AI’s Rocky Road to Wall Street, Hegseth’s Macho Military, and Trump’s AI Safety Theater

Pivot

Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect Pete Hegseth's controversial military overhaul, criticizing his macho rhetoric and the appointment of unelected tech figures to lead a

Key takeaways

• Pete Hegseth announced a military directive eliminating diversity programs and appointing Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich to study future warfare, drawing heavy criticism for conflating identity slurs with fitness standards.
• Anthropic filed an S-1 seeking a $2 trillion valuation despite reporting a $42 billion net loss and routing 47% of sales through Amazon and Google, while dedicating 80 pages to existential AI risks.

Main topics

• Pete Hegseth's military overhaul and future warfare commission
• Anthropic S-1 filing and AI IPO economics

Notable quotes

"We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that. No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors."

Conclusion

The episode underscores a broader theme of institutional theater masking genuine systemic risks,

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from the secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft work product ready for your review. So you can delegate work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60 % of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is an AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more Speaker 6 (0:37) at harvey.ai. Speaker 6 (0:40) Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all, legacy, stability, and digital innovation, systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance. The question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities. Hey, it's Sue Bird. I'm back this week with a brand new episode of Bird's Eye View. I am joined by Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama to discuss bringing his unique coaching style to the WNBA and channeling this year's momentum into the Fire's next season. But first, Coach Sarama and I break down the action from round one of the playoffs. Make sure to check out Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:35) It'll be Elizabeth Warren all day long doing a proctology exam of them. Speaker 8 (1:40) She'd be up there with a plastic glove on one hand telling Dario Amode to put his elbows on the table. Speaker 2 (1:49) Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And Speaker 8 (1:54) I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, Speaker 2 (1:55) you're still in Los Angeles. I came and went to Los Angeles and now I'm... back in New York. I was there for a New York minute. I Speaker 3 (2:01) heard. I Speaker 2 (2:02) interviewed Ari Emanuel at a live interview. Speaker 3 (2:04) Oh, yeah. I heard the book is good. And you liked it. Speaker 5 (2:06) I Speaker 2 (2:07) like Speaker 5 (2:07) it. It was an interesting time. And then I did another big interview. I can't say with who it is, but it's going to be a lot. A lot is happening. Speaker 8 (2:16) Oh, yeah. I'm sure it's someone huge. But actually, we've got bigger news. What? Kara Swisher. And we did not rehearse this. What? By the way, you can tell. Did I Speaker 5 (2:24) win the Pulitzer? What? Speaker 8 (2:26) No, more importantly, by the way, it's O Dark 100. I had a couple of drinks last night. How deep is my voice right now? Yeah, it sounds Speaker 5 (2:35) good. You sound like Elizabeth Holmes, but go ahead. Speaker 8 (2:39) I'm Speaker 3 (2:40) so real. Speaker 3 (2:43) That's just freaky. Speaker 5 (2:44) Yeah, it is freaky. Speaker 3 (2:46) Kara is on the Speaker 8 (2:49) Washingtonians' 300 Most Powerful Women in Washington list. Speaker 5 (2:53) What? I am? You didn't see Speaker 3 (2:55) that? Speaker 5 (2:56) No. Speaker 3 (2:56) Well, it's in our pivot chat. Are Speaker 5 (2:59) there 300 powerful women in Washington? Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:01) except that's not the news. Speaker 5 (3:03) What? It Speaker 3 (3:04) says Kara Swisher co-hosts with Scott Speaker 8 (3:07) Galloway on Speaker 3 (3:08) the Speaker 8 (3:08) pivot podcast. Yeah. I am now one of the most powerful women in Washington. And I knew this was coming because I got comped or cheese-plated the Hey Adams, ask around, it's true. I knew Speaker 2 (3:22) it Speaker 8 (3:22) was coming. And I just want to give advice to all young men about how to become the most powerful woman in Washington. One, first and foremost, just get proximity to a terrifying lesbian with sunglasses. Excellent, excellent, good choice. And also, it's just pretty obvious. I sat on my... Back at the Washington elevator at the Washington Park Hyatt, I took three Viagra, hit the elevator up, and I broke the Speaker 3 (3:47) glass ceiling, Kara. I broke the glass ceiling. Speaker 5 (3:51) I love how you turn my victories into your own dick jokes. It's all about me. No, just dick jokes, and that's what happens. I'd just like Speaker 3 (3:57) to say Justice Sotomayor. Speaker 5 (3:59) Okay, Speaker 3 (4:00) does she host a podcast? I am more powerful than Justice Sotomayor. You Speaker 5 (4:04) might be in this particular Supreme Court, actually. I love how you're pretending Speaker 3 (4:07) you didn't know that list. I didn't. I'll Speaker 8 (4:09) bet. Speaker 5 (4:09) I didn't. I didn't. I'll Speaker 8 (4:10) bet. Speaker 3 (4:10) You're the only person on that list that called 100 other women and told them they didn't deserve to be on the list. Speaker 2 (4:15) No, I didn't. I didn't know I got on it. I'm on someone's list now because I'm old, Scott. That's why. You're Speaker 3 (4:20) one of the three. I don't know that one of the 300 most powerful women. Speaker 2 (4:24) I hate those Speaker 5 (4:24) lists. 300? I'm sorry. I mean, Speaker 3 (4:28) there aren't 300 Speaker 5 (4:29) powerful women in Washington like me and Susie Wiles, right? She's got to be on it. Speaker 8 (4:34) No, no. Finally, you're on a list with Natalie Harp. That's got to feel good. Speaker 2 (4:38) Oh, that's nice. See, she is a powerful woman, unfortunately. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. There's a lot of news, so I think we need to dig in. First, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled a new plan for the military in his State of the Force address, including a reduced senior leadership, that's sus, sus, and an end to diversity programs. He also announced Elon Musk, Andrew O'Founder, Palmer, Luckey, and Newt Gingrich will lead a new effort to study the future of warfare, none of whom I think is... been in the army or navy or military, but okay. Hags had also attacked in the media over coverage of the Iran war, calling the reporters anti-American losers and saying the reporter had amounted to treason. One, but Scott, I'd like to get your reaction on one particular part of this speech. Let's listen to this. Speaker 6 (5:22) But it's worth saying again, so that the fake news understands it. We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that. No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors. Just tough, ready, committed troops. Speaker 2 (5:49) Oh, man, there's something deeply wrong with him. Anyway, how Speaker 5 (5:52) do Speaker 2 (5:52) you Speaker 5 (5:52) reconcile putting Elon, who has, you know, speaking of weirdos, Palmer Luckey, who is also a weirdo, and Newt Gingrich, who is probably a wimp. I don't think he's a tranny. He's a bit of a fatty. Like, anyway, let's speak of this, Speaker 2 (6:07) of what he's doing here from a messaging point of view, Scott, first. And then, obviously, it's terrifying on many levels because he's incompetent and is in power. Speaker 8 (6:16) He wants a... kind of a John Wayne cinematic version of macho believing that keeps our nation state. You can take your roided up macho WWE warrior and give me a 90 pound man or woman in thick glasses with a drone and a Hellfire missile and a command module. Let's see who wins. We fight wars now. not as much with brawn, but with brains. And with people who have a certain level of discipline, a certain level of respect for each other, a certain, Speaker 3 (6:56) they acquit themselves professionally, you know, hold your head high, stick to your values. This is just sort of frat rock on, you know, too much human growth hormone. It's just stupid. And the part that really bothered me You know, no fatties alone, but no trannies. It's just... Speaker 2 (7:17) Who uses that word anymore? Like, it's from the 50s or something. Yeah, and... Beardos. You're a beardo, apparently, just so you know. I think he just wanted it to rhyme with weirdos, I guess. Beardos? You're a beardo. Let me see, which ones are these ears? You're not fat. You're not a Speaker 5 (7:32) tranny. Speaker 8 (7:33) I'm a wimp, a radical, and a weirdo, and a beardos. I'm not a tranny or a fatty. I'm all of these things. Speaker 5 (7:39) I don't think you're a wimp, but you could... You're radical, a beardo, a weirdo. Let me see. What am I here? I'm not really fat. I don't have a beard. Speaker 2 (7:47) I don't think I'm that weird. I'm not a wimp. I wouldn't say I'm radical. I could be in the army. Anyway, I just, the whole thing is just ridiculous. He's just trying to get rid of women in the military. He's trying to get rid of anyone who doesn't go along. The issue he has is that he's in a position of power. I'm kind of perplexed since Republican senators are pushing back really hard on him that Trump keeps him in place. I assume he's doing it so he can make some action at the election. That's the only reason, presumably. I'm not sure what to say. Speaker 8 (8:16) But weight standards, grooming standards, and physical toughness are arguably, you know. Map onto a fitness standard. Right. The trannies is a slur targeting a group's identity, not their capability or appearance, not their ability. Conflating, but essentially or appearance standard being enforced, conflating it with fatties rhetorically is laundering a slur as if it's just another performance metric. He thought it Speaker 2 (8:44) was funny. You know they sat around and workshopped out for 10 minutes. Speaker 8 (8:49) See, I think it. I think it reads as a calculated message, not a gaffe. Repeating nearly the same list a year after the first time, I think it was at Quantico, he addresses, the address suggests this is a deliberate signature, not something that slipped out. Speaker 2 (9:03) No, no, I don't Speaker 8 (9:03) think so. Speaker 2 (9:04) No, I don't think that. What do you think of this group of what the future of war is? Do you have another commission? They're going to do a, like... I think it's just like a report, essentially. And I think it was just a lot of hand-waving. You know, Palmer Luckey has, you know, done some really interesting things in the defense area. Newt Gingrich, before he lost his mind, was very digitally oriented. I had spent a lot of time with him. I actually went on the road to introduce the internet to college students many, many moons ago. But he's sort of since become sort of curdled into this, like, demented little demon. Is that demented demon? Is that what I'm talking about? Anyway, you know, and Elon certainly, you know, rockets, I guess, rockets, Elon. I don't know what that has to do with defense, but okay, sure, why not? I think it should be a larger commission if you want to talk about where war is going. It's perfectly fine to do that, but this is just a bunch of hand-waving from my perspective. I don't know. It seems like not useful. Speaker 8 (9:56) I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. The problem is it's probably the wrong person overseeing it because the biggest, I think, arguably the biggest, one of the biggest silver linings around Russia and Ukraine And what we've learned there is I think a Democratic candidate for president should say under the auspices of fiscal responsibility, which is an existential threat, I think there's an opportunity to take our military spending from $1.5 trillion to $600 billion while making it a more lethal fighting force. Speaker 5 (10:24) Yeah, it is. It's an opportunity, but this is not that. Speaker 8 (10:27) Agreed. It's the wrong person. He's probably going to have to earn more money. But we have a series of platforms that are too big, too expensive. It's Speaker 3 (10:35) basically the Military Industrial Complex Full Employment Act. And not only that, unfortunately, they have to be manned, which means we have a glass jaw and are afraid to use any of it. You know, the bar around the, quote, unquote, bravery or the missions, it is really easy to demonstrate incredible bravery and bold actions. with your strikes when these things aren't manned. The moment you put an individual in a billion dollar craft, your risk tolerance goes way down. You know, when Ukraine launches a thousand drones against Moscow, they know a thousand of them aren't coming back. They know that 97 % aren't getting through and are getting shot down before they get to their target. you can't take those risks with manned aircraft. Speaker 2 (11:27) Yeah, you can't. I just, it's like, it's an opportunity, right, to change things. And speaking of which, executives from top AI companies have signed what President Trump called a morally binding, he knows all about morals, accord on safety. The agreement encourages companies to, quote, implement robust internal controls to monitor the capabilities. of AI models. It's voluntary, at least for now. The document states over time it may make sense to codify these steps into laws of regulation, but not to worry. Trump said, quote, there's going to be tremendous self-policing aspect. He went on later to say the word policing, self-policing over and over again. He also signed an executive order rebranding artificial intelligence as super intelligence. Fine. He's SI instead of AI, but we're not going to be using AI, I feel. He's directing federal agencies to use superintelligence or SI in government documents or communications. He unveiled an America.gov chatbot powered by Gemini and Grok that's being called a concierge to the federal government. I use it. It's relatively useless, though at first the bot correctly said Biden won in 2020. There was no evidence of widespread fraud. Now it says it can't answer those questions. You know, again, it's a propaganda thing. You know, this agreement was all these CEOs wandering around the White House. They never leave the White House. It's only tech CEOs get to be at the White House, apparently. You know, I'm dying for like a heavy manufacturer CEO to be there or someone else. But Mark Zuckerberg reportedly was the driving force behind this sort of toothless agreement. They all look like. The whole thing was ridiculous, nonsensical. It's a little bit of what you and I had been to when Biden did the same thing. It was just a statement of principles, essentially. And it wasn't that different from when you and I were at the White House, what Biden was saying. So this is just such like theater, both excess and this is just sort of. war and AI theater. Yeah, Speaker 8 (13:23) is it AI that's the existential threat or the fact that we have any trillion-dollar industry growing this fast that's not regulated? We're in uncharted territories, and the notion that this is morally binding, they might as well say, they might as well have had all of them hold up three fingers and give scouts honor. I mean, it's just so, the contradiction here is stifling. Anthropic's own securities filing says models can resist shutdown and manipulate information. OpenAI just shelved a model after internal Speaker 3 (13:52) tests found deception, evasion issues. So this is where they Speaker 8 (13:59) go to is they say, but, and this is the kind of the message coming from the brawligarchs trying to stave off regulation, that they can get sued. And that this is, in America, Speaker 3 (14:10) this is tremendous guardrails. But here's the problem. That's not... That's not enough. Speaker 2 (14:16) After the fact. Speaker 3 (14:17) That's right. That's after the kids have already died, right? So you have to have, these companies don't police themselves, right? They don't, Speaker 2 (14:24) no. Speaker 3 (14:25) Restaurants don't expect themselves. Airlines Speaker 2 (14:26) don't expect themselves. Banks Speaker 3 (14:28) don't set their own capital requirements. Boeing doesn't certify its own plan. We're asking the guys building Jurassic Park to serve as the park rangers. We're asking the transverse wrecks to be the park ranger here. Speaker 2 (14:42) You know, you use the expression all the time. We're allowing the arsonist to tell us about fire safety, essentially. And one of the things that's really interesting here is how much I'm just riveted. Like when it came out, I think I'm sure you went on to it. I was like, this is just ridiculous. This is just and of course, they spelled the United States wrong, which is just like who in the world is over there that can just like actually copy at it. Speaker 2 (15:05) But this Hegseth thing, this thing with the president at the White House, it's all such theater. It's just ridiculous theater without anything. Meanwhile, these guys get to do whatever they want and sort of pretend that they're getting along. This is a Silicon Valley beef happening. Speaker 2 (15:24) asphalt in front of the White House. That's all it is. It's like how they, and they had poor Dario there. He looked like a hostage. I don't know if you noticed. They kept moving him around. Yeah. That was funny. You know, he kept trying to run away. It was just the whole, I know he's trying now to cooperate because he's going public, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But I just, this is like so dangerous. It's both things are so dangerous in terms of what's happening and leave this. leaves us so vulnerable in so many ways. And especially the fact that he's doubling down, Scott, when every single poll says differently. What do you imagine is going on there? He just doesn't