Elon Musk & America’s Tech Oligarchy | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

JON STEWART: So much of the laws that have been created. over these past 50 years have been. to the positive for corporations. and to the negative for people. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And there's actually new frontiers of this. being developed every day. Javier Milei, aforementioned fanboy of Musk, has just pushed through a new legislation in Argentina. for corporate rights for non-human-led corporations. JON STEWART: What is that-- what is that, Sims? I don't even know what that is. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The idea is there.

can be AI agents which could theoretically. form their own companies--. JON STEWART: Oh my god. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --could then be recognized as corporations. So you could have there a business model where not only. is the corporation sort of cosplaying as a person, but the corporation doesn't even. involve any people in its leadership or direction. I mean, it's still science fiction-y. JON STEWART: We are in a simulation. [UPBEAT MUSIC]. Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Weekly Show podcast.

My name is Jon Stewart. And if you hear in my voice a certain weariness, a certain, maybe, barely, barely contained anger. and upset, the New York Knickerbockers. last night, they didn't win the game. They didn't play their best game. But man, oh man, the physicality of that game. You cannot-- can I make this a rule? You cannot run over Jalen Brunson or throw him. to the ground and just have the referees go "Ah, that's fine.".

You just can't do it. Now, I'm not saying it's-- it's because it's Jalen Brunson, because it's the Knicks. But there was a point in the game. where Victor Wembanyama just basically. threw him to the ground. And I don't care if Brunson was hand-checking him or grabbing. or doing the thing-- whatever. You can't just throw a dude to the ground. And you can't just--. I can't remember who the other guy was. Maybe it was Cassell, just ran directly into Brunson, threw an elbow out, plowed him over. And you know what, I apologize.

You don't want to hear this. That's-- that's not what you're doing here. You're here to have some interesting conversation. with a person that cares about things that are beyond sports, things that might have some effect on the world. that you live in, the world that we all live in, the design, our future, and those things. And I should just get to that. I apologize. I'm still hurting. I'm hurting, people. That's all I'm saying. It was a long night. And, uh, damn.

And we'll get 'em back tomorrow night. That's-- that's all I can say. But before that, we're gonna be talking about there's. this new book called Muskism. And it's about-- he's sort of a stand. in for this idea of the technocrats. and the technologists, like Henry Ford was back. in his day, that are controlling. the inner wiring of an operating. systems of this country and this world. And it's a fascinating look at-- at what that control looks.

like and how it could be muted and how. you can get out of the more negative effects of it. So I'm just going to jump into that before I lose my mind. over a variety of officiating mistakes from last night, that you probably don't care about it at all. So let's just get to him. His name is Quinn Slobodian. [DRUM SOLO]. Folks, we're delighted to have with us today a professor.

of international history. Not just regular history, international history. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Sometimes it's even global. JON STEWART: Global history. It could be world history. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Planetary. JON STEWART: Co-author of the book Muskism. and author of Hayek's Bastards, Quinn. Slobodian is joining us today. Quinn, thank you for being here. QUINN SLOBODIAN: It's my pleasure. JON STEWART: The book you've written, you're sort of--. you're looking at the way that governments and technologies. are joining together in some kind of a morphing.

into one another. Would that be the correct way to look at this, as to who is relying on who. What is the premise of this idea of Muskism? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, I mean, in a way, that's how capitalism. always works, right? It's a new way of organizing the world through technology. that produces a changed social relationship. or new relationship to the government--. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --and a new set of languages. to describe that. What's unique about the present moment,

I think, being in this era of digital capitalism, where a small number of firms kind. carry the whole stock market, become the whole growth. story for the economy, for everyone's well-being. and prosperity, it means you get a couple of people. appointed as, like, disproportionately. important for the ongoing success of that project. And then their products become disproportionately important. So every day, from our interaction here on the screen, to making a payment online, to putting something.

into the cloud or listening to something streaming. or doing something on a spreadsheet, we're mediating with the services provided to us. by Silicon Valley companies. And that's not even just an American condition. That's a global condition, right? JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: People all over the world. are also subscribing to the softwares of Silicon Valley. to just go about everyday life. And that can be OK. Actually, that can be a way that we describe in the book.

that state capacity and social capacity can be expanded. We can actually do things that we weren't able to do before. because of these services. But it also produces a kind of asymmetrical dependency. on these small number of people who, in the example of the person we're going to be talking most. about today, Elon Musk, can seem like a real vulnerability. and a risk because those persons-- those people, if they have their hand on the switch, can decide to turn off all of that state capacity.

at the moment that they decide that they're wimps. JON STEWART: Wait, I didn't know they had a switch. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean, in some cases, they literally do, right? JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean, the most famous example of this. with Musk is, of course, the battlefield in Ukraine, which relies heavily on Starlink. And they were trying to do a push into Kherson province. and Crimea. And he just said, no, I don't think so, I'm worried about the risk, click. Suddenly, they're offline. So that's a dramatic example. But you can think a lot of ways that that actually cascades.

down into everyday life too. JON STEWART: Quinn, let's think of this as-- so the way I'm. trying to envision it is kind of operating systems, if we want to think about it in this, the modern parlance of cyber tech and all those things. So we have kind of two operating systems, I guess, that we go along with. The-- the political operating system. is representative democracy, you. know, constitutional representative. democracy is the way that we govern our country,

handle our disputes. There's an accountability to the consent of the governed. and to the people. The other operating system, I guess, would be a kind of, let's say, capitalism writ large, you don't want it, you know, whether it's crony or otherwise. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mm-hmm. JON STEWART: Those two operating systems have. always been slightly at odds. Is this a different moment for that that you see? Or are we really playing out kind of an age old story? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a really. helpful way to look at it. Because if you think about earlier moments,

let's say the moment of industrial capitalism. and manufacturing, when the economy in the United States. was based on people having long-term employment at, let's say, auto factories, putting together cars, now, that's actually often called Fordism. So there you have, exactly as you're saying, the kind of two potentially battling imperatives. One is that of the capitalists, which is just like, I want. to make as much money as possible, I want to sweat my workers as much as possible, I. want to boost my sales and my profitability as much.

as possible. JON STEWART: And I've invented something that has utility, and it's new, and people haven't seen it before. And the market is deciding. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mm-hmm, yeah, and it's increasing. productivity and efficiency. Your getting more of these cars out the door. because of the moving assembly line. So you've got that. But then you've got the kind of social contract. on the other side, right? Then you have the question of like, why should. society go along with this. Why shouldn't they just go and put your head on a pike? Why don't they burn down the factory, right? JON STEWART: Wait, wait, wait, that-- that. escalated very quickly, Quinn.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, figuratively. But I mean, early modern period, that's how. people show discontent, right? JON STEWART: Right, right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean they went and stormed. the Lord's manor and just burnt it down. and burnt up all the receipts. And then that was a tax revolt, and you wouldn't have to worry. about it for a few months. JON STEWART: How did Fordism interact. with the government in a way that's. maybe different from today? Or was it the same? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, exactly. That's the point with the "ism" on "Fordism.". The "ism" is not just Ford did what he wanted.

The "ism" is a kind of settlement with the working. class so that they would willingly. and even voluntarily go along with his profit strategy. So what did that mean? It meant that he met the working class, which was still very powerful and well organized, halfway. It meant he recognized trade unions, collective. bargaining agreements. They were getting some part of the profits. through wage raises over time. They're getting cradle-to-the-grave employment. contracts basically.

They're getting social services. You get a kind of breadwinner-headed. nuclear family as the stabilizing social unit. So there's all kinds of attention to the ways. that a social willingness to go along with a business model. ends up getting secured, sometimes. through violent clashes, sometimes. through peaceful negotiation. But that's how then, you know, through that means, also. through redistributive taxation, you get a working model where democracy and capitalism can.

coexist relatively happily. JON STEWART: So that-- that's the arrangement that he. makes with the working class. That's the arrangement that he makes with the populace. What is the arrangement, though, that he. makes with the government? Did he need government subsidy to create this model? Or was this model so unique and he. was able to fund it through his own means and it just took off? How did that work? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, if you think about it not being.

just about Ford, but being just about. kind of like the era of manufacturing in American life. more generally. JON STEWART: Right, mass production. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mass production. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mass production. plus mass consumption, hospitable set of laws. to allow for the owners to keep, you know, a growing amount of the wages. JON STEWART: Right, children can work. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, eventually, you know, that got expelled, but--. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So you have, like, a cooperative relationship between the lawmaking state and. the profit making corporation.

And people somehow were--. the number of people being brought into that arrangement. was growing over time, such that it had a kind of stability. in even the welfare state in its, you know-- in it's vestigial way that. exists in the United States. Well, you could see as a kind of outcome of the Fortas. compromise, right, kind of the Great Society program, Social. Security, Medicaid are about saying. we need to keep a relatively healthy working. class because if people dying of, you know, typhus.

are walking in the factory gates. at the beginning of the day, the cars are gonna get made. So there is a kind of virtuous, pragmatic cycle that you could. say existed at that time. JON STEWART: You can exploit us. You can exploit us to a certain degree. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, but buy us dinner first. JON STEWART: But after exploiting us--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right, exactly. JON STEWART: Exactly, we should be able to have soup. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, yeah. JON STEWART: Fair enough. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And, you know, college education. and all kinds of things. I mean, there are all kinds of material ways.

that life got better for Americans in the mid-century. And that's in sharp contrast with our present moment. of digital capitalism, where actually, for most people, life is getting worse, the wages are stagnating, people are living in more and more precarious positions. So that is why we, in this book, we called it Muskism because we wanted. to force that comparison. You know, what did Ford do, how did Fordism stabilize society. in a time of disruptive change, and what, by contrast,

is Musk failing to do, we think, in this present moment to kind of stabilize the disruptive. effects of the technology that he's-- and his. Silicon Valley class brethren are rolling out. JON STEWART: Now, are we using Musk as a stand-in. here for kind of the Silicon Valley class? So I'm assuming that, you know, you could fall it "feelism,". or you could call it, you know, "Altmanism," "Zuckerbergism.". QUINN SLOBODIAN: I'm sure it's been attempted. JON STEWART: Right. Muskism is easier. It's one syllable.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Muskism does get autocorrected to Muslim. in an uncomfortable way for me a lot. when I'm trying to punch into my phone. JON STEWART: Sure. QUINN SLOBODIAN: But, no, there is something. he does play a kind of a keystone role that actually. isn't comparable to others. Like, we get the Peter Thiel question a fair amount. And just in material terms, Musk. made five times Peter Thiel's net worth just last year. JON STEWART: Whoa. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So he is far more--. JON STEWART: So he's done it better. QUINN SLOBODIAN: He has managed to bring together,

and this is another reason why he's. helpful kind of pedagogically and representatively, to bring together the material side of Silicon Valley, actually do make stuff. It's not just vaporware, and social media. platforms, and ad sales. Like, he actually did the hard work of assembling rockets, electric vehicles, satellites, now supercomputers in Memphis. And he plays with that virtual layer of social media, meme creation, hype creation.

You can't understand him without both sides of that. That's not necessarily true with every member. of the Silicon Valley class. So he's helpful to provide a overview of the whole ensemble. of how digital capitalism works in a way. that, really, no one else is. JON STEWART: What role did the government. have in seeding Fordism? Does Ford exist without-- and I don't. know if they did subsidies, or if that's even. how the government worked back then, or if it was all this is the age of the industrialists--.

so I imagine a lot of it was self-financed. But how does the government's role in lubricating. the rise of these technocrats play a role. where it didn't in Fordism? QUINN SLOBODIAN: I think that it's actually. helpful to find the closest analog to look at the era. of westward expansion. So the railroad barons really set the stage, I think, for what became the successful model. of American capitalism, which is the government says,

we need a railroad. And we will give to you, private capitalists, the right of access across this country. And you can build it. You can put freight on it. You can build towns next to it. You can charge passengers. And then we, the government, get something out of that. We get access for our troops, we get a growing tax. base, et cetera, et cetera. That model of cooperation and complementarity, you could say, is more like what gets us to the manufacturing moment. And then there's all kinds of, of course, demand from the military, right?

Military Keynesianism is built on demand coming from the state. for exactly those kind of heavy duty, high end manufactured objects like airplanes, and Jeeps, and ammunition. So there's always been that back and forth. And what's interesting is you can even bring that quite. cleanly up into the era of the launch of the dotcom. era in the mid-1990s, because the internet, as we now are all. very familiar, is a product of military R&D.

It comes straight out of the military and state application. of money to something that was originally. a kind of research project. I mean, it was for universities. It wasn't for commercial applications. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So then the whole thing. gets handed to Silicon Valley and the tech. sector in 1995, totally privatized. And it's only there that you start to get this mythology, this fairy tale that they sometimes encourage, that, like, the internet somehow sprang out of nowhere.

and value is being created out of the clouds. But, in fact, it's a part of a long history of public-private. partnership that's often been the way that America gets its. advantage in the world, creating a space for competing. firms, bailing out when structurally necessary, but not really picking winners in a direct way very. often across the 20th century. JON STEWART: What's the quid pro quo from the government? Because you said they grant you the ability to expand westward. or they give you those things.

Is there an explicit quid pro quo with that? Because that doesn't seem to be the case today. It seems like within those subsidies, there is no quid pro quo on, and here's. what you're going to have to do, whether it means a social safety net for your workers--. or a lot of these places are very. much against union organizing or any of the kind of things. It's a different ethos that's about efficiency and not.

broader based stability. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. I mean, it's a different kind of social contract, for sure. But I think one of the arguments we want to make. in the book is to push back a bit at the idea. that Musk is just a crony capitalist or just. someone who's, like, you know, stealing from the public purse. If you look at two of his biggest companies, his two. biggest companies, SpaceX and Tesla, they both step in to serve a specific state need. at a certain specific moment. So one thing that I didn't know until we started working.

on this book is that SpaceX comes right out. of the global war on terror. So Donald Rumsfeld, September 10, 2001, stands in front of the brass at the Pentagon. and says the Cold War is over, but there's a new enemy. And the enemy is us. It's like the old one. It's top down, it's hidebound, it's too centralized, it's not flexible, it can't think on its feet. We need to now fight ourselves. JON STEWART: It's democracy. QUINN SLOBODIAN: It's democracy, but it's actually Silicon Valley-- yeah,

I mean, democracy is ultimately the problem. JON STEWART: Right. Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: But they need to bring now in like the tech. energy, the move fast and break things energy, the venture capital model. JON STEWART: This is September 10, 2001? QUINN SLOBODIAN: September 10. September 10. The day before. Yes. JON STEWART: Oh, dear god. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean, the narrative-- the narrative. setup is almost--. JON STEWART: All right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --too perfect. JON STEWART: We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Is us. Yeah. Boom. Plane hits the building the next day. JON STEWART: Wow. QUINN SLOBODIAN: But then in the next years, of course,

they discover a different enemy. And the enemy is all over the world, and it's mobile, and it's hard to find. And what you're going to need is. a new set of technologies to track it down and eliminate it. And enter Rumsfeld's idea of so-called. network-centric warfare. So instead of large land armies, you're mostly going to focus on highly mobile special force. units that can be deployed all over the world, munitions. guided by satellites. And for that, you need a bunch more satellites. And Musk starts SpaceX 2002, the first full year of the war.

on terror, saying, I'm going to be doing that cheaper. for you than anyone else has. I'm going to be able to put those satellites. into orbit cheaper than Boeing's been able to do it. And I'm going to bring in all kinds of cost cutting styles, and vertical integration, and new ways. of sweating my employees. And I'm going to outcompete them on a competitive tender. And I'm going to sue you to make you give it to me. as a more competitive offer. And that's what happens. And the federal government says, you got us. JON STEWART: You got us.

We suck. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Who uses that exact lawsuit the next year? Palantir. Palantir gets its first contract--. JON STEWART: Wait, this is all 2002, 2003? Really? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yep. It's that early. That's when it starts. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Oh, folks, it's back. It's Bombas. You know I love the Bombas. I can't even tell you. Sometimes they put the ads in front of my face, and I look at the company, I go, like, OK, you know what? I'll read it.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]. OK, so let's step back for a moment. So that's the more exploitative version of it. The story they might lean more into is they were right. They did do it cheaper. They did do it more efficiently. QUINN SLOBODIAN: That's right. That's what I wanted to get to is that--. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --that might look like just cutthroat, whatever, profiteering. But in fact, they did then lower the cost of putting mass.

in orbit by over 90% over the next 20 years, a huge expansion of the US control of this new sector, of so-called new space or the space economy. Interestingly enough, just six years later, Barack Obama. comes into office-- this is funny. talking to you about this, because I. was watching you talk about this as it was happening. But Barack Obama comes into office as, of course, the anti-war president. And one of the forgotten things about that moment. is he said one of the ways we're going to be less.

militaristic is we are going to make ourselves less. dependent on fossil fuels. We're going to unplug from Middle Eastern oil. We're going to use the bailout of the auto sector. to actually electrify the auto sector. We're going to go hard into renewables. And this was the whole clean tech moment that actually gave. Tesla its first life saving government loan, nearly $500. million in 2009, from Obama's Department of Energy, to be part of that push, which was basically. green industrial policy-- create what we call.

electric autonomy in the United States. so you don't have to be going and fighting. stupid wars on the other side of the world. JON STEWART: How did that work out for us, Quinn? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, there was a world historical problem, which was fracking is discovered just. a couple of years after that. And then America just forgets all about renewables. for many, many years and decides now. we are the petroleum giant. JON STEWART: That's right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And, actually, then the current debacle. is, in a roundabout way, the product of that, because the feeling like we can do whatever. we want in the Middle East because we. are our own oil producer.

JON STEWART: We didn't know it was in our backyards. We could just go out in the backyard. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. I mean, barring that discovery of fracking, we might have been on a trajectory more similar. to China. Because at that point, China got on the green path. and stayed on it. And now, they do have electric autonomy. They are much more resilient in moments of supply shocks. And they dominate the global EV and lithium ion battery market. But the point is that in both of those cases, EVs, satellite. launch, rocket launch, the state actually.

did get something out of it. What's missing, and as you point to correctly, is where the worker fits into that. Because part of Musk's business model has always been. getting around trade unions. I mean, there's a gigafactory outside Berlin. now-- it's the only auto factory. in Germany without a collective bargaining agreement. Sweden is in its longest labor action. in history with if Tesla because he. doesn't see that as part of the operating system. We think the vulnerability and characteristic feature. of this Musk is it's just forgotten about the worker.

and forgotten about the need to secure. consent with the people who are actually. producing your products. And that is an arrangement that actually can't last forever. JON STEWART: Well, you see the backlash on it in terms of--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Exactly. JON STEWART: --once these guys--. this is a little bit of a detour, but there is a kind of ideology that also traces. back through Fordism of this kind of theory of the great man. and a kind of libertarian, authoritarian adjacent--.

in Ford's case, explicitly authoritarian. Is there a reason for that? That the strains of that went through Ford, and certainly. his sympathies towards Mussolini, and Hitler, and those kinds of individuals--. I would imagine for business leaders, especially in a democracy, they'd. be loathe to attach themselves specifically to an ideology,

yet they do. Why would that be? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, in the case of Musk, there's so much important stuff going. on there that it's impossible not to come back to him. Because this figure of the founder. CEO God-- and Musk has now officially. become the technoking of Tesla since 2021. He's not the CEO. He's the technoking. JON STEWART: [LAUGHS]. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Is a situation that, for me as a historian, is a real bitter pill to swallow, Because I was raised in social history.

I was raised in history from below, history from the margins. And we were always taught that a great man theory of history. was, like, the worst way to tell history. It couldn't be that it's just one person strode. across the stage of the past and shaped. the world as they wished. But I've had to come to terms with the fact. that, collectively, through our own decision making. as societies, we've produced a situation where there is. an historically unprecedented concentration of power.

in individuals, far, far, far more. than there was with Henry Ford. So Elon Musk can wake up in the middle of the night. in his underwear, and speak directly to 250 million people, and change the value of cryptocurrencies, change the value of stocks within seconds. And, in fact, there's automated bots that follow his tweets. and then immediately place investment bids based on that. He will have $1 trillion, probably, by the end of the week. Campaign finance laws--. JON STEWART: By the end of the week? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Oh, yeah.

JON STEWART: By Thursday? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Friday. Friday is the SpaceX IPO. There's a very good chance. JON STEWART: Did Ford not have--. I would imagine he had the ability to move markets-- not, obviously, with tweeting, but, certainly, there must have been. some kind of a symbiotic relationship. with the pamphleteers of the day, or the yellow journalists, or that kind of thing. He must have been able to move markets as well. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, he could. But here's the interesting thing--. Ford never went public, right? Ford was private until the day Henry Ford died. JON STEWART: Really? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Why?

Because he hated the markets. He distrusted them. That overlapped almost completely. with his anti-Semitism. He believed that--. [JON LAUGHING]. --the coastal manipulators of fake value. were trying to undermine people like him, the workshop. of the Midwest that were making things, hard things, with their hands. So what's interesting is that part of this compromise. between capitalism and democracy across the last 100. years has been carried out by the publicly. traded corporation. What's interesting about the publicly traded corporation.

is that, yes, not everyone can have a share. But if you do, then you also have a vote. And if you have a vote, then you have some influence. over the leadership. You can, if the person's going crazy at the top, vote them out, force a change of leadership. What's happened, and this is often misunderstood in Silicon. Valley, is that as companies have gone public, starting with Zuckerberg's Facebook, they've totally redesigned the way corporate governance works. so that their votes are worth usually 10x or even 20x more.

than people who are coming in after. it goes public, meaning they actually. can't be held accountable. They can't be dislodged. Musk will hold 85% of the votes needed. to dislodge him as the head of SpaceX. after it goes public on Friday. JON STEWART: So it's the benefit of capitalization. without the negative of any kind of accountability. through shareholders. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Exactly. So you're having your cake and eating it, too. You have the full control nascent in the family firm.

or the private corporation. And yet, you're tapping global capital markets. Like, you're getting all kinds of liquidity. that you wouldn't otherwise because you're printing. new shares and selling them off as little slivers of ownership, which don't amount to any kind of control. So it's actually hacked the public corporation, which. was supposed to separate ownership and control. and put them back together so that you get. this technoking-like figure who can also, because of campaign.

finance laws in this country, then. give unlimited amounts of money to any candidate. that they want. And the great man of history then. comes back in through the back door. because you can't deny, then, the concentration of agency. JON STEWART: So in this moment, are they. able to consolidate power? And in that case, this is a real swerve, then why does. Peter Thiel flee to Argentina? Like, in this moment where you are consolidating not just.

the financial benefit for yourself, but the political power, the lack of accountability--. you are these great men--. why leave? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, the first thing to say. there is it's a pied a terre. I mean, he's got one in New Zealand. He's got one in Argentina. He's got one in Miami. JON STEWART: It's just a little one bedroom in Buenos Aires. that he goes to on the weekends. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The man doesn't. really live anywhere, right? I mean, he lives where his private jet takes him. So one doesn't really want to, like,

give too much weight to that, I think. But the other answer is it goes back to your point. about the operating system. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So someone like Musk. does think that society is governed. by an operating system. That's what DOGE was, right? That was him entering the government and saying, I'm going to reprogram this thing. This thing is full of bugs. It's full of, like, old, antiquated hardware. and software. And I'm going to make it work the way that I think. a government should work. I'm going to be tech support in the most radical, interventionist way possible.

What happened? I mean, it was kind of a disaster, right? He didn't deliver on any of the fiscal promises. Yes, he cleared the ground and consolidated the government. to plug in a bunch of AI tools from Palantir, Anthropic, and Grok, but huge public backlash. As soon as they tried to actually bring the figure down, people were filling town halls. People actually were angry about the social contract. of Social Security and Medicaid being infringed on. So the reason why they're fleeing to Argentina, even if they're not, the reason why they might be worried.

is because their thin view of human nature and politics. is actually incorrect. And actually, you do need to respond to people's. everyday lives, their needs. You do need to meet them halfway. And they haven't been. I mean, the AI push has been insane. For the last year, they've been given a full runway. and all they've done is say, we need. to build Manhattan-sized data centers in your backyard. so we can build the machine god, that will put you and your grandchildren out of. work permanently. What kind of a way to communicate with people. is that?

[MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Hey, folks, I ask you. this question a lot of times-- where. do you get your news from? Most of your news, you don't know where it's coming from. You don't know the biases involved with these people. That's where Ground News--. do you know Ground News? It's the source you can trust, and not because they tell you. you can trust them, because they show you--. it's an app. It's a website. And it helps users see beyond whatever single narrative. they're getting. Subscriber funded, by the way. This isn't, like, some multinational AI.

devious sociopath created--. I'm not naming names, I'm just telling you--. this is subscriber funded. No corporate incentives that are influencing. what you're going to see. They've even got this new blind spot feature. It surfaces stories that are underreported by either side. of the political spectrum-- either side, any side, different sides, corporate sides. It shows you things that you're not seeing, that you should be.

seeing-- the Nobel Peace Center, which is like the FIFA. Peace Center, except actually associated. with the Nobel Peace. They called it an excellent way to stay. informed and expand worldview. So to get unlimited access to the Vantage subscription, go to GroundNews.com/Stewart, subscribe to get 40% off. The discount's available only for a limited time. That's GroundNews.com/Stewart, or you can just. scan the QR code on screen.

And don't forget, to get 40% off Ground News, go to GroundNews.com/Stewart. [MUSIC PLAYING]. So you have these tech titans that. are slowly insinuating themselves. into the operating systems. And the thing I would say about DOGE. is the way you described it in theory. is so different than the way that it was implemented. It was not implemented technocratically. It was implemented ideologically. They just decided, this is waste.

What is this for, AIDS medicine in Nigeria? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Screwworm containment? What's that? JON STEWART: Right. Exactly. That's gone. I think there are very few people in the United States. who believe that this representative democracy is, in an agile way, responsive to the needs of the people, or that the bureaucracy functions in a manner that. is appropriate for the distribution. of whatever it is that the government seems. to be distributing. I think people would be desperate for help.

in that regard. But what came out of DOGE was not that. It was an ideological exercise in what. the right deems wasteful--. DEI. What does that have in the name of it, woman? Cut it. So it didn't do the thing that they purported it to be doing. It, A, didn't save any money and, B, had nothing. to do with actual efficiency.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, yes and no. I mean, I agree with most of that. But I would say that they did also integrate databases. and personal files across agencies that had been. deliberately kept separate to more efficiently locate, target, and then deport populations of people. JON STEWART: Well, I was going to say, that wasn't for efficiency. That was for control. I saw it as a way for them to consolidate control. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah. No, but I think that your basic point, I completely agree with, which is that, in general, there.

is a feeling that business operates. in a kind of stratum that's insulated from feedback. or responsiveness. And it has done so for many decades. I mean, it's trundled along in a way that has actually not. returned gains to most people. Most people's wages have been flat. They've seen life get worse. And you could see the mega Silicon Valley tie-up in 2025. as a kind of wager that they could. take advantage of that frictionless.

and go even harder, right? That, in fact, there were no levers of feedback. There were no levers of the need to secure legitimacy, which is why David Sacks, three different times, tried to get laws passed that made it impossible for states. to do any AI regulation for a decade. Because he figured-- JON STEWART: Right. They tried to put that in. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --we have an open runway. We can do whatever we want. And they did have free rein because people. were slow to pick up on it. There was a sense of powerlessness.

around this very issue. And it's only now with, I think, the war, rising energy. costs, a sense of the actual investments starting to bear. fruit, in the sense that you can start. to see strange constructions on the edge of town, that people like Bernie Sanders are getting some traction now. with pushback. And the poll numbers on AI data centers. now are just insane, right? Americans don't agree on anything like this. And yet, they're agreeing on the fact. that they don't want this to be imposed on them.

So by, I think, getting over their skis, by actually. overestimating how much of a supine population. that they were dealing with, that they. weren't just dealing with programming to be reformatted. It's been, actually, kind of a rude awakening. for some of these people. And they're scrambling to make up for lost time, hence. the discussion of a public wealth fund, constitution, some attempt to backpedal into a social contract. that they actually hadn't really thought about before. [JON LAUGHING].

JON STEWART: Right. What they're looking for is revolution insurance. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Absolutely. Well, that's what Fordism has always been about, too. I mean, that's what Ford wanted too. And there are worse ways to organize a society. than revolution insurance. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Social democracy is arguably that. JON STEWART: Why is it having to be done so reluctantly? Why is the social capital part of this equation. always done with them kicking and screaming?

That's the part-- why is what their vision of their role. in our society so antithetical to that? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I think it's helpful, then, to think. about what came after Fordism. So we talk about Fordism as a period in the United States. and Western Europe from, let's say, around the Second. World War to the 1970s. What changes in the 1970s? Well, globalization, deregulation,

attack on trade unions. JON STEWART: Oil shocks. Sure. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The oil shocks--. manufacturing happened here becomes more expensive, relocates to poorer locations. People don't have the job security they used to. So you can't secure the social contract. that way-- cradle to grave, social protection, and employment. How do you do it instead? Well, you do it through the stock market. That's also when retirement accounts go to 401(k)'s. They become--. JON STEWART: Oh. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And so now, the new way. of securing social consent is, like, don't worry.

The stock market's got you. Watch the line go up and know that that is basically. the barometer of your future well-being. and your future health. And when Silicon Valley steps in in the late 1990s. and uninterrupted, really, to the present and says, we are the kind of safeguards of the line going up, then they become the central social. infrastructure that the American. social contract relies on. And so, in that sense, they can do no wrong. As long as you're making the line go up,

do whatever you want. Poison our minds, manipulate us with algorithms. JON STEWART: It's the back door of privatization. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. JON STEWART: The New Deal says it's an unraveling--. the government says capitalism, if that's our operating system, has collateral damage. And that collateral damage may come. in the form of losers, or poverty, or those kinds of things. The government will set a floor, whether it be for food, or for retirement, or those things. And these industrialists come in again,

and I say that writ large, and say, OK, we'll find backdoors. to privatize that bargain that government has with its people. so that we can still control it. Is that their desire? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Mm-hmm. I think so. I mean, I think it's just the fact that well-being started. to be defined through stock market performance and returns. on investment rather than any other way, right?

So you wouldn't say, like, people's lives are getting. better because they have more social protections, or there's a sense of community, or whatever it just became strictly quantifiable-- like, how much money do people get when they put. X amount of dollars into the stock market. when they start their working lives? JON STEWART: Right. I'll beat your Social Security account. And, by the way, if I don't, oh, well. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. Then you don't have anywhere to go anyways. But I think that's really one of the remarkable things. about the last 25 years is the reason why we wrote the book,

is that I don't think we really have a good narrative yet. for just how reliant American economy is. on the digital tech sector. It is really the whole story. And in the last year, it's become. even more the whole story. Under Biden, there was an attempt, you could say, to diversify a bit--. to move into green manufacturing, put an emphasis. back on higher ed, biotech. But this one-way bet on generative AI technology,

it's a race, we need to put everything behind it--. every last bit of investment needs to go behind this, such. that you know Sandisk chips? Those little things you would put in a digital camera. or something? JON STEWART: Yeah, yeah. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The value of the stock of those things has. gone up like 1,000% in the last year, because people are like, every little bit of storage for the AI boom is necessary. So everything's being funneled into that such that people now. are being overwhelmed. JON STEWART: Isn't that vulnerable. to the same capture that fossil fuel, or AI,

or any of these other things-- isn't green technology just. another avenue by which these industrialists could. gain access to our operating systems. and, basically, corner the market on? You see Musk is diversified. He's got our satellites in space. But he also has batteries and everything else. Just because we think it may be a more healthful technology.

for the planet doesn't mean it's. not still vulnerable to capture by these libertarian gods. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and, I mean, it's just a question. of how you see that balance between private and public. power operating. So we have a menu of options in the world, right? The China model is quite different. You basically get goals set at the top for the next five. years or 10 years. JON STEWART: An industrial policy. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yes and no, because then they say,

let the companies fight it out at the state level, and we'll see who wins, and then we'll take the winners. out and guide them upwards. Whereas the US model, and this is true under Biden too, has always been about derisking-- saying, like, don't worry, the state will take. care of all of the downside. And you'll only keep the upside. And that is obviously a recipe for--. [JON LAUGHING]. I mean, privatize--. JON STEWART: Privatize profits and socialize losses. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. JON STEWART: That's what they do. QUINN SLOBODIAN: That's the American model. That's the American dream. JON STEWART: Right. Moral hazard for everybody.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. And that's really what--. I mean, I'm sure we're going to be talking about that. in a second, but that's really the move of SpaceX, which goes. public on Friday at an expected valuation of $1.75 trillion, the biggest IPO in history by quite some measure. Why is he doing it? I mean, he's trying to become too big to fail such. that that inevitable bailout somewhere in the future. becomes structurally necessary. JON STEWART: But they already are. I mean, do we really believe, if you think about it.

through the financial system, if we have something that. is this crucial to the operating system of everything. that we do, informationally and otherwise, do they really. believe that if the AI bubble pops, the government doesn't come in in the same way. and use our tax money to bail these guys out? There's no way. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. No, they're certainly already betting on that internally. But what's amazing is that that's. also, seemingly, the kind of public conversation.

It's just like cross our fingers. and hope that the rocket keeps rising instead of, frankly, places like the EU are looking at this differently. They're like, why are we so dependent on these erratic. maniacs out in California? Let's slowly and painstakingly try to build out alternatives. Let's switch from Microsoft to Linux, even though it's a pain to learn. and it doesn't actually work as well as Microsoft. Let's try to add to our few hundred low Earth orbit. satellites to catch Musk's 10,000,

because we want sovereignty. And we don't want dependency to go on forever. In America, that conversation sort of doesn't happen. It just seems to be, like, put in much more moralistic terms. So if you're a critic, like you or I, then it's. just about how evil these people are. and how much hatred lives in their hearts, rather than trying to pick apart the structural power. and saying, like, OK, where's the vulnerabilities? How could we nationalize part of that, bring more of that in-house, take advantage. of the good things that they've contributed as far.

as engineering breakthroughs and optimization, and shed the extremely toxic things that they've. added to this model. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I just think it needs. to be a lot more clean cut. JON STEWART: Well, it's like we're creating. our own monopolies, you know--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Absolutely. JON STEWART: --by putting this much government funding. underneath it, derisking it, and allowing that-- we're. creating these monopolies. Now, there seems to be a subtle shift, even on the right, about this sudden realization that these AI companies are.

exploiting our data and our accomplishments. to create these products that have no transparency, and that it is a utility because it is. going to be a part of our operating system, and that the people--. I've even heard the Trump administration talking about, and Bernie Sanders has certainly suggested this, that the American people have a share, at least, in these companies, or profit from them in some way. Is that a bulwark against that?

Or is that just us becoming complicit in their--. does that really derisk them? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Investment story. JON STEWART: Exactly. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, I think it's a bit of both. So, I mean, I give a lot of credit. to Bernie Sanders and his team for starting and continuing. now this public conversation that. goes beyond just either surrender or demolition. They called for the moratorium, and now they're like, OK, here's a concrete proposal. We take a big equity stake in the AI companies,

and we turn it into a sovereign wealth. fund like the Norwegian oil fund, like Temasek in Singapore. JON STEWART: Exactly. Like they do in Alaska. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Investment fund. Exactly. JON STEWART: Sure. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So, and, as you said, Trump himself has actually expressed. some sympathy for that. Altman sat down with Senator Sanders last week. to talk about this, actually went and visited. JON STEWART: To talk him out of it. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, no, but we. get to the second part of your point, which is, what's the downside of something like that? Well, then it bolts the American future onto this one.

technology in a way that everyone is quite literally. now invested on its success. And you actually don't get any further. into the diversification, the second guessing, the kind of accountability. Instead, as in Alaska, as in Norway, everyone just becomes their little oil barons. I mean, do people want to be their little AI barons, or do they want to say, like, wait, what is this technology for? When you look at the polls, it's very interesting-- people. actually mostly aren't worried about it taking their jobs. They mostly don't like that it lies to them.

I mean, it's the unsettling effect on reality that very--. JON STEWART: Right. The manipulation. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yes. And people are just losing a sense of a shared. terrain for doing anything. JON STEWART: Or purpose. I mean, there is a certain-- we have an understanding of what. our role is in the world. And there's a certain feeling of we are needed. We are needed here for certain things. And if we are not needed here, is it enough. for us to just go, all right, well, just pay us a royalty then.

Like, I think societies have to understand, people need to be needed. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. And the crudeness in which people's. productivity now is being described. is kind of mind blowing. Like, for example, Muskism came out. on Harper, which is part of HarperCollins, which is part. of News Corp. And recently, the CEO of News Corp. said that we, News Corp, are an AI company. And we cherish our publishing sector. because we're always going to need new material to basically. be fed into the AI models.

JON STEWART: Holy shit. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right? So you're sitting there as an author--. JON STEWART: That is now our purpose. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right. Doing your level best to criticize the whole apparatus, and you say, oh, my gosh, this is just feedstock so that I. suppose the LLM can spit out a critical perspective. on its own industry. JON STEWART: Well, you see it even in the meetings. when the tech guys are talking to each other. and their shareholders versus when they're public facing. There was a quote that I remember from--. and I can't remember the name of one of the AI oligarch. dudes-- but he said what AI will offer us is productivity.

without the tax of labor. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right. JON STEWART: Referring to human capital, referring to your employees as that. is the tax that we have to abide. by to get our productivity. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right. And you compare that to previous versions of revolution. insurance, as you say, or reformism, which were. based on the dignity of labor. It was about protecting the dignity of labor, not just seeing labor as, like, payroll.

JON STEWART: Now, Ford, did he recognize that? Or was he dragged to that? Was it the fear of-- because when Ford is making his bones, you are seeing the Bolshevik Revolution. You're seeing the czars overthrown. Is he-- and it goes back to our earlier point--. do they understand this because they're human? Or are they dragged to it because of fear? QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean, I think. it's best to see them as being pressured to it from the forces.

that encircle them. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And it's another way. that the past era is so strikingly. different from the present. I mean, we live in the United States. Walk into the middle of cities, you see museums, you see universities, you see all of these things, libraries, that were endowed by that previous generation. of oligarchs because of a recognition. that they needed to meet the population halfway and find. some kind of way of giving back,

however symbolically, and partially, part of the wages that are being taken from them. every day in the workplace. And what's so, still to this day, amazing to me. is how the Silicon Valley class feels no need to do. anything even comparable. In fact, the Musk Foundation is one. of the best capitalized philanthropies. in the United States. And yet, it's sued every year by the IRS. because it doesn't pay the minimum out to anything. to count as a charity. [JON LAUGHING]. I mean, it's really that bad.

JON STEWART: Haven't they, though-- there's. that strain of it called effective altruism, which they. would purport-- that was the Sam. Bankman-Fried of the only point of this kind of pursuit. is to get so much money that you can give it all away. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I actually. think that effective altruism is. kind of under-played as being still really. significant in this story. Because another correlated philosophy is long termism, Which is that you actually need to do the things that will.

create the breakthrough technologies, which will allow. for the future propagation of human lives millennia. into the future. So to think in the short time frame. of how can I make life better for the present number. of people on Earth, or even the next few generations, is actually way too narrow-minded. And you need to say, how are we going to be able to colonize. the planets, set up Dyson spheres around all of them, and have sextillions of digital lives. loaded onto these mainframes that now become interplanetary?

If you take on that way of thinking, and Musk and Altman were at the center of that discussion. in 2015 when they started OpenAI, then you've basically delinked yourself. from all the normal impulses of humanitarianism and charity. that would lead even someone like Bill Gates. to say, like, hey, let's make lives a little longer. for people in the third world. JON STEWART: Right. You let me have a monopoly on software, and I will buy you malaria nets. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yes. Right. I mean, it's inadequate, but it's at least in line.

with, like, most people's sense of responsibility. for their common man. Whereas what's so striking about Musk. is when you take that long termism leap. and you say, like, that short term thinking is actually. damaging, then you end up where Musk is now, and you start describing empathy itself as a flaw. JON STEWART: Oh, that's exactly where they're at. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Right. So he talks constantly about suicidal empathy, a term he borrows from this Lebanese-Canadian psychologist,

Gad Saad, who's very big in the Joe Rogan circuit. And the argument there is that all of this stuff. to do with welcoming immigrants, refugees, multiculturalism, the idea of anti-racism. is all based on an exploit that we have in our software. that we need to override for the sake of the greater. optimization of the totality. JON STEWART: Why would-- you know, because that, again, is a strain that it certainly. didn't originate with Musk.

And as we're talking about Fordism, why does that strain of--. why is there such antipathy to diversity, or multiculturalism, or those kinds of things. when you would think, if you're an industrialist, wouldn't you think of everything. as an emerging market? Wouldn't you look at everything--. why do these industrial technocrats. or whatever all seem to flow into that ideology of diversity.

will destroy us. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, Musk is kind. of a unique one in that case. Because I would say that previous eras of industrialists. often welcomed incoming immigrants as long as they met. a kind of physical standard that. could be useful human capital inside of their factories. But Musk comes to his way of thinking. about those populations through his kind of computational lens. So you mentioned operating system earlier. It's very much the way Musk sees the world. The world is a space that works from computers outward.

He first got a programmable Commodore. when he was a teenager. Then he connected to the internet. before he left South Africa. And ever since then, he's been seeing computers as a kind. of control unit for reality. If you see society that way, then when things happen. that are against your material interests, you assume them to be either bugs, or viruses, or failed programming in the system. that needs to be fixed. JON STEWART: Oh, dear god. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And if you look closely, and this is what we do in our chapter of the book, which we call "State X," if you look at the way he talked about.

what he was doing at DOGE, he said not only that he was. reprogramming the matrix, but that he was in there to get rid. of the bugs, the viruses, the bots, and the vampires, and the non-player characters, the NPCs, right? So illegal immigrants, people who he perceives to be somehow. in a great replacement theory kind of way, acting as the permanent voting base for the Democratic Party,

are kind of offline computer viruses. who need to be identified and removed. So that way of shifting constantly. between online and offline thinking. is hopefully pretty foreign to most of us, but you need to make that turn to understand. the way Musk sees things. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: I don't even know why I'm doing this next. one, truthfully. Ryan Reynolds already does it. You're not going to listen to Ryan Reynolds.

What are you going to listen to me for? What am I, then, I'm the Ryan Reynolds of podcasting? Is that what I'm hearing? Or perhaps I'm the Deadpool of podcasting. Could I be the Deadpool? No, that probably-- although I do have the outfit, which is not, if I may say--. and I mean no disrespect to the franchise--. a breathable fabric. It's a sweat machine, pools right in the crack.

above the old toodaloo. You know what I'm talking about. The point is, I could talk about this forever, when what really you should do is just switch to Mint. Mobile already. Switch to Mint Mobile already. God. How many times do I have to nag you people about this? Look, Mint Mobile took everything. that's wrong with the wireless industry, and they made it right. They offer premium wireless for $15 a month.

Nobody does that except Mint Mobile. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to MintMobile.com/TWS. That's MintMobile.com/TWS. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at MintMobile.com/TWS. That's it. There's no catch. [MUSIC PLAYING]. QUINN SLOBODIAN: It actually, then, helps explain why the X.com platform is so important. to him, because it is a kind of closed ecosystem in which his.

way of thinking can be kind of propagated at scale and where--. this is one of my favorite things, looking on that website through the burner account I have. that only follows Elon Musk--. is that it has this little feature called--. it has a feature called Today's News. And it tells you what, apparently, today's news is. Yesterday, you know what today's news was? There were two items. One is Musk questions whether colonialism made Africa poorer. That was the first headline.

JON STEWART: [LAUGHS]. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The second headline. was Argentine President Javier Milei praises Musk's. battle on the woke mind virus. JON STEWART: Oh, my. QUINN SLOBODIAN: That was today's news. And that's what Musk is going for. He wants to create a communications ecosystem. in which only those most dogmatic. kind of Pravda-like talking points. can be repeated back to him. JON STEWART: Well, not to torture the analogy too badly, but is that because-- you talked about viruses,

and betas, and demos--. is the idea of this that there are programmers, and there are users, and he's a programmer, and these guys think of it as-- and Henry. Ford in the same way-- and maybe we start to throw. in the kind of Ayn Rand strain of makers and takers. and The Fountainhead, and that there. are those now, the technocrats, that are the programmers.

And if you just let us be, we will create. for you this top down society. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. And if you're interfering, you're somehow. debris or dross in the system. JON STEWART: Does that lead, though, to eliminationist rhetoric? Is that where we ultimately end up here? QUINN SLOBODIAN: No, I mean, 100%. We walk you through that argument. in the chapters of the book. Because one of the more outre parts. of that effective altruism, long termism moment.

was this thing called the simulation theory, which. was proposed by Nick Bostrom, who's someone who Musk blurbed. his book-- very important in that community, kind of spawned the whole field of AI safety or AI alignment. And one of the things Bostrom said. was, hey, if we take for granted that computers have. gotten as good as they've gotten up until now. and will continue to get better as they go forward, then it's almost inevitable that there will be capacity. in some deep future where they could recreate a world so.

convincing that people wouldn't know they. were in a simulated reality. Furthermore, they might create that engineered simulation. so they could do experiments on it to test different theories. Actually, William Gibson wrote a whole book, The Peripheral, that was sort based on this premise. And that there's no way for us, as participants in. said simulation, to disprove that that's actually. the position that we're in. So Musk has said many times over the years.

that he is almost certain that this is true. And it's helpful to know that one of the offshoots. of Bostrom's argument is that there may be. a variation of this, where a small number of participants. in the simulation will be conscious, full humans, and the rest of the people will be so-called shadow. people or NPCs. JON STEWART: NPCs. And if you're NPCs, then there is no value to culling or--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Can I just, like, give you the most dramatic version of that? JON STEWART: Yes.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Is the fact that Musk, while he's doing. DOGE, has in his office set up a huge curved Samsung gaming. monitor with--. he posts an image of himself with a portrait of Pepe. the Frog in his gladiatorial attire, which is his online avatar Kekius Maximus, with which he plays two games, "Path of Exile 2". and "Diablo 4," both of which are dungeon crawling games, which means you just enter spaces and try to murder. your opponents as quickly as possible in a kind.

of a swirl of activity. And he was literally toggling between that. and then doing DOGE. And the ways that the two were informing each other. are extremely strong. There's a leaderboard for DOGE. You're basically trying to take out as many people. and as many positions and dollars as possible. You were trying to move with speed. You were just completely dehumanizing or non-humanizing. the opponents at the other end. JON STEWART: If Africa is filled with NPCs, what difference does it make if--.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: Absolutely. JON STEWART: --USAID is cut off or not cut off? But it seems more cognizant than that, because they understand that they. have to sell it as inefficiency of your tax dollars. They don't actually stand on, then, what. they're really trying to do. There's a great deal of manipulation in all of this. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, that's where I think it's really. interesting to think about how Musk relates.

to the kind of neoliberal era that we have just emerged from, because the magic-- and I've spent a lot of time. and wrote several other books on this topic. of neoliberalism-- and the magic of neoliberalism. was that it downloaded and offloaded everything. onto the individual, right? If you failed, it's because of you. If you succeeded, it's because of you. And the thing through which that was all mediated. was this anonymous, agentless thing called the market. And the market was the thing that told the truth.

And then the role of the government. was to basically reproduce that. JON STEWART: No picking winners and losers. Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. Reproduce that illusion. Just say, we're just doing what we have to do. The market says so, dah, dah, dah. And so Musk takes advantage of that, obviously. I mean, he's able to get in as a private contractor. with the state by playing the neoliberal austerity logic, I'm going to save you money. He gets into DOGE by saying the same thing. I'm going to fulfill a long standing dream from Clinton. onwards, shave this state back to something. much more reasonable. I'm going to post a bunch of Milton Friedman memes.

to show you how serious I am, and Thomas Sowell memes. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: But then what he's doing. is actually quite different because it no longer rests. on this fairy tale, really, about the individual being. able to freely choose their own fate. He actually never speaks like that. He speaks about the need to do colossal civilization-level. missions, which he is the head of, in which you have only one. role, which is to figure out your place in the command. structure and do your part. JON STEWART: And always existentialist, by the way--.

that if we don't allow it--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: It's this or extinction. JON STEWART: We are done, and we'll have to go to Mars. Or if Donald Trump isn't elected, we're done. But it's all trolling. It's all purposeful manipulation. QUINN SLOBODIAN: I mean, I guess. I don't know, it seems to be working. JON STEWART: Oh, no, I'm saying it's working. But I just don't know if they believe it more than they're. just trying to clear the space to get it done, which puts us into the next place, which is--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. JON STEWART: Which we talked about earlier.

There are checks on this. And society works this way through. And that's why, within the system, you're seeing there are limits to all. of this that we are able to--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Absolutely. JON STEWART: The question is, though, right now, it's not coming from our political system. It's coming from the ground up. It's a grassroots resistance--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Grassroots. Yeah. JON STEWART: --rather than a political resistance. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And it has to be, because there's no political constituency for.

resistance, right? I mean, that's the problem is that because the whole American. economy has joined this one-way bet on generative AI, very much, including the Democratic Party, which, of course, was the natural partner of Silicon Valley. for decades and decades--. remember people needling Barack Obama about saying he might go. to Silicon Valley and become a venture capital investor. after his presidency-- well, that's. what Al Gore literally did. He worked for John Doerr at one of the main VC funds and was.

helping push the clean tech boom that. we talked about in the 2000s. So right now, if there's a President Rahm Emanuel. or President Gavin Newsom, you can easily. imagine how he makes nice with this whole class. very quickly, because right now there's no other game in. town, right? It does need to be grassroots, because it's. going to take the whole population to be like, we don't agree with this. We don't consent to this. We need something different.

JON STEWART: So what are the design constraints on this? We are a democratic system, and that's. the governmental operating system, but how do you institutionally design, then, a viable alternative to Muskism. if, throughout our history, it's always run this way, whether it's through the Vanderbilts, or through the Fords, or through JP Morgan? I mean, the Federal Reserve doesn't. exist until the government realizes,

oh, shit, we can't just be going to one banker. when the country is in debt. Like, we've got to create more resilient systems, so designing an alternative to that. What does a more resilient system look like? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. I mean, it depends on how radical you want to dream, but I would say-- JON STEWART: Dream, baby. Dream. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Well, I mean, I. think that the more incremental already feels. like a dream at this point. But, like, the Bidenomic interlude.

was actually a very good faith effort to do just that, right? It was an economic policy shop that was filled with Bernie. Sanders people and Elizabeth Warren people. who had studied their neoliberalism. and who were like, we need to switch this up. We need return to better workers' rights. We need care economy. We need to diversify. We need to figure out where the cutting edge technologies are. going and make sure that we're not being completely outpaced. And that ended up being a kind of devil's bargain. with a quite hawkish anti-Chinese economic policy,

as it ended up being rolled out, with a more expansive, like, social. democratic redistributionist policy. inside the United States. But what happened there, and I was on a panel. with someone who was part of that administration. at a high level in the trade policy--. and I mentioned something about Roosevelt, FDR, and she pointed out that Roosevelt. had three terms, that this stuff just takes time. I mean-- JON STEWART: Come on. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --if you're trying to shift the ship--. JON STEWART: Come on.

QUINN SLOBODIAN: You're not buying that. JON STEWART: Is that really what their--. see, what I would point out is the attempt. to create that more resilient model that is not. so reliant on seven tech companies. fails because we trip over our own dicks bureaucratically. And that lack of ability to-- when you say we're going to get. rural broadband out there, and Musk has Starlink,

and he can just throw them out there and do it, and you've got four years, and you don't lay any cable. or get any of it done, Democrats. have to learn how to govern. You can't just govern on paper. You can't just let the elites design a program, and put it down, and not realize when it's not. being effectively implemented. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. Well, I think this is a good direction. for the conversation to go. It's actually about the willingness to govern. and discipline capital, which has been quite lacking.

And this is, I think, very relevant. It's maybe a good place to land in the conversation. JON STEWART: Yes, agreed. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Because so much of this. is happening in the shadow of Chinese competition. And so much of Silicon Valley ideology. is emerging in the shadow of a kind of China envy. for the last 10 years. This feeling like that's a place where. people can get things done. JON STEWART: Move fast, break things, boom. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Enormous projects. Yeah, exactly. Like, things are streamlined.

They just clear the way. Regulations are reshaped according to what the goal is. And that's led to a kind of narrative that was propagated. in two of the big books of last year, one. Abundance, the other Breakneck by Dan Wang. And the idea in both was kind of that Americans. are too lawyerly. They're too obsessed with veto points, and regulations, and environmental review, and. so on. And the implication, really, is, like, we need to backpedal on the democracy a bit.

to make sure we can get big projects done better, or at least reform regulations and bureaucracy. So the problem gets kind of pointed out at that very. grassroots level that we were just saying. is now acting as a kind of helpful resistance. Our re-understanding of that is that the Silicon. Valley people and Musk himself kind of have got China wrong. So China doesn't work because they. clear the way of democratic veto points. at the bottom level. China works because they discipline capital, because they take control of the investment function.

and they say, this is where we want you to invest. And they don't let, actually, the financial class do all. of the wasteful, short termist things. that they do in this country. The problem with American capitalism. is not NIMBYist people concerned. about the spotted owl. It's a problem with share buybacks, chasing dividends, the fact that you have. a whole retail investor class that this was classic. on the Wall Street bets Reddit-- someone said,

is SpaceX really going to make money? And the top most favorited comment was, I don't care. if the company makes money. I care if I make money. So if you have that at the core, and that's what's driving the whole SpaceX IPO, then you're never going to get China-like outcomes. So that is, I think, the big message that I think we want. people to take away from the book, too, is this balance of private and public needs. to be recalibrated to put the public back. in the driver's seat. And if that means less profits for the capitalist class,

then that is going to have to be part of the settlement. that they agree to. JON STEWART: Right. And, by the way, the narrative that they like to opine on. is the free rider aspect of capitalism. is what's actually dragging us down-- is you have people there. who don't put anything into the system, but they're free riders on the system. And we provide them food and a blanket. And that's what's dragging us down. But what they never talk about is the free rider. aspect of our system, of these corporations,

they rely on our infrastructure that's paid by tax dollars. They rely on subsidies. They rely on a government that makes. it so that capital is not in any way. treated as badly as labor. It's always been exalted. And we make no demands-- like in the 2008 financial crisis, we give them all capital, and we make. no demands on that capital. And that has to change. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. Well, and the amazing thing is, when there are rumblings. of that changing, when there was discussion.

of antitrust lawsuits under Lina Khan at the FTC, for example, that was the point that the Silicon Valley. class just, like, set their hair on fire and said, like, we don't care how much we lose by tying. ourselves up with this fascist who's coming back into office. It's worth it, because the worst thing that could happen. would be capital gains getting taxed differently. or any kind of antitrust happening. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So you're right that you. mentioned earlier that we're rebuilding monopolies. It's one of the least observed things about the 21st century.

that's very strange is the number of companies. in the United States is getting fewer. over time instead of more. For decades, there would be more companies. But now, you're getting these new conglomerates. that buy up the competition. A new rival appears, they acquire them. They buy out all of their stock. JON STEWART: They do it in AI. They just buy them and put them behind a wall. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Exactly. So what they fear is, yes, any erosion of their increasingly. concentrated ability to direct all investment. power in the country, and there needs. to be a kind of filter put back there, whether it's.

through electing more left leaning people in charges. of state pension funds, or the return to the kind. of basic shareholder democracy provisions. that existed until recently, even. in something like the NASDAQ. Part of the reason Musk moves from Delaware to Texas. is because he can get away from shareholder lawsuits. He can get away from any kinds of that bottom up avenues. JON STEWART: Sure. QUINN SLOBODIAN: So even speaking. in those very conventional terms of making capitalism work. better, it seems like there must. be some common ground to cobble together.

a transformative economic program. JON STEWART: And also make it so. that the downside of globalization, which. is the race to the bottom for corporations to go for what. they can pay for labor, can't be. repeated in the United States. You can't allow Texas to be, as the country resents China--. well, isn't Texas doing the same thing to New York? QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. That's the end result of, of course, decades of right. to work legislation too. So we now have it compounded.

We have all of the problems of neoliberalism. and all the problems of Muskism now thrown on top of that. JON STEWART: Because it seems like we've designed. our political system to favor those who have access to it, which are the corporations. So much of the laws that have been created over these past 50. years have been to the positive for corporations. and to the negative for people. QUINN SLOBODIAN: And there's actually new frontiers of this. being developed every day. Javier Milei, aforementioned fanboy of Musk,

has just pushed through new legislation in Argentina. for corporate rights for non-human led corporations. JON STEWART: What is that, sims? I don't even know what that is. QUINN SLOBODIAN: The idea is there. can be AI agents which could theoretically. form their own companies--. JON STEWART: Oh, my god. QUINN SLOBODIAN: --could then be recognized as corporations. So you could have there a business model where not only. is the corporation sort of cosplaying as a person,

but the corporation doesn't even. involve any people in its leadership or direction. I mean, it's still science fictiony. JON STEWART: We are in a simulation. But the thing that I always return. to is the optimism of that which has been rendered. can be torn asunder. And I do think there is an ebb and flow here. And the fact that your book is coming out, and people are beginning to discuss. this in a clear eyed way--. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah.

JON STEWART: --gives me hope that there. will be the backlash to the backlash to the backlash. It feels like it's coming. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. And it's cyclical. I mean, this is one of the things we really want. to push in the book, too, is, like, the history of technology. has not just been one-way oppression. Actually, you can only explain the rightward shift of Silicon. Valley people by the fact that people. were using network technologies for emancipatory ways in 2020, in 2021. The biggest street protest in American history,

you don't get those without people being able to, like, film things on Periscope, organize things on Twitter. You don't get the trans rights movement. You don't get the rebirth of anti-racism attacks. on workplace harassment, like MeToo. These are, like, hashtag activism movements, but they had real life political effects. And they changed the mood in the country. And it was because of that, the kind of scrambling. of affiliations, new kinds of solidarity. that, actually, horizontal communication makes possible, that people like Musk freaked out and were like, no,

we need to buy that technology now. JON STEWART: And the Supreme Court has to say, we can't allow that to be what has primacy in our system. So corporations have to be able to dominate. QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah. Right. Exactly. JON STEWART: Right. QUINN SLOBODIAN: We have this callback to Donna Haraway, the communications scholar, this wonderful essay called. "The Cyborg Manifesto" in the 1980s where she said. the cyborg is kind of a product of the military. industrial complex. It tends towards informatics.

The computer is developed by the military. to fulfill its own needs--. servomechanisms, anti-aircraft guns, and all the way through. But it also has a potential to do interesting and new things. to human identity. If we are able to connect to each other in that way, we can dissolve traditional gender binaries, traditional racial hierarchies, theoretically-- like, it's the liberatory side of on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Like, if you think about that as, like, an actual, like, rousing political slogan for a moment,

then what Musk is trying to do is to squeeze that all back. in a box and do what we call cyborg conservatism. and say, like, we want all the technology, but none of the emancipation. We want to hold on to these hidebound hierarchies. JON STEWART: It's control. It's ultimately, who is the programmer? Who is the user? And who is the NPC? Quinn Slobodian, I can't thank you enough. What a fascinating conversation, man. I really appreciate you, Professor of International. History at Boston University, co-author of Muskism.

and also Hayek's Bastards. Thanks very much, man. QUINN SLOBODIAN: It was a pleasure. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Folks, we've all got great ideas rattling around. our heads about businesses. If you got a business idea and you want to make some dollars, there is a company that can help you make. that pipe dream a reality. And that's Shopify. All the dumb ideas that I have rattling around in my head, I can use Shopify to make a reality. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses.

around the world. It's actually 10% of all e-commerce. in the United States. Shopify is the commerce platform behind that. So you can't go wrong. And it's easier to get on than Shark Tank. What are you doing? You're waiting for Shark Tank, aren't you? I know what you're doing. You're sitting at home and you're thinking, I'll tell that Kevin O'Leary off. I'll tell him what I really think of him, Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Not So Wonderful. Give him a nice solid knuckle sandwich when he. tells me my thing's a loser. No, don't even worry about that.

Shopify is the thing that will help you elevate your business. idea and make it a success. You don't need him--. stupid Kevin O'Leary. Why is he always on television, in movies? I don't want him around. I don't like him. Sorry, that was a digression. But the important thing is this--. with Shopify, you don't even need that dude. Takes care of all of it, helps you become a success.

It's time to turn those what if's into [CASH REGISTER DINGS]. with Shopify today. Sign up for $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com/TWS. Go to Shopify.com/TWS. [CASH REGISTER DINGS]. I went to the Knick game last night. GILLIAN SPEAR: Oh. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: And because of-- there. was a gentleman that went there, apparently, who had a lot of requirements in terms of security.

and these types of things. So because of that, when the game ended, I didn't get out of there til, like, 2:30 in the morning. Like, I didn't get home till, like, 2:30. I was exhausted. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Wow. JON STEWART: And the game was shitty. And we lost. And I got caught in the freeze even. trying to get into the arena, and the whole thing. And there are certain mornings where you get up and you go, I don't want to fucking talk to anybody. I don't want to do a podcast. I don't want to line up. I don't want to do anything. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: And then five minutes into the conversation.

with Quinn Slobodian, and I'm like, this dude's fascinating. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: And I'm--. suddenly, like, all the synapses are re-firing, and I'm no longer thinking about. that Wemby threw Brunson down to the ground and nobody. called anything. GILLIAN SPEAR: My god. Flagrant. JON STEWART: Flagrant. But it is such an interesting theory. of the case of how we, in many ways, hand the operating systems of our country over to a handful.

of individuals. And we've done it for decades. GILLIAN SPEAR: And we just keep greasing the wheels for them, no matter how problematic they are, no matter how much they fail to deliver on their promises, no matter how toxic they are. Like, we just keep making it easier and easier for them. to access our financial system, our pension. funds, our government dollars. JON STEWART: Yes. GILLIAN SPEAR: Our environment. JON STEWART: And the more they get to the grip of the wiring,

it's like they're the ones in the wiring. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. These fucking dorks. We gave them way too much power. When he was talking about he's in. DOGE and he's playing these games--. I was like, these fucking dorks. JON STEWART: Can I tell you something? So that was the one area where I had some sympathy. [LAUGHTER]. Where I have been in those. I can remember in the early days of The Daily Show, we used to have a little-- they were set up.

They were, at that time, cutting edge land technology. We had little interoffice hubs, and. during the day when shit would get loose, we would play Quake--. Arena Quake on these little hubs. And so when that was going on, I. was like, you know we're not so different after all. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I know someone like him. GILLIAN SPEAR: Let's not throw stones. JON STEWART: That's right. Listen, we all are NPCs at one point or another, are we not?

GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. JON STEWART: But it was fascinating to hear. him describe. And it's the ebb and flow. But also, I didn't think of why these guys. all seem to lean towards this anti-diversity, anti-culture. And the way he described it as, oh, those are bugs in a system that are designed a certain way. GILLIAN SPEAR: It's so, like, uncanny hearing that word, because even before this, like, computer.

infrastructure existed, what did the Nazi refer to the. Jews as? They're bugs there. It's just something about that language, it's just so strange that it's persisted over time. to mean these different things. JON STEWART: And, listen, I'm always-- like, I hate going down the Godwin's law road. And it's the bugs. But I do think there's a sense of we. are the designers of this system. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. JON STEWART: And nothing in this system that.

is going to get in the way of the efficiency of our design. is allowed, whatever that leads to. It's not going to lead to something positive. For me, there's never an inevitability of that. I think we talked a lot about, also, the forces. that can push back on that. And that does give me some semblance of optimism. GILLIAN SPEAR: None of this is inevitable. JON STEWART: Yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I thought the purposeful manipulation. part that you guys were talking about, there was also.

a part in the book where Quinn talks about, like, Elon's shitposting. JON STEWART: Yes. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: And how, actually, it's him testing the markets and if he can still move them. And that was fascinating to me because I was kind of like, I thought he was just an idiot--. like, a nerd, basically, on Twitter being like, look how goofy and funny I am. JON STEWART: He's an edgelord. Right. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: But, actually, he's. stress testing responsiveness. And I was like, so there is--. like, the thoughtfulness behind all of this.

JON STEWART: There's a method to his meanness. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. GILLIAN SPEAR: And he really needs this, like, cult following that he has. I mean, you look at the SpaceX IPO. this Friday, they're giving 30% to retail investors, which is really rare. But for him, it's how he raises capital, because he has all of these people. hanging on his every word that will believe his hype. JON STEWART: And armies. GILLIAN SPEAR: Because a lot of traditional investors, they don't believe his hype. But he has this cult that says to the moon. And this IPO, if anything, is undervalued.

JON STEWART: Right. Right. And to Mars. But fascinating, man. Really fascinating. Get the book. I think you will enjoy it--. Muskism. Brittany, what do the people want to know this week? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: All right. The first one might hurt a little, so. JON STEWART: Oh, boy. It's about the Knicks? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Well let's see. JON STEWART: Oh, boy. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, some people. said Trump received a mixed reaction last night when. he appeared on the jumbotron. What do you think? JON STEWART: Mixed? I mean, mixed in the sense that it was. 90% booing and 10% confusion.

[LAUGHTER]. Like, first of all, it wasn't mixed in any--. like, I've been in Madison Square Garden. Like, it was no more mixed than what the Spurs received. Like, I'm sure there were, like, 15 people in Madison Square Garden who are like, "Wemby.". But, like, overwhelmingly, people were like, fuck them. GILLIAN SPEAR: And they did it during the anthem. for that reason. They thought--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. GILLIAN SPEAR: They thought, we got them. JON STEWART: I know how to safeguard this. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: This is a safe space.

JON STEWART: We'll do it in the anthem. What are you going to do, sir? I'll stand at attention with a salute. And the people will-- it's America. They'll have to-- and people immediately. were like, fuck you. Like, it was crazy. Mixed? No. GILLIAN SPEAR: Was it even crazier in the room. than it was on screen? JON STEWART: Oh, it was-- well, because it. was in the middle of a guy with a beautiful voice. singing the national anthem. Like, the disparity-- a lot of times. when people boo, it's coming out of, like, the music playing is like [MUTTERING RANDOM MUSIC TONES].

Your San Antonio Spurs. Boo. This was and the land of the-- and then it cuts away, and everybody's like, boo. And you're immediately just like, are. we being attacked by the--. so it was more, I think, the juxtaposition of it. made it so much more shocking and clear. And I've heard people say, oh, actually--. and it's also an insight into the window of his power.

of reality distortion. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: What did you think of the response? Oh, amazing, actually. I thought it was great. I thought it was really-- it was wonderful. And you're like, that was-- like, I don't know. what he filters through whatever ear. holes he's filtering through. But I do think he genuinely heard that as cheers. GILLIAN SPEAR: It's the power of positive thinking. I really don't know. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh my god. JON STEWART: Norman Vincent Peale, baby. He is an acolyte of Norman Vincent Peale, by the way.

GILLIAN SPEAR: Really? JON STEWART: Power of positive thinking. Yeah. GILLIAN SPEAR: It's been working out for him. JON STEWART: Yeah. That's his church. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: But, wait, do. you want him to go to Game 4? JON STEWART: I don't want him anywhere near. And it just shows how-- we were on the craziest high vibed--. we were on a run like no basketball. team has ever been on. GILLIAN SPEAR: 13 games. JON STEWART: We hadn't lost in over a month, and he shows up. And, listen, I'm superstitious. Like, I'm wearing the same clothes every time I'm going.

He put the maloik on us. That's the hex. It's done. GILLIAN SPEAR: Bad juju. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The juju was off. There was a dark, dark cloud. JON STEWART: That's right. You know what it felt like with him in the building? Like in Ghostbusters when the city opens up and, like, the ghouls are coming out of the thing. That's what-- we needed Bill Murray to come in, and him and Dan Aykroyd to zap whatever cytoplasm. was getting on the court. It was not good. What else do they want to know? What else do the people want? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, given your experience.

running The Daily Show, do you think. you could run CNN or CBS News? JON STEWART: Oh, sure. Look how they're run. [LAUGHTER]. I mean, honestly. GILLIAN SPEAR: Certainly couldn't do any worse. JON STEWART: No, I was going to say-- listen, you don't think I could reduce their viewership to under 4. million people a night? I could fucking do that easy. No problem. You have me in there, I'll have them down to 3. I think that's what they're going for there. This is a euthanasia that's being done to CBS News.

They brought in Bari Weiss with a giant pillow to just be like, I think I can smother this fucking thing. Let me get it down to as smallest, and then we can get it small enough to throw out the window. Listen, CNN, I would think, because it's 24 hours--. it's probably a little bit. CBS News, 22 minutes, and half of it's just what the fucking--. whatever viral video they found on YouTube about a crime.

Is that really what we're talking about here? GILLIAN SPEAR: Well, you would have to work more than one day. a week, so that--. JON STEWART: No, I don't think so. Ah--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah, that's true. Does anybody have eyes on Bari? JON STEWART: Not to get it to where it is now. GILLIAN SPEAR: That's true. Yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: And probably could be from home. JON STEWART: No question. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. One day a week will do the job. JON STEWART: Obviously, if you want to improve it, that's going to be at least two days a week. GILLIAN SPEAR: But who would want that? Certainly, its ownership doesn't want that. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: So you're applying.

This is your official application. JON STEWART: Yeah, done. Submit it. Put it right on Monster.com, or Indeed, whatever it is. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Hey, might be open soon. JON STEWART: Right. For sure. All right, last one, last one. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: All right. Crunchy or soft tacos? JON STEWART: Oh, can I tell you something? Both. And if I may, and I hate to keep going to this well, the Crunchwrap Supreme is--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. [LAUGHTER]. JON STEWART: I mean, we're talking about masters.

of the universe designing a society. where people can flourish. GILLIAN SPEAR: Wow. It's both at once. JON STEWART: The crunchy taco is delicious. The soft taco, it's more of a grab and go, you know, oh, my god, I got to run to work. Let me grab a soft one. Because the crunchy one, let's face facts, you got to be in the proper position. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: It's messy. JON STEWART: Incredibly messy. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: It's very rare--. now, there is a bit of a hybrid when you're dealing with a corn. tortilla where if they crisp it a little bit and it'll.

give you--. where we're not talking about the, like, Ortega box that you get, where you season it up. and do that. Because those things-- that is a design flaw. Like, the hard taco shell, there's. not a place you can bite into that where the whole thing. doesn't just fucking explode. GILLIAN SPEAR: That's where the Crunchwrap Supreme comes in. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Have you had the, like--. was it the Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell? JON STEWART: Have I had the Gordita Crunch? Brittany, who do you think you're dealing with here?

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: That was--. JON STEWART: I was raised on a Gordita Crunch farm. I lived on--. GILLIAN SPEAR: He used to walk three miles. to and from my Gordita Crunch. JON STEWART: I remember when we were in the Gordita Crunch. factory, this is years ago before they had really. made it an assembly line. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Do they have tacos. at Madison Square Garden? Like, do you eat that at the Knicks game? What are you eating courtside? JON STEWART: I don't eat courtside. I don't like to--. because you never want to be in a position where a 6-foot.

8-inch man is going to fly into your lap and you. cover him with nacho cheese. GILLIAN SPEAR: Well, last night, was it Bloomberg spilled his drink when he got crashed into? JON STEWART: Can I tell you something? I legitimately thought he was dead. GILLIAN SPEAR: I was so scared. JON STEWART: I think he looked like--. GILLIAN SPEAR: He looked scared. JON STEWART: Scared. Yeah. Because when you're that age, and no disrespect--. my age too--. GILLIAN SPEAR: And that small. JON STEWART: Like, that's one of those, like the cartoons, where the guy gets up, and you're two dimensional, and they have to come and like,

peel you off the floor, and then shake a couple times, and then you pop back into a whole person. No, I legitimately thought, when the player got up, he was going to have a Bloomberg stain on his shorts. where Michael Bloomberg used to be. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Did Chappelle help him? Chappelle was next to him, I think, right? JON STEWART: Chappelle absolutely helped him. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. JON STEWART: Absolutely. By the way, they came together. No, they didn't come together.

I'm just kidding. No, Dave came with his wife, Elaine. But it was so nice. It's funny. It really is like a fun little comedy reunion up there. Chris Rock was there, and Dave, and Colin Jost. Sam Morril's always there, and Distefano. Like, it's always-- it's a really fun, like, comedy vibe up there. GILLIAN SPEAR: I bet. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, yeah. Courtside was wild last night. Jeter and Eli sitting next to each other, it was like--. JON STEWART: Everyone. Champions, man. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: It was nuts. And Mariska Hargitay might have been the prize piece of attire.

of anybody-- because everybody tries. to really show out in there. She was wearing a Jalen Brunson jersey. that he had given to her, and had signed, and said "I love you.". GILLIAN SPEAR: Oh, their friendship is so inspiring. JON STEWART: I was just like, I don't know how to process this.

Like, it's one thing for, like, a ballplayer. to be like, oh, man, I've seen your work. I like it. It's another thing for them to be like, no, I'm your biggest fan. I love you. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: That is so sweet. JON STEWART: Yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: There's a picture. of you I saw on Twitter-- it is the happiest. I've ever seen you. [LAUGHTER]. GILLIAN SPEAR: So at what point in the game was it? JON STEWART: Well, I was going to say, it was probably when we came all the way back from 12 down, and Nate was next to me, and they hit it, and he and I are hugging each other.

and jumping up and down, and just, like--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The glee coming out of your face. JON STEWART: And relief. And then it all went to shit. So I'm hoping we can recover--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Tomorrow night. JON STEWART: --and get going. But all right. Thank you, guys, as always. Brittany, how do they stay in touch with us? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Twitter, we are WeeklyShowPod. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, we. are WeeklyShowPodcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment. on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. JON STEWART: Fine, fine, fine. Thank you as always, producer Brittany Mehmedovic, producer.

Gillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer Nicole. Boyce, and our executive producers. Chris McShane and Caity Gray. And we shall see you guys next week. Buh bye. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions. [MUSIC PLAYING].