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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Elon must CEO status at Twitter

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Speaker 1: is up for a vote on Twitter. You're gonna learn

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Speaker 1: oh so much. On today's show Vanity Fairs Nick Bilton,

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Speaker 1: who literally wrote the book on Twitter. We'll talk to

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Speaker 1: us about what the hell is happening there. Then we'll

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Speaker 1: talk to Molly White, who writes the amazing blog web

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Speaker 1: three is going just great about f t X and

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Speaker 1: SPF and many of the other woes of the crypto industry.

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Speaker 1: But first we have the host of NPRS Full Disclosure

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Speaker 1: and here and now, Robin fars Odd. Welcome to Fast Politics. Robin,

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me, Molly. What a joy, what flattery?

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Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm thrilled. It's like there's so much ship

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Speaker 1: going on right now. Excuse my French. The economy and

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Speaker 1: inflation and the numbers and are they better are they worse?

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Speaker 1: So my first question for you is here we are,

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Speaker 1: And again I always feel like my feelings do not

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Speaker 1: necessarily drive with what has actually happened. In my heart,

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Speaker 1: it feels like the economy is better than we thought

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Speaker 1: it was going to be am I wrong. What the

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Speaker 1: hell is happening? The economy has got deep power to it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where this money is left over from,

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Speaker 1: if it was extraordinary stimulus from the pandemic or the

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Speaker 1: fact that many of us are working from home and

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Speaker 1: not commuting or not spending on wardrobe. But you can't

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Speaker 1: really kill it as much as the fete is hiked.

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Speaker 1: And now you've hiked more than four points in a year.

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Speaker 1: This is the biggest surge of inflation we've had in

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Speaker 1: forty years. Many of us have never experienced capital I

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Speaker 1: inflation that they keep taking rates up. But nope, we're

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Speaker 1: still doing the fomo travel fomo dining out tickets. I mean,

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Speaker 1: pandemic be damned, rs v B damned, fever be damned.

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Speaker 1: And I was at Chippolle late the other day and these, uh,

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Speaker 1: these hucksters actually shook me down for three dollars for

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Speaker 1: an extra dollar of chicken. I remember what extra chicken

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Speaker 1: was a dollar twenty five. All you need to know

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Speaker 1: about this economy is Chipotle. I mean, you have a

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Speaker 1: willingness to pay. I don't even like it that much.

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Speaker 1: The kids send me there, but they extort you every

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Speaker 1: time they have pricing power. And that's the way things

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Speaker 1: are headed. And there's a tip button now too. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you finance people, economists, people do with the economy,

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Speaker 1: very involved in Chippotele. Is inflation worse than we thought?

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Speaker 1: I mean, the numbers went down. The Biden administration seems

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Speaker 1: very joyous. They're not. I mean they're still high, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, explain to us where we are with inflation.

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Speaker 1: You have the Federal Reserve look at things in terms

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Speaker 1: of bifur k like a duality of economy. You want

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Speaker 1: stable prices and full employment. We have arguably more than

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Speaker 1: full employment, with unemployment at three and a half percent.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we have too many job openings. No by

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Speaker 1: are willing to take these jobs. I think the Fed privately,

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Speaker 1: if you've got Jerome Powell beer or vermouth at a bar,

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Speaker 1: you tell you I'd gladly trade you know, five percent

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Speaker 1: unemployment for two three percent inflation. It used to be

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Speaker 1: that we just got used to two or three percent inflation.

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Speaker 1: It's closer to seven percent now, and it hit as

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Speaker 1: much as nine nearly ten percent, and that's really hard

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Speaker 1: to snuff out. I mean by hiking rates up. In theory,

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Speaker 1: you're making borrowing so difficult for people. You're making short

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Speaker 1: term treasury yields or maybe bank saving zeald so attractive

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Speaker 1: that people don't want to spend the money and practice.

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Speaker 1: Like you said, there's a lot of money out there

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Speaker 1: and there's still plenty to spend and FOMO I call

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Speaker 1: it f O m O if you're missing out versus

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Speaker 1: f O m C, the Federal Open Market Committee. That's

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Speaker 1: really what this boils down to sow the raising interest rates.

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Speaker 1: The Fed is raising interest rates because of this inflation

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Speaker 1: in the hopes of slowing it down. It's making the

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Speaker 1: mark it's mad, yeah, and it's making things perverse. Like

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Speaker 1: on many days you have a bowl run on bad news,

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Speaker 1: because if there's bad news, there's this idea that, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's going to make the Fed thing twice about hiking again,

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Speaker 1: or we'll have a sooner end to this rate hiking cycle.

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Speaker 1: If there's good news, like, whoa, we're gonna we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take rates up to six percent. This is worse than

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Speaker 1: we thought. And so there's a complete disconnect now between

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Speaker 1: news you should be rooting for and news investors and

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Speaker 1: speculators are rooting for and this has actually been the

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Speaker 1: worst year for diversification in recent history. It used to

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Speaker 1: be that if you're in stocks and bonds, you get ballast,

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Speaker 1: you get protection. But everything has gotten taken out and

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Speaker 1: shot this year, so an enormous amount of confusion and

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Speaker 1: capitulation among investors. So this is real. The markets are

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Speaker 1: not the economy. That's right. It's really not that way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we first came to the United States,

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Speaker 1: and this is a little cliche that I tell this story.

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Speaker 1: One of my coming of age things is my dad,

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Speaker 1: there's an immigrant. It was very proud to take me

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Speaker 1: to the Savings Bank of America in North Dade County,

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Speaker 1: Florida and give me my first past book savings account

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Speaker 1: in two and I was a kindergartener, and I remember

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Speaker 1: there were toasters and blenders everywhere, and the CDs were

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Speaker 1: paying fifteen sixteen percent. That's when the FED was last

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Speaker 1: killing inflation. Banks were begging you to give them your money.

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Speaker 1: And if we have the highest inflation of four years,

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Speaker 1: we don't have anything like that at a bank. I

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Speaker 1: walk into a b of A or a chase, and

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Speaker 1: they feel like they're doing me a favor if I

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Speaker 1: open up a CD or a money market account. Things

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Speaker 1: have changed so much. I haven't felt inflation in my

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Speaker 1: adult life. There's been a lot of crying wolf. I know,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna let this thing out of the bag, and

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Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to put it back in

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Speaker 1: the bag. And it's finally visited it this year. And

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Speaker 1: I speak to traders and investors in Wall Street people

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Speaker 1: and they're just isn't an institutional memory. A lot of

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Speaker 1: the greenhorns out there have never had to deal with

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Speaker 1: a foe like this. We we we largely have broken the

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Speaker 1: back of inflation for more than a generation, but we

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Speaker 1: haven't this time, right, I mean, inflation isn't going up anymore,

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Speaker 1: but it's not going down. And they've raised rates almost

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Speaker 1: every month, though this month they only raised by half

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Speaker 1: a percent. Yeah, but again we raised by a chunky

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Speaker 1: four full points, more than four points, and we have

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Speaker 1: another hike in the offing I think in February, and

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Speaker 1: inflation you could say, is getting sanded down a bit,

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Speaker 1: but seven point one percent that's still chunky. And I

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Speaker 1: gotta tell you the theoretical stuff you see the government stats,

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Speaker 1: they don't jive with what you see in the grocery

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Speaker 1: store Avian flu has eggs at nearly four dollars. Or

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Speaker 1: people are complaining about Roman and lettuce, you know, basic staples.

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Speaker 1: Gas prices for much of this year choked people off,

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Speaker 1: and the Chipotle factor, to me, that's still I don't

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Speaker 1: want to I want to never talk about that restaurant again. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't think it's a good. Mexican

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Speaker 1: food is good. I don't either. There's better food out there.

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Speaker 1: But they single handily caused inflation. They send so much power.

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Speaker 1: They single handily caused hassa avocado. Back when I lived

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Speaker 1: in Manhattan, I used to get sweet hass avocados fors

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Speaker 1: and regale my men girlfriend now wife with him. Now

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Speaker 1: I can't buy one for less than four bucks. That's

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Speaker 1: neither here nor there, but go ahead. That really is yes, Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I guess it shows inflation. Gases though down right,

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Speaker 1: I mean gas is down now right, And that's was

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Speaker 1: one of the big drivers, right, gases down. Labor is

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Speaker 1: not down enough. I think that people are still feeling

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Speaker 1: that stores cannot beg people to show up for job interviews,

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Speaker 1: much less show up for the job. You've had to

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Speaker 1: up the anti what was effectively now the de facto

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Speaker 1: minimum wage in many cities in service sector jobs, not

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Speaker 1: statutory necessarily as fifteen dollars and fifteen dollars. And there's

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Speaker 1: much more clout now in terms of negotiating for tips

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Speaker 1: a tip option. You see what's happening with Starbucks. I

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Speaker 1: had recently a person on my show who's turning his

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Speaker 1: coffee shop into a bit of a Kibbutz collective type thing,

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Speaker 1: a co ownership thing with his baristas because there's no

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Speaker 1: management track, there's no equity track. It's and and then

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Speaker 1: on top of that, getting people back to the office

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Speaker 1: is like pulling teeth. Now have we If we had

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Speaker 1: more of an economic shock and unemployment was back up

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Speaker 1: to six percent or seven percent, I think that would

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Speaker 1: expose a lot of honesty and price discovery in the market.

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Speaker 1: But we're still enjoying less than four percent unemployment. Some

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Speaker 1: of this has to do with immigration, absolutely, And this

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Speaker 1: is where you know somebody's got to do a great

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Speaker 1: thing on the Chamber of commerce is cloud versus MAGA.

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Speaker 1: You have so many people who are nominally GOP voting

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Speaker 1: and everything, like the CEO of grocery store chains and

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Speaker 1: restaurant chains and everything. Privately, they tell you that I've

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Speaker 1: been killed on the lack of immigration, whether it's was

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Speaker 1: the Trump administratration channeling hostility. I used to depend not

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Speaker 1: just on illegal or undocumented workers, but people who would

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Speaker 1: come here seasonally and work in my diner. I could

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Speaker 1: get a short order chef. There's this tradition, a history

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Speaker 1: have not just in fruit picking and agriculture and painting

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Speaker 1: and towering the roof and landscaping, but on repaytrading money

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Speaker 1: back to Mexico and Central America and other places. And

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Speaker 1: we so bad, badly need that immigration right now because

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Speaker 1: there just aren't there too many openings, and the wages,

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Speaker 1: the clearing price wages for these things which aren't even effective,

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Speaker 1: are driving up menu costs and everything else. You're seeing

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Speaker 1: it in agriculture, You're seeing it in home building. You're

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Speaker 1: seeing it just across the board. And it's a conversation

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Speaker 1: that I think the diminishing chamber of commerce wing of

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Speaker 1: the GOP needs to have with its cultural right wing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you could have found this somewhere in

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Speaker 1: that two thousand and twelve post boredom of the election,

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Speaker 1: which is in Embers somewhere I don't even know. Let

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Speaker 1: me ask you what happens now? Where do we think

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Speaker 1: this goes? Right? There's no fix for immigration on the horizon,

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Speaker 1: so the labor markets are not going to loosen. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the only way labor markets get looser is by adding

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Speaker 1: more people. I mean, are we just stuck in this forever?

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Speaker 1: I think here's where the FED would privately like to

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Speaker 1: see higher unemployment, because you'll see slack in wages, and

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Speaker 1: you'll see people who were unwilling to show up at

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Speaker 1: work more willing to show up at work. Do you

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Speaker 1: remember what happened at the outset of this pandemic? We've

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Speaker 1: really we visited unemployment in the high teams. The TV

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Speaker 1: news networks had all this aerial footage of long breadlines,

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Speaker 1: people waiting to get that that that was very short

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Speaker 1: lived and it immediately shot back down. That exposes a

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Speaker 1: lot of truth, you know, as as Warren Buffett says,

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Speaker 1: and it's a little cliche. You see when the tide

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Speaker 1: goes out, you see who's not wearing swim trunks. It's

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Speaker 1: entirely possible that way. And the FED, while probably doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to tip the economy into a full blown recession,

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Speaker 1: wants to see higher pain so that wages subside. So

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Speaker 1: much is so much as captured here in wages and

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Speaker 1: and the vicious wage price spiral of people demanding higher wages,

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Speaker 1: bosses and everything, increasing menu prices, passing it down to consumers,

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Speaker 1: consumers going to their bosses getting higher wages. We're still

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Speaker 1: feeling that. And now I'm going to sound like a socialist,

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Speaker 1: but higher wages are good, especially in the world or

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Speaker 1: cost of living, you know. I mean part of this

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Speaker 1: is there hasn't the wage growth hasn't kept up with

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Speaker 1: the economy. I mean, don't you think that share our

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Speaker 1: by backs and things like that, where profits were put

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Speaker 1: onto the managerial class and the wealthy and not given

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Speaker 1: to the workers was kind of how we got here

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Speaker 1: in the first place. And you're saying this from the

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Speaker 1: upper east Side, not the upper west side. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm from the z Bars district. I know this, I

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Speaker 1: know this field. But yeah, no. But here's the problem

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Speaker 1: is if you have inflation at north of wage growth,

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Speaker 1: then you're still losing money in real time. But the

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Speaker 1: good news is that workers rested back a tremendous amount

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Speaker 1: of cloud in the battle between capital and labor. This

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Speaker 1: has been a real defining moment of workers who just

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Speaker 1: didn't want to show up. You've read about quiet quitting,

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Speaker 1: about people who just wanted to lie flat and do

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Speaker 1: these other things. And there's still that cloud in whatever

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Speaker 1: peculiar area we are in this economic cycle. The worker

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Speaker 1: right now, the blue collar worker, the service sector worker,

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Speaker 1: has an enormous amount of bargaining power and that just

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Speaker 1: hasn't been seen over decades where there this is this

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Speaker 1: learned helplessness. The money is going to go first to

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Speaker 1: shareholders and dividends and management and profit, and now you can't.

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Speaker 1: You're leaving money on the table if you don't have workers,

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Speaker 1: so you need to pay them. So that actually is impositive. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's an equilibration. In the past, you did and after

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Speaker 1: the financial crisis two thousand and eight, two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: I remember I was covering Lehman and everything, and people

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Speaker 1: are saying, if this doesn't get workers in the streets

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Speaker 1: with pitchforks, the fact that you're bailing out Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what will, but it didn't. I mean

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Speaker 1: Obama took power. They say, don't waste a good crisis.

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Speaker 1: Wall Street got to recapitalize with dividends again, and then

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Speaker 1: we went back to business as usual. The pandemic. Fundamentally,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a sea change moment where people who

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Speaker 1: are putting up with crap, working at diners, working at Walmart's,

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Speaker 1: working at grocery stores with I rate crabby customers coming

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Speaker 1: out and getting hero pay at the outset and seeing

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Speaker 1: that hero pay go away. And on top of the

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Speaker 1: fact that something like Obamacare has been normalized now and

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Speaker 1: you comport health insurance, don't underestimate how important that's been,

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Speaker 1: and it's gonna be hard to take that bone back

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Speaker 1: from the dog's mouth that I think together has really

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Speaker 1: given the worker much more cloud. Watch what's happening at

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Speaker 1: Starbucks very closely. I think it's fascinating. And then on

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Speaker 1: top of that, you know tips tips, You know you

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Speaker 1: can't go anywhere now without a tip option. Wait, I

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Speaker 1: want to talk to talk to you about unions because

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Speaker 1: one of the things that we talk a lot about

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Speaker 1: here are unions, and uh, you know, I come from

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Speaker 1: this union family. My grandfather was very in welve with unions. So, like,

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Speaker 1: I want to know, it seems like we're in a

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Speaker 1: period right now where there are huge victories for unions.

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Speaker 1: Starbucks at least that's an ongoing victory, small victories. Amazon

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Speaker 1: is in fight trying to you know, kill a young union.

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Speaker 1: But then there are also some really terrible things that

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Speaker 1: have happened, like what's happening with the railroad workers. So

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Speaker 1: we are are away with unions. I still think unions

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Speaker 1: are in the part of a long inexorable a client generationally.

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Speaker 1: You tell me, if gen Y gen Z really feels

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Speaker 1: this clamoring to join a union, it's a hard sell.

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Speaker 1: I think if there was more unanimity, if you saw

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Speaker 1: all of these Amazon unionization pushes be slam dunks. If

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Speaker 1: you saw Starbucks slam dunk with unionization across the country.

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Speaker 1: Right you're even seeing a move to have a three

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Speaker 1: day work stoppage across a hundred stores. There just isn't

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Speaker 1: that unanimity journalists where the journalist unions that are banded together,

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Speaker 1: I mean various things that have happened. They had a

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Speaker 1: lot of power. There's a Life magazine story I read,

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Speaker 1: I think from nineteen seventy two on the power of unions,

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Speaker 1: and so much of that is curtailed and what's gone

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Speaker 1: out the door with that is a lot of the

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Speaker 1: Democrats blue collar cloud, which was siphoned away from Reagan

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Speaker 1: as you're feeling right now with lesser educated blue collar

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Speaker 1: workers kind of sifting away to cultural issues. I think

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Speaker 1: that that's largely continuing. And I don't see younger people,

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Speaker 1: I at least anecdotally or quality quantitatively, don't see evidence

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Speaker 1: that they're lining up to join unions. I mean, do

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Speaker 1: you think, though, I just want to it back to

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Speaker 1: the second, it does seem like the only way you

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Speaker 1: can protect those lower weight turners would be unions. It's possible.

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Speaker 1: I would, you know, I would ask these Starbucks workers.

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Speaker 1: I know many baristas. Some feel that they get much

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Speaker 1: more self determination in terms of banding together with the

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Speaker 1: store and using social media and the other stores, and

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Speaker 1: you know, shaking down a regional executive like the Starbucks

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Speaker 1: National movement. A lot of the problem is some of

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Speaker 1: these jobs are transient type jobs, Amazon warehouse workers. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people take these jobs as a stepping stone

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Speaker 1: to something else and can't see themselves in unization. That's

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Speaker 1: why this barista who I recently had on Eric Spivak

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Speaker 1: of Alchemy Coffee, said I need to take this into

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Speaker 1: my own hands, because I don't want people to think

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Speaker 1: of this as a transitional job. I want them to

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Speaker 1: have ownership. I want them to potentially have equity. Now

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Speaker 1: that on a kind of a Maslow's hierarchy of needs level.

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Speaker 1: If insurance is provided for, I need to give you

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Speaker 1: a path. And if you have ownership, you're gonna think

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Speaker 1: twice it's about waste, or you're gonna think twice about

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Speaker 1: absentee is um and all these other things. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's a fascinating experiment. And I would hope that

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Speaker 1: the likes of Amazon and Starbucks and others look at

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Speaker 1: it that way instead of kind of zero some it's

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Speaker 1: either my shareholders or my workers, right right, right, right right.

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Speaker 1: It's a good point. I have one two part question here.

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Speaker 1: What the funk is Elon Musk doing? Is he playing

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Speaker 1: three dimensional chess? And I just don't understand the process

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Speaker 1: of how distressed debt is, uh. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of theories going on. I mean, is

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Speaker 1: he having some kind of meltdown or is he playing

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Speaker 1: some kind of three dimensional jazz? Do you remember what

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Speaker 1: is it? Producers, Bali, Stock and Bloom right now? Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: springtime for Hitler and Germany. Yeah, there's a little bit

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Speaker 1: of springtime for Hitler going on here. Do you want

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Speaker 1: to sabotage Twitter as a going concern? So you, as

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Speaker 1: a person with a hundred and fifty billion dollar Tesla

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Speaker 1: equity a t M can buy the distressed debt back

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Speaker 1: for the reluctant banks at a fraction of what you

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Speaker 1: bought it for. I mean, it seems like a ludd

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Speaker 1: Eye type thing to do you think that's going on?

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Speaker 1: I can't get in the guy's mind. You're already you

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Speaker 1: know what if what do we say, Dianeu, It would

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Speaker 1: have been good enough and you just ran Tesla and

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Speaker 1: SpaceX and change the world type person. You had goodwill

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Speaker 1: and you're the wealthiest person on the planet. But you

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Speaker 1: had to be a big shot, did you. You had

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Speaker 1: to go and buy Twitter and blow forty four billion

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Speaker 1: dollars on it and let everybody go and then have

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Speaker 1: these you know, tilted windmills with journalists and other people

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Speaker 1: on the platform as advertisers flee. What's amazing to me

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Speaker 1: is that people he can entirely not care that he

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Speaker 1: has forty billion or probably forty eight billion dollars. I

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Speaker 1: think he sold three billion in Tesla stock, probably to

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Speaker 1: retire debt. At some point. Money doesn't matter. You just

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Speaker 1: have so much of it, what are you gonna do

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Speaker 1: eat more? So I can't get into his head. One

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Speaker 1: thing that really bothers me, and I mentioned it on

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Speaker 1: TV this morning, is Twitter's management that was there, Yes

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Speaker 1: it was a publicly traded company. Was the only consideration

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Speaker 1: that this was the highest bid that they could get

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Speaker 1: in the markets? That they not have an independent director's

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Speaker 1: committee that said, well, we can't risk having a man

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Speaker 1: child narcissist run the company into the ground. No, they

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Speaker 1: just they took the money and ran. And that's a

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Speaker 1: problem with me, is that that money in an efficient market, right,

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Speaker 1: you should have it should be more than the shareholders,

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Speaker 1: their stakeholders. You had half your employees a shit can'

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Speaker 1: you have the standards people that are gone. You have

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Speaker 1: a person out there willy nilly claiming that he's you know,

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Speaker 1: an assassination risk, and I'm gonna take public information down.

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Speaker 1: It's turned into such a sad ship show. And everybody

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Speaker 1: who's on Twitter has a love hey relationship with it already.

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Speaker 1: And I'm just frustrated that, you know, you can't have

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Speaker 1: something like a Google bird that just shows up and

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Speaker 1: replicates this experience in a non nefarious, kind of more

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Speaker 1: organic way that we're all kind of beholden to this guy.

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Speaker 1: Give me you're under over on where this goes. I

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Speaker 1: think that he keeps owning it. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: he I don't think he cares anymore. It's private, and

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Speaker 1: I think he keeps selling Tesla stock to get the

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Speaker 1: bank out of it. What leverage does anybody have to

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Speaker 1: get him out of it? And we hang on because

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Speaker 1: our accounts are all there. I mean you are invested significantly,

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Speaker 1: Molly in Twitter. I mean you could go to Masodon,

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Speaker 1: you could go to substock and people will follow you.

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Speaker 1: But what's going to happen? He will then lose control

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Speaker 1: of Tesla? Right, A simple economic question here. If you

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Speaker 1: have a choice between Olden stock and Tesla or owning

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Speaker 1: stock in Twitter, wouldn't you rather have stuck in Tesla.

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Speaker 1: I think he's still worth a hundred and fifty billion

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Speaker 1: dollars substantially in Teslas, so much of Tesla. I don't

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Speaker 1: see him losing control, but it is. It should be

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Speaker 1: very worrisome the Tesla shareholders. The stock has gotten murdered

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Speaker 1: over the past year, and the fact that he's redeeming

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Speaker 1: the stock and selling it on the way down, not

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Speaker 1: probably not for financial planning reasons, but more than likely

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Speaker 1: than not to retire the bank's debt. If that wasn't

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Speaker 1: the case, then the banks could come in and say,

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Speaker 1: you're not hitting performance milestones, we could take the company,

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Speaker 1: we could rest control from you. And I think he's

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Speaker 1: forestalling that. So in the end he just keeps selling

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Speaker 1: Tesla stock and keeps buying Twitter stock. It's this lud

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Speaker 1: eye type arrangement. The Twitter debt, it's private now he'd

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Speaker 1: be buying it from the banks, and it's almost Citizen Kane,

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Speaker 1: like it's this combination of narcissism, ego paranoia with the

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Speaker 1: soussante of kind of right wing heroism and a man

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Speaker 1: with so many followers. And I'm probably gonna get banned

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Speaker 1: myself for saying this, but you look at you look

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Speaker 1: at the great reporters who suddenly it felt like squid

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Speaker 1: Game last night, Like gosh, should I say this? Should

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Speaker 1: I change the you and musk to a V to

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Speaker 1: kind of conceal my footprints. You don't think there's a

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Speaker 1: grand plan here, I just can't see it. Why would

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Speaker 1: you do that? If you come in, you should be worried.

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Speaker 1: You know how much debt he put on this company.

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Speaker 1: You should be worried about advertisers. You should be genuflecting

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Speaker 1: before people. If you're a torch bearer for speech, free speech,

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Speaker 1: then be it. You know, worst case scenario, he decides

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Speaker 1: to spit it out in two years when tech markets

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Speaker 1: back up it, let's say nine of what he bought it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to him. Again, he's worth a hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty billion dollars at his peak. He was worth

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Speaker 1: well north of that, but his net worth is hemorrhaging

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Speaker 1: because Twitter share I mean Testlas shareholders are livid right now,

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Speaker 1: and they have a right to be. The man took

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Speaker 1: his eyes off the ball. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Oh it's my joy. Nick Bilton is a special correspondent

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Speaker 1: Vanny Fair and author of Hatching Twitter. Welcome Too Fast Politics.

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Speaker 1: Nick Bilton, thank you so much for having me on.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk about all the lunatics out

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Speaker 1: there in the technology world. Well, I felt we had

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Speaker 1: to talk about it because there's so much going on.

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Speaker 1: I feel like for such a long time, Facebook was

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Speaker 1: this problem that needed to be dealt with, right, and

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Speaker 1: there's certainly a lot of Facebook news about its involvement

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Speaker 1: with in multiple genocides. Can we talk about Mark Zuckerberg? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I kind of feel like we need to

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Speaker 1: talk about all of them. It's like you've got Duck

426
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: and Facebook, You've got on on Twitter, You've got SPF

427
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: and f TX, and like it's almost like their robots

428
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: and someone spilled water on them and they just broke

429
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: and we like finally got to see it will happen.

430
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: And I feel like, for the first time ever that

431
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: the government is actually aware of what's going on to

432
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: it feels like the end of days for the tech world.

433
00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: Oh see, I like this take you wrote about zapp

434
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: being surrounded by sycophants. You know, she seems to me

435
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 1: like he's having this sort of quietest downward spiral of

436
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 1: the three of them. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean,

437
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: I think you know, you look at the market cap

438
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:37,720
Speaker 1: of Facebook over the last year has fallen several hundred

439
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: billion dollars, and I think that they're the reason for

440
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 1: that is that he picked the wrong bad look. I

441
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 1: think the thing about Mark is He's an incredibly smart,

442
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:50,480
Speaker 1: incredibly driven person, but at the same time he is

443
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: not an ideas guy. Every idea has ever had has

444
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 1: essentially constole them and something else right, borrowed, or whatever

445
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,159
Speaker 1: you want to call it. I think stolen, I'll do it.

446
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: Stolen is a good term. And he had this original

447
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: idea of like, oh, the metaverse, Like that's cool, I

448
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 1: don't have to like go talk to other humans in

449
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: real life. I can do it on a on a

450
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 1: screen that's like duct taped to my face. And he

451
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: made the wrong back, because no one wants to go

452
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 1: live in the fucking metaverse. Like if anything, COVID taught

453
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:21,360
Speaker 1: us that technology allows us to be connected to other

454
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 1: people when we don't have the ability. But the end

455
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 1: of Covid Shodah's that we don't want that, we want

456
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: human interaction. And I think Zuck is the opposite and

457
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: made the worst petable as a results of that. So

458
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,120
Speaker 1: we have Zuka metaverse. He's killing his company, but he's

459
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: doing it quietly and he's spending a lot of time

460
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:44,199
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. Then we have this incredible elon whatever this is?

461
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 1: What is this? Honestly, I've been covering Twitter since the

462
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: day of the company started in one form or another.

463
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: I've known all these guys for years and years and

464
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 1: years and years, Elon included. And if you would have

465
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: told me ten years ago when I wrote a book

466
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 1: about the company, if you just said, write me a

467
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: list of a hundred thousands sinnaire, let's just say a

468
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:08,479
Speaker 1: million scenarios of what Twitter, you know, could end up

469
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: looking like in the future, This would not have made

470
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: it on that list, Like Ellen buying the company, literally

471
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: obliterating everything that has been built up over the past

472
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: seventeen years, and to the point that now I just

473
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 1: think he's trying to destroy I don't actually know what

474
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: he's doing. And I think that you know, you're seeing

475
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,679
Speaker 1: his lunacy play out in public. I think in the

476
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: past I've heard many, many stories about how crazy he

477
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: was at SpaceX and Tesla, and I think that he

478
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: was surrounded by and insulated by people that you know,

479
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: ensure that that lunacy was used for good and off evil.

480
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: And I think Twitter, he's not surrounded by that, and

481
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: it's all in public, and it's, I mean, honestly, one

482
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: of the craziest stories I've ever seen. Do you think

483
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: and then SBF let's talk about because that's like the

484
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: third billionaire in the Tripic of broken billionaires. There are

485
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,080
Speaker 1: many more broken billionaires right now. Now he's a for

486
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: one of the story of the story of the week

487
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: is the se Tripic. He's going to jail and quickly, well,

488
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: he's actually currently Yeah, he's currently sitting in a jail

489
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: cell in the Bahamas, which I think is such a

490
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: sweet revenge for what he did to you know, everyone.

491
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: You know, Look, I think he is a I don't know,

492
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,959
Speaker 1: the sociopath, that's the right description for him. I just

493
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,120
Speaker 1: think he's just an arrogant brat from what I can tell.

494
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: And he thought he was smarter than everyone else, and

495
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: clearly was was very, very far from that. And he

496
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,199
Speaker 1: squandered billions of dollars that belonged to other people and

497
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: thought he was just gonna get away with it. And

498
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: thank god that you know, the government when arrested him,

499
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: and you know, based on the potential charges that are

500
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: against him, he could spend up a hundred and fifty

501
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: five years in jail, Like this is a Bernie made off,

502
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, size screw up. And I think that he's

503
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: going to be in a lot of trouble, Like I

504
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 1: truly believe that it actually will. This will be one

505
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: of those whether actually will be justice served. What has

506
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 1: happened to Ellen? It seems to me a sort of

507
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: he was maybe right wing, he was maybe slight less

508
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,199
Speaker 1: right wing. It's not clear, but he's clearly been radicalized.

509
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, look, I think put aside

510
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: the stupid Q and on tweet this week, and like,

511
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,239
Speaker 1: I have a different point of view on this, Like

512
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: I think most people. I'll speak anecdotally from people I

513
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: know in Hollywood, people I know and tech people I know,

514
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: in the arts, you know, so on and so forth,

515
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: like and pretty much you know every dinner party, every

516
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: play day, every school conversation over the past couple of years.

517
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: And I think what happened, my personal opinion is what

518
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: happened is a lot of people were on the left

519
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: and anti Trump, and then when Trump went away, the

520
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: left started to kind of eat its own, which it

521
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: always does, and I think that it put people in

522
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 1: it in a situation where they were like, I don't

523
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: I love I agree with that. Like I'll give you

524
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: one example. In Los Angeles, there's this build a past

525
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: called and what it was was you had. For whatever reason,

526
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: I think it's because of the way these the schools

527
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 1: are designed in America, but in Los Angeles specifically, all

528
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: the schools were surrounded by homeless and canbras like elementary

529
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: schools and middle schools and high schools and more so

530
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: in poor neighborhoods, and so there were kids that were

531
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: literally walking through homeless encampments of people shipping on the

532
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: sidewalk and smoking meth and all these other things to

533
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: get to school. And people were like, this is not cool, Like,

534
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,479
Speaker 1: you know, let's move them across the streets. So there

535
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: was this rule put in place that said, let's move

536
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: the homeless in canblems fivest away from from this school's

537
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: daycares and East centers. And there were people on this

538
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: extreme left that went berserk and they were like, you

539
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: can't do that to the homeless people. And I think

540
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: that there's a million instances like that of issues around

541
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: trans issues, this, all these things where people can't agree,

542
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: and I think that it drove a lot of people

543
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: to the center, Ellen being one of them. I mean,

544
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: I don't think Ellen's in the center though, right, I think, yeah,

545
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: why I think elon is is right of center. I

546
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:57,199
Speaker 1: think where I think where Ellen goes sol that is

547
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 1: that he like his like Fouci Cans spariracy theories and

548
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: his you know Q and non tweets and and the

549
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,120
Speaker 1: deep state and things like that. Like I would put

550
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: him in like kind of like a Joe Rogan like

551
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: right wing. I wouldn't put him in like a Ben

552
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: Shapiro right wing kind of bucket. You know what I'm saying.

553
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: I think it's like there's a difference between it, and

554
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: I'm not justifying anything that Ellen does. I think he's

555
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 1: a nut job. The biggest problem is he now has

556
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 1: one of the large, loudest voices in the world. He's

557
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: got a hundred million followers on Twitter, and he's the

558
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: stuff he's talking about is just insanity, total insanity. I mean,

559
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: I think there certainly is some kind of internal Los

560
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: Angeles debate about the homeless problem, which has radicalized from

561
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: some rich people who live in Los Angeles. But I'm curious,

562
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: you know, he technically lives in Texas, doesn't he. No, No,

563
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm just saying I'm not talking about him

564
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: and his viewpoints on homelessness and long I'm using that

565
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: as an example to talk about how there are these

566
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: There are a million stories, right, and they are issues

567
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: that where people who are liberal right. And actually it's

568
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,239
Speaker 1: not just rich people in Los Angeles. It's a lot

569
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: of poor people in Los Angees that were pushing for

570
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: this because there it was primarily this was happening in

571
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: the poor neighborhoods and their kids were being forced to

572
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: walk through the stuff. This stuff is not happening in

573
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: Brentwood and Beverly Hills. Like I think that there are

574
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: a million stories like this that have driven a like

575
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: eighty percent of people that were on the left to

576
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: the center. And I think that most of them have

577
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: stayed left of center, and they still you know, a

578
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: pro choice and anti gun and this that and the other.

579
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: It's just some of these these like extreme issues where

580
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: they don't agree with. But what happened with Elon was

581
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: he just kept driving the truck and he went he

582
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: kept going right and writer and he's just in some

583
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: weird like nebulous like Nomam's land of I don't even

584
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: know what his viewpoints are anymore. I think they changed

585
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: by the hour. It's just it's it's it's unlike anything

586
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. I think he likes to be liked, right,

587
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: because he said, like democrats will really mean to me, right, Yeah,

588
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I think I think most of them

589
00:29:58,160 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: want to be liked at the end of the day,

590
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: and they're like very insecure people. And uh, I mean,

591
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: did you see what happened with the Dave Chappelle's show

592
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: this week? Yeah, let's talk about that. So that was

593
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: in California. He went on stage and a Dave Chappelle show.

594
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: I mean I listened to it. It sounded like they

595
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: were booing him. It was San Francisco. Was in San Francisco, Yeah,

596
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: so he was. It was San Francisco. Dave Chappelle was

597
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: doing a set. Eighteen thousand people in the arena, and

598
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: Dave said, who wants to see the richest guy in

599
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: the world. And Ellen comes out with its arms in

600
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: the air like some national hero. And at first there

601
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: was some booze and some claps, and then it was

602
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: just old booze and for five minutes straight. I talked

603
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: to people who were there. For five minutes straight, it

604
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: was just booze. And Dave Chappelle was like, it looks

605
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: like this. Some Twitter Twitter employees in the audience, which

606
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: is of course funny, but after the fact, I mean,

607
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: he was like, I've talked to people who said they

608
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: don't like Ellen and even they felt bad for him,

609
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: and it was just this constant like boo boo boo. Afterwards,

610
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: you know, this is just typical Ellen, he tweeted, it

611
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: was only the woke people in the audience that were booing.

612
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 1: Excuse me, it's a Dave Chappelle show. There was no

613
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: one woke in the audience, like they don't know. Those

614
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: people wouldn't go and see Dave Chappelle because of all

615
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: the stuff he said about fans people. So it's like

616
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: the people who were booing him were the people that

617
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: probably used to adore him. I don't think he gets it.

618
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: So it does seem to me like if you look

619
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: at what's happened with SPF, there is a sense in

620
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: which the government is getting more right involved and quicker,

621
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: and you know, there's been a hesitation I think on

622
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: a part of a lot of legislators to legislate tech,

623
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: despite the sort of fact that tech companies pretend to

624
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: want to be legislated. Of course they don't. We have

625
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: Section to Thirday trending like every day and Twitter. Where

626
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: does this go? I think that you know, have you

627
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: been following chat g t P the new AI? Yeah?

628
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you about that, but this is

629
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: this is to answer that question. Okay, So chat g

630
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: t P. It's this new artificial intelligence system that has

631
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: built on a concept that was introduce in two thousand

632
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: seventeen which completely changed AI and natural language processing so

633
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: that you could it could start to understand humans the

634
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: way humans understand humans and start to speak to humans

635
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: in the same way. And it's I've been covering TEX

636
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: for twenty years. It's the most astounding, scariest thing I've

637
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: ever seen because it is so good at what it

638
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: does and we'll get so much better. And a lot

639
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: of people were reaching out to me who are in

640
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: the tech community and saying this is terrifying. It should

641
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: not be out there. It needs to be regulated in

642
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: the same way that nuclear power and nuclear weapons and

643
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: all these other things need to because it has the

644
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: ability to decimate the job market. Fifty to eighty million

645
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: jobs could advantage. And these are not garbage people and

646
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: and sidewalk cleaners. These are like lawyers, accountants, writers, all

647
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: of these crazy creative industries. And what I heard this

648
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: week is that the White House was immediately making calls

649
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: and that there's a task force there that's involved in

650
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: AI and they were like starting to reach out to people.

651
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,959
Speaker 1: I've never seen that happen before. Usually it takes, you know,

652
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: a year or two years, five years before the White

653
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: House and the U. S. Government is aware of the

654
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: things that are happening. You still that play out with

655
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: bitcoin to ten years before they were they realized. And

656
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: so I do think that we're getting to a point

657
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: where the people who are working in government are becoming

658
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: more aware of the things that are happening and quicker.

659
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,239
Speaker 1: But there's also massive limitations on what they can do

660
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: because we live in a time where the U. S.

661
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: Constitution was not written for things like chat, GQP and

662
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: Twitter and other tech that exists today, and so there

663
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: I don't know how these things go from them being

664
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: aware of them to change actually happen. Predict for us,

665
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: and if you're wrong, don't worry, We'll make fun of

666
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: you for it. I'll be wrong, I'll be wrong. Predict

667
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 1: for us. Where this goes with the elan you could

668
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: say to me, predict to me like how long humanity

669
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: will live before we kill ourselves with some kind of

670
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: rogue whatever. And I would probably get it more aptly

671
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: correct than if I were to try to predict where

672
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: it goes with the one. I'll give you what I've

673
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: heard as a addiction. The prediction is that he defaults

674
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: on the debt, and no bank on planet Earth is

675
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: going to want to own Twitter and deal with it,

676
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: so they come to some sort of agreement where it

677
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: pays fifty cents on the dollar or even less. He

678
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: continues to gut the staff, advertising continues to plummet. No

679
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,760
Speaker 1: one pays for the blue check marks, at least not

680
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 1: not a large number of people, and more and more

681
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 1: people on the left or any anybody who has center

682
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: to left, which is a lot of people, continues to

683
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: leave the platform, which has been happening like in mass

684
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: this week. And I think it gets to a point

685
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: where he breaks it. And then at the end of that, uh,

686
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: it's a shell of itself. It's some sort of right

687
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: wing kind of true social like thing. And he goes

688
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: back to play with his rockets in his cars, and

689
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: he loses for you for billion dollars. That's my prediction.

690
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:57,439
Speaker 1: That was depressing. Thank you, Nick Filton, of course, thank

691
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: you for having me on. I know you, our dear

692
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: listeners are very busy and you don't have time to

693
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week.

694
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 1: This is why every week I put together a newsletter

695
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy

696
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox

697
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot

698
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: com and click the tab to join our mailing list.

699
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: That's Fast politics pod dot com. Molly White is a

700
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 1: crypto researcher and critic, and she writes the blog Web

701
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: three is going just great. Welcome to Fast Politics, Molly. Thanks,

702
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: it's been a bad week for crypto. Yeah, that's I

703
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: think an understatement. Let's talk first about f t X

704
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 1: and what's happening with s b F. Yeah, the acronyms

705
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: are a little bit a lot so f t X,

706
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: you know, and major cryptocurrency exchange that until somewhat recently

707
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: was the second largest in the world, but is now

708
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: bankrupt and the subject of some fraud investigations thanks to

709
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: its founder and former CEO Sam Bankman. Freed, who's often

710
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: shortened to SPF. So you have been covering this pretty hardcore.

711
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: Explained to me sort of how you got to this story. Yeah,

712
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: So I follow the crypto industry pretty closely. I maintain

713
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: a blog called Web three is Going Just Great, which

714
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: is a sarcastic title because tracks many frauds and scams

715
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: and hacks and just general disasters in the cryptocurrency and

716
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,959
Speaker 1: Web three industry, and so f t X and its explosion.

717
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: The past month or so has been under that per view,

718
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: I would say, But you know, it's something that people

719
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: find interesting. I think fraud is clear at this point

720
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,399
Speaker 1: that will have in packs on many, many people, and

721
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: so I've been doing what I can to try to

722
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: help people understand what happened, the context in which it happened,

723
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: and you know, the impact and reflections that should have

724
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: on the crypto industry as a whole. I just kind

725
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: of want you to talk about SPF and and sort

726
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: of a little bit about him, because he's got this

727
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 1: sort of he has a ship going. It's pretty interesting, right.

728
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of these figures in

729
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: the crypto industry becomes sort of larger than light, and

730
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: each of them seems to have their own little persona.

731
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: But Sam Bankman Freed is an a M I T graduate.

732
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: You know, he is a pretty nerdy guy. He absolutely

733
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: plays that up by you know, he's always a little

734
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: bit disheveled. He wears shorts all the time and and

735
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: like FTX branded T shirts, and he always looks kind

736
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: of like he just woke up. He claims at least

737
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: to sleep in a bean bag chair in the f

738
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 1: t X office, despite having a luxury penthouse in the

739
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: Bahamas that he could avail himself of. And you know,

740
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: he has really made this brand for himself as sort

741
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: of a boy genius who created this hedge fund or

742
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: this rather this quantitative trading firm, and then this crypto

743
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: exchange and made himself a billionaire at a fairly young age.

744
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 1: I would say a lot of that is sort of

745
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: a crafted persona that has been used really to make

746
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: people trust him and believe that he might be the

747
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: next nerdy kid who comes up with a billion dollar company,

748
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: you know, in the wake of other nerdy tech personalities

749
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: like Mark Zuckerberg in folks like that. Can we talk

750
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 1: about the parents, because I'm telling you the parents as

751
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 1: a Jewish mother myself, I don't know why this speaks

752
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, so his parents are kind of an

753
00:38:56,560 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 1: interesting feature of this story, which, you know, it's a

754
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: fraud case for sure, you know it's a question of

755
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: fraud and it's a crypto collapse, but it also has

756
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: this very sort of bizarre drama behind it with some

757
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: of the personalities who were involved. And some of those

758
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: personalities are Sam Bankman Freed's parents, who are both Stanford

759
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: law professors. They are specifically knowledgeable about compliance, which you

760
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: would think might have been useful knowledge to share with

761
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: their son. And he sort of like made his brand

762
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: that like, I'm an expert because of my parents. Right. Well,

763
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: he definitely played on the fact that he is American.

764
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: He is, you know, from a prestigious background, both in

765
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: his own education but also in his family's background as

766
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: Stanford law professors. So yes, I mean I think he

767
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: did really lean on that. I'm going to get to

768
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: a larger question, but just talk about what the mother said.

769
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 1: The mother has had some great lines in this drama. Yeah,

770
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: I mean, his parents reactually to this have been somewhat strange.

771
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: You know, they they were in attendance in the court

772
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: hearing that happened. I want to say it was a

773
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: state before yesterday. In the in the in the Bahamas,

774
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: he had a court hearing to determine if he should

775
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: be granted bail, and his mother apparently was sort of

776
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: audibly laughing when he was referred to as a fugitive,

777
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 1: and apparently at various times his father put his fingers

778
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:31,919
Speaker 1: in his ears when the the hearing was ongoing, which

779
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: is just sort of strange behavior. I mean, I can

780
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: definitely see how it would be traumatic for parents to

781
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: see their son in you know, appearing in court in handcuffs.

782
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, they are Stanford law professors.

783
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,359
Speaker 1: You would sort of expect they might have some composure

784
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: in this. But you know, who's to say, I suppose

785
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: and he bought them a penhouse, right, Yeah, So some

786
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: of the real estate that was purchased by f t

787
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: X in the Bahamas was in his parents names, and

788
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: you know, his parents definitely were not divorced from what

789
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: was happening at f t X. When when this first

790
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: started happening, I was a little bit skeptical of, you know,

791
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 1: people bringing up his parents because you know, just because

792
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,439
Speaker 1: you're the son of a law professor doesn't necessarily mean

793
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: you have inherited, you know, knowledge of the law from birth.

794
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: But I did then learn that, you know, his father

795
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: was actually fairly involved in f t X. He was

796
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: directly involved in some of the philanthropy that was happening

797
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,320
Speaker 1: and some of the various other programs that f t

798
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:34,439
Speaker 1: X was putting on, And so, you know, I think

799
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: it is reasonable to pay some attention to what might

800
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 1: have been going on there. There's a lot of talk

801
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: fd X, and there's a lot of talk about and

802
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: f t S and what do they get wrong about crypto?

803
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's happening, especially recently in the

804
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: wake of the ft X collapse, is the idea that

805
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: these are really isolated incidents. You know, that this was

806
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: just an issue at fraud Sam Bank men Freed is

807
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: just one bad apple. This is not a systemic problem.

808
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: It is not reflective of issues in the crypto industry

809
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: as a whole. H The crypto industry is always very

810
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: quick to dissociate itself from bad actors and from disasters

811
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 1: that happen. But these disasters happen all the time. I mean,

812
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: like my blog specifically follows disasters in the crypto industry,

813
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,919
Speaker 1: and it's usually at least one a day, and that's

814
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: hacks and scams and you know, bankruptcys and things like that.

815
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,720
Speaker 1: This is not an issue of a one off problem.

816
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: This is absolutely representative of crypto as a whole. And

817
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: I think that the media has to be careful when

818
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: it comes to repeating the lines that are coming out

819
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: of the crypto industry, which is very much motivated to

820
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: maintain as much as possible of a mirror of respectability here.

821
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that hearing yesterday, Senate hearing on crypto.

822
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you debunked something Stu bed as

823
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: opposed to what you've been doing this whole time. Elon Musk,

824
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: perhaps you've heard of him, had a tweet that said

825
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: that SBF is not going to face an investigation because

826
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: he gave a lot of money to democratic politicians. Yes, okay,

827
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: So now he's in jail, he has denied bail, waiting

828
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 1: for extradition. He's probably going to get in the new

829
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: year January February brought back to America. He's likely going

830
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: to go to jail for a long time. This investigation

831
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: seems like it's moving very fast, relatively speaking. People online,

832
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: many of whom are hopefully bought um have been saying, well,

833
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: they got to him before he could testify. His testimony

834
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 1: was published yesterday. Talk to me about his testimony and

835
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,799
Speaker 1: also just how you know everything else. Yeah, So that's

836
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: been a pretty popular conspiracy theory fairly recently has been

837
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: that Sam Bankman freed is going to just get off

838
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: scott free because he made all of these large donations

839
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: to Democratic candidates and committees and things like that. But

840
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: that ignores is that he also made substantial donations to

841
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: Republicans as well, he just was quieter about them. He

842
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: made them through sort of back channels and was not

843
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: making headlines for it. So I think the idea that

844
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: Sam Bington freed himself is, you know, this huge supporter

845
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: of the Democrats, is a little bit overblown. But I

846
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: think also the idea that he is just going to

847
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: get away with all of his fraud in various crimes

848
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: without any prosecution is kind of a silly thing to

849
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: say now that he is in custody and has had

850
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: charges filed against him by the Attorney General of the

851
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: Southern District of New York, the SEC, and the CFTC.

852
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: I saw an amusing article this morning or yesterday in

853
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,719
Speaker 1: the American Prospect that said if the Forest Service could

854
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: have filed charges against him, they would have. You know,

855
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: people are really cracking down on him. As far as

856
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: the testimony thing, that isn't interesting question. He was scheduled

857
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: to testify in front of the House on Tuesday, and

858
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: he was arrested in the Bahamas the night before, and

859
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: so he was unable to appear for that testimony. And

860
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: some of the Congress members did bring that up. They

861
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: questioned why that arrest would happen at that time when

862
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: it would presumably be in the interest of the prosecutors

863
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: to have Sam Bankman free testify in front of Congress

864
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: under oath for hours. You know, they could potentially add

865
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: lying to Congress to his charges if he did lie

866
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 1: to Congress, which you know, he spent on a bit

867
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: of a lying tour recently, so that seems likely. That

868
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: was something that someone asked the Attorney's office in the

869
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,320
Speaker 1: Southern District of New York during a hearing that or

870
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 1: during a press conference they had about the charges, and

871
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: and the the U S Attorney said that it was

872
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: a coincidence they had filed the charges the week before

873
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: and then the indictment had come down the friday before,

874
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 1: and so it was just a matter of waiting for

875
00:45:56,960 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: law enforcement to act. And it was not an intentional thing.

876
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: Who's really to say, I mean, I don't have any

877
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: more visibility into that than anybody else, but some Congress

878
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: people did seem a little bit concerned about the timing

879
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: the idea that aunt voluntary testimony. And remember he had said,

880
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't you interview him in a Twitter spaces? Yeah,

881
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to ask him a couple of questions,

882
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,320
Speaker 1: like the day that he was arrested, several hours before,

883
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: I mean, somebody asked him about the testimony and he

884
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I think I'm gonna do it. Right

885
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: at that point, he had committed to testifying in front

886
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: of Congress, but he had not committed to appearing in

887
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: front of the Senate, who was having a hearing the

888
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: day after. And so I asked him first why was

889
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: he going to be appearing virtually in front of Congress

890
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: instead of in person? And then I asked why he

891
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 1: did not plan to testify in front of the Senate,

892
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: and he said that he was needed in the Bahamas,

893
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: which is ridiculous. Because he is not involved with ft

894
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: X in any way. The current executives who were handling

895
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: the ft X bankruptcy, you're not involving him. They're not

896
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 1: asking questions of him at this point, so there is

897
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: probably nothing important for him to be doing in the Bahamas.

898
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: He also said he was overbooked, which was a silly

899
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: thing to say when his bookings seemed to be various

900
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: interviews on Twitter spaces and in various other places, which

901
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: I would not think would be more important than testifying

902
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: in front of the Senate. Yeah, me and wild stuff.

903
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about Mr Wonderful versus

904
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren. Yes, I saw that you tweeted it. It

905
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: was a pretty amazing bit of amazing Nous talked to

906
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: us about this Senate hearing and what it meant and

907
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: how badass Elizabeth Warren knows. So. Yeah. The Senate brought

908
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: in for witnesses, one of whom was Kevin O'Leary, who

909
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 1: was a paid spokesperson for f t X. F t

910
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: X it paid him fifteen million dollars to become basically

911
00:47:55,680 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: a brand ambassador, a position that he fulfilled quite adequately.

912
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: I would say he was chilling for FTXIT basically every opportunity,

913
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: and now that it's collapsed, he's still been very friendly

914
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: to Sam Bankman freed. I mean he said in an

915
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: interview at one point that he would fund Sam Bankman

916
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,240
Speaker 1: Freed again. And this was after the evidence of fraud

917
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: began to come out. So it was a very strange

918
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: choice I think to have Kevin O'Leary come as a witness.

919
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: I don't know who decided that was a good idea,

920
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: well for him anyway, Yeah, I mean part of me

921
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: was wondering if it was, you know, someone who was

922
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: crypto critical who brought him in front of the Senate

923
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: because they knew it would make Crypto look bad. But

924
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 1: you know, you're right that it was good for him

925
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 1: in terms of getting his name into headlines and things

926
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: like that, which I think is maybe his top priority.

927
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: But Senator Warren asked a question of him which was basically,

928
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: do you think crypto is so incredible and so innovative

929
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: that it should be exempted from the same anti money

930
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: laundering laws that are required of traditional financial institutions, And

931
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: he said no. But he then tried to object to

932
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,280
Speaker 1: something she had said earlier, which you know she basically

933
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: said that crypto is particularly useful for criminals, and he

934
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: tried to make the argument that is pretty common among

935
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:18,280
Speaker 1: crypto advocates, that the US dollars are also used for crime,

936
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:23,720
Speaker 1: and he said something very weird, which is that drug

937
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:28,920
Speaker 1: traffickers have been using currencies for drug trafficking since the sixties,

938
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: which is a really weird thing to say. It's like,

939
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 1: I don't know if he thinks that drug trafficking just

940
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 1: sprung into existence in the nineties, sixties or what I

941
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,919
Speaker 1: thought he was describing a movie, because remember what he said,

942
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: like they're throwing the cash out of the airplane in

943
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: a suitcase. I don't know if he lost his train

944
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: of thought halfway through what happened, but it came out

945
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: very strange. She did not push back on that, which

946
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,839
Speaker 1: she could have absolutely but she just moved on and

947
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,399
Speaker 1: basically said, well, since as you knowledge, crypto is also

948
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: used for crimes, as is the US dollar, shouldn't crypto

949
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 1: then be subject to the same types of regulations that

950
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,239
Speaker 1: are applied to financial institutions that use the dollar. And

951
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: he said, no, you know, and tried to object to

952
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: what she said, but he came out looking pretty coolish.

953
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: I think, for example, I know Puerto Rico had you know,

954
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: there was some and Miami and New York there were

955
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:29,840
Speaker 1: some machinations between our insane mayor's and cryptos. The f

956
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 1: is just a part of crypto. What is the larger

957
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 1: exposure for the U. S economy? I mean, are we

958
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: looking at another housing crisis? Absolutely not. And that's something

959
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: that Professor Hillary Allen spoke about at the Senate hearing yesterday.

960
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 1: You know, she is an expert on financial stability, and

961
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 1: she really credited banking regulations for their effectiveness in keeping

962
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,799
Speaker 1: crypto from infecting the traditional financial system. So, you know,

963
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: f t X collapsed, but it had no discernible effect

964
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,759
Speaker 1: on the stock market. You know, there was no concern

965
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: that the government might end up having to bail out

966
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: crypto in the same way that they bailed out banks

967
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. And for people who have

968
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: no you know, they hold no crypto, they don't have

969
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: money that they were keeping on f t X, they

970
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 1: won't notice any difference. And so I think that is

971
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 1: something to to realize here is that despite the prevalence

972
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: of crypto in the last couple of years, it has

973
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 1: not become entwined in the traditional financial system in a

974
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 1: way that contagion would be a risk, and I think,

975
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: to Hillary Allen's point yesterday, that's something that is critical

976
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: to remain the case, because you know, it would be

977
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:45,839
Speaker 1: extremely concerning if you know, everyday people who did not

978
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: decide to engage in the risky type of behavior that

979
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:53,839
Speaker 1: is investing in crypto had to pay for the failures

980
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: and the frauds that are absolutely common occurrence in the industry. Yeah, exactly,

981
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:02,280
Speaker 1: what do you what's coming down the pike that looks

982
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: crazy and interesting. I think the finance situation will be

983
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: very interesting. Explained to my father what finances? Yeah, so

984
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: finance is much like f t X, a cryptocurrency exchange,

985
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: and it is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world,

986
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: and it is orders of magnitude larger than f t X,

987
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: and it's not, you know, just a little bit bigger.

988
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: And there I think are some questions now about what's

989
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: been going on at Binance, which has for a long

990
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: time been acknowledged as a bit of a shady operation.

991
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: I mean, they won't even disclose where they are based.

992
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 1: You know where they are headquartered pretty much, you know,

993
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 1: f t X had to buy out Finances investment in

994
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: f t X because it was such a regulatory hurdle

995
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 1: that they basically could not cross that Finance had a

996
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: stake in the company, so they had to buy them out.

997
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: And so now we're starting to hear people question what's

998
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,720
Speaker 1: going on at Finance. There was recently billions of dollars

999
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: of withdrawal so that they processed during sort of a

1000
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: miniature version of the run on the exchange that we

1001
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: saw with f t X, And you know, senators were

1002
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: asking questions about Finance and it's now much larger position

1003
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: in the crypto exchange world now that f t X,

1004
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 1: it's largest competitor, is no longer there. There was a

1005
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 1: report recently about a long running investigation into Finance that

1006
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: has been happening that has been examining questions around money

1007
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: laundering and sanctions of Asian uh. Reuters reported that some

1008
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors were split and believed that they should

1009
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 1: pursue criminal charges against Finance executives, including their CEO UM

1010
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,839
Speaker 1: and then other prosecutors believed that they should hold off

1011
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:55,759
Speaker 1: for a little bit keep examining the evidence. So you know,

1012
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,800
Speaker 1: there is the possibility of criminal charges coming against Finance,

1013
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: but all that to day that you know, if Finance

1014
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: were to collapse or even falter, it would have enormous

1015
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 1: effects on the cryptocurrency industry. I mean, we've seen what's

1016
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: happened in the recent couple of weeks with f t X,

1017
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: which was quite extreme and quite widespread in terms of

1018
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: its contagion effects throughout the crypto industry. Something happening to

1019
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: Finance would be absolutely devastating to the crypto industry, I think,

1020
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: And in fact, Finances lawyers made that argument to prosecutors.

1021
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:34,040
Speaker 1: They basically said that if you come after Finance, you

1022
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:38,359
Speaker 1: will threaten the entire cryptocurrency industry. Yeah, well, a good

1023
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 1: reason to let them keep doing what they're doing. Look

1024
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:45,879
Speaker 1: into it. Thank you so much, Molly, this was great.

1025
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: I hope he'll come back. Thanks for having me, Molly

1026
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: junk Fast Jessie Cannon carry Lake. It seems as doing

1027
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 1: now the portion of her audition to be Trump's vice

1028
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 1: president where she runs to every organization to do a

1029
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 1: speech where she tries to say the most insane thing

1030
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 1: to get attention, and what a ride. I think she's

1031
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: either auditioning to be his fourth wife or his either

1032
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 1: of which in my mind seemed like bad jobs. You

1033
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,320
Speaker 1: know what I found really interesting though, because I'm obsessed

1034
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 1: with the filter she gets on the cameras. The lighting

1035
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: both these speeches is so much different than all the

1036
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:34,320
Speaker 1: other lighting on everybody else, because you know, her advanced

1037
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: team sat there making sure she's lit just perfectly for

1038
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:41,359
Speaker 1: Mr Trump to find her attractive. Golden c three po

1039
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,879
Speaker 1: carry Lake saying lots of crazy things. Her pronouns are

1040
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 1: I one is what she said at the Turning Point USA.

1041
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 1: This bit never gets old for them. Turning Point USA

1042
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: is an entire conference built around the fact that Charlie

1043
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,319
Speaker 1: Kirk didn't get into the college you wanted to go to,

1044
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: and so we decided that college was a scam. And

1045
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 1: for that, that entire moment of Carrie Lake screaming about

1046
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: her pronouns, proudly announcing she's an election denier and auditioning

1047
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump's fourth wife, that is our moment of fun. Right,

1048
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

1049
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to her the best minds

1050
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

1051
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

1052
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.