Trump's Movie Tariffs, Buffett's Retirement, and Elon's New City

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Scott Galloway: PBS, libraries, I mean, what's next? You're going to some interpretive dance with Alan Alda? You literally could not be more woke.

Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: So I've just returned from my grand tour of California.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you're back already.

Kara Swisher: I'm back. I took a red eye last night just to get home for you so I could be in the studio and look really nice.

Scott Galloway: You're a child. Like, too much. That worries me.

Kara Swisher: And you received a Library Laureate Award and you were on Bill Maher. Which do you want to talk about first?

Scott Galloway: Oh, so many things. I saw Robert Reich. I did something for KQED for public media, which I was interviewed by PBS people. And right in the middle of my interview, Trump put out his executive order trying to cut funding for PBS and NPR. That was interesting. I then flew to Los Angeles and did Bill Maher, which was really fun. And I gave you a shout out. Did you hear me give you a shout out?

Kara Swisher: No, but a bunch of people texted me that you name-checked me. I watched the episode. I thought you were really good. Also, I thought Speaker McCarthy was quite good, and I thought Bill did a really good job of kind of—

Scott Galloway: Yeah, except for the woke woman thing at the end.

Kara Swisher: The woke woman thing at the end.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you mean the fact that— No, I don't want to talk about it. I made a face, and everybody noticed.

Kara Swisher: Oh, okay. It was stupid. He keeps going on about this woman on *Love is Blind*. He's obsessed with her because she rejected the man. He just didn't like him. So let's listen to me calling you out.

[Audio clip plays]

Scott Galloway: It's the idea that you're the madman theory, this idea that he's playing, I know, the 4D chess thing. I mean, as Scott Galloway on our podcast said, it's like he's not playing 4D chess. He's eating the chess pieces. And he's just a good joke. I have to attribute it to Scott. But there's no point in being chaotic because businesses can't plan. They don't know what to do next.

Kara Swisher: Even Kevin McCarthy did enjoy that one, eating the chess pieces. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

Scott Galloway: No problem. He's got a good laugh. The most important thing is you look good.

Kara Swisher: Thank you. I know you said that. What about what I said? What about the substance of what I said? I thought you threaded the needle really well. You're able to push back, but also come across as good-willed. You're not trying to make the other person look stupid. You're just saying exactly what you think, but you're not doing it in a – that's a skill. I don't have that skill. I get angry and combative.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And it was good-natured. I was actually surprised at the upside by the speaker, or Speaker Emeritus, and I thought he did a good job. I did not understand the Cheech and Chong episode.

Kara Swisher: Cheech and Chong, although they were lovely. They're fans of Pivot, just so you know. Then they smoked afterwards, as you might imagine.

Scott Galloway: Oh, did they?

Kara Swisher: It would have been quite comfortable. Yeah, out on the, you know, it's California. And they're nice guys. Lovely, lovely. There's a lot of tension between Cheech and Chong, I would say.

Scott Galloway: Really?

Kara Swisher: Especially with Chong. Chong seems mad at Cheech sometimes.

Scott Galloway: Oh, really?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Cheech is sort of younger-seeming and more seemingly in charge. I can't tell. It's like being together as a professional couple.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: But it was good. It was really fun. And then I went up to the San Francisco Public Library again in my theme of public stuff and got the book laureate, which was lovely.

Scott Galloway: What does that mean, though? I don't...

Kara Swisher: I'm a laureate, Scott.

Scott Galloway: So wait, insulting billionaires is now literature? What does that mean?

Kara Swisher: Yes, yes, that is correct. They love me there in San Francisco for insulting billionaires. Yes, in a beautiful way, in a beautiful, laureatious way.

Scott Galloway: PBS, libraries. I mean, what's next? You're going to some interpretive dance with Alan Alda? You literally could not be more woke.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I love Alan Alda. Did you see the Four Seasons? They redid the Four Seasons with Tina Fey and a whole bunch of people. And Alan Alda had a parent who was delightful.

Scott Galloway: Actually, the last time I was in a library, I took my girlfriend in college to show her that my dick was in the Guinness Book of World Records. And then the librarian made me take it out.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway: Although I have to say, I haven't been in a library in a very long time. That happens to be a gorgeous library. But being in the stacks gave me the feels, you know, hanging around in the stacks and sort of, you know, I don't know. I just have a lot of memories of the stacks.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: I asked the librarian if she had a book about men with small penises. And she said, "Well, it's not in yet." And I'm like, "That's the one." That's the one.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. Why do you have library jokes? One thing I have to say, a lot of people did stop me throughout California loving Scott and Kara. I have to say that was really nice. And saying we make them feel better in this very difficult time. There's a lot of angst among people, and we calm their angst down.

Scott Galloway: I suggested Cheech and Chong for that. I tried to check out a book on suicide, and they said, "No, they were worried I wouldn't return it."

Kara Swisher: That's wrong. That's just wrong.

Scott Galloway: That's wrong.

Kara Swisher: Oh, don't. That's just wrong. There's no good suicide library jokes. That's wrong, as usual. Anyway, it was lovely. It was a lovely visit to California.

Scott Galloway: Did you go to any cool restaurants with cool hot people in LA?

Kara Swisher: No, but I stayed at the Edition Hotel briefly.

Scott Galloway: Oh, what'd you think of that? I keep thinking that I might stay there.

Kara Swisher: I think it's too young for us.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I was like, what is happening? It has all those sharp edges. I'm already gonna cut myself and bleed out on the floor. Very sterile. And there was a lot of like, succulents. Actually, there's only one succulent. They were even chintzy with the succulents, like you can only have one succulent. I like succulents. But anyway, I like to say the word succulent. Anyway, it was lovely. But now I'm back in D.C.

Scott Galloway: Congratulations on your library laureate award.

Kara Swisher: Library laureate. Book laureate is the technical term. And you can call me laureate from now on. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Warren Buffett's surprise announcement. Elon getting his own city and whatever the fuck President Trump is up to. He's done a big public. He's all over the place with all kinds of wacky announcements and some of them disturbing. First of all, the president, all presidents swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. They say it right when they get sworn in. But Donald Trump was rethinking that promise on *Meet the Press* this weekend. It was a very wide-ranging interview with Kristen Welker. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: "But even given those numbers that you're talking about, don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president? I don't know. I have to respond by saying again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me. I don't know what he was saying."]

Kara Swisher: It came during a conversation about deportations. I don't know if he was referring to the deportations of the Constitution. It wasn't clear to me, actually. Also notable from the interview, the president continued to blame former President Biden for the bad parts of the economy. And of course, he took credit for the good parts. He did not rule out the use of military force to take Greenland again, said he would add and self-fund a ballroom to the White House. I'm terrified of the gold situation. And he, of course, let us know that, quote, "Everything's OK," unquote. Some other fun things the president has done recently includes posting "Rebuild and Open Alcatraz" on Truth Social. And the president posted an AI image of himself as pope on the official White House account, and reposted it again on Instagram. Many Catholics, including Catholic bishops and cardinals, made comments. He's had quite a week. Any thoughts on any of these things?

Scott Galloway: Well, I sort of go to, I'm sort of done with this. This is a guy who is interested or acknowledges that he's quite likely has no fidelity to the Constitution, that he might try to run for a third term, that he's using military force against our allies, that he doesn't stand on his own two feet. He finds he takes responsibility for deporting U.S. citizens to what are effectively black sites and then claims that he can't get them back. So lack of accountability. But then says he can. He wanted to. Well, but every time he's faced with a hard question like, "Will you uphold the Constitution?" He says, "Well, you need to talk to the lawyers." I'm sort of at the point now where I'm no longer... we know this is a person who's a stain on the American experience. The thing that I find so fascinating and we're not focused enough on in terms of being this force that's supposedly pushing back is that Democrats are less popular than the president. And I think the hard conversation we need to have is, okay, we all agree he's awful and a threat to America and it's taking the global economy down. And yet our leadership is so feckless, neutered, and ineffective, they can't... And so what I would like to see is Leader Jeffries or Senator Bennett or someone who's, you know, Senators Klobuchar, I'd like to see them draft legislation that says, "If you're a nation and you're hosting black sites and U.S. citizens have been found to be incarcerated in those black sites and you haven't returned them immediately and you're cooperating with this, we are going to economically punish you severely. Clearly, if you're a nation that is engaging in fraud around cryptocurrency or investing in schemes that ultimately hurt consumers around the world, we may levy the same economic damage." That bill would not pass. But I think we need to send a flare across the bow that if we take back the House, this is coming. So enough already. What are we going to do about it? I'm kind of sick of reporting about how outrageous the president is. I want to see the Democrats do something.

Kara Swisher: Some people are individually like Rahm Emanuel. There's a bunch that are sort of saying to get some muscle in this. It's just not a coordinated effort.

Scott Galloway: Well, and also, shouldn't there essentially be legislation or a lawsuit filed that says the statute of limitations on some of the crimes I believe are being committed are longer than three years and nine months? And the justice system, similar to America, its memory is long and its reach is far. And for those of you Republicans who think that or members of the administration or proxies of the administration who believe that you can commit securities fraud or wrongful imprisonment, whatever you want to call this, God help you when there's an actual DOJ. Because, you know what, I think at some point the Democratic Party needs to be the party of not fucking around. And I think we're just being run over. And it's not, our popularity is lower than an insurrectionist right now. Not because we don't have the right ideas, not because he's bad, but we're seeing it's just so fucking weak. People would rather have, and I'm not saying this is the right thing, Americans have decided they'd rather have an autocrat than a weak party.

Kara Swisher: Well, it sounds like they don't want any of us, really. That's the fair point. Yeah. You know, I was thinking as I flew in the red eye last night, and I was thinking, he'll pardon him. He was a part of the interview. He said he was sort of pushing it. He was noting Rubio and J.D. Vance as the possible next presidents as Republican presidential candidates and not himself. But I was thinking he'll pardon himself on the last day for everything.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no, he's going to pardon hundreds of people, but there needs to also be. He's going to pardon himself. That's who he's going to pardon. So he doesn't have to face this stuff.

Kara Swisher: I just think we need to come up with creative ways and indicate that you want to talk about executive orders. You want to talk about a DOJ. You want to talk about, I mean, I just, we're sitting around just outraged.

Scott Galloway: I agree. Like the Alcatraz thing. You know what our response has been? The most ridiculous thing I've seen all year is when asked how they were pushing back, Senate leader Schumer responded with a strongly worded letter. A letter. Schumer's got to go. He's got to go. I mean, my God, we need literally. Pelosi got mad about the Alcatraz thing. It's a very good tourist attraction in a national park. That's, again, another distraction. He knows it's never going to happen. Don't look at the fact that my family has increased their wealth by $3 billion with a crypto scam since I took office. They're doing more with real estate and everything else.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, you're absolutely right, Scott. Oddly enough, I am actually going to California for a very brief trip next week to talk to a whole mess of Democrats. You want to meet me? You want to come with me?

Scott Galloway: I'm in Hamburg, Germany. That's not an easy flight for me. I'm at the age where I'm trying to reduce the things that are bad for my health, like traveling across time zones all the time.

Kara Swisher: I will channel you to them.

Scott Galloway: I would Zoom in. I said I'll only come if I can yell at you.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, maybe. I'll talk to them.

Scott Galloway: I said, I can only come if I can yell at you like a lot. I did a Zoom with a Republican congresswoman two days ago talking about the tax status of universities. And she wanted to talk about, I had said about a year ago that I thought universities with an endowment over a billion that weren't growing their freshman class size greater than population growth should lose their tax-free status because they need to stop being LVMH and start living up to their mission of being public servants and letting in more kids. And immediately, a lot of Republicans have picked up on that and said, under the auspices of revoking their tax-free status. And so I said to her, look, if this is an attempt to be a good actor and try and expand freshman class size, I'm down and I want to help you and I want to work on it. I've thought a lot about this. If this is nothing but a false flag such that you can attack institutions that you see as advancing critical thinking, which lately has been bad for the Republican Party. I mean, this ridiculous notion that they're revoking tax-free status because of anti-Semitism, there is some real concerns around anti-Semitism across Ivy Leagues. This is not why they're doing that, folks.

Kara Swisher: No, of course not. Of course not. The whole thing is nonsense.

Scott Galloway: Well, I will say, because I enjoy yelling at Democrats about these things, and I'll continue to attribute things to you.

Kara Swisher: Well, I appreciate that. I regret to inform you, something distracting, that Mark Zuckerberg is raw-dogging life. The Meta CEO went on the Theo Vaughn podcast and said he drinks coffee recreationally, which was strange enough, and that the DARE program really worked for him. We're going to leave all the awkward in for this one. Let's listen to the whole clip.

[Audio clip plays: "You drink coffee, man, or no? Nah. Really? Yeah. I mean, you've had it. I have. Sometimes on vacation I drink it recreationally. Like a celebration. Yeah. No. Really? Yeah. No. I just like hate anything that messes with, like I don't like any kind of chemicals or anything like that. Oh, really? So you like to keep everything, the equilibrium? Yeah, my sister gives me such a hard time about this. She's like, you're just sitting there raw dogging reality. Wow."]

Kara Swisher: Oh my God, does he know what raw dogging is? I feel like he doesn't. Yeah, I mean, again, it's clear he's pretty awkward, but what people missed was, and this is terrible, is he's claiming that these new agents he's going to put forward, these AI agents, are going to solve loneliness. I'm still stuck on raw dogging that he doesn't know the meaning of it. But yes, this is the most important thing was that the three friends, that people have three friends and therefore we're going to replace them with AI bots, essentially. And what you, I mean, leave it to Mark Zuckerberg to be the villain claiming to be the hero. I love what you said that every accusation is a confession. I mean, this is an awful man who has taken absolutely no responsibility for the damage that he's caused. And he wants to further sequester us from one another, not recognizing how dangerous that is. Like he's doing us a favor.

Scott Galloway: I agree. He had the tone, the awkwardness aside, which was heavy here. He had a tone of like, "I'm here to save you by giving you bots." So instead of having three friends, you'll have probably no friends and 15 bot friends, which is pathetic. And I get mocked a lot for talking about the crisis of lonely young men. And, you know, "If you're more lonely, pull yourself up by your bootstraps." And if you're more emotionally in touch with your emotions, not having friends has so many ripple effects on the rest of your life. Professionally, when Google puts out a job opening, the person who almost always gets the job is someone who has an advocate internally. My advice to young people when they're looking for a job is go out every night and be as social as possible because you want to be put in a room of opportunities when you're not in it. Two, do you realize you're much more inclined to stay married when you have a lot of friends because you have someone you can bitch to about your partner? You're less likely to be depressed. You're much less likely to make really stupid fucking decisions financially. So money, marriage, professional opportunities are all correlated to your ability to establish and maintain friendships. And so when you see, on average, men have gone from, we now have, I think it's a, what is it? One in seven men don't have a single friend and one in four men can't name a best friend. That means that cohort of men is going to be less likely to have relationships, romantic relationships, less likely to get professionally. So friendships and being Mammalia, it really is an issue. And again, you have a bunch of tech firms who are compensated to sequester you from anything in the real world so you can spend more time in their world so they can sell you more Nissan ads.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's really, he just doesn't even understand. The part that got me, and I was at an AI thing last night in Los Angeles, but is this idea, and this woman who sort of combines ethics issues and philosophy and AI was like, "The thing is, it didn't even occur to him to fix the loneliness problem in a way that included people, without any sense of irony." You know what I mean? Like, here's my solution for this, and it's bad, right? And there was no irony whatsoever of what he was saying that this was the way to go. Anyway, it's a really, it was a very disturbed, I have to say, I was disturbed by every aspect. And I thought, this guy needs a PR person to get him to stop talking. But maybe it's good that you see this or something else. But just, he's gotten worse and more, I would say, twisted. I don't know what else to say. It's so strange and awkward and breathy and laughing at his own jokes. It's really quite disturbing to me.

Scott Galloway: Well, he's awkward. You're allowed to be awkward. There's a lot of awkward young people. It's gotten to be something else, but go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Again, but that's a distraction of the fact that he keeps producing products. They're going to make young people more and more depressed and anxious and obese.

Scott Galloway: I guess what I have to say is he really believes this bullshit more than ever, I feel like. Like he really thinks he has all the answers. And it was a tone of voice. But we want to pathologize these people. But again, let's move to solutions. The seven tobacco executives that stood in front of Congress whenever it was 25 years ago and raised their right hand and said, "I do not believe that tobacco is addictive or nicotine is addictive." When you are paid not to believe something or you are paid not to understand something, it is really, you will find it's really difficult for you to understand it because you're paid not to understand it. These people are never going to come to their senses and see the world as it is. We need some sack in fucking Congress to pass laws.

Kara Swisher: I agree.

Scott Galloway: So, okay, we probably shouldn't have AI-generated humanity and friends for people under the age of 18. We need to break these companies up. We need to remove Section 230 protection with AI-driven bots. So if a kid who thinks he's in a relationship with Cersei from *Game of Thrones* and he says, "Should I kill myself?" And she says, "I am waiting for you, my sweet," and then he puts a gun in his mouth, then fucking that character AI gets hit hard. Instead, we want to run all these stories about how awkward and weird he is. Who gives a fuck? He's awkward. Now figure out laws.

Kara Swisher: True. You're not into distractions, are you? I like this. I like the very clear, Scott. You don't want distractions. Enough of this shit.

Scott Galloway: Anyway.

Kara Swisher: That's true. You're right. You're right. You library laureate.

Scott Galloway: Library laureate.

Kara Swisher: Let's talk about someone that we all like. We'll go on a quick break and we come back. Warren Buffett is stepping down. What a legend.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old Oracle of Omaha, is stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway after 60 years at the helm. The surprise announcement shocked many shareholders. The company's annual meeting over the weekend, he's been aging and I think he always knows himself well. Buffett named Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway's vice president of non-insurance operations, his successor. But he also said he'll hang around in a supporting role and plans to remain chairman. In addition to the big news, Buffett weighed on what's happening with tariffs, saying trade should not be a weapon. He explained how trade can be misused. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: "Trade can be an act of war. And I think it's led to bad things. Just the attitudes it's brought out in the United States. I mean, we should be looking to trade with the rest of the world and we should do what we do best and they should do what they do best. You know, it just shows sense."]

Kara Swisher: We also had a lot of stuff about kindness that was lovely. As the Wall Street Journal put it, "There's only one Warren Buffett and there'll never be another." I'm going to start talking about his legacy. I was lucky enough to talk to him many times and I'm hoping maybe one or two more times. I one time called him because he was a very, I called Berkshire Hathaway because he wasn't doing any internet investing at the beginning and I wanted to know why when I was working at the Journal. And I called and I got the secretary and she said, "Can you hold, please?" I said, "I have a question for Mr. Buffett." I assumed I was going to get to the PR person. Phone clicks in and it's Warren Buffett. He's like, "Hi." I was like, "Hi." And we talked about the internet and why he didn't invest in it. He later invested and made a spectacular investment in Apple. But it was really interesting and I ended up having dinner with him because I have a friend who's on the board and just as he's really so sharp, so interesting, so lovely. I met Greg Abel who also seemed terrific. Obviously Charlie Munger who recently died, another great, all the people around him are great. I don't know what else, he just surrounds himself with really high quality common sense people and a lot of what he said in this last appearance was just common sense about kindness, about trade. Whatever he says seems so plain spoken. You know, not everything he's done has been perfect, that's for sure. But I just find this to be the kind of person you want to be leaders in society. And it just so happens this guy happens to be an investor. Any thoughts from you?

Scott Galloway: Well, he revolutionized the world of investing in terms of buy and hold and buying good companies. And first off, I think that meeting registered what is probably the greatest promotion in history to go from VP of non-insurance operations to CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. I mean, congratulations to Greg.

Kara Swisher: Well, he was just so, this office, which is the simplest office you're ever gonna see. I was surprised when I went there. There's not many people there. And that was a big role.

Scott Galloway: Oh, he's been named as the heir. I'm just saying from a title standpoint.

Kara Swisher: No, I know. That's a pretty big shift in title.

Scott Galloway: That's a much cooler rap at a conference or at a bar. "I'm VP of non-insurance operations." "I'm CEO of Berkshire Hathaway." Those get entirely different responses. Anyways, look, the part of his speech, which I watched, which I thought was most powerful and which is totally counter to the current administration and quite frankly, what infects America a little bit is this notion that the global economy is a win-lose. And if you look at our economy since World War II, we've 8X'd our GDP. We control basically the most dominant media companies. Seven of the 10 most valuable companies in the world are American. We have the best universities. Our average household income has hit almost $80,000, which is vastly outpaced Asian or European countries. And this notion somehow that we've been taken advantage of. And if we increase our prosperity, it has to come at the cost of another nation or if another nation's prosperity is going up, it comes at our cost. It's just such lame, tired. The most visionary act, in my opinion, of the last hundred years was America said, okay, when we tried to punish Germany after World War I, it didn't work well. Because when people are doing really poorly abroad, to believe that you can protect your shores and your kids from that anger is just naive. You can't. And when people are much more prosperous, they're less likely, A, they want to buy your shit, they want to buy your Netflix, and they want to buy your Ford trucks, and they're less likely to raise disaffected youth who think, "You know what? I would like to declare war on that country because I think their extraordinary advantage has come at my cost." So when you want to build prosperity across the oceans, and the problem with this zero-sum thinking that literally President Trump defines is this notion somehow that we don't want other nations to do really well, that it comes at our costs. When other nations prosper, it's generally a proxy for how well we're doing. And we have through global trade, through IP, through our universities, when other nations do well, we do really well. And he just laid this out. He wasn't political. He didn't use the president's name. Gay marriage didn't come at the cost of heteronormative marriage. There's a very dangerous trope in the manosphere that the ascent of women has come at the cost of men. It has not. Men are struggling for a variety of reasons. But as women thrive, that doesn't mean it's a zero-sum game and we start to do worse. You want the world to prosper. You want your business. You want nations you trade with. And if you look at, it's just so obvious since 1945, if you had to pick one nation that has done really well, a lot of people would say the ascent over the last 20 or 30 years of China is probably number one. And by the way, that's been amazing for them and amazing for us. Their ascent has resulted in incredible prosperity for Americans. Have we outsourced certain jobs and not thought about the people we left behind? Absolutely. Is there asymmetry of trade?

Scott Galloway: But the fact that we're able to enjoy such materially wealthy or rich lives is in large part because the Chinese have ascended. Also, when countries ascend, they're really inclined not to declare war on you or their neighbors when they're prospering. Whenever I go to Mykonos or Ibiza, I have noticed a lot of young kids from the Gulf are dominating these really expensive restaurants. And you know what? It's a wonderful thing because they think, you know what, this whole prosperity thing, this whole Western notion of capitalism is really good for us. And so we're less likely to be radicalized. We're less likely to be angry. And he pointed that out so simply and so eloquently that we have to exit this zero-sum thinking as embodied by the Trump administration right now.

Yeah, I thought he's just, you know what? Hats off to Warren Buffett. He's just a real classy guy. Terrific guy. Anyway, we're going to move on, but Warren, good job. And most delightful dinner. One of the most delightful dinners I had with really well-known people. He also ate much of my meal. I couldn't believe how much that man put away. And he's still walking around steak, some onion thing, a bunch of potatoes. Anyway, it was a completely enjoyable meal. And I was lucky. I was privileged to have dinner with him.

Anyway, a couple of quick things. Apple and Amazon reported earnings late last week. It was after we had talked. Both companies had strong quarters. Apple had $95 billion in revenue and nearly $25 billion in profit. Wow, what a juggernaut. iPhone sales were up too, hitting almost $47 billion. Amazon had $156 billion in revenue and profit was up 64%, though the cloud business is trailing Microsoft. But tariffs remain a cause for concern for these companies. More obvious problems for these two companies than say a Google or a Meta. Tim Cook said tariffs could cost Apple millions this quarter even with the company moving to manufacture most iPhones in India. They're trying to do that. Amazon noted tariffs and trade policies and recessionary fears are among the range of factors that could make guidance subject to change. They were just signaling it.

Just for people who don't know, Jeff Bezos planned to sell up to 25 million shares in the company over the next year. Probably pretty typical of these sales that happen. This is a big chunk. Very briefly, because I want to get to these Trump tariffs on Hollywood really quickly, but thoughts on the results for those two?

Kara Swisher: I thought Amazon had a great quarter. I couldn't get over this Kuiper thing. I think that's a big deal. Amazon's probably most vulnerable to the tariffs because two-thirds of their business is in the U.S., and obviously a lot of their products would be subject to the tariffs. But these companies are just so well run. AWS grew 17% year on year. North American retail sales grew 8%, which is the slowest since the pandemic, but it's still vastly outpacing any other retail or other big retailers. And the stock fell, but right now, I think from the analyst community, they look at Amazon as a cloud company with a retail division. So they're really focused on AWS. And I think the most exciting thing about Amazon right now is this Kuiper.

Scott Galloway: Kuiper.

Kara Swisher: And by the way, it is Kuiper. I got called by the Amazon people.

Scott Galloway: Oh, good.

Kara Swisher: It's Kuiper. It wasn't Cooper. It's Kuiper. You were right. You were correct. It's Kuiper, not Cooper. It's after some astronomer or something like that. I forget. I should go look. But we got it wrong. I got it wrong. But yeah, I thought they were, I think they're just still signaling. We don't know, especially Amazon and its retail division, obviously. Apple's going through all kinds of changes because of where they have to make things and pressures from the Trump administration and the cost.

So what's in Apple's favor? People are used to paying high prices for Apple products. So this is a little more price resistant. It's not like they're dealing with people that can't pay the extra kind of stuff. I thought Apple had the weakest of all of them. Their sales were up 5%, which beat expectations. But I believe a lot of that was front loading. Consumers thinking, all right, I keep seeing rumors of the phone going to $2,300 with tariffs and $3,500 if it was produced in the US. So I thought a lot of people thought, well, it's time for a new iPhone. I'm going to pull it forward. And I've been selling down, and I've been very public about this, my Apple stake, which I bought in 2010, because I think at a PE of 34, a company that is effectively not growing, its price is a growth company. And the reality is it's flat. And their big announcement was another increase in dividend and share buyback, which quite frankly is the sign of a very mature company that does not trade at 34 times earnings. And there's nothing, you use the word refresh, there's nothing that interesting really. And also Apple Intelligence, which is sort of their attempted AI, has been delayed again. So I think Apple is in for a rough road. It does have a feel of a, oh, we've done so many hits, we're done with the hits. Like, you know what I mean? I gotta say, I gotta give it to them for this particular team, which has been, and like I always call them the Rolling Stones, right? They keep going, but it feels a little like they should maybe have a new fresh and refresh on a lot of things. So that said, they're a must have for a lot of people, including myself. So it's not like I'm going to abandon them. It's an amazing product. But just looking at it from an evaluation standpoint, let's look at earnings per share growth, right? It's 10 to 12 percent. Microsoft is 12 percent. They both trade at about 33 times, a P of about 33 times. Alphabet is growing at 18% and trades at a P multiple of 18. Amazon grew their EPS 30% and trades at a lower P of 31. Meta grew their EPS by 10%, about the same as Apple, and they trade at 22. And NVIDIA, obviously that one's trading at a crazy P. But if you just look at bottoms up fundamentals, if you look at growth in earnings and top line revenue relative to their valuation or price on earnings, Alphabet is the least expensive and Apple by far is the most expensive.

Scott Galloway: Yep, I think that's true. I think that's true. But they'll see where they go. They certainly are doing better than most businesses in this country.

Kara Swisher: Some tariff, other tariff updates. Trump says, this one came out of nowhere yesterday, says he's imposing 100% tariff on movies. This is not a distraction. This is strange. On movies made overseas, though it's unclear how that will work. By the way, we have a trade surplus when it comes to movies, just so you be clear. Netflix shares dropped 3% at the opening bells. Disney, Warner Brothers, and Paramount were also down. This one, I just don't get.

And I'll get a couple more tariff things, but let me go through them and then comment on Temu, the Chinese e-commerce platform, has stopped shipping products from China directly to the U.S. And the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, who knows from things, was on Bloomberg the other day breaking down what the chaos means for workers and more. Let's listen.

[Clip plays: Port of LA executive director discussing reduced container loads, job impacts, and the month-long timeline to restart shipping if a deal is reached.]

Kara Swisher: I mean, this guy's smart. He's got a lot of stats. He sees it in real time. And then of course the disruption doesn't just go to dock workers. It's truckers and it goes throughout the economy. The tariff on movies thing, I just don't even... Most of Mission Impossible is coming up, and by the way I'm so excited, Final Reckoning was made abroad. A lot of people, there's a lot of breaks in England. They do a lot of stuff in Canada and everything else to save costs. But movies aren't things either. And again, we have a trade surplus when it comes to movies going abroad. They also have big customers across the globe. A lot of their business is not just here in this country. It's their global businesses. This one was just nuts, as far as I could tell. Thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Yes. Stupidity squared. More stupidity. We're a net exporter. One of the biggest advantages we have as a country is that we're basically running a 24 by 7 commercial on brand America called Baywatch or the Fantastic Four. These movies generally reflect an aspirational view of America and the whole world consumes our media. And the notion that it's easy how this plays out. It's this exact same thing that happened with Apple is going to happen with Netflix. Someone is going to go, okay, if we impose a hundred percent tariff on their movies coming in, which may be even more difficult to surmise than looking at automobile manufacturing, where some parts go back and forth across the border a half a dozen or a dozen times, this will be even more difficult because if you have an American Warner Brothers film with American actors, American gaffers, but it's being filmed in Prague for tax credits, like what, okay, tell me how we tariff that. What do you tariff? The tickets? Ticket sales? What do you tariff? The cost of production? I don't know.

Kara Swisher: These are all really good questions.

Scott Galloway: And then when Netflix, who consumers love almost as much as Apple, start going, let me get this. I'm going to have to pay more at the box office and for production. They do things across the globe. He's going to send production and media businesses into a flurry where they have to pause, stop, think through what is going on here. And then he will blink. And then he will realize that whenever a European nation says, fine, if you want us to put 100 percent tariff on all of the media coming into Europe from the U.S., you want to see L.A. really take a dive. I mean, L.A. has basically lost most of its production business. It has been down 26 percent.

Kara Swisher: It definitely is. It's the cost. It's everything else. It's still very big there, but it's much less than it was.

Scott Galloway: But if you want to see, I mean, he's literally going industry by industry. And at a minimum, he's putting it into a state of paralysis. And I've become pretty good friends with the guy who's run Warner Brothers Europe. Basically his job was to take Harry Potter and Batman and come to Europe and start just grabbing money and to say to the biggest Polish streamer, all right, I want $7 million for you to be able to run Batman and then go to the London theaters and say, all right, I've got an idea for a Harry Potter play and I need 14% royalties. We literally just suck money out of countries using our IP. And he doesn't believe they're going to just say, okay, 100% tariff on any media coming in here.

Kara Swisher: But on what? That's the thing. It's so crazy. Someone who doesn't have a sense of how important this industry is and how well it's doing. This one is very dangerous, especially these companies are sort of teetering a little bit. They're really trying hard to get back on their feet with AI coming at them, with everything coming out, with costs, with unions. They've got a tough job now when it used to all be gravy and him doing this. And by the way, most of them didn't know it. I was at an event. They're like, what in the actual fuck? A lot of producers. They're like, what does he tariff? They just were utter confusion, utter and complete confusion. And really stupid.

Just very quick thoughts on the ports and these things. Eric Schmidt, by the way, had an op-ed in the New York Times, worth reading, noting between Temu, TikTok, and DeepSeek, China was pulling ahead of us in AI. It was sort of one of those typical tech people like China, G or me kind of thing. But worth reading anyway. Any thoughts about this slowdown that's going to happen? And I interviewed Wes Moore today, the governor of Maryland. And same thing with the Port of Baltimore, which is the other big port where lots of stuff comes in.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, this is a calm before the storm. And I live in London, so I don't have a front row seat here. But my understanding is in about the next four to 12 weeks, you're just going to start to see things trickle through the supply chain and prices will go up and there'll be some shelves that are empty. And Americans basically take their cues from their consumerism. And when they see empty shelves, as they did in COVID, the next thing they buy is a gun. They get very freaked out when the shelves are empty. And the notion somehow that American consumers won't respond, i.e. freak out, about shortages or prices going up. This is a nation that was essentially formed off of a rebellion when the price of the tax on tea was increased.

Kara Swisher: Tea went up, yeah.

Scott Galloway: That's true. Whiskey rebellion. And we've had a lot of them on products. Always on products. It's interesting. And just Temu and Shein are responsible. I mean, in the holidays, 20% of all purchases through the holidays were through either Temu or Shein. And all of a sudden, Temu is essentially announced they're just stopping all shipments. And I don't even think it's the tariffs. I think it's the insecurity. We know how to plan our business.

Kara Swisher: Scott, you're only getting two dolls this Christmas, just so you know. I was going to give you 30.

Scott Galloway: To bring this home, I have my roommate my sophomore year in the fraternity, this lovely guy, has that specialty products business. Everything you get at a conference. He had all this stuff on a boat, had to go down to the port and write like a $2 million check, which he just does not have lying around. Nice little business, 180 employees, a family business, built an amazing living for himself and a lot of people. And I don't know if he's going to survive this. He just can't, he doesn't have time to reroute his supply chain. About 80% of it comes out of China. He doesn't have time to reroute a supply chain through all of these other Southeast Asian nations. And people, 98% of the businesses that are run or dependent upon import-export are small and medium-sized businesses. And here's the problem. They don't have any fucking lobbyists.

Kara Swisher: So let's go back to the media tariff. They don't have the checks, like you said, to pay it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, they don't have the capital. Say, in fact, he does manage to implement some sort of tariff around our content. You know who will get an exemption? Netflix. But the little independent producer of a film or someone who makes little documentaries, they're shit out of luck. So this is yet again, this transnational oligarchy with a top 1% who have access, have lobbyists, and can get on his lunch calendar, get, quite frankly, probably end up stronger. And the small and medium-sized business, which by the way, folks, create two-thirds of all new jobs in America, they're shit out of luck. I mean, they're just, and I could just hear in his voice, he's like, he doesn't even know how to respond.

Kara Swisher: Right. Nope. Nope. This is deeply stupid. I was like, oh my God, this guy's an idiot. We have to move along. But it's really going to, it's not going to be good. And this one, it just shows the idiot. He's just moving from industry to industry.

Scott Galloway: That's correct. You're saying that.

Kara Swisher: All right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back. Elon gets his own town in Texas. Let's make quick work of this.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. Elon Musk now has his own official company town after voters in a small patch of South Texas overwhelmingly, most of them his employees, approved a ballot measure to establish the city of Starbase. Mr. Potter, oh I mean Elon Musk. The new city covers about one and a half square miles. It's home to SpaceX headquarters. Nearly all the residents are Elon Musk employees, their family members, and the first city officials are current or former SpaceX staff. Starbase has been described as looking like the set of a science fiction movie with rows of near identical houses and a massive bronze bust of Elon Musk. I don't know what to say, but I'm going to add that he's been on a bit of a media tour this week trying to take victory laps of zero victories. He appeared on Fox News with DOGE worker Edward, I think it's Corustein, a.k.a. Big Balls. I can't believe we live in this timeline. He spoke to journalists about the White House and talked about sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom, eating Häagen-Dazs and also compared himself to Buddha. In another Fox News interview, this one with Lara Trump. Oh God, the insider insider-ness here is so grotesque. Elon responded to the Nazi accusations and comparisons he faced in recent months. Let's listen.

[Clip plays: Elon Musk says "I have not harmed anyone in my life. They also called President Trump a Nazi but he also is not a violent person and in fact has done a lot to prevent wars and stop wars, which is the very opposite of being a Nazi, actually."]

Kara Swisher: He doesn't know history. Oh my God. How can we miss you if you won't go away, Elon? That's my feeling. This is ridiculous. Every bit of this. It's like he's made a disaster of DOGE. They are probably going to cost us more money. He's hurt people's lives. You've harmed people in your life. That's ridiculous. You don't have to kill people to harm them. The way he's setting up these things shows me he's not much of an intellectual in any way. And not that he cares. But just the, I don't know what to say. This is just so ridiculous. We're in the most ridiculous timeline. And he needs to pipe down and stop sucking up all the attention oxygen. I'd like to stop talking about him.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, so we don't shy away from highlighting that he doesn't acquit himself well, but I actually like the idea of new incorporated cities.

Kara Swisher: Oh, do you?

Scott Galloway: Well, just because if you look at the basic American dream, right? It's to meet somebody, get a good job, and someday afford a house. And one of the things I like about these initiatives, including the one that those VCs were proposing in the Inland Empire.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I thought that was interesting, too. I know it got a lot of flak.

Scott Galloway: I like the idea of a kind of a free zone or a city where they could take manufactured homes and just build a shit ton of them without it being weaponized. I mean, essentially, one of the problems for this kind of NIMBYism is that housing permits have been taken out of the hands of bureaucrats and put into the hands of homeowners who, once they own a home, decide there should be no more homes. So I actually like the idea. There's some developers in Florida.

Kara Swisher: This is a company town. That's different. What you're talking about is very different than a company town, which is what this is. I mean, the whole notion of company towns is such a, whether it's here or Ireland or wherever, the mines, it has a very negative connotation of one single person controlling a town. I have no problem with town creation, and I think that's a great, or housing creation. This is a little different, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, you know, there's, like you said, there's company towns. Look, I don't like the man the town is focused around, but I like the idea of competition in cities and these things popping up and taking a different approach to how a city is run. He'll have capital. Hopefully, he'll build housing for his employees. I don't know. This is like the least offensive thing he's done in a while. I'm okay with it.

Kara Swisher: He's not a Nazi, Scott. He's not a Nazi.

Scott Galloway: All right.

Kara Swisher: One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, some wins and fails. Would you please go first?

Scott Galloway: So my win is Representative Tallarico. I don't know if he's in the Texas house, but I saw his speech. He's been fantastic on Texas schools. He's been talking a lot about vouchers. I hate vouchers. A lot of my actually wealthy friends really like vouchers and the idea of school choice and competition. I see vouchers as nothing more than a giveaway and another transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. And I think about the school my kids went to in Florida, which was a private school, a lovely school. And I don't doubt that some people would be able to afford to go there if we gave them vouchers. But essentially what happens is you lose wealthy dual-income parents in the public schools. And all it is, as far as I can tell, 70, 80% of it ends up being essentially just a tax rate giveaway for the wealthy who are already in private schools. And now you're going to subsidize their tuition by $10,000 and take yet even more money out of the public school system. And not only that, skim off the most wealthiest parents who, it's not even just their money, it's their ability because of their wealth to be engaged in the quality of that school.

And he also started talking about this great session where he started questioning this law and how this law had mistakenly referenced litter boxes in schools. Let's play the clip.

[Clip plays: Representative Tallarico says "Are you aware that Governor Abbott said, quote, kids go to school dressed up as cats with litter boxes in their classrooms? Sure. Are you also aware that when the governor was asked by the Dallas Morning News to name a single school where this happened, he couldn't? And PolitiFact called this a pants on fire, false claim started by online rumors?"]

Scott Galloway: I mean, this guy, he really brings, he's very forceful yet dignified. He's a Texas state representative. I really think this kid is a comer. He's 35. And he also, I mean, this is just so, it's so weird to go out there and have the governor adopt this talking point that kids are dressing up as cats. And this is not only an attack on public schools, but it's an attack, quite frankly, on the whole notion of transgender because they couch it in the notion that kids are presenting themselves as all sorts of different things and that public schools have gotten so woke and so weird that if you say you're presenting as a cat, they give you a litter box, which by the way, it's all a fucking lie. It's such a lie. The most that happens is like my son growled at someone. They're like, lion, I'm scared. That's how it works, kids in school, weird adults who think of it. But this kid, this kid's a comer. So state representative James Tallarico, I just thought he was so, I don't know, dignified. I thought, God, can that guy run for president?

Kara Swisher: Okay. The other guy, sure.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Yeah. I'm just going to make up lies to give people fodder. And because we don't have a populace now because of shitty K through 12 that doesn't critically think, and because we have a media that will repeat any talking point and the governor picks up this talking point and starts using this as an example. Just, again, distraction, distraction, distraction. Constant and persistent distraction, so you're looking at all the stupid stuff. It's like Network has come to life.

Kara Swisher: There you go. My fail is this whole MAHA movement, Make America Healthy Again, and this notion that it has something to do with vaccines or dyes, all of that. But just as the pill had massive amounts of estrogen in the 60s and 70s, and they've been able to achieve the job of birth control with lower and lower doses of hormones, vaccines have actually been able to do the same thing. They're just as effective with fewer antigens. The whole outrage around dyes, I understand our food supply and that it should be looked at meticulously. But this, again, is nothing but a weapon of mass distraction from what is the real problem in health in America. And that is you and I, Kara, because we're in the top 1% of income earners, we on average live eight to 10 years longer than someone in the lowest quintile. Because we don't have to work two jobs. We have access to working out. We have access to good food. We have access to good doctors. We have access to mental health. The reality is life expectancy is directly correlated to your income level. And unless we do something about income inequality, we're just shuffling chairs around on the Titanic.

And if you look at what's happened in our healthcare system, despite the fact our household income has gone up, our costs per consumer have gone way up, our life expectancy on average has gone down because people live in food deserts. They can't get access to good food. They can't get access to exercise. They're sleep deprived because they're so fucking poor and working so much. All of this is a distraction from the fact that he's pushing through a tax cut, which will be a tax cut for the top 5% and a tax increase for the other 95%. So no matter what dyes or vaccines you try and demonize, until people in the middle class and low-income homes have the actual money to pursue health, these outcomes are going to get worse and worse.

Kara Swisher: That's a very, very good way of putting it, Scott. That's excellent. All right, I'll go. My win, Ryan Coogler with this movie Sinners shows, once again, that original programming really does.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you like that?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Can you tell, what is it?

Kara Swisher: It's a movie called Sinners. It's about vampires. There's music and all kinds of things. But what I'm more interested in is the deal he did with Warner Brothers where he got, after 25 years, he gets ownership of the film's IP, intellectual property. It's a huge achievement to do this. Studios usually retain full ownership of things. And he also has something called First Dollar Growth, where he'll receive a share of the film's gross ticket sales before any deductions.

Let me read this. It was more common in the DVD, Doom Boomer, than it is. And it's very rare to do this. The movie's about ownership and autonomy in a racist society. And so this guy is just such an interesting—he made, obviously, Black Panther. He made Fruitvale Station, where I first noticed him. Obviously, that was a really big note. People got noticed of him. But he's just an astonishing filmmaker.

And I just think these deals he's making as a creator of really new, fresh content in ways that are creative and interesting, I just love this idea of him. I'm looking at the box office right now of Sinners. So far, this film, which didn't cost that much to make, has grossed $236 million worldwide. Fifth highest-grossing film of 2025. So it's just doing, it's impressing for its quality and everything else.

Anyway, the other one that's doing well is Thunderbolts. It's supposed to be lovely. A Marvel movie, finally, is delightful. Everyone tells me I should go see it. I haven't seen it. So I feel really, I just, I don't know. I just feel like this guy's creatively incredible and he owns his IP and he's going to own his IP and he's getting this with like creators like him who are creative can outrun AI or anybody else. And I just feel I just have a lot of regard for that.

In The Fail, a very good friend of mine died this week in a very tragic fire, Jill Sobule. She's a singer. She performed at All Things D and Code many years. I've known her forever. She was best known for the song "I Kissed a Girl" which was sort of a song that got a lot of attention way back when, but she was an artist, an enduring artist, and one of these artists that traveled a lot, did a lot, made a lot of money traveling, which a lot of musicians make now.

She did a show just recently called Fuck Seventh Grade, which was funny about being a seventh grader. Wonderful. Such a creative and entrepreneurial spirit, but also one of the kindest people I knew. I couldn't say enough good things about Jill Sobule. She was kind and good and just always trying to be different and interesting and trying new things. She did a lot of stuff where she would do house concerts for people and all kinds of things just to make it as an artist. She had an enduring career doing that. And she was just recently doing incredibly well.

And she was, again, in Minnesota staying with friends and the house was on fire and she did not make it out. Just a shock. 66 years old. I took Louis and actually George Hahn to see Fuck Seventh Grade. And we had a lovely dinner with her after at Veselka and just laughed the entire time. She was just a ray of sunshine.

I'm going to play a clip from a song that she wrote called "A Good Life" from her album. I recommend a lot of her songs. I've been pummeling people, including Scott, with her songs from her album California Years. Let's listen.

[Music plays: "Tomorrow we could all be gone / When the Russian gangsters sell the bomb / And the waves come roaring from the sea / A hundred foot swells over Venice Beach / Well don't be scared and take my hand / We'll swim into the promised land / It was a good life / It was a good, good life. / It was a good life."]

Scott Galloway: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for your loss.

Kara Swisher: Thank you, Scott. You know, we got to live every day like we're meeting with J.D. Vance. Anyway, good life. Let's have a good life, Scott.

We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, as I noted, this week I talked to Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore, who's on the shortlist for presidential candidates in 2028, on with Kara Swisher. Let's listen to a clip where he talked about how Trump's cuts are impacting his state.

[Clip plays: Governor Wes Moore: We have over 260,000 federal employees in the state of Maryland. We have over 160,000 federal jobs that are housed within the state of Maryland. So what they are doing, these are not glancing blows at Maryland. These are direct hits at us. These are direct shots that they are taking at my state and they're taking at my people. And so there is nobody who is experiencing this more than Maryland. No one is, no chief executive is experiencing more than me. And the thing I was very clear on from Jump Street is that I will, I get the relationship between state government and federal government. And I will work with anyone, but I will bow down to no one ever.]

Kara Swisher: Impressive, impressive politician. We'll see where he goes. But it was a great interview. We talked about a lot of things, including the Francis Scott Key Bridge and a bunch of other stuff. So really interesting man and someone to watch and someone the right wing is very focused in on right now because he's a very appealing politician and young and vibrant.

Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Irtaud engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Ms. Severio, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Water level for the Nitro.