TACO Trade, Elon's DOGE Farewell, and AI Video Gone Wild

Summary

Pivot Podcast Summary
Episode: TACO Trade, Elon's DOGE Farewell, and AI Video Gone Wild
Release Date: May 30, 2025
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway

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Introduction

In this episode of Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway delve into a range of pressing topics at the intersection of technology, business, and politics. From the latest developments in trade policies and their market implications to Elon Musk's evolving ventures and the rise of AI in media production, the hosts provide sharp, unfiltered insights complemented by their characteristic banter.

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Trump's Tariffs and the Emergence of "Taco Trade"

Key Points:

• The US Court of International Trade ruled that former President Donald Trump overstepped his authority by imposing sweeping tariffs without Congressional approval. Although some tariffs on industries like steel and aluminum remain under different laws, the administration plans to appeal the decision, potentially taking the case to the Supreme Court.

• The term "Taco Trade"—an acronym for "Trump Always Chickens Out"—has been coined to describe Trump's pattern of threatening tariffs to unsettle markets, only to retract them shortly after, leading to market surges. For instance, after announcing a 50% tariff on EU goods, Trump paused the tariffs following discussions with the European Commission, resulting in the Dow jumping over 700 points and the S&P 500 experiencing significant gains.

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [08:15]: "Donald Trump's tariff strategy has been dealt a major blow."
• Scott Galloway [12:05]: "Trump puts a policy, a tariff of 145%, and then he admits himself to lowering it to 30 because the markets react."

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Insider Trading Allegations and Market Manipulation

Key Points:

• Scott Galloway highlights alarming instances of insider trading associated with Trump's tariff announcements. Notable figures, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, sold substantial amounts of Trump Media stock on the day tariffs were announced, raising suspicions of non-public information trading.

• The hosts discuss the broader implications of such activities on market trust and capital flow, emphasizing that insider trading undermines the foundational trust necessary for economic prosperity.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway [15:24]: "This is going to scare the shit out of capital to leave the US People using markets."
• Kara Swisher [17:44]: "Trump is claiming... but he seems obsessed with controlling the amount of foreign students that enter the United States too."

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Elon Musk’s Engagement with Trump and Dogecoin

Key Points:

• Elon Musk has publicly shifted his stance on Dogecoin (DOGE), expressing both support and criticism. Musk’s ventures, including SpaceX and Neuralink, continue to evolve despite recent setbacks such as multiple SpaceX Starship launch failures.

• The discussion touches on Musk’s involvement in reducing government deficits through initiatives like Doge, juxtaposed with the administrative challenges and his personal brand struggles amid Trump’s aggressive policies.

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [22:14]: "Elon Musk... he's talking about the problem with deficits and tariffs."
• Scott Galloway [24:57]: "The first day of class. Nyu, at business school. I say get to know the international students because they're rich kids."

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Trump’s Feud with Harvard and Its Implications

Key Points:

• Trump is actively targeting Harvard University, advocating for a cap on international student enrollment at 15%. This move follows legal challenges where a judge temporarily blocked the administration's efforts to revoke Harvard's ability to enroll international students.

• Scott underscores the economic significance of international students, noting that they contribute substantially to the US education sector, which is a major export. The potential reduction in international enrollment could have long-term negative impacts on US education and innovation.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway [40:02]: "70% of graduate students in AI research in the US are international students."
• Kara Swisher [50:37]: "It's the old HERSHEY Bar, American GI story."

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Tim Cook, Apple, and Trump’s Trade Threats

Key Points:

• Trump’s administration has threatened a 25% tariff on iPhones, escalating tensions with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Concurrently, Apple’s contractor Foxconn is relocating significant manufacturing operations to India, aiming to mitigate the impact of potential tariffs.

• The hosts discuss the precarious position of Apple, balancing regulatory challenges, global supply chain shifts, and maintaining its brand reputation amidst political pressures.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway [45:00]: "Apple has upskilled and trained 25 million Chinese."
• Kara Swisher [47:15]: "Apple's off. I mean, if he did what he said he's going to do, it would seriously diminish the most profitable product in history."

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The Rise of Cryptocurrency and Trump's Involvement

Key Points:

• President Trump has escalated his involvement with cryptocurrency, lifting restrictions on crypto in 401(k) plans and investing heavily in Bitcoin through his media company. This move is seen as both a strategic alignment with a burgeoning financial trend and a potential avenue for revenue generation.

• However, Galloway warns that Trump's embrace of crypto may facilitate further financial grifts, given the untraceable nature of many crypto transactions. The discussion also touches on the volatility and speculative risks associated with cryptocurrencies.

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [54:57]: "Trump's crypto holdings now represent around 40% of his net worth, or approximately $2.9 billion."
• Scott Galloway [55:51]: "Bitcoin has established a credible sense of scarcity... The other coins I see as just like, that's just like Vegas."

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Google's New AI Video Generator: VO3

Key Points:

• Google has launched VO3, an AI-powered video generator capable of creating full videos with audio, including dialogues and animal sounds. This tool competes with OpenAI’s Sora and poses questions about the future of video production and potential misinformation.

• The hosts share their hands-on experiences with VO3, demonstrating its current limitations in accurately replicating their likenesses and generating coherent audio, underscoring the technology's potential yet present shortcomings.

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [62:37]: "We had our video producer, Kevin, mess around with it... people are complaining online about its audio failures as well."
• Scott Galloway [64:06]: "It's going to go after commercials first and quick hits where if you're selling stuff on Facebook or Shopify and you need just a 30-second competent, elegant looking."

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Personal Anecdotes and Host Banter

Throughout the episode, Kara and Scott engage in light-hearted conversations about personal lives, setting a relatable tone amidst the heavy topics. They discuss home projects, interactions with in-laws, and amusing stories about driving mishaps, adding a human touch to the podcast.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Pivot offers a comprehensive analysis of the tumultuous interplay between politics, technology, and business. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect the repercussions of Trump's trade policies, Elon Musk's ventures, the critical role of international students in US education, and the transformative potential of AI in media. Their candid discussions, enriched with sharp insights and memorable quotes, provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the current landscape and its future trajectory.

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Notable Overall Quotes:

• Scott Galloway [12:31]: "If he's a poker player, he shows up to the table with all this bravado and swagger. He goes all in... He folds before he sees what the other players do."
• Kara Swisher [27:09]: "It felt like a little bit he had enough of this and realized he got taken by the world's most adept con man."

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For more insights and detailed discussions, subscribe to Pivot on your favorite podcast platform or visit nymag.com/pivot.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

Hi, folks. Logan here and Tulsi. We're from the Google DeepMind team. We're releasing Gemini 2.5 Pro, our most intelligent model. It's now available for you to test out in Google AI Studio. It's been awesome to see what everyone's.

[Scott Galloway]

Been building, from creating mini games from a single prompt to debugging 50,000 lines of code. We're excited to see what else you create.

[Kara Swisher]

Try it out today on Google AI Studio by going to aistudio.google.com and let us know what you build. Support for this show comes from HubSpot. Growing a business can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform can help. It's powered by Breez, their suite of AI tools, so you can generate more leads, close more deals and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you see the results in days, not months. Visit HubSpot.com AI to learn more. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do. You know what people don't want to do? Boring, busy work. But now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of the business. It, hr, customer service and more. And that means your people can focus on the work they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Get [e-mail] AI agency agents. No, no, no. They're kissing. Don't do it. Don't do it. Oh, no. Stop. Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from New York magazine and the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Hello, Scott. How's it going?

[Scott Galloway]

It's good. I'm trying to. I've been setting up my home gym. Actually, you know what? I didn't. I'm trying to. I took a week off of alcohol and edibles because. And I found this research that is, I find accurate. And it said that if you cut out alcohol and edibles from your life for just for 21 days or more, you lose 60% of your will to live.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I knew that where that was going.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, my God. Also, it's been a while. Hold on, hold on. I'm not stopping there. My in laws are staying with me.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, God. Oh. How's that going? You like it?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, they're wonderful. It's perfect because they don't Speak very good English. So we don't communicate.

[Kara Swisher]

Nice.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm convinced that your relationship with your in laws starts to come off the tracks when you begin communicating.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh.

[Scott Galloway]

But something kind of awkward happened over the weekend. Oh. I had left my computer out.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, no. Is there nudity involved?

[Scott Galloway]

And she. My mother in law, opened it and what did she see on my computer?

[Kara Swisher]

No. No. What?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, you can imagine. One guess.

[Kara Swisher]

Porn. Porn.

[Scott Galloway]

Porn. Yeah. So. But I had the perfect excuse.

[Kara Swisher]

What?

[Scott Galloway]

I said, I get my weather from cock gobblers dot com.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. This didn't happen. Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Got gobblers. I mean, that is good branding. That is really.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not.

[Scott Galloway]

That signals awareness. It signals intent. It tells you what the product offering is. I love that.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, absolutely. I love that.

[Scott Galloway]

I get my weather there.

[Kara Swisher]

All right. Okay. Well, I'm going on a big trip.

[Scott Galloway]

He's back.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. We're gonna try to move on from that. Okay. So I think you should start taking edibles again immediately. As soon as possible.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, okay. Well, okay.

[Kara Swisher]

All right.

[Scott Galloway]

You talked me into it.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, good.

[Scott Galloway]

You talked me into it.

[Kara Swisher]

Good. I'm thinking of starting to take edibles. I'm so tired. So much work.

[Scott Galloway]

Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I'm tired today.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but you're doing this to yourself. I keep warning you.

[Kara Swisher]

That's true. You're right. You're right. More of the house stuff. I was doing a lot of gardening. I have my gardeners here and we got. We're gardening up a storm to create.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Two words. Undocumented immigrants.

[Kara Swisher]

They're not. There are two amazing gay guys from San Francisco and they're very, like, macho and also gay. So I have the most beautiful garden fault.

[Scott Galloway]

Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, they're great.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't.

[Kara Swisher]

Unless Gary and Michael.

[Scott Galloway]

So why is that taking time if other people are doing. I'm a huge believer in comparative advantage. I can do a small number of things very well. And everything else, I outsource.

[Kara Swisher]

I like it. I like to scrub the pollen off of patio furniture. I don't know what to tell you. I love it.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. You're kind of a. You like to clean.

[Kara Swisher]

I like to clean. And it's very satisfying. I organized my. I built myself a tool shed. And I have organized it. And I couldn't be more happy about that situation.

[Scott Galloway]

Built myself a tool shed.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had. Well, I didn't build.

[Scott Galloway]

God, we could. We are literally a different species.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. I have a tool shed.

[Scott Galloway]

Built yourself a tool shed.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to show it to you when you come visit me if you ever do.

[Scott Galloway]

Are you handy?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I'm very handy. Yeah. Saul always hands me things and says, fix it. Yeah, I'm the handy one. I'm the handy lesbian.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. See, my kids cut out the handed to me. They just look at me and say, fix it. And I'm not even sure what they're.

[Kara Swisher]

Referring to or buy it.

[Scott Galloway]

They're just, fix it. I'm upset. Fix it.

[Kara Swisher]

Fix it. No, I'm very handy. I bought myself an electric lawnmower, an electric blower, and an electric weed whacker among and of course, my power washer. So I'm very happy now, but it takes a lot of time to get everything in place.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, you need to travel less. I actually am worried about you. You do need to travel much less.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I haven't traveled in a while. I haven't traveled. This is the first big trip I'm taking in a while. And I'll see you in France.

[Scott Galloway]

It's good. I also think you need to spend some of your money and enjoy yourself and relax a little.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'm not a vacationer, Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

Like, you should start. It's a lot of fun. I'll show you how. I'm really good at it.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't like it. I never like vacations.

[Scott Galloway]

There's a lot of wonderful stuff out there.

[Kara Swisher]

I like doing gardening. I like doing. Organizing my things. Anyway.

[Scott Galloway]

Can I give you a hint? Two hints. One, don't take your kids. And two, travel to hotels, not to cities.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, well, I'm gonna be in San Francisco, so I'll be at my beautiful home there, which I love too.

[Scott Galloway]

That's not travel.

[Kara Swisher]

I understand. But I'm happy and I'm a homebody because I'll tell you, I'll tell you. My mom moved us around a lot. And so all my brothers and I have beautiful homes that we love. Like, very comfortable. And I don't mean stunning, enormous.

[Scott Galloway]

Because you inherited a lot of money? Why?

[Kara Swisher]

No, because we work hard. I work really hard. I actually.

[Scott Galloway]

You do work hard. I just said that. You work too hard.

[Kara Swisher]

My brothers and I are very into our making lovely homes where we live. And younger brother just built a beautiful house that's off the grid, if you can believe it.

[Scott Galloway]

Off the grid?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. It's all. It's like one of those houses that can survive an apocalypse. Like he has energy, water.

[Scott Galloway]

I gotta meet this guy.

[Kara Swisher]

You do. It's beautiful too. You would like it. It looks like a Four Seasons. It's gorgeous. It's up in Pennsylvania.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm not going anywhere. I'll take him to Shea Margaux in New York. But I want to meet him. I've heard so much about him.

[Kara Swisher]

He's really interesting. This house is gorgeous. But it also has its own electrical thing. It's all kinds of stuff. And he's. He's got himself one of those carts that you drive around those carts that you drive around across the land and stuff.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyway, yeah, I immediately liked Dr. Swisher.

[Kara Swisher]

He liked lawyer Swisher. He liked lawyer Swisher very much.

[Scott Galloway]

He's a lawyer. He took over the family coal business, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, he did. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Good for him.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just. He's a. He's. We're all stay at home people. Which is interesting anyway. Cause we were dragged all.

[Scott Galloway]

It's cause you're all old. That's what happens when you get old.

[Kara Swisher]

No, we were always like this. No, I'm telling you, we were dragged. We were dragged from place to place.

[Scott Galloway]

Get afraid. I saw some teenagers with a skateboard. They're criminals anyway.

[Kara Swisher]

You didn't really show your mother in law porn, did you? I hope not.

[Scott Galloway]

No, that's. That's a lie.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. She is a lovely lady, as I recall.

[Scott Galloway]

I clear my browsing history and I'm. Well, now I'm all paranoid because I found out people actually listen to this thing and they get angry when I say stupid things about them that aren't true, by the way.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, okay.

[Scott Galloway]

My in laws are to be blessed with. Young, competent in laws is just.

[Kara Swisher]

They are.

[Scott Galloway]

We moved to Florida because to be near them and it was one of the best moves we ever made.

[Kara Swisher]

They're really lovely people.

[Scott Galloway]

Also having grandparents, that is a. I did not witness that. I did not participate in that because all my grandparents passed away. The grandparent grandkid relationship is just so incredible to watch.

[Kara Swisher]

Absolutely. My grandmother was critical to my life, I have to say. She really was. She raised me in a lot of ways. So anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon's farewell to Doge, his long fucking goodbye, the Trump taco trade, and what happens when we tried Google's new AI video generator, Veo. But first, Donald Trump's tariff strategy has been dealt a major blow. The US Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump overstepped his authority by using emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs. In fact not bypassing Congress. The three judge panel found that federal law did not grant Trump unbounded authority to Tax imports from nearly every country around the world. The White House plans to appeal and the case is likely going to the Supreme Court. They're working hard over there. Tariffs on steel, aluminum and a few other sectors are still in place, but they're imposed under a different law. This is going on. And let me just bring in taco trade. You've heard about taco trade. Taco, short for Trump always chickens out is a new acronym coined by a Financial Times columnist. It describes a pattern where Trump rattles the markets with his tariff threats only to backpedal a few days later, sending stocks surging. The latest example, Trump found 50 tariffs on EU goods last week hit pause on Sunday after a good call with European Commission president. And when the markets reopened Tuesday, the dow jumped over 700 points and the S&P 500 saw its biggest gain in weeks. Trump doesn't like the taco terminology. Mostly cuz he probably doesn't tacos. Remember that whole thing with tacos he had going? His pissiness was on full display when asked about it on Wednesday. Let's listen. And then I chicken out. I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100.

[Scott Galloway]

And then down to another number and.

[Kara Swisher]

I said you have to open up your whole country. And because I, I gave the European.

[Scott Galloway]

Union a 50% tax tariff.

[Kara Swisher]

And they called up and they said.

[Scott Galloway]

Please, let's meet right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Please let's meet right now. And I said, okay, I'll give you till Jen. I actually asked them, I said what's the date? Because they weren't willing to meet.

[Scott Galloway]

And after I did what I did.

[Kara Swisher]

They said we'll meet anytime you want. And we have an end date of July 9th. You call that chickening out? Oh man, is he sensitive about that taco trade. So talk about the two things, the court ruling and then this taco trade. The idea that his unpredictability has become predictable or that.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I just have an adjacent thought and the first is that there's a lot of a sort of quote unquote conspiracy theory from the right that there was this gigantic cover up of Biden's cognitive decline. First off, if it was a cover up, it was the worst cover up in history. They let him go debate and put his cognitive decline on full display.

[Kara Swisher]

Correct.

[Scott Galloway]

But it was no more a cover up than the COVID up of Trump's cognitive decline right now. Did you see his speech at West Point?

[Kara Swisher]

I agree. I was really struck by it.

[Scott Galloway]

So is, is This a cover up? The guy is rambling about nonsense.

[Kara Swisher]

Trophy wives sounded like one you might give, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Are we in the midst of a cover up? Anyways, the. In terms of the taco trade, Trump. Since the inauguration, Trump administration officials have announced new or revised tariff policies more than 50 times.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm having trouble finding one deal. I mean, he talks about deals, announced a deal with the UK but nothing was signed. It was a. It was an agreement to have further discussions. I don't.

[Kara Swisher]

He's saying it's helping them come to the table by his crazy moves, his, his wave or something. Whatever he calls it.

[Scott Galloway]

This is how terrible a business person and negotiator Trump is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Trump puts a policy, a tariff of 145% and then he admits himself. Well, that was kind of high. And then he lowers it to 30 because the markets, the markets throw up. So he's essentially, if he's a poker player, he shows up to the table with all this bravado and swagger. He goes all in. And then before he even sees what the other players say or do, he goes, I fold. I fold. He negotiates against himself.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, that's what it feels like.

[Scott Galloway]

And nobody takes him seriously. But here's the real story. In my view, this is nothing but a weapon of insider trading. And that is he can create volatility. He can take markets up for some of their biggest gains in history. When he takes these ridiculous trades off the table, he can take markets down. And the people around him are trading stocks like crazy.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Including. You're going to find that some of his hedge fund buddies that he speaks to or tucks him in a bed at night, some of whom we talk a lot about, are going to vastly outperform the index.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And even, even Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, there was a whole bunch of them that were trading.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, let's talk about this. The fish rots from the head. The nation's top cop is the Attorney General.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Pam Bondi.

[Scott Galloway]

PAM Bondi on April 2 sold one somewhere between 1 and 5 million in Trump Media stock. Why April 2? That was the same day the Liberation Day tariffs were announced. So we have the person supposedly ensuring the markets have rule of fair play is trading stocks the day her boss announces tariffs that will take the markets down. She sells a ton of stocks. And it is everywhere. The State Department officials, Michael Platz, staff director and Congress sold around escalating. They are trading in and out of the market based on who knows what when. Huge spike in options, volume. Right before he makes these announcements, which means that people know something and people hear this. I just want to try and connect the dots here. People hear this and go, okay, there's always been grift. Speaker Pelosi. Speaker Ambert Pelosi. There's always been grift. So if some people are getting richer, fine. What people fail to make the connection is the following, is that when you buy same day options because you know he's about to reduce the tariffs and the markets are about to scream up, somebody is on the other side of the trade that doesn't have that insider information that is selling that person that option and is going to get taken to the laundry is going to lose a shit ton of money. And the reason why off a $27 trillion economy, we have a $50 trillion market cap stock market, which gives companies the ability to raise money. It gives people the chance to save money for their retirements. It gives people incredible compensation upside if they get options. The reason why we have such incredibly deep pools of capital that create prosperity and risk aggressiveness. We have $5 million in risk capital for every startup. Europe has 1 million.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Scott Galloway]

Is because people believe there's a rule of fair play and fair trade.

[Kara Swisher]

Now let's look at, and here is a grift.

[Scott Galloway]

Let's look at Russia. Russia is 1/14 the size of our economy. 2 trillion or about 28 trillion. The total value of the Russian stock market is $80 billion. Because people don't trust it. People are like, unless you know Putin, you don't know what's going to happen. And there's so much insider trading and kleptocracy that the markets don't have any trust. So what do you have? You have essentially, even on a size adjusted basis, our stock market is 70 times the value of the Russian stock market, even ramping it up to adjust it for the difference in the size of the economy. So when a bunch of people think I lost money and I'm not on the inside, I'm not going to participate in the markets.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I agree. That's a really fantastic take, actually. I really what's going on here. He's also doing it because he doesn't have a plan at the same time. And people are either he is in on the grift, right? Or he's so dumb and a bad business person, they're playing him and understanding.

[Scott Galloway]

He'S rewarding his allies.

[Kara Swisher]

He's rewarding his allies and also doing what he does, which is run businesses right into the ground, which is his that seems to be the consistent part of his business career is to run businesses into the ground in some fashion with these sort of capricious things. And the fact that he gets so angry about it was really revelatory. It's like he knows exactly what he's doing. He's trying to put it off. And it's really depressing when someone like Scott Besson says, oh, actually acting crazy as a strategy. I'm like, no, it's not, it's not. I mean, maybe once, but you can't do it over and over and over again. And that's what he's doing. And so Europeans, he's like, oh, they came to the table because I made that threat. I'm like, they probably waited until you did this. And then they're like, okay, now time to come to the table. But they are long gaming him so badly. It's really an astonishing thing. And he deserves every single insult he gets about how he's conducting these. The court thing, how do you feel? Like they just are just all the courts, 96% of courts are against Donald Trump on all these rulings. Not just the tariff ones, but all of them. 96%.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, I'll talk about the courts and I want to give you just some more data here around the insider trading that has gone out of control. And it's going to, it's going to scare the shit out of capital to.

[Kara Swisher]

Leave the US People using markets.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. I feel for the most part, 80 to 90% of executive actions, tariffs, EU tariffs, Apple tariffs, going after international students at Harvard, all of this they know will likely be swept away and these organizations will get injunctive relief and these things will not stand. I think it is. They're like, okay, what could get us kicked out of office? How we lose Congress is if Americans wake up and instead of focusing on international students, that might be kicked out of Harvard, which will be turned over. And the media clutches its progressive pearls for good reason. I realize it has larger implications, but folks, this is going to have no impact on anybody because it's going to go away over the long term. It's bad and I'll come back to why. Why it's bad for our best, one of our biggest exports, and that is education. But it is a distraction from what really impacts people. And this is my problem with the left is we get outraged and we're more interested with proving and grasping its social virtue as opposed to actually focusing on what impacts the material and psychological well being of millions of Americans. And this is what is going to impact tens of millions of Americans. This big beautiful tax bill is about to cut taxes for 5% of the wealthiest Americans and take away Medicaid for 8 million people and increase the deficit by almost 4 trillion, which will be a tax on tens of millions of young people. And by the way, it's going to disproportionately impact red states. So if we focus on that and say what is really impacting millions of people, we might actually take back control of Congress. But instead we go for, oh, no, let's get outraged about Harvard. Okay, I get it. But they are purposely trying to misdirect us now in terms of these court cases. If he wants, he can make life really difficult when essentially impose tariffs in different ways. But it's not going to happen. I have made the same prediction over and over. In a year from now, two years from now, the tariff and global trade situation will look remarkably similar to the way it looked when he started.

[Kara Swisher]

And his people will have grifted their way into insider trading.

[Scott Galloway]

Can I give you some more data, just real quick?

[Kara Swisher]

Sure, but we have to move on. But go ahead. Okay, go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. Just because this insider trading thing, I don't think people realize what this does to the unbelievable, incredibly cheap capital and pools of capital that the US Is.

[Kara Swisher]

And the trust that people have in the markets, despite all the problems they've had now, they've had insider trading issues.

[Scott Galloway]

For 99% of our existence on this planet. People would never give money, sell something to strangers in a marketplace if they.

[Kara Swisher]

Thought it was all insider. Right.

[Scott Galloway]

Trust in markets is literally the jet fuel of one of the jet fuels of our prosperity. Okay, so this has been going on for a while in this first term. Carl Icahn sold 31 million in steel related stocks the day before Trump announced steel tariffs in 2018. On March 30, three days before Trump's initial tariff announcement, at least three hedge fund managers attended a private dinner in Mar a Lago, and all three dramatically increased their short positions in the 48 hours following that dinner. One of those phones. Bluestone Capital is run by a guy named Brian Shevlin, who was instrumental in the early days of Trump's media SPAC merger. Bluestone Capital increased its short position in Tesla.

[Kara Swisher]

Shorting Tesla, that's perfect.

[Scott Galloway]

By 300% or fourfold. On April 1st. One day. One day, Kara, before the tariff announcement that sent Tesla shares down 17% and then the fund then closed most of its short positions on April 8, right before Tesla rebounded 18% up on news of the tariff pile. So this guy either has a fucking crystal ball or a gut like we've never seen or investing or he is getting information from people at the very top about non public information. So why would an average investor ever buy or sell Tesla stock when chances are someone on the other end knows more than I do?

[Kara Swisher]

And we have an SEC who's not enforcing any of this. You know, as I told you, there's a lot of people outside of government following all of this and collecting all this information. If our government's not going to. There are technical people, even some podcasters.

[Scott Galloway]

Yes, I'm keeping notes on all this.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly. But they're keeping the actual transactions in.

[Scott Galloway]

Case they try to do people with actual power.

[Kara Swisher]

Power. Yeah, exactly.

[Scott Galloway]

Not yelling into TikTok.

[Kara Swisher]

They are going, this is. Someday they will probably run off with this money. But it is absolutely a grift and someone who understands the griftiness of it. Elon Musk has talked about it is officially he's using the term grift, but he's talking about the problem with deficits and tariffs. Elon Musk is officially an ex, a special government employee posting on his social platform that the Doge mission will only strengthen over time. Which means it will not. It's over. Musk thanked Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending, but only after throwing some shade at his former boss. Here's what he told CBS News. By the way, the guy who hates old media is fucking all over old media these days.

[Scott Galloway]

Go. I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it and.

[Kara Swisher]

Undermine the work that the Doge team is doing.

[Scott Galloway]

I actually thought that when this big, beautiful bill came along, I mean, like everything he's done on Doge gets wiped out in the first year. I think. I think a bill can be.

[Kara Swisher]

Can be, can be big or it.

[Scott Galloway]

Can be beautiful, but I don't know if it's. It could be both.

[Kara Swisher]

My personal opinion. Yeah, yucking it up with Elon. He's not the only one out there. DOE spokesman Katie Miller is following him. For those who don't know, she's married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. By the way, there is a lot of very funny memes about this on the Internet, but I'll let you go there and find out what they're insinuating. Elon, meanwhile, has ordered himself back into the offices of X, SpaceX and Neuralink, with mixed results. The SpaceX Starship system exploded In a Tuesday test, it went further, but it's still. This is the the third failed launch in a row. It did go further. This is what he does a lot of time. X crashed twice in one week, which Musk attributed to failover redundancy, whatever that is. Issues that need to be addressed. On the bright side, Musk says Tesla's been testing Robotechs in the streets of Austin with no incidents and promises delivery to customers next month. Meanwhile, Waymo does millions of these all the time. And Neuralink just raised $600 million at a $9 billion valuation, which is good for him. So couple things. One is they have wiped out, they're sending up. I think it's a rescission package of just $9 billion from Doge cuts that they may try to fix. But that's $9 billion in our multi trillion dollar promise that Musk made to us. I think he's been used as a chump by Trump in a lot of ways. Sort of a hand wavy thing. And then Trump turns around and ruins the whole thing through a deficit. And I think Musk does understand that the deficit and the tariffs are problem. Whether he can bring back his businesses, that's an open question. He's certainly talented. Your thoughts, Scott?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I'm glad you brought it up. It was a good week in the sense that Neuralink, which creates diversification for him, raised money to 9. I thought it was 7, but you're saying it's 9 billion. That's incredible. And also testament to his genius and vision to do things like that. We'll see how it pans out. But yeah, I don't. The two seminal impacts of Doge are the following. It has almost no impact on the budget because if you look at it. But essentially what's happened here is he's also cut a ton of stuff at the irs, and the estimates are that that will reduce their ability to collect what would have been another $400 billion in revenue. So give him his word that it's 150 billion in savings. That means that Doge is essentially taking the deficit up another quarter of a trillion dollars a year by virtue of these cuts.

[Kara Swisher]

Nobody believes that 150 number, by the way. Most people think it's about 10 billion.

[Scott Galloway]

But anyways, I like what Mitch McConnell believes, that the chocolate peanut butter of our power around the world is a combination of hard and soft power. And he's essentially gutted our soft power.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

By taking. I mean that $75 million in US aid was just when there's Genocide in a nation. A bunch of people show up and try to hold people accountable such that it doesn't happen again. And a lot of those people are Americans.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep.

[Scott Galloway]

When there is a war torn ravaged village town in Ukraine, a soup kitchen gets popped up and a lot of those people are Americans. And that just makes people think, oh, they're good guys.

[Kara Swisher]

It's mostly Jose Andres. But no, it's not the government.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, but we do, we do have all sorts of hospitals around the world that help kids with vaccines. And I mean, there's just a ton of stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

It's the old HERSHEY Bar, American GI story. Right.

[Scott Galloway]

This idea, 100%. And that will have a long term impact on our brand. Doge is it's going to end up costing us more than it saves. And again, I go back to the same thing, Kara. It did its job. It was a distraction from this administration's decision to blow up the deficit to give a tax cut to you and me. I mean, that's what Democrats should be focusing on right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I mean, it's been a failure for him also. At first. It sort of raised his wealth substantively and it certainly got the regulators off his back, which was one of his goals. Absolutely. He got him some Mars stuff that he wants, allegedly the Mars money. So he got his Mars money, he got some regulators off. He lost a lot of money in terms of Tesla. And also his personal brand is decimated. I think he certainly could get it back, I suppose, but he's certainly not draped himself in glory in this effort at all. One of the things about these tech people is they look a little godlike. And now he looks like he has feet of clay. Right. And you've seen parts of him that are a nuisance and irritating and weird. So it hasn't been. This is stuff a lot of us have spent time with him have seen, telling jokes like that and laughing at his own jokes and stuff like that. He seems odd and strange and so I just feel like this has not been a plus for Elon Musk. He may bring it back, he may do other things. The question is whether he's going to return to politics or if he's had it with them. It felt like a little bit, kind of he had it. He kind of has enough of this. And he realized he got taken by the world's most most adept con man.

[Scott Galloway]

Which is Donald Trump, 99.9% of the time. If you're on a board or you have a temptation to take a political stand as a corporation, the answer is no, you don't do it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And not only that, he not only bet one way, he went into politics, which is sort of a no, no, he bet the wrong way. Because 3/4 the people that he's endeared himself to by taking a red pill stand, three quarters of them say they would never buy an ev.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

So it's just very unusual that he would decide to go into politics in a way that alienates his core market.

[Kara Swisher]

Maybe it's some psychological problem he has. Please hate me. Hate me. Please hate me. I don't know. It's very strange. We'll see if he can recover. He's certainly a talented business person. He may have gotten data and information that he didn't have before. Who knows? I think that needs to be investigated. Not just me, but Sadeep Bannon does. What exactly did they download? Where is the data? What happened to it? I think there needs to be at some point a real look at, at what they did, what Doge has done, and we'll see if they continue. But without the engine of. And the threat of Elon Musk, I don't think it's going anywhere. They will just. They will just. They will just smother it.

[Scott Galloway]

I always feel a need to try and bring some semblance of balance around Musk. I was. I've thought for a long time, Waymo is just so far ahead, they'll never be able to catch him. And I did speak to an analyst around Tesla and said Tesla does have some very real advantages around autonomous. And that is they have more data. That's correct. Because they have a huge. You know, they have hundreds of thousands of cars, cars that have been in the market for a while, and all about is great data. And also the average cost of a Waymo car is almost a quarter of a million dollars.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it's Jaguar. And outfitting it.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, it's outfitting it. It's just really expensive. And they say that the Tesla autonomous driving vehicle is going to be substantially.

[Kara Swisher]

Less expensive, except that they may be sacrificing safety for that. There's all these debates over whether they have enough points of failure. And look, he doesn't. He takes them off. This guy likes to go commando on a lot of stuff.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, you bring up an interesting point because a lot of people say, regardless of what has happened in the markets or the perception of his brand, the Tesla brand's gone from the 8th most revered brand to the 93rd. I don't think I've ever seen a Destruction like that. I don't even think that happened to Exxon with the Valdez. But you bring up an interesting point, and that is a lot of people say, well, he's playing the long game because all of the inspectors and all of the lawsuits that were getting in the way of his regulation around autonomous or going after him for lawsuits or whatever have all just disappeared.

[Kara Swisher]

So safety.

[Scott Galloway]

So it still might have been. He might in fact be playing chess, you know, who knows?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. In his case, opposed to Donald Trump, who is eating the pieces. Musk does. That said, I would not get into Tesla right now. I think they don't have as many points of failure. You know what I mean? He doesn't care about safety as much as others, and I just don't. I have talked to a lot of experts about how they're putting them out there and they're doing just. I would rather have an extraordinarily safe. Eventually it'll be looser, but not today. And I just don't trust them. I trust those Jaguars more than I would trust the Tesla.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't get a Tesla because I don't like the man. And I don't want to paint the fence with someone who I think is such a terrible role model for young men. But on the safety point, I would get in and test them because I.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm talking about an autonomous Tesla.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, an autonomous Tesla. Just because I think.

[Kara Swisher]

Really?

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, because I think from a perception standpoint, I think if they have two or three crashes in their first month, they're pretty much out of business. I think just from a pure economic standpoint, they gotta make sure this thing is pretty safe.

[Kara Swisher]

He has a theory about what they need on those cars that's very different from every other person I know. And they all are like, this is a risk you should not be taking. And it's not because they want me to ride in their cars. I'm going to send some people to you because it's really. He argues with the entire industry about how much.

[Scott Galloway]

How much we need test pilots. And it's a dangerous job.

[Kara Swisher]

You can get in them. I'm not getting in them forever, but I do not feel unsafe in a waymo isis.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm sorry. Do you know what I did about a year and a half ago? I went to the DMV and my son, who has barely driven a golf cart, took a test saying that he understood the difference between a single yellow line and a double yellow line. And then they gave him a driver's permit and he was Allowed to drive home?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, it was just like, God be with you. Here you go.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. I will get in a Tesla rather than drive near with your son.

[Scott Galloway]

I was at the DMV going, wait, he can drive right now. And I said to her, I looked at her, I'm like, are you sure that's a good idea? He can drive right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, and your son probably was like, dad.

[Scott Galloway]

And on the way home, on a red light making a left, he pulled out at an intersection. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I stopped first. I'm like, you can't make a left.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't.

[Scott Galloway]

I. I think there's a lot of dangerous drivers. I think humans are much more dangero. Dangerous than I thought.

[Kara Swisher]

You know what? I'd rather take a, like, quick Lucky story.

[Scott Galloway]

She comes over to our place with her aunt, with her sister. They drove there, which is crazy. You've told this story, and after her kind of, you know, mildly offensive comments to me over and over, she leaves. And you're giving her instructions to get to Palm beach, which is north of where I live. And first off, I'm horrified. I walk out and I see Lucky behind the wheel. I thought you were giving instructions to your aunt or whoever, your niece, whoever that is, who's. Who is much younger than lucky. She's like 90.

[Kara Swisher]

Aunt. My aunt.

[Scott Galloway]

I see Lucky behind the wheel, and so I walk over and think, okay, Lucky, all you have to do, you come out of the driveway, you bang a right. Got it? Stop talking to me. Stop talking to me. Right. Heads out, gates open, bangs a left.

[Kara Swisher]

Without looking. Without looking.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm like, she's gonna end up in Havana.

[Kara Swisher]

It's tr. Can I just say, I didn't let my children drive with Lucky at any point.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, no, never.

[Kara Swisher]

She's like, why can't I drive them? I'm like, because they want them to live into the next century.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. No, she should not be driving.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, no. I have not gotten a car with Lucky for decades.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a cover up. You're engaging in a coverup.

[Kara Swisher]

This is one of the things she'd do. She'd throw us in the car, and we never knew where we'd end up. This is why we stay home. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. Someday I'll tell you the story of her leaving me behind in a store. But that's another wonderful memory from childhood. So let go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's many feuds with Harvard Putin and Tim Cook.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for Pivot comes from Attio. Attio is an AI native CRM built specifically for the next era of companies. It's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and skills with any business model. Setting up Attio takes less than a minute and in seconds of syncing your emails and calendar, you can see all your relationships in a fully fledged platform all enriched with actionable data. With Addio you can also create email sequences and customizable reports. And the best part is you can build AI powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes so you can focus on what matters building your company. You can join industry leaders including Flat File, Replicate, Modal and more. You can go to attio.com pivot and you'll get 15% off your first year. That's Attio. Support for Pivot comes from Zocdoc. It would take an entire episode of this podcast to go over the list of excuses you have for not going to see your doctor. And to be honest we only have one minute in this adbrite. So just check out zocdoc. They can help make finding a doctor and scheduling appointments easy so it actually does feel like a walk in the park. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality quality in network doctors and click instantly to book an appointment. Appointments made through the app can happen fast, typically within just 72 hours of booking. You can even book same day appointments to take some of that stress out. Once you find the right doctor you can see their actual appointments openings and choose a time slot that works for you. Plus you can filter for doctors who take your insurance, are located nearby, might be a good fit for any medical need you have and are highly rated by verified patients. You can stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com pivot to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's Zocdoc.com pivot Zocdoc.com pivot.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for this show comes from Pure leaf iced tea. You know that point in the afternoon when you just hit a wall. You don't have time for self care rituals or getting some fresh air. So maybe you grab a beverage to bring you back but somehow it doesn't do the trick or it leaves you feeling even worse. What you need is a quality break, a tea break. And you can do that with pure leaf iced tea. Real brewed tea made in a variety of bold and refreshing flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. With a pure leaf iced tea in hand, you'll be left feeling refreshed and revitalized with a new motivation to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a pure leaf ice cream tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a pure leaf. Scott, we're back. I know you don't think it's important, but I do, actually. The feud, and I think it's a real feud. The feud between Donald Trump and Harvard doesn't appear to be wrapping up anytime soon. Trump now says the school should cap international student enrollment at 15%. Why is he telling people what to do? This follows last week's legal fight where a judge temporarily blocked the White House from revoking Harvard's ability to enroll international students. Trump is also moving to cancel remaining federal contracts with Harvard. It's not just Harvard. The administration is now considering social media vetting for all foreign students. So free speech. Hello. And is halting student visa interviews. In the meantime, Secretary Marco Rubio, what a chode he's become. Also says the US Will aggressively work to revoke the visas of Chinese students. Crazy. He's also accusing Russian President Putin of playing with fire after Russia recently ramped up attacks on Ukraine, launching its largest drone and missile attack of the war so far. In the post untruth social, Trump also exclaimed that Putin has gone completely crazy. But despite floating sanctions of Russia over the weekend, Trump now says he's holding off because he thinks Taco he's close to a deal and doesn't wanna screw it up. Taco Trump said he was gonna resolve this conflict on day one. It's not day one anymore. And he bragged about his relation with Putin. So that's something. And lastly, it's not the only one. He's still got Tim Cook in his crosshairs of Apple threatening a 25% tariffs on iPhones. The move comes in the wake of Cook reportedly buffing the White House's invitation to join Trump on his recent Middle east trip that all the others went along on all the other tech moguls. There is also Financial Times report that Apple contractor Foxconn is preparing to spend $1.5 billion on a new plant in India and problems for Apple are piling up. In addition to these tariffs, Cook is also juggling legal battles, global regulators and a rising AI competition. There's a book out about by Patrick. I think it's Meyer talking about how much money McGee.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I had him on the pod.

[Kara Swisher]

Spending in has created the Chinese tech sector. Essentially, they train them up. So let's start with all these things. I know you think they're distractions, but I think he's quite committed to this Harvard thing. Either he didn't get in or something is going on here. But he seems obsessed with controlling the amount of foreign students that enter the United States too. And Harvard is proxy for doing that at this moment.

[Scott Galloway]

If you look at, there's few people that have added more economic value than graduates. Foreign graduates of our elite institutions.

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

70% of graduate students in AI research in the US are international students. And over half of America's startup companies valued at at least 1 billion. So over half of our unicorns have at least one immigrant founder. So let's even go beyond that. Let's just go short term.

[Kara Swisher]

Term.

[Scott Galloway]

I have said the term we should use for international students is there are cash cows, they pay full freight. They're not eligible for a lot of financial aid unless they're PhD students who are the brightest people in the world, who we bring in and we actually.

[Kara Swisher]

Pay and who we want here at.

[Scott Galloway]

The first day of class. Nyu, at business school. I say get to know the international students because they're rich kids. They're the richest kids in El Salvador and Brazil. Get to know them. They like to party, they're fun, and they're really rich. And when you go and hang out in Brazil, you want to know of them. By the way, America does a small number of things really well. Hands down, we're the best in tech and software. I don't even know what the export volume is of that. I tried to figure it out this morning. I couldn't figure it out. We make the best weapons in the world. We sell about 300 billion, 350 billion, about a third of a trillion dollars. We export weapons around the world, right? Violence and death are fantastic businesses for us or the ability to deliver them. And we have the best military industrial complex in the world. We make the best media in the world. And we ship we the total export volume or business of our movies and tv. So all the money we make from Fantastic Four and Frozen and Big Bang Theory and The White Lotus, that is. We get $40 billion in revenue from exporting our TV shows and our movie. We get $43 billion from the tuition and the economic value of international students who come here to buy our education. So US education is really a bigger US export than movies or TV shows. And if you want to Raise tuition on domestic students. Just take away the full freight. High margin cash flow of international students. I'm not even talking about the brain drain.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. The money we get from them, it's.

[Scott Galloway]

We make so much coin from international students. Because why. It's the ultimate luxury item. What's the ultimate signal of your success? If you live in China or South Korea or Singapore, your kid gets in and attends an elite American university, going to Harvard of the 100 best brands, we own like 70 or 80 of them.

[Kara Swisher]

So it's great for us. Why is he doing the Harvard thing and then Russia next?

[Scott Galloway]

I think Russia just tickles the sense his sensors. I think his. A lot of his far right supporters love this.

[Kara Swisher]

But why attack Putin and then come back on it? Because he's being played by Putin.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't know what he is thinking on the. I mean, that you want to talk about someone who makes absolutely no sense. You know, Putin's bombing cities. I don't like what he's doing. He's sending missiles in the city. Okay. You realize he's been doing that for two and a half years, right? Right. Nothing. I don't know if he got personally incensed or. I don't know what's going on there. It's. It's a sclerotic. Impossible. And Marco Rubio has to be the clown behind this elephant, cleaning up his. Trying to make some sort of sense of our nonsensical foreign policy.

[Kara Swisher]

He's being played. He's been. I think it occurs to him and he's mentioned it. Maybe he's been playing me. Yes, he has, sir. Been playing him. I think look at the. For Russia right now, the war is its economy. It's not going to pull very quickly away from it because they don't got nothing else. And they got this war. And Putin has created Russia as a military economy now with this war, and he hasn't won. And so they're in a world of hurt to get out of this and create a dynamic society. And so war is their best choice right now in a lot of ways. So not going to be easy for them to pull themselves out of this situation.

[Scott Galloway]

Putin's life depends on it.

[Kara Swisher]

Depends on it.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, we think that he has total control. There's a lot of other people.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

If Putin loses face in Ukraine, we're gonna find out. He's gonna fall out of a window.

[Kara Swisher]

He cannot not win. And the economy is now based on it. And Trump is being played like a, like a fiddle. It's just like. And this going back and forth publicly is so embarrassing. Same thing. It's the same thing as the tariffs. It's the same stupidity that got us Trump stakes or the casinos. He's just not very good at business. The Cook one is really particularly strange. And it all is about feelings. It's all about feels. It feels like he has a point that Tim, that Apple has created a very robust technology economy in China over the many, many years. 50 billion, something like that, and not in the United States. But there were reasons for them doing that, obviously, to save money, to do it at a cheaper amount. Where do you think Apple is at this moment? On the outs, for sure.

[Scott Galloway]

It's so fascinating. You referenced that book by I is Patrick McGee, and he really opened my eyes. So Apple has upskilled and trained 25 million Chinese. That's amazing. Think about that. They've upscaled the population of California. And Patrick's thesis, and I thought it was a fascinating one, is that essentially Apple's investment in upskilling of their tech sector has given rise to Xiaomi and Huawei. Basically, that the Chinese, who are very smart in place the play the long game, have an IP flow that is one way. At the same time, now that Cook is trying to move manufacturing from China to India, China is getting in the way of that flow and not issuing visas to Chinese who Apple Chinese employees who Apple wants to send to India to set up manufacturing capacity there. Also, the notion that I said, I. I used that stat that that analyst used, I think it was Dan Ives, that foam produced in the US would be $3,500. And he said, said it might as well be a million. We're not capable of it. There are a thousand parts in every iPhone that make a million phones a day. So that's a billion distinct parts. It was easier for Oppenheimer and the army and these universities to get to splitting the atom than it would be for us to get to producing all of the iPhones. We just couldn't do it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. So what is happening with it? How will this affect. They have their legal issues, of course, with the government right now in terms of cases and all kinds of stuff. But this falling out, this appeasement that Tim did, I never thought would work. There's no appeasing Trump. There's no appeasing this guy. He's endlessly thirsty. And I think I did talk to Maggie Haberman over on my podcast this week, and he was genuinely angry that Tim didn't go. Like, genuinely angry. Strange.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, he takes these slides Personally, but the market.

[Kara Swisher]

He does.

[Scott Galloway]

The market is starting to respond to the taco trade, and that is the juices coming out of it. Because if you look at Apple, I mean, if he did what he said he's going to do, it would seriously diminish. The most profitable product in history, and Apple stock would take a pretty big hit. Apple's off. I mean, it's down 15% in the last six months, but that's off an enormous high.

[Kara Swisher]

Right?

[Scott Galloway]

And it's still. It's still up. It's still up in the last 12 months. So I think, what would you do.

[Kara Swisher]

If you were 10, Tim?

[Scott Galloway]

Be nice, Stay out of his way and put out fake press releases. Still, that says, oh, we're investing in a. Because of the great work of President Trump. It depends. Does Tim want to be totally focused on shareholder value or on the rights afforded him as an American? I mean, it depends who you're calling on. If it's calling on his fiduciary obligation to shareholders, he should just kiss his ass, put out a bunch of fake faux press releases, is stay out of his way. And what do you know? Trump will move on to the next red dot that angers him, and the cult of iOS will be fine.

[Kara Swisher]

It's like a cat.

[Scott Galloway]

If Tim Cook recognizes that the reason I'm a billionaire, the reason why, if I want to marry a woman or a man, I can do that because America has had the foresight and the rule of law to afford to give people rights, or if I want to continue to access the deepest pools of capital in the world.

[Kara Swisher]

World.

[Scott Galloway]

If I want to have a society where I am fairly safe, if I want to have a society where someone can't wake up and come take all my shit just because they don't like who I am, then he should, in my view, take a stand and say, this is an American company and what is going on here is un American. Nobody has done that. I don't want to put that pressure on Tim Cook because nobody has done that. He is going to be a billionaire the rest of his life.

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

The question is, at the end of his life, does he want to be known as an American hero?

[Kara Swisher]

Right?

[Scott Galloway]

And most of these CEOs, and I understand it, have decided my job is just to stay out of the angry child's way until he gets mad at somebody else and go about my business.

[Kara Swisher]

You know who could do that? An owner of a company, a Zuckerberg, someone who has full control, is the only one who can do that. Is the only one who, who has the. Who has the ability. Tim is not the owner of Apple. The shareholders are. Right. And so it's gotta be that guy, whoever that guy is. There's a Zuckerberg controls his company. Very few are. Are controlled, I guess Snapchat, nobody cares.

[Scott Galloway]

It's. It'd be very hard for Apple to all of a sudden get high and mighty about American patriotism when they've essentially outsourced their entire supply chain to China and upscaled China.

[Kara Swisher]

So shareholders will win.

[Scott Galloway]

The company that has the ripest opportunity here to. To wrap themselves in the flag through the lens of sport and immigrants is Nike. And their stock has been kicked in the nuts so badly, they don't have a whole lot to lose. That is the ripe. The ripest opportunity in branding right now would be for Nike not even to mention Trump's name name, but to talk about American immigrants who have excelled, built the world of sport and competition and rule of fair play. When you're on a field, you have to have rule of fair play. And they also have the creative resources. They are known as risk takers.

[Kara Swisher]

Go, Nike. Just do it. Just do it.

[Scott Galloway]

The majority of their business comes from young people who are more progressive and don't want to be part of a fucking fascist state anyways. Nike get on.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, last. Quick, quick, quick, quick. Harvard. What should they do?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, they've many people.

[Kara Swisher]

There was a New York Times piece saying they've got a. They're going to get hit hard by this.

[Scott Galloway]

Even if Trump is wrong, get rid because of the.

[Kara Swisher]

All the things he's doing is very damaging to Harvard. They were like, they may not win this fight with him until he goes away, which is inevitable.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't, I don't see. I think Harvard has so many. In a weird way, I'd go long Harvard. I think Harvard comes out of the stronger, maybe. So I think Harvard was developing some such an awful reputation for the definition of elitism and how progressivism, when it goes out of control, can accidentally turn into racism. And I think them standing up, if you think about it, what I'm urging Nike to do, Harvard's been the first important organization to actually stand up and say fuck you. And they're winning in the courts. They have a lot of powerful alumni. They have the capital.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, you're right. It cleans them out. It starches them white.

[Scott Galloway]

That's correct. It starts their hat white. I never thought I'd be wearing a Harvard T shirt. I wore one at the 92nd Y. I know a month ago when I was on with Jeff, you like to.

[Kara Swisher]

Slap those Harvard people a lot. You like to run around Harvard Yard and slap them.

[Scott Galloway]

When you have a $54 billion endowment and you decide to let in the number of students at a good Starbucks serves, you're not a public servant, you're a fucking Chanel.

[Kara Swisher]

There. He's back. He's back. All right, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump dives deeper into crypto. If possible, experience the Champions League final like never before with me, David Beckham and some of my closest friends. The ultimate watch, along with the legendary icon. It's PSG and Inter Milan. And I'm giving you the best seat in the house.

[Scott Galloway]

Extraordinary.

[Kara Swisher]

Live inside the stadium with some very special guests. You did promise us a lot of a listers. Who could it be? Stream Beckham and friends live during the UEFA Champions league final, Saturday, May 31st at 3 Eastern, exclusively on Paramount. Plus Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mint mobile.com Craftsman days are here at Lowe's with big savings on.

[Scott Galloway]

The tools you need.

[Kara Swisher]

Save $100 on the Craftsman V26 Tool Power Tool Combo Kit now at $199 no matter what the project is. Craftsman high quality, high performance products empower you to build on.

[Scott Galloway]

Stop by your nearest Lowe's store and.

[Kara Swisher]

Check out the full line of Craftsman tools Today ballot through 618 while supplies last selection varies by location. Scott, we're back. President Trump's romance with cryptocurrency is getting more serious. Earlier this week, the administration killed Biden era guidance against using crypto in 401k plans. Oh, my fucking God. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth social, announced raising 2.4 billion billion to invest in Bitcoin, a Michael Saylor move. And listen to what J.D. vance told a crowd in a keynote address at Bitcoin 2025 conference.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally. In the White House, in our administration, we understand the full potential of the digital assets industry, not just as an investment, not just as a flashy technology, but as a symbol and driver of personal liberty for all our citizens.

[Kara Swisher]

Also grift. He left out grift. The president's crypto holdings now reported represent around 40% of his net worth, or approximately $2.9 billion. Scott, you had a rant where you called the crypto dealings in Trump's first hundred days the greatest grift in our history of our economy, and now it has is a divisive issue for Democrats. Some want to support the Genius act, which regulates stablecoin. Others say it supports Trump's grift. What do they do here? Public companies are leaning into crypto as well. Not just true social. There are reportedly 114 publicly listed companies that own Bitcoin, up from 89 at the beginning of April. What do you think about also the reports that big US Banks are having internal discussions about expanding into cryptocurrencies.

[Scott Galloway]

He they're smart. One one of the genius moves of the Trump campaign was recognizing that this was not going to be a referendum on women's rights. It was a referendum on struggling young men. I'd still hold to that. And I think the evidence is everywhere that's. That's who showed up was. Was young men and the people worried about them that swung this election in terms of the people who pivoted hardest from blue to red. And the easiest way to signal that was to go Joe Rogan. Embrace musk. And also really embrace crypto, which has this almost like, like, you know, testosterone smell to it. It's so male.

[Kara Swisher]

Ew.

[Scott Galloway]

And test.

[Kara Swisher]

What is testosterone smell? And is that your perfume smells like.

[Scott Galloway]

I'll try it later when I inject it in my ass.

[Kara Swisher]

But yeah, okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Actually, I don't think it has a smell. I don't think it has.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't want to think about that.

[Scott Galloway]

Smells like victory in the morning.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyways. That's right. I think they're smart to embrace the crypt.

[Kara Swisher]

We should have scratch and sniff on this podcast. Go ahead. Sorry.

[Scott Galloway]

I think they're smart to embrace the crypto community. I think financial services innovation is a good idea. Fine. I'm a no coiner. I was on the board of a company that was the leading hardware wallet. It feels to me that the Democrats screwed up by not at least being more clear about what the regulation is so people could actually do something with it.

[Kara Swisher]

Do make a business.

[Scott Galloway]

And I think Trump has leveraged beautifully the crypto community. And also it's the perfect vehicle for a grift because there's no records. I mean, people say you can track it, but my sense is when a guy launches a meme coin the Friday before his inauguration and it runs to 70 billion, and then, and now it's like I said, he's made a billion dollars a month since he's had this thing. I think they're smart to embrace it. I also think a lot of small and medium sized investors are probably going to lose a lot of money. And what I tell people is if you want to take 2, 3, 5% of your net worth and put in, and put it in bitcoin coin, I wouldn't do any of these other coins. There is a genius to bitcoin because it has established a credible sense of scarcity, because people do believe the technology will result in that they will stop mining at 21 million coins. I do think that's actually a very elegant way of creating a currency that has more veracity than a fiat currency, which everyone has failed throughout history. The other coins I see as just like, that's just Vegas. But I think he's smart to embrace the community. I think it's working for them.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I think it has to become something more than just like a speculative instrument like that. It's useful in some fashion and there's all kinds of companies working at that. For Trump, it's a casino. This is a casino kind of mentality that he's got around it. And a fee, getting fees. Most of the money he's made has been in fees of the transactions.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, the current income, they made over 300 million fees so far, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And then the value of it is. And it's not traceable in some ways. And so it's a perfect sort of bribery, grift slash scam kind of thing, which he's very familiar with. That said, you're right, the Biden administration didn't really lean in. They had the SEC head who was openly hostile. I think these people got activated politically and they should have been because they needed to defend themselves. And they took out Sherrod Brown in Ohio for sure. They targeted a lot of things. And so they really got organized in ways that Trump helped facilitate and were able to do that. And I think they will remain political. But at some point, though, there has to be safety around it. If you put a lot of bitcoin in these 401ks and they get destroyed through scammery, it's going to be a real problem.

[Scott Galloway]

But bitcoin is or crypto just going meta is a bit of a. Whenever you have these levels of income inequality, you have war, famine and revolution. I think it's a form of revolution because I think young people have decided if you're going to continue to bail out the market, such the incumbents stay wealthy, buy a house and I never get disruption. I can never buy a house or stocks on sale like you guys have gotten to do time after time every seven years of the recession. I'm going to create my own asset class.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep. Absolutely.

[Scott Galloway]

And I get it. I, you know, I can, I can empathize and understand it. It's like great Scott, you had your time in the sun to buy Netflix at 11 bucks a share, but now that you and your other seniors voting yourself more money and using my credit card to bail your ass out every time the economy gets rough and I have an opportunity to buy in inexpensively, that I'm not going to play your game. I'm going to invent my own asset class.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And they have become very politicized and so it's up to the Democrats to not be. They don't cut your nose to spite your face kind of thing I think is a Trump is grifting this thing but you can't not lean into it just because he's doing that. You come after him later if you have to, but you can't. A lot of them are we can't do it because Trump will grift more. He's going to grift no matter what. No matter what. He will find a way to grift. And we can't make policy based on. You need to lean into those Democrats in a way that's safe and good for consumers and good for young people and not worry about the Trump part until later. That's my feeling anyway. One more quick break. We come back is Google's new AI video tool a studio killer. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Your gut affects everything, even your mood. So Ollie created two brand new products to take care of your insides. Ollie Big 10 Probiotic has 10 strains of probiotics, their most ever, to support a healthy gut, microbiome, immune system and stress response. And Ollie's Super Good Superfoods delivers 15 superfoods in tasty gummy form. Find them at ollie.com and exclusively at Walmart. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Summer's heating up, but the savings are cooling off. It's your Last chance to Shoplines.com's Memorial Day megadeals blinds.com invented a better way to shop for window treatments completely online, with upfront pricing, no showroom markups, no salespeople in your home. Choose from classic shutters to outdoor shades and more, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. It's your last chance to shop. Blinds.com's Memorial Day megadeals save up to 50% with minimum purchase plus a free measure. Blinds.com, rules and restrictions may apply okay, Scott, A story we didn't get to chat about last week is Google's launch of VO3, which is a video generator that creates full video with audio. Its main competition is OpenAI's Sora, but the key distinction is VO3 is supposed to be able to incorporate audio that includes dialogue between characters as well as animal sounds. The main buzz about it on the Internet as well. Will this replace movie studios? Some of this stuff is pretty impressive to look at. And will this flood the news media with misinformation? Oddly enough, I interviewed Jesse Armstrong, who is the creator of Succession, for his new movie that's coming out this week called Mountainhead, and this is one of the plot points in it is a social media company with a sort of a Musk Zuckerberg character who runs a company called Tram that floods, puts out tools like this and causes worldwide destruction. In any case, you talked a lot about this during the writers strike and we're going to talk a little bit about it by stuff that we made too. But quick thoughts.

[Scott Galloway]

I think it goes after commercials first and quick hits where if you're selling stuff on Facebook or Shopify and you need just a 32nd kind of competent, elegant looking, I I think it'll start there. It'll start moving its way up. I just see it similar to what CGI did in terms of reducing the cost of special effects. It'll start to move its way up. It'll just lower the cost of the means of production. It'll be especially hard on certain people. But I Still think as someone who has, you know, know a limited but increasing amount of exposure to the industry, the way I see it is where we outsource their shitty manufacturing jobs overseas. But the real value add in the higher paying jobs are in design, distribution, product marketing, all that good stuff back here. I think this is kind of the same thing. And that is, I don't want to say the low value work, but things like, you know, lighting and sound and extra, you know, the people that Tom Cruise is going to be very aggressive and smart about protecting his own IP and his own, his own likeness. The what I have seen with. And we talked about this before, whenever I write, I use, I use AI to brainstorm and to. When I say I don't like this paragraph, what additional data could be out there. But when I try and write stuff with just AI eye, it's very anodyne. It lacks all sex appeal. It's all chip, no salsa. I still think that for the boring.

[Kara Swisher]

Stuff, it works for press releases, things like that, like commercials are showing up. I think you're absolutely right.

[Scott Galloway]

Or simple legal agreements. By the way, the document you signed with vox I generated on AI oh, good to know.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh no. What did we give away?

[Scott Galloway]

I was sick of dealing with my lawyers who were like going back and forth with VOX lawyers to run up our bills. And I'm like, fuck it, I just produced. And by the way, I didn't even run it by our lawyers. I just said, I sent it to vox. I'm like, sign this and we're going to sign it.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'm flexing. Okay, flex.

[Scott Galloway]

But yeah, I think it's, it's going to go after some of the. It's going to lower the means of production.

[Kara Swisher]

Did you give away our liver or kidneys at all in the agreement? Did AI suddenly do that?

[Scott Galloway]

Just one. We have two. Okay, just one. And plus, you don't want to give away my liver. You really don't want to give away my liver.

[Kara Swisher]

So it's my liver that's going excellent shape. All right, so you're absolutely right. I think this is something I discussed with Armstrong, who's just a brilliant person. He was like, I'm not really sure what to think. I've seen some of this and it's very impressive. I'm like, but it's not you, Jesse Armstrong. Like, you can't make for the untalented. It will be a problem. Or the stuff that's anodyne, as you said, it will be a problem. And there's a lot of people like that. Right. There's a lot of people who make sort of the boring scut work that are going out. Okay, now for our personal experience on doing. We had our video producer, Kevin, mess around with it, and he said he's not too worried about his job just yet. We just hired him. I hope not. Here are his initial findings. VO3 automatically puts makeup on Cara, but not Scott. It crashed and failed to generate video an aggravating number of times. And people are complaining online about its audio failures as well. And what VO3 can do frighteningly well is generate videos of fake people. For example, this AI newscast we asked it to create. Scott Galloway has broken the record for most dick jokes told in a podcast. The competition was extremely stiff. That was good.

[Scott Galloway]

That's it. I was waiting.

[Kara Swisher]

I wasn't a real person. That person. I was showing the video to someone and, like, who is that person? I'm like, that person doesn't exist. And they're like a very. They were attracted to the person. It was a fake newscaster reading a very realistic but unconfirmed story that the competition was stiff. I don't think the competition is stiff at all. When prompted to use images of real people like me and Scott, it failed to generate audio and came up with some less than ideal results. Here's what we got with the prompt. Kara and Scott podcasting on Mars. What we're seeing here is Kara and Scott. Kara, look with a lot of makeup on. And, Scott, why don't you describe it? Oh, you look like. What's that scoop neck shirt you've got on?

[Scott Galloway]

I'm more handsome than that guy, aren't I, Kara?

[Kara Swisher]

I think so.

[Scott Galloway]

And I have a third hand. I have a third hand. At least I got the panorama cry right.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, you don't look like you.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, no, that's not me. That guy looks like he knocks on your door and says, the law mandates that I notify you. I've moved in next door.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, here's what we've got with the prompt, Cara and Scott as bodybuilders. Scott, describe the situation as we're watching it, please.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, hello. Oh, my God. That does look like you. That does look like you.

[Kara Swisher]

Describe Vibe.

[Scott Galloway]

It's us as bodybuilders. And the faces are actually quite accurate. Jeez, this is so disturbing. This. This looks like the beginning of the most disturbing Cinemax. It's like from. It's like from that movie, Stanley Kubrick, The. The. With Malcolm adow. The Malcolm McDowell. The really disturbing one about Clockwork Orange. Yeah. Clockwork Orange, you know, when they basically want to turn him off violence and sex and they force his eyes open and they shun him. This would literally turn watching this. Do not watch this, folks. This will turn you off any physical encounter with anyone for a long time. This is so rattling.

[Kara Swisher]

Get him back. Kara and Scott is body tone.

[Scott Galloway]

So rattling.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, here's what we got with the prompt. Kara and Scott getting married. Okay, what we're going to watch here is. Let's see it.

[Scott Galloway]

7Th circle of hell. Oh, that's nice.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that's nice. Holding hands or walking down the aisle. Oh. Oh, no.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, my God.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, they're kissing. Don't. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Oh, no. Stop.

[Scott Galloway]

It looks like Stanley Tucci and Marlo Thomas. Not like you're. And by the way, I'm a good foot taller than you. That is just unrealistic.

[Kara Swisher]

Look at me, thrilled to be married to you. A very heavy version of me. Oh, my God, they make me a lot fatter in anyway. Okay, okay. We'll post these on our social media accounts later today. But we are unimpressed. George Clooney doesn't have anything to worry about right now. So what we have to say.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, no, he'll. He'll be able. I do think that the. But. But again, it'll be more of a transfer of wealth from the entrance to the incumbents because the incumbents that already have established their IP will be able to scale it. A guy like Jesse Armstrong is going to make a lot more money because he's going to get to produce three things a year, not one. And because he has already established brand equity, he'll. It's like a really good lawyer. I think it's going to make more money because they'll be able to scale themselves faster by outsourcing the 80% of.

[Kara Swisher]

The document and then have the creative part.

[Scott Galloway]

Ye. But I think the entrants are just going to have a really tough time because there's going to be less training, fewer jobs at the lower mid levels that really teach you about creative and filmmaking and give you an opportunity to shine and rise up. It's just going to be. I think the incumbents are just going to get wealthier and wealthier.

[Kara Swisher]

I would agree. One of the things I was talking to Jesse about is like, what if you put all of your work in succession, they could make more seasons of succession. Eventually they will be without your input. And he's like, well, we have those rights and the contracts. I said, but do you. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Like, for example, I would love more episodes of the West Wing. And they're not going to make them, but they could, right? If they jammed all the West Wings in there, they could possibly make a pretty decent thing. I have the feeling they will be able to.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's a really interesting thought because it ends up that HBO owns the IP to the White Lotus. And that was, I think, 100 or $200 million, I don't want to call it mistake for the original producers. Now, they still make a lot of money because they want that incredible talent back to make seasons four, five and six. But if at some point it's no longer worth the $150 million in production for that season, they might say, well, we'll spend 3 million and we'll use new characters and we'll do seasons five, six, seven and eight and squeeze. And then it makes it even harder for new entrants to break in. I can't figure out, does it help? Does it make it less expensive?

[Kara Swisher]

It could help the studios. Whoever owns the ip, whoever owns the IP or the original ip, you know, there's gotta be a lot of it. So you could make more. All kinds of shows like Happy Days. There's lots of shows that went on for 10 seasons and that you could possibly. It could write them. It could write them. It could. Anyway, so we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Or go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, on the latest episode of Prof. G Markets, Scott spoke with Aswath Demoterin, professor of finance at NYU's Stern School. Aswath shared his take on the recent tariff turmoil and what he's watching with the next round of earnings. Let's listen.

[Scott Galloway]

This is going to be a contest between market resilience and economic resilience as to whether in fact the markets are overestimating the resilience of the economy. And that's what the actual numbers are going to deliver, is maybe the economy and markets are a lot more resilient than we gave them credit for, in which case we'll come out of this year just like we. We came out of 2020 and 2022, and much with much less damage than we thought would be created by what we saw happening on the ground.

[Kara Swisher]

That's interesting. He's so smart.

[Scott Galloway]

And by the way, an Indian immigrant who got his PhD at UCLA.

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

And is arguably one of the 10 best instructors in America.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, right. I know.

[Scott Galloway]

That is a kid training young American value and. Okay, but yeah, let's, let's go after those folks.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Well, good thing Barron's at nyu. Scott, before we go, you have a quick fail.

[Scott Galloway]

Trump is claiming. You know, one of the things Trump's calling for or claiming that America would benefit if they were. Harvard reduced the number of international students is it would open up more seats for domestic students. I do think there is some truth to that, that we need to expand freshman seats for Americans. There's great university systems like the University of California do take their commitment to native Californians really seriously. 83% of the university of North Carolina seats are reserved for graduates from North Carolina high schools. I do think University of Wisconsin is living up to its mission. But if he was really serious, though, it's all such bullshit. Because also in this big, beautiful bill, he's talking about getting gutting Pell Grants, and that is he wants to cut Pell grants by about 67 billion through 2034, reducing grants to low income students by more than 1/5 from 2027 through 2034. And really, it's more like one half when you take inflation into account. And more than half of Pell students would have their aid reduced in some way. I'm not exaggerating, Cara. I'm here. There's a lot of things that led me to being here and having the wonderful life I lead. One of them is Pell Grants. I didn't know that I got Pell Grants because my mother was a secretary. We were considered in the lowest quartile of income earning households. Every summer I had to save $2,300. At least work and save $2,300 because I knew I would get a pell grant for 13 to $1,800 and I could go back for my next year at ucla.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow, I didn't realize you were a Pell grantee.

[Scott Galloway]

The reason I got through UCLA was because of Pell Pell Grants.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

And by the way, the Cal State system in California is the largest granter of Pell Grants. Pell Grants, in my opinion, and I'm biased, here is where all affirmative action needs to go. And that is affirmative action should be based on color. Should be based on green, specifically the economic situation you face. And without Pell Grants, without affirmative action, I'm a beneficiary of Affirmative action. It's called Pell Grants. And these things are a lifesaver for those of us who just wouldn't have had access to college.

[Kara Swisher]

Gives you that extra amount of money that you. You. The chance to excel.

[Scott Galloway]

Wouldn't have graduated from ucla. I just wouldn't. I couldn't have done it.

[Kara Swisher]

It also gives you the relief that you don't have to work, you know, slinging bargains.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, and it's a grant. It's not a loan. I. I don't have to worry about. Okay. With my philosophy degree and 150 grand in student debt, am I going to be. Is this worth it? These are like, okay, the. The. The fastest way for us to level up America, full stop, is to put more money in the pockets of people who don't have money.

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

It's not. It's not complex, folks.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep. All right.

[Scott Galloway]

And Pell Grants.

[Kara Swisher]

Figured we need to save Pell Grants. A really important program I'm gonna give a quick, positive one was Go see Mountainhead by Jesse Armstrong. I'm curious what you think about it. It's really crazy, but it's Mountainhead. Mountainhead. It's an HBO show that's going up. A Max show that's going up on.

[Scott Galloway]

I get that in Aspen every year at the summer solstice.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, stop it. I knew you'd say that. Anyway, Mountainhead. Steve Carell is starring, and it's really good. Anyway. And it's by Jesse Armstrong, who's fantastic. There's so many good lines that it's crazy. One line. I'll do one line. They were in nature. They were up in Utah, essentially. And they look around and the guy who plays Mark Zuckerberg, Elon's characters goes, oh, my God, it's so beautiful. You could fuck it. And I just thought it was the best line ever. That's exactly how they look at nature and think. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott. Read us out.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Martin, Marcus Taylor Griffin, Kevin Oliver, and Corinne Ruff. Ernie Intertodd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Silverio and Dan Shalon. Nishat Khuras, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.