Trump's Meme Coin Scheme, Alphabet's Earnings, and Cybertruck's Competition
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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I went to the White House Correspondents. Oh, you went? No, I didn't go to the dinner itself. There was parties. No, you went to the parties. I went to the parties. I didn't go to anything. And I actually slept through one of the better parties. I came home after Tammy Hadid's party.

and was so tired I slept the rest of the night. So what have you heard? What's the scuttlebutt from the insiders? I will tell you. Actually, you know, it was supposed to be like, oh, the Trump people weren't there, and oh, how terrible. Actually, it was much more enjoyable. It was like kind of when the tech bros...

left San Francisco and everything was better. Like they sort of abandoned all the restaurants and everyone was like, oh no. And it was much more pleasant, I have to say. It was nice. So let me, I'll go through it. I went to a dinner for the Substack through with my agents, UTA.

That was interesting. The Substack Party. Yeah, we sat across. Bada Hotties there? At Night Silver was there, Jim Acosta, Mehdi Hassan was there. It was nice. The White House Correspondents Center, I feel some affection for because it introduced me to who is my favorite comedian. Oh, oh, what's her name? She was great. Michelle? Michelle? Michelle Wolfe. I think she's a genius. I think she's one of the great comedians.

Yeah, they didn't have one this year, supposedly. I wasn't there because they dumped me. No, they didn't. She wrote, I love her, this quote, you guys got to stop putting Kellyanne on your shows. All she does is lie. If you don't give her a platform and she has nowhere to lie, it's like that old saying, if a tree falls in the woods, how do we know Kellyanne Conway is under that tree? I'm not suggesting she gets hurt, just stuck. Yeah.

- Just stuck. - The Republicans were told to stay away. I did not have one Kellyanne Conway sighting. Usually she's at these things, swanning around, but she wasn't there. I'm trying to think what else was fun. I slept through the NBC party, so I slept all night, but the Tammy party was really fun, and I rode, I sat in a Corvette, which was cool. That was a cool car, beautiful new Corvette, and saw the new EV Escalade, which was gorgeous. Trying to think what else. Oh, there was a CNN party too. Oh, I'll tell you one story.

So I'm at the CNN party, Mark Thompson's there, all the CNN, you know, all the various, you know, Wolf and et cetera, et cetera. And it was at the British embassy, which has a new ambassador. And that's always a nice place because it has a beautiful garden. It was a beautiful day. And I'm standing there. I was sort of like jawing with the Facebook PR people because of that.

The story we'll talk about that Jeff Horowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal about sexy bots, essentially, that are probably bothering children. And Joel Kaplan came up to me, the guy who's head of, you know, the big scary person of Facebook here in Washington, who's taken it sort of on a rightward shift or removed some moderation. And he came up to me. He said, "I just want to thank you." Because I, you know, I had talked about that I didn't think what they said he did in that book he did, which I continue to agree.

And I said something like, well, if I'm going to hate you, I'm going to hate you for the right things, like essentially. But we had an interesting talk. It was interesting. He won't have lunch with me, though. Really? Yeah. I said, come on, don't be scared. I said, are you a man or a mouse? And he said, a mouse. And I was like, what can you say after that? Squeak? I don't know. Yeah. I want to have lunch with him. I'm glad. Yeah.

I'm glad you had a nice time. Anyway, it was good. It was interesting to see some people and it was much more low key. So anyway, what did you do this weekend? Thanks for asking. I had a really nice weekend. Yesterday was the kind of ideal day. I did this long workout with my son in Regents Park. He was home. And then last night, me and my youngest went and had to, there's this great little kind of street of restaurants that,

Right in Marylebone. And then we came home and we had like a dozen pork bao buns, which was awesome. Oh, yum. And he got boba and I got a beer and every third sip we would switch because that made us feel both really naughty. Oh, wow. And then we went home and he's 14. That's perfect. Good. I think that's what we call child abuse. No, it's not. That's fine. And then...

We went home and watched an episode and a half of Game of Thrones. What? You're still watching Game of Thrones? It's eight seasons, Carol. We'll be watching for a couple years. What season are you on? I don't like season two or two. What disemboweling season are you on? Ned Stark hasn't even had his head cut off yet, so I think we're still season one or season two. Who's the tall lady who plays the one who's all devoted to, is it Ned Stark or one of the Starks?

Oh, no. Lady, the knight or the knight in waiting. Lady. Brienne of Tarth. Thank you. Brienne of Tarth. And actually, there's so many. Game of Thrones is never fully recognized for how many wonderful love stories there are. The kind of the love story between her and Jaime is really...

Really unexpected and nice. She's committed to him. That's right. Yeah. I got out. This is disembowelment seisman. When they kept disemboweling people, I was like, and I really don't want to see this. And then when they crushed beautiful Pedro Pascal's head, I didn't like that at all. Oh, that guy was hot. I did not know that was coming. I told you this. I was like, what? Like, I hate when that happens, when I'm like, oh, he's going to get killed. I did not have any clue that that was what was going to happen. Yeah, I think the love story between Jon Snow and...

And what's her name? The main lady. Oh, Igorit. I thought that was one of the nicest love stories in modern day television. Yeah. It was really nice. Yeah, I think they're married. Yeah, in real life they're married. In real life they're married. Yeah, that's a beautiful story that continues. Oh, I forgot. What else I did, I'm not allowed to talk about it, but I went and I saw this thing called Bum Bum Train. Have you heard of this thing? No. Wow. You have to sign an NDA. But if you ever get the chance to do it, go do it.

It was really incredible. What is it? It sounds like a gay bar, but go ahead. Bum bum train? Go ahead. It's what I would call performance art or, you know, the closest analog. I don't want to give too much away, but did you ever go to Sleep No More in New York? No. You become, I'm not even sure. I don't want to give it away other than to say it's one of the most unique experiences. And the thing I love about it is

that it's about 500 or 600 volunteers who help pull it off. Oh, my God. That's cool. But it's really, it was very inspiring. So London is feeling kind of fun. The weather's nice, right? The weather's turning nice, correct? I've experienced something today I haven't experienced in a year in London.

No, I sweat. I took a run and I started sweating. It's so beautiful there when it gets warm. It really is. Oh, for 11 weeks a year, it's the greatest city in the world. It's beautiful. Washington right now has been spectacular for weeks and weeks. I mean, just one beautiful tree explodes after another. Flowers everywhere. This weekend was quite beautiful. It's just gorgeous out. And then it gets like a swamp, a complete swamp.

- Yeah. - Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you're liking the London. I could've come to London and bother you. I've got to stay at your house, et cetera. Go through your things. - Anytime. Yeah. - Yeah.

We got our guest room that's deep in the basement. Oh, excellent. I like that. I wanted to put in a door between the basement and the first floor to lock. Oh, so I couldn't get up? They wouldn't let me do it. No. I can break that lock. The in-laws are in there now, so occasionally I just slip the pizza under the door so you don't come out. Nice, nice, nice. So May is coming. May is coming. We're almost into May, which is really nice. I'm going to San Francisco this weekend. You?

You know what I'm getting? And what are you doing out there? I'm going on Bill Maher on Friday. Are you doing the panel or are you the interview? I'm the panel, but it's just me and Kevin McCarthy. I mean, of all people. Oh, wow. I know, right? So two lesbians. He was...

He was excited. He was like, I was like the former dingity dog who was excited to be with Kara Swisher. Fine. All right, Kevin. So literally, a panel with zero testicles. No, I have several. There you go. I can lend them. Anyway. There you go. Anyway, all right. Now, wake up. We got a lot to get to. I'm sorry. More energy. More energy. Yes, that's correct. Okay. I took a Xanax last night. Did you? I can feel that.

Okay, we've got a lot to get today, including Trump's latest meme coin scheme and the new affordable American-made EV truck backed by Jeff Bezos. It's quite adorable. And again, I just saw the EV of the Escalade, which I also thought was fantastic. It gets 466 miles to a charge, which is amazing. But first, Alphabet earnings are out. And Scott, it's time for another Victory Lab. You are hitting it on all cylinders as...

That's right. There you go. There you go. That's why the people come here. That's why I make the big bucks. That's right. The company overall revenue grew 12% year over year, beating expectations. Overall advertising was up 8.5% from the previous year. And Search and other reported over $50 billion, up 9.8%. Well done, Sundar Pichai.

AI Overviews, Alphabet's AI tool at the top of Google's search page, has 1.5 billion monthly users, and Waymo is providing over 250,000 rides per week. I've got to say, Waymo is the quiet storm in a lot of ways in terms of being successful and useful to people. It's coming to Washington, supposedly. And Alphabet's first quarter profit was boosted by $8 billion in unrealized gains from investments in private company companies.

such as SpaceX. They make investments for people to understand. Listen to what you had to say last week before these earnings were out. Alphabet's reporting, we're talking Thursday, Alphabet's reporting at the end of the day. And I think rumors of Alphabet's struggles have been greatly exaggerated. I still think while ChatGPT is ascending dramatically and does present an existential threat to search, YouTube is just an absolute juggernaut.

And you talk about Waymo. I just think this company is so well run and Google continues to be the largest toll booth in the history of mankind. I think that they're going to beat and I think they're going to have, I think they're going to beat expectations this afternoon because I think some of those expectations have been beaten down.

Well done. Although I have to tell you, Scott, a lot of people are talking about these cases, which they absolutely agree with you and I that will be broken up. And their stock will go up. Anyway, so Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are reporting later this week. Any predictions and any thoughts on Google? I don't have predictions on the other ones. I'll set that for later in the week. But I mean, think about this. I think Alphabet still has room to run because...

If you look at Alphabet, or let's look at the S&P, the S&P 500, the average, so take an average S&P company, I don't know, Dow or Procter & Gamble, like a good company. They're all great companies, but some are amazing and some are not so amazing. But the average S&P 500 company trades at a price earnings multiple of 27.

Alphabet, which I would argue has more growth prospects and quite frankly, it's just a more impressive company than 495 of the S&P 500. It trades at a multiple of 18. Now, why is that? Why does Alphabet trade at a multiple that is a third lower than the average of the S&P? And I think it's because of the fear of the existential risk that

AI presents, right? But just keep in mind as of today, Google search handles 373 times more searches than ChatGPT.

So it's going to take a while. Right. It's good there's a competitor. Let's be clear. There never been a significant competitor to Google as yet. This is, you would say, a significant competitor on some level, even if it's smaller. Right. But even looking at diversification or how robust the business is, ChatGPT, I think, is projected to do $4 billion in revenues. Alphabet has five separate businesses that do more than $30 billion a year. And just to talk about just how incredible this company is,

Google Cloud, its operating margins hit 18% up from 9.5%. Their margins almost doubled in their cloud business. Waymo is really, as you said, starting to register potential. This was the first quarter.

uh in which cinder answered a question directly about waymo waymo is now serving a quarter of a million paid rides per week yeah exactly about 27 of them are mine whenever i'm in san francisco i'll be taking it when i get to san francisco that's up five-fold from a year ago youtube in just the last nine years its revenue has quadrupled and between youtube premium and music the platform now has

over 100 million paid subscribers. It also commands 11% of all streaming watch time, which means it's the number one streaming platform. And if you think of it as a social media company, it's the most popular social media company in the world. So this company is just, it has seven products and platforms with over 2 billion users, Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Chrome,

Play Store and YouTube. So Alphabet, I mean, in terms of- But we both think it should be broken up, right? Or it will be, correct? Oh, I think all of these guys should be broken up. And here's the thing- Well, this one in particular is under more pressure than any other company to be broken up. It might be under more pressure, but I think the company society would benefit most from being broken up would be Meta. But anyways, there's 11 amazing companies. Mm-hmm.

that the majority of which will be worth more than the original four companies that spend them, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Meta, or Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet. Did I say that right? Apple, Amazon, Alphabet. They change their name so fucking often, so they're going to give eight people the CEO title. These companies would all thrive on their own. But anyways, my point is going back to Alphabet. Alphabet is just an incredible company. I think Alphabet is arguably...

The most adults? I think Meta is probably the most visionary. Apple has the most robust supply chain. Amazon, fuck, they're all so well-run. It's hard to say. Microsoft, yeah, you know. I think Sundar's often been thought of as an afterthought, for sure. There was a whole spate of things. He can't make decisions to save his life.

that people were leaving, it's not innovative enough, it's too staid. I mean, those were all the takes on him. And obviously these cases that they have lost to the federal government, I think they're going to be a boon to them. I think it's actually not the worst thing in the world to have to do what they're going to.

probably have to do. The most undervalued of all the tech companies though right now I think is in the U.S. market I would say it's probably Alphabet. Most overvalued would probably be OpenAI or

But the most, in my opinion, the most undervalued of the Magnificent Seven, and it's not in the Magnificent Seven, would be Alibaba. And the reason why is the following. You're going to see Alibaba's cloud unit start to take share from all the other cloud providers globally. Oh, interesting. Well, think about it. Do you want Trump and the American administration with their hands on your data? Because the Chinese government,

Oh, this is sort of like your Europe one, right? This is kind of like your... It's exactly right. You're going to see a ton of European and Asian companies defect from AWS and Azure and Google Cloud to Baba Cloud. And Alibaba trades at a huge discount to Amazon. You're about to see an incredible regression. One of the most powerful forces in the universe, especially in the markets, is a regression to the mean.

Chinese stocks trading at a multiple of 14, U.S. stocks trading at a multiple of 26. So the best companies in China that are Amazon-esque, Alibaba,

are not only going to regress this naturally in terms of a multiple regression, but Alibaba is about to scoop up so much unearned business in the cloud. Yeah, a lot of people are moving to France. It's interesting. A lot of tech people I'm talking about is putting their stuff elsewhere. I had a long discussion with someone this weekend about that, putting their stuff somewhere. And it's not moving their bodies necessarily. It's moving their data. Interesting. Or their money. Yeah, money, data. You know what?

Listen, take a meeting with the head of Alibaba and let's talk about where Mercedes, let's talk about putting our cloud there. We don't need to deal with these jerks. Send a signal. Copy the head of the Commerce Department. Copy that ass clown Lutnik on our memo saying we're switching from AWS.

to the barbacloud. He wouldn't even know what to do. Anyway, we have to move on, but those are all really good ones, Scott. Very nice. I like it. Well, we'll see what happens there. Very quickly, FBI agents arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of obstructing justice for directing an undocumented immigrant in her courtroom to exit through the side door to avoid immigration agents. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo of the judge, Hannah C. Dugan, in handcuffs saying, "No one is above the

Dugan has since been released from custody. He's expected to be arraigned on May 15th, which is soon. Meanwhile, three U.S. citizen children under 10 have been deported with their mothers, including a four-year-old with stage four cancer. According to a recent Washington Post, ABC, Ipsos poll, 53% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration where he was winning the election.

That's up from 48% in February. This was his signature issue. We'll talk about the polls for Trump, which are terrible right now. But this was the one where he was ironclad. Very quick thoughts on this? If you look at the polls and you try to be an honest broker, his signature issues, he had a lot of support around. He had a mandate around immigration. He had a mandate around tariffs.

you know, he had a mandate around kind of DI or wokeness, whatever you want to call it. But as my friend, Dov Seidman wrote a book on this, it's not about what you do, it's how you do it. And he's really blown it because actually the majority of Americans believe you should deport people who are here illegally. However, should you deport people

a four-year-old with stage four cancer without, I mean, should you start rounding up people because of the wrong tattoo? Should you levy tariffs that basically neuter domestic businesses and are about to put a ton of small businesses out of business? And it's, the majority of his policies actually, especially on the immigration side, he's a winner in, especially over the Democrats. He just stuck out this chin, the world's biggest chin in the world,

But the problem is the way he's going about it, in my view, he's kind of blown it with just a few

And I'm not talking about what's right here or what I would have liked to have seen done, but purely politically, if he had just scaled back, people actually agree with Doge. But the way they've gone about it has been such overreach and the coarseness and the cruelty and quite frankly, the incompetence and stupidity. Doing victory laps without a victory. He could, Cara, the media and progressives could have their hair on fire and he could be one of the most popular president's

in history in the first hundred days, if he had maintained these themes, but handled them with a little bit more caution, nuance, and discipline, and had smarter people executing these things. He has people who say yes, and to his bad base instincts. And so he's also older. I'm going to start to really stress that. I know all these books are coming about Biden, but he's older. And so he's unfettered. He's

and he does what he wants and he has people around him who are incompetent or have a cruelty streak like Kash Patel, Kristi Noem standing in front of those

I think everybody was uncomfortable with that photo of her in front of those. I don't care what those guys did. That was gross. That was grotesque. Dressed like an ice Barbie. Kash Patel, the way he talks about things. Stephen Miller, forget it, screaming on every TV station. I think you don't win by yelling at people and telling them they're stupid for finding deportation of a four-year-old with stage four cancer. And that Tom Hellman, he seems...

Like, he's had a few all the time, and he says stupid things almost continually. I mean, the cruelty is really quite diminishing of, you're right, popular programs. But this number of 48 to 53, he's underwater on his signature issue, which is really, I mean, that'll make other people act up against him.

Anyway, we'll see what's going to happen. I think it's going to continue to rise because I think he can't help himself. We'll see. He needs to pull back. If he did, he'd probably be popular again. There would have been a few tweaks. Right, tweaks. We love our PhD students. Of course, oh, this person is not a criminal. We apologize. We're going to figure out where this person should be sent or brought back to America. They can't do it. We immediately called Sloan Kettering and got this little girl help.

I mean, show me someone who is willing to be this cruel. I'll show you someone who invokes the name of Jesus Christ every fucking minute. And if Jesus came back, he'd puke on these people. Well, he was an immigrant, you know. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, President Trump's switch up on Ukraine. This is sort of a shift. Support for Pivot comes from Upwork.

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Scott, we're back. President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky met on the sidelines of the Pope Francis' funeral this weekend to discuss the end of war. It was a very interesting visual. I thought it was a terrific visual, actually.

And now President Trump appears to be on Ukraine's side. The U.S. president afterwards posted on True Social criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin for recent missile attacks on Ukraine, saying, it makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war. Really? He's just tapping me along. And this has to be dealt with differently through banking or secondary sanctions, whatever that is. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said,

who really looks like he's blinking for us to come save him, said administration will decide this week whether to continue pursuing a negotiated settlement of the war. Who do you think got in his ear about Russia here? It's really, it was kind of a shift. I thought that picture was kind of weird.

weirdly beautiful of him in this incredibly ornate setting on these two simple chairs, leaning into each other in a really- It was one of the images of the year. I agree. I was like, "Whoa, that's a great image." You know what it looked like? What? It looked like they were about to address the Senate on the planet of Naboo. Anyway- Were you expecting Natalie Portman to come out? I know. What do you think about this shift? Who got his ear? Who got his ear?

Like, I think this is the issue. And I always say that, and then I go back to deficits. But what you have here is when Trump was asked after they said we need to, you know, they both need to give up something and accept things they don't want. And Trump was asked, well, what is Putin supposed to give up? And he said, well, to stop the killing and stop the invasion. Now, think about that statement.

What the president of the United States is saying to the world is that if you're an autocrat, you now have an incentive to invade and kill people because you gain something to give up. The whole point of pushing back, the whole point of NATO, the whole point of having an $800 billion military industrial complex is we create a series of incentives that when you illegally invade a neighboring country and start shelling maternity wards...

that you end up worse off. And what Trump and Vance are effectively saying is they're going to have to cede all the land

to Russia and exchange, Russia will just stop its illegal murderous activity. That is exactly what America is not supposed to be doing. And what got in his ear? I'd like to think some sanity that at the end of the day, the president is the world's largest capital allocator, the world's largest manager, trying to allocate capital to the greatest return possible.

The greatest return in geopolitics is for $60-80 billion or 8-10% of our military budget. We give, we armed the brave Ukrainian army with the weapons

to fight back on Russia such that they have to spend half a billion to a billion dollars a day to distract them from the surface area of attack against the U.S., which they deploy in one of two ways. They either steal our IP or they cyber attack us. So keeping Russia distracted in Ukraine, and I know this is macabre, and I know this ignores the incredible human sacrifice, but if we're going to just talk about realpolitik,

This is the best money we've ever spent. And until Russia, until we show other autocrats we're thinking about invading South Korea or invading Taiwan, until we give them a clear signal, there is incentive not to do it, meaning you are worse off when you do this, not better off. The world is less safe. Is there a person you think got in his head? I don't know, Cara. I don't.

I don't know. I don't know who this guy listens to other than Peter Navarro. The best thing that could happen for our economy is if someone chained Peter Navarro to his bar. I mean, in his room. The worst thing that could happen to our economy is every time you see Peter Navarro anywhere near the president, go short the market.

I don't know what you, Secretary Rubio, but the thing about Secretary Rubio is I literally think he'll say just anything. Anything. Right, I agree. Anything. Anything. Yeah, that'll get him. He wants to put himself, position himself for the presidential race, obviously. What do you think? I think he understands he got taken and he needs a win. And there's no winning with Vladimir Putin. And I think he understands that. Maybe he doesn't care about whatever happens.

with that relationship anymore. I think they kept bombing when they said they weren't. So, like, why wasn't he listening to me? I thought I had control. And he's got to do, he said he was going to do it on day one, if you remember, settle the war. Maybe he had some promise. He's got to settle it. And so I think backing Ukraine is the best way to do that. I mean, it's the only way to, punching a bully in the nose as a bully like Trump would know is the best way to do it. We'll see. I just was really struck by it. We'll see if he can, he could change next, yes, tomorrow. Like, who knows?

That's the problem here, the flippity flippity. But look at what Zelensky has done. And it's a great lesson. And that is Zelensky hasn't gotten emotional. He's shown up. He's shown up. He's kissed his ass. He's just tried to be very resolute and calm and dignified. And just a quick review here, folks. We spend $60 billion a year. Almost all of that comes back to America. And almost all of that goes into red states. And in exchange, we're going to get incredible drone technology, right?

We're unifying Europe. I mean, we're sending a very strong signal to the rest of the world. And if we take all of that money and just give Russia everything they've wanted, we're basically saying, okay,

It's a go sign. It's green light for any autocrat that wants to invade. That's right. And also that someday Ukraine is going to be one of those countries tech forward, exciting place to invest, exciting place for US capitalists to be. It is a wonderful economy in that regard. It's just beginning to ship beat out by a bunch of people who are not a wonderful economy. So it is a real opportunity to back Ukraine from a financial point of view, from what Scott was saying and in the future.

Anyway, we're going to move on. Speaking of now, the other side of Donald Trump, his official meme coin skyrocketed after announcement that the top 220 holders of the coin would get invited to dinner with the president. Oh my God. Oh my God. What corruption in plain sight. Steve Ratner wrote a great piece about this, by the way, this week. The initial price surge was over 50%, boosting the coin's total market value to $2.7 billion, with Trump and his allies reportedly pocketing close to $900,000 in trading fees in two days. And trading fees,

Senator Chris Murphy posted on X that the meme coin sale was the most brazenly corrupt thing a president ever done. I think pretty much so. And Senators Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren are calling for an ethics investigation saying this dinner might constitute a pay-to-play corruption. I think it doesn't constitute it. I think if he loses the House in two years, this is all we're going to be talking about.

You have talked a lot about this meme coin. And then speaking of ask us, I'm going to add this on. Donald Trump Jr., along with Omid Malik, I think that's his name. Anyway, several other investors are reportedly launching an invite-only club in D.C. that costs more than a half a million dollars to join. The executive branch will cater to business and tech models looking to nurture relations with Trump administration, according to Politico. This one

It just sounds douchey, but I don't have a problem with it. They can have their little clubs to meet at and do their, like, man things there if they want. But talk about, the second one I don't think is corruption. I just think the Democrats have it too. There's always been clubs. There's always been this kind of thing. It just is, you know,

extra douchey is all. Thoughts on the coin and the club? I'm exactly where you are. I believe in the right of free assembly. And if Don Jr. wants to get people together and charge him, that's his right. I don't. And by the way, that's kind of what lobbyists do. It's like lobbying with the party. I don't have a problem with it. They can go to a stake place or this place. Who cares? Fine. The Trump coin is grift on an entirely different dimension.

And let's just talk about the timing. He announced the Trump coin the Friday night before his inauguration when there was just a media maelstrom and he buried it, right? Because he knew that the market would go, this is incredibly corrupt. There were about 30 people who made about $600 or $800 million, according to logs, in those first few hours.

And my guess is those 30 people might have been tipped off or been really close to the president because they clearly had a lot of money and they were clearly in first. And then over the course of the next few weeks, about 80,000 people lost billions because it spiked. The insiders got out. Then let's talk about more timing. He decides...

about the time that the lockup is going to come up, and that is the insiders, the people who started to get to sell, he decides, one, to have a meeting, you know, to announce this meeting, to distract people and get the price back up. And shortly before that, he announced that he was doing away with the DOJ unit that investigates crypto scams. So this is really interesting.

I wish he approached geopolitics and tariff policy with the same strategy he approaches his grift, because the grift has been the most competent, elegant part of

of the Trump administration. He is strategic. He is thoughtful. His timing is excellent. The brightest people in the Trump administration are the grifters, are the people handling, they're bearing the stories at the exact right moment. They're neutering the investigative- They've been at it for a long time. They're experienced grifters. Go ahead. They're very good at this. But this is, again, it's just very simple. If you found out

that Vladimir Putin had been buying hundreds of millions or billions in Trump coin and saying to Trump, you're going to be the wealthiest man ever as long as we keep buying. By the way, in unrelated news, what are your thoughts on Ukraine? Wouldn't all of this make sense? And that might not be true, but the whole point of the president is

and our elected officials is you're not supposed to have that doubt, that cloud of corruption over them. And just because I want to move to a solution, I absolutely think we need to move to a Singaporean model. I think the president should make 10 million bucks a year. I think senators should make 3 million and representatives should make a million dollars a year. And in exchange for that,

Absolutely nothing resembling correction. Speaker Emeritus Pelosi, you can't trade stocks. You cannot when you're voted out of office. There's a three year sunshine period. You can't go to work for lobbyists. You can never talk about an individual company. For God's sakes, you can't get involved in. None of your family members can start a crypto company. Zero tolerance, corruption. But we're going to pay.

And they have to support two homes. The opportunity, and they see everyone else engaged in grift, the seduction of grift just becomes too great. Right.

So pay them a lot of money. These are important, impressive people who have a big impact on our economy. Pay them a lot of money, zero tolerance. And if you propose that, I think they would pass it. I don't know. I don't know. People would go, why are we paying the congressman a million? No, the congressman, people would pass it. They get to vote on it. I don't think they would.

They want to show that they're here for the thing. You don't think they said, all right, a million bucks a year. No, I think from the perception, I think people will be like, why are you getting a million dollars for that job? Like, what in the hell? I'm just saying. It would be a very difficult political thing to pull off. But if they all did it at once, are they going to vote all of them out? Yeah, they never do anything all at once. It's just such a good thing for like a Marjorie Taylor Greene to say, because she makes all this grift on the side. Speaking of grift, she had a big stock sales.

Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you on her stock sale. She didn't do anything that Pelosi hasn't done dozens of times. But if you're going to insult Pelosi, please belly up to the fucking grift bar if you don't mind. Agreed. All right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump claims he's made 200 deals on tariffs. They're kissing my ass. Right now, the Home Depot has spring deals under $20. So what are you working on?

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Scott, we're back. As President Trump marks 100 days in office, 64% of Americans disapprove of how he's handling the tariffs, according to that new ABC News Washington Post Ipsos poll. It's one of many that are pointing in these directions. Trump is now saying he's made 200 deals on tariffs in an interview with Time magazine. He also keeps claiming to have spoken with China's President Xi. Who knows?

China denies any talks are happening and said the US should stop creating confusion. I'm believing China on this one. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was on ABC's This Week where he attempted to explain Trump's tariff strategy. This was so painful to watch. Listen. And game theory is called strategic uncertainty.

So you're not gonna tell the person on the other side of the negotiation where you're gonna end up. And nobody's better at creating this leverage than President Trump. He's shown these high tariffs and here's the stick.

This is where the tariffs can go. And the carrot is come to us, take off your tariffs, take off your non-tariff trade barriers, stop manipulating your currency, stop subsidizing labor and capital, and then we can talk.

Oh my God, Scott, Scott, it's like sticking your eye with a dry stick and saying we won. Like what? Like this was like, it's chaos. I just don't, strategic, you do strategic uncertain to me all the time, Scott, and I find it irritating. That's all I have to say. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. I'm fascinated by game theory. I agree. I teach a class on game theory and

This could not be. This is their go to. It's the general script that they all have to follow. Couch everything and what a genius Trump is. And also chess. That's right. Claim he's playing 20 D. Claim he's playing 4D chess. And the reality is the world thinks there's a decent chance this man child is going to start eating the pieces. He's such a fucking idiot.

And I don't know. Let's look at our three largest trading partners. And I'm boasting about I'm name dropping now, but without name dropping. Our three largest trading partners are Canada, the Mexico, then China. In the last week, I have I interviewed.

The prime minister of Canada. The soon to probably be today, by the way. Well, he's prime minister now and he's probably going to be reelected because of Trump. Because the opposition, the conservative party. 25 points they were up. Has overcome the 25 point deficit. Anyways. Yeah. Anyways. By the way, this guy probably has the most impressive resume in global politics. I kind of want to marry him. I think he's married. Prime minister Carney. He is dreamy. He's dreamy. He's very nice. He's thoughtful. Anyways.

I asked him straight up, are you talking to the administration? He said, no. Yeah. So Canadians, the Canadians literally, they can't, it's difficult for them to lie. They're just not good at it. It's like if I asked Brian Adams or, you know, Alan Thicke, the most personal things they would, I just get the sense they'd give you a straight answer. I don't think he's lying. On Saturday night, I was with the CEO of one of the largest companies.

Chinese companies in the world and in China. And I said, do you have any sense for if the CCP or Xi is talking to the US? He's like, I have a very strong sense. And the answer is they're not talking. Their attitude is, yeah, bring it, boss. We've taken on much worse. There's no dialogue. So two of the three largest trading partners are

are not, unless these people are lying to me, have no dialogue with Trump. They're just letting him flail around, writhe and scream on the ground like a three-year-old and saying, yeah, have at it. Cry and scream and negotiate against yourself. This is the same guy, speaking of 3D chess, who imposed 145% tariff on Monday and then on Friday said the tariff rate's unsustainable and it needs to come down. Right, he's just chaos.

But talk about Besant here. Like, what is he doing? He's in an impossible position. He's not impossible. He doesn't have to say this nonsense. He's fallen into the same trap as Gary Cohn and all these guys. When you're called to serve, you can understand that you go.

Rubio wants to go because he wants to be more presidential and then announce his presidency in about two years and 11 months, his candidacy again. These guys all think this is an unbelievable opportunity and I'm going to be the one that pulls things off his desk and can convince him. Also, I've heard when you talk to Trump in person, he comes across as remarkably sane. They all go in, I think, with the false illusion they're going to be able to make a difference and talk some sense into this guy. Because when you talk to people who know Howard Letnick, they say the following, nice guy,

He's an ass in terms of these decisions and is way over his head. When you talk to people about Scott Besant, they say, very intelligent guy. People are very impressed with him. But the question is, and a lot of people acknowledge this, including Bill Clinton, that is, the only way you can have influence is to maintain your job or get elected. And sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do.

But Scott Bassett is, I think he goes home at night and literally looks in the mirror and says, I hate myself. And none of this makes any fucking sense. And he's like, I have to go on and defend the indefensible. Yeah, he cries in his cashmere pillows. I can see that. Don't you see it? All right. We're going to move on in a second. But the word strategic uncertainty is chaos. That's their word they're using. And it's to put, you know, lipstick on a pig. This is a pig.

No matter how you slice it. Like that is, if you want to slice a pig. In any case, what a disaster. By the way, fast fashion giant that Scott likes, Shein, is already hiking prices as high as 377%. So instead of a dollar, it costs $4. Well, just, and just, you know, some of the companies, for example, we were talking about Alibaba earlier. Do you know what percentage of Alibaba's business is done in the U.S.? Not much, I bet. 2%. Yeah.

So you think they're scared? Yeah. And the thing about... Shein is big here. Shein is big here. But what's interesting about it is the following. The math that people fail to do is like, oh, it'll really hurt them. And then Shein and then she will get nervous. So Shein is not doing well, even though Shein claims to be a Singaporean company. Their supply chain is in China. They employ a lot of people in China. So, oh, we're going to intimidate them and scare them because their products are gone up. Okay, let's do the math. Shein's whole value proposition is I can get you or they can get you

a $10 reasonable facsimile of a cashmere sweater, they can import it in for $10 because of their supply chain. Whereas Ralph Lauren, when they import something in from China, it costs them $60 or say $50. Generally speaking, a retailer kind of triples it. So it goes from $10 to $30. If the 145% tariff goes from, that takes it from $10 to $24. So then it needs to go to $72. The $50 sweater that comes into Ralph Lauren goes from $50 to $100.

And what is that? 45%, 125. So that goes to $375.

So the question is, do these less expensive products, the whole market shrinks. But I would argue that cheaper stuff from China ends up taking share. So the economy goes down because the price differential on cheaper goods broadens between the more expensive goods. So what happens? The economy goes down, spending goes down. But I wonder if some of those less expensive Chinese products go

actually end up grabbing share from the American companies that are bringing in China, Chinese products. So it's like the worst of both worlds for American companies. Yeah, it's just a mess. Anyway, speaking of another interesting thing, we haven't talked about Elon in a while. He's been very quiet. He's not wielding his chainsaw. As I noted, I saw the Escalade EV, which I thought was a very impressive car,

But another one, again, the Cybertruck could have been a terrific, beautiful car, and it turned out to be a lemon, and it's a disaster for Tesla, quite a big disaster. A startup called Slate Auto, backed by Jeff Bezos and other investors, is launching a made-in-America EV truck.

with a starting price of 20K, inexpensive, after federal tax credits. The slate struck design is pretty basic. No power windows, no infotainment screen, no paint. People will get custom wraps. You can also change it and you can put a back on it. It can be a...

can be a pickup, it can do a number of different things. It's really quite, I love the idea of it. It's a lot like Zoox, which he also has where you can customize it very much. It gets about 150 miles of range on a charge. The car is designed in California and Michigan, will be manufactured in the Midwest with domestically sourced parts. It's like a Lego car, it looks like. Slate plans start deliveries in late 2026. I bet they will. I bet they'll actually do what they say as opposed to what Tesla always does.

Over in Europe, VW overtook Tesla as a top EV seller for the first three months of 2025. That's a big deal. Their car is an ID4, I think it's called. I want to buy it so badly, I can't even stand it. I don't care how much it costs. It's so great looking and looks terrific and well-made. All these EV companies, I've seen more and more, not just BYD, and there's another one in Japan, but

So much competition, so many beautiful cars, which are fun and interesting and at so many different price points. And EV sales are up along with hybrid sales. So again, another thing Tesla could have done and had the market and losing it because they had to indulge in his Cybertruck fantasies. So any quick thoughts? I love the new Rivian car. I mean, the automobile industry is a case study in economics around fixed costs. And that is to build...

to build an assembly line or to build a platform. All right, we want to build an SUV. It costs so much money to build a platform that it's all about scale. You got to just shove a shit ton of cars down that assembly line. So what do they do? Volkswagen says, okay, we're building a platform for SUVs. And about 80% of the way down the assembly line, they shove a Volkswagen Touareg, a Porsche, a

a Porsche Cayman and an Audi Q7. They're all on the same assembly line. And then the last 10 or 20% of the assembly line, they take different routes and the Porsche gets much higher end leather and badging and a better stereo. And then once it's off the assembly line, they get

different ad agency to appeal to men in midlife crisis. The Tor gets an ad agency for families. The Audi gets someone who thinks they're a little bit more Euro, whatever it might be. But they've got to shove as many cars down that assembly line for scale as possible. And basically, Rivian's saying, okay, we've got to come out with a lower cost product and shove as many cars down that assembly line. I think the most impressive company in the world right now

I'm actually thinking of buying their stock, even though it's up 60% in the last year, is BYD.

I think this company is going to ultimately, ultimately trade barriers come down because people are more greedy than they are concerned about their fellow citizens or whatever it is you want to make around tariffs or trade protections. The world ultimately is up and to the right around free trade. It just makes sense for everybody. It's just everybody wants cheaper grapes and more toys under the tree than they are worried about Joe, who's a union guy.

over the long term. And BYD is literally just, if you look at their products relative to the cost, they're putting out a car right now. If we didn't have any trade barriers, you could get a really good EV for less than $10,000. Can you imagine how many of those things they would sell in America? Yep.

Absolutely. Yep. Anyway, and Nali, everyone keeps talking, I mean, this ridiculous notion about humanoid robots at Tesla. Yeah. You want to see the most unbelievable robots? Go to a factory in China. Yep. And see the robotics there. I mean, Tim Cook said this. He said the misconception of China is it's a bunch of low-cost wage labor and factories doing, you know, tedious work. You go into these factories, it's something out of Westworld.

So they've already got robotics and humanoids doing incredible things. There's a ton of companies, but unfortunately or fortunately, Volkswagen has unbelievable scale, and now they're selling the most EVs in Europe.

And you just want to shove as many cars down that fixed cost assembly line. And the one I think that's going to become the automobile and innovation company of the next five years is going to be BYD.

impressive. I mean, you put the Cybertruck next to these, and it's such a fail on behalf of Tesla to have had the lead here, and it could have been innovative. He just doesn't want to be in the car company. And then he's bragging about robo-taxis, which Waymo is doing beautifully. And then he's talking about the Optimus Prime, which nobody wants to have a robot in their house right now. It's just not happening. Maybe someday...

But this idea, like these, they're indulging. I need someone to yell at. I can't believe you forgot to take the roast out of the freezer. I know, exactly. But you know what? They're indulging in this guy's weird fantasies. They never should have done the Cybertruck. Never. There was so much opportunity for him to do a big killer, Escalade killer, a Ford, you know, a truck killer. And he just...

Didn't do it. Didn't do it. Had to create this weird thing a woman would never buy. And the only men that would buy it are dickless. Well, you know why robots don't have brothers? Why? Oh, no. Because they have transistors. That's good. Right? One more quick break. That's a good one. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I'll go first today. There's a story in the Wall Street Journal. Again, I argued with a lot of people this weekend at these parties. It's called Digital Companions. They have the ability to engage in romantic role play with users, including kids. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Mark is the one pushing it through to be more aggressive. I've talked to a lot of people internally at Facebook.

because they've been trying to keep them from doing that and to be very safety conscious around these things. Very similar to character AI, which was an offshoot of Google. People went off and did it and Google's now licensing it. And a lot of kids, one kid killed himself, et cetera. You cannot have digital companions that kids can get near and there can't be any holes in your wall if you're going to do this. I have no problem with, I don't have a problem with these digital companions and being romantic.

they cannot get near certain people. And it should be like, the fact that the Wall Street Journal was able to get them to do this. And also, they also have celebrity voices for these things. And they start to get, apparently, John Cena got sexy with someone on, he didn't want to get sexy with them, but he did. His bot did. And so if you're going to do this stuff, you've got to have it locked the fuck down. And the fact that they haven't is just a typical

And Mark is pushing it through, and there's a lot of pressure, et cetera, et cetera. I think I just am. I'm just astonished that they continue to build things without the level of care they need to. It's just maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but it's really amazing that they keep doing so. It's it's.

It's such a fail. It's such an astonishing fail. And I think probably my positive this week, there's a lot of stuff coming out. I'll be talking about the next Mission Impossible soon and other things that are coming out. Looks like some great movies this summer. But I have to say, I think this Carney in Canada is playing it beautifully. I assume he's going to win tonight. And he looks like he's on track to win. And what a comeback for the Liberals in changing their

candidate is what they did. They've been in charge for a long time. I don't think any country should have one party in charge for too long. But he seems to be a fresh new face when he's not a fresh new face. So it gives a lot of lessons to Democrats in terms of finding a fresh new face, even when you're not.

rush. So I'm really, we'll see what happens. And then very briefly, there's a big outage of power in Spain and Portugal. And I hope good luck to the people there as it's happening. And of course, we have to think about a cyber attack in situations like this, but they're having it right now. And it's really, this is going to happen more in the future. Just Scott. I love your fail. And I do believe that this requires some sort of legislation because I think one of the biggest threats to our society is a lack of

companionship and love and mating that turns people, especially young men, into misogynists and nationalists and extremists, and also suicidal. I see all these TikToks about, and it's heartbreaking about women talking about why would they go on a date when they might go out with someone that murders them?

And I understand that men are more violent. And I think it's a real issue. And I can understand. And it breaks my heart to think that women aren't safe around men. But the reality is 2,500 women are murdered by men a year. And that's way too many. And they're usually domestic partners or someone they know. 40,000 men kill themselves. So these men are not only dangerous to society and dangerous to women, but especially dangerous to themselves. And the question is, well, why are we creating violence?

these violent men who are prone to just information that becomes, turns them into shitty citizens, makes them more disparaging of women, and much more harmful to others, and especially harmful to themselves. And I think part of that is they're mammals and they're losing connection with other people. And when you have the deepest pocketed, most well-resourced companies in the world, all trying to convince these men they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm,

we're making the problem worse. And I've said that I think wanting to have friends, wanting to go through the pecking order, the humiliation of figuring out friendships, wanting to figure out how hard it is to navigate the corporate world, I think that can turn you into a better person, especially a better man. These guys don't mature very early. And also that fire, that real fire of sexual desire,

I think when channeled correctly makes you stronger, more kind, demonstrate excellence, have a plan, you

You know, there's a reason I've said this over and over. There's a reason romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes, and that this shit is hard, but it's worth it. And anything that convinces even more young men that they don't need to go through the difficult and rewarding and worthwhile effort of establishing human connection with other sentient beings is a threat to our society. I would agree. But if they're going to do it, they have to do it safely. Like, honestly, I don't... Yeah, but my question is,

If it's one thing to give seniors companions who are in their 90s and have lost all their loved ones. I'd like to have one for my mother. I'll be honest with you. But should we have... Should we have...

Or maybe tax the shit out of them. I don't know. Should we have AI sex robots that convince all men to think that, oh, I don't need to be kind to women. I don't need to have a plan. They're going to make them, Scott. Whether you like it or not, they're going to make them. Because these guys, they can't have children. And they desperately want to have children in a weird, strange form.

fucked up way. Who are you talking about? I think sometimes I think AI, I told you this theory, I think AI is the way it gets so dominated by men and there's so lack of safety and everything else. I said it's because I think men can't have children, certain men, not all of them think this way, but can't have children. This is their way of giving birth.

I just, or something, are creating. I never thought about that. Think about it. Fuck you up. But are you saying in-cell culture or the people who run AI companies? No, I think the people who run some of these companies, they can't make beings. It's a very beautiful thing to make a child. Men and women make them together, obviously, but really women grow children, right? And men, this is men's way of growing children.

things, growing beings. I don't know. Anyway, go ahead with you. It's such a dystopian, weird vision. I know, it is, it is. Think about it, think about it. But I hear this stuff, everyone talks, I do a lot of talks on AI and they talk about, oh, they're going to be absentient, self-healing weapons, misinformation. Hands down, the biggest threat of AI is loneliness. Loneliness, you're right. It's going to convince more and more people they don't need to engage. My win is a little bit longer and I know you're probably interviewing the ghost of Boutros, Boutros Ghali, but you're going to have to put up with me. So,

Westmore, he's very handsome. Go ahead. So after the Pope passed, there was something that was attributed to him. I don't know if he said it, but I think it's lovely and I'm going to read it anyways.

The walls of hospitals have heard more honest prayers than churches. They have witnessed far more sincere kisses than those in airports. It is in hospitals that you see a homophobe being saved by a gay doctor, a privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar. In intensive care, you see a Jew taking care of a racist, a police officer and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care. A wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant.

ready to receive the organ from a poor donor. It's in these moments, when the hospital touches the wounds of people, that different worlds intersect according to divine design. And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone we are nothing. The absolute truth of people, most of the time, only reveals itself in moments of pain or in the real threat of an irreversible loss.

A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are in their purest essence. This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people. Do not criticize your body too much. Do not complain excessively. Do not lose sleep over bills. Make sure you hug your loved ones. Do not worry too much about

about keeping the house spotless. Material goods must be earned by each person. Do not dedicate yourself to accumulating an inheritance.

You are waiting far too much. Christmas Friday next year, when you have money, when love arrives, when everything is perfect. Listen, perfection does not exist. A human being cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here. Here, we are given an opportunity to learn. So make the most of this trial of life and do it now. Respect yourself. Respect others. Walk your own path.

and let go of the path others have chosen for you. Respect, do not comment, do not judge,

Do not interfere. Love more. Forgive more. Embrace more. Live more intensely. And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator. Wow. Anyways, Pope Francis, rest in peace. That was beautiful. Yeah. I cried everything. I know, but it's my favorite, Scott, just so you know. Just turn on Modern Family. You'll see how it works. That was beautiful. That was beautiful, Scott. Let's embrace and I see you next time, okay? Let's just embrace.

for a whole minute and a half. Or a family of Ratajkowski gets married again. To you, not to you. There's still time. There is still time. There is time. There's still time. Anyway, that was beautiful, Scott Galloway, and I appreciate that you brought it here. Anyway. Well, you know what a priest's scrotum looks like, Sonia. Oh, here we go. You're going to ruin it. Go ahead. Come on, Kara. Come on, Kara. Every child knows that.

Just, he's back. He's back. A moment of beauty followed by a moment of horror. Okay, I didn't see that coming. Anyway, so it's a new joke. Thank you for the scrotum joke. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions.

You have good jokes today about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week I talked to comedic actor Ed Helms for the On with Kara Swisher show. I named members of the Trump administration and asked Ed to match each of them with a character in The Office where he starred for so many years. Such a great guy. He's been in tons of things like The Hangover, but he also has a really cool podcast about snafu, about fuck-ups.

over the many centuries. Let's listen to a clip. Pete Hegseth. Okay, Pete Hegseth would be a little like Packer. Someone thinks Meredith, actually, because alcoholism. Oh, interesting. J.D. Vance? J.D. Vance is a little Dwight-ish, I think. He's a little Dwight Schrute, maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, absolutely. Kash Patel. What was Zach Wood's character? There's something there like intense loyalty, subscribing to a hierarchy with dedication and actually being well-spoken in the midst of all that. Yeah. Gabe. Gabe. Gabe, of course.

He's really delightful. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out and your jokes are excellent today. I have to give you the star. Five stars. Thanks for that. Five stars. Thanks for that. Most comical in high school. Today's show is produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Our needed hot engineer this episode, Jim Mackle, edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, and Dan Shulon.

Nishat Kharra is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week. Rest in peace, Pope Francis.