Transcript
Yeah, come on. Live. From your non-binary credit risk score. We don't do any of this stuff, dude, do we do? I didn't realize credit. Ran genderized at all. It's a business pants Friday. Show here at March 28th Studios. Featuring analysts all Matt mascardi. Yes I am here. I keep seeing that they call you and you were an executive director at msci. Is that mean, you were you on the board? Were you on the board of msci? I think they every article that I've ever been quoted in that says that really wants me to sound more important than guy, who does something on a podcast. On today's weekly wrap up more slimy car salesman. We need more of that. Oh, who faked worship Nikola Tesla? Oh, is that a clash of human being just a strange story today method like brings everything together and one weird, our whole world like our world anymore. Why selling stickers is a way better business model and selling director data that we that I can confirm and Middle School. Oil men, Tree Huggers everyone's from middle school these days. It is. It's a world full of Middle School. Men cosplaying as adults are sure. Today, is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections to Performance for free. Maybe that's why People analytics doesn't make more than sticker makers because it's free and that's the problem. Let's say this free flow analytics. What they've done incredibly well is show everybody. The massive amount of free data and not tell anybody this is what they've done poorly that there is so much more data that they could buy if they wanted to like so much more. Like it's like and ungodly amount of more. I'm I'm not feeling anything this week. I feel like you called yourself brain dead. Yeah, I don't know what happened. It's like there was such a rush of stuff. You said you wished. You were born in the year 1855. I'm worried for you. Well, think about it. If I was born in the year 1855 as a white heterosexual, male sure to an upper middle class family in New England. Yes, you and you would have missed the word stock receive baby, you would have missed the Civil War. I missed the civil war war. I'm too old to go to World War One like I see, you know, some gyrations in the market or whatever. But what am I doing? I'm probably running a local store in my local community. The only people I know were care about are three people around me. I have a couple of kids and my teeth fall out. Like, it doesn't have basically what's happening now though. Yeah. But at least then I didn't know better. Let's do story. actually, I'll just start, I'll just start with the story I teased because this is just too bizarre and it's almost like the company to come full circle because Matt. We were originally laughing about this years ago. Probably the only ESG news financial news business news that really spent some good time on this weirdo this man, I'm sorry this, this former Convoy man baby boy, but let me start with this headline to ease into the the bigger story. First of all, I like this one. White House says, Elon Musk is helping them. Figure out how a reporter was added to a secret signal group chat. I mean this is the state of our world map. I mean this is a dumb it is. Did they call him up there? Like hey Elon? Do you understand signal at all? Like when I hit the plus button on adding people like I mean I I tell everyone I've been telling everyone for years especially like when you're riding a text or an email and you're worried about what the contents of you don't worry about, who you gonna share it with do the the body of the email or text first and then add the recipients into the two line. Just that way you don't accidentally hit send or you can double check your work right? It's pretty simple. Alternate Theory. Yeah um Don't write something that you're going to feel regret writing, right? It doesn't seem like that where you're gonna bomb people for no good reason. I don't even want to spend much time talking about that. So let's not the level of in fact Hillary Clinton summed it up for me in her op-ed and I'm not a massive Hillary Clinton fan in any way, but she just wrote this is dumb. Like that's where we're at. That's the setup for the that's yeah. Where we're at for my first star of the week because so you think of that guy that middle school buddy? Boy Tesla CEO. Just right but how about this? How about rival? EV car company Nikola. Yes there was another Middle School, bro. Who named his company? After the first name of Nikola Tesla. Not so it's it, it's true. Matt there was a, there was an EV car company called Nicolas, which was so riddled in fraud, which was so riddled and fraud everything was made up, including the fact that he named his company, basically Tesla. Adjacent. I think that was all part of the fraud of this guy. Trevor Milton Milton Milton was convicted in 2022 of crimes related to defrauding investors with Ms. Representations about the success of the electric and hydrogen powered trucks, that he was properly making. And as of yesterday Nikola founder, Trevor Milton says Trump pardoned him I, I was shocked when I read this. So so a little bit of some more background. First of all Milton made, this is all after he was convicted made significant political donations to Republicans. In late 2024, including about a million dollars. The Trump 47 committee. This is a man who never previously made political donations, he also gave about 2 million dollars a republican. So I think he was doing, where'd he get 2 million dollars on your fraudster and they supposed to take your money from you. So the pardon came two weeks after Federal prosecutors urged a district court judge to order Milton to pay restitution of almost 700 million dollars to Nikola shareholders, right? Yeah, that's correct. And here's the, here's the ultra. The ultra douchey, Middle School, bro. Tech CEO. Oligarch response to this. He said, quote, Oh My of course he's doing all this on Instagram video, Matt while Driving. Well, not x. What? None of this made up, none of this made up. He's driving his car. While doing this on Instagram of all places where like you know, aren't as Network teenagers hang out, but this is what he said, quote Oh my gosh. Oh, you won't believe what just happened. Probably the best day. I've had in five years. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's the best day ever, ever, ever write five years. I just got a call from the president, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon of Innocence. I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me. They can't destroy my family, blah blah. The pardon is not just about me. It's about every American who was been railroaded by the government and he said that there's striking with some movies between his case. And those brought against President Trump so he he's already into mushrooms. I'm not a fan of anything you just said. Craziness, right. Craziness. Are we? We are 100% gonna look back on 2024 as the greatest trade in the history of trades on Wall Street or anywhere is donating to the Republican party because you could have done anything before that. Andrew Tate's, Trevor Milton, Elon Musk, you could be singing. You could be anything anything at all, but if you gave Some number above a million dollars to Donald Trump in 2024. You are almost guaranteed to never have accountability again. That's that's the meritocracy at work baby. That's what it looks like. Yeah, And to just draw the story to conclusion, I want some other perils with Elon Musk include, just all the lies. First of all, the infamous story being that he was demonstrating one of his trucks but really the truck was on a hill. Yeah, they all know that's correct going down. So he was using gravity to prove that the truck was working. Well he also put tape over the company's name of parts of the of the truck that he didn't actually build. He he had used other suppliers part but but claimed that he was building them and just put tape over the brand name. He lied about producing hydrogen and house prices competitive, but these so many lies. But this is my favorite point because it's very much like Kimball musk. Trevor had a pointed, his brother Travis. As the Director of hydrogen production and infrastructure. And, and as far as we know, Travis's prior experience is mostly pouring concrete driveways in doing subcontractor. Work in Hawaii. So this is the whole manosphere the whole Middle School. CEO Bros. Here it is. It is this is like and did you know that Pam Bondi, the current, you know, attorney general attorney United States. Her brother is the one who represented Trevor Milton in his original trial, right? Like okay, there you go. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a 100 other tidbits on leaving out here is like the people who pay right? Like I know Trevor you've been so hurt and damaged and this is ruined your family. Nothing you had any culpability enrolling, a fucking truck down a hill. Not that, that was you or in any way like you're the fraudster that the government railroaded you, but the people who lose the 700 billion dollars of restitution went to shareholders, who invested in your company, based on the plethora of demonstrable lies that you told now those shall holders, they lose that money and there's no way to get it back, it's done. Yeah. The pardon, the pardon ends, so many people was listed a listed company, which means it gets put on indexes inevitably, it's put on, indexes all over the place. Indexes, or what retail investors, typically use when you buy an ETF. So, you're talking about, not just like, you know, you know, some hedge fund, whose billionaire losing some money. You were talking about retirees, who didn't choose to invest in Nicola, but Nikola managed to build them out of millions of dollars in their retirement funds. And some of those retirees. It's yeah. It's a significant part of their. So, this is, this is a bonanza for the unaccountable fraudsters, this is like forget kleptocracy because this doesn't look like Trevor Milton. Took 700 million dollars from investors because of the timeline and the way it happened. But that's exactly what happened. He managed to somehow give two million dollars while indebted 700 million to investors. And let's Let's not forget, this was not a politically motivated seen in the first place because all of his giving has happened after the case, he would he had never, he wasn't like, previously giving so much to Republican institutions that the SEC decided to have a political Witch Hunt and just catch the guy, they caught the guy because he was, because he's preparing frog, you know, fraud, he's a fraudster, I was built-in shareholders out of hundreds of millions of dollars. So they're anyway. That's the first. I don't like. This is why I want to go back to 1855 at least. 1855. I feel like you know like I wouldn't have heard about this. so, if anyone's ever asking you to have a uncomfortable conversation between like Dei versus the meritocracy, use this use this story to to bolster your case at the meritocracy is, yeah, it's A meaningless and I should say 55 like women had no rights and neither Jay, any people, the people of color are like in slavery, was still thinking the United States and like I'd say irrigation civil, right? You're only. Yeah, I am a white heterosexual male. Oh, child could put on ear muffs and existed quite happily not hearing about anything. That's all. Okay, it's a horrible time, but I'm just saying it's horrible feels less Second Story of the week. The second story of the week, is a partnership between doordash and Corner. Here's the headline that that 20 dollar burrito you order from doordash could now cost you seventy dollars. So the delivery platform doordash and the about to IPO payment company clarina having. I can't believe this is real. I've announced a partnership through which customers will be able to buy now pay later on food orders. Yeah. I like I got. What do you think the minimum you could buy now and pay? Later is like could I get like a like a like a package of condoms for you know, doordash no minimum. Well initially the reporting does say that for purchases above 35 days, that's like these days. That's two cheeseburgers. Yeah, that's the second story that we the third Story. How about this one? We have a lot of we've covered a lot of the air restes of family wealth, that that have opinions. We've talked about Mary Trump, we've talked about Abigail Disney. Now it's I don't have her name written down here. Is that Alice? Is it Alice Walton? Christy Walton here's the headlines Christy Walton Walmart Aeris worth 18 billion dollars, quietly enters, political discourse with New York Times at declaring quote, the Dignity of our country is not for sale and quote, I just want to tell you a little bit of the Dignity of the company where she had the machine billion dollars. Yeah a massed. Yeah massive the 18 billion dollars. First of all, Ah the CEO pay ratio in 2024, according to the recent proxy, this is for Doug McMillan. I believe CEO, Doug McMillan 976 to one. That's one of the larger figures. We've seen the meeting associate at Walmart makes less than 28,000 dollars. I have no idea how they have, they can like afford anything with 28,000 dollars a year and that figure Matt is after the company excluded, 5% of their total workers, approximately 100,000 Associates outside of the US. So, imagine how little they were paying. Those 100,000 people they excluded. They're, I mean, probably, yeah, a little bit here. Yeah. In our expectations of Christy Walton so Christy married into the Walton family. Okay. So that's a interesting footnote. It's like story. Yes, not even a she had nothing to do with the Walton Empire. She just met Johnny T Walton. And say and who died at a plane. I think it was Raj, Jim Todd. I don't know what. Yeah, is the Walton who died in the plane crash and you're right. She inherited. So it's not I mean it's not totally like out of wouldn't be totally out of character. It's not like a Walton said, our country's not for sale, she's not giving. I'm just saying she's not giving the money back, cuz is all I'm saying. The other part. I like about this is that the really what she's she's hinting at an oligarchy. She's hinting at this, like this, this Authority and Rule. It's coming out of the new CEO and the in the white house. But let's, let's remind people too about the Walmart company. The Walton family alone, controls, 46% of the vote and 63 percent of the board including including the board chair. Greg Penner, who was the son-in-law of Rob Walton? So yeah, they're all the old, the I you're right. Matt, she married into the family. Wealth. But the old company where she got. All the wealth is itself a case study number two in the meritocracy, we've got Trevor Milton, and now Walton Eris, that's what we'll call that. Yeah, so maybe she can do more than take out ads. Anyway, that was expensive. That's probably. So, just the third story of the week, I have two more two more kind of throwaway stories. I just wanted to cover first. I love this one, proxy advisors ISS and glass Lewis, recommend. Re-election of people leadership. Everybody everybody. They could find nobody to vote out. Despite all the short-term chaos, they got activist investors like just after them for for everything. I mean, Lord Knows Why stock down 10% since last year. But Matt, what about, they couldn't even highlight? What about what about our counting too? Sharp more Zaria. He's on the board of pp is the second worst. Average hitting 3:59. He is the lowest tscr TSR on the board at 3:06. He's an accountant, on a board that already has 37% of the influence is economic and accounting. Expertise, four times any other skill. He's a he's completely meaningless, a low performer, come on gloss Lewis. And I says, at least reach out to to free flow analytics and you know, there's so there's actually there's an effort by a number of sort of climate focused shareholders to Vote against hell, glued the the chair, right? And the reason why is because the company rescinded, all of its climate targets, I mean, Everybody else is rescinding them to but BP rescinded, them late, you know, gave no explanation didn't talk to shareholders about it. And so the conversation here is like there's no transparency into how these decisions get made protest vote against the chair ISS and glass Lewis. Both wait in on that. And they said, while we understand concerns, we do not think it's the place of shareholders to basically expect that level of transparency. We will monitor the company for in the future. Well, good monitoring things. It's I But again they there was not a single tweak that can make there was no, there was no other set of skills or expertise that maybe they thought would be good on a board. Where were about 40% of the knowledge is a based in accounting. So yeah, but you know what, I don't despite the fact that the data at free flow analytics.com is free. I don't know if they have access to that day, maybe there are actually no. We do have some There are some logins from we have, we have Lewis and ISS who have logged into the free flow platform. So maybe they, maybe they need to reach out to us and we can kind of, I don't think they understand, maybe we can clearly. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to throw that in that, that was a bit of a sales pitch there. And finally, the fifth Story of the week. I don't even know why I'm including this. I don't usually include this kind of stuff, but It just kind of Hit me hard American worker confidence. Just hit a record low and is even worse than it was during the darkest. Wow. Not good. I don't like that. So it's a it's a so it's on a scale from minus 100 to plus 100. It's it's down to plus 24 in February for comparison at the outset of the pandemic at its worse, the confidence sunk to 29. So it's even below that go to minus 1. 100 if it's worse, it was at 29. Oh the that the workers themselves are upset. For good reason because they're listening to our shows and they're hearing about all these crazy CEO. Yeah I can't I don't know how to weigh on weigh in on this all though. I don't know. Those are your crazy. I think the story of the week. I mean the story of the week, clearly is one that's not here and it's the signal chat leak. Well, no, it's there. I I it's part of my. Yeah. I know. But like it's kind. But I didn't know how to. I didn't know how to fold that into the kind of story. Yeah. It's kind of not our story. It's just like abject stupidity. So Because I was gonna, I was gonna attack signal because, you know, I, I hate all those, all, the companies that let you have post messages that disappear that you can do, their their encrypted, you can, you can do any crime, you want, you can get away with anything, you know what sell children, you can deal drugs like but but it's not a single problem to me. It's like, it's not like like look what we've done is degrade and and debase the value of professionalism. That's all we've done. Like being a professional being an expert being smart like we're attacking colleges in this country where attacking law firms. Now where Tech hostiles doctors that you know the science. This all the Sciences scientists everywhere we are actively attacking anything resembling professional adulting. We are replacing it with anything resembling man-baby middle school cosplaying as adults? Yeah, let's say. Basically everything you start to learn your first year of high school. That's I mean it's like like wedgie musk is running us running away from like building building companies on science, right? Like electric vehicles spaceships like these are all leveraging. Hundreds of years of scientific achievement and understanding that all of, which is government funded, forget the company, which is made billions of dollars in subsidies from the American government. Just think about the science required to do any of the shit that he's done. In fact, I saw an epic quote from Sandy Wilde, Sandy Weil, was the ex City, chairman and CEO. He said his wild Foundation just gave a 50 million dollar Grant to cancel, you know, therapies and like he wants to their and like you know there's a press conference and he's talking out of conference. He's he's talking about himself and the important things, he actually said when he was on stage, that government doesn't effectively and I'm paraphrasing here. Government effectively does not take risk, they don't have the balls to take risk. The private sector does. However, that is patently false government is the one who takes every bit of research that has nowhere to go, that has potential and funds it because they can afford to lose. They don't have shares so much earnings calls, so much Federal funding into our great academic institutions in this country so much. So, I mean, every great invention. Almost every single one has come on the back of government investment like microwaves telephones, internet space travel, and you're right, because the fuck are you talking about? Because the, because the universities don't have to answer to shareholders, they're not they're not trying to make an immediate profit from scientific to Discovery that the scientists there. They they have room to fail and to succeed and and that's I mean that's you're absolutely right. I mean without the seeds without those seeds Elon musket exist but of course he knows this. Oh like what these are. Are people like Nikola even even your ability to roll Trevor. I just want to let you know, even your ability to roll the truck downhill and watch it. Roll. It took somebody investing in understanding of gravity to make, make it possible for you to know how that truck was going to roll. Like to build everything you build for the, some portion of everything was funded by a government, subsidy by a government, grant by someone, who didn't need a return on their, on their investment, right? Like they they viewed this as a potential public good. I mean we don't go to space if not for that. So I mean really that the only thing in his bio that the that the government or the academics didn't help them with were these allegations of sexual misconduct in 2020, reported by well. Did he get pardoned for that too? Very liberal, they're very liberal Wall Street. I mean like the the narratives here are just patently aggressively manipulated in false, there's nothing about these people. They're not fucking Geniuses. I know, you everybody on Earth has founder fetish, that's slowly eroding as we see, actually what they're like, still like, because what we're really realizing is the vast majority of these people who are running the Earth Zuckerberg, Sergey and Larry like musk. All these people, they have manipulated a system. They're middle school nerds who all got wedgies who learned to manipulate a system so that they look better than they actually are. Well, worse in that math. They've insulated themselves against oversight against their own investors? If you really had founder fetish, if you really believe in these chuckleheads, get rid of all the do class the dual-share, all the way. Yeah, what do they need that for? And so yes, they don't know what exactly what do they need it for? Exactly be fine. I'm gonna go with the story of the week. Is Trevor, Milton. I do think that that is That is the perfect encapsulation of what's going on. You know, I know signal was the kind of conversation of the week, but this is like a footnote in the, in the death of the meritocracy and the the rise of the Middle School cover letter. And unfortunately, the the details, the the lessons, the what it means for the future. What it means for the current, all of it is gonna be just bypassed. I mean, what incentive? If you're an investor do you have like, or if you're a founder of any company, if you're any publicly traded company? Now, the incentives was a very simple incentives and they seem like economic incentives. But let me tell you, the long term, these are not economic incentives. They worked to your like a detriment is you donate, massive amounts of money to Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And you do fraud though. I mean, like, there is no, like, so the investors, you are the only Start the guard here against literally what Trevor Milton is doing. You're the guard. In fact, Trevor Milton's quote at the end of this is prepare yourselves for American comeback story. He talks about himself coming back and doing something amazing. Well and you know, there will be investing up fucking fund him. That's the point. But you know you are you can't look at these things and say like oh the long term cash flows, look appropriate based on your projections and I really think the idea, you know, has the ability to take off your ability to raise money is fabulous. So, my next round of funding will, you know? My my valuation will go up. Those are all the wrong metrics. Analyzed the problem they have investors analyze the human beings because that's what private Equity, that's what investors say. We got told we we ride winners. That's what we got. Told once that we write winners and they meant managing teams, we write winning management teams. When we went to venture capitalist, free float to go get Capital. They said we only care about the fat. We look at the founders, we want to scrutinize the founders. But no one is actually scrutinized the founders. If otherwise you wouldn't get Adam Neumann, Trevor Milton. Travis kalanick like, what kind of scrutiny are you doing? You're doing fomo scrutiny, which is somebody else thinks you're worth money. So I'm just gonna invest in you and I don't want to miss out. Yeah I don't. Let's move on. I hate everything. All right, let's do something. This is good least. We're gonna do you have good things? Yeah, come on. I kind of have a sort of good, I guess. All right, I just like the I'm just gonna read some headlines. Yeah, I'll do both of mine because they're both kind of the same thing. This guy makes over 100,000 dollars a month. Selling anti Elon Musk stickers for Tesla. It doesn't make me. I just love somebody. You looked at a problem and they said I know how to fix this, like, you know, like Why didn't we just do that? Why didn't we should just sold? Antidepresseur stickers anti. Is anybody gonna put that on their car? I was How is he succeeded? No but we talk about Elon Musk all the time. We should just made me but a Tesla. Why are we building great data in 2018? It cost you 80,000 dollars to buy a tested, right? Like you can't, you may not be able to afford to sell that Tesla, just because right, like, because Elon Musk turn red like into a red dragon and he's like, wedgie, musk is, is running the world of the ground now. So, what's your option? This guy came up with this is, this is brilliant entrepreneurship, that's all I'm saying. I got this one, Tesla, just got horrible, new sales data from Europe. They're down 49%, What a shark that you're in Europe? They can't sell a car anymore in Europe. I like that. That makes me smile. Okay, mine. This is a headline from ESG today.com. I love you. She today.com 84% of companies are keeping or accelerating their climate targets. According to research from pricewaterhouse Coopers 47% of companies, maintained their decarbonization targets. 2024 37% actually increased their Ambitions. So this sounds like ah, Maybe where? Yeah, I don't know if I don't know how I feel about this. And and finally, in a nod to Pro Dei Although when you look at the, when you look at the women they've selected here, it has nothing to do really with this is just just the meritocracy and action because they found four very strong women to run their, their boards SK group appoints, female chairs, to four, subsidiary boards. So, even, even Asia now is ahead of us, well, subsidiary boards, okay? The put their in our database. So, you know, there's still part of the free flow analytics.com Empire. That's why this one. All I'm saying is, we're both stretching pretty far to find like some good headlines. What I feels like here. Yeah, what's the winner here? The sticker man sticker guy. Yeah, let's get the sticker, man. I mean he's single-handed Tesla owners from embarrassment funny. He was using that money to actually invest in Tesla. I would love sticker guy. Give us a call. We can, you know, maybe we could work out something we can, we can figure out directors have Stickers. Well come on. Let's hear some assholes as holy is. Come on. You really want to do this now? All right, there's only one high level option. This is one theme of asshole, okay? I didn't go far and wide good and I'm just giving you a headline and a person. A type of person to choose as kissing. Sycophants is is your theme. Okay. Wait, didn't we do this one recently asked asked kissing sick. That's a, it's done to be. No, it's gonna be a weekly thing, isn't it? And ask her? Yeah, yeah. I but I love a good. Don't Hammer right here, the point, right. All right, so first, your first choice, you can choose companies because here's the headline. New analysts forecasts is X is advertising. Revenue is on the upswing driven partly by fear, fear, fear of what retribution from Trump and loss. Now we're at a point where you gotta, you just gotta give them money. Did you just hand him some money or else, like an attitude? I'm just giving them some money or else like to anti-trans Bud. Light Brigade will come and shoot your product or something, otherwise you're gonna show up on, you know, msnbc's signing. Executive order that says, no more Nikes sucks because he didn't like advertise on X. Yeah, I mean, like, that's crazy. Crazy. Um, and this is, I'm only choosing one headline. There were 20 that I could have chosen for these your option. Number two, States US states US states. Yeah Portland Canada. And Greenland are not including Canada. No, not including them yet. There's still there. There's still okay. Corporate Capital Delaware is changing. Its law in fighting corporate insiders versus investors. Yeah, Delaware has been doing a lot of shuffling, since elon's been mad at them, we are in a race to the bottom if you're if you're a US state. So Delaware basically instituted new laws that say if you are a dual class so owner or it's a controlled company. You basically have unfettered rights, you like there's no minority shareholder rights anymore. There's nothing you can do some say and some say Delaware had already raced to the bottom. So this is a, this is intriguing. Well Texas is now underneath the new bottom there, the new ass of corporate law and so Delaware's trying to become the the old ironically powered by solar energy. Yeah. so this, what's interesting about this Is there whereas they basically passed it with no due process. They just passed. It was all secret and past and quiet and took no amendments. And they just passed it as is because oh uncle Mark said he was uncomfortable being in Delaware anymore because he didn't have enough rights as a guy who has multi-billion dollars and is a dual-class owner of a controlled fake public company writes. This is all Delaware asthma. They don't have anything else. Don't have a lovely Coastline have? No, this is all they have. This is it? Here's your third option. Yeah. Executives. Ooh, asking sycophant asking sicko fanic Executives. I mean, we talked about that. They did this prior to the election, but this was a, this is like a new low to me. Yeah. Um, this is an executive named Tim Stewart. He is also the president of US Oil and Gas Association. A trade group, a trade group. Yeah. Us get Oil and Gas Association. President ready to buy a Tesla to show solidarity with investor with innovators and Builders. First of all, there was no innovation at a Tesla Elon Musk. Did he was? He's not a Founder. They didn't create electric vehicles, I don't know. They perfected nothing including including the, the purportedly the self-driving technology that's never been done. That's never. That's actually it's doing it. They did that, but they're not doing that Tesla. I don't even know he's talking about. So really solidarity with his middle school. Bully, friends. It's not Traders there. There we go. There's no other solidarity at this point. Yeah, I just love that an association. Who's literal lobbying position was anti. Electric vehicle anti-renewable energy. Well of course, is now is now like thinks that we are going to be mildly confused. Like oh, he might have turned around because he's ready to buy a Tesla in solidarity with innovators and Builders. Why don't you just suck elon's dick right on camera like and you and you know, that still at a dinner party, if he walks into a dinner party and its Mary Barra and Elon Musk, he's going over to sit by Elon know. You know a Ford F-150 Lightning from the Ford family. He's not doing that. Yeah, here's your, here's your fourth option. There's only two more options. Regulators. I like the crowd, woke up. Yeah, here's here's the option. The years, the headline for Regulators exclusive. Interim SEC. Chief casts. Sole vote against suing. Wait, mosque. What in first? I was a lot to unpack here. Why is it only an interim head of the SEC? Trump does not appointed a new head of the SEC that has gone through a confirmation process or anything yet. So it was the only one there actually. Other people still left are voting to support two Sue musk. I'm surprised by that. So this is from the Twitter deal, this is they sue them at the time, but musk took a position in Twitter and did not disclose no position. Absolutely did. Not this is black letter lied about the timeline of it this is like an absolute. Like there's not a there's It's not up for debate. It's it is he literally broke a rule and it was a very simple rule. You have to disclose within like five days, he disclosed in nine, he pretended, he didn't have it, but the whole thing is like, he just fraudulently. He just ignored the rule because it was not expedient for him. It was not too his advantage to you, to pay attention to the rule. So he ignored the rule, the SEC at the time, did not sue him immediately because everyone was afraid of Elon Musk, then, The sec's, the commissioners of the SEC are currently three Democratic appointed and two Republican appointed, Mark uwada is one of the Republican appointed. He's currently the interim SEC commissioner and Hester Peirce, your favorite Hester Peirce, another Republican appointed a commissioner Uida is the only one. Hester, Peirce decided with the Democrats, you wait as the only one who said we shouldn't Sue Elon Musk, is this? Someone breaking a blatantly breaking a rule five years ago. Is this an important? A trump appointee or hold over from a previous administration? I believe he's a trump appointee from Trump won from right, one got it. But the point here is, what are you fucking doing? Like this is if you're in American investor holding the Mary. What is the point now, that meritocracy work? You just have to you, gotta let go. He's letting me know, Trevor, Milton and must doesn't get sued. You have no rights as an investor but you know, that this is your rights when you had them by not voting but now you have none. This is how the meritocracy functions you realize this this is how it operates come on when Hester Peirce thinks, okay? So, a little too far like, has your Pierce is literally the master of the slippery slope argument in SCC legal circles, right? Like she was handling about every Dei thing years before. Anybody else was, she was like, I've read so many of her, she's lost her glasses in this boat. Maybe she didn't know what she was voting for. I love her because it's like, it was so like, it was so like, oh my God, like the government overreach, everything was government overreach when she is saying this one's hard to really say we shouldn't. This is like a black letter rule. There's no question here. We absolutely need to. If we want to have any credibility. I could have chosen like Supreme Court cases like but this one just drove me nuts regularly. Maybe no, maybe she already knows that the Doge's gonna get rid of this. He see? No, I mean, all right what else you got? Trump did say he's gonna find something new for Linda McMahon. Now that trust me. What else? He got our last one is Boeing. The only one where I picked one company, right? The first one is all companies but Boeing is a special case because this because of this headline, Trump says Boeing will build a new fighter jet to celebrate his presidency the f47. I mean, that, that's what we're doing now. Like we're we're we're literally like, licking the ass of Presidents by naming bomber Jets after them, but while they're in office. But, you know, the real background for the story, right? Yeah. They're trying to get out of their guilty plea. Yes. They want. They want Trump to let it out of a guilty, criminal, plea agreement, that it made that reached with the Biden Administration. So, it wants Trump essentially, to Pardon it. Like they did Trevor Milton. Yeah. And you know what? He's gonna, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. It's really a chance. It's that transactional, it's that easy like, but it's not. What did you fucking get a number on a bomber plane? And they get like, yeah, they get they get absolved of killing hundreds of people. Killing people, doesn't actually killing. That's not rolling a fucking truck down. A hill. That is killing people. So those are your options. Companies states. Exactly was Regulators or just bowing. I mean, I to me, there's a clear winner. Here. Because this is really the well maybe it's just the The Audacity Of The Optics. But the the US Oil and Gas Association president, I mean, what are we doing? What are we doing? What I don't. Why do we need to align ourselves? Which with just another dude, who runs companies. Like, I almost made that headline yesterday because it was so funny, but really, but really, I would like, to know, it's not like, he's like Dr. Fauci. I mean, who really is Elon Musk. What so far are his contributions to the to the human race. Like what do we really Under Las Vegas? What do we actually need from him? At this point? That were worried that if he goes away, we're not going to get. This is this is that is the worship question to me is so empty. That I don't even again, like I would get it. If it was someone who was, you know, making literal contributions and said of like helping to Fire Health Care workers, maybe he was actually doubling the size of our Healthcare Workforce, you know, just doing things that were for our infrastructure for actual Innovation. I still yet to someone reach out to the show. If you're a pro Elon Musk support her, what As he actually contributed to the United States of America, honestly, other than other than, like the the dream of unfettered wealth and domination that some weird Americans seem to Aspire to other than that. Other than the, the movie, the, the villain from a movie, like, with a huge piles of money, what what has he contributed to the American dream? Well, I do think like that American, ethos, where you look at the guy with 200 billion dollars and say that could be me from South Africa. There's some chance. That, that could be me. Well, we're busy crapping on every Other Nation where America First and we we want to keep kissing the ass of the South Africa. I'm just saying that the powerful image it's just and I got a message for you. It's odd, it's not you it's not gonna kill you, it's odd, it's never gonna be you. It's not gonna be you owe and odd. The meritocracy smells like like sull These Locker. Oh, you know what I'm saying? There's a, there's an, there's a whiff of like 18 month old, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and, and like Bo stank from, from the gym uniform. I was just at the community center gym and there is that like, it's like that mix of like, moist bleach and, and moist, stop mold. Yeah, it's really good. All right, let's go on to headlining us. This is like the most depressing show we might have ever, you know, what should fear, and we hit a listener, forget who it was no one. The reality is not that none of our listeners want to be named because they probably they're probably working at actually important companies and jobs and they don't want it to be outed that they listen to us, but we did have someone reach out that was that was particularly worried about my psyche because I sound depressed right, there should be more worried about you. I think, I think you're right now. So look, I I spend a lot of I live in the data, I live in this data on a daily basis. I live in the headlines, you live in the day and like between me reading the headlines that you're curating, which are 90% horrible 98%. Yeah, I need PTSD health coverage and we're a salary. Whichever one comes first and talk about that. And my, and my living in this data. We've got a massed 220,000 directors. There are knowledge, of course, 17, Of performance, like connections throughout accountants. In fact, in fact, we just got written up today in a magazine agenda magazine, that goes out to directors and it talks about the problem of their interlocks on nonprofits, that no one has ever talked about before. When you live in the data, and you realize like, oh my God, all I see all day is an interconnected web of bros who affect mostly Rose. Yeah. Mostly Bros who effectively have created a system where they're unimpeachable. They're like, if you want to sit on a board forever you just do nobody literally no one cares, Matt, and we've pointed out just nuts. The data points has points out. We point we have pointed out for years. Once you make the board, That's it. You, there's, yeah, because there's no, there's actually no methodology to evaluate performance other than using free flow, analytics.com. Investors don't care and even if you commit fraud, you're going to get pardoned anyway. But there's actually once you're there, that's it. You're part of the Brotherhood, you're never. I mean, they're gonna add you. Other boards just by here's the worst part. And here's this is described for the two listeners that we have. Why I'm in the mental state that I am. So this this week we I interviewed a law professor named Sarah Hahn, Washington Lee, amazing woman doing super interesting work. I've been reading a lot of her research papers or articles she talks about this. This the idea of rational apathy and how investors effectively have made have cultivated this. This idea that it is economically, rational to not vote in the proxy and the alternative democracy to not care about who's on the board. Because as long as the stock goes up, it's it's too expensive to care. It's and there's no upside to caring. We've shown no correlation to returns all these kind of stuff. So, what you end up with is a self perpetuating system of mostly men who choose themselves to make millions of dollars a year and Run, massive organizations, and the byproduct of rational athlete has been an understanding because of casual and difference from investors and understanding of how to manipulate a system. So you never lose power. In fact, calling from authoritarian playbooks it's effectively an authoritarian system in the corporate democracy and the thing that she's been talking about recently is what we're seeing with the Elon Musk Is taking the corporate authoritarian playbook in which you constantly move the goalposts. Like oh you want to file a Cheryl proposal? Well this year it's going to be it's gonna be 20 days before. Last year was 30 days before like that changing our seven days before whatever. Yeah, you're constantly more than you should have. You said, 20 minutes to present the proposal. Now you have five minutes, five minutes on the annual meeting or no engine. Number one. Oh congratulations. You've managed to like three new directors to the exam board. Well, the next year they add two more directors, they increase the size of the board to to wipe out any influence that those directors might have Alexa on did just by simply suing proponents and just sue your shareholders. You just go right past the share like these are all tricks that corporate leaders have learned to maintain absolute domain and power over their companies and insulating themselves from everybody. But them. Solves and what you're seeing with musk and a number when, when these Business Leaders are moving into the political realm, the political democracy, not the corporate, democracy is a port all of the tricks over, and it creates a system of effective authoritarianism. Donald Trump is was a core air quotes businessman whether or not he was a nepo baby and sucked at business is immaterial his business like process was effectively to create a system of what she was unable. He was not like he would build inside and family members inside his family member Sue, anybody who he didn't like, like don't pay your contractors, don't pay your vendors, he was a horrible business person with absolutely power. Now you hurt. She's been talking about and the interviews going to cover this she's been talking about this idea of, you're just seeing the corporate democracy which we talk about all day long. Play out in the real. Political democracy that absolutely everybody. Absolutely. So what you've seen more than anything in the first two months of this Trump Administration is effectively is a man who was firing his boards his committees. Yeah. He's To be clear. What doge is doing is really firing, oversight, it's firing guardrails. I know people are rightfully, they're rightly focused on government employees, losing their jobs, because it's a heinous thing, and a sad thing, but really, what they're doing is they're removing guard rails. It's just, yeah, so, she's right. And, and when you talk to someone like Sarah Hahn, who like, I cannot recommend her reading enough, she's fabulous. When you talk to somebody like that and then you read the news stories. You don't feel good about yourself. Okay, can we move on? You're killing me here. All right, we're on Headline News. I think I already played his thing. I want you. What? You do? One of yours. Oh, the first one is fitting because it is definitely not gonna cheer you up. Chat GPT might be making its most frequent users, more lonely. Oh, study by open Ai and MIT media Labs suggests open me. I was part of that study. Yeah, maybe I mean, come on. We know that we know that happening and one more just on that vein. I'm here's the headline from business inside her. I'm a former Google executive who's manipulated people to get what I want when done, right? It's an essential career skill. Oh yeah. Look, I mean it's called the meritocracy baby. That's what he liked, what he got. I got two, the fourth executive who kept score of colleagues verbal flubs, okay? Now you should have put this in good list because this is a nice happy story. Can you? You had a couple favorites in this that. So the short version of this is there is an executive at Ford who just retired who kept meticulous, meticulous notes about malaprops. And like, you know, just poor language of in meetings in presentations of his colleagues and they and like using like idioms and and stuff to yeah, to somehow like, you're all wrong. The one I liked the most was, let's not reinvent the ocean. I'm kind of mixed. I have mixed feelings about that. Part of me wants to reinvent it and part of it agrees. Let's not, let's keep. Let's leave it alone. I mean, here's some more examples, ready? Too many cooks in the soup, okay? Or I'm not trying to beat a dead horse to death. Yeah. He's co-workers like this guy or hated him. I don't think. I think he wrote this down by himself, but there must have been, but he was also probably the guy putting up signs on the microwave, right? I like just like passive aggressive notes. I love this story though. I it is a fabulous story. I like you could read it. It's in the Wall Street Journal and it's like, I don't, I actually wish we had this for every single company. I want to know the level of Stupid saying that every company but what else? The other one I have. The last one I have is NASA deletes comic book about how women can be astronauts. Know, I don't I don't like that. I don't like, well, I mean they can't be. So that's, that's why they just, they deleted the comic book. Do you won the week for you? Let's get out of here forever. It's it's easy. It's it's it's, it's the, it's the Mormon Milton. It's the the Church of Latter-day. Saints, CEO, extraordinaire a Trevor Milton. I mean, this is a big. I mean, I know he's saying it's, it's only like the best day in the last five years, but still, it's a pretty big win. It's a pretty big day. Yeah, it's a big day but you got I I similarly like the Church of Wedgie Day Saints. I the middle school boys cosplaying as adults. So that's gonna be the that's gonna be the year the next years unless unless like there's a miracle in the midterm elections, all I'm doing all I'm doing but I just want to hammer this for the next two years because investors you can be adults, be adults and if you're European investor and US company this is your moment to shine like put yourself on the line. Take a chance, take it like really Gifford did an amazing Thing by cutting their Tesla stock because musk's is crazy person, right? Like this, you know, how you go home now? You know 99% of the year you go home and and your children look at you and you look at your children and you're like I don't really they don't know what I do. I don't know how to like communicate with them about about what I'm contributing to the world. Take a risk, and then maybe your kids will like you again. Maybe a little bit like, oh, Mommy, Daddy won't like it's interesting. That's how you're fighting back. That's interesting. That's I, I do think though. Like if you're on a stewardship team at a massive Institutional Investor at a pension fund, it's something like that. If, you know you are, if you are voting approxi, you have some like a bit part and voting proxies. You can now feel confident that, that vote matters, because the corporate democracy is becoming the political democracy, and it started in the corporate democracy must does not get funded at all to buy every single election if the board doesn't pay him. Um, they do, you don't have a Playbook of authoritarian rule in the corporate democracy, if you vote a certain way actually, what you're doing you, so you can look at those kids. Same kids that you have that when they don't understand what Damien said and you can say to them, I am protecting democracy. That's what you can say to be clear. This is not a political statement. We, we might happen to have certain beliefs about the political system in America, but but the data can be used in any way you need to, to actually to stop being such a passive investors, the point like you don't have to roll over and and have ISS, tell you, there's nothing. This now, nothing else has gone, there's nothing to do anymore, nothing to see you can actually, you can have an opinion. It's just like you do when you go into the normal democracy into the, those voting booths that you're, you're stinking kids, school gymnasium. Yeah, yeah. Actually do the same thing at the alternative democracy but let's move on what are your predictions? Mine's very easy that we always do. 2050 240 2030 kind of things. Trevor Milton is definitely getting arrested again, by 2030. Oh, I like that. Probably just for like a DUI. Something foul. Yeah, what do you got? What's your mine is I after the show? I'm gonna get lunch and take a nap only shows, so it's not even true. That's it. That's it. Already, we are free float. If you like this and I don't know why you would, I don't know either like subscribe, you know, give us a rating, I don't know. What do people do with podcasts? Don't they like eating well to the send us emails. Ask us your questions. Well, to analyze. You can also engage with the platform. You can you can you can subscribe get an API. You don't even have to listen to the shows. If you want to thank you analytics. Go to the free flow analytics.com. You can look at their free platform and they've got not free stuff. That is way more compelling. I've seen it all. It's fabulous, so you can get that too, but stay tuned for our proxy countdown this week. Next week, we're gonna have Sarah actually two weeks from now off, Sarah Hahn's, show drop. There's a lot of stuff coming up, so stick around until then good. Bye.