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?
01:04:58 · Teddy Schleifer
[01:04:58] S3: Yeah. I mean, let's let's start with Musk. I mean, he... The the most extensive thing he said about the midterms was a couple days ago where he basically said his fear and the reason why he was so involved in the midterms this cycle was about 2029. His fear is basically to have a democratic trifecta where they have the White House and they have both houses of congress, which they now do, and that that's gonna lead to a, you know, his view, the end of the... End of civilization. I think he's a game over for America or something like that, which meant, you know, Democrats are gonna let all the illegals in for Mexico, and, you know, they're gonna basically register all as voters, and then it's the end of civilization and blah blah blah. Like, that that that to me, I read that as, like, yes, Elon Musk plans to play in the twenty twenty eight Republican primary. Musk has a pretty good relationship with JD Vance. Probably not a surprise, but, like, that relationship has has stayed pretty good even with the ups and downs with Trump. I would be shocked if Musk did not support Vance. Mhmm. The other people on the list that we've mentioned, I don't know because some of... The the folks who are really tied to a specific industry who are just kinda doing effectively, like like, pay for play lobbying. I don't really mean that in a furious way, but, the crypto industry, the AI industry, where they're really engaged on a specific issue, it really depends what what politicians do on those issues. Like, you know, we're also talking about Republicans. Like, in Democratic primary, like, will there be a crypto candidate who kinda gets the money from the crypto industry? Or, you know, there will certainly be a range of opinions on AI even in the Democratic primary. Like, will there be someone who is more pro AI and and get, get some money there? One interest group that I think is fascinating, which we haven't talked about from the tech sector, is the AI safety money Yeah. Which is basically the backlash to the Andreessen view of the world. And that is a huge source of cash. I think one of the big takeaways from this cycle is that, like, there is a ton of money in the, like, anthropic, you know, effective altruist, you know, lowercase d...
01:07:03 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
Maybe uppercase d democratic world where people who want the AI companies to move more slowly were more concerned about existential risk. And it's, you know, absolutely a... Gonna be a force in the Democratic primary. And I think in 2028, you know, Dario Amodei could be on this list or or, you know, even some people at OpenAI who are more partial to that. [01:07:23] S1: Yeah. I mean, I expect, know, given the... Your beat that you are looking with some interest at the Anthropic IPO coming up soon because you're gonna mint a bunch of billionaires who are gonna... Who have these exactly the passions you're talking about and exactly the interests who are