Mamdani’s Tax List, Zuck's Media Blitz, and SpaceX’s Trillion-Dollar Wipeout

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My Mark Zuckerberg right now is using basically this corporate Vaseline as Axe Body Spray.

“He thinks if he sprays enough on himself, he'll no longer stink.”

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the box media podcast network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I've been doxed. You've been doxed.

Tell me. Uh, so I don't know if you've heard, but Mayor Momsdani has decided to release a list of the 950,000 residences with addresses and names that might be eligible for his Pieda Tertax. Yeah.

This is from the Wall Street Journal. This is the story. Explain it. Do I may explain it? Let me read from the Wall Street Journal.

Some of these administration fired a warning shot last week and it published an online list of property owners that might be subject to a surcharge of luxury. Second homes. The list includes owner's names, addresses, and market value of properties. They're released to list threatens to stir up existing tensions, meaning the mayor

and the city's elite. The city has also been sending out notifications. So homeowners, they might be subject to the new tax.

If you have a second home in New York worth more than $5 million, check your mailbox when

you're back in the five boroughs because you've got mail. The mayor said in a post on social media. I assume I am not, I have an apartment here, but I don't, I'm well below that number. I don't love this. I can't, I can't say I love this.

It feels like a little bit like doxing, just tax them and get on with it is my feeling. Here's the definition of doxing. Okay. Doxing is publishing private identifying information to expose someone to publicly pressure or harm without their consent.

By the status, the publisher's disapproval, swap elite for any other disavowed group, and nobody's calling this a tax roll, I'm a fan of the stocks, I'm supportive of it. Rich absenteeism should subsidize a nurse in the Bronx, 940% of her income on rent. I came out in favor of this tax. This is the definition he's taken, he's taken a legitimate source of tax revenue.

And it's turned it into a wanted poster. And the question I would have is, other than trying to identify and imply these people have done something wrong. And then 18 months after a healthcare CEO was executed in the street, and then published the list, what is the upside here?

Why is he doing this?

“There's two things, I think he's been largely successful, but there's two things that I think”

are real misses. And they're both, well, they're not related, they're related in some way. And one is this luxury tax, they should not have focused on Ken Griffin. I understand what, if they, they got it past, local agreed to do it, just tax people. That's it.

That should be it. It got past the leader going to be mad about it, some are, some aren't like you. And then just tax them. This was a big mistake to try to put targets on these people. I find it really disturbing.

The second thing was, even though a gray with problems with Benjamin Netanyahu, to say you're going to arrest one at arrest him seems ridiculous, because it's not your job, right? It's not, I get why you might say I don't like him, and I wish I could arrest him, but it was sort of weird. I thought it was a weird, another weird facts about which is not his job.

And so in this case, I think he's going to piss off the elite anyway, or many of them,

Over this tax, I don't know why he would, these records are public, I think, I believe, but why call attention to them, correct, is that, I can look up any, any home, if you know

the address, essentially, but maybe not, it was here as a second home, I don't know, that

I don't know. Well, I'll just touch on the, the him saying he would, he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, his legit, he basically, the justification was that he's been convicted in the international criminal court. There are dozens of not hundreds of people have convicted in the international criminal

court, but he's decided to announce he's arresting the jail. Well, I, I'm not sure, okay. Okay, who else does he announce he's arrested?

“He has a, he shouldn't have done this, I said he shouldn't have done it, I just, I think”

it's, so we run on violent agreement on this, and when he's decided, he's, he's not only plain into the worst fears about him, but he's making it harder for all progressives, I believe in a progressive tax structure, I believe we should raise tax rates, and the Republicans, in order to create deficits and continue to transfer money from the port of the rich, they argue that progressive tax structures are persecution, and this place is

exactly into that entire narrative.

And let me, of course, I never miss an excuse to talk about myself.

I left San Francisco in 2000, because I thought I was going to be rich, red envelope is going public, and I thought what I want to do with my life, and I thought, I want to teach, and I want to live in New York. New York is a greatest collision of proximity, humanity, culture, creativity, weirdness,

“and I'm like, I want that, and I moved there in 2000, and I ended up, I was not rich,”

and I worked my ass off in New York, and I decided, you know what, I can't afford to live here, and I moved to Florida, but I decided I'm going to start a business intelligence from called L2, and I started it in New York, because it's an amazing place to start a business, and be I always wanted to have a foot in New York. I started L2 in 2010, I sold it in 2017, and I spent a bunch of time this morning trying

to figure out what are the taxes, not the federal taxes, but the state, franchise tax, real estate taxes, payroll taxes paid by L2, from 2010 to present to New York City in

the state, and it's about 51 million dollars. The average, in other words, L2 is paying

for what the budget for one of the largest firehouses in downtown Manhattan is $26 million a year. But quite frankly, the way he's saying is, okay, and when I sold my company in 2017, I was living in faculty housing. My dean called me and said, congratulations, I just saw

“you sold it for this. You need to move out of faculty housing, which was where I thought”

you were apartment. And I bought an apartment. And now when he starts putting quite frankly, when he starts putting a target, implying he's implying we've done something wrong. He's implying that we're guilty of something. There's no, they have the tax rules. They don't need this for tax reasons. This is a matter of fact. If Amazon released a list of a million names and said, these people actually owe taxes or they've done something wrong or they're

implied something bad about them. And it had a 95% error rate, the same attorney general under mom Donnie would be issuing subpoenas right now. Right. Yeah. This is, this plays into, this is just plain, and like we've, he's implying we've done something wrong because we're successful. New York is the, the last place you want to demonize success. Yep, I would agree. The reason people moved in New York is I think I want to be successful

I'm Broadway. I want to be successful in business. I want to be successful in the arts. And no one's going to get him my fucking way if I'm really talented in work hard. We're going to celebrate it. We're not going to, we're not going to put a big R on your door and say you've done something wrong because you're successful. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know quite why he did it since he got the tax was going through. I don't, he's seeing some polling where it's not. I don't,

he's already won. And I'm not sure why he's doubling down with a losing move. It's bizarre. I find that bizarre. And I don't, you know, in a time when people's public information, even if it's public to call attention to it, when you're so prominent is a real problem. I mean, we all complain about Facebook and others using our information and justifiably to do this is very similar. It feels very creepy. It feels very surveillance. It feels very, even if you don't like, can Griffin,

even if you don't like all these rich people loading it over New York, they'll pay, they should pay their taxes. And that's that. It should be that's that. And it, it seems really, unusually pugnacious toward, I don't know, I don't, I don't understand. I was sort of shocked by this story. And I'm going to wait for more reporting on this, but it seems ridiculous to, to, to call attention to it when it's, it's people you want to also stay here and you want to get their taxes.

call as friends of rich people, but it seems unfair on, on every aspect. 95% of the people on the

“list of those aren't going to be subject to the tax. Like what other than implying these people”

had done something wrong and publishing their address without their permission, without their consent. What, what possible upside is, is there from publishing this list? I'd like to know, I would like to know what, what the, what the, what the idea is. It's not a good one. I mean, it's not good. It's not good. I know it's been a tough morning. By the way, I've gotten yelled at by Facebook and I don't know it's been a tough morning. By the way, I've gotten yelled at by Facebook and I don't know how

your manual called and yelled at me. I didn't like it's column. So that was my morning. Yeah, I didn't like your Jeffrey Domar joke. Didn't like it. Well, I'm sorry,

I've made a call to you about something I said. You know, on the, because it's on social media,

though all the jokes we made on the last show about you did remarking, I was like, you know what, we didn't like the Michelle Obama's a man, joke, and you didn't project to it enough. You know, or whatever, I just feel like, anyway, let me say, I feel like I feel like there's not going to, that they were not happy with our jokes about Mark. But he's still on his AI optimism tour. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg asked whether AI will be centralized and

restricted to a few institutions or a tool that empowers everyone. His own proposal, he says, is a philosophy based on individual empowerment as a source of prosperity and a balance of power, as a foundation of safety. In the piece, which was rather long, and needed desperate need of editing. Zuckerberg expresses concern that others creating AI talk about it a way that is filled with doom. He continues this idea in the New York Times interview, which he also, he's on a

chatting tour, saying developing AI in a tightly controlled manner as akin to abandoning values and stifling innovation. He was sicking aim at open AI and anthropic who were way ahead of him, actually. I suspect he wouldn't be making this speech if Meta was ahead. It was interesting. They're really doubling down on this. We love humanity thing. And AI optimism and rightly so, because they went too far in the other direction and saying how bad it would be for everybody except

themselves. And so they're sort of doubling down. What do you make of this? I know Jeffrey Dommer jokes today, if you don't mind. No, no. It's not like it's my bottle service after being dumped and trying to expand everything. Yeah. Like he's CEOs consistently consistently try to focus on the reputation, right? And SEO trying to convince us that AI will empower everyone. It's not marketing. It's preemptive regulation. And I thought it was just so hilarious that he's claimed to be worried

about the concentration of power of AI. What he's worried about is it's not concentrating around Meta. I would agree with that. Yeah. Well, when one company controls, I think it's 63% of all or 68% of all social media. He's worried about the concentration of power. So that comes across the cynical. Companies of the largest distribution will likely be the most successful in Meta

“has 3 billion users. That's an unfair advantage if you want to talk about concentration of power.”

And history highlights that we consistently overestimate the short-term impact of technology and underestimate the long-term impact. So AI will likely disappoint this year, but will likely permanently reshape certain parts of our society in economy over the next decade. And essentially, it feels like every AI ad right now is an attempt at a reputation management campaign. It's not even talking about the products. It's saying, I mean, they're, it's really interesting to

running their AI ad saying it'll connect to everyone. And then someone who founded one of these companies will say it's a human extinction event on on PBS. You know, it's just sort of, well, which is it guys? Is it going to connect us or is it going to destroy us? Well, I think they're coordinating their talks now. They're like, maybe we should slow down on the doom saying, right? Or maybe we should say, open is good, because Dario Amodi also noted that there should be open

“systems. I think they're, what it is is they've got microphones in one of their faces and they've”

said too much. And now they're trying to pull it back. And so Mark is sort of walking into this breach by saying, I believe it's for everybody. Except he's not handing, he did this in the beginning of the, I remember very vividly a late night phone conversation when he did this long essay, another long essay in Desperate Needed at a day where he talked about how it was about how social media was about community and he wanted to lean into people and that we're all in this

together. And I recall asking him, if we're all in it together, why do you control everything?

Like, why are you the monarch of Facebook? And he never had a good answer for that. Like, you know,

he was like, well, I said, if we're all in it for community, why don't we all share your money? Why don't we all share if we're if our privacy is being used, why aren't we being paid?

money you're using my privacy to sell. Like, I had the same argument with Steve Case many years,

many many years before that. They all are like, we're here for you, but except when it comes to divving up the goodies and or control. And so I was, I was, it's the same. If you go back to that essay, he wrote about social media, none of which came true. It became a very negative force in society. Although there are some definite positive aspects. No question. I, it's weird that he's

“trying this out again, because I think he actually believes he's helping people. What you were right,”

I have to say away from all your jokes, which they did not like. And I feel like ads are not forthcoming in the future. Is, is that they should just stick to, we're making capitalism and we're going to,

there's going to be a lot of jobs when the things we make. I think that's, or here's a vocational

training, or here's like, I think they should lean into the stuff that they actually just are credit for, I suppose. This is, this is not only wasteful advertising, which is everyone's worried about. This, this hurts. This brings up, this will just inspire a lot of conversations, like this one showing just how cynical this is. And reminding people that this is a firm that when social went on mobile, we saw the greatest increase in young adult depression that we've

registered since we began tracking it. I mean, it just, there's up a lot of things that are not

“going to be good for them. So I don't, I think this was a real, own goal, but it's just going to the”

story of, you know, if you will open, open AI versus closed AI, open, open systems usually went, Linux won the cloud, Android, Android one mobile, the internet BDOL, you were talking about steep case, closed models, try to ring fattens and maximize profits, open models optimize for adoption, right? And you're, you're probably, and this is, this is how this war is playing out with China. You don't, you don't win or be China by restricting knowledge. You'd be China by commercializing

it faster. Now, Nvidia's incentives are obvious. They sell the picks and shovels. The more AI models that exist, the more GPUs they sell. But, you know, trying to stop open source AI, it's like trying to ban calculus. It's just, it's, it's not going to work. And, but for Zuckerberg to talk about it, it's because he failed trying to ring fences on AI. Yeah, I would agree. All right, let me, let me put that, do it, let me exercise instead of calling Jeffrey Delbert. What, what, if you were standing

in front of you, you obviously are going to insult him, possibly. Maybe what, what would you say to him, how, how should he be messaging this? How should he be marketing this? How should he be messaging around AR meta meta AI, whatever. At some point, your actions reveal more than, then your words are an ad campaign from someone hot you want to hang out with who wears black. I fell into that. When that envelope in public, I heard all these ad agencies. So, I could hang around cool people and see

ads on bus shelters and have lunch with David Carey at the Condon Ask Cafeteria in New York. His actions are as branding now. I mean, anything meta does is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in print advertising because it gets reported on a crawled on by a ton of people including us. The best branding that Mark Zuckerberg could do right now would be for him to age gait his platform.

Yeah. I think Mark Zuckerberg never intended to hurt children. I don't think that's who he is.

Their evil in their mendatiousness is not a function of their malice. It's a function of their indifference and their their obfuscation and their their guilty had not of errors of commission but omission. And then and they constantly push back and say ridiculous shit like, well, we're worried about 14 year old first amendment rights. As of us, it's saying, look, we make a lot of money from teenagers and until it's a law, we're going to continue to serve in a match. Even if it's

extreme diet. Yeah, I would agree. I did push back. I said it's really interesting that you would cut

“all ability to stop really heinous speech about trans and gay people. That's what you did recently”

and then you're worried about Scott making his Jeffrey Donner joke or I didn't I noticed there wasn't a real push back on Michelle Obama. It's a man. I noticed there wasn't a real push back by anyone in the GOP on the heinous things that Trump said about this time any day of the week, but Caitlyn Collins. I was like, no one said anything. So he sort of in the vein of what you were talking about with, speaking of our Emmanuel, he did an essay saying this deal should go through.

I wrote him back saying, you might point out that it because it makes us a banana republic, essentially. He's got a love of this deal. Exactly. I agree with that. But aside from that, I think he does actually believe that there's there needs to be four strong studios to have a healthy and healthy with sister. I agree with I completely grew them. But he was I was like the

first approval, which was the justice department, was so tainted with political things. So if you're

“going to do politics, they're going to do politics. And he was like, but that's not the point that”

there should be four. I said, yes, but they've wrecked it from day one by being so egregiously political in so many ways that this was the natural, this Democrats are, there's the song by the checks, which is not ready to make nice. And the Democrats are not ready to make nice now. And they better get used to this. That's my, and Trump started it all by like insulting people and having the GOP state silent, like doing these griegesly cruel things. And the same thing with Zuckerberg,

he's created a platform where ugliness is far too powerful. And then he's like, why are things

so ugly? And you're like, I don't know, maybe you could have done so. Like you said, the actions, like I agree with you. Can I, can I go on about the open source in video, SpaceX, Microsoft, and other tech companies have launched an AI safety initiative to develop open source tools for AI safety and cyber security. The initiative follows a recent cyber attack involving an open AI agent that breached hugging face during internal testing, raising new concerns about AI security,

notably absent from the Alliance, our open AI Google and anthropic highlighting the growing divide between supporters of open models and companies building closed systems. This follows anthropic and open AI lobbying Washington for some restrictions on the latest open source models coming out of China. However, anthropic stereo modias, I noted emphasized in a letter this week that the company

has never advocated for a ban on open weight models. Like you said, open a will win,

“correct, no matter what they do. The honest answer is, what I think it's going to happen and I said”

this on our last one, I think the market for AI is bifurcating into a series of frontier models that aren't open source that are better and and people will pay a premium for them. And I think they'll still be the largest businesses by a dollar volume level. And then the Toyota's and Honda's and Honda's in the world will be the open source coming out of Asia. Yeah, Corolla is a great way to think about it. Yeah, and there'll be a market for both. But I think the more relevant one

is are the open weight models. They tend to in technology. They tend to be the ones to kind of win long term. Now, iOS is technically a closed system and Android's open. Android has more users. iOS creates more shareholder value, but there's huge, I mean, you could argue that Android creates more shareholder value because it informs what is the greatest toll booth in history. You could argue both ways. I think there's a market for both. I mean, it's so funny business and technology

“usually comes down to iOS versus Android. And that's what's happening here. It's the frontier”

models versus the open weight Chinese models. It's weird they're having this weird beef. It sort of happens all the time. Doesn't it? Well, there was so much pushback when Lennox and the others

came around. It's always the same. It's always the same. Mark Zuckerberg right now is using

basically this corporate Vaseline as Axe Body Spray. He thinks if he sprays enough on himself, he'll no longer stink. Mark, you fucking wreak. He had terrible b-o. I just got you another call. I tried. I tried. I tried. I smell the axe, but there's something else I smell there. Oh, it's team depression and self-coating. All right. And we're out. Okay. I tried. It's a colorization of our elections. It's a courseening of our discourse. I think they have a lot to answer for.

I don't say yes, B-o. There was a lot to be on the subway this morning, by the way. Well, we're on the topic of AI. We've been hearing feedback from some of you have been impacted by data centers and new communities. So we wanted to bring an expert voice. Let's listen to a clip from Evan Helper, a business reporter at the Washington Post, who's been covering data center buildouts in their impacts about how tangible these issues are. This is not propaganda. This is not media misinformation.

The backlash is driven by very real concerns in these communities, many which I've been to. They're, they get all kinds of promises made to them by tech companies. The things are going to be run on clean energy. They're going to bring all kinds of jobs into the community. They're not going to have impact on the water, et cetera, et cetera. But what we're seeing on the ground is the impacts are very real. Suddenly a community that wasn't expecting it that was rural has been

seen the large amount of land resowned. Big power plants getting built. The power plant is big enough to serve a medium-sized American city. All to serve just one data center. It's run on gas, gas creates public health problems, it creates climate problems. There's backup diesel generators on top of the data center. Those backup diesel generators are major polluters that are supposed to run very infrequently, but now because there's not enough power on the grid because the data

centers need so much. These emergencies get declared. The backup diesel generators get to function even more often on the lowest air quality days, creating an even bigger air quality problem.

These communities are suffering real impacts from these data centers.

“Yeah, I think, you know, as you said, some of them should be fine if they're done correctly,”

but they aren't being done. They're getting, they're running over these areas. And people, real people are very concerned. They really are. And this is a message that I have been trying to get through to these tech companies. They really do think it's fake. If they think it's the media being negative, I've heard this over and over and over. And by the way, Willie Nelson just spoke out about data centers saying an AI data center is the last thing his Texas hometown needs.

So, again, one of the things is it's the same theme that we're talking about. They have painted themselves into villains and then they wonder why we think they're villains. And we don't trust them.

And, you know, you can talk all you want about trust the media, I agree. People have never trusted

the media, but they really don't trust tech companies at this point. And it's a real problem. And doing these ads about humanity is not your right actions speak louder than words. And these data centers, we are going to suffer as a country if we don't stay ahead in this area. But the way they're introducing data centers is so overwhelmingly feels corrupt, feels like feels bad to the citizens of this country. And I like that they speak up. I do even if some of them are necessary.

“Look, I think his comments are powerful. And our nation has a”

terrible legacy of outsourcing the externalities of progress, whether it's the factory, the coal plant, a chicken process in plant or a planted contaminates the water table. We have a habit of putting these in the most vulnerable communities who have the least resources to push back on it. That is nothing new. So I think it is up to local civic officials. And I think it's great that when the populist speaks up and asks their fiduciaries, elected representatives to make sure that the

upsides. And I do think there's an upside around tax revenue and growth to a data center that's well planned and well regulated. I do think there's an upside. It's up to the local civic official to say, is the upside greater than the downside here or is this a function of me getting money from meta for my next campaign or just making a stupid decision? I do think it has become,

“I think a lot of people talking about this are having a knee jerk reaction around what has”

become an empty vessel, being filled around rage around income inequality and because these individuals have not acquitted themselves. And I think what could fix this is essentially a Facebook ad that says Facebook where your parents go to get catfish by AI Jesus. I think that would solve everything. Seriously, meta putting out fucking ads right now is like trying to put lipstick on a landfill. Should I stop? I will point you. It's just funny. It's just funny. It's just I'm going to get in

the car. In any case, it is a real issue here. And I think Evan is speaking exactly, Willie Nelson is speaking to it. You better listen to these people. All you chat companies. You're really better. And it'll become an issue in an actual actual cycle. 100%. Anyway, let's go in a quick break. When you come back, SpaceX is trillion dollar wipeout. Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. Being in rough shape the day after drinks comes with

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“What's the best way to think about age in politics?”

You don't want to be ages, right? I just think term limits are more important than age limits. Some old people are really sharp. Very Sanders is popping off and he's like what? $2,000. I'm still fed up with the fact that most of our lawmakers are so old.

The gerontocracy feels like a huge problem in American politics. We're now in our third oldest

congress in history. So why won't the boomers retire? I'll give serious consideration last year to not run again. I asked 17 term congressman Jim Clyburn, that exact question. I can't be an ass. How do you feel? Clyburn, who turned 86 just this week, is running for reelection in South Carolina again? I can't be an ass. I feel fine. And this is more than why would you quit? This week on America actually, congressman Clyburn makes the case for

experience and the establishment. Scott, we're back. The SpaceX roller coaster continues. The stock plunge more than 20% below its IPO price this week, wiping out more than $1.2 trillion in market value, roughly the market capital of Tesla. Tesla is also suffering. The stock has bounced back somewhat as of this recording, but it's down 3%. Next week could be another wild ride with SpaceX reporting earnings

“on Tuesday, and the first insider lock-up, inspiring two days later. How low can these shares go?”

They look, they're headed to, they look like they're headed to, I feel like they feel like they're going down. But I don't know. I'm not again. I'm not a stock picker. And again, Elon has enormous power, but it seems like, especially after that interview, he seems insane. Like it seems, people are not meaning him as much. Well, price is what you pay, value is what you own. And the price that people pay it after what was arguably, I think, one of the greatest engineering feats and history

between Goldman, JP Morgan and Elon Musk and the Nasdaq 100 and President Trump and the head of the SEC to get this thing out at 120 times revenues. There's a, my son told me this, and it just

fascinated me. No basketball players ever been able to be in the air longer than a second. It's really

weird for some reason. The unit of measurement of a second, no one can stand the air for a second. Gravity eventually pulls them down. Valuation is gravity. Eventually, I don't care if it's a game stock. No one has been able to defy gravity. No one gets closer to that one second limit than Elon Musk. Hey, look over here. Oh, we're autonomous. Oh, we're robots. Don't value me like a car company. Let's talk about making an interplanetary species. Let's not talk about the fact that it's,

you know, it's an interesting company and one great company that a bunch of money lose in companies. The lock-up expiration here matters more than earnings. And that is supply.

“I think any reasonable math shows that supply is going to overwhelm the fundamentals in the”

short run. And retail investors, and this is what happened at the IPO, retail investors consistently confused a great company with a great stock. And at some point the best company in the world is overvalued. And at some point the worst company in the world unless it's going to zero is undervalued. But whereas, I mean, I, I, I, rather than making a recommendation, I tell people what I'm doing. I'm not getting near this thing. Because Elon's not afraid to come out and say,

I have funding secured at $450 on Twitter and not get punished. And run up the stock. He's also his stocks tend to be meme stocks that totally disassociate from value, from, from actual values. So stay the fuck away from this thing. But if you're looking for a bottoms of valuation in terms of comparing this to its competitors and saying it's the best in that space, that bottoms of valuation would put it at my 20 to 30 bucks a share, which by the way would

still make it one of the most valuable companies intact. Right. Yeah. It's down for, it's down 30

at one 13. If it crosses that $100 barrier, I would worry. You know what I mean? I think I would worry of where it was going. A hundred percent. And I would, and the same thing with Tesla, they seem like they're that right to this today. It's on a real decline. But over the past six months, it's dropped. If you look at anything in the past month, it's dropped like a, like it's credibility. It's down to 302. It probably will pass $300 barrier. And those are, those are mental

“things for people. You know, I think their mental things for people. And again, valuation may be”

making a, making a very strong return here. And Elon's various, you know, jazz hands is not seeming to work here. I don't know what he can do to, well, he could have results. Well, he's, okay,

but even to look at the glasses half empty, the fact they were able to engineer such an incredible

valuation out of the gates, gives some people the impression that it's cheap now. If it went public at this valuation, we'd all be like, "Jesus Christ, can you believe this?" Yeah, you're right. So, like, the IPO was a win for him, even if, no matter what you say, even if it's down, and it's a protectingly broken IPO now, the fact that he was able to put that number on this set of assets is nothing short of remarkable. And also a lot of the people who he has said

finance a $44 billion purchase of a, of a microbiome platform that I signed the paperwork under probably some sort of drug infused haze that by most measures is worth $3 to $5 billion. He said

“it was investors. Just hold on. Trust me, I owe was, I owe was make you whole. And you know what?”

He did. He probably gave the same people, those are probably many, the same people who have invested along the way in SpaceX. And quite frankly, they didn't, they're not subject to lockups. I had-- You got it at 20. It sounds great. Like, 100 is great. 200 is better, but 100 is great, too. Yeah, but I had lunch with the guy here in L.A. who's this really charming smart intelligent guy who's what I would call totally agnostic about all this stuff. And he's known Elon for a long time

and he's investing everything Elon does. And so we started investing in SpaceX like 10, 12 years ago,

someone just told me he's made $5 billion. Yeah. And regardless of what you think of Elon's

paranoid, white nationalist rant on with the head of the economist and calling her a traitor because she asks him tough questions. If someone makes you that wealthy and if someone is able to create that kind of value, you just put money into anything they do. Right. And so, you know, his ability to do that. I mean, there's a lot of positives. It's a huge amount for him. I do think there's positives for the economy. But in terms of any bottoms of valuation, forget that it was a two, two,

four. Just look at it now. And you would, in the absence of any history you would go, this thing is the most overvalued stock in America right now. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, speaking of a very valuable stock, Apple briefly hit a $5 trillion market after the first time a day after passing and video to become the most valuable public company. It's a busy week for Apple. The company's launching a new program for customers to lease iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple watches and said

of buying them out. Right. This was interesting. The program called Apple Upgrade uses by now Payton's ator company, Clarna, to let people make monthly payments on the device that upgrade buyer return when the lease ends. The cheapest iPhone option is 17.99 a month. Apple's move comes a month after the company raised prices on iPads and Macs, citing skyrocketing chip costs. iPhone prices are expected to rise later this year. Do you like this idea? I didn't know what you would think of it.

And also, no, we're recording ahead of Apple's reporting the Q3 earnings, Tim Cook's final earnings as a CEO. And whatever we think of as stupid golden statue, he has done an astonishing job here as CEO in the years after Steve Jobs died, what an impressive CEO he spent except for the golden statue, which will follow him in the rest of his days and going to the Melania premiere. Go ahead. I don't know who the head of strategy is at Apple, but I think this group of people,

this man or woman are literally some of the brightest people in the history of business.

And whether it was taking $6 billion at a broadcast advertising and moving it into 550 temples of

the brand in a market, one of the biggest markets in the world technology that had just shitty distribution. Remember where you used to go to buy computers? Ahead, comp USA. You literally walked in and or where you'd go to get your computer fix or be some guy in a Harley Davidson shirt and you'd give you a number and put it on a steel rack and tell you to come

“back in two weeks so it could tell you it doesn't work and you need to buy a new computer.”

And then they built these places. I'd like to live in an Apple store. I think of Apple on to open a coffee counter in their stores. It'd be the most successful

stores. Most successful retail on history is a tech company. In addition, they're stock. Okay, you want to talk about genius. Genius is not only what to do. It's what not to do. Who has invested the least in big tech in AI? Well, Warren Buffett? I don't know. Apple. Apple. Yeah. Apple Apple's decided, okay, kids, you go plan traffic. We'll wait to the solid get sorted out after trillions of dollars and capbacks and then we'll move in with an elegant interface and ownership of

the consumer and we'll monetize it or we'll just brand it from you and give you access to the

billion wealthiest consumers in the world. Apple's stock. It's no accident that the company, the

one company that's decided not to get into these AI wars is up 61 percent over the last 12 months. The most valuable company in the world is up 61 percent over the last 12 months. These guys, these guys, and this is what separates the truly the great CEOs from the iconic CEOs.

“It's not what they do. It's what they don't do. So what do you think of this upgrade that?”

What do you think of this? I think it's actually a good idea. I'm sorry. The long-winded preamble. This is fucking genius because the reason why hardware companies and services companies don't trade it to the same multiple of software companies is not because software is just quote unquote a better product. It's because it's a better business model because it's recurring revenue. Adobe changed everything. Adobe used to sell it. I figured it was called director

whatever for software in a box for $2,500. And then they hope three years later you go buy another one for $2,400. Instead, they said we're going to charge you $25 bucks a month. And their stock got cut in half. And since then, it's up 40x because the market loves recurring revenue. You can better plan your cat backs. You can better plan your revenues. It's just more the way I described I was in a relationship with someone who was bipolar. And I said, I'm in a relationship with a

transactional business model. I don't know who I'm waking up next to. I don't know how to predict this person. A recurring revenue business is in a being in a relationship with someone who's

just totally consistent. And you know, you know what to expect. But you know, you don't always

like you often and do cry by now pay later. But that by now pay later is something different. This by now pay later is you come up to the till it or been outfitters and you're going to go chill and they go, you know what? Go go shop and buy another $300 and we'll give you instant credit. I think that's different than this. This is basically selling a subscription to the Apple Echo system. I would agree. It's hardware's a service. It's a task. And people, it's easier to say,

I'm not going to buy the next iPhone versus I'm going to cancel my subscription. It increases lifetime customer value. And it lowers the psychological barrier to higher prices. So I believe I've just presented, I'm bragging, I just presented to the CEO and the management team at Mercedes. And I basically said, the future of consumer products isn't ownership. It's recurring revenue. It's subscription. And they asked me for one idea. And I said, I love them Mercedes brand.

I think it's a great product. I love the brand. I want to pay a monthly fee and have you just show up with the car. I should have. Take care of everything. Service is when I'm out of town. Know everything about me. Maybe don't invite me to a cool couple of months say, okay, you've

“had this thing three years. You just had a kid. You need to truck now and take all of the decisions,”

all of the brain damage. I never want to go into a car dealership again and give me a good deal.

I don't want to know the, I don't want to negotiate price. By the way, include insurance, include finit, just do everything for me and charge me a monthly fee. It might be slightly more. It might be slightly more, but you don't care because it's the convenience factor. I'm doing this. I have to say, I had never, I have not bought a new phone and I was going to buy another. I'm like, oh, it's a thousand dollars. He probably will cost me more, but I can always upgrade it.

Like, I feel like good about it. I know it sounds, I can, I feel that I just want to rent it. I just want to rent it really in many ways. If Apple said to you, and me, all right, Scott, you buy everything Apple. We have your purchase history with your permission. We want to use AI to know exactly what you need when you need it. We're going to charge you $100, $200, $300 a month and you're going to get everything a month early. And, by the way, a Christian said you can come to the cool Apple event or

whatever, if you really have a big of fan. Oh, and by the way, we're going to invite you occasionally

“to a premiere of a great Apple movie. You're going to become, and it's $300 a month. And I think,”

oh, $300 a month. I spent so much on these for our 200. I spent so, we're going to send you the latest MacBook. We're going to send you the coolest AirPods. We see you're an AirPods weirdo and you love these things. We're going to send them with your name and a hat. You want a t-shirt? Whatever it is. I'm in. And then, the market turns around and it says, okay, my first company, Prof. Brant's strategy was a strategy firm. It sold for 2.8 times revenues. I started the same business called L2,

I charged Nike a half a million dollars a year instead of charging them a million dollars every

three years for a strategy engagement. L2 got sold for eight times revenues. The market loves recurring revenues. And Apple keeps figuring out big decisions in ways to not only be the most valuable company in the world, but to provide unbelievable return on investment. I'm just,

“I'm so impressed not with what they do, but what they don't do. Do you remember how many people”

were calling for Apple to launch new products, launch a car? You know what it takes big balls, not to launch a car, but to pull the plug on a car, because you don't think it's going to offer the same return on invested capital as other projects. Yeah, I'm very impressed with Apple.

I agree. I agree. I actually had a just a funny little basket of tech stocks with $10,000

and Apple just. I was losing money on a bunch of them. I'm just testing things and Apple has taken me back with. I was like, thank you, Apple. I just interesting things we talk about, it's just sort of a test thing. I do thank them. I'm going to do this program. I am just an easier, it's just easier, it's just easier and more convenient. And it also lets people who want to have an Apple phone and can't maybe, uh, can't afford the thousand dollars to be part of it. Like in a

way, that's much more, you know, it sort of gets them to the lower price customer. I do think this happens. Um, and it doesn't break these customers the way, say, uh, like a ridiculous mortgage or

something would do, and it gives them a better phone. All right, let's go on a quick break.

Just before we go on a quick break, I do have another tagline for Facebook. You're ready? Mehta, Mehta ignore the smell coming from the basement. God, God, this show brings me so much joy. I know it does. All I am doing is I'm addicted to the math, and I'm shipping the dealer. I'm allowed to do that. Okay. When we come back, Mitch McConnell gets an ultimatum. If you allow it, I'm gonna throw some numbers at you.

According to some recent polling from the good people at Pew, about half of Americans now use AI chat bots or something in their lives, whether it's work or personal. That's a dramatic increase from just two years ago when it was more like 30% of the country. But here's the funny thing. Only 16% of the country thinks AI will have a positive impact on society. Two thirds of Americans think AI technology is advancing too quickly. And most Americans, especially young Americans,

don't trust AI nor the people in charge of it. And all this polling was done before an open AI agent went rogue and hacked another company. On today's point from box, isn't that the thing signs fiction warned us about for all those years? Yes. And what can we do about it? Scott, we're back in Techie Governor Andy, Bashir is giving Senator Mitch McConnell an ultimatum prove you can still serve or resign. Bashir sent McConnell a letter this week demanding

he directly and verbally addressed the people of Kentucky to prove his capacity to serve. If that doesn't happen, Bashir is urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune to investigate McConnell's condition. This comes as McConnell's office released another photo that again sparked conspiracy theories because of the shirt or something. With a statement, the center is not medically cleared to leave his rehab facility. I have to say the note was very what it left out speaking

of omission. It didn't talk about cognitive issues. It just talked about physical issues,

“which was interesting. The doctor tried his best to tell the truth is what I when I looked at it.”

But it's not enough for Bashir. Let's listen to what he told reporters on Tuesday. All I'm asking for and the people of Kentucky are asking for is transparency and honesty that Senator McConnell still has the capacity to serve. And I hope he does. I wish him well. I hope his health is improving. But if he can have a 17 minutes conversation with his protege, he can call into any of your new stations for three. All we're asking is just a little bit of proof. And I

get that everybody wants a certain level of privacy. But when you run for these jobs, you know you're given some of that up. We have seen rampant speculation across social media and elsewhere. It could all be fully avoided and it's all within Senator McConnell's power. So under Kentucky law, Senate vacancies are filled by a special election. But sure is not allowed

“to point a temporary replacement. It's also important for his presidential run for him to look”

strong here. It's what it's playing into. Is this a strongly worded letter going to do anything here? Because that's what it is. I urge you to say something or they just ignore it. I would assume

has managed to get on lower roads than he is, I think he will do nothing. They'll just ignore this.

“I don't know. I think the pressure will will mount. I mean, I feel like Mitch McConnell has”

become the modern day equivalent of Bigfoot. Like, oh wait, we saw him. It's not real. It's in look. This is America's mandatory retirement age, just for airline pilots, but not for people making decisions about nuclear weapons and fiscal policy, which is just insane. And this isn't example of it. This is this story really isn't about Senator McConnell. It's about a political system that has no graceful exit for aging leaders. And every institution, especially democracy,

needs succession planning. And politicians are some of the few people that are allowed to ignore mortality and biology. And just another shout out to Applin, Tim Cook. Again, one of the hardest things in leadership isn't knowing when to take over. It's not going to leave. And it's insane that these people, when you get older, we purposely have a difficult time believing that we're ever going to die. We know it, but we don't believe it. And that is, we think, oh, I'll figure it out.

And I'm still adding value. And also to be blunt, for a lot of these people who have devoted their lives to work, them leaving is them acknowledging they're about to die. And so they don't want to leave. And they keep coming up with reasons why they should stay the political system rewards and come and see. I know. And so we need mandatory retirement ages and term limits. Well, can I, one of the things that's been interesting about the besides the social

media stuff, which some of it is very funny, some of the fake things. It's been a very, it's been a very amusing, uh, people doing things around McConnell. And actually, um, I was a do and a coals and venture with last night, but dinner. And they were saying the McConnell stuff really is popular. Like, I was surprised. I thought it would be all Trump or whatever, but McConnell stuff is

“really popular on the daily beast. But what's interesting is some things that I think are more”

serious, where people are going, okay, I had a sezerian and I had to get back to work in five seconds. Like, you know, I had, I was out for a medical thing. And my work didn't let me. And I think even if it's, like, kind of, like, that to me is actually very resonant is like, he gets to be quiet. He has

one of the most important jobs in the country. And he gets as much time off as he wants. And he doesn't

have to explain himself. I have, like, a minor thing that requires a lot of medical attention, and I've got to get back to work. There is something brewing. It's like the data centers. I feel like there's sort of this anger. Like, what is this guy? Get to be a have privacy when I have to get back to work immediately. I've seen a ton of that lately. And I think it's, people, it's a very good. It's another vessel. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's another empty vessel for, for rage. And it's,

people look, I think the most secretive thing in the world right now would be if, if, if all of a sudden, everyone over the age of 70 had had to announce the retirement with the world be a better place, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump are too old to be serving. They're too old. And yeah,

you, you, you, you need wisdom, but more than that, you need rigorous critical thinking and energy,

and also you need a fresh creative dynamism. The best thing in my opinion that this, the far left that we talk a lot about, they are bringing the creativity and the dynamism. You need that. You need turn over. And it's the same. This is, this is why I think we're going to win the, the, the seed and Maine. Or when I say we Democrats, I think people see are going to see, at some point, Susan, the, Susan McConnell seems to be like hiding in Mitch McConnell's hospital bathroom. It's that

Susan. I'm sorry, Susan Collins. You can go to, I might as well be Susan McConnell. I get the sense. She's in the room next door. I mean, she's not, she's an old lady, and she presents is even older. Yeah. And aging comes for all of us. It comes for all of us. That's not, it's not an indictment.

“It's a reality. And I think that's why we're going to win the seed. We found a guy with chest”

hair who doesn't appear to be a rapist, and he's not 105. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. But it is a proxy. It is a proxy of like, why don't we know about the president's health? All of the, like, why don't we get the, why do they get off? Why, why do they get to build data centers? And we have to put up with it. Why do we have, why do they get all the money? Why do they get all the deals? There is a, it's part of the same like, you're getting these people are fucking you. And I, I do think it's, I think it could

take very ugly turns as, as it, I agree. Mom Donnie should not have done that. It takes ugly turns.

I think it's a very good fair share is a very good way to talk about it. And why does Mitch McConnell

get to be quiet? Why does he precisely? I don't care about his privacy. He shouldn't have been the majority or whatever. That's like saying a 65-year-old pilot can't have, can't be tested for cognitive ability or reflexes because of his privacy. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. Like, I feel like,

“I said this to a public official they would give me our time ago. You know what you work for me?”

Like, sorry, like, I know you've forgotten that, but the fact of the matter is you work for the public. And you don't get to, you don't get, like, we don't have to be nice about it. I just, I, there's just a brewing thing and it could go in a really ugly direction. I wish it wouldn't.

If these people would just, he should resign. He's clearly not able to do his job. He should resign.

Well, this is all, isn't it? They're trying to hold out such that, such that the governor doesn't get to a point at it. It's the real good. No, I don't think there's, I don't, I think he's not there. So he doesn't vote. So great. Let him sit there like, and Stu, he doesn't get to vote. He doesn't, but there's, the vote is gone in the Senate right now is what it is. The vote is gone. If he tries to vote, that's, he better walk in. That's all, you know, if he tries to vote or anything.

No, I'm in terms of who's this replacement. Who gets decided when he does it? Matter at this point. It doesn't get done. No, I think it's just a, it's just a point that, and I think Bashir's presidential election is going to hinge a little bit on this. I'm sure he doesn't love it. But if I, if I were him, I'd show up at the hospital. I would, for the people of, of the state. I'm here as for the representing as the governor of the state. I want to see how you are and assess

“your ability to do your job for the people of the state. That's what I would do. He won't do it,”

but that's what I would do. And then just get turned away and get turned away even if he did it. It's pretty good. It's not. Anyway, one more quick break will be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction and try not to, they could insult the Mark Zuckerberg video. It's really, yeah. No, it's, it's totally inappropriate. What I've been saying. My prediction is that this ridiculous notion that one of the most corrupt organizations is going to get financing from a crime

family, the Trump family to take FIFA private and or turn it into a public company. This won't happen. Or it's going to get water down beyond recognition. And here's why it's a $20 billion. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a $20 billion company. UEFA's already fired and opening shot. And they have, and they effectively have veto power. I'm, I'm not just saying this because of what I want to see

“happening. I think just, if you look at the industrial logic here, the mechanics, this isn't going to happen.”

The bottom line is the world cup is not FIFA's to sell. And, and UEFA, the governing bodies

already said none of us are, are the owners of football. That's not a press release. That's the body that controls the Champions League, FIFA's most credible commercial threat declaring war on day one. And there's also a precedent in 2018 in Fantino tried the exact move of Softbank's Saudi money at $25 billion. And UEFA killed it because they sought us a threat to their own prize assets. So this is the same playbook, same opponent, and same likely outcome. He's, you know, he's already tried this

news over one of the exact same contacts. And 211 members have to say yes, and FIFA's already trying to buy their votes with cash, not consensus. You know, and also the Kushner connection makes this whole thing radioactive, just not, you know, not just controversial. Kushner is even less popular. Have you seen what's happened at this Albanian island that America decided which is magical? Yeah. Yeah. The Albanians are not having it. Trump's son-in-law running the money side of the

world cup right after Trump and in Fantino stood together at the final after in Fantino gave him a peace prize. It's a conflict of interest story that writes itself for every journalist and every rival federation looking for a reason to vote no. Anyways, this isn't, FIFA doesn't need the money. By the way, it's Josh Kushner's investment vehicle. Right. It's going to finance it. Look, they're trying to monetize what is this global asset of goodwill. They're separate just so you're there separate.

Because so anyways, my prediction this thing gets rebranded or negotiated or shrunk to a much smaller Kushner-optic scrub version before September 19th. Because in Fantino keeps repose and commercialization deals, the die the moment of rival confederations, smells of threat to its own assets. They're competing assets here. So he'll probably get some increased member payouts, but he won't get FIFA. He won't get kind of a privatized world cup. The soccer, you want to talk about an asset that the

we've been talking about. This is going to be more, you want, you want to see the emotion

“of data centers times eight. By the way, speaking of which, I'm going on Bill Marr today or whenever”

this thing's released. And you know who the upfront interview is? Poop. Aaron Brockovich. Oh, yeah, she'll she's coming on my podcast in a couple of two weeks. Yeah, yeah, she's doing the data

center stuff. So that'll be, make for an interesting, that'll make for an interesting conversation.

She's actually galvanized a lot of people, which is interesting. Let me just read something from Australian Politico that in Fantino's political future may be on the US midterm ballot. There's a lot of Democrats waiting to pound here because it's a popular thing. He's, of course, this says

if control of Congress flips in the fall, those same ties could become a political liability for

Infantino as he seeks reelection atop the Swiss-based non-profit. He has led for a decade. Listen to this quote, the perfect storm scenario in the FIFA world. It's at one person involved in the highest levels of global soccer granted and I'm limited to discuss sensitive internal politics.

“I think they will find a candidate to run against them, especially if midterm slip control.”

And if things were to start pouring out, but a lot needs to happen in the next three or four months. I think he's reach too far. 15. Actually, you know what, that would have been a better prediction because his rival competing for the pitop spot will just attach him to Trump who's even less popular overseas than he is domestic. Yeah. Yeah. And that would have been a better prediction. That would have been more elegant. Anyway, I'm excited to listen to you on Bill More by the way.

Well, thanks. Anyway, we want to hear from you, send us your questions about business

“secret whatever is on your mind. Go to nmymag.com/pivot. It's the mid-a-question for the show.”

We're called 85-5-5-1-pivot. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Laren Amin, Zoey Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Arnie Intertada, engineered this episode. Thanks to also the Jubero's, Minister of Aerial, and Dan Shalon. The Shock Heroist box meet his executive producer podcast.

Make sure to follow up on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Fox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great week. [BLANK_AUDIO]