Ed Elson

I would love to start with a question about the Illinois state budget, which was literally just approved last night.

Is that right?

At about 4.30 in the morning.

4.30 in the morning.

So he's had his rest.

He's feeling good.

So I just want to start with a couple of things that stood out to us when we were looking at that budget.

The first was a social media tax.

Illinois is going to tax social media platforms 50 cents per user per month.

And the second thing we found interesting was a prediction markets tax.

Prediction markets operators will be taxed 50% on their earnings from residents.

We can get into the budget itself, but I just wanted to get your views on those two taxes.

Why did you pursue them and how will this all play out?

That's right.

It's great to see that this issue is finally being taken seriously.

I feel like we've talked a lot about it on the podcast, and there seems to be almost no action, at least from federal government, on these issues, particularly around big tech.

I mean, does this set the stage for something else to come?

Like, what's next in terms of regulating social media and addressing these problems?

Well, we've got a...

If I could just follow up.