Mamdani's Win, Palantir's Stock Slide, and Tesla's Pay Package

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Before it was Pivot, it was just an idea. And the place where my ideas could take flight was always on my Mac. I've been using a Mac for everything since I started using computers. And of course, an iPhone. I got one of the first ones. You know, I use my Mac all the time when I'm doing pod. You just need to get started. Great ideas start on Mac. Find yours at apple.com slash Mac. Support for this show comes from Upwork.

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What's next, like a concert tour with Taylor Swift? Oh my God, I got all these podcasts and then I'm headed out with this crazy lady for this seven city tour. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. I'm Scott Galloway. How is the Scott Media Tour going? I'm seeing you everywhere, Scott Galloway. Yeah. You seem tired. Not a media whore, just a whore. I am tired. I went to...

I did The Daily Show yesterday, and then Ben Stiller interviewed me at the 92nd Street Y. Oh, my God. Last night? Last night, yeah. Oh, my God. How was that? Look, it was great. It was very rewarding. I mean, it's the ultimate sell signal when Ben Stiller's interviewing Scott Galloway. That means sell everything. Yeah. But yeah, it was sold out. Of course it is. And Ben did a great job.

It was quite personal, and I would flip it back on him. He would ask these very... kind of personal moving questions and i'd say and what about you and he would just freeze oh because you know he just did that amazing documentary on his parents yeah yeah and it's a lot about his dad actually i mean it's about his mother too but it's about his relation it's about him becoming

a man it really is it's a really i thought it was spectacular everyone should go watch it but he put a lot of work into it he prepped a whole thing and i was very moved he's obviously a pretty busy guy and he he put a lot of work into it so I like him. Well, just so everybody knows, you have the number one book on Amazon right now. That's right. That's right. There we go. There we go. There he is. How did that happen? Yeah, yeah.

Well, what's next? Like a concert tour with Taylor Swift? Oh my God, I got all these podcasts and then I've got this, I'm headed out with this crazy lady for this seven city tour. Oh yeah. So we got... We got that. Yeah. We're going to sell some fucking books. We are. Sell some books, and then I finish with Mar a week from tomorrow. Yes. Can I come with you to that? Of course you can, if you're interested. Yeah, I'm coming with you. Tell Bill I'm headed that way.

So yeah, we got, and we're, what are we doing? We're presenting to 13,000 people over the next seven or eight days? Yeah, it's going to be great. Are you excited? Are you getting psyched? The answer is yes. Am I excited? Not especially, I'm tired. You must be. You're going to have to rest, okay? I used to do this when I was younger, and I realized I don't miss it. I used to burn it from both ends for like 20, 30 years.

Yeah, I was supposed to do something in New York tonight, and I canceled it. I want to be well for the tour. I was in Seattle for 24 hours. What? In between the last time we spoke? You've been to Seattle, man? Yeah. Oh, you've got to stop that, Kara. I know, but it was for one of our sponsors. So I'm trying to, you know, do the work while you're busy. Oh, so two words, ka and cheng. Yeah, whatever. And it was good, actually. It was interesting. So I have...

Unless I fuck up again, and I've fucked up a few times and lose everything again. I'm not done, but I'm pretty well, I'm done. OK, I'm done economically, but I still can't resist. I just got invited to speak at Jackson Hole for like my full speaking gig. And I'm like, well, maybe I should go. So I look at it in the middle of fucking January when my kids are home.

I should be hanging out. I'm going from London to Jackson Hall. Oh, that's a long... I cannot get off the money train. I just can't. Well... You know, sometimes it's a lot of money and you're like... I know, but if you're at a point where you don't really need it, it doesn't matter, right? Or it shouldn't matter. I know theoretically I shouldn't go.

I know. My kids are gone. I mean, my son is 18. He's going to be gone next year. We're lucky people, Scott. My youngest is at a great age. And there's no quick turnaround to Jackson Hole from London. Yeah. And I'm like, well, if the money's not going to make any difference in my life, why am I doing this? And yet I keep saying yes.

Well, it does a little bit. When you're poor, you'll be like, I'm glad I did that Jackson Hole thing. I actually, now I've been asking Amanda, I'm like, okay. She's like, oh, do you have to go? And then I tell her the figure and she's like, you need to go. Like, when she says no, that's sort of how I'm judging it. But, you know, speaking of our tour, which is going to do very well financially, but there's going to be a lot of Swisher.

Energy, just so you know. Just be ready for that. You mean swenergy? Swenergy. Lucky's gonna come up to me and ask me if I'm gay? Lucky's coming to DC. Wait, aren't you gay? Yeah, I'm gonna make her say that from the audience. Looking up, yeah. Yeah, she's gonna...

She's, she'll be. In a Pucci, in an Emilio Pucci dress. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And then Louis Swisher might be in Boston. He's thinking of coming down. Oh, nice. I know. I'm very excited. He called me. He goes, hey, mom, can I come? I already, I've got his life plan. He's going to go to live.

Law school or he's going to be a high school math teacher? Yeah, he's moving to San Francisco. I'm very excited. I can totally see that. With his girlfriend, yeah. He's going to live in my house. It's his house, really, actually. It's in a trust. They're going to name their first kid, like, Hope.

or wonder or something like that. They're total hippies. You talk about boys having good, both of my sons have great relationships and I'm happy. It's because we're raised in dual parent homes and they're wealthy. romance and marriage have become luxury items. Literally the percentage of young men in relationships with women is unfortunately It is. Sadly, tied to their income levels. Well, they're also very nice. No, no, no. I'm not saying. I don't even think it's because.

Women are that attracted. As women get older, they figure out that a man's ability to signal resources is increasingly important. Yes. But at that age, it's more about confidence and skills.

There's just some fucking really depressing stats, you know, in terms of the SAT. Oh, you've been on this tour. Let's go. Give me one and then we'll get to things. Go ahead. Well, okay, so. We're going to do this on the tour. We're going to talk about this a lot.

people talk about income inequality and they assume that income inequality is greatest between the middle class and the poor it's not the income inequality the greatest gap is between the middle class and the rich the rich have just literally launched into space in terms of income they have and What you have in wealthy households is that, so the average high school, public high school in America can spend about $15,000 per student on educating them.

Poor schools in poor neighborhoods because it's based on property taxes, which is probably one of the worst laws or constructs in America. It's about poor neighborhoods get about $8,000 to $10,000 per student. Inadequate.

the top private schools in america spend about 75 000 per student right they charge about 50 or 60 and they have big endowments which they subsidize so that's everything for you know better compensation for teachers teachers training more teachers resources after school sports i mean just all kinds of things and the result is the following The delta in the average SAT score for middle class to poor kids is 120 points. That is huge, right? Get this though.

The delta between that middle class score, which is 120 points higher than poor households, the delta between middle class scores and... kids from upper income homes is 250 points. Amazing. So if you're a kid coming from a low income home, just out of the gates on average. you're going to be 370 points down on the SAT. Don't even go into health statistics, but go ahead. Yeah. So, and this is my big rant. I'm a huge believer in affirmative action. It should be based on income.

of the household the kid was raised in, full stop. Wow, Zoran Mondami, the new mayor. You've got to stop that. You've got to stop that. I know, but you have a lot of similar talking points. I'm not suggesting government-sponsored food lines where the DMV picks up my produce. No, again.

The rich get everything, and this is the smallest of things. The smallest of things to make them healthier. Give them, okay. So they are better employees for the rich people, I guess. I don't know. All right, let me back up. No, we're not, we gotta, we gotta, we're gonna get to him. Sorry, sorry, you can't throw this bullshit. out there and they just let it sit there it's not it's just like yeah it's gaslighting me no the let's be clear

Budgets, and you and I are going to agree on this, reflect values. And this is America's values right now. 21% of Americans are under the age of 18, but 40% of SNAP food recipients are... under the age of 18, which says America's values are the following. We don't care about our fucking children. We do not. If we have public policy that is decided.

that double the amount of children are food insecure than the rest of the population, that is a conscious decision on voters from both sides of the aisle that it's okay for the most vulnerable to be hungry. And so you and I have common ground on that. Where we disagree is how to fix it. Sure. And when you insert government in the middle.

Cents on the dollar end up in the pockets of the people the program is supposedly for. So if you believe that people in the New York State metro, that a lot of people need help finding food. then give them money and let them spend it at Kroger's or Trader Joe's or wherever they want, not government-sponsored food stores where you'll end up with 10 or 20 cents on the dollar in the pockets of people who need it. This is a great debate to have.

He's the only one who brought it up, right? So I'm saying it's fine if we don't want his solution. It's how to get there is the thing. But the fact is, he's one of the few people bringing it up and all of a sudden Republicans are talking affordability now. But we've got a lot to get today, including the Supreme Court questioning.

Got elected on affordability. No, I'm stopping you because Trump got elected on affordability. We're going to talk about that in one. Yes, but he didn't do it. I agree, but that was his message. Yes, it was, but now he's back to it. He and Mondami are the same person. Stop talking. We're going to get to it in one.

By the way, I would have voted for him the moment my in-laws threatened to leave New York if he was elected. He got my vote. Okay, did they leave? No. All right, just a minute. Let's get to him. We've got a lot to get to. Isn't Alec Baldwin leaving? Aren't him and Hilaria leaving now?

What? Who is? Alec and Hilaria. Doesn't he threaten to leave the U.S. every time there's an election? Great. Goodbye. See ya. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the Supreme Court questioning Trump's tariffs, which was really interesting arguments.

Palantir stock took a massive dive. But first, let us talk about this. Democrats are riding high after sweeping key elections across the country this week. Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill won the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively. California voters passed the proposition.

in 50, giving Democrats a win in the redistricting wars with potential pick up five seats in next year's midterms. And of course, Zoran Mbadanmi won the New York mayoral race, handily defeating Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. In his victory speech, Mamdani spoke about pushing back against Trump and his policies. Let's listen. Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course.

Rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.

Meanwhile, Republicans are downplaying these. Can I just respond to that? Not yet. In a second. Let me just go through everything. Yeah, your job is to pick up the trash. Okay. I know you're mad about Mondani, but you're going to have to get over it. Voters voted him. He's going to fight autocracy.

and the oligarchy as mayor of New York. Scott, you need to calm the fuck down. Let me finish. Meanwhile, Republicans are downplaying these losses as best they can. Trump blaming the shutdown and others writing wins off as blue state blips. Let's listen to... House Speaker Mike Johnson. There's no surprises. What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming and no one should read too much into last night's election results off your elections.

are not indicative of what's to come. That's what history teaches us. Oh, he's wrong. That is not true, actually. Except it wasn't just blue states. Democrats also gained ground with victories in Georgia, Mississippi, and lots of places, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, all over Virginia, Montana.

Colorado, it was all over the place. And in fact, they lost their supermajority in Mississippi. There were some unusual voting patterns, especially among Latinos. And now they're worried about that redistricting. things they've been pushing out of greed, because it looks like Democrats can flip these red seats, which is interesting. Now, before you go ahead.

A lot of male voters played a big role in the last election, moving to the right to vote for Trump. Things swung back this time. Exit polls show Mamdani won 68% of men between the ages of 18 and 29. Spanberger won 50%. 57% of that group and Cheryl won 56%. All right, I've given you lots to go at. Let's take a swing at it, Scott. Grumble about Mondani and then let's go. It felt, I don't know about you, I felt alien.

to wake up yesterday morning as a democrat and having won this decisively yeah like i don't remember feeling this i didn't recognize the feeling the obama feeling when he won do you remember i just didn't recognize it and it wasn't it wasn't that these candidates won it was the margin they won by up and down the ballot it just went blue all over the place and there's some there's some

credibility to the Republicans' comments. And also Trump was probably right that when Trump's not on the ticket, these ideas and policies just don't work. They don't resonate. But it was also because of Trump. It was a very Trump-fueled election. Well, his policies. Yeah.

you know people vote for trump not his policies it was what it looks like some of the observations the things that unfortunately i find it really discouraging the delta between different different age groups and the genders it just feels like we're separating I mean, you realize for Mamdani, women, young women, he won by 72 points. Yeah. Women 18 to 29 went 84 to 12.

Right. Mom, Dami, and Cuomo. And then people over the age of 65, women over the age of 65, went 21 points for Cuomo. I mean, it's as if they're living in different nations. Yeah. It's just so strange to me that we have two Americas, unfortunately. built by age and the reality is this all in my opinion it all comes back to the same place and that is old people such as myself and you to a certain extent we have figured out a way to vote ourselves more money

and create a series of policies that young people just say, I'm not down with anything you believe and you have done. You have not left me the America. that you enjoyed. Except that, look, Mamdani won 68% of men between 18 and 29. That is astonishing. Oh, I'm not saying it's by gender, it's by age. I think Cuomo won by like...

20 points among men over the age of 65. The thing here was the fulcrum of these results. And by the way, it was a landslide he won. And I've said this before, I'm not a New York resident, but if I was here...

I think you give the guy the benefit of the doubt and you rally behind him. Which Bill Ackman did. Did you see that? I just think he's a fucking attention whore. Agreed, but I'll take it. Okay, that's, I shouldn't be so cynical. That's the right tone. No, you're right. That's the right tone. Yeah, it should be.

We all have a vested interest in the success of the city, the state, and the country. Take people at their word, rally behind them, and let's give them the opportunity. Let's let them cook. Instead of spending all their time defending. cynical or biased allegations or trying to undermine them at every step, give them the benefit of the doubt and try and help them be successful. I think every American, every person in New York City has an obligation to do that. Good for them.

The other observation I would have is the following. Molly Jung Fast did a video piece on, and I like Molly, I just had her on the podcast for the New York Times saying, you know, does America have a bias against female candidates? And I'm like.

No shit, Captain, fucking obvious. Let me just give you the basic statistics here. If you were to look at all of our elected representatives, all 535 people in Congress, the only thing they all have in common, like 90... plus or 97% of them, the primary requisite, the box they have to all check, which means it's the key consideration for electing someone to a senior level of Congress, is they have college degrees.

So that's the primary qualification. For the last 40 years, almost 60% of college graduates have been women. And yet 26% of our elected representatives are. Women. The reality is Americans still very much conflate height and depth of voice with leadership qualities when it comes to our elected representatives. And if you look at the candidate quality of the New Jersey and Virginia governor races.

Yeah. I think I can speak to this with some credibility because if you look at their backgrounds, they were built in the factory from parts of lesser candidates. Yeah. And their opponents were just... you know, fairly mediocre. And the fact that they, the fact that it was even, and granted, towards the end, they just pulled away. It wasn't close. But the reality is, if you don't believe.

That America still has really anti-bias feelings against women with indoor plumbing running for an elected office. The two prime examples are Harris versus Trump and Clinton versus Trump. Yes, yes. But there is still. While I talk a lot about the advantages or disadvantages facing young men, when it comes to elected politics, Our nation is still highly sexist. Absolutely. Let me jump in here. One of the things about Abby Spanberger, which is really interesting, is her mother...

was like a massive fighter for the Equal Rights Amendment and was sort of mocked by the Virginia legislature. And her daughter is the first. woman governor of virginia which i i think take time scott i i would agree with you here it's taken too long in the u.s other nations are way ahead of us far too long but now we have all these like women governors there's a lot of women governors which is

really interesting. I think it should be half and half, but there's quite a gang now of them. You mean a gaggle? A gaggle of women. You mean white women drinking wine? No, it's not. But there's all these... That's good. You know what? Actually, there's a lot of women of color who won mayorships. Detroit.

Detroit, I think, was the first black woman, black female mayor. There's a whole bunch in smaller cities. And a lot of these city councils shifted to Democrat. Up and down the ballot. Up and down the ballot, like city councils in places. And there are a lot of ways. And so you've got to bring them up. Like, you've got to just keep shoving them through the pipeline, essentially, all the way up. And I think possibly some of the ones that have run for public office at the higher level just got...

so beat up. Hillary Clinton got the shit beat out of her by the right. You know what I mean? They made it so she was so unattractive to voters in many ways. And I think the same thing for Harris. I think there will be a series of... younger women candidates that are coming up that will not have to deal with the baggage that both Clintons particularly and

Harris definitely had. Now, let's get back to Mamdani, which I think one of the things, I know you're making fun of the oligarchy. I think running against the oligarchy is a great message for Democrats. And I think... That is, that does resonate. I'm telling you, when I talk to people, they're like, what's the Bernie Sanders? Yeah. I got to say these rich people, the Lincoln, why is he putting pictures of Lincoln bathroom up? You know, he's building a marble bathroom while they can't.

afford it is such it's it's next to the affordability thing but tax the rich and make things groceries more affordable is a very good message for whichever party gets it except that trump has been embracing the rich as his best friends and having them on his patio. The visuals are very clear. And that gold office, Jesus. So first off, and this is why I'll never run or be elected, I'm focused on the mechanics.

And that is rather than saying tax the rich, where most rich people pay really high taxes, it's the super rich. And a better message is just to enforce the current tax laws. There's a $700 billion. tax gap, because what the Republicans did, which is genius, which the Democrats have not called out as they argue around the tax code, what the Republicans have done is delivered the biggest tax cut in history by virtue of cutting the budget of the IRS. The tax code is meaningless.

for rich people, because here's the bottom line. The laws in America, the top 1% are now protected by the law, but not bound by it, whereas the bottom 99% are bound by the law, but not protected by it. Who pays their exact share according to the IRS of taxes? Kara Swisher. People with simple tax returns. No, I don't have that. That have a number that goes under income, and then there's a tax rate. But if you have a...

80-page tax return through limited partnerships and capital expenditures. And your tax lawyer says, wink, wink, trust me on this. Don't hide income, but be as aggressive as possible because they don't have the manpower any longer. To look at this thing, you're just... We need to be smart about it. What's the objective? The objective is to get more money into the treasury. More revenue. It's very simple. You don't even need...

An alternative minimum tax, no loopholes. If you make over a million dollars, you pay an alternative, an AMT of federal income taxes of 40%. That would massively increase our receipts. Of course. But guess what? Trump is like friend of billionaire. Agreed. That's his image. And he'll try to...

not do that, but these people have open access to the White House, right? That's what they have. They walk in and get what they want. It's an oligarchy. Oligarchy meets cronyism meets socialism. Well, it's a good message. i don't know if you saw this but there were billboards all over new york showing it was just oh my god brilliant and it said mom domi uh 92 likelihood of winning cuomo eight percent when you see that when you see that you're like

If I'm voting for Cuomo, I might just not bother, right? That's it, we're done. And it gives Mamdami or whoever is projected as the runaway winner, it's basically the biggest endorsement ever. that they could get from any group. It really helps the candidate. But they were accurate. They were also accurate. Well, but here's the thing.

And I'm saying for any candidate, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you see polls showing that person way up, you start believing, well, maybe they deserve to win and there's a reason they're winning by such a large margin. And you know where the majority of bets. right, are coming from these prediction markets. Not here. The majority of the bets on polymarket that indicate and send a signal about the election and likely affect the election.

The majority of those bets are coming out of China and the Middle East. So if you're the CCP, again, this is what we would do. I think they'd be stupid not to do it. I would be fucking with our elections by... uh skewing the numbers from the reality based on what we saw as divisive we being the ccp on calcium poly market which sends a very very strong signal around who's going to win

Well, we'll see if more people, I don't think as many people know about it as you think. Oh, the media. It's the new Dow Jones and NASDAQ. Yes, I get that. I get that. But, you know, I don't know. Polling has gotten tarnished. I think they'll get tarnished eventually if it's too gamed. And we'll see where it goes.

there. Well, you know my suggestion around polling. What? Don't have any? You should absolutely take a poll and stick it up your ass. Okay. All right. Excellent. Okay. And then look for the on switch. Look for the on switch. He's back. He's back. When I was in London during the presidential election,

I went on every podcast. It was 30% Harris, 70% Trump. And I'm like, it's a coin flip, folks. And so I thought, I'm smarter than your average bear and da-da-da. And I said, I'm going to bet $300,000. Harris, and if I win, I'm going to get a million back. And I was up till goddamn two in the morning in London trying to figure out how to bet. And it ends up you can't as a U.S. citizen in London.

And I brought in the big guns. I brought in my 15-year-old to aid and abet his father's gambling and dopamine addiction. And the next day, and of course, you know the results, and everyone online just went crazy. This guy lost 300 grand on Harris. And I would have had I been able to figure out CalShare Polymarket. Oh, exactly. Well, then maybe not. Okay. All right. Then maybe. I just don't understand. I tried to understand. It was very hard.

We're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's tariffs face the Supreme Court. Support for this show comes from Banta. Here are a few things that are probably essential to your company's survival in the modern world. Internet access, a tax ID, a great snack pantry. Well, here's something else that's essential. Trust. In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth, it's essential. That's why Vanta is here.

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Scott, we're back. A majority of the Supreme Court justices are skeptical of the Trump administration's authority to impose sweeping global tariffs. The court heard arguments this week about Trump's use of emergency powers to set up tariffs on goods from over 100. countries.

The administration is claiming tariffs are just regulatory, but justices on both sides basically said these are taxes and only Congress can tax people. Trump is calling for the case, quote, literally life or death for our country. If the tariffs stand, they'll... like $3 trillion by revenue for the U.S. by 2035. If not, the government might have to refund $750 billion, which it shouldn't have gotten.

clear when the court will issue the ruling, but what does it mean for Trump's signature economic policy if he loses? I think they're going to decide against him, and I think they're doing him a favor because they're going to get him out of this jam, and then he can pretend it was them who did it.

i don't know what do you what do you what do you think of this so speaking of investing uh you know how i went out and i bought claims against a bankrupt ftx because i thought they're gonna they're gonna yeah i found in the bankruptcy filing which is if you're wondering what i do late at night on edibles i read bankruptcy filings that they owned that they had invested um about uh i think it was 500 million dollars in anthropic

And I thought this has got to be worth two or three billion dollars, meaning that 30 cents on the dollar, because the total claims are eight billion against a bankrupt FTX. Yeah. We're just. they were going to get back just in anthropic stock. And you could buy these things for about 22 cents. So I went out and for me bought a lot of bankruptcy claims against or claims against a bankrupt FTX. What I've had someone working on the last two weeks is the following.

if you're first off there was an economist who went on fox and they said who's paying these tariffs and he went into this whole song and dance like sometimes it's the the person exporting in say it's mercedes sometimes it's mercedes takes a little bit the consumer takes a little bit and the recipient of the product pays okay first off what he's trying to say

He's claiming that, OK, because Mercedes might have to reduce its prices if they don't want to lose share. Fine. But it'll be clear, folks, the recipient in America who signs for the Mercedes that gets off a ship. pays the tariff okay they may not they may choose not to pass it on to consumers or they may eventually they will because because companies need certain operating margins but it's disingenuous to say it's being split across all these entities it's not

A tariff is paid by the recipient in our country. Now, what I've been doing is looking into the following. I am considering buying claims And that is, if Mercedes of Wisconsin has paid $11 million in tariffs, You can go buy them right now from Mercedes of Wisconsin for somewhere between 10 and 15 cents on the dollar. Because they didn't think they'd get them back, right? Because they didn't think they'd get that money. They'd ever see that money again. And I believe.

there's a greater than 10 or 15 percent likelihood that these tariffs are reversed and the government has to cut a check to all those claimants who paid tariffs. So I actually think this is a decent investment strategy is to go buy claims or go buy tariff payment claims. So this money will be refunded is your point. So you feel like the Supreme Court's going to back.

him here. Not back him. The opposite of backing him is going to go against Trump. Exactly right. Mercedes of Wisconsin spent $10 million on tariffs. These tariffs are being challenged in court. And if the Supreme Court overrules it.

The government is going to have to send a check to either Mercedes of Wisconsin or whoever owns that claim. Although that was what the Supreme Court was all wrapped around the axle on. A friend of mine, Neil Katyal, did the argument, and I thought he was brilliant, by the way.

that was the one thing they were like, oh, now how are we going to give it back, right? And oddly enough, Howard Lutnik, who's such a moron, every time I see him, I think a moron, was like, oh, I think the Supreme Court's going to... say yes to us and stuff like that. He was going on and on as if he knew exactly what would happen.

Is there any way that could happen? Only because I thought, oh, he's a moron. When you say anyway, anyway what? That the Supreme Court could be in Trump's favor, one. And two, the one thing that did stick in their craw was how to pay back the money the government took. from consumers what people don't realize when they reverse engineer to what has really hurt america it's things like ruth bader ginsburg

believing she's going to live forever. It's appointment of exceptionally conservative justices. The Supreme Court, in my opinion, is no longer really a check against power. It's an enabler. And the reality is the president who the people elect gets to make those appointments. But through a series of unfortunate timing and biology, the lasting impact of this presidency.

Won't be tariffs, anti-immigration policy, a destruction of our alliances, although that'll be right up there. A lot of marble in the Lincoln bathroom. It's essentially the... final backstop against the most important decisions that impact Americans, whether it's bodily autonomy or international policy, whether or not the president right now is essentially ordering extrajudicial killings.

of people in fucking fishing boats. And by the way, folks, If you're really worried about drugs, you realize these fishing boats would have to refuel 20 times to get to Miami and that there is no fentanyl being produced in Venezuela, yet supposedly we're taking our trillion dollar military budget to strike fishing boats without any...

Seth has to do something. But get back to this. What do you think is going to happen here? And how is they going to return the money? Let me be clear. I think probably the likelihood is... If I buy these claims that I don't see my money, but there's more than a 10% chance I see the money. Right. Okay. So I like my upside. All right. I think maybe there's a one in three chance. I'm just using that number.

that the Supreme Court rules against Trump and says, you got to give them money back. And then I think, see, I actually think logistically, if they can figure out a way to take the money, they can figure out a way to send it back. The government figures out ways to send refunds, IRS refunds all the time. It takes a while.

I found out I overpaid my taxes this year. They kept it. And I'm like, okay, how long will it take to get it back? And they said 12 to 18 months because there's no one home. The lights aren't on on the IRS. Or we'll apply it to your next year's tax. Yeah, whatever it is. But they're very good at taking it. out the irs hasn't figured out a way to like take it right out of your account right getting it back i know it's like trying to cancel your verizon bill

Right. I got one from DC and I got a couple thousand dollars back there. Like, we'll keep it for next year. I was like, well, send it back to me. Like, why should you keep it? But their first move was to keep it. That's for sure. Well, try and cancel Hulu. It's super easy to sign up. Try and cancel it. Yeah. And by the way, I have a consumer bone to pick. I'm like seven on your side. Remember those local TV things where they'd go narc on some consumer thing? Yeah, yeah.

I love seven on your side. I wanted to do that for years. All right. I got a seven on your side. So when my mom passed, I set up an account and put some money in it, in her account, such that we could pay bills that would keep rolling in. Right. And I noticed like.

three years later it was down i couldn't account for something like seven or eight thousand dollars of it maybe four years later i'm like where did this go and her auto insurance it was automatic pay to geico oh you didn't cancel it after i'd sold the car three years later, they will still take that money out. And guess what? I just got my AT&T bill. I switched to Noble Mobile, Andrew Yang's new startup in the mobile space.

AT&T bill, I've always said this, for some reason, is about 450 bucks. But Scott, being the lazy douche that he is, never actually checked out the bill. And so my assistant, when we switched over, said, Wow, you're paying $450 a month? I'm like, yeah. And she goes, you know why you're paying $450 a month? My actual phone bill is $240. Which is ridiculous. By the way, it's about two and a half X what I'm going to be paying on Noble.

But I was paying another $200 on three other accounts. Oh, that aren't on there. And one of them was for a BlackBerry from 10 years ago. Oh, my God, Scott. So I have been paying $700 a year. for the better part of a decade on a BlackBerry that's been in a landfill for the last nine years. Because guess what? You're a lazy fuck. They could easily send a signal to say, is this in fact an active line? And maybe send...

you a quick email. They could do this so easily. Yeah, of course they don't. You're a mark. And they're like, oh no, they would be charging me for a BlackBerry 10 years after my death. I think you deserve that. I have to say, I'm down with the company. If you're that stupid, let them cook. Take your pocket. Anyways, AT&T, literally, somebody, like, I have paid for the snacks in the Madison, Wisconsin office of AT&T for the last 10 years, my BlackBerry. Well.

Much deserved because you're a dumbass. You don't pay attention to anything like that. Dumbass. Dumbass. Dumbass. That's the name of our pivot tour. Dumbass and smarty. Kara, dumbass. Kara, dumbass. I can't. Everybody wants to hear about me, not about any of this shit. Kara, let's.

Let's be honest. All right. Well, good to know. So I'm going to move very quickly to this one. Just as I predicted, billionaire and friend of Elon, Jared Isaacman, is back in the running to head up NASA. President Trump has renominated him after pulling back over concerns about. past democratic donations isaac minns uh the 42 year old payment company founder who's actually been to space twice on his own dime via spacex i mean just the short

ride to space. Two weeks ago, Elon Musk went after current interim chief Sean Duffy for opening up SpaceX moon contract to other companies. No love lost there. Trump's gone back to Elon's pick, like I thought he might, but the agency is still facing massive budget cuts and trying to beat China back to the moon, you know, I guess he's fine. I mean, he's more qualified than other people, I suppose. But the whole thing is just, it's kind of too little too late. I would like an actual.

space scientists to be running NASA, not friends of Elon or people that give, I think this guy ended up giving Trump some money too, although he must have given some Democrats money, which I think drove Laura Loomer crazy. I don't know. I'm not sure it matters at all. here, but Elon definitely is a good, that was a good thing for Elon. Well, it reflects a dangerous trend in that as we've decided to privatize a lot of efforts that usually the nation.

undertakes. And this is pretty straightforward. Elon Musk, who's a very smart guy, is that if we reduce the government's ability to launch aircraft or explore space, they're going to be dependent upon the private sector. And I'm the...

I'm the prettiest girl at the dance in the private sector. And I don't want to compete with a space agency that does not have a profit motive and therefore can make these forward-leaning investments in space exploration. And I think the saddest thing about this is that... NASA has consistently been an enormous point of national pride in an era when we need more connective tissue, where Republicans and Democrats both rally around.

Mars lander somehow crashing and inflating and figuring out a way to survive, how to get on the Mars surface and take these amazing photos or these I forget what it was, the Hubble telescope sending back those unbelievable images of deep space and making you feel insignificant in kind of a wonderful way. So that's a bummer. Having said that, as far as this guy goes,

This is like the least triggering thing for me right now. Yeah, exactly. I mean, fine. I mean, John Duffy was the other choice. So I'm like, and he's better. And also there's something to be said. For bringing in a civilian to manage government agencies who can have a broader perspective, like typically the secretary of defense is a private sector person. Because when you bring in a former.

Game show host. No, but some, I mean, they've said it. If we had a general running who was secretary of defense, we'd still be in Vietnam. I mean, they're fond, although a lot of them, I got to give it to them, seem to be more tempered and measured than many of our leaders now. It is good to have a civilian check.

on government. I don't mind this. This is the bottom line. I'm not offended by it. He's not the best choice, but he's not a terrible choice. And the other choice was Sean Duffy, who seems like a... Speaking of morons, a moron. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I was correct about this. And I was right. I was right. You can tout your rightness. The new book from Kara Swisher. The new autobiography. And dot, dot, dot.

I was right. Oh, my God, the poor are getting vegetables. I was right. How dare they? How dare they get vegetables? I used to run driver's license tests at the DMV, and now I'm picking out produce for New Yorkers.

Dad makes all kinds of sense. Oh, my God. We're going to have to have a wrestling match on stage over this situation. All right. I'm going to invite Zoran Mondani to the New York thing. He'll say no. I've already invited him several times. He's the only person that said no to us on Raging Modern.

I concur with him on that issue. All right. He'll get on you sometime. He'll take you downtown. He's very good at debating. Oh, yeah. I hope so. He's pretty handsome. He's very quick. He's not quick. He floods the zone with. nothingness and like re-hitted rhetorical flourish. Even James Carville, your favorite Southern person, James Carville was like, he's got a real talent, he's a real talent. We're going to have us an election, count some votes.

I love James Carville. Jimmy C. All right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's tariffs face the Supreme Court. Support for this show comes from Smartsheet. Look, everyone wants to go faster. Whether you're stuck in line standing at the DMV or you've got a huge to-do list at work that doesn't seem to go away. But usually when things are rushed, mistakes tend to follow. That's where Smartsheet steps in. They can get you the speed you need and the productivity to go alongside it.

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Scott, we're back. Palantir is having a really rollercoaster week. The company posted Blockbuster Earnings Monday, topping analysts' expectations and raising its full-year guidance. CEO Alex Karp, who seems something's going on with Alex Karp, he started strange and now he's moved to very...

strange called the quarter quote arguably the best results that any software company has ever delivered despite those numbers the stock fell eight percent part of the concerns over the valuation which is soaring but also because of filing revealed the big short investor Michael Burry bought more than $1 billion in put options in Palantir and NVIDIA. The Burry news really got under Karp's skin. He really should have.

taken a breath before he did this. He got a little testy talking about it on CNBC. Let's listen. Currently, as far as I can tell, the two companies he's shorting are the ones making all the money, which is super weird. The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is batshit crazy. He seemed crazy, but whatever. And then he went on about anti-woke companies. He used to be sort of weirdly Democrat, but a little bit...

Now he seems to have been, you know, sucking on the Kool-Aid of right-wingery. But what do you think of these Palantir numbers and what Burry might be up to, possibly shorting these stocks? You've talked about these valuations quite a lot. So look, the question is, is Karp a brilliant CEO and is this an amazing company or is it dramatically overvalued? The answer is yes. This is an incredible company.

it had it blew away really aggressive earnings it had 21 cents uh delivered 21 cents versus 17 cents 1.2 billion versus 1.1 expected Their commercial software sales grew 121% year over year. U.S. government sales or sales to the government grew 52%, which is actually better revenue because while the government is really hard to sell to, once you sell into them, they become like 18%.

TNT just billing you over and over. Overall sales grew 63% from year-over-year revenue growth of 48% last quarter. So it's an incredible company. And I would argue that in terms of investor relations, he's probably... one of the most talented CEOs in history. He's the one that did an earnings call on his phone, walking around the office. He's able to paint a vision that gets people excited. At the same time, If it went down 70% tomorrow, it still wouldn't look cheap.

It trades at almost 300 times earnings and 125 times sales. It has the greatest or the highest price of sales multiple in the S&P 500. And get this, it's got a similar market capitalization or value. to Netflix with one-tenth of the revenue. It's trading at the same valuation. So what is Burry doing?

Explain for the people. Well, Burry, it's very simple. Burry's basically short of the stock, where you basically agree, you enter into a relationship with a third party who says, all right, if the stock's trading at 400 right now, in six months, I'll give you... I'll give you $10 or $15 now in exchange.

I get to sell you stock in six months for $400. And if the stock goes down to 300, I get to go into the market and buy for 300 and sell it to you for 400, which you agreed to because I paid you a small premium six months ago. You're basically betting the stock goes down. that's all and it's an important part of the market because it creates

a balance. It creates opportunity to hedge such that people who are invested long, including widows and orphans, have more diversification and more downside protection. Shorting the market is a key component of the market. dangerous now because look at tesla which is has not good results and there is still up oh don't kids don't do this at home because when you

When you go short a stock, you technically have unlimited downside. And the reason why I have not shorted Palantir, although I think it's dramatically overvalued, is this is no longer a company. It's a meme stock. And that is... You know, he can make an announcement and people buy Palantir and trade it. It is, there are certain companies now where, and this is really kind of arguably, I think a decent definition of a meme stock, where it's lost all connection to the underlying.

metrics that we traditionally value stocks on so is it dramatically overvalued by all traditional valuation metrics and cash flows yeah could it double yeah it could and it would make even less sense So what do you think of Burry's move? Again, do you think he's taking enormous risks here? Because Karp got very testy in a way that I was like, wow, you're usually quite controlled. Yeah, I thought that was a bad look for him.

burry who is he you know obviously made one of the best bets ever going short against the subprime market and good for him i love it when people do that sort of work And the other guys that did that were John Paulson, a guy I actually worked for, consulted to for a couple of years named Phil Falcone.

There were two or three people that made kind of these historic bets against subprime mortgages. And again, could go out and short these things for no money because they were considered money good and bulletproof. And then they just started collapsing like it was a... pyramid, you know, built on card, so to speak. Now, no investor gets a right all the time. He's had a lot of big misses.

He's shorted a bunch of companies that went up. So nobody knows. He's taking a risk here. I would argue this is a really good risk for a guy like that who has investors who are willing to take these kinds of risks. And he's hoping to drive it down by... pointing out the ridiculousness of it. Well, I love, I love it. I find it so fascinating when these companies go short and then they put out really thoughtful, rigorous research showing why the company is dramatically overvalued. And it's.

it impacts the market. He didn't just say, he didn't just announce that he's shorting it. He has a very thoughtful, rigorous analysis and the stock's down 11%. Yeah. So he's done, I mean, he could probably be, you know, anyway, it's a really interesting, we have to keep watching that company because.

The question is, is it going to be a meme stock for a long time? But we'll see. Very quickly, right-wing civil war is erupting. We'll talk about this on the road, I think. It's erupting after Tucker Carlson's recent interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, where Fuentes called for an excuse.

pro-white Christian movement. The backlash has been swift with Republicans like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Speaker Mike Johnson condemning the interview. The Heritage Foundation is an open revolt after its president defended Carlson. For his part, Carlson says the upper is really

fight over what happens after Donald Trump. I think he's absolutely correct. The guy who's head of the Heritage apologized again after all these people left. One whole group that focuses on anti-Semitism and Heritage resigned. And so this is a real... open wound for the Republican Party, the flirtation with both anti-Semitism and white nationalism and racism. And this is going to be a real fight.

going forward for them and once trump is he's been able to hold it together but they won't be able to hold this one together yeah remember the republican party was putting out these memes or these images that said it said trump elon kanye that these are the three people that represent the republican party yeah right yeah i was on the phone

two days ago with someone who runs or does comms for Democrats. And I said, you need to put out the exact same image, but instead have it be Trump, Epstein, and Fuentes. That's who you want Trump associated with. I'm like, go for the fucking jugular. It would be fair to visually associate them.

because he decided to associate with them physically, spiritually, intellectually. And the most disturbing thing about that interview with Fuentes and Carlson, first off, Carlson really does deserve... some pushback and legitimate criticism for platforming someone like this and enabling and laughing when he said the following i'm a fan of stalin yeah

There are there's kind of a hard rock first ballot hall of fame of murderers in history. Yeah, he's on the top. Paul Pot, Hitler. They have nothing. on Stalin. Agreed. And we like to kind of ignore Stalin a little bit because they were our friends back then and they played a huge role in defeating Hitler. But he then went on to kill millions. Some say up to 20 million people. This is a murderous maniac. And this young man is saying, I'm a fan.

And Trump has this issue of like, we want your votes and we want you to think we're with you, wink, wink, such that you get out and turn out the vote. But try to keep those views to yourself as opposed to coming out and saying, we're Republicans. And the GOP has a history of evaluating people based on their character and equality and pushing back on fascism.

And saying what this is, these people could not be more anti-American and against the values, not only of America, but the core values of the GOP. Well, the old GOP, let's just be clear, because some people are backing Carlson, which is, you know, I don't.

I don't mind him interviewing him. There's all kinds of assholes. But the way he did it, again, was like, whoa, you could push back a little bit there. And the Heritage Foundation president, I think he'll be out. I think he'll be out. I think this is a death knell for this guy. I don't know. I just felt...

very weird, the whole thing. We'll see what's happening. This is a story that's going to continue. My favorite was Stephen Miller's wife when she was criticized for her comments saying it was anti-Semitism. I said, what? Where'd that come from? Where'd that come from? Yeah.

I don't think they even know you're true. What are you talking about? She's getting ratioed all over the place by people. Stephen Schmidt, who's very funny, but sort of... sometimes erratic guy, he's very funny, put up all these pictures of Stephen Miller with creep and fascist and Nazi, and she got all up, because she's trying to make... make megan kelly happen i guess around herself which is impossible um and she's like she said something and

And she goes, how could you do this? And he wrote, because your husband's a Nazi. Like, this whole fight is not good for the Republican Party to be discussing how, whether they're Nazis or not. No, it's not a good look. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, we're going to do it a little differently today for your prediction. We have a lot of predictions next week, but we're recording ahead of Tesla's annual meeting where shareholders are set to vote on Elon's $1 trillion pay packages. A lot of people have gone against him, including these shareholders.

shareholder services and Norway, I guess there's a Norwegian investor that's out. I predict he's going to get it. I predict he's going to get it because all these, now I'm paying attention to the stock market. Now there's all these calls at a higher level. of buying a Tesla stock at $480 and it's at $462. I think people know and I think he's going to get it. Yeah, it's...

Well, look, some things why it may pass. It is structured to be performance based. And that is he's saying if he grows the market cap to eight and a half trillion dollars that he gets a trillion. So theoretically. you can support it right and also some people including arguably the worst investor of the modern age but the best brand builder Kathy Wood from ARK Invest. She's predicted a strong approval. She's a loyalist. She's a shareholder. Tesla's board and Musk are saying that the package.

may risk must continued leadership if in fact he doesn't get it now major proxy advisory firms and i've met with these guys when i was an activist iss and glass lewis which quite frankly have Diminishing power these days, they've recommended voting against the package, citing, you know, saying it's just ridiculously excessive and risks of dilution. And also the term they use that I love is insufficient guardrails. I'm like, well, that's the mother of all understatements.

And then there's a pretty big investor, I think it's called Norges or Norges Bank. Yeah, it's this Norwegian group. They own about 1% of Tesla's shares, has declared it'll vote against the proposal. So, what's your prediction? I think it's going to be approved, but not overwhelmingly, but I think it'll be because keep in mind, if you bought shares, if you are a shareholder in Tesla right now, you've decided.

You've gone in on Musk because you're not investing in it. There's no way you could justify investing in what is an automobile company because it makes no sense. This company has consistently missed delivery deadlines. Its revenues on the automobile side are declining fast. incredibly you're basically betting on a that this guy can pull another rabbit the size of jupiter out of a hat which he has done before so they're kind of all in on this guy yeah this can pass he's gonna get it

He's not going to be, everyone's like, the world's first trillionaire. He's not going to be a trillionaire until he pulls it off. Just so you know. Yeah. He has to create an additional $7 trillion in value.

But that stock's going to go up, speaking of meme stocks. That's what I think. I just have no idea with this thing. So in terms of the stock price here, but I think shareholders... who have invested in a company at this type of valuation do not want to wake up and hear that hear that elon you know

is out because he got angry. I don't, if he walks this thing. Of course he'll walk. God, it would be so interesting to see what happens to the stock. I don't think he's going to, but they just would rather say, okay, look, if he creates seven trillion, if Tim Cook went to Apple shareholder. and said, it's worth $4 trillion now. If I go to $12 trillion, I want a trillion. They give it to them. Theoretically? They give it to them.

That's not outrageous. What the problem is, we're focused on the wrong problem, and that is if Elon Musk makes a trillion dollars, in my view, he should pay an alternative minimum tax of 60 or 70%. Back to that. The oligarchy and authoritarianism and grocery stores for poor people. No, and I want someone from the Navy picking out my cold cuts.

fruits and vegetables. Oh, my God. Oh, for goodness sake. It's like three stores. I think someone from the IRS should be picking out my grapefruits. I'm going to do everything I can to get Mom Domini to come out to our show. We'll ask him questions and he'll say nothing, but he's good looking. I should have someone you...

It doesn't like you in every city. I'd love to think about that. That's going to be pretty easy. You're not going to have to reach very far, Kara. That's true. Anyway, 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. Scott, are you ready for the tour? Are you ready? It's time to put your hat on for this. Are you ready for a week of Kara Swisher? Yeah, I'm excited. It's going to be... Great to see the Swishers. We got a whole gaggle coming with us. We're literally like a bad rock band in the 70s. We have groupies coming with us. I'm like, you want to come? Like, sure. Yeah, sure. Why not? Yeah, yeah.

We have some great people coming and showing up at each of the cities. And we have a few tickets left in some cities, not many, especially Los Angeles and Chicago, because they're much bigger venues. But go to PivotTour.com for more info. Okay, that's it.

the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out, and I will see you Saturday in Canada. Yeah, I'll see you soon, sweetheart. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Corinne Roth. Mernier Todd engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, Dan Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishak Kurwa 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 nnymag.com. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.