Friday, Nov 4, 2022 • 1h, 3min

More Twitter Drama, Amazon Post-Pandemic, and Guest Jon Favreau on the Midterms

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Kara is joined by guest host Kai Ryssdal, Host and Senior Editor of Marketplace! They discuss the latest dispatches from Elon Musk’s Twitter, from layoffs to subscription plans. Also, Amazon’s new post-pandemic reality, and the Fed’s latest interest rate hike. Friend of Pivot Jon Favreau stops by to break down what’s to come in the midterms. You can find Kai on Twitter at @kairyssdal, and Jon at @jonfavs. If you want to get involved in the last days before the midterms, visit VoteSaveAmerica.com. You can listen to Kara’s new show, On with Kara Swisher, here. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Kara Swisher

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Scott Galloway

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Scott Galloway

00:01

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00:39

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00:48

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Kara Swisher

01:24

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from

New York Magazine

and the

Vox Media Podcast

network. I'm

Kara Swisher

and of course I sound a little sick and of course Scott's takes the day off.

Scott Galloway

is out celebrating his 40th birthday. Okay, sure. So today I'm joined by the host of NPR's marketplace podcast

Kai Ryssdal.

Welcome

Kai

.

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01:46

I love your voice it's so good.

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01:48

I love your NPR voice.

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01:51

So you also are a very, very good business reporter, etcetera.

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01:55

And it says here that you hate scripted banter. So we're not gonna do that.

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01:59

But I would love to know what's going on in the marketplace.

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Kai Ryssdal

02:02

Oh, so the economy is the story, right? If you look at all the opinion polls, something like 45% of people say economy or inflation is the story, which is our story.

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Kara Swisher

02:11

100%

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Kai Ryssdal

02:11

So you know, our reporters and me were just going out and talking to people, right? Because the through line of this economy is, look, the data is fine, the data is great, but unless you know what people are experiencing in their daily lives, then nothing matters.

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02:23

I just got back from

Buffalo

huge reporting trip out there, We've got reporters all over the place just finding out what's going on because that's what matters, right?

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Kara Swisher

02:29

And what's the mood from your perspective? Is it about housing or price of gas? Because gas has gone down a little bit, but it's not, it's not as tough as it was.

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Kai Ryssdal

02:37

But look, you see that an 8 inch high letters every time you go to work and and you're thinking about gas. I was in

Buffalo

as I said a minute ago, you and I asked a woman running a small business, tiny restaurant, literally started it out of her kitchen now she's got a storefront in

Buffalo

.

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02:52

And I said, look, if I say inflation to you, what do you say? And she looked at me and she said, "true". I mean, that's it. That's that's the whole deal for almost everybody out there and, and we know that, but it's infecting people deeply and substantively in every part of their lives.

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Kara Swisher

03:08

Yeah. And in terms of being frustrated by that, do they blame anyone in particular? There's so many.

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03:14

So it's too hard to be complex, right? You can't go to Ukraine plus

Covid

plus they don't want, they don't want to hear that.

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Kai Ryssdal

03:22

They don't want to hear Ukraine and

Covid

, right? They just want to say, what are people going to do about it? What is the government going to do about it? How am I thinking about this for the election? What's it gonna mean for me? I have a tough time putting food on my table. What am I going to do about it? You look at food expenses right there up like 13% over a year. That's that's fundamental for everybody, right?

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Kara Swisher

03:41

And especially if you're running a small business like this woman, you're talking about. Do you see anyone who, who is concerned about anything else but that from your perspective?

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Kai Ryssdal

03:50

No, I think, you know, if you go to the fringes of each party, you'll find the issues, right? I mean, I think if you, if you go to the progressives, they've got they've got jobs and they've got abortion and social welfare and things like that. And if you go to the right, you've got immigration and whatever else goes on in the right on this party.

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Kara Swisher

04:08

Election denial, right?

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Kai Ryssdal

04:10

Election denial, I mean, all of that stuff. But right now in the in the main right, people just want to talk about their daily lives. It is, it is literally, I was talking to another woman in

Buffalo

and I and I said, you know, I have what I haven't heard anybody talk about this week so far is the word recession.

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04:26

And she said, look, why are you worried about a recession when every day is a struggle? Don't bother me with recession. Don't bother me with

Jay Powell

. Don't bother me with

Joe Biden

. Right? I'm trying literally to get by every single day. How am I doing that?

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Kara Swisher

04:39

Right. Exactly. And I need help from the government. And what help do they want?

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Kai Ryssdal

04:44

Well, so they want gas prices to be lower, they want all prices to be lower. They want education to be available. They want all the things that make a society function, but are having a tough time getting. And it's it's a real challenge.

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04:57

And look, it's it's politics in this country is arguably broken and the way to help people is not for people in the mainstream and politicians to be saying, listen, we're gonna do this policy or that policy. It's the for things like state and local governments to work right?

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05:12

Because they're closer to the people

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Kara Swisher

05:13

Right, Which is why they're very different from state to state. If you had to come away with one thing, are they positive about the future or just exhausted? Exhaustion on every level seems to be clear.

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Kai Ryssdal

05:25

I think people are really tired, but if you ask people about their individual financial circumstances right?

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05:31

They are generally not, not optimistic but they are, listen, I can do this, I'm working hard, I can do this. What they have a challenge with is is the longer term picture, right? Are my kids going to be able to get by?

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05:46

How am I going to do when I'm in retirement? Those kinds of things are really top of mind for people I think as they, as they, you know, go about their daily lives.

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Kara Swisher

05:56

Yeah, I would imagine it's very important that you do this reporting.

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05:59

It's, it's critically important because I think people need to hear it over and over and over again and get away from the noise part of the politics anyway today

Andy Jassy

needs someone to save

Amazon.

Also.

Elon

Musk sharpens his pitch for

Twitter

subscribers and his axe and we'll speak with

Pod Save America's

Jon Favreau

about what to expect in the midterm elections and beyond.

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06:19

But first the

Fed

has raised interest rates by 0.75% points for the fourth time in a row, they're still trying to beat inflation down, I guess.

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06:28

This brings short term borrowing rates to their highest level since 2008. Stocks took a tumble on the news. The labor market is still strong with with unemployment rate at a 50 year low, crazy configuration of statistics. But go ahead.

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06:41

What do you think of their strategy

Kai

?

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Kai Ryssdal

06:44

You saw this the other day in

Powell's

press conference, right? He is absolutely convinced the

Fed

is doing the right thing, that they are raising rates extremely quickly. They've gone from zero to almost 4% in something like nine months, which is historically fast.

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06:55

He is not in the mood to do this thing that everybody's calling the pivot right to start slowing down the rate of increases. The really interesting thing about Wednesday was the Kremlinology Of

The Federal Reserve

. Right? Remember you used to look at the

Kremlin Wall

in there and figure out, so what happened on Wednesday was that the

Fed

put out a statement and I'm gonna get a little weedyish here, right?

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07:17

But the

Fed

put out a statement that said, "We will take into consideration the lag with which monetary policy acts", right? And that's a throwback to

Milton Friedman

, who famously said monetary policy acts with a long and variable lag, which in English means when

The Federal Reserve

changes interest rates, it takes a long time, 6 to 9 months to trickle through the economy. Right?

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07:37

And so the

Fed

yesterday after everybody's saying, listen, you need to slow down a little bit because there are deflationary things coming housing, right, rents are coming down, deflationary things are coming and you might be squeezing too hard, too fast. The

Fed

in that statement said, "we get it, we're listening". And you saw the markets react, They went up, right?

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07:56

And then

Powell

comes out and in essence says, no, no, no, no, no, I understand that that's what we had to say to get everybody on board the statement, all the members of the federal Open Market committee, right? We had and it was a unanimous statement which is not rare, but it says a lot that they got everybody to buy into this statement, right?

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08:12

Powell

came out and said no, no, no, not only are we going to keep on raising rates, but they're gonna be higher for longer than a lot of people had thought. And I think the

Fed

now it's like we're not screwing around. We are not screwing around.

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Kara Swisher

08:26

Yeah, Yeah. Party people are now not the party people because

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Kai Ryssdal

08:29

The punch bowl has been taken away.

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Kara Swisher

08:30

Yeah, well he owned the punch bowl. He filled the punch bowl. He was mr punch bowl and now he's Mr, nope mr Punch bowl anytime.

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08:40

So, so continuing this is going to continue these rate hikes?

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Kai Ryssdal

08:44

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. So next meeting is 13, 14 December. It's going to be at least a half percentage point, 50 basis points.

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08:50

That would be news actually. Right. If they slow down just a little bit, that would be huge news. But it's going to go on for a long time.

Powell

said on Wednesday, he said it's not about when we start slowing down the rate of interest rate increases, it's about how long they go on and how high they eventually get.

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09:04

And he's talking, you know now 4.5 5%

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Kara Swisher

09:07

And they go much higher than that?

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Kai Ryssdal

09:08

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and you can see it now, right. I mean if you look at housing the 30 year fixed rate mortgages, 7.1% now,

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Kara Swisher

09:16

I know, I can't move now.

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Kai Ryssdal

09:17

I'm not, there's no chance I'm moving.

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Kara Swisher

09:19

Yeah, I got in at the low rates and the

Dow

is reacting in a middle way. I just sort of doesn't quite know what to do.

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09:26

It feels like.

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Kai Ryssdal

09:26

Well, I think, you know, the

Dow

and, and the rest of the indices while, and I have to say this right, Stock markets, not the economy.

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09:36

It's a really good indicator of where the big companies are going and what people think about it.

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09:39

And so far it's been a tough year, but I think there's some stability in there now and there's some bottoms being found and yeah, well, except except in big tech. Right?

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Kara Swisher

09:47

Right. Or maybe they're just like everybody else. It turns out they're not immune to gravity anyway,

CVS

and

Walgreens

have tentatively agreed to pay $5 billion dollars each and settlements related to their role in the opioid crisis thrilled about this.

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09:60

The deal still needs approval from a majority of plaintiffs, including state and local governments. Both companies say payment is not an admission of wrongdoing. I say that

Walmart

also reportedly pays $3 billion to settle similar lawsuits. I I have been fixated on this story for a long time.

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10:16

I've read, I've read everything, watched every show. I've followed all this stuff what whether it's Patrick Radden Keith or

Barry Meier

writing those amazing books and obviously dope sick and all the other things and all the various and sundry Sackler things.

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10:29

Talk a little bit about what this means that they're paying this

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10:33

Well. So look, I think actually if you pay $5 billion, you're kind of admitting wrongdoing. Let's let's just say that right.

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Kai Ryssdal

10:43

So this, this drug has been a scourge on this country. Hundreds, thousands of people have died and the idea that these companies now are saying, well here's some money and I hope this makes it okay, is kind of not okay.

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10:56

Is it going to affect the companies in their bottom lines. No, I don't think so. I mean there are multi billion dollar companies and they've got yeah, I don't well look, might have changed their behavior. Sure. But in terms of actual punishment, I don't, I don't think yeah,

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Kara Swisher

11:09

Parking ticket

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Kai Ryssdal

11:10

Right. $5 billion dollars is you know, couch cushion change. Right. Exactly.

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Kara Swisher

11:14

So yeah, the numbers should be so much are you add a zero to every one of these and you and that's where you begin with a lot of these things. Lastly New York's pay transparency law is not working the way it's intended to. The day after the law was implemented companies added salary range is too broad to be interpreted.

Amazon

had listings the range of 80 to 180,000.

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11:36

The

Wall Street Journal

had listings ranging from 40,000 to 160,000 And

Citigroup

had multiple listings with a range of 0-2 million, which they later claimed was a mistake. I assume the zero one. What do you think about the pay transparency and pay quality? It's an interesting question.

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Kai Ryssdal

11:53

I am fully in favor.

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11:55

Full stop

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Kara Swisher

11:55

Explain why.

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Kai Ryssdal

11:56

So first of all let's be clear right. My salary as a matter of public record with the

Internal Revenue Service

because of where I work in and the amount of my salary. So, so we should get out and get that out there.

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12:05

But I think the idea that somehow keeping everything secret is a better way to do business and as a way to get people motivated and keep them attracted to wanting to work in your company is just misguided. Especially when we've got century. I was gonna say decades. But its centuries of pay inequality both on gender and race also location. I think if you want people to have faith in the system, right?

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12:29

Which is at a very low bar right now on every single subject in this country, I think you have to make the system visible to them. And transparency is one way to do that. And look pay matters. Pay matters. It's a motivator. It's how you put bread on the table. And if you can't have faith that what you're making is equal to the person sitting next to you, then what are we even doing?

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Kara Swisher

12:50

Or explaining why the person sitting next to you earns more and having the employer explain that.

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12:56

I think one of the things is employers use that and I only was one for a very short time to not to motivate people. It's that you if you keep them in secrecy. I never thought it was a very good idea. It seemed de motivating. You're right.

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13:10

But it's to keep people like not against each other in some fashion. That's not what I was doing, but that's what it does, right? It does keep people because you don't know what everybody gets right. And I think that's a real problem. Go ahead.

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Kai Ryssdal

13:24

Yeah. And and then you know, the whole gendering of how people get higher pay is really challenging, right? I mean a lot of women just won't ask for what they deserve. And I just, you know, if this, if this tips that balance so that now women are empowered to ask for what they deserve, then that's a net positive.

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Kara Swisher

13:45

Yeah, 100%. At

Google

there was a lot of people putting their salaries in at

Google

for example, in different places, but you're absolutely true. Just managing people, men ask for more money. It just was, it was, I hate to be a cliche, but it really was true. It was really fascinating.

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14:01

And and everyone doesn't quite know what they're worth. You know what I mean? Or understand?

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14:06

But there needs to be transparency in explaining why you make decisions. You do much, much more clearly, I think. Anyway, I'm glad I'm not a management anymore. That's what all I have to say.

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14:16

Okay, let's get to our first big story.

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14:23

The pandemic is over for

Amazon

stock. Obviously

Amazon

did very well in the pandemic.

Amazon

shares fell sharply this week. Erasing gains made since the onset of the pandemic. Now

Amazon's

market cap is below a trillion dollars.

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14:35

The drop comes after

Amazon

essentially told investors christmas is canceled it issued disappointing projections for the fourth quarter as it deals with lower consumer demand. How important his

Amazon

to the larger economy, can we say as

Amazon

goes, So goes the nation, what do you, what are your thoughts on this?

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Kai Ryssdal

14:51

So look, we can say it, I suppose an

Amazon

is, you know, the second biggest retailer in this economy right behind

Walmart

and and we all those of us who order from

Amazon

and obviously not everybody does.

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15:02

But there's something incredible about being able to click on your computer and have it show up on your doorstep the next day. The catch of course is that the party's over and

Amazon

I think hasn't recognized that yet as a lot of companies happen as we shift from goods to services in this economy now and experiences that we can travel and do all that stuff.

Share

15:21

I was just looking up their their share prices down like 50% year on year end and that to me, I don't know is a big warning sign to

Andy Jassy

right.

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15:29

Andy Jassy

comes in the other day at their earnings announcement and says the macroeconomic environment is really complicated. And literally the only thing I could think of to say was. Yeah, but but the reason he gets a zillion dollars to run this big company is to be ahead of that and to figure it out.

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Kara Swisher

15:46

And so what does he figure out? What if you okay you're

Andy Jassy

here you are, you have higher costs, You hired too much, the demand is off. No one's home, you know, they're not buying as much, but there still isn't enough stuff right. Also some there's still lots of different problems even around baby formula continues to be an issue?

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Kai Ryssdal

16:09

It's incredible.

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Kara Swisher

16:10

It's shocking. So what should you do if, if you were him, what do you do? You have to cut costs really quickly obviously.

Share

16:17

But you also want to continue to provide that level of service that you're well known for?

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Kai Ryssdal

16:21

Yeah, I think, I think what you have to do is you have to be selectively investing, right? I mean you have to do some hiring freezes in some areas of the company where you can get away with it, but then you have to lean into those things that are going to keep making the money and look, we look at AWS right, is one thing that makes them a boatload of money.

Share

16:38

So you try to get more there? But then the retail experience, I don't know, am I gonna be pissed if something doesn't show up in a day and instead takes three days, I don't know, I might adapt, I might adapt.

Share

16:48

So I think you have to think of areas where you can shave those costs, but at the same time keep giving people those products where, you know, this is a good thing for us to have and we need to lean into being able to get people to provide that service right?

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Kara Swisher

17:01

And the interesting thing is that they have taught consumers that like, I bought something, I'm like, what is taking two days? Are you kidding me? And then I was called myself, I was like, oh, Cara stop it.

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Kai Ryssdal

17:12

You really need to stop it because so, so this is, this is actually part of the economy for retailers in this country has been for years, right? We are unbelievably fickle. We are entitled, right? We want it cheap and we want it yesterday.

Share

17:28

And, and so the mess for jazz and everybody else in retail in this economy is how do you satisfy that? At a time when the supply chain is still buggered up? When inflation is still a thing, you're costing your inputs are there?

Share

17:40

It's tough for you to hire because there are two jobs for every single person in this economy. And if somebody doesn't like working in an

Amazon

warehouse, they can go out and do another job, Right?

Share

17:49

It's enormously complicated.

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Kara Swisher

17:51

Yeah. So is it bad if consumers aren't buying as much? I mean, obviously by by, by is our is our national anthem, essentially.

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Kai Ryssdal

17:58

It absolutely is. And and you know, so the old statistic is 70% of this economy is spending by consumers or on behalf of consumers. So is it a problem if consumers aren't buying? Yeah, absolutely.

Share

18:09

But we cannot possibly keep on consuming at the rate we're going and I think, and and that's a climate change thing, Right? That's a sustainability thing. It's a corporate profits thing and that it goes my favorite

Adam Smith

quote ever. Right?

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Kara Swisher

18:23

The guy who wrote, well, please avail me Scott has no

Adam Smith

quotes. He has dirty jokes, but he has no

Adam Smith

quote, I'm not a dirty jokes guy.

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Kai Ryssdal

18:33

Anyway, so

Adam Smith's

wealth of nations 1776. He says consumption is the soul end and purpose of all production, right? Buying stuff using stuff up is the sole reason we make stuff which on the face of it makes sense.

Share

18:48

But if you stop for a minute in 2022

America

and on the planet earth, we can't keep doing it.

Share

18:55

Sorry, this is kind of a tangent, but it's just not sustainable.

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Kara Swisher

18:58

Yeah. Yeah. So what does a company like

Amazon

do find other businesses? What?

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Kai Ryssdal

19:03

Yeah, well, yeah, we're gonna get the

Elon

musk later I guess and maybe putting him on a rocket. I don't know.

Share

19:11

So look, I think if your

Amazon

you try to train American consumers to think differently, we have Now, Jeff Bezos has trained American consumers to want it cheap yesterday and on their doorstep and I would argue that maybe there's a chance for us and and look, I'm being naive, I get that there's a chance for us in this moment when climate change awareness of climate change is really, really high now we're coming out of the pandemic economy.

Share

19:36

So things have changed consumers are different. Work is different, Home life is different. Media is different, Everything is different. Maybe there's a chance now for people running the biggest companies on this planet. And and let's throw tim cook in there and Jassy and all the rest of them and say maybe there's a chance to do things differently.

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Kara Swisher

19:55

Sound like I sound like I like, I like your, I like this way. It's not really anti business. But what, what's the one thing jazzy should be doing besides telling us no shit. Sherlock, the economy is complicated. What should he be doing?

Share

20:10

I mean, he inherited, you know, Jeff had up into the right and of course that's the way it was going. What would you, is his job at risk or do you feel like he's just been as, as you know, has been handed a bad deck like biden has for example, I don't know, I think, I think he's got to ride the tiger a little while, right?

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Kai Ryssdal

20:27

He's got to ride the tiger of his share price of consumer expectations of his company's profitability because you know, just going back to what I sent him and undergo, we're not, we're not through the rough patch of this economy and the pandemic. We're just not right.

Share

20:40

Supply chains while while there are fewer ships in the port of Los Angeles Long Beach, right? 25 miles down the road, supply chains are still a mess because everything gets off the container ships, but there's rail and oh my gosh, there might be a rail strike, right? There are trucking challenges.

Share

20:53

I don't think he has the capacity right now to do anything. I think he rides it for a while and then goes to my paradigm shifting, you know, let's teach American consumers to be a little bit different.

Share

Kara Swisher

21:03

Alright, we'll see he's got a tough road by the way. It's not,

Amazon's

only problem, leaked emails show the company is cooperating with the FTC as it investigates whether

Amazon

misled customers into signing up for prime and speaking of prime,

Amazon

is extending subscription music product. All prime customers, thank you

Amazon

. This is great. Free music.

Share

21:22

Subscribers will now get access to

Amazon

music library, add fri Yay, that's a shot across the bow to Spotify and Apple music. I do pay for, I don't pay for Spotify any longer, but I do pay for Apple music, Joe Rogan thing. I just didn't like their answer.

Share

21:38

I just didn't like their answer. Like I just go where I go. You know, and everyone, everyone was like, oh, they're just, I'm like, no, I don't have to spend every time I don't want to spend my money somewhere. People get angry. I was like, I just don't want to like leave me alone.

Share

21:49

You don't have to, I'm not telling you to do it or anything like that. Apple music works really well. It's a very good product, but I'm gonna try out

Amazon's

for sure. Free is better than $10 for sure. That's a lot of things to give people, I'll tell you that is that gonna work?

Share

Kai Ryssdal

22:04

I don't know I I don't think it's you can get any music anytime you want right? It's it's there's there's some limitations on that. Yeah. Look I I kinda I'm a little intrigued by your I'm gonna spend my money where I want things because what happens is and I'm not the only guy who does this right?

Share

22:20

You sign up for the service and you get used to it and you get locked into it and then it's just force of habit and you're there by inertia and then you have to change get your preferences and oh my God my playlists and all of that stuff.

Share

Kara Swisher

22:30

Yeah. Yeah we'll see. I think these f. D. I think all these government investigations are going to wind down a little bit more. Given how off all these companies are from a power point of view and financial.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

22:40

But you don't you don't think lina khan no.

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Kara Swisher

22:43

What are we two years in? It seems Like right away we're waiting.

Share

22:49

I think it's hard for her to argue that Facebook is a scary behemoth that 200, whatever the heck it's worth. It's a couple $100 billion. That's it and I don't mean to say that small but it's small, that's small compared to what it was and it's definitely on its back back leg. But anyway chi let's go on a quick break.

Share

23:06

We come back

Twitter

users are holding onto their wallets and we'll speak with friend of pivot

Jon Favreau

about the midterm elections and 2024 If you've paid attention to the news, which is fair to assume since you're listening to this podcast, you know, everyone is feeling the effects of inflation.

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23:25

Well, many have offered a solution to this problem. There May not be a clear end in sight and if you own an e commerce business, nothing is worse than uncertainty.

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23:33

Well, here's a little secret consumers are still spending money and Clay Vo can help you get those consumers to spend money with you. Clay Vo is the email marketing platform that brings all your customer data into one place.

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23:46

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24:05

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Scott Galloway

24:25

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24:40

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25:00

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25:15

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Kara Swisher

25:37

Elon

musk is adding more threads to the drama at

Twitter

. I mean honestly this drama queen and I don't know what to say about him. He reportedly plans to eliminate 3700 jobs or half the company a move that could come as soon as Friday after we tape one of its executives left his scheduled public probably on purpose because that guy is that kind of guy showing a riff meetings.

Share

25:57

He'll end the company's work from anywhere policy. Everyone's going back to work and

Elon

musk companies that's consistent with what he's done before. Also this week more

Twitter

executives abruptly left the company. The chief marketing officer Leslie Berlin, very nice person.

Share

26:11

Chief people and diversity officer Delano Brand. I know I know all these people. Chief accounting officer Robert Kaden and the chief customer officer and the company's highest advertising executive who just the week before was reassuring advertisers that Ellen was there to do good things and she left Sarah person yet she was she's very well regarded within the ad industry so that was not good.

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26:34

He May not need executives ad execs anyway at Giant I. P. G. Has recommended his clients pause advertising so there's a whole bunch of coca cola, American express, Spotify and others are clients of of I. P. G. Alright putting

Elon

musk aside for a second.

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26:50

Alright just decide can any company function like this.

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Kai Ryssdal

26:54

I mean you've seen so many companies so what do you think morale would be like at Fox or marketplace if the bosses said tomorrow 50% of you are gonna be gone. What's the motivation am I going to possibly get a product out?

Share

27:07

I'm not kidding me I'm gonna be calculating my severance and worry about finding another job and oh, by the way about paying my mortgage. I don't think that works. And, and, and even for those who are left, the idea that this company now is, I mean, almost literally a chaos agent, right?

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Kara Swisher

27:25

It's called a chaos monkey in case you're interested monkey.

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Kai Ryssdal

27:28

Sorry. How do you go to work every day and why? Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

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27:34

And so here for me, honestly though, is the bigger question and you've, you've talked to musk way more than I have, right? But I interviewed him at

SpaceX

number years ago, talked about

Tesla

a number of years ago and he was while weird, right? He's always been a weird dude.

Share

27:46

He was a normal human being with, with normal, you know, here's my aspiration for this company and here's why I'm doing this. Look, if he gets all of that right, he changes the planet. But now, somehow there's been a switch flipped and he's like a man child who doesn't understand the rules of the road agreed agreed agreed.

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Kara Swisher

28:06

It's really quite, it's almost unexplainable for people who spent time with him. I've always enjoyed talking to him. We've argued many times. He has got weird tics and things like that. So do all well now he has more than others, but you know, really, this is not the person.

Share

28:22

I mean, he just goes through these cycles. I don't know what else to say. It's cycles of some sort and now he's in a very deep narcissistic cycle of sort of jesus. He thinks he's jesus or something.

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Kai Ryssdal

28:35

I don't really know what No, I I think he thinks as most rich people do extremely ridiculously rich people do. I think he thinks that the rules don't apply to him and and as near as he can tell they don't Yeah.

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Kara Swisher

28:50

Yeah.

Share

28:51

Right. Right. The sec doesn't step in. Let's get to the business of it. Does it remind you of the early days of the trump administration? We've got an executive who got something you probably didn't want sending proclamations via tweet have passed early appointing his friends and relatives to leadership roles and just like trump. There's speculation of foreign involvement.

Share

29:08

The Treasury Department has reportedly requested more information about the foreign investors. Why the chaos. I'm trying to see is there some genius to this at all whatsoever? Because everything looks like a re tread a stupid idea. Other people have tried and very typical turnaround moves except meaner and crueler and more just random essentially.

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Kai Ryssdal

29:33

Yeah, sorry, I'm just trying to work through the, through the trump analogy. Right? Because yes to all of those things that you said I think also though and who knows, but maybe he watched trump do all the things that trump has done and get away with it and said, you know what I'm going to try that too because he is being mean spirited, right?

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29:56

He is, I mean look at look at trying to fire people for cause after he takes over that company, right? And that whole, that whole farce including the Ceo and the rest of the C suite.

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30:05

He is having success because nobody is able to, nobody is willing to, nobody wants to challenge him on these destructive things he's doing. And here's one more thing, right?

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30:16

It's not news to anybody that what Donald Trump has done has been destructive to the American fabric, right? And that's not a partisan thing. It's just an observable thing.

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30:25

Although somebody will come after me for being partisan. I would argue that what

Elon

musk is now doing with this global communications platform while it is disproportionately influential based on its size and then some of subscribers, right?

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30:38

It is destructive to the American fabric.

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Kara Swisher

30:40

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. I think one of the things that's interesting is some people inside, I know some of the people working with him, they're like, well he's doing something, I'm like, what? Like, like what, like cutting costs so he cannot lose money. Right, That makes sense.

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30:56

If I were him, I'd want to cut costs and not lose as much money as I did.

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31:01

But it's like he's, there's action and I'm like, oh okay. Like I don't think screaming is really a good business plan now. Some of the ideas trying to shift the business is not a bad one, like, but there's nothing fresh, I'm like, this is nothing that someone hasn't suggested, including

Scott Galloway

.

Share

31:18

By the way, they're using

Scott Galloway's

playbook and they call him, call him a numbskull like whatever. Okay then you're using the numbskulls plan. But one of the things was this updated plan for subscription

Twitter

product. It was

Twitter

blue, I bought it and then got rid of it because it was useless to me.

Share

31:34

I always try things didn't find it valuable to me and I, everyone was like, you're cheap. I'm like, no, why should I pay for something I don't want to pay for? Like I said, users would pay $8 a month, Not 20 of course they floated 20 just upset people.

Share

31:48

They'll see half as many ads, I don't see any now. So okay, they get priority and replies mentions in search, I don't know what that means.

Share

31:55

Subscribers could post longer videos, I don't care. They'll be able to bypass paywall for publishers who agree to work with

Twitter

of which they'll be zero.

Share

32:03

These publishers have been down that road before and they certainly don't trust

Elon

musk and like the one they need to get is the new york times and all he does is insult them on

Twitter

, why would they do? That's the, that's the one they need because they're the monopoly news organization at this moment in time. But what do you think about this?

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Kai Ryssdal

32:19

Well, so first of all, I'm not gonna pay for it because I just objected in principle. I same reason, I'm not gonna buy a

Tesla

, right? I don't want to put money on the, on musk's pocket. I mean call me superficial, there's lots of other cars out there now just say, oh, I know and I've got one coming.

Share

32:33

But but look here, here's the challenge for me. I have a relatively good experience on

Twitter

, right? I use sweet dick, I don't use the and and here's in my opinion, here's why I have a relatively normal and good and enjoyable, right? I like

Twitter

. I use it all the time.

Share

32:48

It's a news source for me, it's a serendipitous discovery thing for me. I make friends and contacts and I've got Twitter buddies all over the place, right? I mean, and it's vaguely profile raising. It doesn't do anything for me in a business sense, but it's, it's profile raising, right?

Share

33:02

And and look, you and I have never met and were Twitter buddies, right? But but look, part of the reason why I have a good experience on

Twitter

is because I'm a white male with status and a lot of followers and here's where this is going.

Share

33:15

I was talking to my wife about this the other day and I said this to her and I said, you know, Twitter Twitter can be a cesspool, an absolute schiphol for so many people, most of whom are women and people of color, but everything's gonna be fine for me and she looked at me and she said, so you're okay being on this platform where your colleagues were women and your colleagues who are people of color are having terrible demeaning experiences And and I don't quite know what to do with that.

Share

33:43

So it's possible, I'll leave. I don't know, but I'm sure as hell not paying him eight bucks.

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Kara Swisher

33:47

Yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think one of the problems is is that it doesn't, it doesn't really matter if he makes money or not to him. I guess there any moves here that are good. I mean just away again, leaving him aside besides breaking the prop.

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Kai Ryssdal

34:01

Look, you talked about this a second ago, right? He is doing something and look move fast and break things is a Silicon Valley trope and and people are discovering actually that maybe that doesn't work so much, but

Twitter

is a business has not been great.

Share

34:15

It has been super challenged for a very long time. What he's doing. Seems to everybody else not to make much sense. Maybe there's a plan, I don't know, maybe his buddies were in the war room with him now with

Twitter

or hatching something that's gonna be great.

Share

34:29

I don't know, but I think his leash now his tether is really, really short and the amount of time it's going to take for him to drive this product into the ground I don't think is long.

Share

Kara Swisher

34:38

Yeah, he tweeted something to the left and right are mad at me. So that's good. I think he's so reductive. So it's not the left and the right, you dumb mass. Like that's what I thought when I read, I was like, oh, oh, so you're right. I'm like, you're still an asshole. You're still being an asshole. Like, I don't know what to say. It's not a plus thing.

Share

34:56

You're not doing anything right, You're not making it better. You're not making it happy. You're, you're not making it a nicer product, You're driving people to Tiktok and etcetera. And one thing that I think is lost among this is two things. If he cuts these costs, gets it to a better number, which you can buy, cutting, you can cut your costs and then the numbers look better and advertising doesn't fall off that much.

Share

35:19

Maybe a little bit, but I lost a $250,000 deal on

Twitter

. I can just say just 11 that was gonna be, it was, ouch, that's right, Fuck you, Ellen, that's what I have to say. We was great. And by the way, those

Twitter

employees were all fantastic. I'm sure you're laying them off. They were amazing.

Share

35:37

They were amazing and innovative and trying new fresh things I shouldn't say funk, you Ellen, but actually really, that was a lot of money if you don't mind.

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Kai Ryssdal

35:44

I think that was heartfelt. I don't think you should.

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Kara Swisher

35:47

Yeah, that was heartfelt. No, I Shan't.

Share

35:49

And we were making a great product to that was really good for the, for the platform.

Share

35:53

So could he clean it up in that way and then take it public again as almost like a meme stock or a fan stock if it looks a little better. Do you see that working on Wall Street given all the different am CS and etcetera etcetera.

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Kai Ryssdal

36:08

Yeah. Look, I, I think there's appetite for anything on Wall Street. Right. Right. And the upside potential of a social network that is Uncluttered and free of and setting musk aside as you've, you've tried to do and I haven't really let you in the last 10 minutes, right?

Share

36:25

Setting him aside if, if there's a social network that comes along that is curated, Uncluttered, accessible and not violent or misogynist or racist then Yeah, I think there's definitely a market for that. But I don't know if Elon musk can get there.

Share

Kara Swisher

36:42

What if he does that? Can he, if he, if he even just cleans it up a little bit, not even cleans it up, but just cleans up the finances. Could he, could he take a public and get all his fans just to buy his stock and make his money back that

Tesla Tesla

, I'm not buying a

Tesla

but zillions of people are buying

Tesla

.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

36:59

Yeah, sure he can do it.

Share

37:01

Sure you can do it. Yeah. And look, the guy's got great skills, the guy's got great skills. I just don't know that they're being exercised right now in a responsible way.

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Kara Swisher

37:09

Yeah. The last thing is he's using test. Speaking of

Tesla

,

Tesla

and

SpaceX

executives and engineers, which he does it as other companies. How do you do that legally? Here?

Share

Kai Ryssdal

37:20

Oh, such a good question. Right? I mean, I mean the day had closed, he had a platoon of

Tesla

software engineers, right? They froze the code for the

Twitter

folks and they brought in a whole slew of

Tesla

engineers and started going through the code that way.

Share

37:34

I don't you know, it's a privately owned company you can do. I suppose what he wants. Not

Tesla

, but but

Twitter

.

Share

Kara Swisher

37:38

Yeah, but

Tesla's

not.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

37:40

Tesla's

not right.

Share

Kara Swisher

37:41

Do they get paid?

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Kai Ryssdal

37:42

Yeah. Who pays them great question.

Share

Kara Swisher

37:44

Someone has to write because it's a public company.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

37:47

Here's another thing and you know, must gets a lot of credit as he deserves for

SpaceX

. But musk isn't running

SpaceX

right. Gwen Shotwell is running

SpaceX

and she's made some missteps in in you know, her comments about about musk in the sexual harassment thing from a number of months ago. But if he could find a Gwen Shotwell for

Tesla

and a Gwynne Shotwell for for

Twitter

then I think it could work.

Share

Kara Swisher

38:10

Yeah. Yeah. We'll see he's got a bow himself out. The people he's picked. I have to say I have not very much confidence and as they say clever people but really honestly lean towards jerk. Anyway.

Share

38:24

Let's bring in our friend of pivot

Jon Favreau

is the co founder of crooked media, a former speechwriter for president Obama and host of more podcasts than me. He's on

Pod Save America

offline and the wilderness Welcome John thanks for having me. So so I heard you just went through the same thing. I'm going through the RsV like dance or whatever, toddler sickness.

Share

Speaker 4

38:50

First we thought it was crew for then the doctor said it's probably rsv that gave him croup and now he's mostly recovered. But Emily and I both got laryngitis as well.

Share

Kara Swisher

39:01

So yeah, me too. Me too.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

39:02

Little kids, little kids do it every time.

Share

Kara Swisher

39:05

Exactly. Let's start off, we're gonna go back and forth asking you questions. The Midterms are less than a week away. Tell me what races you're watching.

Share

Speaker 4

39:13

Well because I'm a political junkie, I'm watching all of them. But

Pennsylvania

Georgia are the two big ones. I think that will sort of

Nevada

.

Share

39:22

That will sort of determine control of the

Senate

.

Share

39:26

Maybe Arizona too.

Share

Kara Swisher

39:27

So let's start with

Nevada

because I think everyone thought that sort of was locked up. But Adam Laxalt showed some real strength.

Share

Speaker 4

39:35

Yeah, I think the problem with

Nevada

is this is less about candidates than about the the state and what's been happening over the last couple cycles. So

Nevada

was the one state where

Joe Biden

did not improve the one blue state in 2020, where

Joe Biden

did not improve on Hillary Clinton's 2016 margin.

Share

39:54

And part of that is it's a very working class state, there's a lot of big proportion of non college educated voters there. And Democrats have been losing those voters steadily. First it started with Democrats losing white non college voters, but in

Nevada

where there's a pretty sizable latino population, we're now starting to lose working class latino voters as well.

Share

Kara Swisher

40:16

Right, and why is that?

Share

Speaker 4

40:18

Well, so I went out there for the wilderness and I talked to a bunch of working class Latinos in Las Vegas in the focus group and a lot of them said that first of all like inflation is top of mind for for everyone, especially housing, housing came up in all the focus groups, it's like one of the biggest issues I've heard about, but not a lot of politicians are talking about it.

Share

40:40

And a lot of these folks were like, I don't think that the Democratic Party is the party of working people anymore and I and and they don't necessarily trust

the Republican Party

, still the most common word I heard to describe

the Republican Party

was extreme, but the decision that a lot of these voters are making is either I don't want to vote at all, or maybe I'll give the Republicans a chance even.

Share

Kara Swisher

41:02

Alright, what about go through

Pennsylvania

and Georgia?

Share

Speaker 4

41:05

So in

Pennsylvania

, I think, you know, Fetterman had a pretty big lead early on and they did a great job of defining Dr Oz is like sort of a rich out of touch guy from New Jersey. I think the Republicans dumped a bunch of money into that state. They they went really hard on crime attacks.

Share

41:23

John Fetterman

was on the parole board there and so they ran a lot of ads and so

Josh Shapiro

, the Democrat running for governor, there was also on the parole board and Federman and Shapiro sort of split on some of the parole decisions. And so the Republicans used that sort of as a wedge to say, oh, even

Josh Shapiro

disagreed with some of the decisions

John Fetterman

made.

Share

41:42

And I think that the Fetterman campaign, I think it's a really very well run campaign and the way they define Dr Oz, but I think those attacks have sort of piled up and I think a lot of Republicans who didn't like DR Oz at first sort of coming home now and just, you know,

Pennsylvania's

a closed state and so Dr Oz is gonna get most Republicans and

John Fetterman

is gonna get most Democrats and it's gonna come down to the wire wire and then lastly Georgia and then in Georgia, you know, I I did a couple, I did a focus group in Atlanta and of younger or black voters and asked about herschel walker, just about every single person was like, oh he's crazy, he's crazy.

Share

42:21

But then asked about Warnock and they're like, well, I haven't heard much from Warnock feels like he just does what biden wants him to do and were upset with biden because of inflation because of crime and some sort of not sure.

Share

42:35

So they didn't they weren't sold on herschel walker, but the larger political climate, which is voters being upset about inflation and then especially voters in cities worrying about crime is sort of pushing against Democrats everywhere back up to

Nevada

for him for a minute.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

42:54

How did it happen that the Democratic Party became not the party of the working people anymore?

Share

Speaker 4

42:58

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's like, I think the people, I don't think that the voters necessarily by the Republicans are the party of working people now, but I think that a lot of voters, you know, have been dealing with sort of this struggle with costs, cost of housing, cost of education, cost of health care for a long, long time.

Share

43:22

I think inflation has now added to those problems and like, they look to Washington or they see the headlines and it's like Democrats passed an inflation reduction act right now, the effects of the inflation reduction act are going to take a effect for a while, The prescription drug benefit, which is great and super popular isn't gonna go into effect for a couple of years.

Share

43:42

The climate stuff that's going to lower people's energy bills is not gonna take effect for a while. And so they see headlines about Democrats being like, yeah, we fixed inflation and then they're still wrestling with inflation because they're still going to the grocery store and they can't afford to pay for groceries.

Share

43:59

And so there's this disconnect and, you know, people think that no one is actually fighting for them or are working to improve their lives in a tangible way.

Share

44:08

I think there's also it's also the case that Democrats have focused, I think rightly on, you know, the job's decision and protecting abortion access and the threat to democracy posed by

the Republican Party

. And so the fact that those things are in the headlines and not economic issues, or at least they're not hearing that from Democrats outside of the ads. The Democrats run.

Share

Kara Swisher

44:30

That's sort of widening that disconnect that voters feel with the Democratic Party over and Dobbs has not stayed a very big issue for for many, or at least the top.

Share

Speaker 4

44:40

It's sort of a it's what you'd expect depending on the state, right? And so in a state like

Pennsylvania

where it's pretty cut and dry,

Josh Shapiro

wins, abortion will be legal dug, mass Triano wins, it's going to be banned. So

Josh Shapiro

has like a 10 point lead over?

Share

44:59

Because people vividly see the stakes on abortion. I think in other places, people are like, okay, well I'm, I'm pro choice, but if a Republican wins, at least abortion will be protected where I live for various reasons. And so I think it's the force of the issue is dependent on where you live and what the race is.

Share

Kara Swisher

45:20

But they realize what's gonna happen correct. Why wouldn't it matter as much in

Pennsylvania

economically compared to that? Why does it matter more in other states than others?

Share

Speaker 4

45:30

Well, it matters in certain states where abortions on the ballot, right? So like in in Michigan right, there's a constitutional amendment that's gonna be on the ballot that you can, if you vote for, you can protect abortion and you can actually tell how this is a powerful issue because tutor Dixon, who's Gretchen Whitmer opponent, the Democratic governor there.

Share

45:47

Tutor Dixon was like, well, you know, you can vote for this constitutional amendment to protect abortion if you want, even though I'm against abortion and still vote for me.

Share

Kara Swisher

45:55

So she's even pushing that. So the house goes to Republicans, what can we expect there?

Share

Speaker 4

45:60

It looks like just endless hearings, correct endless hearings, investigations and potentially a debt ceiling crisis.

Share

46:07

They could provoke a, they could provoke a debt ceiling crisis if they don't get cuts to Social Security and Medicare and then what about the Senate Senate, if Democrats keep the

Senate

,

Joe Biden

can continue to nominate judges and from judges and and move the judiciary sort of back towards the center from the far right.

Share

46:25

And he can also nominate people to fill the government If Republicans control the

Senate

, I think most judicial, no judicial vacancies get filled. And I think that

Joe Biden

will have a very hard time nominating anyone or confirming anyone to work in his administration to work at all whatsoever.

Share

46:43

Even under McConnell, they'll just block everything for who, for whose benefit trump's to to make the government seem like it's broken and which redounds to the benefit of Republican with the Republicans? Are the party that says the government you know, can't run a one car parade power.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

47:03

That's what it is, right?

Share

Speaker 4

47:05

I mean, you know, and they know that voters ultimately don't pay attention to like the intricacies of what happens in Congress and they'll just blame

Joe Biden

. So we have a dysfunctional government must be biden's fault.

Share

Kai Ryssdal

47:16

So, so John, given the stew of Dobbs and inflation and the political paralysis that we have now in this country, take me back to your speechwriter days, is there anything you'd have done different for the last like 68 months.

Share

Speaker 4

47:30

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, look, I think, You know, larger economic and political trends are what they are and there's only so much you can do, I will definitely stipulate that I was around in 2010 where we lost a whole bunch of seats because we passed, we were in the, you know, coming out of a financial crisis and had just passed the Affordable Care Act. We all thought it was worth it anyway.

Share

47:53

But I do think that Democrats going forward are going to have to really focus their message on fighting for working people and on economics and on the economy because that is the struggle that most people feel in this country. And I think we are now a party that is mostly college educated voters and for those voters, most of them not all but most are more economically secure than non college voters.

Share

48:25

And so I think we often forget sort of the real struggles that people are facing and we say things like why don't people can't why don't people understand that abortions at risk? Why don't people understand that? Democracy is at risk?

Share

48:37

Why don't people understand that these Republicans are extremists? And the truth is a lot of people do understand those things, but they just they can't get by, you know, just this woman in in in Vegas and she's like I want to protect abortion access and I want to ban you know assault rifles and I'm afraid to send my kids to school.

Share

48:56

She's like but I've also moved motels five times in the last three months because I can't even afford rent and I worked two jobs and that that's the people is the bigger emergency right now and Democrats, it's not just about a list of policies that will help that. It's about sort of organizing the entire party around that mission to help working people succeeded.

Share

Kara Swisher

49:16

Well, who represents that? Because it's interesting cause I think about it like it's not none of us is an indulgence, but Democrats focus on democracy, extremism, anti gay, anti abortion.

Share

49:26

The extremists on

the Republican Party

and and and hammer that home very heavily, heavily heavily the top leadership certainly does.

Share

49:35

And biden just did in a speech essentially about democracy and political violence. The Republicans are hammering home their own indulgences about censorship and killing babies and whatever they happen to have or or trans people teaching critical race theory in schools and peeing on children or in in in whatever, whatever that's their indulgence.

Share

49:57

It's like they need, they can't stop going down that both of them are a mistake. You know, not the mistake. The first one is not a mistake both of them to stress them and not the economics parts.

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50:07

But how do you get out of that? How do you get out of that idea of getting people to think about that even though the it is very important about democracy and political violence and etcetera etcetera.

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Speaker 4

50:21

Yeah, it's it's it's the challenge of our time. Part of it is there's a media issue, right? The media tends to cover cultural issues more than economic issues.

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50:33

That's just sort of the way it looked when in 2012, even before we knew that Romney was going to be our opponent. We wanted to define that election as an election about the middle class and about the economy. And we knew that that would require tremendous discipline.

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50:50

Everything we said every ad we put out every time Barack Obama got up, he talked about this is a defining moment for the middle class. He said it over and over and over again. And then we were fortunate to get mitt Romney as an opponent who was sort of embodied the party that we were trying to like the monopoly guy. So it worked out, but it takes a tremendous amount of message discipline to focus in on that message.

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51:15

And look, I don't think that the Republican, all the Republican stuff about critical race theory and all the stuff that they, all the indulgences that they you know, they talk about all the time. I don't think it works for them beyond their base. Right? Like I talked to a bunch of voters in Virginia who voted for

Joe Biden

and then voted for Republican.

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51:33

Glen junkin and I asked them about critical race theory. Most of them were like, oh we disagree with Glen Duncan on critical race theory. We think that's crazy. We just don't think terry mcauliffe represented change and we're just about the grocery tax so decided to give him a try. So I don't think that their their culture or bullshit is working very well on the Republican side beyond writing up their base.

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51:56

We take the bait and we get mad and then the fight becomes about these cultural issues and the account of the economic debate gets lost.

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Kai Ryssdal

52:04

What do you do with this? Right. I mean you guys spend a lot of time on

Pod Save America

being prescriptive and all that.

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52:10

And I guess my question is Do you think it's harder now for the biden team than it was for you guys in 2012 given social media, given the state of play given 2016 and 2020 you know and social definitely social media ability for Kari lake to become famous or marjorie, taylor greene who would have been a nobody.

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Speaker 4

52:29

It is so so so much harder and I think 11 of many trump effects is he has sort of set the expectation that the president knighted states is going to be part of the constant communication and information flow that all of us operate in all the time. And so I think that whereas you know, even in the Obama administration we say like I don't want to put the president out all the time.

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52:58

We want to like just have him speak on special occasions because otherwise sort of now I think you actually now you need to do it all the time, you need to communicate constantly and I think that if I were in the biden administration I would want the president out even more or I think the party needs communicators who are out there all the time talking, talking on

Twitter

, talking on all social media platforms everywhere and not just in the way that you know, you put out a tweet, that sounds like it's a press release, right?

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53:30

Like actually communicating in authentic ways all the time.

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Kara Swisher

53:33

Speaking of that might be remiss if I didn't ask you, what do you think the impact of

Elon

musk owning

Twitter

will be?

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Speaker 4

53:40

I was just talking about that this morning. I mean I think that it's interesting because if he, if he was like nicer about asking people to pay for a better experience on

Twitter

, you could actually see like look if he's gonna charge you $8 just for a blue checkmark, that's a status symbol only.

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53:59

I don't think people are gonna pay for that. But if you, if you presented it as like, okay, this is a better user experience, if you pay a couple dollars a month and I welcome everyone to do that.

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54:09

I think you could, you could see some people joining, he's an asshole though and he's decided to be an ast and he's polarized the whole thing so that now if you pay for

Twitter

, you're like supporting

Elon

musk who is being an asshole to everybody being a troll and if and so I think that people are either and you know some people are saying this today, he seems to be like flooding

Twitter

with more promoted ads now to try to sort of like force people to pay and I think people are either going to pay or they're going to quit or just sit there quietly until an alternative comes along.

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