Big Technology Podcast
00:23:02 · Alex Kantrowitz
[00:23:02] S0: Alright. Okay. Well, I'll leave that as the last point. Okay. It's gonna be very interesting to see what happens on that moving forward. Okay. When we come back, a word about Elon Musk, a word about the billionaire's tax, and then, we'll let get... Teddy get back to his reporting. So I'll be back right after this. When you're at work, you never know when you'll be interrupted. But with the Dell Pro powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, no matter what distracts you, your laptop won't. It's battery optimized for the way you work with built in intelligence that quiets distractions when you need to focus. Your laptop will help keep you locked in even when it's bring your dog to work day. Built for those who stay in the flow. That's Dell Pro. Built for you. Dell.com/dell-pro. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the tee you somehow always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100 Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. Personally, I'm loving my Mongolian cashmere crewneck sweater from Quince. It's actually unbelievably making me look forward to winter. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for exclusive offers or go to quince.com/bigtech. Get free shipping on your order and three hundred sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada and The UK too. That's quince.com/bigtech. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Big Technology Podcast. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is brought to you by Intelligence AI. Is your investment in AI coding tools helping your team ship better software? Intelligence connects your AI spending to code quality and engineering outcomes from individual sessions and pull requests to entire projects. You can see where AI saves time, where it creates rework, and how to improve. And its model router selects the right model for each task based on quality, speed, and cost.
00:25:21 · Alex Kantrowitz, Teddy Schleifer
See how Intelligence AI helps enterprises optimize AI powered delivery with connected visibility into cost, quality, and outcomes at Intelligence dot AI. And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Teddy Schleifer, reporter at The New York Times covering billionaires and their impact on the world, tech money, and its effect on politics. A lot going on on Teddy's beat, of course. Teddy, you joined the Times in 2024 just as Elon Musk was spending a fortune getting close to Trump being a major, national political player. You, put your your sort of scorecard up on x last night owned by Elon Musk, of course. You wrote a very overly simplified report card for big money tonight. Elon Musk lost. Republican donors lost. Crypto lost. Billionaires taxed TBD. You also pointed out that Elon Musk had a post on X Tuesday morning, said vote red today, and then that disappeared from his profile. What do you think the impact of this is gonna be on Musk? [00:26:22] S1: Musk spent, you know, nearly $500,000,000. It's the most that anybody's ever spent on an election ever when they were not [00:26:31] S0: running On the midterms.
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.