This is just so stupid and such a waste of oxygen. It doesn't pass the most basic smell test.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Fox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
So are you going to the Met Ball?
Why were you invited? I'm sorry to ask that.
I acknowledge it. I was in The Devil Wears Prada, which, may I say, as I predicted,
Oh God, are we talking? Is this your new Taylor Swift thing?
$233 million globally. But why? Tell me why you were invited to the Met Ball.
I'm still not sure. I just, I think it's because I've talked a lot about it and got a lot of social media activity when I went to the Vanity Fair thing. So I think I don't know. I think someone, I think some intern somewhere said, 'Podcasting. What about that crazy professor?' I don't know. I'm not sure why.
They tried to be your pal, right? Weren't they trying to like suck up to you for a minute and a half?
I don't know. People are pretty nice.
No, the Bezos people. Bezos and his lady friend.
Oh, I like them. I met them. I mean, I don't know them, but I've had, you've had more interaction with them than I have, but I find them to be lovely.
I was invited, I think I told you this. I was invited to a small dinner with him and another friend, and I said no. One, I don't like dinners. Two, I don't like people. And three, I don't want to know these people because I know what's going to happen. We talk about the slot. I'm going to like them and I'm going to start...
I'm going to stop speaking my mind.
Truly low bar for people.
It is a pretty low bar. I'm pretty nice. I'm like... Yeah. No, I'm pretty nice.
I think they're getting the shit kicked out of them. You know, there's protests and like billboards, very some funny things. There was, you know, like a shopping cart out front with a bunch of empty bottles and said 'Bathroom, VIP bathroom.' They're projecting things onto the buildings nearby. They kind of hijacked the whole thing and it's kind of, I don't know, graspy and thirsty. I find that...
It's a perfect fit. Vogue has so much RZ and no money, and the Bezoses have just so much money and not a lot of RZ. It's a marriage made in heaven.
I don't know this, but I get the sense Bezos is pretty self-actualized and Honey Badger don't give a shit. I think he's just living his best life. Quite frankly, I don't think it's very different.
Oh, you might know more than me. I don't... I think they're tone-deaf to what's going on right now. Gas prices nearing $5. I think they're always showing off.
They're unaffected by gas prices. I get it. But that's hilarious.
No, I don't think, honey, we need to cut back. No more second yacht. They're not quiet wealth. Let's just say apparently he's selling his yacht. He's selling his yacht.
So gossipy. I think this is more about... Well, anyways, I get the sense the guy... I mean, this is the journey of all of them. All of them were like the, you know, captain of the chess club. They weren't getting laid a lot. They've worked their asses off. They're very smart. They're very talented. They've been working non-stop. And one day, the day of the IPO, they went into a conference room, this, you know, nice, fairly unattractive guy who had no sexual currency their whole life, and they come out and they're the sexiest man alive.
I know. I've had these discussions.
And they go ape-shit. And I don't, you know, and with respect to Bezos, I get the sense, you know, I get the sense he's having a great time.
I don't know. I just think there's leaders and I'm more for the quiet if they're going to be very wealthy. There is an argument to be made at this moment in time which is...
Keep it to yourself. So I don't think this plays well, and I know they don't care, but they look ridiculous. They look like Tom and Daisy. I'm sorry, they just do in The Gatsby, and it's not a good look right now because things are really shifting. And I don't mean they have to pretend they're like living on the prairie with like one shovel and a bucket. That's not what I'm talking about. It's just I think the MacKenzie Scotts, the Laurene Powell Jobs, the Melinda Gates, they speak out appropriately. They're not showing off. I just don't think it's going to end well. Anyway, we'll see. I'm coming to London, by the way. I'll be there tomorrow morning.
Yeah, I know you have some dinner, a big dinner.
Yes, you were invited. It's a small dinner and you will refuse to come, but that's okay.
Well, I was invited to the Met Ball. You think I said no to the Met Ball, but I'm coming to your dinner.
Yes, I do, because who the fuck cares about the Met? What would you wear to the Met Ball? Speaking of which,
You know, the idea, I get anxiety just thinking about it. I don't... That was such an easy in, like oil and... God. Jesus Christ. I just ate.
What would you wear? Seriously, what would you wear if you had to think of some fantastic costume?
I literally have absolutely no idea. I don't...
You love to dress up. You dressed up as like at Halloween, you always dress up.
Oh, no. I love dressing up in something outrageous. I love going as Deadpool or Starship Commander Jean-Luc Picard. Huge crowd-pleaser. Okay. I love, I went as Luke Skywalker. Not like for a costume, Met costume. Yeah, I went as Ted Lasso. Any opportunity to put on a wig and be someone different, I absolutely love that. But to try and look good...
Well, you don't have to. Not all of them do. Sometimes they look kind of crazy.
That was the easiest no in the world. That's like the last thing at some point. At some point, I lose all academic credibility. And you know, something that gets much closer to that point is showing up at the fucking Met Ball.
I wish you would go and wear an 'I don't care' do you shirt like the Melania shirt. I wish you would do that. I don't like that either. I think if you get invited to something like that, you play along and you'd be a good gracious...
You know, I don't think you wear a dress saying 'Tax the rich.' I thought that was... I agree with you. I think that's stupid. You don't go. But you should go because I need to understand it. I need you to go in there because I would never do such a thing.
I'm in London, and plus I really want to hang out with you and your friends here.
Not true. You are invited. Don't say I don't invite you. You are invited.
I literally have nothing to do. I'm home alone. I've got the boys this week. You're off partying with your fancy friends from The Devil Wears Prada. I'm home alone with my dogs. That's all I got to say.
It's a small dinner. You're invited. If you'd like to come, it would be great. Okay.
If not, I'm going to find you and see your house in time. I'm not staying here.
No, they have me at the hotel next to the thing, but I would usually... but when I come back, I will. Are you staying there now? What's the deal?
Uh, I don't know. Um, oh, okay. The honest answer is a monkey wrench has been thrown into our plans because my youngest, who has a habit of doing this, likes where he is, is all of a sudden getting A's. And anyways, I'm going to spend much more time in the US. A lot of moving parts here, but which I won't bother with.
Let me know. Anyway, I will come by and find you somehow. I'll break into your house. Anyway, let's get to the news. This is a weird one. As we record, GameStop and eBay stocks are responding to a real train wreck of an interview from the GameStop CEO. What a surprise. Ryan Cohen, who's somewhat of a shit sometimes when he talks, announced the deal of the century over the weekend, a $55.5 billion unsolicited offer to buy eBay at $125 a share, pitching it as a future rival to Amazon. But then he went on CNBC's Squawk Box, where our good friend Andrew Ross Sorkin, our famous Canadian friend, pointed out the math wasn't mathing. It was amazingly awkward. Let's listen.
You have $9 billion on your balance sheet. Arguably, if you're providing effectively all of your stock and then the cash that gets you to 20, you have this letter from TD, that's another 20. We're now at 40. But we're still off by, call it, 16. And the 20, as far as I understand, while it's considered a highly confident letter, meaning TD saying they're highly confident that they would provide the financing, it's not locked financing.
Yeah, we'll see what happens. Um, I hear you. I understand that. I'm just trying to understand where the rest of the money would come from. It's half cash, half stock.
I hear you. I'm just saying that that math doesn't get you to the price that you're offering.
It got more and more awkward after that. This is just, this is a meme stock. This guy is such a shit. He's always trying to get that stupid stock up, the GameStop thing, and take advantage of people. So, I don't know. Reminds me of the story about Polymarket and Kalshi. Only the top whatever 0.1% make money and everyone else loses. But your thoughts on this ridiculousness? I love Andrew.
Well, first off, Andrew did a great job. I think Andrew is one of those... You're like this, too. It is very difficult to ask really piercing hard questions to make people look stupid while remaining dignified and not coming across as an asshole. And Andrew is able to do that. You're able to do that. This is off-Broadway theater, not strategy. This is just so fucking stupid and such a waste of oxygen. And a CEO who has, I looked into this, a compensation strategy that says if you can get GameStop to $100 billion, you get $35 billion in a Musk-like compensation strategy. So, he's trying to meme-ify his stock again. So, this is noise. It doesn't pass the most basic smell test. First off, there's a scale mismatch. eBay is a 30 to 40 billion enterprise. GameStop doesn't have the balance sheet to do it without massive dilution or leverage. And the stock they would have to offer, they'd have to issue so much stock that the stock would immediately go into a downward spiral. There's no way they can do this. The strategic fit is then where both commerce isn't a strategy. eBay is a two-sided marketplace with decades of liquidity and tens of millions of customers. GameStop is still figuring out what the fuck it wants to be other than trying to become a meme stock. And then, as Andrew was pointing out, the financing reality here is nothing but a bad Iaska trip. Even a partial bid would require issuing a ton of equity. See above, massive decline in the stock. That's effectively asking shareholders to fund a ketamine trip. So what's left here? There's nothing here but signaling to retail investors. He's trying to say, 'We're bold. We're swinging. Start taking... get someone on Reddit. Get Roaring Kitty fired up so I can get irrational compensation for not actually adding any intrinsic value to the market.' What he said is, 'We're a melting ice cube.' And he's also, in my opinion, this has backfired. And by the way, GameStop stock, as we record, down 9% today.
This is not only... I blame the board here. A board of directors are supposed to be fiduciaries.
That's a fair point. But this should never have even been allowed. Real acquisitions, the real work is done behind the scenes. And if you're going to make a hostile bid for a company, you show up with your financing locked and loaded and it's done. And if you have to go hostile because they reject your initial offer, this should be a one-sentence response from the board of eBay.
You are not a serious people. Period.
That's it. So, this makes a headline. This is using financial markets and the press as you're taking them for clowns because you got a trip to the circus in COVID with your meme stock adventure.
Well, he's trying to get it going again. It's like that Wall Street Journal piece about who's benefiting from these prediction markets. And if you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it's probably you. This is not a real thing. It was showing who makes profits and it's a small group of people who make all the profits. Everyone else loses. Thousands and thousands, whoever's using it. And so it's, you know, you're a sucker. There's just... it's just like I don't know why this is legal. This kind of nonsense. I just...
Now it's down 10%. You're allowed to... I don't know if it should be illegal. Here's the bottom line. The market is doing its job. They say, 'Oh, remember GameStop? Okay, the CEO is a fucking idiot and he clearly has no fiduciary oversight and it's taken his stock down 10% today, one day.'
Right? Except this has gone on for a long time, this nonsense. And people have benefited just like they are doing over on these prediction markets, the certain people who are a little smarter, you know, supposedly. Like I think Chamath was in there, remember when it was going up and up and up, GameStop. It just feels like they're just taking poor people's money. Like that, it just is so grotesque what they're doing here.
I think the meme movement, I hated it. I got dragged on the internet because I said young men should spend less time on their phone and trading with this was just stupid. Yeah. I do think a lot... I'd be curious to know, I mean, quite frankly, the meme stock movement, the whole gestalt of it was stick it to the man, stick it to rich people.
Yeah. But it never... and then it became about a con.
