← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
Kara Swisher: Bezos throws a tantrum; Musk thinks he’s Jesus
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- [00:00]
Kara Swisher
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Charlie Sykes
Welcome to the on the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. Who better to talk about the ongoing initiatification of social media? Actually, all media other than our guest today, Kara Swisher, the host of the Pivot Podcast and the author of, for those of you watching on YouTube, the. The burn book. Kara, first of all, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. Okay, Jeff Bezos.
- [00:33]
Kara Swisher
Jeff fucking Bezos. That's a good bit of.
- [00:35]
Charlie Sykes
Can you let. Can we just talk about this? I mean, let's start off with this, because sort of on one level, Bezos saying, hey, I want to talk about. I mean, what is the. What is. What is the line. The directive that.
- [00:46]
Kara Swisher
The personal liberty and. Personal liberty and free markets.
- [00:52]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, who could possibly be against that? So translate that into English, what he's really doing.
- [00:57]
Kara Swisher
I can't. Because his personal liability isn't democracy, is it? Personal liability isn't justice. It isn't humanity. It isn't accountability. It's none of those things. It is. I want to do what I fucking want to do. That's what he's talking about. Anybody? He's not talking about let gays be gays. He's not talking about let trans people be trans people. This is none of which he's saying. He's talking about, I want to do what I want to do because I get too much pushback, even though he gets almost no pushback whatsoever. And the second part, which is free markets, which means that let's let chemical companies spew things in the river. Let's let. You know. I think I don't know what he's talking about there. It's a toddler tantrum. Like this morning. My son, who is in potty training, was mad about something, and he was mad throughout the day and throughout the morning getting him to school, and made his sister late to her school and everything else. And it was like that. That's what it reminds me of, is, no, I want to do what I want to do no matter what. Except my son is three and Jeff Bezos is a man in his 60s.
- [01:58]
Charlie Sykes
Okay? So, you know, somebody asked on one of the social media platforms, one of the great puzzles is, what's the point of having fuck you money if you don't say fuck you? So who is he saying fuck you to right now?
- [02:10]
Kara Swisher
All of us. All of us. He very much wants to go to space. He very much is in the business interest. He always has been. Let me just be clear. Jeff Bezos came from Wall Street. He did not come from this like I want to help, you know, Coca Cola, I want to teach the world to sing kind of people. He came from a business background, and so he was. He's not. He wasn't typical. He was more conservative than other people of the time. He was older also. And so this is not unlike him. This is sort of like him more than you think. But what I think he's. He's not a crusader for anything. I'm not even sure why he wanted to buy the Washington Post in the first place, because I think what newspapers like that, or at least the Post was about accountability. Right. I think ultimately, and to power. And so he's part of power. And so he doesn't want accountability to power. And so that's where we are. It's billionaire propaganda. That's what it is.
- [03:03]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. But at one point, he was sort of hands off, and, you know, we welcomed our new insect overlords, you know, believing that billionaires were going to come to save us. And maybe at some part of his character, he thought, I can be the new Katherine Graham. No, but the narrative has shifted. Right? Right. He's decided, okay, he was never Katherine Graham, but who is he now? Does he say, I want to be more like Elon Musk. I want to be more alike. Okay?
- [03:32]
Kara Swisher
So I want nobody to tell me what to do, and I want to do what I want to do. And I'm living this. I'm having the longest midlife crisis of my life. I've left my wife. I have this other one who was obviously an acolyte to him, very smart, but still just praises him all the. All day long. And he wants to live the plush life. And so the plush life is this. And so owning a newspaper like this is if, since it's become a nuisance to him and his efforts in business, he's going to make it into something that becomes an asset to his business interests. And that's what he's doing pretty clearly.
- [04:06]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so now, again, I want to just back up, as people were saying. Now, why would you be objecting, you objecting to, you know, having some editorial control? He certainly has the right to do that. And he does talk about individual liberties and free markets. You know, basically, it sounds kind of like the Wall Street Journal editorial board. But he also. But he also did two things. He said that he would never. He would not allow contrary opinions. And again, the question mark is, what does that mean? And clearly forced out the opinion editor. I guess it's hard not to ask the question, why now? February 2020, 5. What triggered this? Because you say he wants to live the plush life. He's got the plush life. He's got. He's got the biggest fucking boat in the world, right? So he doesn't need these. He's got the penis shaped rockets and.
- [04:53]
Kara Swisher
The series unfortunate shirts. He also has a series of unfortunate shirts.
- [04:57]
Charlie Sykes
A lot of unfortunate shirts. So February 2025, it feels like all the oligarchs are like going through something, I mean, in retrospect, where the iconic picture of our time really goes back to that Trump inauguration where you have Mark Zuckerberg and you have Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and they're all lined up there, you know, willing to kiss the ring. So this feels like we're having this conversation the night of the oligarchs in America where something is happening to the people. You've been writing about these folks for decades, decades, and their surge for wealth, their surge for power. I want to just dive into this. What's going on in their heads now?
- [05:40]
Kara Swisher
Look, when they started, they were startups, right? I was with Jeff Bezos when he picked his office out for Amazon in a shitty section of Seattle. I was with him when he did that. He did not have a lot of money. He was seeking a lot of attention. I happened to be working for the Wall Street Journal, of all things. He definitely wanted to hang out with me because he wanted attention for his business. He was trying to really perfect a business, you know, to change retail. And I do applaud him for that. Fine, that's really well done. But what they've done is translated, you know, just simple business success into an idea that they know what's best for the rest of us, right? Since they're rich, they know better. And I think what's happened with them is Jeff particularly, and so did Mark, and so now has. Elon has gotten a lot of pushback for various things they're doing in Jeff's cases, union busting and bad, bad situation in the, in the warehouses for poor people, for people who work there, for hourly workers, all manner of things. Did he get away with not paying taxes for a number of years? There's all kinds of things that he didn't like. Criticism. And I think I remember when there was a cover of, I think it was Barron's that called it Amazon Bomb, right? Because the stock was way ahead of what it was doing. I didn't agree with it. I thought Amazon was going to be enormous. But he was incandescently angry at the media for and he put it up on his wall and he even referred to it recently like he can't get over one bit of criticism. And so same thing with Mark Zuckerberg. We were made to behave in ways we didn't want to. Even though they control everything. Right. These people control everything. And then they are victims, which is a really interesting thing. And so they just decided they don't have to put up with shit. And they look at someone like Elon Musk who by the way has never put up with shit. So he's consistent to the, he's crazier than ever. But he's always.
- [07:27]
Charlie Sykes
We'll get to him in a minute.
- [07:28]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. But they, they're like, oh, look at, I can do that too. I don't have to pay lip service to the Kara Swishers of the world or critics on Wall street or anybody else. I can just say a big fuck you. And what I thought Marty Baron.
- [07:41]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Asked you about that.
- [07:42]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. He goes, it was only weeks ago this was the legendary editor that Bezos hired and did an amazing job. It was only weeks ago the Post described itself as branding coverage for all of America. Barron wrote in a statement. Now its opinion pages will be open only to some of America, those who think exactly as he does now. He is within his rights to do this. He could do whatever he wants. He can cover it with Nutella and lick it up and down all day. I don't. But, but he can't pretend this is anything but what it is, which is a wholesale grabbing of a legendary brand who's of Ben Bradley, of Kay Graham, of these people who fought the power and not pretend he isn't a suck up to power.
- [08:23]
Charlie Sykes
Which is precisely is it all, I mean, so how do, how do we, we break this down? There is the tantrum, but there's also the Trump effect there that they've made a decision that in the era of Donald Trump they are going to bend the knee, they are going to suck up. How much of this is just transactional? Like okay. Mr. Well, part of it, I mean as you point out, a lot of it's just sort of ego driven. I mean there's a little bit of hubris here, but a lot of it is transactional. They have business with the government and this is the coin that in which they are going to be paying that.
- [08:59]
Kara Swisher
It'S a coin op president. So that's what they're going to play. And look at, look at Apple's shareholders just decided to keep their DEI things in place. And now Trump is threatening Tim Cook even though shareholders decided the people who own the company want to keep it in America. We should be able to do that. Correct?
- [09:18]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Free market thing. Right.
- [09:20]
Kara Swisher
But now Tim is going to have to do some things. He's going to have to pretzel himself because of the legal challenges to dei, which is fine. But the shareholders have spoken.
- [09:29]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [09:30]
Kara Swisher
And they can't do. The owners can't do what the owners want. So this is exactly. Every accusation is a confession with these people. Right. I mean, honestly, it's really something to watch. If Apple shareholders decided they wanted dei, let them have Costco shareholders, but instead.
- [09:47]
Charlie Sykes
The Trump free market thing, Right?
- [09:48]
Kara Swisher
That's correct.
- [09:49]
Charlie Sykes
That is correct.
- [09:50]
Kara Swisher
So why isn't that free market?
- [09:51]
Charlie Sykes
Free peoples.
- [09:52]
Kara Swisher
But they don't want. They want a free market for themselves and not for the rest of us. They want free speech for themselves and not the rest of us.
- [10:00]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. I'm going to be curious to know exactly how they interpret it because the words on the surface are kind of anodyne. And I guess the question is, okay, does this mean the Washington Post is going to editorialize against Donald Trump's tariffs when he launches a trade war? What will they be saying about the embrace of Russia? Of Russia? Okay, so obviously we've gotten like 10 minutes into this conversation without asking the big one, Kara Swisher, do you still want to buy the Washington Post?
- [10:27]
Kara Swisher
I do not. I do not.
- [10:28]
Charlie Sykes
Okay.
- [10:29]
Kara Swisher
He's just thrown mildew all over it. Or what's the thing that you can't get off? Mildew. Right? Mildew. Yeah. This guy is intent on wrecking the legacy of Donald, of the Graham family and Ben Bradley and, and I think he's, he's going to lose everybody who's, you know, the good and the bad. There's lots of changes that needed to be made there, obviously. And by the way, guess who's been presiding over the decline for the past ten years? Mr. Jeff Bezos. Right. So if he's so such a good businessman, why didn't the. Why did the Post miss every single friggin turn in the digital? They don't have any podcasts, they don't really have events. They don't have any AI that's worth. It's worth its salt. That could be really useful. They haven't been able to do what the New York Times got some good reporters. They have good reporters, but that's. That was. They were there before. So he hasn't done a thing to make this business survive in a digital environment. Nothing interesting Nothing like the New York Times has done. New York Times has improved its business drastically. All this guy has done is nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then he blames the company that he's owned since 2013. It's really. He's such a. Whatever. I can't even. No, I have no interest.
- [11:39]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, okay. Because. Because just last month.
- [11:42]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
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Charlie Sykes
You know, you were talking to New York, New York magazine about why you wanted to buy it back then. So tell me about your original thinking, why you wanted to put together a group to buy it, but before the. It sounds like you believe the total inshidification of the paper.
- [11:58]
Kara Swisher
That's already. This is the last. This is what he's done so by.
- [12:03]
Charlie Sykes
But in December, you still thought it was worth doing.
- [12:06]
Kara Swisher
I was pretty upset about what he did around the Harris thing. Not because he doesn't have to endorse Harris, but how he did it. And then he blamed the Post itself for his own shitty business decision. And he's the one that lost all those subscribers. Nobody else. Not the reporters. But he blamed the reporters, which was even worse. So I had an idea that has heavy use of AI in the good way. An ability to coalesce news in a singular brand or that, you know, the New York Times is all made here. What about a brand for all of America that really did have a lot of voices, did have news, brought news to people using technology in a way that's a smarter way to do it, that's useful to people as opposed to just sticking AI onto everything, even if we don't want it. Right. A lot of that is happening right now largely because the people giving us AI have never created a news product ever in their lives. Right. For example. And so what is it that would be useful? I was going to. Obviously you're going to have to make cuts. There was no question you had to make cuts. You have to make better deals with the unions at the Washington Post. You'd have to figure out what readers wanted. I was always thinking of the audience. What does the audience want? And I was taking my cues from things I've done and a lot of media entrepreneurs have done. We've never been growing faster. I mean, we're growing like crazy. And it's because we're providing a product people want. So I would have been thinking a lot around the product and everything else and not as a personal propaganda device, which is the way he's looking at this. He doesn't care about audience. Same thing with Musk and Twitter. He doesn't care about audience. He cares about an influence platform for himself, and that's what Bezos is doing. He's not making a thing people want. He's making a thing for himself, essentially. And so I had all kinds of ideas. I had all manner of ideas, but I. But I definitely. I think he's taken it. Just. You can see the direction he's going in, and a bad one. He's not going to sell it either. He doesn't want to sell it.
- [14:00]
Charlie Sykes
He wants it as a platform. All right, but then what will the Washington Post look like a year from now, two years from now? I'm thinking of organizing, you know, some. Some entities that still have their same masthead, like, I don't know, Newsweek.
- [14:14]
Kara Swisher
It'll be MySpace of newspapers. That's what it'll be. Remember MySpace?
- [14:18]
Charlie Sykes
That is. Yeah, barely. It'll be MySpace of newspaper. So, Kara Sisher, you are one of the world's greatest living experts on Elon Musk. What's going on with him right now? I have the. Okay, why do you say no longer?
- [14:33]
Kara Swisher
I haven't talked to him in a year or more.
- [14:35]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, yeah, okay. But you. But you know the guy. You know, the guy who ended up at the CPAC stage wielding the chainsaw over the weekend. You know, the word hubris does keep. Keep coming up. What. What do you think is going through with his mind right now? What. What is happening with. With him? And I hope that this. The word ketamine is going to show up somewhere in the next five minutes in our conversation.
- [15:01]
Kara Swisher
Allegedly. Okay, well, allegedly. I am no doctor, but he seemed to be on something like, it felt like rather. You know, it's so interesting. We talk about ketamine or other drugs. We try to be very, very careful. If someone's obviously drunk, we always say, oh, they look drunk. Right. Kind of thing. He looked like he had some sort of substance, something happening with him, or.
- [15:23]
Charlie Sykes
He'S just not getting any sleep, or.
- [15:24]
Kara Swisher
He'S just on the combination. He's high in his own drunk, on ego, whatever it happens to be. Okay, I don't. But I. I do think the Wall Street Journal articles about his drug use were absolutely 100 accurate. That's. Let me just say that from what I've heard and talked to people, so I think it's escalated. It looks like it's escalated. But, you know, if he says he. I think he made a joke.
- [15:47]
Charlie Sykes
It's.
- [15:47]
Kara Swisher
If it's working for you, it's working for you. So, fine, you let him do whatever he wants.
- [15:54]
Charlie Sykes
Is it working for him? In the sense, does he know what he is doing right now?
- [15:59]
Kara Swisher
Yes, yes, he does.
- [16:01]
Charlie Sykes
He does know what he does.
- [16:02]
Kara Swisher
He's real. Like Charlie, you know, I'm gonna come back on that. The true believer person, right. I think he actually thinks he's. I have the notion that he thinks he's living in a video game. And he said this before, by the way. And if he is the main player. Okay, is he, he would say, is he. He's told, you know, he did a famous interview with me where he said we were in a simulation. I think he thinks he's in a video game and he's the main player. That's why he can't stop talking. Like in a cabinet meeting. He was like, like he didn't hardly let the president speak today, right? He's like talking and talking and talking and talking. So he thinks he's the main character. 2 I think he really truly believes and he, he's been this way before. One time when I interviewed him, he said, if Tesla doesn't survive, humanity is doomed. What kind of egomaniac you have to be? You know, if Charlie says, I feel.
- [16:49]
Charlie Sykes
That way about my newsletter, that that's the end of Western civilization or perhaps all humanity, right?
- [16:56]
Kara Swisher
So he talked in these kind of dramatic terms because I think he must be so bored with his life that he can't. He needs to have a constant level of excitement around it. And so he's created this drama around himself that he is here to save. You can hear the words he uses. Save, civilization is doomed, America is going to go bankrupt, blah blah, America's not going bankrupt. It's not. He likes to create this level of drama. And the other thing he does, he's become more mendacious than ever in terms of pretending he wants to make cuts and not noting, as the Washington Post did today in an Excellent article, $38 billion in contracts with the federal.
- [17:32]
Charlie Sykes
One of the great moochers of all time when it comes down to it. Here's this guy. I am the scourge of big government. And it turns out I have been feeding at the breast of big government.
- [17:44]
Kara Swisher
For a long time. And it saved him for a very big him, by the way, especially Tesla, which is the center of his wealth. Tesla would not exist without that loan from the federal government today. It would not. He'd be some washed up entrepreneur trying whatever dumb thing he was trying. And so I think he's such a hypocrite to himself and I think he lies to himself on a daily basis like his Money is good. Other people's aren't. Like for cancer research, et cetera.
- [18:12]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, let's go back to that question though, about whether he knows what he's doing. He may know what he, he thinks he knows what he is doing. Saving humanity, saving the country and all of that stuff. But as you watch the kinds of cuts that he's making, does he understand the consequences and the damage? Now there was a moment at the cabinet meeting today that I think, I think you, you posted about it. Where he's going. We're gonna get some things wrong. Like for example, when we fired all the people. We're gonna protect you from Ebola. Like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. The flesh eating disease though the one thing that I think that most people on the planet would be terrified. He pretty blithely says, yeah, we were moving so fast that we eliminated some of our protections against Ebola. So I guess in terms of the substance and the politics, does he know the damage that he is doing? Because one of the strangest dynamics here is that, you know, Republicans are beginning, I think it's beginning to dawn on them that he is a political liability. Maybe Trump is thinking that as well. Maybe. And well, so far it doesn't seem like it. So talk to me a little bit about the Trump Elon Musk relationship.
- [19:18]
Kara Swisher
Let me say he doesn't care, Charlie.
- [19:22]
Charlie Sykes
He doesn't.
- [19:22]
Kara Swisher
All of the, all of these tech bros. These. Certain ones of them. Well, look, Bezos and Zuckerberg are, are all about. Are all about shareholder value and their value. They again, if Kamala Harris was president, they'd be listening to Charlie Xias and making us. Making them. Making us call them they. Them. They just. They would do whatever it takes. Whatever it. He'd be wearing like whatever the, whatever the trend happens to be. He'd be wearing jeans from Kendrick Lamar. They'd all be wearing jeans and dancing that dance. Whatever. They would do whatever it takes. Those two, like they have no values whatsoever. Okay. None that I can.
- [19:59]
Charlie Sykes
This is an important insight.
- [20:01]
Kara Swisher
Well, they don't. They don't. They just. Whatever's good for them, they will do. They will suck up. And again in four years is a different. If people to judge is president, they'll all become gay. I don't know. Whatever. Like, because whatever. Whatever. They'll do whatever it takes. In Musk's case, and this is paying him a compliment, I actually believe he believes this because he's a megalomaniac. Because he believes he is the. He believes he is a Jesus. Like Figure. And we used to joke about this, you know, at one point when I said, well, Trump's going to ban Muslims. And he's like, no, he's not. He's just saying it. And I said, no, he's going to do it. He said it. I think he's going to do it. No, he's not. I said, the guy's been a racist forever. Like, this guy hates immigration. He's been consistent. Trump has been consistent on this issue. I said, he's a racist. He doesn't like Muslims. He's going to do it. And we would. And we went back and forth and he said, he's not going to do it, and I can change his mind. And I said, well, Jesus, good for you, but you can't really change an old, old man. Racist. It's not. It's not. Believe me. I have relatives. It doesn't work in any way. And so we went back and forth, and when he did it, I wrote him, I said, see, I told you. And he's like, oh, you were right. And I was like, I was right. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And so I think. I think he believes he is critical, and I think he really does believe this. I don't think on the side, he says something else, that he is. He is the savior of humanity.
- [21:21]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, I can accept that. But what I don't get still is the relationship with Trump from Trump's point of view. Now, Trump finds him useful. He gave him a lot of money, he did a lot of things. On the other hand, okay, the conventional wisdom, which I buy into, is that in the end, there can only be one. That when you are dealing with the two megalomaniacs, at some point, something's got to give, right?
- [21:48]
Kara Swisher
I would assume so, but actually, Trump's been very deft. I think, of all these people, Trump's the smartest, right? I think, one, he needs the money so he can threaten other Congress people with primary. That's critical. Here's my. Here's my junkyard dog who's going to bite your ass if you cross me. And trust me when I tell you I got six more lined up behind him. I got Nicole Shanahan, I got the rest of them. So if you fuck with me, I'm going to do that. They're crazy. So I've got money. I got the money and the means. He also runs Twitter. He has all kinds of manners, suing people. He's coming after you if you. That's one, two. It takes the attention off of him. Right. He can, you know, he can do. Everything about Trump right now is distraction, DEI and plane crashes. Honestly, we've gone from DEI and aviation to daf, dumb as fuck. How many airline mishaps have there happened since. Right. So, so I'm going to blame everything on dei, right. That sort of will lose its thing, especially since now there's airline crashes and there weren't before. So let's bring back dei, please, the love of God. So, so that's the. He does the distraction stuff. And Elon is the ultimate distraction for people because everyone turns to him and, and, and, and, and aim their fire at. And you see this in the polling. People like Trump, but they don't. They hate Elon. So all the, he's like a. You know how Hillary Clinton was kind of the lightning rod for Bill Clinton. That's. Do you remember that? She got all the shit he did not. Even though he did all the bad stuff. Right. And I was not a fan of Bill Clinton. I'll be honest. I like Hillary. Not a fan of Bills, but everything Bill did badly, Hillary Clinton got the blame for. So she's a lightning rod for him. And that's perfect. He can take it.
- [23:29]
Charlie Sykes
All right, so this is an interesting point because I am trying to think ahead to when there's a potential breakup, that if in fact all of the cuts and the slashes become absolutely politically toxic, you know, radioactive and everything. And, and that Trump can say, you know, look at all those headlines. Musk fires this. Musk does this. Musk does this. He said that was him, not me. The problem, which I actually can see the reptilian instinct at work there to basically say, no, the king gets rid of the Prime Minister because he just had bad, he had bad advice. But what's clear is that Elon Musk, the savior of humanity, has also gone rogue. He's making endorsements, he's doing things, he's conducting foreign policy without checking or clearing it with anybody. Which again raises the question, how does Donald Trump get rid of a problem like Elon Musk? I've asked this question before. He can fire anyone else. He could, he could flick off Marco Rubio. He can end. JD Vance 1 post.
- [24:32]
Kara Swisher
What an astonishing dickless person that guy's. Well, he always was. What am I talking about?
- [24:37]
Charlie Sykes
Well, yes, and self gelding continues apace completely. But, but how do you get rid of Elon Musk? I mean, Elon Musk is kind of becoming a cult figure himself. He's got, he's got except the dis.
- [24:49]
Kara Swisher
The negatives are so high on this guy. It doesn't really matter that he has all the negatives. He's become a Bond villain to a lot of people. And so I think when you see the political implications of it, that. That if the link between them is so tight, everyone's like, look, I like Trump with this fucking asshole that he's given us. I think that's where the rubber meets in terms of what power he can continue to wield. There's also an attraction that Trump has for. For shit stirrers. Right? He really does. He loves them. And I think in this case, he likes to see, like, he likes, you know, you put a bunch of crabs in a box and you see what happens. That's what he did at this cabinet meeting, right? So he just wants to see, like, when he goes, is anyone here not like Musk? Of course there are, like, at least three quarters of the people don't like Musk. Even Kash Patel, that. That guy is, like, resisting Elon Musk. Right?
- [25:39]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. What's with that? That was that. I did not have that on my bingo card. Well, Cash Patel would be the one guy to say, don't, don't answer. Yeah.
- [25:48]
Kara Swisher
You get to a certain amount of power, and this guy's telling me what to do. Are you kidding me? Right? At some point, they want to run what they want to run. And believe me, that's a completely normal thing that these cabinet secretaries want to. They finally get to the place, they're not going any further, I can tell you that. And so they want to run what they want to run. And instead they got to listen to this guy, like, who doesn't know anything. At least, you know, Cash Patel thinks he knows about the FBI. Elon Musk knows nothing. Right? So I think they. But they're not going to say it. And Trump, of course, made them sit there and say they like him.
- [26:21]
Charlie Sykes
The rituals of humiliation, which he loves that. Yeah.
- [26:25]
Kara Swisher
It was like bore on the floor. It was boar on the floor. It was what it was. And so Trump has got this sick interest in stuff of humiliation. And I think it works. He's the perfect heavy. And you know he'll turn on him when Elon turns on him. That. That's. That could happen. Right.
- [26:43]
Charlie Sykes
And that will be messy.
- [26:45]
Kara Swisher
That will be messy. But it doesn't have to happen. Everyone's, like, wishing for this, and I thought that might be the case, but Elon's just. Just enough beta to Trump that it works, right. If he goes Full Alpha on him, that'll be a problem. But he's just enough beta. So he's annoying Susie Wiles, but he's not annoying Trump, the Chief of Staff.
- [27:04]
Charlie Sykes
Okay. So there are these stories out there, and I don't know whether they're apocryphal or not, that seem to suggest that Elon Musk says in private the guy's a complete idiot. And everything he's told me that. Okay, he thinks. And he still thinks that, but he's figured out he's cracking the code that he's cracked is if I just suck up to him and say nice things, you know, he won't pay any attention to what I'm doing. He'll have no idea what I'm doing. So the cracking the code is you just suck up to Donald Trump, figure he's a complete idiot, he's a moron, and he's gonna let me do it. So do you think that's true? Is that.
- [27:33]
Kara Swisher
Yes.
- [27:34]
Charlie Sykes
His mindset?
- [27:35]
Kara Swisher
I think behind the scenes, listen, I don't know how he's changed. Cause I think he does have some respect for Trump. I do think he has some affection for Trump. At the time I talked to him, he had none. He thought Trump was an idiot. Like an idiot. Like as dumb as a box of hammers kind of thing. And so I never thought Trump was an idiot. I've never thought that. I thought he was a rather clever person. Right. In many ways. Not a low.
- [27:59]
Charlie Sykes
I'm a skeptic.
- [28:00]
Kara Swisher
I don't think he. I think he's got a, as you said, reptilian sense of survival, a cockroach like personality. And you can insult cockroaches all you want, but they've been around and will be here long after we are. Right. That kind of thing.
- [28:13]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [28:13]
Kara Swisher
And so I. That's. There's a level of that in him. And I think with Musk, it would have to be, oh, I don't know what could happen. Like, as long as he's useful, Trump will keep him around. Absolutely.
- [28:25]
Charlie Sykes
All right.
- [28:25]
Kara Swisher
No question.
- [28:26]
Charlie Sykes
Look, let's just step back for a moment because I know you've given a lot of thought to the future of the media in general. Seems as if at the moment you and I are speaking, it feels like the twilight of the media in pretty dramatic terms, where you have the. Well, the old media. I mean, you have the assault on media rights, the threats against the media coming from the government, the lawsuits against them, the White House now saying it's going to pick the correspondence that cover us. We're going to be doing all of that, you know, and, you know, people are saying now is the time to stand up behind the. The independent media. But the independent media seems to be, I don't know, disassembling itself in real time, whether you're talking about the Washington Post or you're talking about ABC or cbs, all of these things. So it feels very different. I'm coming to a question here. I think it feels very, very different than 2017, where the media really felt that this was its moment to stand up for democracy, to push back against Donald Trump. Now it seems to be flirting on the edge of irrelevancy and confusion. It's. Well, you tell me.
- [29:38]
Kara Swisher
No, I think it's just a different media look, you're seeing all this incredible, like yourself, all this media entrepreneurship, right? Everything we do now gets hundreds of thousands of watches, and we spend almost nothing doing it. It's a very. You know, I've been at the media entrepreneurship for many years now, obviously, and we made a lot of money with all the various things we did. It's just a different media. It isn't these big, giant ocean liners. It's these small, little faster boats that go around and make all kinds of trouble. And I think what you're doing, what I'm doing, what all manner of people are doing on the left and the right, is really interesting even. Look, I'm going to pay a compliment. Ben Shapiro's stuff. I'm not a fan of his content, but, boy, is he a good entrepreneur. Interesting stuff, you know, don't like his, like, the tone of his stuff, but I can see what he's doing. Like, I can. He's creating a separate media organization because he was zeroed out from all the others. And so you're seeing a lot of that. And I think it's actually a great time to be in media. I think it's very much. You know, we were. We just started putting full pivots on YouTube, and now we're up to 200,000 views for every one of them. Like, in seconds, we have. Suddenly we have 100,000 subscribers, you know, and that's just in two weeks, right? People are dying for great content. And, you know, I did one with Laverne Cox and 2 million people on TikTok. 2 million. I couldn't have gotten that on any cable network. I couldn't have gotten it in the Washington Post. And so it's a different media environment where actually you can make some money. And. And they're smaller and more direct and much more impactful. I would say you and I have more impact than the Washington Post has now, like by far.
- [31:22]
Charlie Sykes
Well, obviously I want to embrace this enthusiastically, but let me give you the other side of it because this is true and there is this opportunity. But there's also the downside, which is that we are also then all creating our own information bubbles, our own echo chambers. We are preaching to the choir, right? That a lot of these media. Well, but it feels like a lot of media is now engaging in fan service. And as a result, the divides that we're getting are intensifying because of this. Because there is no common. Where do Americans come together to have a common conversation?
- [31:56]
Kara Swisher
I don't think.
- [31:56]
Charlie Sykes
Or share common information. You don't think so?
- [31:58]
Kara Swisher
I don't think it's been there since Walter Friggin Con. I don't think it's been there. I think it's been a lie. Look, I used to argue when I was at Columbia, I went to Columbia Journal School. I wish I had taken that money and bought Apple stock, but I didn't. But when I was there, I used to argue that a lot of the decision making in news was by a bunch of. No insult, Charlie. I have three sons, a bunch of white guys on the Upper east side of New York. Right? It was like the New York people, the Times people, the New York. I mean the New York Times, Time magazine. So was that particularly like of the people? I don't think most people were reading these things. I think the danger is that people get their information from a Facebook and the information comes in a flood or podcasts or social media. And so I don't think they were paying attention before in great amounts. There wasn't a commonality. There was less of a commonality that you think what's changed is that everyone has too much information now via social media, via and stuff. So it's like a flood versus a desert. Before, I think it was a desert.
- [32:59]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Okay, so there is the flood. There's no question about it. So people are searching out trusted sources, right. It's like, okay, I can't handle all this. I don't know what's true. I have to go to this site or this site. So we know, we talk about the attention economy that was. Seems like last year now. It's the what? It's the trust economy.
- [33:19]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, it's. It's trusted people. I mean, I don't know about you, but I get stopped five times a day on the streets by people that never happened. And I've worked for the New York Times, the Wall Street Street Journal and the Washington Post. Now I get stopped, you get recognized. There's so many ways of reaching people that you can have influence far beyond your cost. Right. I don't need. Now look, here's where it suffers is. Is accountability journalism like what the Post did today with the $38 billion.
- [33:45]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Which was good. Good journalism.
- [33:47]
Kara Swisher
Good journalism like that is expensive. No matter. And that we have to figure out how does. How do we keep the ProPublicas in business or whatever is the, you know, just how do we keep those. That kind of journalism, which is, to me, accountability journalism. How does that get paid for? And that is never. That's always been a loss leader, no matter how you slice it, it's not white. You know, I was just interviewing Mark Cuban the other day and he. We were talking about this Post thing, and I. He goes, if great journalism was so valuable to people, why isn't ProPublica the biggest thing in the world? It's still great. He goes, it's still amazing journalism, but it's not that big because there's not an audience for it. And so certain stories will break through, but not as a business. It's much harder because of the way you do a business. So we've got to figure out more ways to do accountability journalism in a cost effective way. And that's. I doubt it will ever make that much money. Right.
- [34:41]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so doubt it. Well, that's right. It's always been a lost leader. Okay, so tell me about Mark Cuban.
- [34:46]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I love it.
- [34:46]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, but tell me about Mark Cuban.
- [34:48]
Kara Swisher
Because he goes, I'm jumping off a bridge, I swear to God.
- [34:53]
Charlie Sykes
Well, what do you think? What. What's in his future? He's all over blue sky. He showed up at the principal's first conference. You think he wants to run for something? I mean, he hasn't taken the red pill.
- [35:02]
Kara Swisher
I have known him for so long and let me tell you, let me. He was kind of a jerk. I was like, you're such a jerk. I used to always say, you're stop being such a jerk when I met him, because he was such arrogant. He was so arrogant, but he was younger and he's really evolved over the many years to an adult. Right. Person. I think he's. I think he's a free market person. Absolutely. But in a way that's fair to people and doesn't kick people in the teeth. I mean, I think Jeff Bezos is a kick people in the teeth free market person, which is very different. He calls himself a compassionate capitalist, I think, I think that's what he. Or something like that.
- [35:37]
Charlie Sykes
So what does he want to be when he grows up? What does he want to run?
- [35:40]
Kara Swisher
I have had.
- [35:41]
Charlie Sykes
You don't think so?
- [35:42]
Kara Swisher
I have had. Off the record, I mean, I can tell you, he just. No people I know, he says it publicly that he doesn't want to. He is polling very well. People like him. I think he's the genuine real deal. And he also, he also cops to mistakes he's made in the past.
- [35:57]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [35:57]
Kara Swisher
There was some management issues in some of his things. You know, he, he, but he also, he also will push back if he doesn't. Like, you know, if people give him a hard time, he'll push back. He'll go. But he doesn't get bent out of shape by criticism. He's a, he's a strong person. And he also will listen to people like when he's like, oh, I hadn't thought of it that way kind of thing. Which makes him an adult. Right. As opposed to these toddlers, these, these, these, these men who are in a state of arrested development.
- [36:24]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [36:25]
Kara Swisher
And so I really like him. I, I don't know. I, I said, what can I do to convince you to run? I, I always am like, I would love him to run largely because I think he could win. I think he could absolutely win. I think he did very good at, at it. And I think he'd get the right, he'd get great people. He also knows what he doesn't know, which is an unusual trait among these people. Extremely, extremely. He like looks for experts. I think the stuff he's focused in, on which I think he's correct is people's lives, the economy, how to make them better, cost of drugs. He doesn't want to play in the cultural game because it's a lose. You know, it just makes people angry for some reason. And he just wants to talk about respect for hard working people, I think, and not just listen. Respect for harving rich people too. Like, he doesn't, it's not, he's not a, like, I only like working class or.
- [37:13]
Charlie Sykes
He's not an AOC type.
- [37:14]
Kara Swisher
No.
- [37:15]
Charlie Sykes
You made an interesting observation there though.
- [37:16]
Kara Swisher
She's.
- [37:17]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, well, she's, she, she's developing. So. So as the other tech bros become more infantile, he's becoming more of a grownup, which is an interesting distinction called.
- [37:26]
Kara Swisher
Becoming mature and an adult. Rather than I want to do what I want to do and that's the way it is. And by the way, let me just tell you, Jeff Bezos gets to do whatever he wants. That it's his. He bought it. But just because he's. Let me just make this clear. Just because he's rich, he's not. Right? He's just rich. That's all. He's just, you know, he's so poor.
- [37:43]
Charlie Sykes
But who's going to tell him?
- [37:44]
Kara Swisher
I do. He's so poor. I mean, he's so poor. All he has is money. That's all I ever say about these people. You know, it's my phrase. That's all they are. They're just. They just have money. That's all. Otherwise, sad.
- [37:58]
Charlie Sykes
Kara Swisher, thank you so much for.
- [38:00]
Kara Swisher
Coming on the podcast.
- [38:02]
Charlie Sykes
Always enjoy our conversation.
- [38:03]
Kara Swisher
Look, I mean, I love what you're doing. You and I probably don't agree on a raft of things, right? But it's an ability to, like, have a discussion and get through it. And I think what they're doing is putting people who have normal disagreements in. In buckets that they don't. Nobody wants to be in. And I do believe the populace feels the same way. And you're starting to hear it from. That's why these Republican Congress people want to blame it on some liberals that they're ruining their meetings. No, no, no. That's getting out of the way of voters, to me, is the first sign that you're a loser. Right? Telling voters you don't want to listen to them no matter how much. And that's what these billionaires. They cannot hear an ounce of criticism without feeling like a victim. And then slapping you away, just like my kid did this morning. Like in saying, no, I don't want to.
- [38:51]
Charlie Sykes
No.
- [38:51]
Kara Swisher
And then sitting on the porch, that kind of thing. Like. But again, he's three and they're not.
- [38:57]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Which. Which is sad. So thank you all for listening to today's edition of the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We do this several times a week because we have to remind ourselves that we are not crazy.