on AI, obviously? Um, but what's, what jumps out at you?

    2. SG

      A- AI... I used to say this is the attention economy. It's now the, it's now the ketamine economy, where it's dissociated from everything else but AI. And I said yesterday on PropTwo Markets that I thought these guys were gonna blow away their expectations, because what do they monetize? They monetize spending around AI and, and up until today, or till AI came on date, the driver was they monetize attention. With everything that's going on in the world, are you less or more glued to your phone? I, I can't stop looking at my fucking phone. Like, okay, who did we bomb today or what? I, I... So let's just go through the earnings, which were nothing short of staggering. Alphabet's revenues were up 22% to 110 billion. They beat consensus. Their consensus was $5-- was 263. They came in at 511, although some of that was an unnatural equity gain. Google Cloud hit 20 billion, up 63%, with their backlog doubling. Search revenue... It's 460 billion. Jesus Christ. Their backlog's a half a trillion dollars. Search revenue, which was supposedly going away because-

    3. KS

      Yeah

    4. SG

      ... of OpenAI, was up 19%.

    5. KS

      Well, they really-

    6. SG

      Gemini paid monthly active users was up 40% quarter on quarter.

    7. KS

      Gemini is really-

    8. SG

      Full year CapEx-

    9. KS

      ... doing well, I would say, but go ahead

    10. SG

      ... full year CapEx guidance went up. The investors don't like that, 'cause as strong as their top line is, everyone's saying we need to spend more money. Their stock was up 8% in after hours. Let's talk about Microsoft. Azure grew faster than anyone expected, uh, but they had to boost their CapEx guidance, which investors don't like. Revenue up 18% to $83 billion. They also beat consensus wildly. Azure grew 40%. The AI business crossed th- 37 billion annual run rate. That's up 123% year on year. Their commercial backlog is up to two-thirds of a trillion, 627. Their Q1 CapEx was 32 billion, but it's been raised. Their full year CapEx, they've raised 190 billion, well above the 155 they'd expected. OpenAI committed an additional quarter of a trillion dollars in Azure spend the day before the print, but the stock was down 2%. Meta... Ugh, Jesus. Jesus Christ, Kara. Meta revenue was up 33% to $56 billion.

    11. KS

      The efficiencies of AI. This is-

    12. SG

      Earnings of 10 f- of $10 and 44 cents, um, although a bunch of it was a tax benefit. Ad impressions were up 19%, and their, uh, average price per ad was up 12%. Q2 revenue guided to 60 billion, which implies 25% growth. Full year CapEx, again, this is what investors don't like, they raised to 135 billion from 120, and then, um, uh, also higher component prices, and the stock fell 9% after hours. Last one, Amazon. Fastest growth in 15 quarters, [chuckles] but free cash flow collapsed because of their CapEx. Again, good-- What the analysts love-

    13. KS

      200 billion

    14. SG

      ... they're blowing away their top line. What the analysts hate-

    15. KS

      And then they're spending it

    16. SG

      ... is they're all saying we need to spend more money.

    17. KS

      Yeah.

    18. SG

      Revenue was up 17%. EPS blew away, but unfort- a lot of that was because of recognition of a gain in Anthropic stock that, uh, from their investment there. AWS hit 38 billion, up 28%. Advertising grew 24%. Q1 CapEx, again, what the analysts don't like, went from 44 billion, um, uh... I'm sorry, CapEx 44 billion full year at 200 billion. Free cash flow fell. See above, they're increasing their CapEx. OpenAI re- recently committed to consume two gigawatts of... trainium capacity, uh, through AWS, so all of a sudden they're getting into the chip game and stock rose, the stock rose 3% after. It is literally... I, I'm on... So, uh, I, I'm sitting in a lot of pitches of VCs.

    19. KS

      All right, give me an overall. What does this say to you?

    20. SG

      Oh my gosh.

    21. KS

      Oh my gosh is-

    22. SG

      AI is eating the world.

    23. KS

      Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

    24. SG

      It is living up to its expectations, but the CapEx required to live up to those expectation to deliver against the demand is sucking, is basically like, like taking all the juice out of the earnings. The CapEx requirement to live up to the demand, the infrastructure build-out.

    25. KS

      So when does that stop? It's sort of like having a hot spouse that requires a lot of money for you to stay.

    26. SG

      Yeah. Trust me, I know that feeling. Uh, what does it require?

    27. KS

      What does it, what, what does it require for that to not happen?

    28. SG

      Uh, must work har- That's what I always say to myself, "Must work harder."

    29. KS

      [laughs]

    30. SG

      Um.

  4. 26:5536:54

    Elon Testifies

    1. KS

      Scott, we're back. Elon Musk took the stand this week in a trial against OpenAI. Let's go through some of the things he said. He was a, quote, "fool" to provide OpenAI's early funding. He discussed his concerns about AI and not wanting to have a Terminator outcome. He accused OpenAI's lawyer of trying to trick him. When asked, uh, why he brought the suit, Elon said it's not okay to steal a charity, warning if he loses it, it would give license to looting every charity in America. By the way, Elon is not charitable at all in any way, FYI. The judge pushed back, reminding juries that Elon's claims and his opinions have no legal value whatsoever. As I predicted, a number of prospective jurors had thoughts about Elon, with some calling him a greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage and a world-class jerk in questionnaires. Um, I think his, his... This has not been good for Elon. One of the things that Ellie said is they're not used to being, um, when he gave us that, uh, video last week, was that these, that they're not used to being challenged publicly, and he is losing his brain on s- he looks terrible, and he needs to control himself, which, sh- speaking of ketamine, he cannot. He has no ability to do so. Um, I'm gonna be fair to him. He was the first person who did talk about this Terminator outcome 15 years ago to me or something, some, maybe 10. Um, and he was the first person to be very worried about it. He shifted, becoming less worried over the various interviews. At first it was Terminator, then you were a house cat, and then we were like ants that are just gonna get covered by a highway, which isn't mean or anything. Um, but one of the things I would say is he started off that way, and then he immediately lost his mind because he, he tipped out of OpenAI 'cause he thought they couldn't make it, and these emails talk about that. And he signed away his rights. He did give them 38 million, not 100, as he's claimed in other depositions, so he's keeps changing the number, um, which isn't good when you're in, under oath. Um, but one of the things that, uh, is very clear here is that he's shifted to being a greedy hypocrite and started his own company that includes non-consensual, uh, uh, sexual images and child pornography. So it's not like he's here to save us, and he's trying to put himself off as someone who's worried about, uh, AI and is fully participating in the damage it does. Your thoughts?

    2. SG

      So what I h- what I have heard-

    3. KS

      Mm-hmm

    4. SG

      ... how this went down-

    5. KS

      Yeah

    6. SG

      ... in very, like, broad brush actions that kind of give a sense of the, what went down here, and tell me if you've heard different, is that Sam actually tried to raise $500 million when it was a nonprofit for the nonprofit and was unable to do that. Elon showed up and said, "This needs to be a for-profit company, and I need to control it and own 80% of it."

    7. KS

      After he had given the money, yes.

    8. SG

      And the pe-

    9. KS

      That's exactly what happened

    10. SG

      ... and the people there said, "No. We're not up for the for-profit Elon controls part of the game." So he said-

    11. KS

      Which is his brand. He does that on every company. But go ahead

    12. SG

      ... So he said, "I'm out," and he signed paperwork. This is the, this is literally the biggest example of seller's regret in history.

    13. KS

      Yeah. You're right.

    14. SG

      And then the other fact pattern here about his, quote-unquote, "trying to pretend he's more noble than he is," and he's really worried about AI. Who went on to develop an LLM that most experts would say has the fewest guardrails? Elon with xAI.

    15. KS

      Yep

    16. SG

      So the fact pattern here, the narrative, and this is my prediction, I don't think OpenAI... I said last week I thought they were gonna settle. I don't think OpenAI wants to settle.

    17. KS

      Hmm. Interesting.

    18. SG

      I think their attitude is, I think, I think Elon's either gonna drop the case or lose.

    19. KS

      Well, it's a jury trial, and then the judge decides on the reprie- whatever the remedies are. It's a, it's a multi-faceted-

    20. SG

      Well, but, but if they're found-

    21. KS

      Right

    22. SG

      ... but if they're found, if OpenAI is found not guilty-

    23. KS

      That's it

    24. SG

      ... or that there's, then it's over.

    25. KS

      Oh, he could appeal.

    26. SG

      And-

    27. KS

      I bet he could appeal. He can always appeal. He's got so much money.

    28. SG

      Yeah, it, it-

    29. KS

      I mean, Trump's gonna appeal the E. Jean Carroll thing to the Supreme Court now that he's lost in the appeals court. The $83 million.

    30. SG

      I'm shocked he wants to keep bringing that up, but anyways, the-

  5. 36:5447:36

    Taylor Swift Fights Against AI

    1. KS

      we're back. Taylor Swift has filed a new trademark application for two voice clips and one image that are likely, uh, an effort to protect her voice and image from AI misuse. This is something a lot of celebrities are doing, but she's probably the biggest one. The voice clips are sound trademarks covering Swift's voice with clips of her saying, "Hey, it's Taylor Swift," and, "Hey, it's Taylor." Registering a celebrity's spoken voice has not been tested in court. Matthew McConaughey has also trademarked his use of his images and voice in January. It's an interesting strategy. Um, uh, uh, and she, she did an in- really interesting interview with Joe Cassarelli, who I love, at The New York Times, called The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters. Really wonderful story. It l- uh, it does a range of people, and it's really terrific. Let's listen to what she had to say.

    2. SP

      If there's any way we can make confessional songwriting a little bit more of something that isn't like... People take that as sort of like you were being messy or whatever. You, you have to be fair to everyone th- then. Are, like, are rap beefs messy or are they confessional? Like, we've gotta just, like, let's make it a music conversation rather than just, like, ganging up on the female artists. And I think the more male artists that are messy or emotionally complex or confessional or upset, um, the happier I am.

    3. KS

      And then thirdly, this Universal deal is gonna trigger something in her contract that's gonna force, uh, Universal to pay out all its artists, even if they gave them advances, um, i- if it sells. She put it in to, to protect herself, but it also, uh, she-- the, the way she wrote it, everybody who is at Universal will have to be paid out. So she's getting enormous payouts for all the artists in this possible deal for Universal, which I think will endear her to many artists. Um, what do you think here about any of this? I know you don't like her, but she's a tremendous businessperson.

    4. SG

      I never said-

    5. KS

      I know you don't like her music

    6. SG

      ... I don't like her music here. I don't... That's not fair to say I don't like her.

    7. KS

      Okay. Not her, her music.

    8. SG

      Um-

    9. KS

      Excuse me.

    10. SG

      Yeah. Uh, so, look, the... I- I'm a fan of erring on the side of protections around people's IP, and essentially, uh, uh, Google coming in and crawling every media company, um, people using people's likeness, their voice, I, I, I believe... Jensen Huang said it. Everyone should own their digital twin, and that's not only the physical rendering, but also your voice, your likeness. Uh, people spend a lot of time and energy trying to develop i- IP that they own that they can decide to give to their heirs or sell their catalog or their likeness or their image, and they should own it. And so I'm a, I'm a fan of these cases, and the fact that she's doing it on behalf of other artists is really wonderful, and she's very high profile, and people have enormous affection for her, so she has... She's immediately gonna get public support for whatever she does. So I'm a fan of this, and I'm a fan of how she's handling it, and we need, uh, these companies, I think you said it or your, your, uh, partner Walt Mossberg said it, these guys are pickpockets.

    11. KS

      Yeah.

    12. SG

      And just-

    13. KS

      Rapacious information thieves-

    14. SG

      Just going in

    15. KS

      ... is what Walt said.

    16. SG

      Yeah. So, and now they're stealing likeness. I don't... I, and I think the, I think the, I think the, um, solution here, again, they'll come up with the illusion of complexity, in that is they can calibrate how closely they get to the voi- to her voice without it triggering an IP. But I think it's pretty simple. I think someone should be representing authors and artists and past celebrities, and they or their heirs or their estate can either license it into a giant pool or not, and then every time it is used and you have an AI crawl it, every time an AI takes, takes a, a, a sentence from your book or lets someone speak in your voice, you are entitled to X percent. Uh, music artists have been doing this a long time. When you listen to K-

    17. KS

      But w- what do they do? Let me ask you. Let me-

    18. SG

      Go ahead

    19. KS

      ... dip, diplom that. Uh, when Anne Lamott was on stage with me this week, she talked about how she s- she got the AI to write something in her voice, and she said it was actually better, but it wasn't her, but they had crawled so much of her stuff. So are they making her or a ver- a facsimile of her? And what happened to your Google thing that you did? Was it Google when they did the Scott Galloway teacher?

    20. SG

      Yeah. Pro- portraits.

    21. KS

      What, what happened?

    22. SG

      Yeah.

    23. KS

      You never said what actually hap- You took it down, right?

    24. SG

      Yeah, I started working on it a year ago.

    25. KS

      Yeah.

    26. SG

      I, I think... Uh, so I was getting a lot of emails from people, uh, young men and mothers asking for advice.

    27. KS

      Yeah.

    28. SG

      And I couldn't keep up with it. So I said upload, and they, uh, a former student of mine who's a Google product manager came and said, "We have something called Portraits. We're doing it with a bunch of doctors. We're doing it with a bunch of historians. We're, we cr- we upload everything you've ever done, and someone can come to a, an avatar and ask questions, and it'll give something pretty resembling a reasonable facsimile of the answer you would give." And I said, "That sounds great." And I started working on it about a year and a half ago. It took them about six or nine months, and I tested it, and it actually did. If it said, "Should I get an MBA or not?" It asked good questions and gave it a reasonable answer. And then you actually fucked it up for me.

    29. KS

      Oh.

    30. SG

      You did that interview-

  6. 47:3657:20

    Predictions

    1. KS

      Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. I'm gonna go first. I do think "The Devil Wears Prada" is tracking to be, like, a $200 million movie its first week. Um, I think a lot of these movies, whether it's, uh, "Project Hail Mary," this movie, um, it, it, there's a lot of love for movies that are just well-made by Hollywood and good and fresh, that feel fresh. So I think these movies are killing it at the box office 'cause people... And they're actually watching it in theaters too. They're not just waiting till it goes to digital. They like the community experience of it. And so it's a really interesting thing that, that a lot of these are hitting, um, that are, that are very human-centered. Um, and I like that. I like that.

    2. SG

      Yeah. Uh, I'll see it. Um, so your win is "The Devil Wears Prada"?

    3. KS

      No, the idea that these movies are gonna dom- Like, I, just after Hail Mary, it's that Prada has the same feeling of Hail Mary. It, it feels like real people made it. It's like when you eat a meal that's sort of fake, you n- and then you eat a meal that's homemade. It's-

    4. SG

      Mm-hmm

    5. KS

      ... it, it feels like real people made it who ha- thought about it, who care about standards and quality, and it didn't feel like AI made it. I don't know what else to say.

    6. SG

      The, the rumors of creativity's death at the hands of AI were greatly exaggerated. So there was a moment about 24 months ago where everyone thought all music is gonna be generated by AI, that you'll just give it a good prompt, and it'll come up with new songs that are better than Kanye's. Uh, and that just ha- didn't happen. The muscle between your brain, theThe creativity of a young p- brain, the creativity, the, that still has tremendous moats around it. And even in design, like look at Sora being shut down. Like the, the graphics you get back, the design you get back, the percentage of people in design working at tech firms has actually gone up as a percentage of their employment base. Artists, you know, no AI t- no AI is going on tour right now.

    7. KS

      Yeah.

    8. SG

      But as far as I know.

    9. KS

      They're not gonna Taylor Swift-

    10. SG

      But, but I would-

    11. KS

      ... the situation. They certainly aren't.

    12. SG

      Where, where, where I think you're being a little bit nostalgic-

    13. KS

      Yeah

    14. SG

      ... 'cause I think The Devil Wears Prada and Hail Mary are great movies and will do well at the box office, but box office is still down 30% post-COVID. Content, original content that breaks through will find a way to monetize and be successful. But this collective nostalgia for the movie theater, IPIC, IPIC is going bankrupt where I-

    15. KS

      No, I get it

    16. SG

      ... where I live in Florida.

    17. KS

      I'm not talking about the movie theater. I'm talking about freshness in movies.

    18. SG

      Fresh creative.

    19. KS

      Fresh creative. And, and I'm saying it does, it actually, these movies are showing big pickup in movie theaters. I don't... Overall, downward trend.

    20. SG

      Right. Right.

    21. KS

      It's really interesting that people are, these movies are scoring well in theaters. Like that's-

    22. SG

      Yeah

    23. KS

      ... that's what I'm saying. Not all of them.

    24. SG

      Well, it used to be, it used to be that all of that type of long form content ran, snaked through a theater, and we went to the movies. I remember, I mean, I don't know about you, when I was a kid, I used to go to the movies two or three times a week.

    25. KS

      Yeah. Tw- uh, once.

    26. SG

      I mean, uh-

    27. KS

      At least once a week.

    28. SG

      Yeah, it was just what you did. It's what you did on a date. Uh, it's what I did with my mom. Uh, it's just what you did. You went and saw, we... Uh, granted, I lived in Westwood, and they had the best theaters in the world, but, um, uh, God, I just tried to think the last time I took my kids to a movie. Anyways, um, uh, I'm glad you liked it. So my prediction is much more boring. So I think, so Intel is up, uh, fourfold, and I think it's up, I'm sorry, it's up fivefold. It's up, it's, it's quintupled over the last year, and I think it's about, my prediction is it's gonna, uh, uh, shit the bed, uh-

    29. KS

      [laughs]

    30. SG

      ... because Amazon is now in-

Episode duration: 57:21

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