OpenAI Abandons For-Profit Plans, Disney and Uber Earnings, and Meta’s “Creepy” AI

24:55And he said, And the owners have told me that this piece of real estate is not for sale. And that is such an elegant and noncombative way of saying, yeah, go fuck yourself. And then, of course, Trump goes, never say never. So he did a great job. I thought Carney was quite a spectacularly. He seemed erudite and approachable at the same time. So go to the tariffs, because I do think this is like they're all like really not tariff deals. This seems like a bunch of shakedowns all over the world, including the Starling thing. which is exactly what I expected and remains horrifying. A kleptocracy is you figure out a way to ascertain or usurp or attain power, and then you use that power to make a small group of people very rich who have proximity to you who then give you a vig, and everybody else gets less wealthy.

25:45And that is what is happening across the entire country as we have an individual that is acting like a mob boss who monetizes the United States and the White House. And this is exactly that. This is he has proximity to big tech firms. He wants, A, he thinks of them as iconic. They give them a lot of money. He calls them and they take their tariff pricing down. He calls them and they say, oh, we're now in the business of, quote unquote, free moderation. And we call Trump a badass and we give a million dollars for his inauguration. And okay, so we're going to give them a lead over every other tech or media firm in exchange such that we can call it victory.

26:25And small and medium-sized media firms are shit out of luck. It's like, okay, they don't get this special advantage. They don't get this relief. And he can claim victory by, and this Starlink thing is literally like, okay, this guy put a quarter of a billion dollars into my campaign. And so I am going to force countries. I'm going to, I mean, Buffett said it. Little countries too. These types of trade wars are a form or tariffs are a form of warfare. So the U.S. is threatening war in exchange. You have to give sweetheart deals, noncompetitive advantage to the companies owned by the guy that gave me a quarter of a billion dollars to my campaign.

27:04He's literally. And who does that hurt? It hurts everyone. We're paying unfair taxes, unfair prices in the small and medium-sized businesses in this country who create two-thirds of our jobs and don't have lobbyists and can't get on the lunch calendar of the president and can't donate to his campaign or aren't going to. They lose. Essentially, look at the biggest kleptocracies in the world, whether Poland was emerging into a kleptocracy, Russia has been a kleptocracy for a long time. There are some of the wealthiest people over the last 30 years have been generated in Russia. Meanwhile, there's potholes in Moscow.

27:41Senator Warren summarized it perfectly. And that is she said, OK, they're getting rich. You're losing your health care. That perfectly describes what happens in a kleptocracy. And this is a kleptocracy. If they were to say, fine, no tariffs across, you have to drop your tariffs on all of our media or all of our tech companies and have a systemic law, that's fine. But when the president starts picking winners and losers, effectively everyone loses. Yeah, because he loves to be like, I make a deal, I make a deal, but it's always in the interest. The Starling thing was amazing. Maybe it's the best one, but these countries shouldn't have be forced into if you only take our, you know, if you take our salami, you know, you'll get what you want.

28:19You won't be like beat up kind of thing. And that's what it feels like. It feels like everything. And of course, it's Starlink. And when there's other choices that they could make with European satellite, whatever it matters, that might be their choice in the end, but they don't get the choice of the choice. And what the worst thing is, it's a lot of small countries, right? A lot of small African countries. It's not just one. The Post noted it was noted that it was like Vietnam was in there. I forget, the Congo may have been in there. And these are not all the ones on the list. So this is a policy of the government to sell Starlink.

28:50Now, our government does go around and sell our companies, you know, for decades, you know, use Lockheed, use Boeing, whatever. But nothing this explicit with someone so close to the president, right, in terms of like, let me get you a deal and giving them unfair advantage. Our trade representatives or our commerce secretary will take a group of iconic American companies, but they will also take a representative for small businesses. And they will say, okay, we're here with Boeing, Procter & Gamble, Estee Lauder, North Face, and trade representatives for small and medium-sized businesses and manufacturers.

29:24And we're here and we go to China and we try and cut a deal and we speak with one voice and talk about, you know, great American companies. But they don't go over and say, oh, by the way, you know, Exxon gave me a shit ton of money. I need you to build an Exxon field here. Then everyone in oil and gas but Exxon loses. And what happens is companies start allocating more and more money to the kleptocrat, which their consumers pay for. And the companies, it creates just an incentive system that's just a downward spiral. And it's a similar incentive system right now, unfortunately, because of Citizens United around companies allocating more and more capital to lobby.

30:03To wasting. It's a waste of money. Lobbying is a waste of money. 100%. And then the Trump boys go around the world doing either – you were on Anderson Cooper, I think it was last night. The crypto stuff, the real estate stuff, they're building a big building in Saudi Arabia, one all over the Mideast, and just getting – they're just coming with like a bag of money. They feel like mob people, like, here, put the money in the bag, and then we'll do whatever you want. Anyway, it's grotesque, really, it is. Anyway, Scott and these trade deals, let's take them apart very carefully, but most of them are going to be in this genre of giving a favor to someone and not bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

30:42That was never the goal. That was a giant lie they were telling. And people did these sort of virtue signaling of things they were already investing in to pretend that they were bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. So regular workers are probably not going to benefit very much, as they didn't in the first Trump administration. We made all those promises, none of which came to fruition about manufacturing facilities. OK, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegs says password fails. What a surprise.

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33:01Scott, we're back. Telsey Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, that's working hard, that word right there, those two words, reportedly has a history of not following best practices when it comes to cybersecurity. Gabbard used the same easily cracked password across multiple accounts. I'm surprised it wasn't 1234. for years, according to Wired. The password showed up in multiple data breaches and was linked to her Gmail, Dropbox, and LinkedIn accounts. And it was apparently some nickname she had in some strange group she belonged to. During the time the breaches occurred, Gabbard was serving in Congress and sitting on the intelligence-related committees with access to sensitive national security information.

33:38Then again, hold my beer, a lot of beers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegesatz also had passwords exposed in multiple data breaches, including the one that was reused across personal email accounts, according to New York Times. I mean, this is like worse than my mother, these two. And we also learned that he used Signal, Pete Hex says, even more for Pentagon business, engaging at least a dozen separate chats, the Wall Street Journal reported. I mean, I've never seen more promiscuous people when it comes to bad data practices. And talk about your concerns about this. These people do not know how to keep classified information safe.

34:13and even their own personal information at the same time. Well, you know what happens when Pete Hegseth takes Viagra? What? He grows taller, Kara. He grows taller.

34:29Look, when we send our young, our daughters and our sons to Serpent Uniform, they leave their families for months at a time. They forego economic opportunity and they put themselves in harm's way and oftentimes come back severely traumatized because, you know, they face such intense and incredibly stressful situations. And in exchange for that, we have unprecedented ability to deliver violence all over the world that has created prosperity and security for Americans for 250 years. And the reason why the U.S. military is the most impressive organization in the history of the West is because from top to bottom, people take it very seriously.

35:14And that is they appreciate, even if you're anti-war, anti-military, if you're in a position to help and protect our men in uniform, you do it. And you don't do anything to threaten their safety. And this is especially true. It is very hard to maintain morale. If anyone within the organization, whether it's the CIA case officers on the ground feeding them bad information, whether it's the person repairing your plane, trusting they're literally sweating all night that there's not going to be a mechanical failure. And the idea that the defense secretary is being reckless with classified information and putting them in harm, potentially in harm's way.

35:55And you may not even know how this manifests. Let's, you know, who should comment on this? Let's use, let's get Pete Hegseth's words on this. In 2016, he said the following when referencing Hillary Clinton storing confidential information on an email server. How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence of their recklessness and handling information? And he then went on to say, the people we rely on to do dangerous and difficult things for us rely on one thing from us, that we will not reveal their identity, that we will not be reckless with the dangerous things that they're doing for us.

36:38That's the national security implications of a private server that's unsecured. I mean, this guy, he literally defines hypocrisy. And then he went on to say, if at the very top, there's no accountability, then there's two tiers of justice, said Hexeth. Yeah, yeah, Pete, Secretary Hexeth, there appears to be two tiers of justice here. And this is, you know, these are the people in the military have one thing in common. They all the most patriotic people in America are our veterans. And anyone who has kids knows why. When you make this type of investment and sacrifice in something, you become invested in its success.

37:17And that's one of the reasons I think we need mandatory national service. This guy does not appear to be invested in our success by virtue of the fact he's just so fucking reckless. And then all the planes falling off of aircraft. aircraft. I've never heard of this. Like what in the world is happening? All this sloppiness. They'll blame it on Bernie Sanders. They'll blame it on someone. I just, I've never heard of playing. Like when's the last time that was a story? And now it's like a double story. Like these people are sloppy in every single aspect of their lives. Anyway, whatever, there'll be more of it and we'll find out.

37:50I mean, I'm sure our, our, our rivals are just loving it. And they're really kind of this, this kid named this ROTC kid who couldn't go to college unless that had been for ROTC, Martin Ortiz, my fraternity brother. This guy was so irresponsible, so reckless, so crazy, right? I mean, we were literally, you know, we didn't shy away from crazy behavior in the fraternity. Everyone was scared of this guy. He would come to my apartment because he lived far away from his base and he would sleep in our room on the floor and he would wake up at 3.45 in the fucking morning after drinking all night. So he could be a half an hour early at his base because he knew when it came to his military service, there was no margin of error, period, no margin of error.

38:36And this is a guy who couldn't get a D in basic English and couldn't figure out a way to rally himself to write a paper or whatever. But when it came to the commitment to the armed services, the culture they have created is you have to be near perfect. Yep. And PTAG Seth is not. Anyway, whatever. It's going to be a constant disappointment until they dump this guy. And he'll probably get dumped because he dumps planes off of aircraft carriers that it costs$60 million each, the money that we're supposed to be saving. Anyway, the Gates Foundation is marking its 25th anniversary with a major announcement that will officially wind down operations and close its search permanently in 2045, decades earlier than originally planned.

39:17In the meantime, Bill Gates has committed over $200 billion in aid over the next 20 years. Astonishing number. With a focus on ending preventable deaths, eradicating infectious diseases, and lifting millions out of poverty. The announcement comes as the U.S. foreign aid faces growing political pressures. They're cutting it everywhere, Trump administration is. Gates has been really, has got a hair up his ass about this, for sure, because in an interview, the New York Times, Gates pulled no punches about recent cuts in U.S. aid, putting the onus on Elon Musk, saying he put it in the wood chipper because he didn't want he didn't go to a party that weekend.

39:51Gates went on to say the world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children. I was like he's been a little bit more like Trump positive just because he wanted to sort of get the aid back in some way. But now he's like, fuck it. Like, I don't care. This is what's going on here. So the fact that one of the other world's richest men is spending 200 billion dollars of his money and stuff that the U.S. government should be doing. And the fact that he's calling on Elon, I thought it was good for Gates, good for Gates, because I was worried he was sort of modulating himself in a way that I know he doesn't think.

40:27So what do you think about this? There's a popular saying that a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. And Elon Musk is cutting down these trees. And America has been planting trees, the shade of which we will never ever sit under. George Bush with, I think it was PEPFAR, he saved tens of millions of people by making a huge investment and rallying really competent people to try and distribute AIDS cocktail drugs to people in Africa. That had no impact on me other than it was nice that we had the ability to do it and we used our scale and our strength and our expertise and our science and our universities to do that.

41:10But Elon Musk is doing the opposite. He's cutting down the trees, the shade of which he will never send under because his attitude is, if it's not providing me with shade, I don't give a fuck. And I'll call it, I'll say that I'm saving money for the government. In order to go to Mars. Mars is what we really need to do so we can save humanity. There are certain investments where if you make a small amount of investment, and$75 billion is not a lot when you look at the world's issues, you can allocate that capital to places of such need that a little bit of money has enormous ROI. Well, this is$200 billion, Scott, for Gates.

41:45No, I'm talking about USAID,$75 billion. My point is, I think Gates, who's one of the most brilliant people, and also I think later in life, as you would hope from a man, really developed a great deal of empathy. He thought, okay, what could I do with my quarter of a trillion dollars in wealth? I could create other great companies. I could build the biggest VC firm in the world. I could decide who gets to be president or who doesn't. And he said, at the margin of the efficient frontier, I can save tens of millions of lives because one small pill that staves off or prevents a case of malaria is not that expensive in certain regions of the world.

42:24Or netting or whatever. He was doing all kinds of different things. Toilets. He spent a bunch of money on toilets. He's like, it's not romantic, but if I can bring safe potable water and sanitation to certain regions, I will literally save millions of children who otherwise would have died of dysentery. He's a complex guy. And listen, he was a very difficult person. I was there when he was younger and kind of a jerk. He was a jerk. And all kinds of stuff he's done that is not great in lots of ways. At the same time, the transformation of this person into this kind of philanthropy is really something to see.

42:56And the fact that, listen, it's no small risk for him to call out Musk, who has been, by the way, attacking him relentlessly with fake stuff around vaccines. Musk was one, and Twitter has been the purveyor of this nonsense that Gates is putting chips inside of people's heads. It's all kinds of like through the vaccine. And the fact that this must all he does is make trouble for this guy and insult him and and create all kinds of dangerous misinformation about him. And then I'm glad he did this. I'm glad he said it because it's what he thinks. Just real quick, one of the most wonderful things about America's society is we have created a complexion or a gestalt in our society where typically as you become more powerful, there's an onus and an environment that encourages you to evolve, to become kinder.

43:48Bill Gates has become kinder. I think guys like Mark Benioff and Brian Chesky and even, you know, I interviewed Melinda French-Gates. You can tell as they've gotten more powerful, they really take it very seriously that I need to evolve as a person. I need to become kinder. The worst thing that can happen in a society is we create a gestalt that, okay, once I become president or once I become the wealthiest man in the world, I digress. I become an even bigger asshole. I become even more damaging to the world. And it's not an, I got to think quite frankly, and this is more of a philosophical question, what is it about our society where we are evolving this new species of man in the United States, where as they become more powerful, even the robber barons who were not nice people, once they achieved a certain level of power, they did flip the switch and think, how can I build big projects and big universities that would help society?

44:41And these guys are not thinking that way. If only someone had a book coming out in November that discussed what kind of men we should be. Go on! It's more discussion of what kind of man you shouldn't be. Well, you're telling it. Anyway, we've got to go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Disney and Uber's latest earnings. But good for you, Bill Gates. Good for you.

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46:39Scott, we're back. Disney is out with its latest earnings. I'd love to hear what you think about this. The company reported$23 billion in revenue, up 7 % from a year ago, and$3.2 billion in net income. A big turnaround from the net loss of$20 million last year. These numbers were fueled by higher streaming profit. That seems to be doing well. Good bet by Bob Iger. Domestic theme parks and home video sales of Moana 2. I can tell you, I've watched it 109 ,000 times. And speaking of theme parks, Disney has also announced plans for a new park in Abu Dhabi. That makes sense. It's 7th theme park resort.

47:11I thought they had one there. I don't know why. Disney is often seen as a bellwether for consumer confidence. These numbers tell you consumers aren't too worried, or is it just another Comfort's earnings report? I'm going to add in Uber's earnings, too. The company reported$11.5 billion in revenue, up 14 % year over year. Not a huge company, but a good, solid revenue. But slightly below Wall Street's expectations. Total bookings grew 14 % to$42 billion. That's the amount. And then they have to take out, blah, blah, blah. They have to pay drivers, et cetera. Uber has also just announced a joint venture with Chinese self-driving car company Pony AI to roll out robo-taxis in Middle Eastern markets.

47:47It looks like Uber is becoming the partner for all these things like Waymo and what Pony AI is doing around the world. So I'd love to hear what you think about. And then we have another listener prediction around earnings. But first Disney and then Uber. Well, Uber just sort of barely missed expectations. I would argue they met expectations. And what's interesting about Uber is their relationship with all these, they're striking up with all these different autonomous driving companies. It feels like there's an old Hemingway line. How did you go bankrupt? Gradually, then suddenly is the answer.

48:17It feels like the autonomous wars have been slow. And now it feels like it's about we're on the eve of war among autonomous, whether it's Uber doing deals, Waymo, at some point Musk will enter. It feels like autonomous. Waymo and Uber have a deal because they're the reservation system. They're the front end. I've always thought Uber was the reservation system for someone. And they don't cost you the consumer and you're used to just booking a car on them. But that's what I took away from the Uber earnings. But I didn't think they were that interesting. Really, the more interesting one was the surprise to the upside from Disney.

48:51And that is their stock popped 10%. It's after really touching kind of 10-year lows. Revenue up 7%. The Disney Plus not only raised prices, but grew their subscriber base, which a lot of us weren't expecting. Hulu added over 1 million subscribers. But the real story here is that I think strategically they're being very smart because what are they doing? They're leaning into their core advantage and point of differentiation, and that's its Parks business. Parks was mentioned five times more in this earnings call than the prior quarter's call because they realized that Netflix isn't opening a park.

49:27It takes 10 years, 20 years maybe to build a park like this. Comcast is their competitor. Their cruise line is killing it. And they also realized, quite frankly, they're probably always going to be a distant two or three, maybe, if they're lucky in streaming. But they can be number one and command unfair margins in their parks unit. And their parks unit is just killing it. And to Bob Iger's credit, this was the strongest earnings call Disney has had in a long time. And that is, OK, the streaming is no longer a sinkhole of capital. and we are, our parks business, which is truly differentiated and singular, is killing it.

50:09So good for them. Yeah, I think he's, and then we'll see who he takes over, but he's, you know, he's a pro. This man is a pro. Okay, Scott, we're on the topic of earnings. Let's hear for another prediction from a listener. This one about the economy. Let's play it. By the way, our listeners are so smart. Hi, Karen, Scott. This is Rich, an American living in Germany since 2016. My prediction is that the U.S. falls into a recession, possibly even worse in 2008. On the consumer side, tariffs push prices even higher after years of inflation, crushing demands. Businesses cut jobs even more than they are already due to tariffs and AI.

50:51Then on the credit side, investors demand higher yields after we voluntarily drive our economy off a cliff. Unlike 2008, though, the Fed can't just cut rates in a stagflationary environment. We're stuck in a vicious cycle, or Teufelskreis, as Karen knows. Teufelskreis. Scott, most people can't tell if we're going to run into this recessionary environment. It certainly feels like that's what we're being set up for, unless he does something. I mean, this is self-inflicted, of course. Well, there's sort of the non-unknowns and then the unknown unknowns. And it's usually the unknown unknowns that get you.

51:35But in terms of the known unknowns, the fulcrum here about whether we probably go into a recession or we're stagflation is this nonsense around tariffs and what happens. If anything resembling the proposed tariffs actually sticks, you're going to see an increase in inflation, an increase in interest rates, and a decline in the economy. The word for that that most young people don't know is stagflation. And when you have stagflation, when the economy shrinking, even as interest rates go up, which is the worst of that's, you know, that's nitro and glycerin for an economy. You have to sacrifice jobs and massively increase interest rates because basically, typically what the Fed says is we will opt for lower or higher unemployment versus higher inflation.

52:16That's the real danger. In my opinion, if we go into recession, that's something that's supposed to happen every seven years. It brings down prices. Quite frankly, it gives young people over the medium term a little bit of an opportunity to bind to assets at a lower price. I don't think recession is the worst thing that could happen to us. If you look at the Fed's notes or Chairman Powell's notes yesterday, he essentially said we're in a bit of a vibe session. And Kyla Scanlon, who I love, this young woman who does a ton of great work on economics, essentially, consumer confidence is at a low since COVID.

52:51The uncertainty index is at a high since the 80s. But if you look at the underlying data, if you look at employment, if you look at retail sales, if you look at spending, quite frankly, the economy still looks pretty strong right now. And so he kept interest rates flat. So this is all about in the short term, unless, you know, if there's a nuclear detonation on the Indian-Pakistani border, all bets are off, right? But in terms of where we are economically right now, the fulcrum or the arbiter will be just how fucking insane, how down crazy road we travel with these tariffs. tariffs. So we'll see.

53:31But the thing I'm most scared of is not a recession. I actually think that recessions, I think we're due for not an extended recession. Housing prices and stock prices need to come down such that people like you and me, Cara, maybe transfer a little bit of our wealth and create some opportunity for younger people who want to buy their own homes and buy their own stocks. I don't think that'd be the worst thing in the world. What would be nearly the worst thing for the economy would be a spike in interest rates as the economy goes down. And the thing, what's so interesting is any economist under the age of 50 doesn't even know the word stagflation.

54:06They don't even think it can happen. It can happen. It happened in the 70s. It's like a horror movie, stagflation. I feel like Besson's got the upper hand here, Besson and Rubio over the crazies, I think, I suspect a little bit more so. It's the 10-year. It's the bond. If the bond market starts spiking, they all freak out. They all freak out. But I'm saying with having to do with Trump's crazy, he seems a little more willing to deal besides himself, self-deal. In any case, we'll see. We'll see. Great, great. Thank you so much, Rich. That was really great. very quickly the new meta AI app is creepy according to a detailed account in the Washington Post speaking of these AI stuff that were meta probably will dominate in many ways the app assures personalized AI and delivers via personal information from Facebook and Instagram and memory files where details about users are kept.

54:54Jeffrey Fowler who wrote the post the article found his memory file contained interests like natural fertility techniques, divorce and payday loans also feeds conversations back about meta's AI training system without an option to opt out. I know you're saying they're going to dominate. There is a thing I worry about. You always say, oh, I loaded this up. I loaded that up. And I'm always like, I'm not loading my stuff up. And you can pay a little more to chat GPT so they don't train on your data and they allegedly protect it. I would not load up what I ate for lunch yesterday to Meta. I have to say, I mean, except for Instagram and threads, which I use largely for marketing.

55:34I got to say, I'm not loading a damn thing up to this person because of the way it was used and the lack of any guardrails. I would never use their AI app. I don't know how you feel about it, but you're much more promiscuous in loading up your information. Yeah, my attitude is violating my privacy as long as I can see that my QX60 is one minute away. I could just get high. I could just eat edibles and order Ubers and watch how close my car is. I find it fucking fascinating. Why is he making a right turn on broom? Doesn't he know where he's going? I find that shit fascinating. And occasionally I have a moment.

56:08I'm like, how do they know? Like, you know, how do they know I have prostateitis? How are they know? I mean, I find this shit fascinating. Mine is food porn, like people making food, tool tips, tip, like little hacks, hardware hacks and Mission Impossible. Mission Impossible, Dockers, which is coming out May 23rd. I'm going by myself, just so everybody knows. Do not speak to me on May 23rd. I'm going to see the final reckoning, and I'm going to probably see it twice. But go ahead, Scott. So what do you think about this app? Are you going to use it? You probably will. Look, I do a talk. I was just in Hamburg, Germany, and I do a talk on everyone wanted to know, had questions really around two topics in the Q &A.

56:53What the fuck is going on in America? And they want to know about AI. And I've said, I'm an AI optimist for the most part. I don't think it's going to turn on us. I don't see any reason why AI can't be used to create defensive measures against offensive measures. I don't think it's ever going to become sentient. I think the short run, it'll destroy jobs. But like every other technology, it'll create, in my opinion, more jobs than it destroys over the medium and the long term. The biggest threat of AI is that it's going to speedball loneliness. And that is, I'm frustrated. I don't have friends.

57:25I can't figure out the social pecking order. I am really upset. I don't have a girlfriend. So I have this incredible AI girlfriend that's a mix of porn. And maybe I even have an AI robot slash sex doll. And I never develop the skills or take the risk to establish a romantic relationship. And this is the fear. This is what young men have fighting against them, is they have the deepest pocketed, most talented people in the world trying to convince them they can have a reasonable facsimile of life with no human contact. You need the community. So you're not concerned with loading yourself, which is my question.

58:01Well, OK, it's too late for me. And not only that, quite frankly, I have economic security and people who love me unconditionally. So I'm there. I'm at the promised land. What I'm worried about is young men who are struggling to find a connection to school, to work, or to other people and get a reasonable facsimile of that DOPA hit that you get from a relationship from Reddit, Discord, porn, Robin Hood. Oh, I'm not gambling. I'm investing. And they spend all of their time in their basement never going through the hardship of trying to make relationships work. Let me say it. We have to move on.

58:34But Scott will be everybody's friend, next friend. Just so you know, Scott is everybody's friend. I'm very unfriendly, but Scott will be everybody's friend. Okay, I'm not using that app. That's all I'm saying. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions, including one more listener prediction.

58:56From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and Heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes? I keep waiting for this moment when he says, Mom, I get it. I'm sorry. Bigger dreams. Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance. And bigger heartbreaks. I thought it would be my movie moment. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear, I've always been in love with you. Check out new episodes of Heavyweight on Apple Podcasts.

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1:01:56Scott, we're back. We're going to do a prediction now, Scott. I'm going to do a very brief one. They're giving out Golden Globes for best podcast next year. I think we need to win, even though we're not in the top 20. You have to be in the top 25 to be in it. We have to get to the top 25. The top 25 most listened? Yes, apparently. Some dumb crisis. It's all fucking crazy right-wingers that are in the top 25. I know that. Exactly. So we need to log in. What about the top 25 revenue? Because the thing is, the people who listen to those people don't have any money unless they're looking for dental implants or trucker hats.

1:02:25What about the top 25 top 25 in terms of revenue. So we need to kiss up to the Golden Globe people, all those foreign press. Let's threaten to tariff them. Let's threaten to tariff awards ceremonies. We want to come. We are so much fun at a party. We would have such a we would be so good at a Golden Globe. We will drink. We will cause problems, et cetera, et cetera. So much is doing a lot of work there. But OK, you fall asleep on the couch. Everyone's wondering who the nine year old boy who is asleep on the couch. And everyone's like, who's the guy just at the bar who won't leave? That's correct.

1:02:52And as I said, I will be at Mission Impossible. One thing I will, I'm going to do a quick prediction. I was talking to the people at Aurora, which is the self-driving trucks. Everyone's focused on self-driving cars, but these driverless runs of trucks, they're now going on every day between Dallas and Houston. I just think that's something that isn't focused in on. They hauled pastries. The first driverless hauled transported pastries. This is an area nobody's paying attention to. I think that is the real money is that kind of stuff, because that's where it's going to be. That's where we really do need these these driverless things going on.

1:03:30And I'm excited by the driverless cars in cities. I am personally, but I think that's where the big money is going to be. That's where you should be focusing in on if you're interested in the sector. All right, Scott, make a prediction. This first hundred days of the Trump administration, mostly using the vehicle of the Trump coin will go down in history, is the greatest grift in the history of our economy in terms of the amount of money stolen and the size of it over the shortest period. Just some data here. So Trump-affiliated entities have made at least$300 million. This is distinct to the value of his stake in Trump coin in trading fees.

1:04:06The Trump family's net worth has increased by$3 billion or a billion dollars a month since he took office. Just some timeline, the Trump coin launched on a Friday night under cover of dark with all the news about the inauguration by 3 a.m. on Sunday. It was valued at more than$70 billion. And there were a small number of coins, a small number of investors who made large investments on a Friday. Maybe they got a tip or something. They made tens, if not hundreds of millions. And then over the course of the next couple of weeks, about 800 ,000 smaller investors lost billions. Is this the Melania coin one?

1:04:47The Melania coin, two dozen traders made almost$100 million the weekend it came out, right? So one person invested 64 seconds before the project was publicly announced. Within 24 hours, it made $40 million. But since then, Melania has lost 96 % of its value. Sure has. Such a scam. This market manipulation, this what would technically be called insider trading by the SEC, we'll never know because on April 8th, Trump's deputy attorney general ordered the DOJ's crypto fraud investigation arm to disband. And the next day, the next day on April 9th, the same day that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent affirmed that it was Main Street's turn to get wealthy, Trump posted on Truth Social, this is a great time to buy Donald Trump media at 9.37 a.m.

1:05:36between 1 and 1.10 p.m. there was a huge increase in bullish zero-day S &P 500 call options. And then just eight minutes later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on all of his tariffs and the market soared almost 10 percent, one of the biggest one-day gains in history. So someone knew what was going on. Of course they do. He calls them. That's called insider trading. The market gained$4 trillion while Trump media closed up 23%. Trump's 53 % ownership stake in the company increased his net worth by$415 million. On April 23rd, Trump announced that the top holders of the Trump coin would win an exclusive dinner with him and the coin surged over 60%.

1:06:19A small group of investors have generated massive returns. Just 58 wallets made more than$10 million apiece, totaling approximately$1.1 billion in gains. Meanwhile, 800 ,000 wallets of mostly smaller holders have lost money on their Trump coin. And this isn't just a vessel for corruption. It's an open invitation for foreign manipulations. Three quarters of the token value held among the top 220 wallets are believed to be held by foreign owners. So if he's hosting a dinner for his Trump hack, and it costs a million and a half dollars. And say you're hungry, and you want to get rid of these tariffs, don't you pay someone, have someone a proxy go, spend a million and a half bucks and go, oh, just FYI, let the president know, as a gift to him, we're going to buy$50 million in Trump coin this week, which will increase the value somewhere between half a billion and a billion, which means he'll get somewhere between four and 800 million.

1:07:20And we're really hoping he's kind to us around the tariffs. I agree. I've been talking to a lot of investigative reporters right now. And by the way, a lot of techies are keeping tabs of this stuff. I have to say, in a couple of years, there's going to be a massive investigation. He'll probably be not too old to put him in jail for it. But boy, is this a grift. You're absolutely right. Well, it gets worse. Now the kids went on. World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm run by Trump's sons, Eric and Don Jr. 60 % of it is owned by Trump-affiliated entity, and they are entitled to 75 % of its revenue.

1:07:54It's raised more than a half a billion dollars from investors who purchased the World Liberty Financial governance token. And now it's being leveraged to facilitate pardons for criminals. Justin's son, a crypto billionaire, was under SEC investigation for securities fraud under the Biden administration. After investing$75 million in World Liberty Financial, guess what, Cara? The SEC dismissed his case. That's correct. This is a crash. It is really, this is the story. I keep telling reporters, and you've talked about it quite a lot. This is the story, the absolute kleptocracy. And it's in plain sight.

1:08:29Absolutely. This is what fucking infuriates. I'm a real politic guy. I don't mind a little bit of corruption as long as it's good for all Americans. I don't mind a little bit of strong arming. But here's the problem or the tragedy. If Trump brought half the competence, expertise, and elegance to governance as he does to grifting, the country would be in a much better place. He's good at criming. This is what we have. This will be my last statement here. Okay. We have a mob family running the country. That's the bad news. the worst thing the worst thing is in michael corleone is managing the crime and fredo is managing the government it's like for god's sakes that's a good analogy you are you are so good at stealing can you bring some of that elegance that timing that expertise to the government to actual governing officers are usually fredo is in charge of our fucking military right now And Michael Corleone is in charge of the Trump coin.

1:09:31So I forgive everything if you take the people managing your grift and put them in charge of our military and social security. We do not want Eric Trump running anything. But you get my point. This is just, I get it. But they're not even smart. I don't even think they're smart. I think they're stupid and they're just putting their bag out and say, put money in here. Mobsters are notoriously stupid. They just are just muscle. And that's what's happening here. Anyways, the prediction is the biggest grift in history is happening as we sit here right now. Wow. In five years, 10 years, when this all comes out and it will, this will be the greatest grift in an economy over a shorter period of time that has ever taken place.

1:10:06Tens of billions, actually. This will make Putin blush. Yep, absolutely. Okay, Scott, you've made your prediction. Now it's time to hear one last one from a listener. This one is super serious, so please try to focus, okay? Let's play it. Okay. Hi, this is Mike from Oakland, California. And I think my prediction is if Scott isn't already shaving his balls, he's going to start doing that because I think there's nothing more depressing than gray ball hair. And that's really my prediction. Okay. I am speechless. Excellent. it. I occasionally clip my whole body so I can feel like a jungle cat. And then I put lotion all over my body and I just love me.

1:10:53Yeah. I'm not a big, I'm not a big manscaper. I like Big Ed and the Twins to have a little bit of a beard. Yeah. I got to say it's a big business. It's a big business. They have good names. They all have such good names. All those manscaping things. They have really funny brand names. Anyway, I'm not going to say how I know this, but I do. My junk looks like an aging anteater. It just looks sad. It just looks sad. Well, I don't know what to say. Scott is speechless, which is excellent. Thank you, Mike. No, I'm not. I think clipping is good. Keep it clean for the ladies, Scott. Keep it clean for the ladies.

1:11:30This is what I tell my sons. Keep it clean for the ladies. My wife came in on me while I was manscaping once, and she asked me what I was doing. Apparently meal prep was not the right answer. Okay. Keep it clean for the ladies. That's my advice to all men. Ladies and men, let me be clear. We want to hear from you. Send us your question 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, this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Ann Applebaum, one of my favorites, Pulitzer Prize winning historian.

1:12:07Oh, so good. And she's so good. So good. at The Atlantic. Let's listen to a clip. Donald Trump is somebody who's constantly seeking to shape reality to his own benefit, and he feels no need to be accurate. And so anybody who does, anyone who cares about telling the truth or who cares about making policy based on reality and not on this fiction that Trump promotes is uncomfortable. And that means that all the people around him are either they're simply manipulable and they're willing to just do whatever he says, or they're people who have made a big, a kind of moral sacrifice, you know, who are doing something they know to be wrong.

1:12:48Hello, Marco Rubio. Anne is terrific. And that's, I can see why you're in the grift mode right now, because she talks about this a lot. She's an expert on this. I love her. I love her. I love when, I love when, unfortunately, I'm like, it's terrible. She's having a moment. It's like if someone writes about famine, I hope they don't have a moment, but she is having a moment. She is. She's great and well worth reading. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver.

1:13:20Ernie and Ritod engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, and Dan Chalon. Nishak Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, what economic theory opposes manscaping? Laissez-faire.

1:13:48Golden Globe winner for Best Podcast.

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