401(k) From Birth? Inside the “Trump Accounts” With Brad Gerstner

Summary

Prof G Markets Episode Summary

Podcast: Prof G Markets
Episode: 401(k) From Birth? Inside the “Trump Accounts” With Brad Gerstner
Date: December 4, 2025
Host: Ed Elson (with guest Brad Gerstner)
Key Guest: Brad Gerstner, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Altimeter Capital

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the U.S. launch of the new “Trump Account” program—a federal initiative providing every child born in the U.S. between 2025 and 2028 with a $1,000 tax-deferred investment account, accessible at age 18. Host Ed Elson interviews Brad Gerstner, the founder of the Invest America nonprofit and architect behind the program, about how the legislation came together, its potential long-term impact on inequality, the role of philanthropic donors like Michael Dell, and criticism surrounding billionaires’ influence. The episode also includes a tech/markets update segment before the deep dive.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Market Recap and Amazon’s Chip Announcement

[02:32–09:16]

• Market Vital Signs:

  • Indices rose due to ADP jobs data fueling rate cut speculation.
  • Bitcoin hit a two-week high.
  • Apple and Micro dropped due to executive and demand issues.

• Amazon & AI Chip Wars:

  • AWS launched the “Trainium 3” chip, boasting:

    • 4x speed and energy efficiency over its predecessor
    • 50% cost reduction for model training

  • Patrick Moorhead (CEO, Moor Insights & Strategy) explains positioning:

    • Nvidia Blackwell: “If you want the highest raw performance and the broadest software ecosystem, you go with Blackwall. Right? It’s expensive hardware, very strong performance per watt and it’s everywhere, it's in every cloud.” (06:10)
    • Trainium 3: “The best TCO inside AWS for their workloads that you're willing to port to. Not necessarily a raw performance leader.”
    • Google TPUs: Cost-efficient, high-performance training, especially for JAX workloads.

  • Benchmarks are only a snapshot—“What matters is the type of workload... the market does speak.” (07:44, Patrick Moorhead)

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The Trump Account Program: What It Is and Why It Matters

[12:13–28:27]

Program Details

• New Federal Policy: Every child born 2025–2028 gets $1,000 in a tax-deferred account (low-cost index funds), inaccessible until 18.
• Extra for Young Kids: 25 million kids under 10 get an extra $250 thanks to a $6B donation from Michael & Susan Dell.
  (12:13–13:03)

Origin Story & Policy Rationale

• Transformational Vision:

  • Brad Gerstner:
    “This is a platform that literally creates universal private ownership from birth. A 401k from birth that gets every child...into the game.” (13:27)
  • 65 million Americans under 18; historically, 50 million would have no compounding asset exposure.

• Bi-Partisanship & Legislation Path:

  • Years of work.
  • Strategic outreach: “Letter out today with Cory Booker and Ted Cruz… asking them all to contribute money into the accounts of our kids.” (14:33)
  • Passage via budget reconciliation after the President’s direct intervention.
  • “This is a change to our social contract on the order of magnitude of Social Security itself.” (14:33)

Criticism & Counter-Arguments

• Does This Make the Rich Richer?

  • Gerstner:
    “The rich already have a lot of money... This takes the 50 million kids who would never...have an account that compounded with the stock market and getting them into the game from birth. So by definition, they disproportionately benefit because the alternative is zero.” (17:29–18:38)

• Philanthropy as Systemic Change

  • Dell’s $6.25B targets lower-income zip codes (<$150K household income).
  • Direct-giving: “For the first time, we have a direct giving platform where these folks can give away billions…they know it goes directly into the kids’ accounts. Nobody’s taking a scrape in the middle…compounds according to the rules…” (18:38–22:06)

• Corporate & State Competition

  • Gerstner: “Our phones were blowing up yesterday with people who wanted to sponsor states… adopt cities… churches who raise money to make sure that all the kids of the church get money added to their accounts.” (22:38–25:11)
  • Texas announced $1,000 extra for every child born there.

The Broader Social Impact

• Ownership vs. Earnership:
  • “There’s a reason less than half of people under the age of 40 believe in capitalism…They don’t own anything…Going from zero and the prospect of zero your whole life to one, that is a far bigger move than going from one to five. This comes from a guy who had zero.” (25:12–25:37)

The Name: “Trump Accounts”

• Naming & Legacy:
  • Gerstner: “There is precedent…Roth IRAs, Pell Grants…They would not exist without the efforts of this president… History is ultimately the judge.” (26:27)
  • Acknowledges the polarizing effect, but emphasizes Trump’s active role.

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Host Commentary: Closing Reflection

[28:32–32:34]

• Ed Elson on Political Credit:

  • “This policy is good. This policy is worthy of praise. Now, does Trump deserve the credit? I don’t think so. I think he deserves maybe marginal credit… I think the credit is probably owed to Brad, maybe Michael Dell… But the point still stands. These accounts are good.” (28:32)

• The Earners vs. Owners Divide:

  • “There are people who make their money through income, through labor, and then there are people who make their money through assets… the owning class. And this is why inequality has run rampant… The top 1% own about a third of the nation’s wealth today.”
  • Policy as incremental improvement: “If you’re not wealthy, at the very least you are now in the game. You start out on the playing field versus what we’ve had before, where you start out on the sidelines.” (28:32–32:34)

• Sobering Reality:

  • “We are grateful to the billionaire who wants to try to save us. At the same time, we should recognize that we are living in a timeline where we are essentially waiting on billionaires to save us. And that is not a good timeline. And I’m not going to pretend it is. But…this is a step in the right direction.” (32:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Brad Gerstner’s Vision:

  • “We now have a universal operating system for kids. It’s universal ownership, private accounts from birth.” (21:58)

• On Impact for Poor Kids:

  • “If they start with a thousand bucks and an employer or mom and dad or a philanthropist, adds just $750 a year, that’s $50,000 at the age of 18, that’s $150,000 at age 30, and it’s $1 million at age 50 or 55, using the 75-year track record of the S&P 500.” (18:38)

• On Bipartisanship and Capitalism:

  • “This is a big bipartisan tent… It’s a uniting feature for this country.” (21:58, 27:54)

• Host Ed Elson’s Reflection:

  • “Functionally speaking, these accounts are a good thing for America. They’re a good thing to lessen the problem of inequality in this country. And I will be the first one to recognize that.” (32:34)

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Important Timestamps

• Amazon’s Trainium 3 AI Chip Discussion: 03:13–09:16 (with Patrick Moorhead)
• Trump Account Policy Overview: 12:13–13:27
• Brad Gerstner Interview—Origins & Rationale: 13:27–14:33
• Legislation & Political Process: 14:33–16:14
• Critiques/Rebuttals: 17:29–22:06
• Donor/State Activation & Social Impact: 22:38–25:11
• Naming Debate (“Trump Accounts”): 26:08–27:54
• Host’s Closing Reflection: 28:32–32:34

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Summary Table: Trump Account Program

| Feature | Details | |-----------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | Who Benefits | Every U.S. child born 2025–2028; most kids under age 10 | | Initial Federal Seed | $1,000 per newborn account | | Private Philanthropy | Dell donation provides $250 for 25M children under age 10 | | Investment Mechanism | Tax-deferred; Low-cost index funds; Accessible at age 18 | | Additional Restrictions | Use limited to college, home purchase, business, or retirement| | Political Context | Bipartisan; passed via reconciliation; named for President | | Direct Philanthropy | Platform for individuals/states/churches/etc. to contribute |

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Tone & Language

The episode maintained a candid, optimistic, and occasionally critical tone—blending enthusiasm for the program with a clear-eyed view of the challenges of systemic inequality and the shortcomings of relying on billionaire philanthropy for social progress.

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This summary provides a thorough, timestamped overview of the episode’s core themes, major arguments, memorable quotes, and context. For listeners, it offers both a roadmap to the conversation and a standalone distillation of the content.

Transcript

[Brad Gerstner]

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[Ed Elson]

Support for the show comes from Train Dreams, the new film from Netflix based on Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams is the moving portrait of a man who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty during a rapidly changing time in America. Set in the early 20th century, it's an ode to a vanishing way of life and to the extraordinary possibilities that exist within even the simplest of existences. In a time when we are all searching for purpose, Train Dreams feels timeless because the frontier isn't just a place, it's a state of being. Train Dreams now playing only on Netflix.

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Today's number five. That's how many hours it took to rescue a large bull moose that recently got trapped in a well in Maine. Authorities say the animal is now safe and sound, but they did not reveal his identity as he wished to remain anonymous.

[Brad Gerstner]

Money markets matter.

[Ed Elson]

If money is evil, then that building.

[Patrick Moorhead]

Is hell.

[Ed Elson]

Wants it sold.

[Brad Gerstner]

Sold.

[Ed Elson]

Welcome to Prof. G Markets. I'm Ed elson. It is December 4th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices climbed after ADP jobs data fueled bets on a rate cut next week. Private sector jobs fell the most since 2023 in November. That data also sent treasury yields falling. Meanwhile, the dollar had its worst day since September. Bitcoin continued its rebound, reaching a two week high. Micro also fell 2 1/2% on reports of lowered AI tool demand. And finally, Apple fell 1% after Meta poached its most prominent design executive.

Okay, what else is happening? Amazon just introduced a new chip to the AI wars. Trainium3. AWS announced this new chip at its reinvent developer conference on Tuesday. According to the company, Trainium 3 is four times faster than the previous version. It also has four times greater energy efficiency and it can train AI models for half the cost of the previous generation. So here to tell us more about this trainium 3 chip and also what we learned at Amazon's conference, we're speaking with someone who is at the conference right now. We're speaking with Patrick Moorhead, CEO and Chief analyst of Moor Insights and Strategy. Patrick, good to see you again.

[Patrick Moorhead]

Yeah, great to see you too. You know, another week, more chip talk, more chip talk.

[Ed Elson]

It never gets old. And you're there. How is it, how's the conference?

[Patrick Moorhead]

It's really big and I mean it seems to take over two or three hotels and us is is in so many things. They're a full stack company and so they're basically doing everything. And there are a lot of people here who are interested to hear what they have to say and how to get involved and how to do comparisons to other tech vendors.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, so the big news coming out of the conference is this Trainium 3 chip, which is better, faster, stronger, all of the above. Tell us about the Trainium 3 chip. Why is this important? Is it important? What does it mean for the chip race?

[Patrick Moorhead]

So the simple way to think about Trainium is if you've done, I think we talked about the TPU before from Google. This is Amazon's version of, of an ASIC. And like Google, they use GPUs as well. But when it comes to AWS's very close knit development network and the software that they run for AI, it's really the standard for that. And the other fun fact here is that Trainium is the chip that powers Anthropic who we can debate whether it's OpenAI is number one or number two to anthropic. But those are the two big platforms. You got Microsoft with OpenAI, you have AWS with Anthropic and you've got Google. And now everybody is working with pretty much everybody now because they just need capacity and they want choice.

[Ed Elson]

Right. Some of the stats we've seen, Trainium 3 is four times faster than the previous models. It can also train models at half of the cost.

Sounds good, but I'm almost more interested in how does it compare to other chips. Do we know anything about how Trainium would compare to say Nvidia's blue chip, GPU chip or Google's how does it compare?

[Patrick Moorhead]

Yeah. So again, I'm going to just simplify this. A lot of details that go along with this, but think of Nvidia Blackwell. If you want the highest raw performance and the broadest software ecosystem, you go with Blackwall. Right? It's expensive hardware, very strong performance per watt and it's everywhere, it's in every cloud. Trainium 3 is the best TCO inside AWS for their workloads that you're willing to port to. And it's not necessarily a raw performance leader. And then you've got Google TPUs, Trillium and Ironwood. Cost efficient high performance training inside of gcp, particularly if you're tied to what's called jax, that's kind of like the CUDA equivalent. And then, you know, amd, Right. Competitive to slightly better compute and memory footprint versus Blackwell. Lower levels of vendor lock in software is still catching up.

[Ed Elson]

So one of the things that I keep on seeing online is the, are these benchmarks, trying to measure which one is the best, which is better than the other. And I can never tell whether to take it seriously because it seems like it's changing all of the time or whether I should not. And I'm starting to think that maybe just the best benchmark is just the market. Whoever sells the most is the best.

Is this a impossible game to figure out which one is the best?

[Patrick Moorhead]

So the short answer is yes. And I, I have served on benchmarking committees before. I was an ex executive at AMD where we did benchmarks. And having benchmarks are better than not having benchmarks. They're only good at a certain point in time. A snapshot. And what matters is the type of workload, right? Is it FP4, FP8? Is it written in CUDA? Is it JAX? Is it something different? So there's a lot of of variables, but you nailed it, Ed. The market does speak. And what happens before any of these companies make a giant investment is they go through the architecture, they run their code. But Ed, right now, because OpenAI and Anthropic are all running on everybody's hardware, that shows you their certainty, which is they're uncertain and they want to support everything to see in the end which one has the best total cost of ownership.

[Ed Elson]

Okay. Patrick Moorhead, CEO and Chief Analyst of Moor Insights and Strategy. Patrick, always good to hear about chips from you. I hope you are enjoying your time at the hotel at Re Invent. Where is it?

[Patrick Moorhead]

It's in Las Vegas, right? The only city big enough to hold a conference this size. It's kind of my second home. You know, as an analyst, I'm kind of this professional event attender that's my second, second job.

[Ed Elson]

So I love it. I love it. Good to see you, Patrick. Thank you for joining us.

[Patrick Moorhead]

Thank you.

[Ed Elson]

After the break, a look at the new Trump accounts. If you're enjoying the show, give Prof. G Markets a follow.

[Claire Miller]

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[Ed Elson]

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[Brad Gerstner]

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[Ed Elson]

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We're back with Prof. G Markets. The White House has officially launched the long awaited Trump Account program. The federal government will be granting $1,000 to every child born between 2025 and 2028. The money will be housed in a tax deferred account and invested in low cost index funds only accessible once the child turns 18. Additionally, 25 million children under the age of 10 will be eligible for an extra $250, and that is thanks to a $6 billion donation from Michael Dell and Susan Dell. So for more on this new program, we are speaking with the man who played a crucial part in making it happen. We're speaking with Brad Gerstner, founder, chairman and CEO of Altimeter Capital. Brad, good to see you. Thank you for joining us.

[Brad Gerstner]

Great to see you too.

[Ed Elson]

So I first wanted to say congratulations. Your idea that you actually came on the podcast and discussed, it's now a reality. You founded the nonprofit group Invest America, which was really the force that made this happen. Let's just start with that. How did this all come about? What does this mean for America?

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I think it's transferred. First, thanks for having me on, Ed. It's great to be back. And I know how much you and Scott worry about and think about the fact that too many Americans are left out and left behind, not in the game of capitalism. And when I was on before, I said this will be transformational if we get it done. You know, this is a platform that literally creates universal private ownership from birth. A 401k from birth that gets every child 3.7 million kids born a year gets every one of those kids into the game. Now Think about this, Ed. Under the age of 18, that's 65 million kids. And of those 65 million, 50 million would never own an account that compounds. Yeah, and now they will all own an account that compounds. That's aligned with the upside of capitalism. And we know unless you have a compounding asset in this country, like, there's no chance that you can keep up, you know, with the cost of living increases, etc. And so I think in that regard, it's a game changer. How did it. How did it come about? Well, you know, I've been working on this idea to first get it pass into law for four years.

And we were working with both sides of the aisle. You probably saw the letter out today with Cory Booker and Ted Cruz that went out to a thousand chief executives asking them all to contribute money into the accounts of our kids. And I've been working with both of those centers and many other people on Capitol Hill across the political spectrum. And we were prepared. We tried to get this done with Biden. As I explained to you guys, we didn't make a ton of progress there, even though we had a lot of support and we had an opening with this president. Michael Dell, who's a good friend, played a key role in brokering the final relationship. He and I went and saw the President, and the president loved the idea. He made the final call to the speaker that got included in the reconciliation bill that occurred in April of this year. Now, fortunately, we already had the beach softened in the House and the Senate. So when the President made the call that he wanted to see it in the reconciliation bill, we had already the draft of the Invest America act on the Senate side, we dropped in the language. So it's pretty easy from there to get it included. And then, of course, the bill passed, which, you know, let's just stop there for a second. This is a change to our social contract on the order of magnitude of Social Security itself. The. The federal government's going to launch the largest consumer project in the history of the federal government. 60 million accounts for every kid under the age of 18. And so I think it was extraordinary that we were able to get that accomplished in the law as a. Is a fact to celebrate. But as you know, that was never what this was about. It wasn't just, you know, getting it passed into law. It was then executing it and making sure that we turned it into a platform for change.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, just to put it out there, I think most people know this, but I think it's an incredible idea. I'M really excited about it. Just the idea that, you know, so many people are losing their faith in the system and a lot of that is because they've been left out of the system. So what are we doing here? We're automatically buying you into the system by investing you in the stock market in just low cost index funds, which we should really all be invested in. But I want to play devil's advocate and just throw out criticisms that I've been seeing online. One criticism I've seen is this just makes rich people richer because rich people already own stocks. And so now we're putting more capital into the market so they're going to get richer. I've also seen people say, say, oh, if everyone gets an investment account, then that's like no one getting an investment account because you're not actually getting ahead. And then I've also seen another criticism, which is, this is billionaires appeasing the President. This has been a big concern with this administration. Michael Dell gives $6 billion and gets in good with Trump. I just want to hear what you would say to those criticisms.

[Brad Gerstner]

Yeah, let's first start with this idea of, you know, the rich getting richer somehow, because I think this is the biggest fallacy. Ed, listen, the rich already have a lot of money. Rich kids already have a lot of money. So the fact that they have an account is somewhat irrelevant to those kids. Because remember, in this country we have something called 529 accounts, right? There are 16.1 million 529 accounts. These are accounts for college savings. 15.8 million of those are owned by people in the top 10% of income. Okay? They already have all their kids already. My kids have these accounts. That's how, in fact, the motivation, the story with my kids, how Invest America started, was my older son Lincoln said, dad, this is great that we have an account, but what about all the kids that don't? That was really the inspiration that drove this. So those kids are doing fine. This takes the 50 million kids who would never, not only as children, but never in their lifetime, have an account that compounded with the stock market and getting them into the game from birth. So by definition, they disproportionately benefit because the alternative is zero. Ed.

[Ed Elson]

Right?

[Brad Gerstner]

Right. And now these kids, if they start with a thousand bucks and an employer or mom and dad or a philanthropist, adds just $750 a year, that's $50,000 at the age of 18, that's $150,000 at age 30, and it's $1 million at age 50 or 55, using the 75 year track record of the S&P 500. So undisputably, this will disproportionately benefit those who have less. And let's, let's talk about the Dell contribution. A key component of their announcement, Ed, was that their 6.25 billion is only going to families that live in zip codes where the average income is less than $150,000. So they're targeting, they're excluding the highest earning zip codes in the country. And so I think you're going to see a lot of that as people start announcing additions to these programs. The philanthropic contributions, the corporate contributions, I think a lot of those will be income based. And so that will also help to ameliorate that. Secondly, let's talk about this question of billionaires appeasing the president. Right. There's no doubt, right. That I think in all administrations you have people who are currying favor with administrations, doing things that administrations, you know, might like. And you know, when, when it comes to this president, certainly he's closer to the business community than Biden was. But I'll tell you, if you look at the people who are, you know, in the White House, it's Democrat and Republican CEOs across the board. Even if you just look at the day that we announced, you know, had the Invest America roundtable, Dara Khashrowshahi, who's been a critic and you know, and I think if you follow his Twitter3 feed, pretty clear he's on the left of a lot of issues. You know, he was there and he praised this program. Cory Booker and Mark Warner, lots of people on the left, the Clintons have been big supporters of this idea. And so like, this is a big bipartisan tent. And so the fact that Michael Dell, who nobody views as a die hard or super conservative, you know, raging Republican, steps forward and says, listen, I'm going to do this because my foundation has been investing in kids. And you know, the number one thing they like about it, Ed, if you want to give away $6 billion, okay, and you have to give it away today, how do you do it? You give it to a charity and then the charity somehow gives it to kids. But how much actually makes it to the kids, Ed? And how do you track what makes it to the kids? And as entrepreneurs, a lot of people want to give away a lot of money, but they want it to be performance based. They want to know that it makes it to the kids. They don't want some charity apparatus in the middle to take half of it. So for the first time, we have a direct giving platform where these folks can give away billions and billions of dollars at scale. They know it goes directly into the kids accounts. Nobody's taking a scrape in the middle. And it's going to compound according to the rules that have been promulgated, which means that the kids can't take the money out right. Until they're 18. And then at 18, they can only use it, a part of it to buy a home, start a business, go to school, or it rolls into the. The IRA retirement rules. And so now we've set up a platform. I think of it a lot like, you know, iOS. And now these are the applications that are getting built on top of it. We now have a universal operating system for kids. It's universal ownership, private accounts from birth.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah. It certainly seems as though this is perhaps the infrastructure through which the ultra wealthy can start giving away money back and investing it back into America. Michael gave away around 6% of his net worth. I'm waiting for someone to match him. I'm waiting for someone like a Zuckerberg to get out there and match him. Do you think that that's going to happen? Are we going to see more mega billionaires or just wealthy people in general contributing to this program?

[Brad Gerstner]

We know Michael and I are leading the Invest America Giving Council. We're calling everybody who signed onto the Giving Pledge. These are a lot of our friends. And I can tell you our phones were blowing up yesterday with people who wanted to sponsor states. Right. The state of Texas or California or Indiana or Wisconsin or Ohio, to give to all the kids who are born in those states who wanted to adopt cities, who wanted, you know, to follow Michael's lead. And I see you're going to see major announcements in this regard. And by the way, those were with people, CEOs, entrepreneurs and billionaires on both sides of the political aisle.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah.

[Brad Gerstner]

And so Michael and Susan were bold and entrepreneurial in going first.

[Ed Elson]

Yes.

[Brad Gerstner]

Right. They were going to take the shrapnel to the extent there was any. And I think now it's made it safe for other wealthy people to follow. But let's not just focus on the ultra wealthy. We have a long tail of extraordinary philanthropy in this country. Right. And so there are going to be people who adopt their school. Right. It may be. Or maybe adopt a grade in their school, say, for all the kids in this grade. And they'll work with their school to make sure that they contribute to every one of those accounts. There are going to be churches who raise money to make sure that all the kids of the church get money added to their accounts. Right. There are going to be moms and dads that just say, all the friends of ours who have kids. I will tell you this, Ed. The number of children that have been born into my life, I did this with all my nieces and nephews when they were born, but it was hard. I had to set up custodial accounts for them. This will be the best baby gift or birthday gift or bar mitzvah gift you can possibly give to anybody. Right. None of us really have good creative gift ideas now. We can just give them $1,000 worth of stocks and, you know, let it grow and compound. And so I think, yes, the head end of philanthropy is going to be potent. It's going to be great. I myself am looking at adding to the accounts in the state of Indiana, where I'm born. You know, state of Indiana, there are 87,000 kids born a year. And so I'm talking with the senators, the governor and others in the state. How can we add money to the states of every kid born in the state of Indiana? The state of Texas just announced today they're going to add $1,000 to every account in the state of Texas. All the kids born in the state of Texas. I'll tell you, I've heard from many states now, governors or aspiring governors who want to add to those accounts. So we're going to set off a little competition in the country. And, you know, God bless, man. This is what this country needs. It's going to unify people. It's going to get people back in the game. There's a reason less than half of people under the age of 40 believe in capitalism, Ed. It doesn't work for them.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly.

[Brad Gerstner]

They're left out, they're left behind. They don't own anything. And if you don't own anything, it's hard to get them excited about it. So why not burn the system down and say, let's start with a new system. Right? But you get these. You get people into the game, you get them winning with America, and they don't have to win at the same level as everybody else. We're not guaranteeing everybody they're going to be a millionaire. But going from nothing to something.

[Ed Elson]

Yes.

[Brad Gerstner]

Going from zero and the prospect of zero your whole life to one, that is a far bigger move than going from one to five. I will tell you, this comes from a guy who had zero. Yeah, I know what it feels like to be on the outside looking in. I know how it felt to go from nothing to something. So that is the promise we're going to make to all of America's kids. We're going to get you from nothing to something, and then it's on you to get out there to hustle, to add to the accounts 100%.

[Ed Elson]

My final question before we let you go here again. You know, I love the idea they're called Trump accounts.

[Brad Gerstner]

Yeah.

[Ed Elson]

Did we have to call them Trump accounts? I mean, if we want. It seems like that's the easiest way to politicize the thing. If we want to get everyone on both sides. Yeah. Can we call them Dell accounts? Can we call them Brad accounts?

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I will say this. You know, it's. When you look at the history in the Senate, we call Roth IRAs, Roths after Senator Roth. We call Pell grants. Pell Grants after Senator Pell. There actually is precedents for this. I know for some people it's polarizing, but I will tell you, they would not exist without the efforts of this president. And, you know, Roth IRAs would not exist without the efforts of Senator Roth. And so, you know, for. For the time being that he's present, they're going to be called Trump accounts. And they may be called Trump accounts forever, but history is ultimately the judge. Yeah, right. And history will call these what history will call them. But I, for one think due to his efforts, you know, I look at it, and by the way, I can tell you he's talked to people on both sides of the aisle. He's. He's out there talking to corporations. He's out there talking to philanthropists. He really believes in this. He said to me, it's the whole meaning of my presidency to get everybody else in the game. Right. And so I know a lot of people. There are a lot of things people don't like about President Trump or do like about President Trump. I'm not here to litigate that battle over this piece of legislation. The Invest America act is unequivocally good for this country. It's a uniting feature for this country. It's a big bipartisan tent, and I'm grateful for his leadership and helping make it happen.

[Ed Elson]

Well, I think it's really exciting, and I think it's really exciting that Michael Dell is contributing as much as he's contributing. I really do hope that this continues and creates something of a domino effect. Brad, really good to see you. Thank you for joining us.

[Brad Gerstner]

Great to see you. And I love watching you all the time, man. It's amazing what you and Scott are out there doing. Keep it up, and I'll come back and update you guys as this progresses.

[Ed Elson]

Please do.

[Brad Gerstner]

Because I think it's so consistent with the platform and the message you guys are delivering.

[Ed Elson]

100% agree. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you, Brad.

[Brad Gerstner]

All right, Great to see you.

[Ed Elson]

So the other day, a friend asked me a question. He said, if Trump did something good, would you commend him for it on your podcast? Which I think was kind of a dig at me. He's basically saying that I'm biased or that I have Trump derangements interim or something. But also kind of a fair question, because I haven't really praised Trump for pretty much anything. And my response to him was, yes, I would. If he does something good, if he does something worthy of praise. And to me, he hasn't really done that yet. But I want to be clear. This policy is good. This policy is worthy of praise. Now, does Trump deserve the credit? I don't think so. I think he deserves maybe marginal credit. This wasn't his idea. This wasn't his agenda. I don't think his name should be plastered on the accounts for the reasons I just outlined. I think the credit is probably owed to Brad, maybe Michael Dell, who is helping to fund this. But the point still stands. These accounts are good. And the reason they're good is because they begin to address what we believe is the most pressing problem in America, and that is the unprecedented run in inequality, the rift between what we call the earners versus the owners, what Karl Marx would call the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie. There are people who make their money through income, through labor, and then there are people who make their money through assets. And the American system, for whatever reason, is heavily rigged in favor of those who have assets, in favor of those who own things, the owning class. And this is why inequality has run rampant, and it's why the top 1% own about a third of the nation's wealth today. It leads to a loss of faith in the system, which eventually leads to some form of civil unrest, which historically leads to mass violence. And this isn't hyperbole. This is just history. Now, there are a few ways to fix this. One fix is we could just pay earners more. We could increase the minimum wage, for example. I would love that. But for whatever reason, our politics just isn't letting it happen. Another fix would be to tax owners more. I would also like that. But again, we've tried this many times and our politics doesn't really let it happen. Or we could simply make everyone an owner. We could give everyone a stake in this game that we call capitalism. And that is what this does. It recognizes the immense wealth creation that is afforded by the stock market, and it automatically buys you in, no matter who you are. It makes every American an owner. And that is a good thing. Now, will it fix all of the problems? Absolutely not. It will not fix the cost of housing. It won't fix the cost of college. It won't fix the cost of healthcare. It won't even level the playing field. If you're already wealthy, as Brad said, you're still most likely to win the game. But if you're not wealthy, at the very least you are now in the game. You start out on the playing field versus what we've had before, where you start out on the sidelines. And that is a marginal improvement in the grand scheme of things, but it is still an improvement. So this is great policy and a great move from Michael Dell. And we are grateful to the billionaire who wants to try to save us. At the same time, we should recognize that we are living in a timeline where we are essentially waiting on billionaires to save us. And that is not a good timeline. And I'm not going to pretend it is. But I'm also not going to pretend that this isn't a step in the right direction. Functionally speaking, these accounts are a good thing for America. They're a good thing to lessen the problem of inequality in this country. And I will be the first one to recognize that.

Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Joel Passon and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Isabella Kinsel, Kristen o' Donoghue and Mia Silverio. And our technical director is Drew Burrows. Thank you for listening to Profit G Markets from Profit Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. Tune in tomorrow for our conversation with Paul Krugman.

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