The Epstein Files: Missing Evidence, Free Speech Under Attack, & The Retail Investing Frenzy | Tom Bilyeu Show Live

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary
Podcast: Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory
Episode: The Epstein Files: Missing Evidence, Free Speech Under Attack, & The Retail Investing Frenzy
Date: February 18, 2026
Host: Tom Bilyeu with guest co-host

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Episode Overview

In this live episode, Tom Bilyeu and his co-host deliver rapid-fire commentary on some of the week’s most controversial topics: the incomplete release of the Epstein files, intensifying attacks on free speech (especially in Spain), and a massive surge in retail investing that outstrips even the meme stock era. The tone is urgent, curious, and unguarded—Tom and his co-host ask tough questions, challenge assumptions, and spotlight the intersection of politics, economics, internet culture, and civil liberties.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. The Epstein Files: Missing Evidence and Political Fallout

(Timestamps: 00:45–08:55)

• DOJ Halts Epstein File Releases: The Department of Justice announced they are done releasing the Epstein files, despite there apparently being "a lot that's missing" ([00:45]).
• Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Accusation: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Trump "fought the hardest to stop these files from being released," igniting political finger-pointing within the GOP ([04:15]).
• Tom’s Reflection on Political Personas:
  • “My pre-recognition of that is precisely why there's no universe in which I would ever run for office. Literally none.” ([02:35])
  • Observes a rare "narrow window" where politicians not seeking re-election may speak authentically.
• Cultural Shift in Information Consumption:
  • Tom highlights the dangers politicians face in an era of “ever-present, persistent information”—people are relentless in parsing official records, fueled by tech and economic frustration ([04:15–08:21]).
  • “Imagine how many very intelligent with a touch of 'tism people you've got just combing through this data because they don't have a job and they're mad as hell... they're gonna fucking go through this thing.” ([05:10])

2. Conspiracy Culture & Transparency

(Timestamps: 08:55–15:38)

• Incomplete Disclosure & Suspicion: The DOJ claims to have released half of the 6 million Epstein documents (3.5M), but some files, notably around the 9/11 timeline, are still missing ([08:21–09:38]).
• Conspiracies Resurface:
  • Debates on “planted explosions” during 9/11, missed transparency, and the vacuum of information fueling more wild theories ([09:38–11:34]).
  • Allegations the Epstein ranch was used for “genetic engineering”—tinfoil hat territory, but real impact on public trust ([10:50–12:00]).
• Debate over Ghislaine Maxwell’s Identity:
  • Online rumors that Maxwell isn't really in prison fuel speculation; Tom skeptically discusses how facial aging and bias can deceive, but dismisses the body-double theory ([12:20–15:16]).
  • "My official vote is it's the same person. There's just no way. But, hey, I've had failures of imagination in the past." ([15:16])

3. Free Speech Under Attack: Spain’s New Crackdown

(Timestamps: 15:38–24:42)

• Spain’s Punitive Free Speech Legislation:
  • The Spanish government proposes holding CEOs of social media firms criminally responsible for illegal content; introduces hate and polarization tracking, bans socials for under-16s ([18:05–23:21]).
  • Tom is adamantly opposed: “Don't fuck with free speech, okay? Free speech is about letting people say things that you hate, okay?” ([07:11])
• Malinformation as a Red Line:
  • Tom highlights the concept of “malinformation”—truths that are suppressed because they’re deemed dangerous ([19:06–23:21]).
  • “You can't allow people to say: 'this thing is too upsetting and so therefore it is unknowable.' For my money, that's an absolute hard pass.” ([21:47])

4. Nuances of Citizenship, Criticism, and National Narratives

(Timestamps: 24:42–28:22)

• Citizens vs. Non-Citizens:
  • Tom sets out a principle: Citizens can criticize America (or push for radical change); non-citizens who do should get “the fuck out” ([26:22]).
• Workplace Principle:
  • Example from Impact Theory: Open criticism is encouraged internally, but key company principles are not up for democratic debate because stability requires sacred cows ([24:42–26:22]).

5. Selective Free Speech and Outrage Cycles

(Timestamps: 28:22–33:13)

• Outrage is Politically Cyclical:
  • Both left and right have used censorship selectively, Tom laments the credibility lost when people “flip the table” depending on their side ([31:07]).
  • “Everything's fine with free speech until you say something I don't like, and now I want to clamp it down.” ([31:07])
  • Supporting even the most repugnant speech is a core American value, referencing ADL’s defense of neo-Nazis’ right to march ([31:07–32:26]).

6. Gerrymandering: The Eternal Political Recursion

(Timestamps: 32:26–36:21)

• Pollyanna vs. Death Star Future:
  • Pollyanna: Cultural optimism fueled by prosperity and pop culture, with competition driving betterment (cites One Piece and 1980s America) ([33:28–36:21]).
  • Death Star: U.S. risks war with China, deglobalization, late-stage empire syndromes, and “the great taking”—confiscatory policies to cover impossible debt ([36:21–40:41]).

7. The Great Taking, Wealth Extraction, and State Overreach

(Timestamps: 40:41–46:08)

• EU Plans for Private Savings:
  • Cautious of Ursula von der Leyen’s EU Savings and Investment Union—could tip into forced government investment or outright taxation ([41:08]).
• Historical Examples:
  • References to WWII rationing, government commandeering private industry, and the tightrope between building things for the state and strangling innovation. “Europe is a joke... They have choked innovation out.” ([41:08–43:07])
• States Get More Aggressive:
  • Shifts in attitudes toward unrealized gains tax, fractional reserve requirements, or direct asset allocation by governments ([44:03]).
  • “We are the Worst with money literally ever... and guess who you should put in charge of the money? Us.” ([44:41])

8. Market Euphoria: Pokémon Mania and the New Casino

(Timestamps: 46:08–56:52)

• Pokemon Card Sells for $16.49 Million:
  • Signals extreme speculation, “an alarm bell, not a good sign” that echoes the NFT bubble’s cultural and economic conditions ([46:06–48:15]).
• Fractional Investing & Cultural Speculation:
  • Both hosts compare trading of rare assets (NFTs, meme stocks, Pokémon) as a marker of a generation’s lack of trust in traditional wealth vehicles and a risk-on, casino-like economy ([48:17–50:45]).

9. The Retail Investing Frenzy: New Records and Old Dangers

(Timestamps: 50:54–56:52)

• Explosion of Retail Participation:
  • Retail investors (everyday people) are now 20–25% of daily US equity trade, with recent surges topping even the 2021 meme-stock era.
  • Tom is concerned: “At that level of participation, retail is becoming the main stage, boys and girls. ...there’s a reason that the average retail investor is known to sophisticated investors as dumb money or exit liquidity.” ([51:55])
• Why Now?
  • Four factors:
    1. 2025 asset boom
    2. Household wealth at all-time highs
    3. Huge piles of cash sidelined in money markets, now flooding back in
    4. “Dip buying” (treating every pullback as a buying opportunity)
• Warning Against Euphoria:
  • “Euphoria is the thing that needs to scare you the most. ...there is no only-up phenomenon.” ([56:59])

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Notable Quotes

• On free speech:
  “Don't fuck with free speech, okay? Free speech is about letting people say things that you hate.” — Tom Bilyeu ([07:11])

• On failing government transparency:
  “This is not going to go away... people are already building timelines about what's missing. And in the absence of information, they're going to make up more and more stories.” — Tom Bilyeu ([08:55])

• On political authenticity:
  “We always get this narrow window with a politician ... who will actually say what they think.” — Tom Bilyeu ([02:35])

• On generational economic divides:
  “Young people are going to be like, yeah, that's rad. Because capitalism sucks. Not realizing ... they are confusing this K shaped monstrosity born of debt and money printing for actual capitalism.” — Tom Bilyeu ([44:41])

• On government overreach in finance:
  “We are the Worst with money literally ever in the history of the world. And guess who you should put in charge of the money and how it's spent? Us.” — Tom Bilyeu ([44:41])

• On retail investing euphoria:
  “There is no only-up phenomenon... Every time I say the words maybe this time is different, I'm like, (sirens in head).” — Tom Bilyeu ([56:59])

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Timestamp Highlights

• 00:45–02:35: Epstein files, DOJ, Greene vs. Trump, political fatigue
• 04:15–08:55: Conspiracies, public scrutiny, missing evidence timelines
• 15:38–24:42: Free speech, Spain’s crackdown, the danger of suppressing “malinformation”
• 33:28–36:21: Pollyanna future vs. Death Star future
• 46:08–48:15: Pokémon card mania as economic signal
• 50:54–56:52: Retail investing flood, market risks, advice

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Conclusion

Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory episode thrusts listeners into the messy, provocative chaos of contemporary events—where government secrecy, economic bubbles, and digital culture collide. With quick-witted critical analysis, Tom resists tidy narratives and challenges viewers to guard their thinking, maintain skeptical curiosity, and fiercely defend individual liberty. Whether it’s the missing Epstein files, Spain’s censorship spree, or the ongoing casino of retail investing, the message is clear: Don’t trust top-down stories, and don’t outsource your thinking—especially now.

Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Tom Bilyeu Show Live. We are here with you guys to talk about everything that is going on in the world. If you were paying attention this weekend and they were hoping you wouldn't be, you know that there's plenty going on. The DOJ says it is done releasing the Epstein files. That's it, everybody. Despite the fact that there appears to be a lot that's missing, Marjorie Taylor Greene says Trump was the person most aggressively blocking the Epstein files. Retail buyers have flooded into the markets in record numbers, higher than even the Meme stock era, which I was shocked by. And I would just like to welcome you all to the casino. Enjoy. We get an economic pulse. Check when a Pokemon card sells for a historic number that's going to make your eyes water. Free speeches on life support as Spain announces that the CEOs of the social media firms will be held criminally responsible for content on their platforms that does not conform to local laws.

[Guest/Co-host]

Nice. Yes. Hope everybody else is having a great Valentine's Day. Hope nobody's on the couch over the weekend and you guys heeded our warning. But with that being said, Marjorie Taylor Greene is on the couch of the Republican Party. Cause she just keeps talking. She's never gonna run for nothing again. She has to be a free or just be a complete Democrat. Because at this point, she's putting it right at the feet of Trump with the yeah, she.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'll be interested to see in the fullness of time what the real story is. However, it really did seem like the speech that she gave when she tapped out was like, uh, I suddenly woke up and realized that I have friends and family that I love and who love me. And I'm sucked into this weird political game where everything is horrible. Everybody's enemies. This is not interesting anymore and I'm gonna go back home. And I was like, yeah, I actually get that.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

My pre recognition of that is precisely why there's no universe in which I would ever run for office. Literally none. Uh, so, yeah, I get that now. If that ends up being true, then you get this narrow window where it' she's not trying to get reelected. She has hopefully actually broken the spell of politicians will do and say whatever they need to to gain and retain power. If you're already in power and you have no intention of trying to get it again, we always get this narrow window with a politician in that frame who will actually say what they think. For my money, she's totally jettisoned the, like, psychotic behavior that made me literally write her off as a lunatic. I was like, oh, my God, like, whoever that person is, that's, like, gone full MAGA at the State of the Union. I think that was when she was doing it and was just, like, acting a fool, yelling things out. I was like, this is the worst look ever. And so, yeah, just at. At that level, wrote her off, did not pay attention to anything she said. And so it's really been this, her jettisoning politics and saying, I'm done with this. That made me sort of stand up and take note. She's dropped all of the affectations of a crazy person and is now, instead of just trying to get clicks, is seemingly saying what she believes to be true. Now, of course, in the fullness of time, I may realize it's all a lie and that she's really running for a different office and she realized she had to completely change her Persona, in which case it'll be a masterclass in marketing. Yeah. I mean, that in some ways will be even more interesting and I'm sure we'll talk all about it. But right now, I take her in the vein of somebody who's really just finally saying what she thinks.

[Guest/Co-host]

Cool. Let's jump into what she said over the weekend.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That fight, that fight to release the Epstein files came directly from President Trump. And I know a lot of people have a hard time with that, but that is the truth. He fought the hardest to stop these files from being released. How. How's anybody surprised by that? So this feels like. Here's what I think was in Trump's head. Mind reading is always a dangerous game, but this is how it feels from the outside. This is a really hot button issue. I'm going to run on releasing the files. I'm going to release A massive slew of documents in a magical binder. People are going to take the binder and the lunatics are going to with it conspiracy theory, put all the strings up and then they're just going to go away. And he does not understand the fundamental architectural change that is already played out in culture and people have not woken up to it. And this is the age of ever present persistent information where people are going to take those documents and they're going to parse them six ways to Sunday. And by the way, you have when, when you put it all together, I forget the exact number, but it's somewhere around like 12 to 14% unemployment. Once you stop only at people that are looking for jobs and can't find them and you start including all the people that have just tapped out, you're going to have. If that number is accurate, and this is not me making that number up, this is me looking at the data. If it really is 12%, imagine how many very intelligent with a touch of tism people you've got just combing through this data because they don't have a job and they're mad as hell and they've tapped out of the job market because they don't believe in the system. And so they're like, oh, you what? Like you're going to close the binder, bitch. Act real. And they're gonna fucking go through this thing. They're gonna write AI apps that redact shit. We're already seeing it. They're gonna go through this stuff. But this isn't just an Epstein thing. This is forever. This is the world you live in. The government has two options. Start electing people that understand they live in that world. Clamp down with a level of violence that we've never seen. Spain is choosing violence. We'll get to that story later. But like, Spain is for real going to attempt to lock people up simply for having a platform that allows people to say what they believe to. I cannot fathom that people hear my voice right now and think that's a good idea. That is so wild. Read 1984. Read 1984. This was a guy in the 60s who was like, oh, I see where this goes. And once the government gets a hold of surveillance on the level that we have now, they're going to clamp down thought crimes. And that's what we see. Like when you tweet something out, it is a person thinking out loud. They are trying to work their way through an idea. Remember, we are both the shout and the echo humans. If you Put them in isolation, they break psychologically. Imagine that they actually go crazy, okay? They go crazy if you put them in isolation. We need feedback. So you say a thing out loud, you get feedback, and you adjust your thinking. That's how this works. That is how the human mind is built. And when you rob people of that ability, look at what happens to their countries. They go completely insane. We are in a position where we've got to find a new relationship with everything being said all the time. And a ton of it is going to be malicious. There's going to be lies, all of that. But you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and clamp down so hard that people that are legitimately maybe wrong, but they are legitimately trying to think through issues. This is one of the single most dangerous things that we are playing with as a civilization right now. And this is one of those. I cannot bang the drum loudly enough. Don't fuck with free speech, okay? Free speech is about letting people say things that you hate, okay? Letting people say things that you hate. And if you don't allow people to say things that you hate and you're not prepared to challenge those ideas in the public marketplace, now you get a deranged culture because people are not able to think. We need the echo, boys and girls.

[Guest/Co-host]

We'll get there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We'll get.

[Guest/Co-host]

We'll get to that. We'll get to that one. I want to get back to the Epstein thing, because to your point, Trump did the JFK files. We worried about them for a week. We moved on. Then he did the Martin Luther King files, worried about them for a week, then we moved on. So he was like, all right, I'm two for two, Epstein. It's going to be the same thing. And it's like, nope. Now we're kind of spinning it around. And the DOJ, if you could throw this up, Eric, the DOJ just released that after releasing the 3.5 million records, half of the 6 million documented Epstein archive, they announced that they're done. The disclosure is done. They did their legal. What they're responsible to release legally, and they won't release any more files.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's crazy. That. That this is not going to go away. And they. They are going to have to find a way to reconcile the fact that people are already building timelines about what's missing. And in the absence of information, they're going to make up more and more stories. And one thing. This belongs in Conspiracy Corner. Let there be no mistake. But one of the conspiracies And I don't know if people can see the screen that you've got pulled up, but we'll certainly get to that one. But one of the conspiracies is that some of the documents that are missing are missing right in the 911 time window. And that part of what we would see is basically communications about that, people being drawn into that conversation that you'd be like, wait a second, why are they talking about that? I doubt there's any smoking gun, but nonetheless, there's going to be a lot of weird stuff and that's causing things to resurface. There was a clip that I saw this morning of firefighters going, there were planted explosions inside of the building. And now is that real? Don't know. Was this because if people remember a few years before 911 was successful, they had planted bombs in the parking garage trying to topple the building that way. So we're they hearing the building collapse and the explosions resulting from just, you know, pillars breaking. And they were primed to believe that these were bombs. Maybe. But it's like, this is why transparency is going to be the thing that's going to get you to the other side of this. Because in a vacuum, this is not going to go well. So, yeah, the, the play here is blowing up in his face. This is going to be the biggest headwind going into the midterms. This is going to be the thing that is already tearing the party apart. You've got Nick Fuentes, who just cannot say enough mean things about Trump, how badly he wants to see this ruined. He is screaming at the top of his lungs for anybody that follows him to stay at home over the midterms and that they just in no way, shape or form support this. And as more and more stuff comes out of the files, man, it's just the only response is find more, please. Like, go back. If you look at. I don't know if we have any clips or anything, but there's a guy who I believe was in the Epstein files who bought the ranch and now the ranch. I think there's more information that the ranch was being used as like a hub for genetic engineering of some kind. And maybe it's not nefarious at all, or maybe it's super nefarious. And so claims have been made that there are the bodies of children or infants as a part of that program that have been buried. Conspiracy corner, please. Tinfoil hat strapped on.

[Guest/Co-host]

Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But there's a guy who's saying, I will cover all the costs to do the scanning. So, dear new owner, let me just scan. And I was like, yes, please. And if you put up a. Even if that guy isn't willing to pay for it, if you put up a GoFundMe for. We need to raise $3 million to scan the property. Raise that lickety split. No shit.

[Guest/Co-host]

Getting fun to end this. All right, you brought up Conspiracy Corner. There was something that we talked about. We threw it up on the screen briefly. But there's also a sect of people that thinks Ghislaine Maxwell isn't even in prison. She's been body snatched. They're talking about the noses, shorter, the facial structure, changed glasses, all types of things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. So, okay, we are deep in Conspiracy corner now, and I'm really going to need everybody to actually wear a tinfoil hat. We should have had ours prepared. Okay. So when you do the face morph over and over and over, it is startling how much these two faces share in common. So I am very slow to say that these are not the same person. Like, when you look at. Like, at first, I've looked at a bunch of different ones of these, and every time I'm looking at the faces going, oh, this is someone debunking it, because the faces really do look identical. And then it's like, no, no, no. Like, this is proof that these are not the same person. Now, I will admit the ear movement is the one that I'm like, whoa. Now, is it possible that as you age, the muscles holding the ears in place, like, start to droop? Obviously, that's possible. So. And anybody that thinks that there aren't muscles involved in the ears, remember, there are people that can wiggle their ears. I am sadly not one of them. And how do they wiggle them up? So it is certainly very possible that there is something going on there. Now, the nose one is weird. And I don't know if as you age or get heavier, that some people's noses get bigger. I know men's noses, like, keep growing.

[Guest/Co-host]

Uh, if you look at Chin, how it's like she went from, like, pointed to blocky.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't know. I don't know. I want to be very clear. I don't know. Now, I will say this. The reason that I wanted to cover this one is because when I first saw it, I was like, that doesn't even look like her. But I'm not conspiratorially minded, so I just, like. I was like, whoa, crazy. Like, prison has not been kind to her. And I just, like, moved on. Stick around we'll be right back after this. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. And then when people start, I was like, you know, really, it doesn't look like her. But for my money, there's so many things facial, structurally, like where the eyes sit. That is so fucking perfect between the two that I'm like, it is the

[Guest/Co-host]

eyes and like the.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This, the bridge of the nose, even the fat pads. When she's young, you can see where they're about to come in. And then now you can see that they really are where they work.

[Guest/Co-host]

It's. Yeah, it's definitely a 60% batch, but that of the 40, I don't know, this.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is one where it's like, if this comes out and throw it up

[Guest/Co-host]

one more time, Eric. People are like, can we get one more look?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, a hundred percent. This is not the same person. I'll be like, I mean, it does. There's like a big change. But if it came out, it was like, look, this is just how people's faces age. I wouldn't be super shocked. First of all, women tend to masculinize as they get older. As the estrogen dries up. It's a totally different story. So there's nothing here. That feels smoking gun to me, though. People are screaming that this quick yes

[Guest/Co-host]

or no in the chat. If you think it' it is the same person, yes. If you think it's not the same person, no. Just yes. No.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And my official vote is it's the same person. There's just no way. There's just no way. But, hey, I've had failures of imagination in the past.

[Guest/Co-host]

Okay, so while that's throwing in in the chat, I feel like, to your point, the Epstein thing's not going away. Final thoughts. Do you think that we'll get, like, something breakthrough or is the scanning guy that our hope now? Like, what do you think?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think the way that this plays out is the quote unquote deep state, the connective tissue of the government so big and strong that the way that this is going to play out is not going to be this really satisfying, so and so goes to prison kind of thing. They might pick one or two, like, fringe people and they go away so that everybody can point out and say, look, we dug in. These are the only people. Like, it is what it is. I know no one's ever going to be satisfied. No matter how much we release, nobody's going to be happy with it. And the way that it's actually experienced is a Flip in the midterms. And then Republicans have a very hard time winning in 2028. And so you'll feel it in the body politic. You won't be able to point and say, this was because of Epstein. And then the other thing is the, the way that the game is played in terms of how people communicate with each other and all that stuff that's going to change. Conspiracy theorists are up so big now that I think you're going to see that ramp up even more. Like, people like me who used to have a default, like, there's no way any of this is true. These are all kooks. I just can't write people off like that anymore. So now it's like, okay, well, I need to look at this now. Here's the bad news. I already find myself going something with say, 250,000 views or likes views. Not like, excuse me, views on X. If they're making a crazy claim. And I would have to go to the original source material and check, like, was this AI? Is this real? I'm already like, I'll look at it when it's got like 3 million views. Until then, I'm not even going to look. So, like, my thing of the obfuscation is already working because it just becomes too much work. There's just too many conspiracies out there. So I don't necessarily immediately write it off, but I'm also just like, bro, if it's not like Satan and they're actually summoning demons and we found like the bodies of children, it's gotta be over 3 million for me to, like, take it seriously. And so that numbing out is the big risk where it's like.

[Guest/Co-host]

But to that point, though, we've been trying to save this story, but it keeps bubbling it up. So I think we could jump into the Spain CEO thing. I know I'm calling a bit of an audible here, but it seems like on one side you have people that if something has 12 million views, it's true. And that's kind of the.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's dangerous.

[Guest/Co-host]

It has enough cult. It has. I'm just. There is a sect of people that's like, it has enough cultural energy. Whether it's true or not, we now have to talk about it. Bringing that idea into the stadium. It becomes. Some people are like, you know what? I do believe this. And whether it's 20%, 15%, whatever that line is. So now the president of Spain right now is coming in and saying, we have to now hold the tech companies accountable. For hate speech. Hopefully it's dissimilar with the immigrants thing. If you, if you shut down all the employers, people will stop hiring illegal immigrants. It can help the problem that way. So if I hold X accountable, X might do a better job moderating it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And be clear, X is the only one they care about. This is all about X. Yeah, because

[Guest/Co-host]

everybody else is bent the knee at one point in time. Yeah. So, but where is that line, though? Because I, I'm. I'm with you. I don't want 1984. I don't need a Ministry of Truth. But there has been some. We were just talking about Epstein face morphs. Like, there is something as a society we have to realize, like, okay, some ideas, not they're bad, but some ideas shouldn't just have this gravitational pull that they do. And how do we mitigate?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think it's a totally different stance on this. So the way that I look at this, if. If you want to move forward, well, in the world, you have to let people think for themselves. You have to let ideas be battled out in public. And the reality is that a lot of people are just not comfortable with ideas being battled in public. You have to let a slew of lies, a slew of bad information, all of it, get put out in the public sphere. And then between community notes, AI analysis, people chiming in that over time we come to a consensus after the dust is settled, after everybody has said what they need to say, after people have screamed from the rooftops that these things are good, and other people screaming these things are bad, that we go, okay, like, this is how I'm parsing out the information. Up until now, we have allowed the oligarchy, Remember, that just means rule by a few. We have let the oligarchy for thousands of years simply decide what is true and hand that to us. Now, there are huge advantages, advantages to that. And anybody that denies that there are advantages to that is a fool. So, hey, it creates some good things. The problem is it creates this ability to manipulate, to abuse, to extract from the populace. And we have just played that card so heavily, extracted so much, and people now have access to so much information that they're rebelling against all of this. And the I want one phrase to stick in everybody's mind every time you think about, do I allow myself to vote for the death of freedom of speech? Remember that there is a concept called mal information. Mal information is something that everyone knows is true, but we have decided, nah, it's bad for people to know that this is true. And so we are just going to pretend it doesn't exist and we are going to crush it down. Now, unless you're going to tell me that you don't think malinformation is real, at which point I have AI do a search for you and pull up the absolute avalanche of commentary from government officials about how you cannot allow malinformation to erode the structures of democracy. I, I can't help you. Like, if you're in that bucket, we're in real trouble. It exists, it is talked about, it is embraced by the political class. And the political class wants to control what you have access to, even when it's true. That, to me is a red line. It's a hard stop. It's an I will not cross, do not enter zone. You, you can't allow people to say this thing is too upsetting and so therefore it is unknowable. You. For my money, that's an absolute hard pass. So the reason that I am so opposed to government censorship is because they're so fucking arrogant that they believe that they ought to be able to decide what true information you have access to. Also, they're so arrogant, they believe they know what's true. Look at these fucking idiots on what they've told us to eat. It is so crazy. And even in the face of us getting fatter and sicker, they just kept telling us we know best, we know best, we know best. Not only do they not know best, there's all kinds of economic incentives that further complicate things. The only way is to run the scientific method and you let ideas battle it out for predictive validity. Which idea has the most predictive validity? If an idea predicts the world that we see more accurately, and as we align ourselves with that idea, we get more and more things right, then that idea wins. And the ideas that have the lowest predictive validity can fuck right off. And then we have to remember that the vast majority of the things that we interact with in the world are simply perception and they are not ground level truth. That's why science is constantly updating. We can get close, but the odds that we're all the way to like, actually mathematically true are very, very low.

[Guest/Co-host]

All right, let me, let me, I got to poke a couple of holes in there, please. So there's two things I want to parse out. So, for one, the Spanish PM Sanchez, this is what he was proposing. That execs are personally liable for platform violations. Algorithmic implication amplification of illegal content is criminal. Hate and polarization tracking systems are introduced, social media banned for under 16s and prosecutors to act against Grok, TikTok and Instagram. So is that overreach? Yes. So I can put that on one side and say two out of these three things. Two out of these five things I like. The rest can, you know, suck it. On the other hand, though, a country needs to share a narrative. A country needs to believe a certain thing. A country needs to have one method of ideology. We have seen even now in the Trump administration, if you were to criticize Israel, you can now get deported. If you were having certain views that were against the government, you are now getting persecuted for those views, whether it's your visa being revoked, whether it's you get expelled from school, all these other things. So on one hand, yes, social media should be this free place, but we are seeing these assaults on free speech from the government when it becomes town to. No, but that's different because that's our social construct. Or that's different because that's our society narrative. You can't talk bad about that. So where is that line from mal information about Epstein to malinformation about the origin of the United States?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's the right question. And so, first of all, as a general guiding principle, I think you want people to walk right up to the line of absolutely outrageous and damaging long before you get involved. And so we do have safeguards around free speech, but they are very, very light touch, and they should remain light touch. Now, because you brought up something that's very difficult and I always like to face the most difficult question. The thing that's hard for me is at impact theory we have something called principles. This is an idea that we got from Ray Dalio. They turned it into software and it allows us to tell each other whatever we need to tell each other in documented form. I don't believe in anonymous feedback. People should own what the fuck they have to say. But people can and should say, I think you're doing this well, I think you're doing this poorly, whatever. And it's just data and it helps us understand what each of us is good at and what we're not good at. And there's one thing, though, that the company's never going to take a vote on, and that's whether we should do that or not. And so on the line of should people be able to say whatever they think is true, I'm a dictator. So while I invite people to tell me more than anybody, it's important that people Tell me what I'm doing wrong. And the reason for that is skills have utility. And if I'm doing something wrong, I can drive the company into the ground. And hopefully I've surrounded myself with a bunch of smart people that are going to see things I don't see and they'll be able to help me course correct. And then we get on the right path. Because I'm not. I'm arrogant in a million ways. None of them have to do with me thinking I'm always right. None of them having to do with, I think I don't have blind spots. I think I have tremendous blind spots.

[Guest/Co-host]

Spots.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I'm always like trying to get that feedback. So I am an absolute ruthless dictator. If somebody were to criticize the use of principles, to say that people ought to keep quiet, whatever, they're my subordinate, they shouldn't be able to say anything to me, whatever, whatever, whatever. That person will not last long here. And so now it's like, how is that not a violation? So let's put this into immigration. So you've got somebody here on a student visa and they start talking about America, talking shit about Israel. That one is gets weirder because it's not America. So let's keep it to they're talking shit about America. So you have a non citizen trying to get people riled up about getting rid of foundational freedoms. Let's say, yeah, that person's got to go. So they are going after the core foundation, upon which I think we have to say, no, this one's sacred. So this is not a country with no sacred cows. We have sacred cows. And if you come after them, then if you're not a citizen, to me, rules apply very differently to a citizen than a non citizen. That's my take. So if you're a citizen and you want to say, hey, we should be communist, okay, cool. You should be able to do that if you're a citizen. You want to be Marxist, you're a citizen. You want to shut down free speech? Yep. Cool, go for it. You're a non citizen. You got to get the fuck out. Stick around. We'll be right back after this.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. That's where I break the line.

[Guest/Co-host]

And then, for example, this is actually Sequoia Hall's super chat that's on this topic. I don't know if you want to read that one out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I got you here. Super chat from Sequoia Hall, Google, Apple, Meta, et cetera. All gave detailed info on anti ICE accounts to the Trump admin. It's like if they gave all the info on anti lockdown activists to the feds, except flipped the death of democracy at work.

[Guest/Co-host]

So on the flip side of that, we're seeing is that a violation of free speech then? Because I might have. I'm an American citizen, I'm here. I didn't march, I didn't protest. But if I said I think ICE is bad or ICE is supposed to be coming to this community, everybody be prepared. Is is that protected by free speech? And that's where I think you should

[Tom Bilyeu]

be able to say it. And if you haven't broken the law, then nothing should happen to you. Now we as a society have to dec what we want law enforcement to have access to. And if we said we do not want them to have access to who said what, what the tone is of something, I would vote for that. I'm all for it. However, if you don't think that the government can, will and is crawling the open Internet, you are a full retard. That is so crazy. Everything that you put out into the world, if it hits public airwaves anywhere, like bro AI is crunching that. And I don't know how many Snowdens have to be relegated to Russia before people realize like, yo, you've got to start voting differently if you want, like something else. Because right now it is my understanding that the government can and does knowingly spy on basically everything that you put out there. Now I'm all for voting that down. Let's go. This is also why I don't want CBDCs. I don't want them to have knowledge or control over how I spend my money. If I violate the law, then they should have to go about proving it just as they would anything else. Anyway, that's my take on that. So I don't want to see it. But if we know that it's happening, act accordingly. And do I consider it a violation of free speech only if they stop you from doing it, that they are monitoring it?

[Guest/Co-host]

I expect gotcha okay, I'm a bit conflicted on this because I think when we talk about free speech, it seems like it's selective based on whichever political party is trying to protect whatever they want to be, whatever they want to be said. Because there was a point in time where during the lockdowns, anybody who critiqued the lockdowns, critiqued Anthony Fauci, was a terrible person, and they wanted him to get locked up, and everybody was bad. And then the Charlie Kirk thing happened. And anybody who said Charlie, like, didn't say, I feel bad for him and his family. You are part of the problem. You need to get, like, the other. So it seems like the pendulum just kind of swings depending on what the topic is and things like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That makes me want to flip the table over. What are they doing? When people started acting just like every aggressively censorious person on the left, but now it was coming from the right at when Charlie Kirk, what the fuck are you doing? Like, that was so stupid, and they undermined all of their credibility. And it reminds me of the thing that Chappelle said. Everything's funny until it happens to you. And it's like, everything's fine with free speech until you say something I don't like, and now I want to clamp it down. It's like, bro, it. It is literally find the speech you find most offensive. Fight for that. Fight for that. Like, when the. I think it was the end, was it the Anti Defamation League? Maybe it was one of, like, the big, like, groups that fought for the. The kkk. It was either neo Nazis or the KKK to march through Neo Nazis. Thank you. The adl. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. So they fought for the neo Nazis right to march through a neighborhood in, like, Wisconsin or something that was full of Holocaust survivors. They fought for the right. For them to do that, that's free speech, and it's gross. I hate that they did that. But at the same time, welcome to America.

[Guest/Co-host]

All right, one more audible, because this is something that's been bubbling up over this week. We haven't pulled anything of it because it's still, like, just talk right now. But the gerrymandering conversations are really ramping up right now. So Texas announced that they were going to gerrymander two districts. California responded. A Virginia governor, Democratic governor was just elected in Virginia. So now they're flipping Virginia, and the Republicans just lost another two seats there. And now Republicans are saying Democrats are going too crazy with the gerrymandering. We need to stop gerrymandering. So it's the same thing with the free speech, that when one side does it, it's okay because we're right. And then when the other side gets into power and they start doing it. No, that's not how you're supposed to play the game. And then it starts coming like this back and forth. Like, is there a solution for this? Tick, tick for tat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Like, there is, but it is going to require such a long process. Okay, I'll give you Pollyanna, and I'll give you, like, the Death Star. Which do you want first?

[Guest/Co-host]

Let's go, Pollyanna. Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Pollyanna is the fact that voices can come on social media, like we are doing right now, and lay out a vision for our future. I don't have to ask anybody's permission. I can say whatever I believe to be true. You can say whatever you believe to be true. There are countless shows and more coming online every day where people believe the things they or saying the things that they believe to be true. And many of them will take a very optimistic tack. And if we can get culture moving in that direction, you get a shift. Where songs are written about a wonderful future, where movies are told about a wonderful future, where video games are told about a wonderful future. All of that stuff, it. It really will, over time, begin to sway culture. It's hard to get that, like, that first thing going. But if you can get somebody who young people really consider to be cool, and then you raise them in an economically positive environment, this is always going to start with economics. So you get the economy humming again. You get people like in the 80s where kids just want to party. And so there's optimism, there's hope. My future is going to be amazing. Like, it's that good time then spreads through music and all that. So the short is fix the debt problem, stop inflating people's savings away, reduce the number of people that need to be in the casino gambling on stocks and stuff, and you'll get there, and people really will feel hopeful and optimistic, and it'll be incredible. And Elon is certainly doing a lot of things. Taking us to the moon, potentially taking us to Mars, building rockets that can land themselves. I mean, it's really incredible. Also going to being in the middle of a cold war with China and having an adversary that we can all point to and say, we've got to outperform them, have a worthy rival. Talked about his rival in mathematics, and they had all this respect for each other, but at the same time, like when they were alone and they were like doing their thing and they were, you know, working more hours than the average person. They were thinking about the other person. They wanted to beat them. And that made them better mathematicians. And I love that. And I think that that's how life should be. I think companies should compete with other companies, people should compete with other people. Like it's, but in a joyful way. Not where you like want to sabotage them and see their building get knocked down. Where you would legitimately be sad if something bad happened to them. If one of their, you know, think of football. I'm not interested in cheering for a team or being at somebody's party where they're stoked that the other person's best player got injured. Like if you're Charles Barkley and you're going up against Michael Jordan, wow, this dates me. You certainly don't wish for Michael Jordan to sprain his ankle. Like that's crazy. You want to find out if you can beat him at his peak or not. And this is why everybody should watch one piece. ODA somehow is just morally so fucking accurate. And so in that story you see this all the time. I don't want to beat a weakened opponent. I want you full strength. And if I lose, I lose. But I want you at full strength. And that's the only way that there's honor in it.

[Guest/Co-host]

Cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's the Pollyanna version. If we can get that to catch fire, turn the economy around, get people like locked in there. Word now the Death Star.

[Guest/Co-host]

I was about to say, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

History tells you you've got a 75% chance of going to war with China, that deglobalization is going to be brutal, that the immigration problem we've already let go too far, that you've raised for sure millennials and Gen Z to be self loathing Americans, self loathing Europeans. And so now the damage is done. And between that and debt, there's just no way to back out of the death spiral. They will go into what's known as the Great taking. And this is what you see happening in the Netherlands, this is what you see being attempted in California. And I think you're going to see, you see it York, you're going to see this escalating where they attempt to tax the life out of people rather than trim the budgets only to find out Laffer's Curve is real. And not only will people leave, but if you don't let them leave, they'll stop producing. And so then your only hope is to confiscate their wealth, not their Revenue. And when you start confiscating wealth, you suddenly realize, oh, this is actually destructive to the tax base again, because people will leave. But also because now you're put in a position where you're trying to sell things that won't sell at that value because everybody's trying to sell into that because it's the only way to actually pay for the thing. Because people fundamentally misunderstand wealth versus revenue or actual money in the bank. And so you further, like, speed up the decline. And this is like classic late stage empire. You throw the borders open, people flood in. In the, in step one, it looks like the immigrants are a win for the economy. And then over time, you realize that it's a massive drag. And so I, I have a video, a deep dive coming on this tomorrow. Watch it on immigration. I have no doubt people are going to say that I'm racist. It's not that I go into the details, so check it out. But it always looks on the surface, sort of step one, ooh, immigration is good. Let's cheer for it. Once you realize skilled immigration is good, very good for the economy, unskilled immigration is horrific. And so in like the early stage, you might get a bump because you're getting labor done very cheaply. And then over time, they become a massive draw on the system. So anyway, if you escalate to war at a time where your economy's trash and you're doing the great taking, then so many people die that they just break emotionally and they say, wipe out all the debt. I don't care anymore. I just want to stop fighting you, then wipe out the debt. And people are so fatigued from all of the combat that everyone's just like, I just want to raise kids and be left alone. And then historically, you get this period of things sort of settle down, you lose a generation or two to people sort of clearing the cobwebs. Because people don't come out of a war ambitious when they've lost it. They don't come out of war ambitious when all of their debt just poof, went away. Because they're like, wait, I worked for 30 years only to have it wiped out with a stroke of a pen. No, no, no. And so they tap out. And it's not until like their kids or their kids, kids finally come of age, don't have any memory of that. Like, I'm the child of a child of the war, right? So my grandparents went to war. My parents were born the boomer generation. They didn't know war. They only knew the, like, jubilant times that came after that. And then I didn't know anything other than, like, the 80s were booming, so even the 70s, like, sort of, ooh, is this all real hyperinflation? All that wasn't born yet and so. Or wasn't old enough to be cognizant. And so by the time I come online, Reagan has fixed a lot of these problems. The economy is booming. People are getting back on track. And so my youth was very hopeful, very optimistic. And this sense just pervaded the culture that we could do anything. But it. That's even like on the. That's on the back of winning and being in the country that wasn't touched the way that it normally happens. Look at Europe, just so fucking devastated. So anyway, that's the Death Star version.

[Guest/Co-host]

You referenced the great taking a couple times, so I want to jump into that. This is from Ursula Vonder Lane. She's one of the members of the EU Commission. Europe has it needs. Europe has all it needs to take the lead in the competitiveness race. This month, the EU Commission will unveil the EU Savings and Investment Union. We'll turn private savings into much needed investment, and we'll work with our institutional partners to get it off the ground.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I need more details on this tweet. She's said things that make me think that this really is in that spirit. But to be fair, in that tweet, it all comes down to whether she's going to incentivize people that have their private savings held in a way that she doesn't think is investing in the government and their plans enough, or is she going to force through tax. If she's going to force through tax bad, and it will backfire in her face if she's going to find a way to incentivize people where they hey, bigger risk, but bigger, bigger potential reward. And the government is against my advice, but the government's going to get involved in actually building private sector partnerships. That kind of like what Trump is doing. Also against my advice. That's better. So I would rather see them deregulate because they are an absolute joke. Europe is a joke. Like, they have choked innovation out. Europe is going to look very different. If Russia, dude, if Russia takes Ukraine, it is a different world overnight because those guys, I watched a Peter Zeihan video. Even if he's wrong, significantly, even being directionally correct would be transformative. So Trump has been pushing them to spend 3 to 5% of their GDP on defense. And Zeihan's thing is. Oh, no, no, no. If they're going to try to build these institutions from scratch to protect themselves from a hot war that's already in Europe, essentially between Russia and Ukraine. He's like, they could be spending 20 or 30% of their GDP on defense. And that is a totally different ball game. That's. Yeah, sorry, we don't do public health care anymore. Like, it's just you don't have the dollars because you are the Euros. You will have to print at a level that's like pure insanity.

[Guest/Co-host]

No, that's a really good point. People don't talk about that for World War II, that the government was incentivizing Ford and all these places to make tanks and everybody wants to high five that. But people forget there were bread lines, there were rationing of food. Like, you couldn't just go to the grocery store and buy stuff. Like, everybody had allocations and stuff like that. So there's the other side of the let's get together for the war effort. Like, yeah, women started getting into the manufacturing. But, like, they had to. It wasn't like, I want to do this for. It wasn't a patriotic kind of urgent.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. And you only have Moana woke Snow White because of World War II. Like, when you read the story of how Disney actually survived, it was. I hate that this is true because I have so much admiration for him. But it was doing war cartoons and to get the public to basically buy bonds so to loan the government money and then union busting. That's how I got it done.

[Guest/Co-host]

And that's how Disney came. And that's how you got the Avengers, literally. You're welcome.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Welcome. Bonjour.

[Guest/Co-host]

But there is this shared narrative now with the California billionaire tax. I think we said 2 trillion, 12 trillion. I forgot what the number was, but a bunch of trillions left. Then we had the unrealized gains tax in the Netherlands. Now the EU is talking about this. I'm going to be honest. When I first read this, I looked at it as fractional reserve for a bank instead of every savings institution. Now a portion will have to go into government bonds required or something like that. And you can't just sell it to mortgage other people. And the bank can't just eat that profit. I lean on that way. But either way, governments are getting more comfortable deciding how you spend your money. And that seems like that's not just something that's happening in America, but globally.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's wild. Hey, we're historically the institution that has proven we are the Worst with money literally ever in the history of the world. And guess who you should put in charge of the money and how it's spent? Us. That is the wildest shit ever. And what really worries me is that young people are going to be like, yeah, that's rad. Because capitalism sucks. Not realizing that they've not lived under capitalism. And so they are confusing this K shaped monstrosity born of debt and money printing for actual capitalism. And so they're turning on something, but they're turning on the wrong thing. And so the very people, the government that brought you the K shaped economy are the people that have put you in this situation and now you're going to let them decide how you spend money. It. That's so crazy. People should have to watch. Every morning when they wake up, they should have to watch the Biden financial advisor describing modern monetary theory. That is the wildest shit you're ever going to see in your life. And just remember that was the guy speaking in the ear of a senile president. Yo, yo. That is crazy.

[Guest/Co-host]

Or they should watch Impact Theory's compelling interview with Arthur Laffer, the creator of the Laffer Curve also who also explains how our debt and how the tax policy has evolved through the different years and stuff like that as well.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Not nearly as darkly hilarious though.

[Guest/Co-host]

Arthur Laffer was hilarious. I liked it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He's fun.

[Guest/Co-host]

He's my grandpa now. He doesn't know that he just adopted me. Okay. This is why young people are mad though. Because a Pokemon card just sold for $16 million.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's crazy.

[Guest/Co-host]

I like. That's the headline. This is not cheeky. This is not funny. This is not me trolling you guys. A Pokemon card just sold for $16.4 million. $492,000.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Geez, you gotta back that up. Let people hear the whole number.

[Guest/Co-host]

Logan, Paul, you get it. Ken Golden.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. Tonight you sold the PSA 10 Pikachu

[Guest/Co-host]

Illustrator card for $16,492,000.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, pause it for a sec. This is not good news.

[Guest/Co-host]

Nope.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So setting aside all the stuff about the. I think he's. I don't know if he's being sued or. People just think he should be sued because this was all part of like some like fractional ownership thing. And then he bought it back. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know the details on that, but there's drama on that side. But I'm saying, even like setting that aside, there is when the economy is getting like ultra risk on because money is just like, I'M being printed into oblivion. I've gotta find something in the market that isn't overvalued and it just starts cascading out of like traditional places into like more and more risky stuff. When you get to a Pokemon card, which by the way, I am an avid collector, not a Pokemon, but of one piece, you may be shocked to hear cards, but I don't do it for the monetary value. That's a whole nother thing. But dude, it's like the extreme edges of risk. And so when you, when you get to this point, it's like, man, this is an alarm bell. This is not a good sign.

[Guest/Co-host]

This reminds me of the banned three letter word that we're not allowed to say that was going on during the pandemic. Or three, three letter abbreviation when people are selling JPEGs for millions of dollars online.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, oh, NFTs.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So here's the fascinating thing about NFTs is that is not a collector phenomenon, that's an investor phenomenon. It's like a derivative. It was just something for people to trade. But what's utterly fascinating about all of this stuff is what you're seeing is as you get out of the generations ahead of you, so boomers have their frame of reference, Gen X has their frame of reference. You start getting into millennials and it just becomes a really different frame of reference. So they've been in this really dark place from an economic standpoint, they wouldn't have been able to explain it, but a K shaped economy based on debt and money printing. So that's going on forever and ever and ever. And then when meme stocks like went crazy and NFTs went crazy, I could not have read that situation any more wrong. I end up being on the side of like, oh, this is a collector phenomenon. Because I'm a collector. So I've bought cards my whole life. I've literally never sold one. I couldn't tell you how much I have in cards. So it is like once you realize you get people doing exotic trades and like derivatives futures, like stuff that I do not even understand that you can make money on the economy going down, it's like, what? So we have. The average person doesn't understand the basic market, let alone like the really advanced exotic market. And so as you start getting into these like outer edges, that's why NFTs attracted like people that understand like derivatives trading and all that. They were riding cultural waves. And so it was this bizarre like atoms colliding of artists who were like, oh my God, I'M finally going to be able to make a living with my art. And I'm saying derivatives traders, I just mean people that understand exotic investing at a time where we were so far out on the risk curve, it was wild. This is literally exactly that. But it's coming back obviously. NFTs from a reputation standpoint, dead and gone. But like this is the same thing. And you'll see another thing like that Poly market Kalsheet, it is the same thing. It is people who have lived in a K shaped economy finding ultra high risk but fun, entertaining, like cultural things to bet on. So yeah, you can expect this thing to raise its head over and over and over and over and over throughout history for sure.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah. And then this also goes into the quick rise of retail investors. You have a read on this, right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Of retail investors.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do we have one on this? Do we not check the bottom?

[Guest/Co-host]

I remember you said you thought you, you said you, you had.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm so sorry.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I was gonna say, wait, I remember doing something on this.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right. So yeah, what. Everything that's going on here is, this is unprecedented. It is very important that you understand what's going on because when you get the kind of massive retailer investor flood that we've seen into the markets over the last three or four weeks, like this is alarm bell city. We've had retail investors, everyday people trading from their phones. I mean just this is like the average people that, you know, they have been pouring money into the US equities at a pace that nobody on Wall street for sure expected. The numbers are insane. It's a 53% jump from 2024's 197 billion. It's a 17% jump from the previous all time peak that was set during the 2021 meme stock frenzy. January of 2026 ran 50% above even that record breaking pace. So if you guys don't know Citadel securities, the guy from there, Scott Rubner, he reported that In January of 26 we saw the highest retail net stock inflow ever recorded for a January. It topped the 350 million in daily net buying. Previously options inflows also hit an all time high above 300 million. Rubner called January's retail activity exceptional and I think that that is an understatement. The question is, is this a good thing and why did it happen so suddenly? Now is it a good thing? Yes, it's good because you want people in the market. It's bad because the market is a casino. And I have a feeling that people are not being careful with investment dollars. So I'm both like, oh my God, people are finally getting it. And I'm terrified that they're all going to get obliterated because they are gambling on the high risk stuff instead of playing a very long term game. And the difference between the two is going to be dramatic. Now the best analysis that I've seen in terms of what is going on, why this happened right now, came from Citadel's Q1 outlook and JP Morgan's quantitative team. They're both pointing at the same convergence of factors. So first you've got retail investors having made a fortune in 2025. I said that a bunch 2025 was very good for anybody with assets. Citadel estimates that retail traders earn more than $20 billion in options profits on their platform alone over the course of the year. Okay. And that capital didn't leave, just rolled right back in. Second, household wealth hit all time highs across every income bracket heading into 2026, meaning there was more balance sheet capacity to deploy than at any point in modern market history. So people just flush with cash, they were already investors. Third, money market fund assets entered January at record levels. $7.6 trillion sitting in cash. And in the second week of January, money market saw their largest weekly outflow since Liberation day last April. So that's a bunch of sideline cash flooding back into these risk on assets. That's what I'm saying. Like understand what's really happening. People are chasing returns and they're getting more and more confident, which is crazy. The market is so skittish right now, but they're going way out on the risk curve. Now no one should take investing advice from me, but I will just tell you that one scares me. Being that far out on the the risk curve if you don't know what you're doing and if you don't have just an ironclad deal with yourself that you won't risk more than you're able to lose. I think we're gonna see that kind of meme stock crash where a bunch of people just get wiped out because they're yoloing. All right, the fourth element, that's meaning this is all happening right now. Dip buying has become the dominant retail strategy. Now if you're being strategic about it and it's just hey, there's 10% of my weekly salary that I just dollar cost average in great long term thinking hopefully applies. Diversifying risk hopefully applies. But not sure that that's happening now. Anyway, The Dow fell 900 points on Terrafiers. People just went crazy and bought it up. Love it. Dip, dip, dip. Give it to me. All day. The software sector went into a bear market after AI disruption fears. Retail piled into Microsoft Palantir Applovin at discount prices, just gobbling up any discount that they can get. JP Morgan noted that one single dip buying session saw retail flows hit the the third largest trading day of the entire past year. Retail investors now account for roughly 20 to 25% of total daily US equity trading volume. That's wild. With spikes as high as 35% during like really volatile sessions. At that level of participation, retail is becoming the main stage, boys and girls. It is a major like market force that moves markets. As Citadel put it, retail is no longer marginal to market outcomes. They're the driver. So the irony is that while hedge fund managers and pension fund allocators have been quietly trimming positions and warning about bubbles and stretched valuations, everyday investors have been buying every dip and getting rewarded for it. Now this is one of those just be thoughtful everybody. I cannot see the future. So I don't want to talk you out of something. You might make money. And I sit here and I just weep that I was not as bold as you. But there's a reason that the average retail investor is known to sophisticated investors as dumb money or exit liquidity. So please be careful out there. Think long term, diversify risk. I know none of that is sexy, but Lord knows I hope when all of this plays out that you guys are way better off coming out than you were going in. But you have to be very careful, very careful.

[Guest/Co-host]

Where do you think that money's coming from? Because we're seeing, you know, bitcoin has been struggling the last couple months. Is it people are just kind of,

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, so the, the four factors were people had money sitting in treasuries and they're like, ah, this is not really returning anything. Plus Trump is like on a non stop barrage to get them to lower rates. I want to get out. I want better return. Somehow people are convincing themselves that things are like, better than ever. And it's wild to see like no matter how many times like the professional investors scream from the rooftops, you've got to be careful. Like we are almost certainly in bubble territory and so at some point the bubble is going to burst. It's always right at that end. Everybody feels most euphoric. That's why, like looking at the Pokemon card, I'm like, as a card collector, hey, this is so Exciting. And there's so much content. Everybody's having a ball. And at the same time, I'm like, euphoria is the thing that needs to scare you you the most. Because there is no only up phenomenon. I. I will never rat this person out, but somebody that I know and think is just very smart actually said out loud on camera, this was back in, like, 21 or something. Maybe this time really is different, and maybe the world's so interconnected that it will only go up from here. And I thought, ooh, Every time I say the words maybe this time is different, I'm like. Like, every alarm bell I have goes off in my head. So humans tend not to be different boys and girls. So the closest thing to maybe this time is different, say AI. That's the only thing where I'm like, well, this is a unique technology that really may make things just radically alter. But it's like, I'm not investing for that future personally. Again, be careful. Don't just blindly take advice from me. But I am. I'm investing for the now with an eye towards when the now starts being the past and the future starts being the present. But I'm not just like, oh, it's gonna happen for sure. We don't see the future clearly, boys and girls. Don't let the world overwhelm you. Take it one piece at a time. Act in accordance with today, not just what's going to be in the future. That will serve you very well. Keep your eyes open for the change. Be the first to adapt. Um, don't paralyze yourself with how rapidly this is all changing. Do yourself a favor and watch the Marco Rubio speech in full. It really is awesome. All right, love you guys. And we will see you on Wednesday. Peace. Oh, watch the deep dive coming out tomorrow on Immigration. Watch it. Love you.

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