Big Technology Podcast
00:26:33 · Teddy Schleifer
[00:26:33] S1: Yeah. Yeah. That's the most everyone's ever spent on election ever when they were not the candidate themselves. 5 hundreds... $500,000,000 in the midterms. Probably more, but we'll see. You know, this is a dramatic failure for him. I mean, even though I do think it is true that there's a lot of reasons why, you know, Ken Paxton did not win Texas, for instance. Politics is a binary. It's about... You know, campaigns are binary. It's about winning versus losing. And his people lost. You know, Republicans lost. So everybody affiliated with the Republican spending operation lost. And and, you know, it just happens that Musk did more than anyone else. So it's it's a tough it's a tough day to be the the Musk team. I mean, I think they're ultimately gonna have to assess what they wanna do politically going forward. You know, Musk has basically been saying that he wants to play a big role in 2028. He wants to play, you know, that this is a a multi cycle effort, but the fact that he's, like, deleting tweets and, you know, making jokes about his political spending suggests to me that he knows this did not go well. And I think there's gonna be significant pain for him politically going forward. I mean, you mentioned the Ed Markey tweet earlier, but, like, you know, there's gonna be investigations. And obviously, it's not just about Tesla and SpaceX. I mean, like, Musk, you know, oversaw so much gutting of the federal government with with Doge, and Musk could be investigated or or or probed for for that work specifically, which are things... Sort of things that probably would not have happened in a Republican Republican led Congress.
00:28:21 · Alex Kantrowitz, Teddy Schleifer
[00:28:21] S0: I I am anticipating the hearing where the Democrats called big balls to testify and [00:28:29] S1: Yeah. That's Sure. Mean, I think I think I think you're joking, but also, I mean, not... I mean, that's very plausible. [00:28:35] S0: Yeah. This was a guy who was involved in Doge. That was his nickname somehow. Yep. Elon wrote, guess my election interfering space lasers didn't work this time. So he's having a sense of humor about it. I mean, maybe, you know, a a... Could a silver lining for him be that because you won't be able to build data centers on Earth, his plan to build data centers in space actually becomes a good business? [00:28:58] S1: I think the silver lining for him is that there's actually a... And and this is true of of... I think this is gonna sound like spin, but I think there's an element of truth to it, that Republicans are more likely to win in 2028 with kind of opposition from Democrats. You know, if you're... Obviously, the next two years will be painful for Republicans, including president Trump. But, like, if you want Republicans to win in 2028, like some spin I've heard is that this will be good for for them to have a Democratic foil. Maybe Democrats will overreact, try to impeach, stuff like that. And that's potentially good news for for for mister Musk. [00:29:39] S0: Okay. Billionaires tax, another big thing on the ballot. Yeah. [00:29:43] S1: I said I said to you in that tweet, but as as of now, it's looking like a win. [00:29:48] S0: That... So talk a little bit about
00:29:48 · Alex Kantrowitz, Teddy Schleifer
[00:29:48] S0: That... So talk a little bit about [00:29:49] S1: what's happening. A for the billionaire tax opponents. Yeah. [00:29:53] S0: Talk about what was at stake there and what happened.
00:29:56 · Teddy Schleifer
[00:29:56] S1: Yeah. So the proposal was for a one time 5% tax on people in California who have over $1,000,000,000 in net worth. There was a pretty unprecedented campaign against it where over $330,000,000 was raised into a political nonprofit linked to Sergey Brin, the the Google founder. This was Sergey's most significant political activity by far ever, and it looks like they killed it. You know, at the time we're recording this, we know, The New York Times has not made a call in that this... In that race yet, but you'd rather be the side that's that's that's opposing the tax than the side that's supporting it. And the Musk op... Sorry. The BRIN operation had a massive advantage in paid advertising. I mean, you know, I... The the the pro tax side barely mounted any any campaign for it. And this kinda galvanized the tech industry. And, you know, I did a story with my colleague, Erin Griffith, about all the ways in which Sergei and Patrick Collison and John Doerr were, like, you know, getting their their buddies to to chip in on this thing, and it became a victory story for for the tech industry or appears so. So not only that, actually, there's also another tax proposition on the California ballot that would effectively ban this in the future, and that looks like it's gonna pass. So there is gonna be this kind of downside protection going forward too. And, you know, for all the trouble of of of achieving your impact with money in politics, this is the this is the counterexample where the billionaires look like they succeeded.
00:31:33 · Alex Kantrowitz, Teddy Schleifer
[00:31:33] S0: The interesting thing, I think a lot of folks were like, if if the billionaire tax passes, I'm gonna move to Texas, and now Texas is blue. [00:31:42] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, now and now the tax now the tax says if the tax is... If the tax repeal Right. The tax loses, people can move back. Right? I mean Yep. Like like, I I... I've been joking with some people today on this. So... [00:32:01] S0: I can only wait for California's new slogan to be California open for business. [00:32:06] S1: Yeah. Come back. Escape. You know, there's a there's a blue state governor in Texas and a blue state governor in California, but at least California has banned wealth taxes, which I don't think Texas has done. [00:32:17] S0: That's correct. Very important. Any thoughts on actual legislation being passed? I mean, there's these bans that will probably happen locally. There was a story in transformer, what the blue tsunami means for AI policy. The likelihood of strong frontier AI legislation passing next year shot up. Democrats have signaled repeatedly that AI is a top priority. Some citing it in victory speeches with such large majorities. The need for them to compromise is much lower. I'll just say personally, I don't I don't see any coherent AI legislation outside of, like, we're banning something come out of the US government or the federal government at least.
00:32:17 · Alex Kantrowitz, Teddy Schleifer
[00:32:17] S0: That's correct. Very important. Any thoughts on actual legislation being passed? I mean, there's these bans that will probably happen locally. There was a story in transformer, what the blue tsunami means for AI policy. The likelihood of strong frontier AI legislation passing next year shot up. Democrats have signaled repeatedly that AI is a top priority. Some citing it in victory speeches with such large majorities. The need for them to compromise is much lower. I'll just say personally, I don't I don't see any coherent AI legislation outside of, like, we're banning something come out of the US government or the federal government at least. [00:32:58] S1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's still gonna be a Republican in the White House. Right? So, like, you know, the way things passed, just as a refresher, you need both houses of Congress to sign... To pass something, and then the president has to sign it. And and and that seems unlikely to happen, but who knows? I mean, there's gonna be a deal making... There's gonna be some desire for deal making somewhere, maybe. So I don't know if AI is in the Venn diagram of of kinda what Republicans, Democrats can agree on, but that's certainly I think something to watch. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:33:31] S0: Any any big picture thoughts about what happens from here?