Tucker Carlson's Rebrand, Apple’s New Era, and SpaceX’s AI Deal

21:52Kara Swisher:I'm talking about more as our country. Like, when do we let it go? Like, that's going to be the reason I'm asking is I just did this incredible interview with Estet. It's like, when does it what is the statute of limitations? And when do all of us have to just leave Trump behind us and all the bad. And I'm not I blame him, but I blame ourselves because it's really hard. And it's it and it's and the jumping. Like, listen, I got like attacked for saying Reese Witherspoon was just saying try AI. That was just stupid. It was weird, but it was also, but I also get it. Like the rage about it's where it's coming.

22:30That's the machine looking for soft tissue to pretend they're virtuous. That's stupid. So what?

22:34Kara Swisher:Yeah, but you know, the right virtue. You virtue. We all do. No, that's everybody. Everybody who's angry about AI. Yes. There's a couple, there's different, this is complex, right? I get it. That's all I'm saying is I get where it's coming from. I get where it's coming from. And so I discount it. And sometimes, you know, I was talking to Claire this morning about something. Skoll was being mad about his socks or something like that. And I said to her, we were driving to school, and she goes, oh, yeah, he was really mad about the socks. I said, you know he wasn't mad about the socks. He was mad because I had been away for a few days, and he wanted me to drive him to school, and I'm driving you.

23:06Kara Swisher:And I said, sometimes people are mad about things that have nothing to do with it. Steve, for a six-year-old, I couldn't have that conversation with my 18-year-old. And it was an interesting conversation. Did you bring up Freud or Jungian resentment? No. I just use Claire. So smart. It's crazy. Let's watch Frozen. Frozen too. But it's just I think we should be talking as much like what is what do we have to do to get back to some level of disagreement? And I do think there's no question that the Greens, the Shapiros, the Owens, the Meg and Kelly, and definitely people on the left, too, who I don't listen to as much, which is interesting, have tried to, like, poke at us and make us really dislike each other in a way that I think has been very dangerous.

23:53Kara Swisher:And at some point, there has to be some level of reckoning over that. That's the right word. You know, it's a reckoning. And what is that reckoning? is really important. Well, three points. There's some nuance here. I would not group all of those people into the same group. I think there's different levels of mendaciousness and disingenuous and saying hateful things for money. The right word, so the first is what I'll call camera culture or forgiveness. I think in a culture where everyone's following each other around, where everyone's tweets live forever, if we don't expand the aperture of forgiveness, we're just all going to fucking hate each other.

24:29I say stupid shit all the time. I'm putting out 14 fucking hours a week of content. I'm shooting from the hip. If an 18-year-old shows up to a protest on campus and says, from the river to the sea, not understanding how some people perceive that, you know, I don't want to kick him out of school. I don't want to ruin his career. I don't want to contact J.P. Morgan, which some people want to do and make sure his summer internship is rescinded. And we have to get to a level of more forgiveness in a culture where there's incentive to make a cartoon of people's comments and press on the soft tissue and be outraged behind our computers.

25:09And we have gone so far from that. I'm trying to do that. I'm trying not to call out people for clicks when I see an opportunity. I'm trying to take the temperature down. The word you bring up, though, and it's different, is reckoning. And that is, I do not think this nation heals until there is some form of reckoning. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Pelosi should disgorge their profits from insider trading. The people who were in charge or supervisors of ICE in Minneapolis, where an ICU nurse somehow ended up with 10 bullets in his person, those people should be hauled in front of committees and punished.

25:47I'm not saying maybe they go to jail. Well, when there are people, when the children of our commerce secretary are taking$500 million from Gulf nations in exchange for favors and geopolitical advantage, they should disgorge those profits and be put on trial. There needs to be a reckoning here. At the same time, with respect to what people say or their views or being incendiary or playing into a far left or a far right media ecosystem that then elevates it online, we need to massively increase the aperture around forgiveness.

26:22Kara Swisher:Yeah, I think, well, that's well said. See, we've had a good discussion about this. We're still getting dragged online and I get dragged with you. Thanks, Scott. I think you should do the interview. I would tune in for the interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I would love to see what you said and how you approach it. I think that would be it's one of the reasons I would not interview MTG is I don't feel like I have the skills to handle that interview. Well, yeah, it's hard because it's part of me. I'm like, go, girl. And part of me is like, really, some of the heinous things you've done. Shall I?

26:50Kara Swisher:There's a point. It's it's a difficult thing because, you know, I just I'm like, you're very clearly have issues with Jewish people. Like it's, you know, you'd have to have an honest conversation. You'd have to be open to an honest conversation instead of just clap, clap, clap. We forgive you. Can I give you can I give you a couple of real world examples? I was supposed to go on Bill Maher, and I found out that Steve Bannon was one of the panelists. You did. You removed yourself. And I said, this guy made what looked like to me a Nazi salute. Yep. And a lot of people say, no, he didn't. If I had more skills, I could handle that conversation.

27:23I don't have that skills, those skills. As a nod to my mother, I feel like I would have to fucking say something to him on live TV. I do not want to hijack Bill Marstrow and I don't know how to thread that needle so I backed out. I was invited to go on Steve Bartlett's podcast tomorrow. I was supposed to be on with Eric Schmidt on a discussion on AI. I have a lot of respect for the brain of Eric Schmidt. I would learn a lot. I'm like, I'm in. And they're like, Eric can't do it. Can you come on in this panel with Sank or Chank? Every time I see that guy, he's yelling. I don't want to get into a yelling match with anybody.

28:00Kara Swisher:You went on that Piers when I told you not to. Well, I didn't know he was going to ambush me with some far-right weirdo. Yeah. And by the way, I like Pierce, and he's been very generous to me. And I called the producer and I said, never again, don't call me. You didn't warn me that you were going to bring on some right-wing weirdo to try and say to call me desperate and un-American. I don't need that shit. And it wasn't a civil conversation. It was you just trying to get the YouTube algorithm to have a call out moment such that you get another fucking forty dollars from AdSense. I'm not going to engage in that.

28:34At the same time, I'm not going to get on with, I think, that guy is far left, who every time I see him is yelling. A lot of yelling. What good does that do me? What good does that do the ecosystem or any sense of civil discourse that this nation needs to move toward?

28:51Kara Swisher:Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see how it goes. It'll be interesting. I'm so indignant right now. What? I'm so indignant right now. What do you call a black man on the moon? Oh, no, don't. Please don't. I'm going to have to fire you soon. What? An astronaut, you fucking racist. Oh, I love it. That guy is amazing. That guy's amazing. He's amazing. Like, oh, all right. They make$150 ,000 a year. Who was the person who said I wouldn't fly with a black pilot? Was it Tucker? One of them. No, no, no. It was Charlie Kirk. Was it Kirk? Yeah, that one. He was making a point around DEI that he thinks there's...

29:24Oh, God. And by the way, just so you know how airlines handle DEI, they do widen the aperture in terms of who makes it into the applicant pool. But any pilot, female, male, black, white, Latino, has to pass the exact same test at the same level. It's ridiculous. It's fucking ridiculous.

29:41Kara Swisher:Those things, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be forgiving. Anyway, that pilot is amazing. All right, we're moving on. I didn't mean to sound defensive. I'm going to get hacked a lot in the last 24 hours. I know, but you know what? It's good to talk about because everyone wants me to dump you. Everyone wants you to dump me. I'm not doing it. Everyone wants you to dump me. I'm just telling you today, today, today. Scott, did I have an effective and substantive conversation about the issue? Everyone wants you. I'm just telling you. All right, I'm moving on. Speaking of people, we may have to forgive.

30:12Kara Swisher:Apple will have a new CEO for the first time in 15 years come September. Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO and will move into a new role as Apple's executive chairman. Trump praised Cook in a post on True Social also saying, quote, I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to kiss my ass, unquote. Unfortunately, this was accurate. John Ternus, the head of Apple's hardware engineering, will succeed Cook, first product person running the company in a while. He's been with the company for 25 years overseeing the engineering of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Talk about the legacy.

30:43Kara Swisher:And you will have to include sort of being tainted by this relationship with Trump, including recently the statue and the Melania thing. Ternus is joining Apple as the company is fighting for a space in the AI race and product innovation. Talk a little bit about predictions for the Ternus era and looking back at the Cook era. May I start? Of course. I have to say he's 10x the amount, the value of the company. When Steve gave him the reins and then died, everyone thought it was curtains for the company, and that has not been the case. He has been innovative with AirPods and watch and not just not as sexy as Steve Jobs has been or as visionary.

31:22Kara Swisher:So I think he's been a great a great leader for them. That said, he was tarnished by some China, all the China manufacturing stuff for sure, because he's a logistics guy. He was maybe too much of an automaton on those human rights issues. And then the President Trump stuff is not a great look, but I think he was taking one for the team would be my guess in that regard. As a person, I really like him. He's a really calm person. I think he could have been slightly more outspoken about gay issues, but that's his choice. Again, I don't force gay people to have to talk about it, but he's a good role model.

31:58Kara Swisher:Probably could have talked a little bit more about it. That's my only, but that's, again, his choice. And I get why people don't want to. So, your thoughts? I think people's careers are, you know, the second in the blink of the corporate world in the universe, that second, 35 millimeters, right? No one gets all 35 millimeters perfect. And Tim Cook's running at 34 and a half. So to not, this is his legacy. Tim Cook is the most successful successor in corporate history. He had talked about a guy that was set up to fail by virtue of the idolatry of the person who was taking over for it. They were immediately second guessing.

32:36Kara Swisher:And the record. His record was pretty amazing. The record itself, not just idolatry. Yeah, it's like, okay, who inherits Jesus's man? Steve Jobs was the new Jesus because we had shifted from idolizing our athletes and our government officials to the idolatry of innovators as identified and marked by Steve Jobs. and then who was taken from us early like Jesus. I mean, it was just, he has become a mythical God-like figure. He certainly has. So any guy taking, you want to talk about the biggest shoes to fill in history. And what did Tim Cook do? He took the stock up tenfold. Operationally, he built the most, probably the most robust, impressive supply chain in history.

33:19He figured out a way in a foreign nation to take advantage of the collision between advanced manufacturing and low wages and somehow get 2 ,000 parts to one place or different places for assembly and build a supercomputer for$400 that if you tried to build it anywhere else would cost $4 ,000. He figured it out. He also created, people say he wasn't a new product guy. My favorite technology in history, in history, these things.

33:51Kara Swisher:The AirPods. You love your AirPods. And AirPods, if they were their own business, would be a Fortune 50 company. And I think of it as the most successful piece of jewelry in history in the highest margin. In addition, what he decided to do was to say, okay, I'm not going to launch new products. I'm going to take existing products and applications and take a phone and evolve it to a supercomputer where you have payments, where you have music. So an ecosystem is what you're talking about, creating an ecosystem. But he took the iPhone from a phone to a supercomputer in your pocket that was media, transactions.

34:27Kara Swisher:Yeah, he does this. And it became, the iPhone pulled off the impossible. And that is if you want really high margins like Ferrari, it's a niche with limited volumes. If you want super high volumes like a Toyota, you have to price it to get low margins. The iPhone is the only product in history that's managed to get the production volume of a Toyota with the margins of a Ferrari. The iPhone has created more gross margin dollars than any product in history. Arguably speaking, the iPhone is the most successful product in history. There's been nothing like it. Nothing. He did it with a lot of grace.

35:04There wasn't anyone shitposting or leaving or filing lawsuits. And if you want to talk about Apple's ascent past, say, Samsung or Android, go buy a phone, an Android phone. You're talking to a guy with a name tag named Roy who's living with his parents in a bad place with bad carpeting.

35:22Kara Swisher:They're still not great. I'll tell you that. There's some beautiful form factors that I like. I wish there was more. No, I mean the retail, the distribution for Android. Got it. Yeah. You go into an Apple store, if they opened a coffee counter in the Apple store, it'd probably be the highest grossing retail in the world. And by the way, it became the highest grossing per square foot retail, besting Tiffany in the early aughts. Let me ask you his negatives. What would you say? I would definitely think the controversies around China, certainly, but they seem in the rearview mirror. What about the Trump relationship?

35:58The China one, look, he had to take a huge risk on a company that we had geopolitical tensions with. He couldn't look into a crystal ball. And quite frankly, it looks as if we've survived it. And I would argue, I would argue that China and the U.S. have a vested interest in figuring out a way to get along because Apple is so important to China and China is so important to this U.S. company called Apple. I think cross commerce, I forget the German word for it, is firms that trade with each other are just less likely to go to war with each other. So I am a huge fan of what he has pulled off in China.

36:33The Trump stuff, we were very vocal about it. It pissed me off. I think Tim Cook, there are few people who have benefited more from the American system and civil rights and gay rights and rule of law and systemic laws around business and a lack of favoritism and a lack of tariffs than Tim Cook. And yet, you're right. He played the game. His priority was shareholders. So he was strategic and kissed the guy's ass. I get it. It would have been nice if he had been a little bit more forceful and pushback. But the reality is neither did the other 499 S &P 500 CEOs. So quite frankly, I think he gets a hall pass.

37:09Kara Swisher:You don't see Nadella there. You don't see like— Nadella went to the meeting. He went to the meeting. All the CEOs. I'm talking about the like— He didn't go to the Melania premiere. He didn't and he didn't bring him a present. And just it was—I thought it was tainting of his long, very decent tenure. And I don't think—I think I know—I have a feeling I know why he did it. He's like, it had to be done, essentially. I have to kiss up to him. And of course, Trump returned the favor by saying he kissed my ass, which is just like typical Trump. Well, this is the question I would ask. Of all the CEOs on a balanced scorecard of having a good team, fostering leadership, of showing grace, not posting other people, who scores higher than Tim Cook in the history of business?

37:53Kara Swisher:Cook or Nadella. I would say Cook or Nadella. I think Nadella really pulled that company together. So we got a 99 point. He got 1590 on the SAT. He got one question wrong. I mean. Okay. I'm just asking the question. I would agree with you. This guy is a first ballot Hall of Fame corporate and American citizen. 100%. And when people leave the stage, everyone should just be— He's also leaving at the right time, by the way. Yeah, and he's stepping down. He's not clinging to power like an African dictator. That's a hate crime. So, Ternus, very quickly, predictions for the Ternus era? Again, talk about big shoes to fall.

38:31You know him better than I do. The only thing I find fascinating about this guy is that he tinkers with like go-karts and he's a hardware guy. So it says more about the board. They said, we're about hardware. We're not about services. And this is about trying to innovate about products. You know him better than I do.

38:47Kara Swisher:I don't know him. I've met him a couple. He didn't stick out compared to some of the others there that were in the contention. But I do think he's having a product person is really important because they've got to really evolve the iPhone in ways. And I still have to get some glasses thing going. I know you're against it, but there's some lighter glasses thing that has to get going. I think they haven't been great in the home. They've been okay. And so there's a lot of, and then of course, how AI is integrated into all these products is going to be with privacy and safety, especially given the rage about AI.

39:21Kara Swisher:I know you all think AI is not going to happen, but it's going to happen. So I think that's, I think we'll see. I think, you know, again, this is a group of people that have been there forever. And I would have liked to see maybe a little bit more shake up. But I see why they don't. Why would they? Because it's working. And so, you know, he's younger. He's more vibrant. And we'll see how he does. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, new details about SpaceX IPO.

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43:00Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. As SpaceX Blockbuster IPO approaches, the company is doubling down on AI, striking a deal with Cursor, a coding startup, for a possible$60 billion acquisition. Also, some new details from the IPO filing. Elon and a group of insiders will have control of the company through a dual class stock structure. What a surprise. Elon increased his stake in SpaceX last year, buying$1.4 billion worth of stock from current and former employees. He stands to get$60 million more in shares if SpaceX market cap reaches$6.6 trillion and the company completes a plan to build data centers in space.

43:34Kara Swisher:Slight hitch. The IPO prospectus warns that data centers and plans for the moon and Mars rely on unproven tech and might not be commercially viable. Let me just add, talk about these plans. In other news, Tesla is out with its latest earnings, reporting better than expected numbers, but still way below levels from a few years ago. One bright spot, the company said demand around the world is growing, obviously, because of rising fuel prices, increased demand for EVs. And they're the front runner in that. But shares initially rose in extended trading but gave up those gains since Elon warned that significant increase in capital CapEx, which he noted was going to start at$25 billion for robots and all sorts of large ambitious projects.

44:15Kara Swisher:I don't really care that he has those. Cool. If it were, great. If they don't, too bad, you know, shareholders. You know, again, it's Tesla. The car business is not the business anymore. So he's got to reach for something else. I don't fault them for that. But any thoughts about the IPO and then Tesla? Well, the news is their acquisition or announced acquisition of Cursor. And my sense is that XAI has not figured out a way to develop a revenue model or a product that garners revenue. Well, all the founders have left except for Elon, I think. There's nobody left. And Cursor is their attempt, I think, to bolt on a front end that has a commercially viable product.

44:56Kara Swisher:Yeah, you're right. The other observation I would make is that, you know, liars use, statisticians lie and liars use statistics. Some of these numbers are just such bullshit. So when OpenAI said they were raising money at$850 billion, okay, call it a trillion if you guarantee me a 17 % preferred return and I have a liquidity preference. I don't care what number you put on the press release. And then, I mean, Anthropic here and now is worth more than OpenAI. But according to OpenAI's press release, they're worth two and a half times. The number that's a lie here that I'd want to know more information about is a$60 billion acquisition price.

45:34And I would bet it structured something along the lines of the following, that if we go public and get a$1.5 or$2 trillion market cap, we're going to give you options worth 3 % of the company, which is$60 billion. They don't have$60 billion in cash anywhere. They don't.

45:50Kara Swisher:Yeah. So. And also Andreessen's all mobbed up with that one, I think, and the whole bunch. They're all the same people. But they want to put out a headline number of$60 billion to get to note more value in this thing than is probably there. Let me be clear. No one is cashing a check for$60 billion right now. So, look, I think that, look, Musk with respect to business and what I'll call perception and pulling a narrative around getting access to cheap capital to pull the future forward, he's likely the best in history. Maybe with the exception of, I don't know, Netflix and Amazon played that game really, really definitely as well.

46:27But his ability to kind of continue to say, no, look over here as I stuff the rabbit into the hat. Oh, wait, you figured out Tesla is like just a mediocre auto company with low market. Look over here. Oh, SpaceX has only got 12 billion in revenues and a one and a half. Oh, wait, look over here. I mean, it's just, and integrating space connectivity, broadband, satellites, AI, autonomous. Data centers in space.

46:52Kara Swisher:It's all. Not a bad idea. It is like every eight-year-old boy's dream. I mean, it's like a company envisioned for an eight-year-old, but he is very good at this. He's very good at creating one plus one plus a little bit of jazz hands equals one and a half trillion dollars. And I look at this acquisition, makes no fucking sense. It's bullshit, the$60 billion number. It's probably a good idea because XAI needs more human capital and it needs something. Quite frankly, it just needs more product management. He has to hide things in things. That's why Twitter went into Grok, right, into XAI, because he had to hide it in there, like the losses and the declines and whatever.

47:32Kara Swisher:It's still hugely influential for him. Same thing with this is his grok thing, like all the people who he started it and touted it with have left. So he's got to make, you know, he makes shit into a very tasty shit sandwich sometimes. And spending, you know, you're just going to get what you get with this guy. He's going to always advantage himself. He wants to do cool things. He's going to take your money to pay for it. And these numbers are insane, but they'll probably go up. So we can't say don't invest, but the fact of the matter is, are there going to be a million robots in their homes? And you can, by the way, there's a million movies of him talking about full self-driving.

48:15Kara Swisher:And I didn't even get into this here, but it didn't happen. Like everything he said was going to happen didn't happen. But he's really good at raising money. He's really good at innovating certain things. But then he moves on. And so I think you just have to go with, and then he has a star link in the middle of it. And so that's what you get with this guy. The question is, is it rabbits and silliness or is it the real thing? Does it hardly matter given the spheres go up, right? Does it? See, this is a problem. When you control a board and you have made all the board members a lot of money, you end up doing deals that have no fiduciary oversight.

48:54So in this instance, and this shit is boring, but no one pays attention to this stuff. It was a share for share deal when SpaceX acquired XAI. And they valued XAI at 76 bucks and SpaceX at 527. If SpaceX had a board that could push back, they would say, no, XAI is not worth in any way 270 billion, which is the value they're putting on Twitter with an AI veneer. No, it's not worth that. So we're not taking that dilution. But because Elon owns equally large amounts in each, he doesn't care.

49:33Kara Swisher:He doesn't care. That's why he's going to have control, right? But meanwhile, SpaceX shareholders, in my view, are getting fucked to try and bail out XAI. And Twitter before that. And Tesla at some point. And is bailing out Twitter shareholders who he promised, back me in this ridiculous overpay of$44 billion and I will figure out a way to get you your money back. But the problem is there's no one who has, who can be a real fiduciary here and stand up for the shareholders they're supposed to represent because Musk is in charge. See above two class, two class shareholder company. Agree. No, I think you've got it just right.

50:08Kara Swisher:And you know what? I hope he gets a million robots. I've heard his robotic stuff is revolutionary, but like just land it. land the fucking plane, as they say. But, you know, it doesn't matter. These shares are going to jump. They're just, he has this incredible ability to do so. Steve Jobs used to supposedly have this reality distortion field, except he actually delivered real company products. I think he's got a reality distortion field. Sometimes things happen, sometimes they don't. All right, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll do a quick roundup of the rest of this week's news.

50:39Kara Swisher:There's so much news.

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54:00Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. Now let's end with a news rundown of other stories I'd like to hit quickly. First, Health Secretary RFK Jr. made quite an impression, as usual, this week testifying before Congress, besides heavy breathing on the microphone, which is disturbing. Let's hear a clip of him defending Trump math while Senator Elizabeth Warren tries to ask a question. There's two ways of calculating percentage. If you have a$600 drug and you reduce it to 10, that's a 600 % reduction. He just kept going on the math. Elizabeth Warren wasn't having any of it. Meanwhile, a report showing the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines has been blocked from being published in the CDC and Prevention's scientific journalists.

54:40Kara Swisher:The second time they're doing trying to pretend these vaccines didn't work. Thoughts very quickly? I think Hegseth is doing more damage to people outside of the U.S. than any person in recent history. And I think RFK Jr. is going to cause more death, disease, and disability amongst Americans than any person in recent history. And President Trump has to take credit for that. But when you listen to the guy talk, he absolutely has no quality. Now, if there's one, I mean, you just did, you're doing a show on this. If there's one place you need to defer to the experts and folks, expertise is an actual thing.

55:17It's around health. And they have clearly decided, all right, this guy is a fucking loose cannon talking about raccoon's genitalia. And they have basically said, keep this guy out of the news. What's interesting is that if he had ovaries, they would have fired him by now. I mean, they seem to be quick to fire women.

55:34Kara Swisher:Women. So the dirty mouth lady left. the labor department. Yeah, I mean, the three people now that have been let go, all women? Anyway. There was one guy, Phelan, who's fighting with Hegseth, but go ahead. The Navy secretary. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, I think RFK Jr. is, and this word's overused, RFK Jr. is dangerous. Murderous. And no one loves, you know, no one loves RFK Jr. more than measles. And we're about to see, in my opinion, and we've already seen it, a potential comeback of some of the most devastating diseases, which we had eradicated because of just junk science, head up your ass beliefs and conspiracy theories.

56:14The fact that this guy has been charged with the health of America and oversees the CDC is going to set us back years, if not decades.

56:24Kara Swisher:Decades, decades. And also he's just such a suck up to Trump, except let me just tell you, he's running for president too, by the way. They're all running for pride. They all wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, hello, madame or Mr. President. He really cannot be our president. Like, oh, God, if I had to pick, I don't know what I would do. I'm not going to have to pick. I won't pick any of them. Very quickly, crypto billionaire Justin Sun has sued the Trump family's crypto venture, accusing criminal extortion for freezing digital tokens over his refusal to invest more money with the company.

56:54Kara Swisher:over at True Social, Devin Nunes has departed as the company CEO after four years in their role, where they made, I don't know,$5 million a year, and one year he was paid$46 million. He's an incompetent moron. Thoughts on that? Just what a surprise, Justin Sun. You tried to pay to get out of an SEC thing, and they fucked you. What a surprise. Mobsters are going to mob. I don't know what else to say, and the Witkoffs are involved somewhere in here. It's one of the children. It goes to the notion of reckoning. I think it should be done to the letter of the law, But I think right now, many of the people running for president are just many of our fine people serving in government.

57:31And the Congress should be outlining and putting out plans to work with, to coordinate with states, AG. And Wyckoff's kids should not be getting$500 million investments from the Gulf, from who is meeting with a cabinet secretary.

57:47Kara Swisher:I think they're getting rid of him. That somewhere has to be a crime. And I think we have to start signaling we are going to pursue these crimes. In the statute of limitations, I believe, on the emoluments, whatever it is, this is probably, this is probably, I bet there's some very serious crimes this could potentially under defense threats. So, but the fact that I went to an event where Stephen Wyckoff, I spoke right after him, I just can't get over in the vice president, Vice President Gore was there. I mean, this guy is engaging in naked criminality. And so and by the way, I don't think it should be political retribution.

58:28I think we also should go after some Democrats specifically around insider trading.

58:32Kara Swisher:Well, let me get to that. For the prediction market news, Kalshi has fined and suspended three congressional candidates, not both Democrats and Republicans, for betting on their own races. That's not allowed over there at Kalshi. Thoughts? All these rules have to go in place. A lot of companies are doing them now. Do not be betting on stuff like this. It is insider trading. I'm glad Kelsey called it out as that. Thoughts? It was a brilliant move on Kelsey's part. I mean, okay, so there's good and really bad here. The good is that Kelsey has said, and this will cost them, that politicians will come out against them.

59:08They said, you're not allowed to do this. We're fining you. That's the good part. Good for them. Smart move politically, strategically for Turek, the CEO of Kelsey. This is what's wrong with it. We shouldn't need companies to regulate themselves. The fact that, you know, the marketplace hates a void. It hates a vacuum. There's so little regulation that the company itself is fining people. It's like, what if all of a sudden Chevron said, okay, you're manufacturing our oil and putting too much carbon into the air because we are so fucking freaked out about the lack of an EPA. That's where we are right now.

59:50The only regulation that's come down the pike in this stuff has usually been regulation to stop regulation. And so when companies feel, everybody hopes that a company is going to weigh in and regulate themselves. That is not the way to run industry or a country. Not at all.

1:00:03Kara Swisher:And they are. They are in some cases. Several companies have put in rules about this. But it's insider trading is all we have to. But the fact that just gives you a sense for the fact there's no sheriff here. It's basically this is to a certain extent, it's kind of like vigilantism that because there's no sheriff around, we have to enforce the law. So good on Kalshi, but it's a it's a terrible indictment on our lack of regulatory infrastructure. One of them said he was doing it for a reason to show how bad it was. Give me a break. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

1:00:42Kara Swisher:I'm Midge First, two-time NWCL champion, championship MVP, and forward for the U.S. Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset, and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:01:29Kara Swisher:Honest to God, like f***ing skinny. I want to be jacked. Without context, tone and sculpt are rooted in diet culture. We're inheriting a lot of nonsense that makes specifically women feel like they have to shrink in order to expand. And I'm just saying, no, let's just like lift heavy and like take up space. That's the expansion. I'm Robin Arzon, and this week on Project Swagger, I break down the strategies that helped me build confidence and feel at home in my body, especially after two babies. Listen now at Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Ed Elson. And we're bringing the Profiting Markets Tour to Chicago.

1:02:12That's right, the city with big shoulders, I think. Chi-town? Is that what they call it, the city with big shoulders? Anyways, I call Chicago the old navy of cities. I think it's 80 % of New York for 50 % of the price. I went there with my son. You probably don't love that.

1:02:28I went there with my son, and I had the best, We had the best weekend. We went to this amazing steakhouse. We went to a batting cage. We did a bike tour. We had the best time. What can they expect from us in Chicago? We'll have predictions. We'll have hot takes. We'll have some of Scott's signature rants live and in person. And you will have the chance to ask a question as well. Come to the Vic on Monday, June 1st. You can get your tickets at ProfitMarketStore.com. That's ProfitMarketStore.com.

1:03:04Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, we're going to use some predictions. Very quickly, so people know, Warner Brothers shareholders just approved the deal with Paramount, although it's facing a lot of regulatory scrutiny. I suspect it'll get through, but it's going to be a lot bumpier. And so that's going to be an interesting thing. There's a lot of pushback from Hollywood, all kinds of regulators. So even if it's just reached this step, I got my thing in the mail. I own some Warner shares. Thanks for the money, David. We'll see where it goes. I don't know. It might be a little rockier than people think, but they'll probably shove it through because they've only got a few months before Trump loses a lot of power.

1:03:40Kara Swisher:Your prediction. By the way, right now in the prediction markets, it's saying that the likelihood it closes around 72%, which is less than I thought. Yeah. They're saying there's a real, there's like a one in three chance it doesn't close. Yeah, there's some rockiness there. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, I think so. My prediction is that when the SpaceX value, when the SpaceX IPO goes out, you will see an almost not an equivalent, but a proportionate decline in the value of Tesla. Because right now, investors are paying for that Elon premium, and that is an inflated multiple in exchange for Musk, Charisma and Vision.

1:04:17And right now, Tesla's forward P is 185. That's 12 times higher than the auto industry. And basically, they're paying 12 times what anyone else is garnering in the auto industry for a car company that has posted sales declines for two years in a row. And abroad, BYD has surpassed Tesla as the largest seller of EVs and eating away its European share.

1:04:38Kara Swisher:New battery technology they're doing in China right now that looks really promising. Go ahead. In addition, RoboTax and Optimist are long shot bets that may not pay off for five years, if at all. So essentially, all of a sudden, retail investors are going to have an opportunity to buy into some of that Elon vision and magic, but with SpaceX. And so I think that magic acolyte worship that creates that 185 times earnings of Tesla is going to massively deflate because I think all of that idolatry revenue is going to go into SpaceX. Oh, that's interesting. So, boom. What if he merges it in? They need robots at their data centers in space.

1:05:15You've predicted that for a while.

1:05:16Kara Swisher:I was right about the last one. Yeah. Well, okay, that's a whole different ballgame. But assuming they maintain distinct capital structures, you're going to basically see just a massive transfer of market cap from Tesla to SpaceX. So the stuffing gets knocked out of Tesla. They're not going to make the robots that are going to run the data centers in space? I look, I think industrialized robots are incredibly exciting. I think the notion that you're going to have a robot in your house bringing you your soup or whatever. I just don't. I don't I don't see. I'm going to have that for you when you're old.

1:05:48In case you're I've already got a Filipino man named Manny with well moisturized hands lined up.

1:05:53Kara Swisher:No, you're getting a robot named Barbara. You're going to push me around. You're going to have trouble seeing over the back of my wheelchair. And I'll tell you dirty jokes and you'll tell me. I'll keep hitting you on the head. I can't believe you said that back in 2014. We're late for our podcast. I know. They won a Webby 40 years ago. Yeah, that's true. We didn't talk about the Webbys. Oh, my God. We won both Webby, all of us. And also Lost Boys got one, right? Is that correct? So you won for On with Kara Swisher. Interview. And Pivot won its third year in a row for Best Business Podcast. and my newsletter, No Mercy, No Malice, one for Best Business Newsletter.

1:06:34Kara Swisher:It's a great business newsletter. Thank you. And Lost Boys, one for Best Special Series, co-hosted with the Mooch. Five Webby wins between the two of us, Cara. Anyway, we appreciate that. We like the Webbys. We have fun with them. Anyway, that's a fun show. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions 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. Okay, that's the show. Very good show, Scott. That was a very good discussion. I appreciate it. I think where I came across is defensive. No, you didn't. No, you didn't.

1:07:06Kara Swisher:You didn't. No, I think I did. No, you didn't. No, it was called a discussion. Anyway. When will I be enough, Cara? Never. When will I be enough? Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weissman. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Manolo Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Dubroz, Minasavir, and Dan Chalon. Nishak Hara 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.

1:07:37You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.