The White House UFC Fight, SpaceX’s Big Pop, and Fox’s Roku Deal

Summary

Pivot Podcast Summary: "The White House UFC Fight, SpaceX’s Big Pop, and Fox’s Roku Deal"

Release Date: June 16, 2026
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect a whirlwind of recent headlines at the intersection of tech, business, and politics. Major stories include the controversial UFC event at the White House, SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO, the DOJ’s green light for the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, and Fox’s acquisition of Roku. The duo also discusses the growing role of AI in regulation and society, American and European policy differences, and their ongoing commentary on media consolidation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sports, Symbols, and Masculinity in America

Timestamps:

• [01:39–10:51] World Cup, Knicks, and UFC at the White House

• [55:27–55:58] Wins & Fails—UFC Aftermath

• The World Cup and Knicks: Scott relishes the energy and unifying power of sports, referencing the World Cup and a pivotal Knicks victory, describing New York as “electric” and embracing sports as a unifying force for the city ([03:07]).

  • Scott Galloway: “I think the city is electric... It kind of demonstrates the power of sport.” [03:14]
  • Kara Swisher: “If you want a version of masculinity, that's a version... It did a lot to heal the male loneliness epidemic.” [08:06]

• The White House UFC Event:

  • President Trump’s 80th birthday celebrated with the “UFC Freedom250” at the White House.
  • Star-studded guest list—Mark Zuckerberg, Joe Rogan, David Ellison, cabinet members (“...reads like a who's hoops of power, tech and money.” [05:11]).
  • Event marred by a UFC fighter’s misogynistic and racist taunt against Michelle Obama, shining light on the negative performative aspects of “masculinity” ([04:36–09:53]).
    • Kara: “This idiot, who's had his head hit too many times making an incredibly misogynistic...it's racist, it's anti—it’s just like gross.” [09:53]
    • Scott: “Unfortunately, [Republicans] not only highlight this performative, weird, dominant, misogynistic form of masculinity... it highlights to me that Democrats haven’t been able to identify anything around an aspirational viewpoint around masculinity.” [07:12]

• Contrast with Other Sports:

  • Kara highlights the Knicks and World Cup as offering a more positive, communal, and diverse representation of masculinity compared to the UFC spectacle.

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2. Media Consolidation: Paramount-Warner Bros. and Fox’s Roku Acquisition

Timestamps:

• [11:25–17:27] Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger

• [19:44–26:38] Fox Buys Roku

• Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger: DOJ allows the $110B merger to proceed, despite internal skepticism and claims of rushed approval (“...the fix apparently was in.” [12:35]).

  • Kara: “Justice Department apparently shut down its investigation... before career staffers even had a chance to weigh in.” [12:35]
  • Scott: “From a straight regulatory standpoint, there was really no...valid reason to block it...I was worried about the consolidation of media, but...there really wasn’t an economic argument.” [13:36]

• Industry Impact: Wave of mergers expected as media companies race to consolidate before possible increased scrutiny under a Democratic administration ([14:43–15:50]).

• Ellison Ownership & CNN:

  • Kara plans to leave CNN, citing distrust in new leadership:
    • Kara: “I don't want to work for the Ellisons... I just don't see any way that these people make good decisions and I don't trust them.” [15:35]
  • Scott jokes: “I just want everyone to know I'm absolutely a whore. An expensive whore. So Ellison’s, you have my number.” [17:21]

• Fox Buys Roku:

  • $22B deal. Fox gets control of a major streaming platform and its access to 100M+ households ([19:44]).
  • Anthony Wood (Roku founder) remains but in a subordinate board role.
  • Scott: “I think it's a great, great move... The moment I looked at it, I'm like, this makes all sorts of industrial logic.” [22:01]
  • Move positions Fox as more resilient amid linear TV’s decline—betting heavily on ad-supported streaming.
    • Kara: “I have always liked Roku... But it is a big bet on advertising based versions...” [23:44]

• Roku’s Significance:

  • Over 100 million households, 4.7B in revenue (up 15% YoY), expanding platform revenue [25:33].
  • Scott: “Roku is arguably the most important media company that people have never heard of.” [26:20]
  • Tubi and Roku synergy highlighted, with praise for smart executives driving Fox’s aggressive media strategy.

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3. SpaceX IPO: A Manufactured Scarcity and Financial Windfall

Timestamps:

• [26:38–36:53]

• IPO Details:

  • SpaceX goes public, shares pop nearly 20% on its first day (closes at $177, market cap $2.32T, Musk crosses trillionaire threshold [28:53–29:25]).
  • Scott: “Never seen such engineered, manufactured scarcity... This has created a level of excitement in the market.” [28:53]

• Critique & Reflection:

  • Lockups and complex share classes questioned as mechanisms for narrative control and manufactured scarcity.
  • Scott: “From a valuation standpoint... Musk is able to create this narrative over numbers like no one else in history.” [30:32]

• Government as VC:

  • Emphasis on the role of U.S. government/NASA in bailing out SpaceX and Tesla.
    • Scott: “The best VC in the world...is Uncle Sam.” [33:32]
  • Trump administration’s plans to cut NASA funding critiqued as short-sighted.

• Wealth and Power Dynamics:

  • Debate over the risks of concentrated wealth, Musk’s potential political influence, and the necessity of progressive taxation ([34:04–37:12]).
    • Scott: “Elon Musk, in my view, can probably decide who the next president is.” [37:12]

• Charity and Wealth Distribution:

  • Kara is skeptical of billionaire philanthropy:
    • Kara: “I don't think they're going to do good things... I'm not expecting these people to be, I think they're going to be on an ongoing quest for more money and more power and more consolidation.” [35:08]
  • Scott counters with the optimism that liquidity events often lead to surges in local philanthropy, especially by billionaire spouses.

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4. AI Regulation, Anthropic Shutdown & Techlash

Timestamps:

• [42:39–49:50] Anthropic Shutdown

• [48:57–49:50] Broader AI and Geopolitical Implications

• Anthropic Forced Offline:

  • Trump administration orders Anthropic to pull its premier models (Mythos and Fable) over national security concerns after Amazon alerts about susceptibility to cyberattack prompts.
    • Kara: “I'm sorry, I just think they're waiting for an excuse here to get Anthropic.” [44:21]
  • Concerns raised about government overreach and the risk of private dialogue dictating tech kill switches.
    • Scott: “I don't know if they're genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of society or if this is just politically motivated...” [45:22]
  • Calls for uniform, bipartisan regulatory process akin to FDA drug review, rather than ad hoc executive intervention ([47:02]).

• Broader Legal & Political Tensions:

  • States begin suing OpenAI and scrutinizing AI firm practices, especially around data privacy, minors, health data.

• Geopolitics and Protectionism:

  • Prediction that the U.S. will further restrict Chinese AI models under the guise of security—adding trade war dynamics to the AI race.

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5. Social Media Harms and Global Regulation

Timestamps:

• [55:58–62:10]

• UK’s Social Media Ban for Teens:

  • New law bans major social platforms for under 16s, toughest such rule globally. Inspired by Australia, with steep fines for non-compliance.
    • Scott: “There is no reason, no justification for anyone under the age of 16 being on any social media platform.” [55:58]
  • Reiterates international trend: Spain, Greece, Slovenia, and France pursuing similar paths.

• Data and Rationale:

  • Reduction in teen anxiety, depression, insomnia; direct link between time on social media and decreased trust in democracy.
  • Scott: “This isn't just a win for teen mental health, this is a win for democracy. The more time you spend on social media, the less you believe in democracy.” [57:23]

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6. American vs. European Social Policy

Timestamps:

• [62:10–65:38]

• Scott’s European Tour Takeaways:

  • Praises Sweden and the Netherlands: strong innovation, universal health care, robust safety nets and healthy capitalist environments.
  • Counters the American myth that you can’t have billionaires and a strong social welfare system.
    • Scott: “We need to stop in America believing that there's a myth that inequality and billionaires and unicorns demand a rapacious lack of a safety net.” [62:53]
  • Observes high trust in government and effectiveness in deploying public funds, with minimal visible homelessness and high foreign investment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If Democrats can't come up with some sort of symbolism or role models that demonstrate strength and service as masculinity, then the Republicans will fill that hole with violence and misogyny.” – Scott Galloway [07:00]

• “I don’t think they're going to be charitable. I just don’t...I think they're going to be on an ongoing quest for more money and power.” – Kara Swisher [35:08]

• “The best VC in the world is not Andreessen Horowitz...It’s Uncle Sam.” – Scott Galloway [33:32]

• “We have built a whorehouse. And the whorehouse works. But you have to have a cop.” – Scott Galloway [60:54]

• “Michelle Obama does demonstrate more masculinity, service, strength than that dude.” – Scott Galloway [65:45]

• “In America, you don't have to insult a very impressive Black woman in order to feel more like a man.” – Kara Swisher [65:38]

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Wins & Fails

Kara:

• WIN/FAIL: Meta’s glasses for blind veterans—a positive technology use, but the effort was overshadowed by the UFC event and associated controversy. [52:57–55:58]

Scott:

• WIN: UK’s teen social media ban—praised as meaningful action for youth mental health and democracy. [55:58]
• FAIL: The false American dichotomy that prosperity and universal health/social care are incompatible; highlights how Sweden/Netherlands disprove this myth. [62:10–65:38]

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Final Thoughts

• The episode pivots between incisive political critique, media strategy analysis, and cultural commentary, maintaining the sharp, witty, sometimes combative banter that defines Pivot.
• The growing power of tech and media titans—and the state’s willingness or lack thereof to regulate them—remains the through-line.
• The hosts’ skepticism about both Silicon Valley’s motives and government overreach is palpable and recurring throughout.

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For Further Listening

• Full episode of Pivot available on major podcast platforms and YouTube.
• Related conversations with Peter Chernin (on YouTube), referenced for deeper insights into media executive thinking and the digital content gold rush.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

Remember the three Rs? Reading, writing, and arithmetic? Well, we aren't really doing that second one anymore.

[Scott Galloway]

On average, teachers report spending as little as 10 minutes a week on teaching handwriting explicitly in kindergarten classrooms.

[Kara Swisher]

This week on Explain It To Me. Handwriting's Recession and Renaissance. Find new episodes Sundays. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for the show comes from Klaviyo. Imagine hiring two brilliant employees. The first takes your marketing from idea to full campaign email, sms, push in the time it takes to describe it. The second handles every customer conversation 24x7, answering questions, recommending products, handling orders, both on brand and always. On your next hires, Klaviyo's AI agents get started at klav.com. Support for the show comes from Core Weave. Everywhere you look, AI is expanding what we thought was possible. And at the center of it all is Core Weave. Medical research and diagnosis, education, complex visual effects for movies, science and technology breakthroughs. CoreWeave powers AI pioneers around the world with purpose built tech building what's never been built before. CoreWeave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything. Ready for AI to learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com readyfor anything. Admiral Swisher, take over.

[Kara Swisher]

Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, do we have a lot to talk about. Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

Hello. But first off, where are you?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm in New York.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I know that you're at the Equinox Hotel.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, thanks for telling everybody.

[Scott Galloway]

Yes, well, I'm sorry. You're not that important. That's not a security risk.

[Kara Swisher]

I get it.

[Scott Galloway]

A bunch of gay men are going to show up and ask for autographs.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to tell everyone where you are all the time.

[Scott Galloway]

Please put on you. I'm not that embarrassed.

[Kara Swisher]

I try very hard not to say where you are.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, find the nearest bar.

[Kara Swisher]

Don't get hostile. Where did you go to the. Like, did you finally go to that stupid UFC thing last night?

[Scott Galloway]

I did not go.

[Kara Swisher]

You have the energy of it.

[Scott Galloway]

I came home early. I told you this to watch World cup with my boys, and that was a mistake.

[Kara Swisher]

It was a mistake. I got that. Yeah, but are you enjoying the World cup anyway?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, it's fucking amazing. Netherlands and Japan was an amazing game. And I know you're very excited about this. Scotland's victory over Paraguay won nothing. Scotland has so much momentum. You heard it here first. I think they're going to beat either Morocco or Brazil. And if Scotland makes it to the. If Scotland makes it to the quarters of the semis, I'm taking my kids to Boston and we're gonna go see it. So I'm just.

[Kara Swisher]

That sounds fun. Sounds like a good thing. It sounds very wholesome.

[Scott Galloway]

And also the US The US Had a big victory.

[Kara Swisher]

They did, they did.

[Scott Galloway]

So anyways, I'm all about the World Cup.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, good then. Did you watch the Knicks or not? Did you care?

[Scott Galloway]

I hate to say it. Cause let me put it this way. I'm super excited about New York. I fucked up leaving. I'd love to be in New York right now. Cause I think the city is electric.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it is.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't care that much about basketball. So I basically watched it on TikTok.

[Kara Swisher]

It was a nice win, though. It was a nice win.

[Scott Galloway]

It's great for the city. The city seems like everyone is really unified. It feels very. Kind of demonstrates the power of sport.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Feels really good. You're there.

[Kara Swisher]

I am. I'm not going to be here. I'm going to meet you in Cannes, but I'm going early to Paris to. With my.

[Scott Galloway]

Cannes.

[Kara Swisher]

Cannes, whatever. Cannes. Anyway.

[Scott Galloway]

That's right. We're going to be in the south of France again. That's right.

[Kara Swisher]

We are. Exactly.

[Scott Galloway]

Are you bringing the kids?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I am. The little ones, not the big ones.

[Scott Galloway]

God, you gotta learn how to travel. The point of travel is to escape the children.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I like my kids. Let me get to the point. The Knicks. So it turns out I was sitting next to a Knick all day during that Devil Wears Prada thing. I didn't recognize Carl Anthony Townes. I was sitting with Malte. I had no idea. He was so sweet when he was being interviewed.

[Scott Galloway]

They're usually pretty easy to spot. Especially in contrast to Kara Swisher.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, but you don't. I guess, but I just don't want to. Like, I just didn't know. I knew he was a sports figure anyway. He was sitting next to me all day. I look like such an idiot, but he was so. They were all so good. I don't usually watch basketball, but I have to say, of all of them, I like basketball the best. If I have to watch something, I thought it was very heartening. Everybody. Everyone watching it from the streets and just New York, really. It makes me want to live here now. I have to say. I shouldn't say that too loudly around Amanda.

[Scott Galloway]

You do live there now.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, but I mean full time. Like, I was like, it's Such a nice vibe. New York has such a great vibe. And in a contrast, the UFC really soiled itself with that idiot player saying that terrible thing about Michelle Obama.

[Scott Galloway]

He's not a player, he's a fighter.

[Kara Swisher]

But yeah, fighter, whatever.

[Scott Galloway]

That was weird. No doubt about it. It was unfortunate.

[Kara Swisher]

Let me. Let me lay out what happened. President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday ringside with this UFC Freedom250 where fighters compete in front of a crowd of 4300 with the actual White House as a backdrop. As a marketing thing, there's a lot of marketing going on. Whether it was Bud Light or whatever. Meta had did something very laudable. They were giving these glasses to blind service members. I think they're their brand took a hit for being associated with it. Anyway, the guest list reads like a who's Hoops of power, tech and money. Zuckerberg was there, who is a big fan. And this is the only thing I genuinely like about him. I'm glad he's committed to that. Whatever. Joe Rogan was there, as you said. Cabinet Secretary Centers Lindsey Graham looked very happy surrounded by muscled men. Of course, Paramount CEO David Ellison was in the audience as the event streamed exclusive behind a Paramount plus paywall. Nothing says the people like a paywall. We'll talk about that more in a minute. Because, you know, again, this one fighter grabbed and took this cheap shot at Michelle Obama, which is part of a conspiracy theory among the right. And they think, they seem to be obsessed with her and the Obamas now. UFC CEO Dana White later told Time magazine, everyone knows my position on free speech, but I hate that kind of nonsense. I don't think you need to defend free speech, Dana. It's just. Can't you just say this is like horrible? Like they always have to, like, find some dumb excuse.

[Scott Galloway]

That's a. That's a. I think that was a good comment from him. Like the.

[Kara Swisher]

It's the least he could do.

[Scott Galloway]

But we, we disagree on this because I actually think, well, we're going to. I think the event was a win for the White House and distinct of that dumb moment, which will get a lot of play. But I. Look, I think that essentially just the way Tucker Carlson is trying to shore up the Nick Fuentes manosphere part of the party, there is still a large segment of America that wants to embrace some form of masculinity and feels like it's been shoved aside. And I feel the same way about masculinity that David Frum feels about the border. And that is if progressives don't enforce the border, fascists will. And if Democrats can't come up with some sort of symbolism or role models that demonstrate strength and service as masculinity, then the Republicans are filled that hole with violence and misogyny, which is exactly what they're doing. And unfortunately, it not only highlights this performative, weird, dominant, misogynistic form of masculinity that is just, in my opinion, absolutely the terrible role model for young men, it highlights to me that Democrats haven't been able to identify anything around an aspirational viewpoint around masculinity.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to push back. Trump is down 10% among young men over the past few months. They're way down.

[Scott Galloway]

It's not because of this event.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I'm just saying. It's just I think this version of masculinity, you know what a better version were the Knicks the way they were, and I'm taking away the owner who I don't particularly like, but I thought they display, you know, a lot of, like, support of women. If you notice, there was a lot of mothers, there was a lot of sisters, there was a lot of agreed. They always talk about, you know, the guy, the main guy, Brunson was, you know, he gave up a big pile of money to have other people on the team include a cat, Carl Anthony.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, he wants a ring. He wants a ring.

[Kara Swisher]

He wants a ring, of course. But it's like, it just shows, like, the difference of the watch parties was really rather significant. And so if you want a version of masculinity, that's a version of masculinity that is very sporty, very masculine. It did a lot to heal the male loneliness epidemic. Have you seen people out in the street like that? Men out in the street like that?

[Scott Galloway]

Absolutely love it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't think there's any, there's any way to not highlight the Knicks, their players, New York, what have you again. Look, I think that event and the pageantry and the flyover, I think there's a large segment of America that likes that stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

I like a flyover, by the way. I'm not saying I don't like a flyover. I think there are ways into this that are very, very clear that you can support things. I think it's. This is Monica Hess in the Washington Post. I think she did a great job. And she also is a big supporter of mma, by the way. She likes it. The problem isn't the fighting on the lawn. People who love the UFC have had to sit through decades of presidents INV poets and cellists and opera singers to the White House. And the turnabout is fair play. The problem with Sunday's broadcast wasn't the fighting. The problem was the tonally incoherent emulsion of patriotism and bloodlust history. And by this crap, an event happening for the people but tucked behind a Paramount paywall. I think that. Exactly. That's what it felt like. It felt like. And by the way, all the cheap seats, they were stuck in that one area of. They weren't at the White House, which was. This is what she also wrote. What do we make of this other than this is America? Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses advertising Bud Light and trucks in loud We Trust. Bring me your ring girls dressed skimpily in sequined stars and stripes and your men with cauliflower ears and a bunch of sailors dancing to ymca. I just.

[Scott Galloway]

It.

[Kara Swisher]

There was such an. I don't know. I do contrast these things. I also contrast the World cup too, which looks wonderful and diverse and interesting. And the crowds are. I don't know. It's just. There is a way to appeal and I think Democrats should embrace it. But this was grotesque and it got the center of attention will be this idiot, this idiot who's had his head hit too many times making an incredibly misogynistic. It's racist, it's anti. It's just like gross. And no, but no man doing anything. That's what it is. That's what it is.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. Like her comments. Her assessment is really. I don't know. The reporter's commentary is really, really impressive. And I do agree. The World cup and the Knicks are better. Look, at the end of the day, just political. Kara. It was a total distraction and occupied the news cycle from the fact that we have a shitty memo of understanding on something actually a lot more important.

[Kara Swisher]

We will get to that. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

So just from a distraction standpoint, I think it was a wimp. If they hadn't had that event, the media would have been much more focused on something that has much larger implications from the world, and that is Donald Trump walked into a, you know, a car dealership demanding a Ferrari and is leaving with a Camry because he's figured out he has bad credit that he's overpaying for.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

At a minimum. And probably wasn't strategic planning the timing. But I think that. I think anything that distracts from this

[Kara Swisher]

memo, even if it's standing, even if it's a terrible statement. I get it. I get it. Well, we've got a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about that. The Trump administration, by the way, is fighting with anthropic again. And SpaceX of course, went public. That seems like 100 years ago. But you know, speaking of Paramount, it got Justice Department approval. The merger has just cleared a key hurdle. The DOJ says its review found the roughly $110 billion deal is unlikely to harm competition for consumer or consumers, removing a major federal obstacle. The deal isn't done yet, though the state attorney general, including Californians, are still reviewing the transaction and could challenge it. David Ellison said the merger remains on track to close by September. He's got to because after that so called ticking fee would kick in, making the acquisition more expensive. European regulators are still weighing approval. What's interesting to me is that the Justice Department apparently shut down its investigation into Paramount's bid to buy Warner Brothers before career staffers even had a chance to weigh in. And those lawyers weren't just skeptical of the deal, they were actually leaning towards recommending the DOJ sue to block it, arguing that combining two of Hollywood's biggest studios would be bad for competition. But with the Ellisons and Trump, the fix apparently was in. I think, you know, we'll get to the Roku deal, which actually Fox just bought Roku. But these mergers are just coming fast and furious and I think no one was surprised by this. It's a question of if the states or European Union can slow this thing down. But you were concerned with Netscape with higher prices. How do you feel at this point?

[Scott Galloway]

Netflix with higher prices? Yeah. The reality is if the economists I talk to say that it's hard to. So it's hard to say these guys have a monopoly. When you look at the fact that the combined viewership still won't rival YouTube's, when you look at the revenue, it's nowhere near what the revenue is for the media companies, the tech media companies we talk about so you can accuse them of overpaying. I had a chill run down my spine over the weekend when I read that Mark Thompson is being considered as kind of the manager they need to come in for CBS News.

[Kara Swisher]

The only one actually. Others who they mentioned said no, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

It just all of a sudden it sent a chill down my spine. I'm like, what the Ellison's own cnn? It's like it hadn't fully down. It hadn't fully dawned on me. But from a straight regulatory standpoint, there was really no, in my opinion, valid reason to block it. And by the Way I've switched on that I was worried about the consolidation of media, but when you include competitors around watch time revenues, there really wasn't an economic argument. Now in terms of mergers, you're going to see a flurry of them because anyone who's thinking maybe we'd like to buy companies, they're like, let's do it while the doing is good. Because if you get a democratic administration in there, you're going to have much more scrutiny around these mergers. And I mean you already see it. You already See Attorney General's AGs in blue states getting much more excised about this merger than the federal guys. But it's going through and it'll be really interesting to see what kind of the first moves are or ramifications of this consolidated company.

[Kara Swisher]

They've got that debt to deal with. I've just recently interviewed a whole bunch of big media company, just media people and they're all like, this debt is fucking ridiculous. Most of them are very much focused on the debt and the math of the situation. I think they'll have to make enormous cuts and a lot of the rest. Speaking of distraction, a lot of the rest is a distraction with the CNN thing. Well, you know my feelings on that. I'm leaving as soon as I can.

[Scott Galloway]

So you're out, you're out of cnn?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. Yes.

[Scott Galloway]

You've been trying to talk me into doing shit at CNN for 24 months.

[Kara Swisher]

No, that was before. You're not listening to me. Do you ever. Do you invest in our relationship? I've been saying it publicly for.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's why, that's why lesbians have the highest rates of divorce. Because both of them are listening.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Scott Galloway]

It's important that in a relationship that the man not listen a lot. That's key to the survival. That's key to the survival of our relationship. There's a lot of shit runs right over my head.

[Kara Swisher]

Let me try to outline it. I don't want to work for the Ellisons and I don't want to work for their hand picked minions because I think they're incompetent. That is what I've said over and over again. And I love working with the people at cna and I very much like Mark Thompson and I hope they put him in charge.

[Scott Galloway]

Smart guy.

[Kara Swisher]

I think he would do a great job. I just don't see any way that these people make good decisions and I don't trust them. That's it. I don't want to work for tech people. They're more than they can. I don't know. I'm just not. There's lots of places to go. I don't like you. I think TV's great, but it's not that great. Like, to put up with this shit. Like, I don't. That's one thing I like, you know, I like making that series. I just, you know, I don't. Except if I owned it. If they want to buy it, they can buy shit off me if they feel like it. But other. But I don't want to be in. I don't want them to own something.

[Scott Galloway]

You don't think. See, I would argue for Kara Swisher if they gave you an agreement to work at CNN and said, yeah, like, we're just. These. This. This is the editor. This is who's in charge of your stories. Why wouldn't you. You. You don't think you'd be able to fashion an agreement?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't think they would do that. I don't think they would do that. Like, they would pay me every time a person I don't like talks to me, I guess. But no, at this moment, no, not the way they're behaving right now. And this, by the way, this whole,

[Scott Galloway]

like, pull a Lesley Stahl demand to stay because you'll protect CNN from these evil.

[Kara Swisher]

I am not. I don't think I have that power to do it anyway. I. There's lots of other. And I'm under contract with them until the end of the year. And I'm hoping they'll let me out early because I don't want to affiliate with them. That's all. I left Murdoch, too. This is not a new, fresh thing for Kara Swisher to flounce out and do better. When I leave, no one cares. But it says something.

[Scott Galloway]

I just want everyone to know I'm absolutely a whore. An expensive whore. So Ellison's. You have my number.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, Oh, I heard about that. Let's not get into that issue.

[Scott Galloway]

You have my number.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, they called you. I know that. I was defending you on that, by the way. I appreciate that they had your number. You know, we don't need TV at this point, honestly.

[Scott Galloway]

We are tv, just with much better economics.

[Kara Swisher]

It's just. It's like a headache and then I have to see them. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Fox is buying Roku. Support for today's show comes from Attio, the aicrm. Every business has a CRM horror story. Too much admin, too little signal. Never telling you what you actually need to know how do teams know where to focus? The ones winning have it figured out. They're using apps. Connect your email calls and product data, and Attio instantly builds your CRM with complete context. Then you ask Adeo to plan your next move, prep for meetings, spot deals at risk, and draft outreach. Adeo searches, updates and creates across your data to accelerate your workflow. Join 8000 companies using Adeo to scale without the chaos. Try Adeo [e-mail] pivot.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for this show comes from Teleport Here's a finding that should stop every tech leader cold Organizations most confident in their AI deployments have more than twice the security incident rate of those that aren't 72% versus 33%. That's from Teleport's 2026 Infrastructure Identity Survey of more than 200 infrastructure security leaders. A data breach isn't just a costly endeavor it can damage trust. The most frequent causes of data breaches are human error and compromised credentials. But in the AI era, agents that are granted broad privileges dramatically increase risk. Solution services like Teleport, an AI infrastructure identity company, provide an identity and access platform that is purpose built for modern, highly automated environments, which are now deploying agents into production. Teleport establishes a unified identity layer for humans, machines and agents that is cryptographically backed that enables agents to be controlled and contained with the same rigorous that you apply to other actors in your infrastructure. Because in the new era of AI, the problem isn't agents, it's the privileges we're giving them. Download the free [e-mail] pivot.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for this show comes from NetSuite. When the competition is moving faster and business in every sector are starting to adopt AI, how do you even begin to keep up? NetSuite next? You probably know NetSuite, the AI powered business management suite that securely connects all of your data. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth. Trusted by over 43,000 customers, NetSuite Next is the next huge leap in how business gets done. Because AI is built into everything you do, it automatically surfaces custom insights. Throughout your day, AI agents work alongside you to solve problems and handle routine work. And anytime you have a question about anything, just ask, like you're talking to a colleague. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions of it's time for NetSuite Next, where your business meets AI for the first time ever. You can try Netsuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite AI Pivot. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. NetSuite AI SL Pivot. Scott, we're back. Speaking of this, Fox Corporation is buying Roku in a $22 billion deal that could reshape how Americans watch TV. It's a big play for aver based television. Just so you know, Fox gets access to over 100 million households worldwide. Lots of people use this. Combining its live news, sports and Tubi streaming service with Roku's massive platform, the combined company would become the third largest player in US television by share of viewing, putting real pressure on the likes of YouTube and Netflix. I've always liked Roku. Roku will operate under the Fox umbrella with Roku founder Anthony Wood, who's a really interesting person joining Fox's board in a subordinate role. That's interesting. Fox's shareholders own about 73% of the comb companies, with Roku shareholders holding the remaining 27. And the deal still needs to sign off from both shareholder groups and regulators. It's interesting because they deliver all the networks into living rooms. It's almost like a cable company in a weird way. I think I'm using my Roku in Brooklyn because I didn't want to get the cable bundle or something like that. I haven't hooked it up yet, but I've always liked Roku. I don't use it that much, but I thought Anthony did a nice job and I'm just curious. He can't get any bigger presumably is why he's selling.

[Scott Galloway]

I think it's a great, great move.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Something I didn't see coming. And the moment I looked at it, I'm like, this makes all sorts of industrial logic.

[Kara Swisher]

Who else could have bought Roku? Just before you move on from that, who else?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, there's the, there's the obvious, like there's the obvious. Warner Brothers, Paramount. Yeah, Disney. I mean this isn't. They have assets that are, that are incredibly important. They have. I mean they have a ton of first party Data. They have first party data across 100 million households, which is a really strategic asset. It gives Fox a direct viewer relationship that cable and broadcast never offered advertisers. Right. Because you had the cable company in the way Fox projects. 400 million in run rate cost synergies.

[Kara Swisher]

They needed this. They needed this.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a really savvy, bold move.

[Kara Swisher]

It is. I thought, oh my God. Malak was on a.

[Scott Galloway]

This makes a lot of sense.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

What's interesting is they actually sold their shares in Roku at 58 bucks a share to fund their acquisition of Tubi. And now they're buying back in at 160. Fox will own roughly 73% of the combined company.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. No, no, no, but wait, I just said they had had shares before.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. So my understanding is that Fox actually they had Roku shares in March of 2020 and they sold them at 58 bucks a share to fund their half a billion dollar to be acquisition.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Which has been very helpful to them.

[Scott Galloway]

So look, this is a company that's making a big bold bet recognizing their core businesses in structural decline. I think it's really like I. I think the folks at Fox are really smart.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. This is a smart move. I thought that that's exactly. I'm like, huh? But it is a big bet on advertising based versions of this. Right. Because Roku is advertising based and it's not subscription based. So.

[Scott Galloway]

But here's the thing. If you look at the trends, subscription has been eating into subscription streaming has been eating into linear advertising supported TV for the last 20 years. In 2024, it stopped gaining share. It's like 50, 50 right now. Too much.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, for example, I don't know if our listeners know this. They can watch Pivot or Prof. G Markets on Roku. It's available. We have a channel on Roku and it gets huge, huge viewership.

[Kara Swisher]

Is it a significant revenue generator?

[Scott Galloway]

Their total revenue is around 4.7 billion.

[Kara Swisher]

For you being.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, no, we launched two months ago. But my attitude is if you look at enterprise value, and I've tried to be transparent about what we're trying to build at Prof. G Markets and what we're trying to build, a Pivot, if you're the way you increase enterprise value and increase the multiple on your EBITDA is one, by right now adding subscription revenue, which we're doing on Substack, and two, having alternative distribution and different differentiating your media mix or your revenue mix. So what starts small, I think we'll do, you know, 100 or 300 grand in revenue from Roku or advertising on Roku by serving all of our pods on Roku. But what you want is if you ultimately are thinking about enterprise value, it's a multiple of your profits and your growth. But what increases the multiple is how enduring that revenue is. That is as much subscription revenue as possible and also a diversified set of revenue streams.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Yeah, I see.

[Scott Galloway]

So my attitude is, while it's been an effort to reformat our content and put it on Roku. It's absolutely worth it because what you want to say to a potential investor or acquirer is look at all these different points of distribution and types of revenue mix that create a more enduring company. But just to get back to Roku. 4.7 billion in total net revenue up 15% year over year. Platform revenue of 4.1 billion. That's up 18%. Gross profit of 2 billion, up 15% last year was their first GAAP profitable year. The company reported net income of 80 million in Q4 alone. So it's kind of hit that tipping point.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And again, sustainable profitability.

[Scott Galloway]

Over 100 million households have Roku at the end of 2025 and device hardware still runs at negative gross margin, but they sell hardware at a loss to capture platform users. I would argue that Roku is arguably the most important media company that people have never heard of.

[Kara Swisher]

Now let me just point to another person. Anjali sued a young woman chief executive officer of Tubi. This is a free ad supported streaming service they have and she was the previous CEO of Vimeo, but she's expanded the user base. I think it's 100 million users and it's the most watch free TV streaming service. It's very quirky and you can find all manner of stuff on there. But I think the two of them are very savvy. They're both incredibly sm. That's the thing. And I think one of the things Lachlan Murdoch I just think was born into his job. But these are two. One of the things I just interviewed Peter Chernin for my podcast today. Another smart former Fox executive is one thing that Rupert's been good at is executives. They're very sharp. And you should listen to Chernin one because I think it was a great interview, but just really smart executives. And this is the case anyway, very smart. You can also, by the way, watch us on YouTube. By the way, we're very promiscuous. The entire Scott and Kara are very promiscuous. Anyway, let's move on to the other one. We like this deal. SpaceX, of course, seems like 100 years ago officially public. And as one Scott Galloway predicted, it did indeed close up on its first day of trading. And you had said it was going to be about 20% and not more, which is interesting. It was a 19 point something percent shares are at a high of 177 at the time of this taping. After the company's public debut on Friday, making the Current market cap 2.32 trillion you thought it might be a scooch under too. His first day on the market, over 500 million shares traded hands. A lot of movement here. Elon himself of course, crossed the milestone thanks to the pop becoming the world's first trillionaire. There were some notable buyers. Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person, bought over a billion dollar stake in the company. And Cathie Wood's Ark Investment bought more than $500 million worth of stock. So go through if there's anything surprising there. And also venture funding for US space technology firms, excluding SpaceX, jumped $7.5 billion in 2025 from 2 billion the previous years. Probably. We'll see if that goes anywhere because it can be a money furnace, the word you use. But any thoughts on where it is right now?

[Scott Galloway]

So I thought that the bankers and Musk and look, I think the most significant thing here is that we've never seen such engineered manufactured scarcity. There was tens of billions of dollars of demand for this IPO that has never existed for an IPO before. And then you combine it with the fact that unlike other IPOs that went public on the NASDAQ, it didn't have to float more than 10%, it only floated 5%.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, very scarcity, as you said.

[Scott Galloway]

So you've just created manufacturer scarcity. Now to be fair, it's up again today. So this has created a level of excitement in the market. It. I do think you have to highlight the positives here and that is I never want to be someone that demonizes success. There are 14 new billionaires in Texas that you've never heard of. Those people will give money away. They will start new businesses. Something that's uniquely American is that we continue to produce companies like this and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. It's going to create a lot of economic growth. You're going to see a surge in philanthropy from Berkeley to the University of Texas. It inspires a lot of people. There's a lot of positives here. And we're seeing venture funding increasing in space related projects. So there's a lot to like here. I don't like the manufactured scarcity and what I'll call the overlying narrative of sort of like the hero's journey here.

[Kara Swisher]

And the numbers at certain businesses are not great.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, look, from a valuation standpoint, and this is what Musk is always has been able to do, is to create this narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history. But right now the Stock is trading 30% above the IPO price and then he has also again, and I go back to governance. There's all these different lockups. Like if you trade on a certain platform and you bought shares through direct share purchase on a certain platform, they technically don't have a lockup up. But if they sell their shares, they can't trade on the platform before, which is like a soft lockup. There's certain criteria around when you can sell, if the stock is up a certain amount, et cetera. To be fair, Elon's locked himself up. I doubt he's planning to sell, he'll just borrow against his stock. But what they've effectively done, which you're not supposed to do, is they've created different classes of shares which you're not supposed to do. So again, I find that, that this is really inspiring and important and going to be great for economic growth on certain levels. I also believe that this entire sector is going to have not a collapse but a pretty serious drawdown when people after two or three earnings calls are forced to justify anything resembling a future that involves the kind of earnings built into this thing, right?

[Kara Swisher]

And then the rush to space. Technology firms, same thing. They're going to over invest, which is normal, like I would assume, presumably.

[Scott Galloway]

And quite frankly that's one of the great things about America because we over invested in the Internet and the technology survived and a lot of those companies came back and that investment was good. But you didn't want to be one of the investors over investing initially.

[Kara Swisher]

Stocks.com?

[Scott Galloway]

yeah, yeah, so but I said, somebody called me and I said this on Pivot. Someone called me and said I have allocation, should I take it? And I said take it and trade out on the first trade.

[Kara Swisher]

Although if you buy it and trade out, you don't do as most people don't do as well, except in certain cases. Right? There were all these really interesting statistics of buying and selling that were not good in the long run. Over time it's just you've got to hit the exact right one or you lose mo money Most of the time

[Scott Galloway]

this was different because so first off, trading out, trading out, you get short term capital gains at a higher rate. So there's a lot of evidence that shows that just generally with investing you're better off just buying and trying to never sell. It's just trading is a difficult, difficult is a difficult game. I thought, and I said this, I said they are going to manufacture a 20% pop. The bankers and everyone are figuring out a way to create a supply demand imbalance that will Exactly. Peg this at a 20% pop. What's impressive and punctures that theory is that it's up another 11% today. And the thing that also just the thing that deserves a nod is the best VC in the world is not Andreessen Horowitz or Whoever initially funded SpaceX.

[Kara Swisher]

Thiel Founders Fund.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's, in my opinion, it's Uncle Sam. And that SpaceX investors and the banks taking SpaceX public should remember that we would not be here today without grants from the federal government. In 2008, SpaceX was on the verge of bankruptcy and would likely have run out of money if not for a grant from NASA. And the golden law, same thing with Tesla. And then the golden law of stupidity here, Trump is trying to cut NASA's funding by more than 20% this year.

[Kara Swisher]

Same with MRNA technology, same with the government, is one of the greatest investors of all time. If you could think about it that

[Scott Galloway]

way, best VC in history, whether it's medical research for our universities or electric charging stations. And they would argue back, well, they're going to get their bite, they're going to get enormous return through tax revenues. The big debate this will stir is in America, we've been talking about for decades now, what's dominated the conversation is how you create wealth. The conversation that is superseding that is what you should do with wealth once you have it. And so right now, Elon Musk could buy all of Manhattan, every building, every condo, every park. That's how much money he has right now. And whether or not this level of concentration of power, which comes in a capitalist society for money, presents risk, and I'm of the mind that I think it's important that eventually, and I'm in favor of eventually having trillionaires, but we should have guardrails over the power and progressive taxation, which we don't have right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Can I just say one thing? I'm going to push back on and that you've created all these rich people who are going to give to charity. If you look at the statistics, I don't think they're going to be charitable. I don't think they're going to do good things. I just don't, I don't think this class, I don't think Elon Musk has had a very good record. So I just, I, I'm not expecting these people to be, I think they're going to be on an ongoing quest for more money and more power and more consolidation. So I'm not impressed with their charitable thoughts and I'm glad they're creating jobs, but they would immediately cut you if they had to. I just don't think they have that you're talking about.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. But I think we need to parse that. And that is, if you look at billionaires and their wives, the wives have, hands down, been more philanthropic. And it doesn't. And the quote unquote, billionaire masters of the universe have not acquitted themselves well on a lot of levels. But there's just no doubt this type of wealth creation event is gonna result in a surge in philanthropy. It just does, hopefully.

[Kara Swisher]

Because that would be great.

[Scott Galloway]

You're gonna have a lot of people who wake up and have $20 million and think, I'm gonna give 2 million bucks to the local food bank or I'm gonna give 50,000 bucks. I talked to, you know, I'm involved with the University of California. They're all revising their giving goals up for next year because of the IPOs coming down. And they have so many alumni. I'm not talking about Elon Musk. I think it would be. You could make a credible argument that he's not the most philanthropic person. I get that. And you can definitely make an argument that Mackenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are more philanthropic than their husbands. But when you see these types of liquidity events, local philanthropies, surge in terms of.

[Kara Swisher]

That would be great.

[Scott Galloway]

In terms of money, look, there's. For all of SpaceX's problems and income inequality, there isn't a nation on Earth that wouldn't kill to have those problems.

[Kara Swisher]

I would agree. I just think it's going to go into political activism in a way that could be deleterious to most of us. That's where it's going. It's not going to help in a kid.

[Scott Galloway]

Let's be clear here. Elon Musk, in my view, can probably decide who the next president is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, that's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

He spent $250 million and had influence on the election. Maybe he didn't decide it, but he had influence on it. What happens if he decides to put 2.5% of his net worth, or 25 billion, or 100 times what he spent last time?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, he's a freight train.

[Scott Galloway]

And also, to be fair, are we comfortable? And he deserves credit. One of the things that he doesn't get enough credit for is he has turned off starlink for Russia, and it has put Russia at a severe disadvantage to Ukraine. And I think that is a wonderful thing and he deserves credit for it.

[Kara Swisher]

Having said that, except if Tomorrow he changes his mind.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's exactly right. Having said that, that is should that power reside in a private citizen that has no government or electoral oversight. No, it's not. Look, it's a ton of economic growth. The banks made a shit ton of money. You have a lot of people. 4,000 people became millionaires on Friday.

[Kara Swisher]

I get it. I hope they're better, better at it. I just think I'm not even musk is one thing, but I'm worried about others that aren't quite so broad. I just like I always, whenever I see a box, I think the ulaines, the ulines, U, L, I, N, E. I don't know how to pronounce it but they're like huge givers to crazy right wing causes. And so I just am like, oh God, the boxes, the this, the that. Anyway, I, I just hope that they, that they are, I hope that they're charitable. That's, that's what I hope. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, we'll talk about the Trump administration coming for anthropic yet again.

[Scott Galloway]

Foreign. For the show comes from Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value in fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive, murky. And let's be real, lots of firms throw a couple of flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. Institutional quality isn't a tagline, it's a commitment to your clients. It means top grade products across the board. The Lineup includes over 80 bond funds. They're actively managed by a 200 person global squad of sector specialists, analysts and traders. Lots of firms love to highlight their star portfolio managers. Like it's all about that one brilliant mind making the magic happen. Vanguard's philosophy is a little bit different. They believe the best active strategy shouldn't be locked away with one person. They should be shared across the team. That way every client benefits from the collective brainpower, not just one person. Individuals take. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for [e-mail] audio. That's vanguard.com audio. All investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for this show comes from. Delete me. It's never too late to start protecting your online privacy. My wake up call. When I looked at the dashboard of Delete me and saw how much crap was out there about me and a lot of my personal information all collected in really strange and weird ways by a lot of companies. I had no idea who they were and made me feel like that I was being stalked. I discovered a lot of inaccuracies also at the same time, and I found an enormous amount of information about my life for dozens of years. So if you've ever thought I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalker scammers and hack hackers but you're not sure what, here's what you do. Go to joindeleteme.com pivot and enter the code pivot. You'll get 20 off delete me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. You can get an individual plan for a little over $8 per month with an annual plan, and discounts get even better with a two year plan or whenever you enroll your partner or family. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and use the promo code PIVOT at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and enter code pivot at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com pivot code pivot

[Scott Galloway]

Hasan Piker has blown up in recent years. After the 2024 election, the popular leftist Twitch streamer became a go to voice for the Democratic Party. But Piker's glow up has angered a section of Democrats who are growing louder in voice. Hasan Piker is anti American, he is

[Kara Swisher]

bigoted, he's anti Semitic, and he is deeply misogynistic.

[Scott Galloway]

So in March, a Democratic group called Thirdway published an op ed in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion section saying, quote, democrats are too cozy with Hasan Piker.

[Kara Swisher]

He is such an extremist that it

[Scott Galloway]

will only do damage to Democrats and hurt their chances of beating right wing populism. Now, Piker is controversial, no doubt, but is he toxic? I don't think this helps Republicans at all. I think as a matter of fact, Third Way's brand of politics has helped Republicans. Their attitude has been to constantly concede on culture or issues to the Republican Party and never focus on economic populism. I'm Esteed Hernton and this is America. Actually, catch us Every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your popcorn podcast.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott, we're back with more news. Anthropic had 90 minutes to take down its most powerful models, Mythos and Fable, which is Mythos, but the public version of it. On Friday, at the request of the government who cited a national security threat, the Trump administration issued an order barring all foreign nationals from having access, including Anthropic's own non US employees, including, there are some, a lot of them at the top, essentially forcing the company to take it offline. The decision was probably made after a conversation with Amazon's Andy Jassy, who told officials researchers and his company company got fabled to provide information be used in cyber attacks. Anthropic sent staff to Washington meet with the White House officials to try to fix the dispute. I'm sorry, I just think they're waiting for an excuse here to get Anthropic. I think maybe Jassy might have said this, but the minute they could, they jumped on Anthropic. And of course Anthropic's making the argument that every other model can do this too. And they're just cherry picking. By the way, the company is also being sued for its $200 a month AI with consumers alleging it oversold the usage allowances it offered. So that's that. And then, by the way, a coalition of state's attorney generals have opened an investigation into OpenAI. The company was served with a subpoena seeking documents related to its activities and impact on users, including activity related to minors and seniors, handling of health data and company policies. Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman alleging the two knowingly released an unsafe product. That's an interesting. That's a separate thing. But this anthropic attack by the White House is really interesting. Of course, they were just waiting for something to come at them. As usual, David Sacks just lies in wait.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I had mixed emotions here because I think it's a good thing. I'd like to think that the government's involvement in acting crisply around the threats of AI is overdue. So I applaud the government moving in crisply and saying, saying we need to shut this down until we understand it better. I applaud that. The problem is I don't trust these people. I don't know what their motivations are. I don't know if they're genuinely concerned about the well being of society or if this is just politically motivated. Trying to shut down one company because you have political donors at the other. And supposedly I just got off. I just had Ian Bremmer on the podium talking about Iran. He said at the G7 meeting, the shutdown of Anthropic was a bigger topic than the Memo of Understanding in Iran. Because if you're a foreign company and you've deeply integrated Anthropic into your workflow and all of a sudden it's turned

[Kara Swisher]

off,

[Scott Galloway]

it's like, okay, does this mean the government has a kill switch for AI that when whoever it is is angry at them, just turns it off. So this is, again, this all comes down to the same fucking thing. You don't trust these people.

[Kara Swisher]

And why isn't there a congressional like that? Everybody has to live by it. Why does Andy have a conversation? I'd like to hear from Andy fucking Jassy right now. What did he say? Why does he. Like, why did he. They're an investor Anthropic, by the way, so I'm not sure I even trust that story. I don't even know if I trust the Jassy part of the story. I'd like him to sneak out publicly about it. But, yeah, I agree. I don't trust these fuckers. And I think they're doing it to kneecap Dario because he's been a nuisance for them.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, he's not their chosen. He's the one that said no on self healing or, you know, on. On weapons or privacy violations. So he's on their shit list. And, you know, I love the idea, but Dario and Anthropic would say, perhaps correctly, that these same jailbreaks or things that the reason why they shut down are available on other models.

[Kara Swisher]

Again, they're not a perfect company. I get that they're being sued for over allowances. I just think there's to be. They are in the front and they are not going along with this administration. So you're going to see all manner of nonsense attacking them. And some of it, you know, I don't think they're perfect. I don't think, you know, I think he can be a little bit, you know, righteous, but at least it's righteous for the right things on some level. And I just think this is, as I said, this is not about national security. This is about a beef and a rumble between different Silicon Valley industries interests. That's it seems to be.

[Scott Galloway]

We need a panel or a regulatory body that's bipartisan with experts, economists, philosophers who say, okay, maybe it shouldn't take 10 years to release an AI model for the public similar to the way it does for drugs, but we need 30 days in an institution or an agency represented by the briefs Congress that says, okay, before you release anything. It's got to go through this 30, 60, 90 day screening where we bang the shit out of it and everyone is subject to the same regulatory approval. And that kind of regulatory certainty is good for the economy. It's good for companies. They want to know what rules they're playing by. They don't want to have to think, Jesus Christ, I got to go to a fucking UFC fight or fear that they're going to turn off my, you know, my next version of this product. But supposedly it's created chaos abroad because a lot of companies sure is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And even defense departments and NATO members decide to use anthropic into their scenarios, scenario planning or to figure out when to turn off and on power that runs into hospitals. And all of a sudden they've gotta go, okay, you mean one guy based on criteria we can't figure out has again a kill switch on an important technology. And there is.

[Kara Swisher]

But to me, if you read David Sacks's stupid excuses, he's such a pompous ass. And I just trust none of this. They do not care about all of us. They care about this Silicon Valley beep. And you can feel like the hand of others here. It's just you don't trust them. Like you said, I think you your nose on it. Now. What's more serious are these lawsuits, you know, in terms of how good their product is and whether it's accurate or not. I just you that's to me where some of the real issues are going to come with all these companies, all the social media companies, everybody else. It's impact whether it's data centers or minors or bad health stuff or bad data, but unsafe products is actually where I think the action is.

[Scott Galloway]

This is also, I think this is headed one way and that that is it'll probably result in the administration putting all sorts of restrictions on Chinese open weight models trying to come into the US and disrupt what is becoming an increasingly difficult case to justify the ROI on these token expenditures. And so this is again going to take on its own sort of tariff feel and geopolitics. It helps a company like Mistral out of France. France who is not subject to the same things, although supposedly that's inferior technology. I'll be very curious. I wouldn't be surprised at all if all of a sudden Trump decides these Chinese that American firms can't use these open weight models coming out of China. But this is the next big political football I think is who and how gets to use American AI firms and what AI models are allowed into the

[Kara Swisher]

U.S. i do think these safety things are building with parents and everyone else. I just do. I think that as you said, the brand AI has gotten so many hits. It's almost like this idiot who got hit in the head and said racist and misogynistic things at the UFC fight. It just is getting, it is getting a bad rep and there's going to be legal implications, I think, because I think people are upset and angry. And it's not, as Mr. Wonderful says about his data centers, the Chinese fault. It's your own. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. The US And Iran say they've agreed on terms to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

[Scott Galloway]

You already see oil prices from a high of $126 a barrel down to about $80 a barrel today. That's, that's a lot of progress.

[Kara Swisher]

The war, of course, drove up the price of gas and other essentials and has led to some ugly polling for President Trump. 61% of adults polled by NPR, PBS and Marist disapprove of his handling of the economy. His handling in a certain light, makes sense. His priority was preventing Iran from getting nukes. But Trump's messaging was unusual, unusual for a president. Last month, a reporter asked Trump to what extent was he thinking about Americans finances when he negotiated with Iran.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

[Kara Swisher]

I think about what's he doing. Coming up on today, explained from Vox.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm Seth Matlins. My new show, Create or Destroy Reimagining Marketing, explores how every decision a company makes, not just the marketing ones, but the hr, ir, pricing, org design and planning ones. The ones most don't consider marketing at all contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week I sit down with CMOs, CEOs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking and reimagining how businesses grow or don't, for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show. It's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show that argues they've always been the same thing. From the Vox Media Podcast network and the Wisdomist company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. After the better part of two decades, something impossible just happened. Siri became good. At Apple's WWDC Developer conference, Apple once again presented its grand plans for AI and the future of everything. And the star is a brand new voice assistant that by all accounts actually appear to have done the job this time. This week on the Vergecast. We're talking about all of the news from wwdc, including all of the stuff coming to Apple devices this fall, and what it means that Siri actually works now. That's the Vergecast. Wherever you get podcasts.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first?

[Scott Galloway]

You go first, Kara.

[Kara Swisher]

This is. I'm gonna do a win and a fail together because one of the things around this UFC thing is meta's used opportunity to do PR itself, which, fine. I don't really care around this. Giving blind veterans these glasses, right? These glasses that help them navigate. I think this is a great thing. I don't care if it's a PR thing. I don't care any manner of it. I do think I know, and Amanda was actually telling me this is really helpful for people who have disabilities, like blindness. These glasses, I think all of them, not just metas, but everybody's not these Ray Ban ones. But I suspect Apple will have a lot of utility for people who are blind. I think it's very exciting and I think it's a good thing. Look, I don't mind if you use PR for doing that. Like, I get it and it's fine and it helps people. And I. And I give it law. This was an effort pushed by Dina Powell, who they just hired, and good effort. And they should do a lot of these things. Nonpartisan would be great. They don't have to just mob up with Trump all the time. They should go with everybody to do these things to help people. And again, I don't care if they get a PR win off of it. That's fine by me. What I think is that them being doing it during this year UFC fight took the focus off the veterans in that way, you know what I mean? Because it just is like, oh, God, didn't you expect that something terrible would happen here? And so, as I said, I really do admire Mark's like of mma. It's kind of like the. One of the most human things about him, but it just was like, here's something that's for good. And then you get this idiot say something and create all manner of problems for them. So it was a good attempt. And then it got drowned. Drowned out. Something good got drowned out. And again, I don't even mind if you trot Ivanka Trump out. I just. I don't love it, but whatever for these kind of things. But if it helps these veterans, a good thing. I just think it got in the way of what the veterans they were trying to do for veterans, which I think is a real thing, but they should do a lot more nonpartisan things that helps the rest of us. But any, you know, as they say, anything Trump touches turns to shit. And that's. I felt that my dad was a veteran. I have a lot of family members who are veterans. I wanted to be a veteran, as I always say. I would have been being. I would have been an admiral about to be fired by Trump right now if I had had my career choice. But it was, I, I really felt bad that this was. Got sucked up into this ridiculous nonsense at the White House with ufc.

[Scott Galloway]

I just. The vision of you being an admiral, I don't.

[Kara Swisher]

That would be an excellent admiral. Yeah, I know I would. By the way, Dana White's on the board of Meta too. Just so you're aware, that's win and fail. Because I was like, oh, here's something good. And here it got sullied and the story, as usual, went off, off onto another way. And I don't blame the media for it. I don't blame. This guy said something so terrible and grotesque at the White House. This is where this woman used to live. You fuckers. Like, back off and say you're sorry. Say you're fucking sorry for that piece of shit. Anyway, go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, my win here is the social media ban in the uk. Britain just announced the world's strictest teen social media law, going further than Australia, the country that inspired all of this. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and X will be banned from offering services to under 16s. As someone who has a 15 year old in the house, I can tell you that I think the most negative anxiety inducing thing in our household is our 15 year old's usage of social media. And people say, well, that's a parenting thing. No, they pay for the tube with their phone. If you tell them not to use social media, they're isolated from their friends and become more depressed. This needs to be a collective ban. And that's what the prime minister here did. There is no reason, no justification for anyone under the age of 16 being on any social media platform. Some people will say, what about YouTube? Fine, put out a kiss, kids. Put out a kid's version of YouTube. I'm down with that. But this goes into effect in spring of 2027. Overnight it curfews and infinite scroll limits under consideration. Or excuse me, overnight curfews and infinite scroll limits are under consideration. Liability falls on platforms, not on children or parents. It's consistent with Australia's approach, which finds companies up to to 50 million for non compliance. It needs to be a percentage of revenues, I would argue. And then Britain's existing Online Safety act has already cut visits to porn sites by a third and raised the share of children encountering age checks online from 30% to 47%. Spain, Greece, Slovenia and France are already pursuing similar bans. And Australia's December 2025 laws officially triggered a global cascade. And a study of 18 to 24 year olds found out that not social media for one week significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety by 16%, depression by 25% and insomnia by 15%. This isn't just a win for teen mental health, this is a win for democracy. The more time you spend on social media, the less you believe in democracy.

[Kara Swisher]

One thing you pointed if they had gone and tried to make a safe product, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say it's not going to work in Australia, it's not going to work. Their argument, it's never about the thing, it's never about that. This is deleterious. And by the way, speaking of which, that movie's coming out, the Social Reckoning, which is the part two of the Social Network. Jeremy Strong from Succession is playing Mark Zuckerberg. As I noted last week, why do they never talk about the thing? They just say how it doesn't work and how it does this and this and that, but they never want to talk about the thing, which is are you hurting people with your unsafe products?

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but again, I, I don't think we should fall into the trap of believing that the owners of McDonald's or Ford are going to figure out are going to focus on anything other than what car do Americans want to drive, what's the design? And we don't give a shit that it gives you diabetes. We just want basically a food orgasm in your mouth. It's up to us as voters and we have done this to implement, to appoint really smart people who decide to devote their lives to government and regulatory concerns to protect the wellbeing of the Commonwealth. If we're waiting on these companies to start thinking about the safety and harms of their product, good fucking luck.

[Kara Swisher]

True, but look at the costs we pay for obesity and why do we keep doing this to ourselves? That's the thing.

[Scott Galloway]

I agree, but when you say we doing it to ourselves, the capitalist system is companies are rapacious, engage in full body contact violence, not worried about other people worried about getting a product that commands margin. And quite frankly, that works as long as you have regulatory bodies ensuring that opiates don't gut small towns in Appalachia. But again, asking. We can ask the question we can all hope for. A guy who's in charge of AI with hushed tones, who just adopted a baby boy, and he's concerned about AI and this really attractive woman who says we need to do better. And we. We are open to regulation. They're all fucking whores. And we have built a whorehouse. And the whorehouse works. But you have to have a cop.

[Kara Swisher]

Can I quote you on that? We have built a whorehouse and the whorehouse works. Go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

The Whorehouse works.

[Kara Swisher]

That's your next book. The Whorehouse Works.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's funny. I was just at a wedding in Amsterdam and the rosewood, there used to be an orphanage and then a whorehouse. And I thought, well, that's a pipeline.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, God. Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said that. Anyway, I think I know that as well, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

I get mad at us. They're doing their job and we keep trying to shame them into thinking about the safety of their product.

[Kara Swisher]

You're right.

[Scott Galloway]

You think McDonald's is just gonna decide we need to have salads? It's just the right thing.

[Kara Swisher]

It did, remember? It didn't work.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. I mean, anyways, we need economic incentives and regulations that punish these people and create disincentives. But my win. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. My fail. I just spent the most wonderful week in Northern Europe. I was in Stockholm and then I was in Amsterdam. And Sweden is growing. It's kind of the non European European country. It's growing 2.5%. It is actually produced, despite having the population of North Carolina. It's produced companies including King, Klarna, Spotify, Ericsson. They produce a ton of unicorns.

[Kara Swisher]

Very clever.

[Scott Galloway]

And they have the industrial might or productivity of Germany with some of the innovation of Silicon Valley and the social policies of Bernie Sanders. And then you go to Amsterdam, where they have become kind of the ground zero for data centers in Europe. They have asml. If Nvidia is the picks and shovels, ASML makes the picks and shovels. Productivity is up 2.5%. The economy is strong there. These are some of the wealthiest countries in the nation, and they settle an argument. And this is my fail. America has tried to convince its population that you can't have billionaires and universal healthcare. Bullshit.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, they do.

[Scott Galloway]

These companies prove you can have really wealthy people. And you can have universal pre K and you can have child services. And I spent some time with the founder and then the people running Spotify this weekend and they were all in the valley. They all moved back to Sweden where they are paying much higher taxes and they're fine to do it because they trust that the government is going to spend their money well. They trust that being able to ride a bike to work and have a kid with special needs is going to be taken care of. And they have. And I did not see a single homeless person by the way, in Stockholm. Granted that's probably not indicative of. Of all of Sweden. And granted, do they have problems with immigration and housing prices that follow Prosperity 100%. But we need to stop in America believing that there's a myth that inequality. That inequality and billionaires and unicorns demand a rapacious lack of a safety net.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I said the same thing about Korea when I was there. They're healthier. Oh my God. It's so a universal health care for one. But the other's daughter stuff. I agree with you. Great one.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyways, I love. I had such a nice time. I was so blown away. I'm glad by Sweden. And I was actually at my best friend's son's wedding. Jack Markman, this incredibly impressive young man that reminds me of my. He's like the mini me of my friend. And I had time. I spent. I did myself a favor. I went early and I left late and I spent time in both of those places. They are such incredible, incredibly lovely places.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm glad you went.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyways. They trust that their governments are going to spend their money correctly. They trust each other. They trust there's also really strong governance such that they attract foreign investment because they know they're not going to get fucked by a corrupt government or a corrupt politician.

[Kara Swisher]

They also just convicted in Norway the princes I think steps in.

[Scott Galloway]

I saw that.

[Kara Swisher]

I mean they just look when you do bad things things you get no matter where you are, you get. Not all the time.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, Prince Andrew, I know.

[Kara Swisher]

I agree with you on that. I don't even. I mean I agree but it's heading that direction.

[Scott Galloway]

He was removed. They kicked him out of. They defrocked him or whatever the they do. They do with the monarchy here.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah but no, he's. He's being investigated finally but. Right. 100% fair point.

[Scott Galloway]

He'll pay a bigger price than any of those billionaires on that island.

[Kara Swisher]

That's true. That is true.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyways, my. When my fail is this false dichotomy. We've talked Americans into believing that you can't have billionaires and really robust capitalism and growth and not have universal healthcare and childcare. You absolutely can. And the Netherlands and Sweden produce that or prove that in spades.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep. And in America, you don't have to insult a very impressive black woman in order to feel like more like a man.

[Scott Galloway]

You can act, what an idiot. What a fucking idiot. And by the way, Michelle Obama does demonstrate more masculinity, service strength than that dude, you know, Anyway, I can't even. I saw that and I thought, Jesus Christ.

[Kara Swisher]

Jesus Christ. Thank you.

[Scott Galloway]

What? What the. Like, what, What? Does that guy have daughters? Okay.

[Kara Swisher]

Any of them.

[Scott Galloway]

Are you gonna wait for some fucking idiot to start saying stupid shit about your daughter?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I just like them.

[Scott Galloway]

Agnes Wisher. Take.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you. By the way, I like mma, but fuck that guy anyway. And by the way, Dina White, say something stronger, like, even stronger, like, kick that fucker out. Okay, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot send a question for the show or call 85551, pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on on I spoke to Peter Chernon, one of the producers of the hit film Backrooms. He talked this legendary media executive, entertainment media executive. He talked about how studios are rushing to sign YouTubers and why that's a mistake. Let's listen to a clip.

[Scott Galloway]

Every single meeting in Hollywood over the last 10 days has been find me my youtuber. That's not the smartest thing on earth. You know, it's no different than saying find me a sequel to something else. You know, it's worth noting we spent three years on this project. You know, we spent. Spent a period of time chasing it. We spent a long time working on the script. We spent another year in production. And you know, it's not just saying bet on a YouTuber. It's not just saying bet on some. It's betting on a very specific piece of content and betting on a very specific piece of talent.

[Kara Swisher]

He is a class act and so smart. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman Zoe Marcus Taylor Griffin and Todd Wiseman. Additional assistance from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode, thanks to also G Bros, Mia Sivero and Dan Shalon. Nishat Khoras, Vox Media is executive producer of Podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Carol, I will see you later in the week.