00:59:37 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[00:59:37] S3: I was gonna say, you know, he's the biggest donor... One of the biggest donors to Leading the Future, asterisk, which is the... That it was pledged. Mhmm. And this shows how quickly the politics of AI have changed. Greg Brockman in 2025 and his wife, Anna, commit to getting $50,000,000 to leading the future, and it's matched by $50,000,000 from Andreessen Horowitz. Only the latter actually happened. Because Brockmans... The Brockmans gave the first $25,000,000 in 2025 when AI is, you know, it's an... It's a... It's a policy issue, but it's not like it is today. And then a year later, they back out of the second 25 they're gonna give. So that instead of being two installments of '25, it becomes one. And that's in part because Greg Brockman said internally inside the company that he was upset that his support for the super PAC was becoming a distraction. We've also seen this with, not totally the same, but Meta, as part of their political engagement this cycle, also retracted about 20 to $25,000,000 from their state political giving. It was timed in the same way that the that the Brockman gift was, which is to say, as the politics were getting worse, they want to spend less money. [01:00:43] S1: Right. [01:00:44] S3: So this is tough, and and it just shows how quickly things have changed.
01:00:44 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[01:00:44] S3: So this is tough, and and it just shows how quickly things have changed. [01:00:46] S1: Yeah. I mean, it does seem like we're seeing a revival of some of the, internal employee pushback that was really common in the tech industry at the end of the 2010, say, and then got really quashed in in the in the in the... During the Biden administration and the second Trump administration. But, seems clear that if you're an executive, you wanna be careful about what kinds of causes your name is getting attached to and what kind of politics it's getting attached to. [01:01:10] S3: Yeah. And that... And that's why we have the beauty of dark money groups, which is if you wanna do something, there's a way to do it. And I I mean, that's a joke, but it's also that, like, you know, we're talking about gifts to disclosed vehicles, and so much of the world of of money and politics and billionaire influence now funnels through things that are undisclosed. And if you're Greg Brockman out there and you're listening to this and you wanna get another $25,000,000 in the political system, there's a nonprofit out there waiting to take your money. [01:01:39] S1: Okay. So we've we've kind of constructed a list here. We've got a couple people who got what they wanted and then a lot of people who really didn't, who spent their their money in different ways. I think at the very bottom of our list, no matter what [01:01:49] S3: Yeah.
01:01:49 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[01:01:49] S3: Yeah. [01:01:49] S1: Is Elon Musk, who spent 400 plus million dollars, and didn't... I don't know that he won any... A single race that he spent money towards. He got a positive outcome out of it. Beyond that, even more than somebody like Greg Brockman who became a story when he didn't want to, Elon became an enemy, especially in Texas when he was constantly invoked by Zafoyl in the senate race. I don't even know where to begin with this. Sort of what happened with Elon's money here, and why did it turn out so poorly in your estimation? [01:02:19] S3: Yeah. Let's let's let's roll back the clock to last spring, the spring of twenty twenty five, when this special election in Wisconsin. Musk... This is a random election. People probably don't even remember it. But, like, Musk spent, a ton of of of capital literally and also in terms of his time on this judicial race in the state where he, again, became the main character in the race. This is at the time he was leading the Department of Government Efficiency. After the guy lost in Wisconsin, his name is Brad Schimel, Musk kind of realized, I think, based on some reporting, that this was not working out to be so visible in his political support. And he tried to be a much... Want to take a much, much lower profile going forward. That election, I think, was basically why Musk, for over a year, was was not really doing much at all in the in the public eye. He was talking at one point about starting a third party. Never did that. Never recanted it, I should also add. He's still technically a live situation.
01:02:19 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[01:02:19] S3: Yeah. Let's let's let's roll back the clock to last spring, the spring of twenty twenty five, when this special election in Wisconsin. Musk... This is a random election. People probably don't even remember it. But, like, Musk spent, a ton of of of capital literally and also in terms of his time on this judicial race in the state where he, again, became the main character in the race. This is at the time he was leading the Department of Government Efficiency. After the guy lost in Wisconsin, his name is Brad Schimel, Musk kind of realized, I think, based on some reporting, that this was not working out to be so visible in his political support. And he tried to be a much... Want to take a much, much lower profile going forward. That election, I think, was basically why Musk, for over a year, was was not really doing much at all in the in the public eye. He was talking at one point about starting a third party. Never did that. Never recanted it, I should also add. He's still technically a live situation. [01:03:21] S1: It's so crazy that Elon Musk announced something he was gonna do, and then it didn't happen. That's probably the first time that's ever happened.
01:03:21 · Max Read, Teddy Schleifer
[01:03:21] S1: It's so crazy that Elon Musk announced something he was gonna do, and then it didn't happen. That's probably the first time that's ever happened. [01:03:26] S3: He does delete tweets, though, and he's he's he's not deleted the tweets about third party. Musk, this time, he was barely saying anything about it. You know? He said one one time, like, vote red today, which he did delete, later, at some point overnight on Tuesday night. His spending was was concentrated in a few places. We don't have all the details yet because of, campaign finance reporting. But essentially, probably about half of the spending, maybe a little bit more of it was was centered on Texas and was centered on Ken Paxton's race. That's why James Talarico, was able to really make him a foil at the end and including in his victory speech last night, where he basically took a shot at Musk. Paxton lost by a lot, and and and ultimately, like, that sucks for Elon Musk. So, deserves the bottom spot here. But to what extent he is to blame... I mean, Paxton probably would have lost even even if Musk had spent zero. And and may may... Maybe the argument there, the ROI, is to not spend in a race where you're gonna lose because at least that way you don't... You still have the $500,000,000. Right?
01:04:31 · Max Read
[01:04:31] S1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's... You could also argue that Elon Musk was gonna become a character in this race no matter what since he is an important figure, like a huge right wing figure in Texas and around the country. Yeah. Can we look forward a little bit? So Sure. We're still sort of... The dust is still settling on this week's elections. We're still figuring out what happened. Are you expecting all of the people on this list to be on it again in 2028? Are there figures we should be looking out for who aren't... Weren't on it this cycle?