Andrew Ross Sorkin
Appearances
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, look, I think there's a fundamental question here about whether you think there's a problem with the status quo or not. Ken Griffin is one of the biggest winners in our economy under the current status quo, and I don't think he sees a big problem that needs to get fixed. But I think like we just talked about, I think there are some big problems.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, Freiburg just laid out the way in which trade with China is non-reciprocal. Like our companies cannot participate in their markets the same way that they can participate in ours. But it's worse than that. Like I talked about, these WTO rules gave China the opportunity to strategically annihilate our core industries that are critical in the supply chain.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And there's one other piece of this, which I think is really important, which is the race to the bottom. I mean, if you're an American company, And you are still producing in America and your competitor is able to go to China and undercut you. Obviously, you have to do the same thing because, I mean, those are just the rules of the game.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And so we've had this race to the bottom where if you're an American company operating under these rules, you have no choice. It's worse. But to export your manufacturing, your supply chains. So we've had these rules that, again, under the status quo, I would say they're not free trade. It's unfair trade. It has all these perverse consequences.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
It's bad for middle America and this manufacturing belt of the country. And it's created massive strategic dependencies on an American adversary.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
But this is what I think is so interesting, Andrew, is the way that Trump has already shifted the conversation. Because the truth of the matter is that before Liberation Day on April 2nd, which was three weeks ago, no one was talking about the unfair trade practices. No one was talking about the dependencies on rare earths. No one was talking about the race to the bottom.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And Trump has shifted the conversation. 100%. When Jared Kushner was on the show, he talked about how the Trumpian approach is controversy elevates message. And we said at the beginning that by having this Liberation Day, by planting this flag in the ground, Trump was creating... leverage to then have these negotiations, and he completely shifted the conversation.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Now, where I will agree with you is that the administration has to stick the landing here, right? Besson, and it's not just Besson, also Lutnik, these are all smart, talented people. They do have to then negotiate these deals, and we have to basically stick the landing. But
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I think the fact that you're saying that you don't disagree with where Trump is trying to get to, but it's mostly just tactical, is a huge shift in the conversation.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Yeah, I would just add to that that you hear this criticism of Trump a lot, which is that, OK, he's right on the issue or his instincts are correct, but there should be a nicer way of doing it. And I guess I would give that story more credence if the people making that criticism had actually been advocating for a change in the status quo prior to Trump. And they weren't.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, we had this bipartisan globalist consensus that pretty much all trade practices with China, no matter how unfair they got, was basically good for the United States. And no one was really doing anything about it. until President Trump made it this issue and made the unfair trade practices conspicuous.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
So if somebody else had been willing to take that on, then I maybe would give credence to this idea that there's some non-Trumpian way of doing this. But I just don't think that's the way our political system works. I think that the way our political system works is that you have to completely shift the conversation first to create a new consensus, and then you work out the deals.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And that process can be a little bit disruptive.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I don't know how long it's going to take. But look, I think one of the big lessons here over the past 25 years, is that you have security first. Security has to be worked out first, then you have trade. If you build your whole supply chain and all your trading relationships with countries that are fundamentally adversarial to your interests, and we can get into that part of the...
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
the US-China relationship, but I think most people would say that we're in some version of a new Cold War with China. Obviously, you're going to have to revise your trade relationships because, again, we can't be dependent on an adversary for core components that then go into our military, for example. So security always has to come first, then you work out trade.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I think that India is fundamentally extremely aligned with us on security because they view their biggest potential threat and adversary as being China. And that is basically the way that the U.S. sees the world as well. And so I do think that the U.S.-India relationship is just very aligned.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I think, therefore, the investments that get made and the trade relationships that get forged will be very stable over the next couple of decades. Whereas if you make a big investment in a country that could be your adversary, you should expect that that relationship could get disrupted.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I just think the structural realities just make it a good place to invest because I just think that India and the US are going to be very aligned for a long time. Agreed. Again, their main security threat is China. And our main security threat is China. And that's just not going to change for probably the entire 21st century.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Smart. Smart. Look, India is a country that has two great powers in its neighborhood. China and Russia. It has a contested border with China. They've had border skirmishes. When you have a country that is much more powerful, that's actually a security threat to you, you then seek good relations, even possibly an alliance with the other great power in the neighborhood.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
That has been India's philosophy. They've had good relations with Russia for a long time, even going back to the Cold War. That is what makes sense for their security standpoint. By the way, the exact same thing is true of the United States. We just haven't realized the strategic reality. China is the peer competitor. I mean, Mearsheimer made this point at our all-in summit.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
China is the peer competitor. It's the only country in the world that is a peer of the United States. It's the only country that's really capable of threatening our security. Russia is a distant number three in terms of the great power rankings. What you want to do if you're in a sort of heads-up competition where there's two superpowers is you want to make an alliance with that number three.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And what we've done is we've pushed Russia into the arms of China. What we ought to have been doing is the reverse Kissinger. We did this during the Cold War, by the way. We had the Soviet Union and we had China. And in that case, the Soviet Union was the big threat to American security. So what did we do? We had Nixon and Kissinger go to China and make a deal with Mao.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
China was just as communist as the Soviet Union. Mao had blood on his hands to a degree that is much greater than someone like Putin has. And yet we were willing to shake hands with him and make an alliance because that was real polity. And I think in a similar way, this is what our strategy should have been with Russia for the last two decades.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And instead, we've been foolishly pushing them into the arms of China.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Andrew, I mean, what do you think about this sort of what I would call balance of powers logic 101?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
No, the enemy's enemy is your friend or whatever it is.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Right? I think it's dangerous to look at foreign policy from a position of extreme moralism because ultimately the purpose of our foreign policy is to ensure American security. And we can't rectify every injustice in the world. And over the past 25 years, we've become hyper-interventionist.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
know in an attempt so we've claimed to do that right we keep saying that we we've gotten involved in all these places because we want to promote our values and spread democracy and by the way we did the opposite i mean you look at the forever wars the middle east we had interventions and occupations in iraq afghanistan libya syria how did all those things work out they did not promote our values or spread democracy so my point is just i don't think we should look at foreign policy from a position of extreme moralism
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I prefer to think of neither of those countries as quote-unquote evil, and I would prefer to think of them as countries which have their own interests. I think that with respect to China, the real issue is that it is a revisionist great power. It has made clear that it wants to basically annex Taiwan. It wants to turn the South China Sea into effectively a Chinese lake.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
It does not respect international waters. It has territorial disputes with Japan. And if we don't play a role in containing China, then China will revise the balance of power in East Asia in a major way. And I think that would have, I think, profound consequences for the United States.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
The United States is not going to be thrown off a roof by Russia. And that's the level at which we should think about these things. If you look at Russia's behavior, Russia actually is not a revisionist great power. What it wants is just security on its borders.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
The revisionist power actually in Europe over the past 25 years was the United States because we pushed NATO right up to Russia's borders. despite the promises that were made to Gorbachev in the 90s. So we're the ones who've revised the balance of power in a way that was profoundly threatening to the Russians.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I think it would be far better from the American standpoint to just work out a security architecture for Europe with Russia that gives the Russians the security they crave on the Western border and gives Europe the security it craves. And I think if we had had that mentality, as opposed to this highly moralistic mentality where we basically want to spread American-style democracy everywhere?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
You know, Ben Stiller was once referred to as the Jewish Tom Cruise, but he has not held up like Tom Cruise. I got to say that. He should have joined the Church of Scientology. Come on, man. Keep it up. You got to represent for us a little better.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Right, two trillion.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And look, just to be clear, I mean, I thank my lucky stars that I'm an American and we do have the type of government we have here. And my parents emigrated to the United States in 1977 for political reasons because we have the type of government we have here. So look, I'm a strong believer in American-style democracy. The problem is our efforts to
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
promote it or impose that style of government through regime change operations simply has not worked. I mean, this should be one of the big learnings of American foreign policy over the past 30 years. All I'm suggesting is I think it's better to model it, right? It's better to- Yeah, so how do you model it?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I think you model it by being the shining city on the hill, by setting a good example, by focusing on our own country and making America the best it can be so that people all over the world look to us and say, oh, we want to do that. And I actually think that what I'm describing is an American soft power. If you go back to the 1980s, we had that soft power.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Okay, Zacks. Can I build on that? Please. There was a tweet two weeks ago when all this started by Nick Carter that I retweeted because I thought it was really interesting, which was, if you think a market sell-off delegitimizes Trump's presidency, you're going to give him unconditional credit when it rallies, right? Because those are the rules now.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, the people of places like in Russia, they love buying American blue jeans and American music. And we had that soft power. We were inspiring to the world, but it all changed. I'd say starting in the 90s, but then really in the 2000s, when we started Going into these countries with our militaries and occupying all these countries, we soured them on America. We made them hate us.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And this is the problem with this hyper interventionism is what we should be doing is setting an example, not trying to occupy these countries. Let me read something to you.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, the reason why Rubio canceled that meeting is because the Americans put forward a peace proposal and Zelensky dismissed it out of hand. Before the Russians could do anything, Zelensky dismissed it. And recognizing Russian ownership of Crimea, if you will, should be the easiest point for Zelensky to concede. And he dismissed it out of hand. Now, why do I say that?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
The Russians annexed Crimea in 2014. So this was not something that happened in 2022. It happened over 10 years ago. And if you look at what the people of Crimea want, and there's been a lot of Western polling on this, there's been man on the street interviews by NBC, the people of Crimea by something like over 80% say they want to be part of Russia, they're ethnic Russians.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I'd say the final point on this is that Zelensky and Ukraine tried to get Crimea back in the summer of 2023 with the summer counteroffensive. Remember, the whole point of that summer counteroffensive was to sever the land bridge to Crimea, destroy the Kerch Bridge, isolate Crimea and essentially lay siege to it. This was the whole point of that. And they got nowhere with that.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
They didn't even break through the first Suravikin line. So my point is that it's militarily impossible to retake Crimea. The people of Crimea don't want Ukraine to retake it. They want to be part of Russia. And yet Zelensky cannot give this up.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
The basic problem is that Zelensky doesn't want to make a deal. I mean, he has rebuffed the Americans on Crimea, which should be the easiest point to give on. He's been completely unrealistic about their prospects on the battlefield. He was insulting to the White House when he visited the White House in his T-shirt or whatever. He was dressed inappropriately and then got in.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And that's exactly what's happened is that the market has rallied. Like you said, it's up 7% this week. But the media doesn't want to give Trump any credit for it. So it's kind of created this narrative of a Besson put. In other words, Besson is entirely responsible for it. Look, Scott is a very smart man. He understands markets. He understands the bond markets. And he is a reassuring voice.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, I mean, he was insulting to the president and especially the vice president. He murmured under his breath a curse word to the vice president. Remember that? Yeah. I mean, it was really quite something. And remember, he's biting the hand that feeds him. I mean, he has an obligation. I think, to be respectful to his patrons in a way that his patrons may not... His patrons.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
In a way that we may not to him. And he has demonstrated, I think, that he's unrealistic in every possible way. He's unrealistic about Ukrainian prospects on the battlefield, about retaking Crimea, and about who the hand is that feeds him. So my view on this is quite simple, which is if Zelensky won't see reality... Let him find new patrons. Let Starmer and McCrone support him. They say they will.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
They say they have the ability to do this. But they can't.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, they appear to. They can't enough. that this administration even has leverage over him.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
No, I don't think so. I don't think there's any evidence that he wants Poland. I don't even think he wants the part of Ukraine that is chock full of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists because you would have a massive insurgency there. He doesn't want a Gaza-type situation. And by the way, just another point on Crimea, where is the insurgency?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
If Crimea really wanted to go with Ukraine as opposed to Russia, why has there been no uprising there over the past 10 years? So in any event, my point is there's no evidence that Putin wants Poland. Poland's part of NATO. That would start World War III. I think Putin has shown that he's a calm, rational decision maker. And I don't think he wants World War III.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Now, the Russians have said what their terms are. They said it last year. They basically, in this root cause speech they gave in, I think, June of last year, and basically what it comes down to is they want Istanbul plus.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
There was a deal to end this war in the first month, the Istanbul deal, and it required Ukraine to basically sever its security relationship with the West and to recognize that it would not become part of NATO. And they had to give up Crimea, basically. That was the deal back then. What Russia has said is that's still the deal plus realities on the ground.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
So in other words, the Russians have lost, I don't know, 100,000 plus, hundreds of thousands of soldiers now taking this territory in the east. And obviously, they're not going to give it up. So I think that the Ukrainians could have had a better deal in the first month of the war. The Biden administration rejected that. Now there's a different deal. It's Istanbul plus.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I think that the American proposal is pretty close to that. So I think this administration recognizes...
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
wisdom and just reality of that deal but the ukrainians aren't so look my view is simple if the ukrainians are unwilling to take the deal that's on the table and they want to find new backers with the europeans let them but why should we continue to support this okay let's pivot let's talk markets and let's specifically start a couple stocks because you disagree because i want to hear you disagree no i i i could but we're gonna we i think we're gonna run out of time okay
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
to those markets. And I think he's doing a great job. But I think part of what's going on with this best input narrative is that no one ever wants to give Trump or his administration as a whole credit.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
So what they do on any particular week is valorize a particular member of the administration that they can then say, well, this is the person who's really responsible for this, not Trump, because I don't want to give Trump that credit.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Next week, they'll be tearing Scott down and there'll be some other member of the administration they'll be trying to valorize to basically prevent the administration as a whole from getting credit for doing something good. So again, I think Scott's doing a great job. I think he's doing a great job making these deals. And he's saying a lot of correct and reassuring things to the markets.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
But I think if the media is going to tear Trump down every time the market goes down, you have to give him credit when the market goes back up. And I think there's just a general reluctance to do that. Where do you land, Dave?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I think it's going to hold up. I mean, look, I just think that this investment in CapEx and the data center build outs is so strategic right now. I mean, I think that the hyperscalers, it's only good for their businesses, but I think they see it as so strategic to their survival that they just have to do it no matter what. In other words, I think they're totally inelastic on this.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
But let me just go back to Google. Nick, can you throw up this chart? I mean, I think the problem that Google has with respect to ChatGPT is that Gemini is just not getting the usage and ChatGPT is just growing like crazy. If you look at how these models perform according to the benchmarks, Gemini is actually really good.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, Gemini has made substantial progress catching up to ChatGPT, but they have not caught up on the usage side. Now, to Jamal's point, you could just make Gemini the default interface in Google search. But that is true innovator's dilemma, because if you do that, you could be giving up more than half the search revenue. So I do think Google is in a really tough spot.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And the longer they wait to make Gemini front and center, the worse this usage problem gets. I mean, what's basically happening right now is users are learning a new habit. I mean, they're learning to go to chat GPT to get their questions answered or just their searches answered in a completely different way.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I agree that the Google interface trying to incorporate Gemini into the 20 blue links or whatever is very kludgy. But I don't know how you fix that without just getting rid of the blue links. I mean, I guess you can do a hybrid experience, but it doesn't compare to ChatGPT, which is all in on the AI experience. So I think it's a real innovator's dilemma for them.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Otherwise, you're right, it will lose. The Google homepage where they just have the search bar and you can basically submit your search or I feel lucky or whatever. Would you replace that with that search bar with an AI chatbot?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Would you, okay, Nick, can you put up this? Here's their homepage, right? This is the famous shot. I just checked it. This hasn't changed in 25 years or whatever.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, you could do some A-B tests. What if they replaced I'm Feeling Lucky, which is kind of antiquated now with AI? I mean, Gemini, basically.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
No, it isn't the novelty. I think it's just there as like a whimsical thing. I don't know if it drives revenue for them or not. If it takes the user off site, I don't see how it drives revenue for them.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Dave, roughly three weeks ago, when we started talking about this, I think I made the point, Chamath made the point, that part of the art of the deal here, so to speak, is an opening salvo which is bold and some people would say maybe it's too extreme, but it's basically an opening bid to shift the conversation completely. And that would create tremendous leverage to get deals done.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
No, I don't think he's out of doge. He didn't say he was out of doge. It was just a matter of how much time he could allocate to each thing. I mean, look, I saw this before when I was part of the Twitter transition is that for the first three months or so, he was basically full-time at Twitter HQ learning the business down to the database level.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, every nook and cranny of that business he learned about. Once he felt like he had a mental model and he had the people in place that he trusted, he can move to more of a maintenance mode.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I think that's the only way he can manage five companies is that he has these intense bursts where he focuses on something, gets the right people and structure in place, feels like he understands it, and then he can delegate more. And I think that he has reached that point with Doge, but he was also clear that he's gonna keep doing it because if he doesn't, there's gonna be a huge backsliding
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
where all the corrupt interests will basically put back all this corrupt spending. So he's going to stay involved. But as an SGE, he's limited to 130 days a year anyway. And so it makes sense for him to kind of now ration his days a little more closely. But he's got the people in place. Remember, Doge... It wasn't just him. It was also the U.S.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Digital Service, which is basically the IT branch of the executive branch, which got put under Doge. So my sense is that Doge is going to continue. It's just that Elon is shifting to a mode where he can manage it one day a week or two days a week, as opposed to being there five days a week.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Why wouldn't we want to cut as much of this corruption as possible?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Why wouldn't they? Of course. And what we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that Elon has found and eliminate it from the budget. Because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget. And my biggest concern is not
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
something that that doge is going to do or not it's not up to doge to do that it's up to frankly these old bulls in congress who control the appropriations process are they going to basically backslide and just put the spending back in because it's easier to just do that to engage in this log rolling Or do we take advantage of this, I think, incredible sacrifice that Elon has made?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, look, this has cost him enormously. One of the reasons why Tesla is down is because you've had crazy leftists engaging in terrorism, firebombing Tesla dealerships. In any event, he's made this enormous sacrifice in order to expose the corruption. And look what we've learned.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
We've basically learned that this whole NGO thing is a giant scam where the people in government give enormous amounts of money to their friends. probably with the expectation that when they leave government, they're going to be next in line at the trough. And I think Elon's done an enormous service exposing this, but it's not entirely up to him.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
In order for us to realize the benefit, we need Congress now to act on that.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And isn't that exactly what's happened? Isn't that the way it's played out?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, he says they're at $160 billion right now. I think that's, by the way, that's an annual number as far as I understand it. So what I always hear with spending is they always multiply everything by 10 because they assume it's going to be 10 years. So if it is $160 billion a year, that would be $1.6 trillion over 10 years, probably more because the spending always grows.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And look, that's $160 billion that we weren't planning on saving before Elon got involved in the government. So if that's all it is, that would be great. I think there could be more. And it really comes down to whether Doge continues to be supported by the political process. And look, Elon can't, he can't force that, right?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, ultimately it's up to legislators to take advantage of the work that he did. And ultimately it's up to the people to put pressure on those legislators to embrace what he did. He's done an enormous amount, you know, but there's an old saying that you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
If the entrenched political interests at the end of the day aren't, if they're not gonna embrace the savings that Elon has found, I don't know what we can do about that.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
It creates a tragedy of the commons. There's a collective action problem because like you said, each individual congressman or senator primarily wants to get stuff for their district or their state. for their special interests. And there's no one really looking out for the public interest, the overall common good.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And these appropriators are basically engaged in log rolling where they're willing to give their colleagues their pork if they get their pork. And this is why we have a $2 trillion deficit. It's a really hard thing to fix. I mean- It's really hard.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I think this has been something that I remember Bush 41 in his State of the Union called for a line item veto. This was like 30 years ago. And we still need that. Because I do think that if the president had more authority over this process, it'd be less of a tragedy of the commons.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Yeah, and unfortunately, Congress will never, I think, change its ways until they're forced to by some sort of crisis, which, Freeberg, I think is your point about eventually we'll be in a debt crisis, and then Congress will finally see the wisdom— And they'll finally appreciate what Elon did. You know, there's all these entrenched political interests complaining about Elon.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I mean, again, he undertook an enormous sacrifice to try and fix our fiscal situation, which is unsustainable before there's a crisis. One day there'll be a crisis. Everyone will see that he's right.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
sitting in this week is our boy andrew ross sorkin journalist author extraordinaire andrew welcome to the show long time listener first time caller thank you for having me
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Rain Man, David Sack.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And it said, we open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Love you, Wes. Queen of Kin.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
Well, look, first of all, I wanted to say that when I'm on this show and I'm not talking about AI or crypto, I'm just a civilian, right? So I'm not a spokesman for the administration on anything but the two issues that I work on. So I don't want to come across as someone who has special knowledge because I'm not part of the trade conversation. So I can't answer your question directly.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
But what I would say is that with respect to the China relationship, I think what's happened over the past few weeks has been a very important stress test. And it's basically flagged some serious weaknesses or dependencies that have evolved in this relationship over the past few decades.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
I flagged this in a previous episode that we did with Larry Summers where I said that 25 years ago it was a huge mistake to walk China into the WTO. And I think that just to build on that thought, One of the problems with walking them into the WTO is that they got what's called developing nation status. So you can either be a developing nation or a developed nation in the framework of the WTO.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And maybe there was something legitimate to that in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping began his reforms, the average Chinese person was making $2 a day, by the year 2000, it was much more questionable. And it certainly makes no sense in the year 2025. And still to this day, China gets developing nation status. Now, what is the benefit to China of that? Well, they have a whole different set of rules.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
They're allowed to have tariffs. They're allowed to subsidize their industries. They have all sorts of different timetables for doing things. They're allowed to do things that the U.S. simply can't do. Now, how have they leveraged that? They have identified strategically certain industries that are choke points in the global supply chain, and they have taken them over.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And the best example of this is rare earths. So there was some good stories in the New York Times about this over the past couple of weeks, which I think were largely accurate. China identified this as a critical industry. And the rare earths, the ore itself is distributed all over the world. I mean, China has some advantages there, but they're not huge.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
It's the processing of the rare earths that's very expensive, very complicated. And they decide to dominate that industry. And they're responsible today for over 90% of the processing of rare earths. And then the next step in the supply chain is that those rare earths get cast into rare earth magnets. which are a critical component in pretty much every electric motor.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And so they're a critical component of the automotive industry, but not just cars, lots of different products. And I think China makes something like over 90% of the cast rare earth magnets. Well, by the way, this issue still has not been resolved. China has now cut off the United States. And so as part of this trade negotiation, we're going to have to resolve that issue.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
And I trust that it will be. I mean, what you've heard from the president and the treasury sector over the past week is that they're They've indicated a desire to engage in bilateral negotiations with China and to essentially deescalate this trade war. But I think it's been very useful, again, as a stress test to reveal our critical dependencies on China that we've exposed.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
We never should have let this happen. Just from a national security standpoint, We worshiped at the altar of this free trade god to the point where we became dependent on China for these critical components in our supply chain. I think that was a catastrophic mistake. And I think that it's exposed these dependencies we've created on a nation that is not our ally and that we can't count on them.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Trump Rally or Bessent Put? Elon Back at Tesla, Google's Gemini Problem, China's Thorium Discovery
It's a country of concern. So I ultimately think that we're going to need to learn from this experience and very rapidly make some major corrections here.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
If you don't, and the pain of moving is high, you may try to play this out and see what happens.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Because from a negotiating position, and the president talks about this in his book, The Art of the Deal, this is what they describe as anchoring. It's called an anchoring technique. which is to say that you state your position and you hold your position. And the moment you break from that position, it becomes a lot harder. And so you're 100 percent right.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
The second that they start announcing that they are taking a pause or that they're willing to do a deal at a lesser number or whatever it is.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
They've undermined their own case. The business community has a phrase that they've been using all weekend, which is what is the off ramp, which suggests that there is one and there might not be an off ramp.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Well, look, if you just look at how much money has been lost, we're talking about trillions of dollars with a T. But in percentage terms, you can look over just even the last week, we're down 10%. Peak to trough from the sort of heights of where we were near the election to now, you could argue we're over 20% off, maybe more, depending on how you do the math.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Poof. It's a tremendous amount of wealth poof in the sort of broader scheme of the universe. But to make it feel personal, let's just say you had a portfolio and you were a retiree and 20% of your wealth went poof overnight. And it went poof overnight because of a... man-made crisis.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
You know, most of the crises that I've come in to talk to you about, whether it's in 2008 or it's the pandemic or whatever, there's been something that has happened ostensibly beyond our one human's control. Right. This is a panic that has been brought on by a particular person with a particular decision around, in this case, tariffs.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Well, let's go through a couple of specific stocks and then let's talk about why it's impacting virtually every company in America and frankly the world.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
So the easiest example is to look at a company like Apple. Its stock has dropped, by the way, about 18% in the last five days alone. Wow. That is about $700 billion of value destruction, $700 billion wiped out. And you might say to yourself, why? Well, Apple's a company that manufactures a lot of its goods in a combination of places like China, increasingly in places like Vietnam and India.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
In fact, Apple moved a lot of its manufacturing out of China to places like Vietnam and India, in part because of pressures from the U.S. government over the last several years in the relationship between the U.S. and China. And one of the reasons they did that was because there was always a concern that perhaps there would be tariffs in the future or national security issues.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Mostly aimed at China. Mostly aimed at China. There was never an expectation that if you were manufacturing your iPhones in India or Vietnam... that all of a sudden you are going to have to pay every time you shipped those phones into the United States something on the order of a 50% plus tariff, which is what we're talking about here.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
That was my Apple phone, probably built in China, ringing, which would be tariffed if I bought a new one tomorrow. And so all of a sudden, if you're Apple, you are either going to have to do one of two things.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Either you're going to have to charge the American consumer ostensibly 50% more for the phone than you did before, or you're going to have to eat some of that cost, which is going to ultimately cut into your profit and therefore cut into all sorts of other things you do, which is to say, how are you going to think about hiring next year? What does your research and development budget look like?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Are you going to advertise as much as you did last year? And by the way, if the price point for the phone is higher, are there as many people who are going to buy it? And therefore, all of the economics of everything you do... Just went sideways. Just went sideways. And all of the interactions that you have with other businesses just went sideways.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And so the downstream effects, not just at Apple... but everywhere just cascade.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And it is falling. And why is it falling? Not because it does business in China. In fact, Meta does no business in China. But Meta is reliant on advertising. And there are going to be a lot of companies that are going to likely scale back how much they're going to spend on advertising at places like Meta. Meta's also in the business of building data centers all over the country.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
They've already said they're gonna invest billions of dollars to build these data centers for new AI features. Well, those data centers just got a lot more expensive. So either they're gonna have to build less, which means they're gonna grow slower, or they're gonna have to build the same amount, but it's gonna cost them a lot more. And that's going to also eat into their profits.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And therefore, their stock is down because technically you would say to yourself, well, they're worth less now.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Across the board. And we're just talking about the most obvious examples. I'll give you less obvious examples. Please. So if you're a McDonald's or you're a Starbucks doing business, not just in China, but all over the world, there are now questions, demonstrable questions that they're asking themselves about whether consumers are going to buy their goods.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
They're going to come into the store with the same Really?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Even a McDonald's or Starbucks is starting to see the effects of it. Not just even the last week. It's actually been something that's been something they've been concerned about now for several months.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
These companies have been worried about what— Tariffs mean to the relationship that the United States has with the rest of the world. What does the the American dream halo effect that was over all of these American brands in places like China, in places like Europe? Well, that polish is coming off. Because citizenry in these places are saying, we're upset with these people.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
We may not want to go to a Starbucks. We may not want to go to a McDonald's. We want to support our own local company. In fact, I keep hearing actually that some of the big consumer brands are talking about future advertising plans that are much more local, meaning don't focus on it being an American brand. Hmm.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Whatever love people had for the sort of soft power of America and whatever they liked about and thought about our country and our businesses and our industry, there are more concerns about them than they used to be.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Now, it may right now be on the margins, but longer term, I think there are bigger questions about whether the toothpaste is now out of the tube, no matter what the tariffs ultimately turn out to be. And how do you get that toothpaste back in the tube if you can't?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
I think I talked to over two dozen CEOs over the weekend, and I would tell you that virtually all of them had tried to call the president, Howard Lutnick, Peter Navarro, or somebody else in the administration across the board. They have been rushing to try to get in his ear. But I don't think that CEOs are calling him saying, Mr. President, you have made a terrible, terrible error.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
That's what they think. They think it's a terrible, terrible error. I don't know of a CEO who does not think it is a terrible, terrible error. Some of them like to use the phrase unforced error. However, I think that the phone call is a little different. The phone call is, Mr. President, let me tell you what's going on with my company right now.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Let me tell you about all the problems that this is creating. Let me tell you about all of the employees I was hoping to hire and be able to put out a press release and say that you were responsible for it.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Help me help you. I think that is the way... The CEO community is trying to position themselves with this president because I think if you go straight at him, publicly or privately, the phone call ends quickly.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
But I want to stop you for a moment because he then put out tweets this morning. effectively apologizing for some of his earlier comments about Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And I think that's indicative of what so many... senior executives are thinking about, which is, what can I say publicly, especially if I want to have access privately?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
The whole idea that if you had a lot of money, you were somehow protected, or that you would feel compelled and feel emboldened to stand up, so far has not been the case.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
There's no question that Elon Musk differs from the president on tariffs. But I think he, unlike so many of the other executives in America, feels like he has a special license to create some daylight on certain types of issues. And so I think in many ways, Elon Musk is just closer to the Scott Bessons of the world who say this is a
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
great way to negotiate with other countries to get their tariffs to go to zero.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
In this very moment, I would tell you the majority of business leaders is saying, you know what, I'm going to wait this out. I'm going to play chicken with the president. I'm going to see what happens with the stock market. If the stock market continues to go lower, it will likely put more pressure on the president and Congress and the Senate to somehow undo these tariffs.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Maybe the courts get involved and say that the president doesn't have the powers to enact these tariffs to begin with. And if that's the case, why should I be investing in manufacturing in America if they're not going to be these tariffs in six months or even two years or three years or five years from now?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
You use the word mess. In the business community, they call this uncertainty. Uncertainty is the enemy of business. It's the enemy of investment. Nobody invests into an uncertain market, into an uncertain situation. And so you as a CEO need to make a bet.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
If you think that there are tariffs here and that's a politically popular position, even after a Trump administration, you might bring manufacturing back to the U.S. solely to avoid the tariffs.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, I think Tim Cook is actually a great example of it. Through Trump's first term, Tim Cook clearly created a relationship with Trump and, as a result, stayed out of the crosshairs despite all of the back and forth with China and everything else. And so I think there is a view that he is persuadable. He is transactional.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And if you can create a relationship with him, at least you will have the opportunity. It's not clear that all these CEOs are going to succeed at whatever they're asking for, but they're getting a seat at the table. And from a practical perspective, that's all they can ask for today. Now, I think they also worry about what happens later. But I think the view is we'll worry when we have to worry.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But for now, we're going to try to befriend this person. Maggie?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I have so many thoughts, if you'd indulge me for a moment. Please. So it is very factual that during the first Trump term, Amazon was targeted by Trump in part because Trump was unhappy with Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
That's just an empirical situation, and they demonstrably were targeted by the president over and over and over again. Bezos also owns Blue Origin, which, by the way, is going to compete with SpaceX, has enormous billions of dollars in government contracts. And so Jeff Bezos – and he said this quite publicly – as an owner of the Post is quite conflicted.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
From a perception perspective, if optics are how you're considering this, he was very open that he believes that he's probably not the best owner in that context. He will tell you, he told me at the deal book summit that he believed he was making a principled decision about the decision not to endorse a candidate and also accepted that the timing of it was terrible. I don't know.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You're going to have to decide whether you want to believe him or not. On the Disney story, or I should say on the ABC story.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
So I think it's actually much more complicated than it's being portrayed by some.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I think they're very different situations because the truth is that I think that as Disney and ABC looked at this case, they saw depositions that were going to have to be taken. That we're likely going to get into the public that might have had unattractive facts. The media is clearly under a lot of scrutiny.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And I think even if you thought that ABC would, quote unquote, win the case on the law, on the law, there was a potential that they would even lose the case in the public mind.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
That, plus if they actually lost the case and then were to try to appeal the case, they would have to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Now think about the Supreme Court for a second. 6-3, right, in terms of the politics of that court. You could potentially undermine what's called New York Times versus Sullivan. Famous First Amendment.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
1964, which granted effectively the press enormous, almost expansive. What's the word?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And so there's a question. Do you want to go through that entire process and potentially either lose in the public mind or lose in court and then potentially really lose on behalf of, frankly, all of journalism? Or do you want to settle? Got it. That would be the defensive description of why Disney or ABC did that.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
This is about the heights of power. This is demonstration of raw power. Now, it might be raw power in the context of a honeymoon, but he now has power, obviously, in the White House. He has power in the Senate. He has power in Congress. And he has power within the industry. And as a collection, walking into the inauguration, he clearly is feeling that sense of power.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Once he's in the job, it may get more challenging. It usually does.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
This, to me, is the beginning of the movie that we've all been waiting to see and wonder how the drama plays out, which is to say that we've all seen Elon Musk around the table with President-elect Trump.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But we haven't really known. In fact, I think a lot of people have been skeptical about just how much power he may or may not have. Well, he used it, and we saw it.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
He took to Twitter, or I should say X, and said this bill should not pass. Full stop. His partner in Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, also took to Twitter and to TikTok. after having read 1,500-plus pages of the bill and said this bill should not pass.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Look at the list of CEOs who are either shelling out big money or meeting with Trump in person or both. We're talking about CEOs from TikTok, Google, Apple, Netflix.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Because of exactly how much it was larded up with stuff, specifically pointing out that Congress was effectively giving itself a pay raise for the first time in 14 years. There was what they call pork in this bill. And... Elon Musk said, no, Moss, we're not doing this. And Trump said, we're not doing this.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
So Rand Paul this morning suggests that Elon Musk should become the Speaker of the House. You laugh, but I think to some extent he was serious with that suggestion. By the way, you don't apparently have to be elected to that role, interestingly enough. So to the Elon Musk piece of it real quick.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, I do think this was the first demonstration of his quote unquote power in a true political sense in that for a very long time, he has made lots of proclamations on X, but has mostly been screaming into the wind. But now he clearly has the ear of the president elect. But more importantly, he's able to take that and the power of being able to galvanize the
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
this entire community behind him, I think changes the dynamic. And so I do think this is sort of that first demonstration. What that really means, I don't think we really know. But, you know, we've all talked about, you know, will he be able to do things? Is it just on the margins that be able to do things through executive actions and the like?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Or is it through, you know, will he actually be able to persuade Congress to do things? Well, this is actually a persuasion, if you will, of Congress to do something. So I think this is sort of the first example that we're all watching and trying to understand.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, Trump never publicly talked about true hardship in terms of what his policies would create. However, his new partner in crime, Elon Musk, actually did. Elon Musk took to X and said, if we follow through these policies, there will be a temporary hardship. Used the word hardship, interestingly. I paid attention to it. I don't know if most voters were paying attention to it.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But for a lot of the policies that we're all talking about, the president wanting to enact, it is almost impossible to believe that they can be enacted without actually some form of temporary hardship. Now, Elon Musk and President-elect Trump would suggest to you that there is temporary hardship now and it's a better world on the other side.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But there's a real question about how politically palatable it is for the American public to go through, quote, temporary hardship.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Well, look, most of corporate America going into this election, in truth, was not a supporter of President Trump. This was a book, you would call it, if you can't beat him, join him. And so you have many of the top 20 companies in America, CEO of Amazon, CEO of Google, Alphabet, Apple. The list is extensive. And all of them are going crazy. to Mar-a-Lago in truth to kiss the ring.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
They think of it as practical. They don't think of it as hypocritical. You know, back in 2016, I think a lot of CEOs didn't go down to Mar-a-Lago because they were skittish. They were skittish in part because their employees were skittish. They were skittish in part because I think the country broadly was truly skittish. That's not to suggest the country isn't broadly skittish today, but I think
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
They see Trump as somebody who likes the relationship. And it's almost in opposition to President Biden, who did not take the meeting. President Biden was not meeting with CEOs in America, didn't want to meet with CEOs in America, wanted to meet with union leaders in America, but not CEOs. And so they all see this as an opportunity.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
To effectively get in front of the president and hope not that they can persuade him of something today, but that as the debate over tariffs goes on, for example, that they will be able to make a call later.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And if you're Tim Cook at Apple and you're worried about tariffs in China where you manufacture a majority of your iPhones, you're hoping that you're going to be able to pick up the phone and call him in a couple of months and say, you know what? I have an idea about creating a carve out for, you know, a certain type of electronics product from a certain region in China.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And we can come up with an explanation for why that particular area won't have the same tariff as other parts of China.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Megyn Kelly Details the Curious Case of Carlos Watson, and Shocking Downfall of the Disgraced Media Mogul | Ep. 969
Your co-founder had a phone call with Goldman Sachs as you were trying to raise money. and effectively took them off of a Zoom and then apparently started to impersonate with a fake email address as well, somebody from YouTube. What happened?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Megyn Kelly Details the Curious Case of Carlos Watson, and Shocking Downfall of the Disgraced Media Mogul | Ep. 969
Your co-founder had a phone call with Goldman Sachs as you were trying to raise money. and effectively took them off of a Zoom and then apparently started to impersonate with a fake email address as well, somebody from YouTube. What happened?