6/8/26: Chips Stocks Hammered, Trump Floats Gov Stake In AI Companies
34m 3s
The transcription begins with promotions for several podcasts, including "Joy 101," "Therapy Gecko," "Kingdom of Frog," "Breaking Points," and "Hey Jonas." The main content then shifts to a detailed analysis of the U.S. economy and stock market. A stronger-than-expected jobs report triggered a market sell-off, as investors fear the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates, crushing hopes for rate cuts. The market is heavily dependent on AI and tech stocks, which are highly volatile and risky; a potential bubble could lead to a massive crash, as AI infrastructure spending now exceeds all public infrastructure spending. Voters are souring on Trump's handling of inflation and grocery prices, with low approval ratings even among Republicans. Rising jet fuel costs are hurting airline profits, leading to higher consumer prices that are unlikely to decrease. Wealth inequality is widening, with the wealthy benefiting from stock market gains while everyday costs rise for most Americans. The discussion then covers a scoop by Jeff Stein: Trump is exploring government acquisition of stakes in major AI companies, with OpenAI proposing such a deal. This creates tension within the Republican party between base skepticism of AI/data centers and elite support for tech companies. The overall tone warns of economic instability, potential recession, and growing public discontent.
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Investors enter the new week battered by a market sell-off that left very few places to hide. The route followed Friday stronger than expected jobs report, which sheared 4.2% off the NASDAQ. Sending investors, erasing to increased bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by a year and sparked a bond slide that lifted yields on treasuries to their highest level since early 2025. That pressured shares of multinational and smaller domestic companies alike and gold fell to its lowest levels on the year. The tumble drew warnings from Wall Street that more tort oil lies ahead. Radalio of Bridgewater said this. Friday was an important move that highlights the central role that the global craze for artificial intelligence and other related stocks is played in the record run. With valuation stretched and yields rising, bonds are now much more attractively priced than stocks. Leaving the market in a precarious position, market and economic concentration is in one new sector that is highly volatile and risky. It's super popular among unsophisticated investors. Quote, that is classic bubble stuff. So the two things that caused the NASDAQ and stock market to go down significantly on Friday were the jobs market that came in a little bit stronger than normal. Now why would that matter? Because it would mean that they believe that the Federal Reserve would have to raise interest rates. Everything from the AI stocks to the general rise had actually previously been bet on the fact that the Fed was going to lower interest rates or at the very least keep them the same. So when that reading came in, they immediately bet that the interest rate was going to go up. It's already crushing now multiple years of generally high interest rates. How does that affect AI? Basically from what I've been able to gather, a lot of it is based on the construction of the capex costs for borrowing because they have to borrow all this money to build all these new data centers and for all these other things. Money being more expensive increases the cost and it also demonstrates as he was talking about with the bonds, making it less attractive to bet on these ultra risky high investments. Like, I mean, you got micron out there up like a thousand percent and all these other chip companies which are up by boat loads, AMD is up by 200 percent and videos up. I got only knows how much Google met everybody. They all got hammered largely either because of the bond issue, interest rates and then sometimes things just kind of break. Now, I do want to be clear on the day that we're recording this, it currently does look like the market is actually up. It's up by some point eight, five percent. So it's a race, you know, maybe like a percent or so of the general drop that it had. We don't want to make too much of the drop itself. Some of the investor believes are and what that will mean in the future. So for example, let's put D2 up there on the screen. There was all that carnage in the chip stocks, quote, hit extra hard in the top heavy market. Everything has been dependent now on a small group of big tech companies which they specifically point to micron, supermacuter and sandisk. They all lost more than 11 percent in a single day. Cisco in an Nvidia drop, 6 percent, caterpillar, lately apparently an AI play because of its power and energy bitters fell by 3.8 percent. All of that, you can point to these semi conductor indexes and others combined to erase more than 1.2 trillion in market value on the single day. And the chip story really was the big story out of the general drop. And I think highlights how much of the current market is dominated in this one sector. So yes, it was like a little bit of a blip, but I think that we have to focus on it just to make sure that we're covering our bases because in the future, this massive drop in those chip stocks will significantly deplete all of the gains from the S&P 500. It won't erase all of them, but so much of your current wealth is tied up in that, basically no matter who you are really, because it's not like your companies and others aren't betting on that, that it will mean genuine catastrophe for US markets. And that is actually what pushed into a full blown recession. Absolutely. In terms of the level of expenditure, the data center bill down has now surpassed the price tag of all public infrastructure spending in the entire country. That's the scale that we're talking about here. This is beyond the railroad bill down. It's beyond the.com boom. So if it does turn out to be a bubble, the entire economy is bet on this. That's not an exaggeration. So there will be just a massive, massive crash. And so you won't be surprised that investors, they are aware of that or a little bit jittery anytime anything happens that could pump the brakes on that ever expanding valuations and investment. So I think that's part of why you see the volatility there. At the same time, we should put a D4 up on the screen here about how voters are feeling about the Trump economy, because while the markets might be up, for most voters, that is not the thing that they are focused on. This is from the financial times. They say voters sour on Trump's handling of inflation and grocery prices. I was saying before that even Republicans, there's been a lot of money. A lot of upset about how Trump is doing on inflation in particular. So they have 30, only 38% approval among Republicans of Trump's handling of inflation. He's actually underwater among Republicans on his handling of inflation. And if you look at the numbers overall, 68% disapprove of his handling of inflation, only 19% approve. Those are the worst numbers from this entire poll of various issues. They're also not happy with government spending. He's deeply underwater on a run, deeply underwater on tariffs and trade. And all of these things are areas where it is completely under his control. So whatever the stock market is doing, things could get much, much worse if you have a stock market crash. And then the one thing that is a bright spot in the economy also goes south with tons of carnage and then you have an utter decimation across our entire economy. But even without that happening for the American consumer, this has been a very, very difficult period and all owing directly to the choices made by Donald Trump. Yeah. And I think what this highlights too is, look, while everybody's looking at AI, the general cost for all of us, let's go to the next one, shall we? D5, for example, we haven't talked about jet fuel here in a while. Their lines have faced a $100 billion hit on jet fuel from the Iran's energy shock industry warns that profits will be halved by the surging energy costs. Oh, I mean, yeah, feeling so bad for airline profits. But we also know what that means is that these prices, they're never going back down. We talked about some of those new surcharges that united in American and all the other people have added after the war and even across the world. Yeah. Call me. And jet fuel is trading at like half the price and I don't know, like three or four years. I can virtually guarantee you that price or those surcharges will continue to be there. And that is the general quote and shittification, I think of the US economy.
you will see continued inflation be used as an excuse, both because of supplier cost, but all because they want to of general increase price. And it will never go down. We were talking earlier outside of the show about these nix tickets. I think this is a perfect example, is that you have an immense amount of wealth with the S&P where it's at. The wealthy 10% of Americans have so much unbelievable amounts of money. People are out there paying eight grand for nosebleed tickets to Madison Square Garden. I told you about the US open. People are out there paying $6,000 for normal US open tickets, which previously would have been something that you could go to the NBA final. Apparently the world cup, at least in some, you know, some of these more luxury cases is the same. F1 is another example. It's just purely for the super rich. And it's only continued to explode. All those prices continue to go up. Meanwhile, all of our Costco prices also continue to go up. But the wealthy people, because they have so much wealth tied up in the markets and just fundamentally their wealth is very different from the way that most W2 people make money, that they're able to afford that while everybody else's everyday life continues to get more expensive and their little luxuries that they may have had in the past. You save up to take your dad to a game. It, I mean, maybe at this point, but even that's-- - That's interesting. - This is so crazy. - Yeah, stay dinner, exactly. Once a month, stay dimmer or barbecue, they may want to throw it for your friends. You better have like $500. If you're gonna try to feed 30 or 40 people nowadays. And that will only continue to go up as the war continues. And I just don't think it'll ever come down. I really don't. After the evidence of the last five years. - No, it does, it only goes one way. That's the way this works. - All right, so we got our guests to any buy, Jeff Stein. 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Awards sold out toers. You think the Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope, it's podcast time. - We just asked other people questions 'cause we're sick and tired of being asked questions. - Hey, Jonas is available now, and their first guest is a big one. Paul Rudd. - You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition at the office or something? - I told him. - Whoa. - All right, we were filming Anchor Man. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to him, right? - Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - I am the therapy gecko. - Sometimes I'll have my girlfriend to treat you with spicy food and kind of baby bird it into my mouth. Is that weird? - Or this? - I had my boyfriend over and I had dirty dishes everywhere and I put the dirty dishes on a closet so he wouldn't see them. - If you're the kind of person that would enjoy being a fly on the wall of a stranger's therapy session, or if you pass people on the street and constantly wonder what might be going on in their heads, this is the podcast for you. This week on Therapy Gecko, we're hearing all real authentic human stories about anything from relationships to family drama, to serendipitous encounters with unexpected people and things. If real people peak your interest, listen to Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Jonas now to talk all things AI, including a very important new scoop is a long time front of the show Jeff Stein. He is now an economics correspondent with notice grade C.A. Jeff. - Good to see you, man. - Hey, thanks so much for having me on. - Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and start with this scoop that you were able to obtain, put E1 up on the screen. So Trump is talking with tech executives about acquiring pieces of major AI companies. You say that he said on Friday, he's talking with the leaders of the largest AI companies about how in the government acquire pieces of their firms. This actually confirmed your previous reporting that he had been discussing that idea with CM Altman in particular. So what do we know at this point, Jeff? - So I think this has the potential to be one of the most dramatic federal interventions in the economy in modern American history. The big mystery at the heart of this that I've been trying to figure out is, why do you open AI, does open AI do Sam Altman? Why do they want this? And I'm curious for your guys potential take on this, but essentially what we revealed last week is that open AI has gone to the Trump administration and said, we're moving forward with this potentially trillion dollar IPO to become sort of a public company. What if the government stepped in and became one of the largest shareholders? And not because the government would come in and buy shares. Like if you were I wanted to go out and buy shares in open AI or an anthropic stock, that would be one thing. What they're talking about here is having Sam Altman is proposing to the Trump administration effectively seeding controls of his company to the government. And that's the story we broke. And we reported that the Trump administration is looking into this and thinking about it and then Trump confirmed that they were doing that. And so this is an unusual thing where you have the head of a major company saying, so the US government, hey, would you guys like billions and billions of dollars worth of my private company? I don't know about you guys, but I can't remember the head of any company ever saying to anyone, much less the government, like what if you guys came in and made me billions of dollars poorer? And it's such a headspinning thing. And it raises, I think, a lot of questions about motivations, about money, about sort of the Trump administration's role on all of this. And it opens up a really important fascinating policy debate. - Yeah, let's go ahead and take a listen to Trump actually confirming the story. Let's take a listen. - When Bernie Sanders lost, you know that I got many of his people, they voted for me because we are on an economic plan as far as economics is concerned. We have certain things that aren't that far apart, people are surprised, but many of you, as you, if you'll take a look, many of the people that voted for Bernie Sanders, when he was no longer there to vote for, they went to me. I picked up a lot of us, a tremendous amount of his voters. So there he was confirming the Bernie idea being asked specifically about AI. So Bernie had previously proposed some legislation, I think taking a 50% or so equity stake as part of a sovereign wealth fund. What do you think is the Trump administration's motivation, though, behind exploring this type of deal? - I think the Trump administration on AI is in an incredible sort of two forces colliding right on top of each other. And one is that the base of the Republican party on every poll and every demonstration that we see is extremely skeptical. Almost the way like there are a lot of Republican voters who are skeptical of the party elite on Israel, there are a huge portion of the base is really riled up about data centers. It's not seeing the benefit to them of this AI explosion and is pushing back. I mean, I think we saw the head of the Michigan Republican Party expressed a new openness to data centers because at the ground level, the base of the Republican party is extremely skeptical of this. But then at the elite establishment level, the Trump administration, I'm not breaking any news here, is deeply intermached with the biggest tech companies Trump relied on the biggest players in this game date that sacks and others to set administration policy. And that administration policy has been very supportive. And Rhett at point now, where because in part of that supportive policy, there's trillions and trillions of dollars. I mean, I don't know what your guys take is on this, but it seems quite possible to me not to sound over the top that we are heading towards an enormous bubble popping. And the risk from the Republican party's standpoint is that the base opposition to these data centers and to AI will basically prevent the buildout on which trillions of dollars on investment is now contingent. So, right, you're seeing like those two trains are heading towards each other. And what the Trump comments their confirm, which I was kind of delighted to see because a lot of people before my story came out were like, this isn't true, you have no idea what you're talking about, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then of course, like the president himself is like, yeah, of course, that sounds great. (laughing) But like the really interesting thing to me is that Trump is sort of implicitly acknowledging that they have this problem, that people don't like this. And so if the suggestion seems to be if they can absorb the shares of the AI companies and maybe redistribute them through a dividend payment, maybe they use them to pay down the debt, like there's lots of ways they can use that money, then maybe they can maintain a leap support for the buildout of AI while simultaneously assuring people at the bottom that they're not getting totally screwed by this. - Yeah, that there's gonna be some benefit to them 'cause right now, all of us are going to be,
All they're saying is there electricity prices, going up and everybody's brains being rotted and a bunch of oligarchs, plotting whatever evil plans they have. And Jeff, let's get to that question about the motivation from Open AI and Sam Oldman. I mean, to me, the most straightforward reading is that they too are worried that it's a bubble that is about to come crashing down at some point. And they want to guarantee that they're going to be able to get their government bail out. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the main criticism I've heard that if the government is a major shareholder in Open AI, then the incentives for the government to step in in the event that Open AI has a true bubble burst thing, economic collapse, that incentive will be greater. I think it's a little, I don't know, maybe that is what's going on. I think part of my hesitation is that like if they're just seeding shares, the US investment in this will technically be zero dollars. It's not like they have an investment to recoup. But maybe like just the fact that the US government is more part of this company now means that they have a greater incentive to step in. That makes a degree of sense. I mean, I think the other major thing that's going on here is that there's a war within the Trump administration over the regulation of AI. And you have on the one side, David Sacks, who left the administration, but he sort of articulates the embodies, the idea that there should be essentially no, maybe that's an overstatement, but very, very little federal oversight of this industry at all. And it flows down sort of the innovation and that we are in a fierce fight with China and that the best way to win is to not exert really almost any scrutiny over these companies. And then on the other side, we've seen recently Pete Hague Seth and the Department of whatever we're calling it war is now saying these capabilities are so dangerous to US national security as they're framing it that we need some degree of federal intervention. I think part of what might be going on here is that open AI and the other AI companies are saying, well, we're trying to prevent this regulatory onslaught. If we bring the government in a little bit, maybe they have less of an, you know, if we're generating all this money for the government, they have made, they might have less of an incentive to slow down the pace of our, which is a little different than the bail argument, but maybe maybe not that dissibular in some ways too. Interesting. So they think they'll be regulated less if, because their view is, I don't know that this is totally true because Anthropic has been like not perfect, but the most responsible on the safety front and has also been very successful. But anyway, their view is that as much off to the races as that they can be with little hindrance and as irresponsible as possible, the more they're gonna profit and the more they're likely to win the race to, you know, super AI, agi, whatever the goal ultimately is. Yeah, I think the idea is if they somehow set up a dividend payment, the math doesn't quite know. I don't think for this, but you can imagine a world where they say, okay, Trump accounts exist and we'll add $1,000 in each person's Trump account from the shares of open AI and the other AI companies that we've acquired. And the thinking is regulation makes that payment go down so the government is less likely to do it. And people will be less interested in regulation. Generally, maybe they'll be less populist pressure. That could be, that could be thinking. Correct. And I think to go to your point about Anthropic, which I think is really important and interesting, we reported in our first story that Anthropic, that basically open AI and Sam Oldman have been pushing this with the administration. And that Anthropic has not discussed this idea with administration in my sense from sources is that Anthropic is much cooler to this, which is kind of an interesting inversion of like the idea that Anthropic is kind of the more popular. The good guys, yeah. Yeah, right. And maybe that's a function of the fact that open AI has a bigger PR problem or they're like, please take our money because we are so unpopular. Anthropic doesn't have that problem or maybe it's, you know, the, it raises questions about Sam Oldman's motivations and is it partly a reflection of his co-siness with the Trump administration? Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. Their entertainment legend, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow and experience joy. Joy after a break up, Joy is an empty nester, Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Number one hits, millions of records sold, awards sold out tours. Nope. It's podcast time. We asked other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Hey, Jonas is available now and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd. You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. I told him. We were filming Anchor Man, clearly I was the idiot. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes I'll have my girlfriend pre-tute spicy food and kind of bagging bird it into my mouth. Is that weird? Or this? I had my boyfriend over and I had dirty dishes everywhere and I put the dirty dishes in our closet so he wouldn't see them. If you're the kind of person that would enjoy being a fly on the wall of a stranger's therapy session or if you pass people on the street and constantly wonder what might be going on in their heads, this is the podcast for you. If real people peak your interest, listen to therapy gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk a little bit more about you asserted earlier you think that this is a bubble. There are many others who do related to that. We have SpaceX IPO which is imminent and we can put this up on the screen from CNBC. They wrote up this morning star analysis that SpaceX in their estimation is worth less than half of its $1.75 trillion IPO target. Of course SpaceX includes XAI, includes GROC and XAI. It also is a much larger company. Obviously they do the rocket ships. Their most profitable business is Starlink which is genuinely a good product that is in demand. A lot of the other stuff in here is a money loser including XAI at this point. What do you make of the valuation here? Do you think it is overvalued and overhyped and could help to further fuel and potentially help to collapse this potential bubble? My first disclaimer is never take stock advice from Jeff Stein as my friend that discovered and for all the listeners out there don't trade on anything I say. That said there is a new report coming out today from economists at Seaper. They are going to find essentially that they did a systemic analysis of the dot com bubble and the current AI bubble. The findings which I have been talking to the researchers about are really striking. In 1999, Microsoft's, the peak of the Microsoft stock was 6% of GDP. That number was the top and after the dot com bubble burst the number went to 3% of GDP. Today we have seen in video stock come close to 20% of GDP. More than three times the relevant metric for evaluating how much money as a percentage of the economy is pouring into these really frothy tech stocks. That to me suggests, obviously Microsoft did become an extremely profitable successful company. It is a little bit of a nuanced picture where I think there is a good chance that SpaceX is making products that make money and that it will take some time to do that. That is not a sign that no one would look back and say Microsoft was a failure. That reality was simultaneously true with the reality that this was a bubble. You mentioned right about the profitability and revenue that SpaceX is generating is so far from the valuation. We are seeing that across the tech sector not just in video not just SpaceX but open an an anthropic. It doesn't mean that this technology is unimportant or unvaluable for us to be heading towards a major course correction in the valuations. The other thing that was a huge red flag to me, can we put E4 up here on the screen?
had no idea about this, but Fidelity actually slashed its SpaceX minimum to $2,000 for retail investors. So basically, they changed the getting into an IPO for the offer price is normally a privilege that's reserved for big accounts. From what I could see, you needed a minimum balance of like a hundred K or something like that for Charles Schwab. Fidelity actually changed that, offering it to any customer with only $2,000 in a retail brokerage account, a fraction of the threshold that has been, quote, historically gated access to hot new users. That's the easy end. The costly out is a 15-day calendar leash and penalties that escalate with each early sale until a third strike triggers a lifetime ban on Fidelity IPOs that are tied to your social security number. So basically, you can buy it with a very small amount of money in your bank account. But if you sell it, you'll get banned sometime in the future. But this appears to have been a coordinated effort by SpaceX and others to let retail investors buy into the IPO. I mean, zooming out generally seems like fraught the activity. I'm clearly curious to see what you think. I hadn't seen that report, but that is really interesting. I saw another report basically that SpaceX has been trying to essentially circumvent the normal process for being put on the stock market. They wanted to essentially move it up faster than any other company has done, which is probably not a great sign of the confidence of the long-term durability of the stock. If they're like, we have a ton of momentum to cash in on right now. And if we let people take the average amount of time to invest, that is a threat to us. That seems inauspicious to put it mildly. Well, the other impact of that is so they were denied this fast track entry for the S&P 500, but they were granted it for the NASDAQ. And so a lot of people who aren't retail investor day traders just have a lot of money in what's supposed to be very safe index funds, that means without doing anything, SpaceX shares will flow into their 401(k)s. And so you will have a lot of retail of normal investors who aren't the top 0.1%, who end up exposed to SpaceX in this potential overvaluations. So it is definitely a concerning situation, given the fact in particular that, I think the entirety of the loft evaluation here is based on the possibility of XAI and the idea that this could be incredibly, incredibly profitable. But XAI also hasn't been at the sort of bleeding edge of the competition. Anthropic is considered the best in some areas. Open AI is considered the best in other areas. XAI has kind of fallen a bit behind. So even from that perspective, it seems hard to justify, let's say. Yeah, I mean, I think we're all just going to be insanely jealous when everyone else sees their SpaceX stock triple in value in the three of us, or left without anything. I mean, I don't know. I think there's to argue the other side of this, maybe Elon took the long view on Tesla and the company has had problems, but it is also the most successful EV maker in the world right now. And the Starlink product is so unbelievable. It's incredible, as you mentioned. But no, I'm not the world's biggest expert in the SpaceX stock, but the idea that we are on the precipice of something that is sort of beyond any of our conceptions of what the economy might look like is such a sort of either or dichotomy that if you are of the mindset that we are about to like enter a different dimension almost in our sort of political economy that these technologies are so transformative that we can't even conceive of what the world is going to look like in a year or two because everything will be run by these firms, then like, yeah, then it's a rational investment. But there are so many, so many regulatory and real world logistical hurdles to the extent of deployment that these guys have bought in on in their own heads, that we are on the precipice of, that it's so hard for me to see that in a year or two. We are going to be in this brave new world that everything looks different and every AI company is valued six times above. It's projected profit in the year in the term future. Well, where I am currently, and this could shift as I continue to take in new information and try to figure out where to land on this stuff, is that it is both a bubble and it is going to be extraordinarily transformational. I think it's both. And there are parallels right to the dot com bubble there as you were pointing out before that it was a bubble, but also the internet did change the world. And part of why I think it's potentially a bubble and I've been talking to Zach Xley about this, this is his view, is, you know, if you look at the AI that most startups and entrepreneurs and companies are using at this point, it's not open AI's, it's not clod, it's not chat GPT, it's deep seek. It's the Chinese competitor because it's almost as good and it's way, way cheaper. Yeah, incredibly cheap. The idea that you're going to have one of the American companies that establishes this dominant position and then everybody goes to that one, that's not the way it's playing out right now. It may end up being much more like a utility that is cheap and easily available. And yes, it still has that incredibly transformative impact, but it doesn't lead to all of these USAI companies being, you know, fabulously successful from a revenue perspective. That's kind of where I am at this point with what's likely to happen here. Zach, is that your view as well? I don't know. I go back and forth. At the same time, I see all of these reports about people inside of these companies who say, well, we don't even use AI all that much. Then I also see people who, what is that company that spent half a billion dollars in a single month and on, on, on, on, on, on, on, drop it credits. I'm like, okay, well, you're spending the money, not for nothing. Like they're clearly buying it. And despite deep seek being available, and drop it can open AI, do make billions of dollars. They're not profitable, but that's because their outlay is still very large. There's still, I think open AI revenue is like 10, 15 billion or something like that. And projected, well, yeah, but it was projected to increase year over year. So the thing is, is that there does seem to be a genuine technological edge, at least for tech, on the forefront of technology, the utility point remains there as well. But circling back to the original story that you originally, that you said about the stake in government, I also think that there's an element here, not just of regulation of being too big to fail, and entrenching yourself with the government and with Trump's pension for wanting to take stocks and companies anyways to make sure that you preference government regulation and others to keep them afloat no matter what, like maybe in the future, even banning cheaper Chinese AI, deep seek or any of these other models. That's just kind of my reason. That's a really good point, the potential desire for these companies to ban foreign competitors. And the government is incentive to do that if, yeah, that is good. I think that's very possible too. That makes a lot of sense. Jeff, the last thing I wanted to ask you about is that the SpaceX IPO is likely to make Elon, it's set to make Elonater trillionaire, world's first trillionaire. We're going to be minting many new billionaires between that IPO plus potentially open AI and anthropic. What impact does this have on society? How do you think people are going to take in this brave new world in terms of wealth that is already being created before our eyes? Well, I've just been the last year or so, not in this program and working on a biography of Senator Bernie Sanders, whose view on this is now like something I read about every day and half for the last year. So it's hard to think of that question and not think of the things he was saying in the '60s and '70s about how one day America is heading towards a trajectory of unbelievable inequality that makes democracy extremely difficult to persevere in the face of that degree of wealth disparity and that degree of differential and power. I think this gets back. I really want to, I've seen a lot of confusion on Twitter about this. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump do not have, and you see it in that clip, right? Trump is sort of like, oh, Bernie and I aren't that different. The proposal that Sanders has and the proposal Trump has are incredibly different. They're similar in the sense that both of them are talking about having the government involved in these companies. But Sanders is talking about, forcibly, seizing control and over half of each of these companies and redistributing the gains from them to the entire American citizenry through a sovereign wealth fund. Trump is talking about seizing a tiny fraction, maybe five, maybe 10%, we don't know yet, a small percentage of these companies in allowing the private sector and these trillionaires now to continue to have full control over them. I just think it's really important for the public to understand that those are very different in paths for the future of what they themselves are saying is the most important technology and world.
history or whatever. Yeah. Very important note. Jeff excited about your new position there at notice. Super excited about the Bernie book that you've been working on and it's great to see you. Where can people find your work now? My Twitter is now J-Stein_Starr which is actually not the name of the publication. Right. They're the old trademark problems. So Jeff Stein_Publication name TBD. But thanks for everyone. Nice. Great to see you Jeff. Thanks for having me like that. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We'll see you all tomorrow. But now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kati. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hota Kati is presented by CVS. I am an unlicensed lizard therapist who takes phone calls from real anonymous humans about their problems such as this. Sometimes I'll have my girlfriend pre-choice, spicy food and kind of baby bird it into my mouth. Is that weird? Listen to therapy gecko on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mormon Polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multimillion dollar house for our reason Lamborghini's private jets a billion dollar fraud. Tell me what you know is somebody coming after me. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Several new podcasts are promoted, including "Joy 101" with Hota Kotby, "Therapy Gecko," "Kingdom of Frog," "Breaking Points," and "Hey Jonas."
The U.S. stock market experienced a significant drop due to a stronger-than-expected jobs report, raising fears of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
The market is heavily concentrated in AI and tech stocks, which are volatile and risky; a potential bubble could lead to a major crash.
High AI infrastructure spending (data centers) surpasses all U.S. public infrastructure spending, making the economy vulnerable to a downturn.
Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with Trump's handling of inflation and grocery prices, with low approval ratings even among Republicans.
Rising jet fuel costs are hurting airline profits, leading to higher consumer prices that are unlikely to decrease.
Wealth inequality is widening
Trump is exploring government acquisition of stakes in major AI companies, confirming a scoop by Jeff Stein about OpenAI proposing such a deal.
There is tension within the Republican party between base skepticism of AI/data centers and elite support for tech companies.
Summary:
S. economy and stock market. A stronger-than-expected jobs report triggered a market sell-off, as investors fear the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates, crushing hopes for rate cuts.
The market is heavily dependent on AI and tech stocks, which are highly volatile and risky; a potential bubble could lead to a massive crash, as AI infrastructure spending now exceeds all public infrastructure spending. Voters are souring on Trump's handling of inflation and grocery prices, with low approval ratings even among Republicans. Rising jet fuel costs are hurting airline profits, leading to higher consumer prices that are unlikely to decrease.
Wealth inequality is widening, with the wealthy benefiting from stock market gains while everyday costs rise for most Americans. The discussion then covers a scoop by Jeff Stein: Trump is exploring government acquisition of stakes in major AI companies, with OpenAI proposing such a deal. This creates tension within the Republican party between base skepticism of AI/data centers and elite support for tech companies.
The overall tone warns of economic instability, potential recession, and growing public discontent.
FAQs
Joy 101 is a new podcast hosted by Hota Kotby that explores how to find and experience joy through conversations with fascinating people.
You can listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Therapy Gecko is a podcast where an unlicensed lizard therapist takes calls from anonymous humans about their real-life problems, from relationships to family drama.
Therapy Gecko is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kingdom of Frog is a podcast hosted by Michelle McFee that investigates a bizarre criminal alliance involving a billionaire fraud.
Kingdom of Frog can be heard on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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