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Kara Swisher
Co-host, Pivot; Host of On with Kara Swisher, Pivot

Epstein Files: How New Documents Expose a Wider Network | Pivot

📅 Feb 03, 2026 Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway 61 MIN 297729 VIEWS 304 SEGMENTS · 4 SPEAKERS
It's Resist and Unsubscribe February (https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com)! Kara and Scott discuss what they've been unsubscribing from, and what their next moves might be. Then, they unpack the new Epstein files release and the wide-ranging network of powerful figures it exposes. Plus, Trump's Fed chair pick, SpaceX and xAI merge, and the latest developments in the AI arms race. #karaswisher #scottgalloway #resistandunsubscribe #epsteinfiles #fedchair #spacex #xai 00:00 Intro 00:22 Resist and Unsubscribe February 8:04 Epstein Files Released 23:54 Trump’s New Fed Chair 29:04 SpaceX + xAI 3...

Questions asked in this interview

11
  1. 1:26How many Ubers have I taken in the last 10 years?
  2. 1:45So this year in 2025, do you know how much I'm spending a year on Uber?
  3. 2:39Time goes faster than you think, right?
  4. 3:21I'm like, how do I log on here?
  5. 17:24I apologize.' Like, she just took responsibility for her stupid judgment there, right?
  6. 19:56Did you really search for me?
  7. 34:37I'm like, why are you choosing your words so carefully?
  8. 35:08Why wouldn't I? Are you kidding?
  9. 39:16Well, that used to be Altman's lane, right?
  10. 40:15Do you think you'll have a situation, you know, with Elon merges all these things, everyone's going to buy it. Will everyone not buy this?
  11. 51:31They can't manage this. Well, guess what, folks?
Scott Galloway 0:00 ↗
There needs to be more prison and more judgment around who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kara Swisher 0:05 ↗
Yes, I agree. But there's a lot of people who knew exactly what they were doing.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
Scott Galloway 0:19 ↗
And I'm Scott Galloway.
Kara Swisher 0:20 ↗
Resist and unsubscribe. February has begun. How's it going? You've been putting up a lot. You've been really getting rid of stuff.
Scott Galloway 0:27 ↗
I've been getting rid of a lot, but not like you. I still have Uber. I was just gonna pause it and use Lyft instead.
Kara Swisher 0:32 ↗
Yeah, it sucks when you got to walk the walk.
Scott Galloway 0:34 ↗
I know. I know.
So, I mean, I'm in it. You'd be a better judge of how it's going than me. I mean, I've literally gotten hundreds and I'm about to cross a thousand emails of people with screenshots of them unsubscribing. Obviously, you need hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I'm going on CNN, MSNBC, PBS. I'm doing all the rounds there. I've heard from...
Kara Swisher 0:56 ↗
About taking off, I have to tell you. I'm hearing it from lots of people.
Scott Galloway 0:59 ↗
Oh, thanks. I think... well, I hope you're right. You're probably being generous because you like me, but I've heard from about a third of the companies, either their CEOs, and they've been very polite, but they're like, 'You realize that I supported this and I'm against ICE.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, to me you are, but I haven't heard you say dick publicly, not dick.'
And what's interesting is through the process, for example, I unsubscribed from Uber or I cancelled my Uber account.
Kara Swisher 1:24 ↗
That was a big one. I thought that was a big deal.
Scott Galloway 1:26 ↗
Oh my god. Before you go, it tells you, all right, I've ordered 37 times from Uber Eats. How many Ubers have I taken in the last 10 years? Guess.
Kara Swisher 1:32 ↗
I don't know, thousands.
Scott Galloway 1:34 ↗
3,747.
And I did some math here.
Kara Swisher 1:39 ↗
Everyone thought you had a private driver. I'm like, he doesn't have a private driver.
Scott Galloway 1:43 ↗
It's called Uber. It's called Dara's. That's right.
Anyways, I absolutely love Uber Lux. And this is a story of privilege. Let me do my land acknowledgements. Most people don't have the money I have. Anyways, but I've taken 350 Ubers a year for the last 10 years on average. The average price of Uber Lux has gone from 40 to 60 to 80 to 120. And this is what these companies do. They do predatory pricing. They price it below market. Incredible value proposition. They wait till they consolidate the market. Then they start raising prices, which Uber has done 7 to 10% a year for the last decade. So this year in 2025, do you know how much I'm spending a year on Uber?
Kara Swisher 2:19 ↗
No. What?
Scott Galloway 2:21 ↗
I'm spending $34,000 a year on Uber.
Kara Swisher 2:22 ↗
What?
Scott Galloway 2:23 ↗
So, I figured it out.
Kara Swisher 2:25 ↗
I figured it out.
Scott Galloway 2:26 ↗
Okay.
Everywhere. I go everywhere.
Kara Swisher 2:29 ↗
You could have hired a driver. Yeah.
Scott Galloway 2:31 ↗
Okay. No, better yet, I figured it out. I'm now taking the tube here. I'm taking the subway. By the way, the subway in New York is amazing.
And I'm filling in the gaps with Uber X, whatever it's called, the cheap one where you get an air freshener and, you know, a guy who can't figure out ways. That was probably a hate crime. Anyways, but I figured out the money I'm going to save, I could buy, including insurance and parking, I could lease a Mercedes G-Wagon, a Range Rover, or the new BMW i7. People do not realize how much money they are spending on these platforms because they get you in, they automatically renew. Time goes faster than you think, right?
I found out I have three ChatGPT subscriptions. I'm not sure why, but I have three.
Kara Swisher 3:20 ↗
Drunken night.
Scott Galloway 3:21 ↗
I have four Apple TV Plus subscriptions. I'm like, how do I log on here? And I just log on again or I just create a new account.
I have been... I switched from AT&T, which has been a supporter of ICE. I'm saving approximately $70 a month on AT&T, switching over to Noble, which I did before.
Kara Swisher 3:39 ↗
Mhm.
Scott Galloway 3:40 ↗
Anyways, I'm trying to unsubscribe from something every day and do some analysis around what I've spent and what it's cost.
Kara Swisher 3:50 ↗
But may I ask a question because someone did bring this up. Would you get rid of your stocks in these companies?
Scott Galloway 3:56 ↗
Oh, that's a tough one.
Kara Swisher 3:57 ↗
I know. That's what I thought. I thought it was a good question.
Scott Galloway 4:00 ↗
Okay, this is the bottom line. I think I'm going to have to. Yeah.
I'm also thinking about transferring all of my stocks and bonds and assets from Goldman and going either to a regional bank or even a Canadian bank. I feel...
Kara Swisher 4:21 ↗
RBC, whatever.
Scott Galloway 4:22 ↗
I just don't want to hurt Americans, but I think I might go to a regional bank.
Kara Swisher 4:26 ↗
Yeah.
Scott Galloway 4:27 ↗
But I am going to try and walk the walk here. And every day I'm unsubscribing or cancelling from something.
Kara Swisher 4:34 ↗
Yeah.
Scott Galloway 4:35 ↗
From something. But yeah, it gets easier.
Kara Swisher 4:37 ↗
That was a good question from a listener. I thought... Let's listen to some of what our listeners have called in to tell us they've done.
Listener 4:44 ↗
I unsubscribed from Apple TV.
I have personally unsubscribed from every streaming service that is currently out there. Personally, I had given up Amazon three egregious Jeff Bezos acts ago. I had been guilty of keeping the Kindle Unlimited. That is gone as of today, as is Apple Fitness.
Michael 5:07 ↗
This is Michael in Cameroon, and I have cancelled my ChatGPT Pro and Amazon Prime.
Listener 5:16 ↗
Amazon acquired IMDb 25 years ago. I've been paying for the Pro membership subscription for the last 20 years. It's a pain, but I can find this information elsewhere. So, click...
Kara Swisher 5:29 ↗
Good. This is all different. You don't realize how much stuff we pay these people everywhere. And also, what's really helpful is you gave examples of what you can go to, helping people go to other things. Now, can I just make one point? Not everything is perfect. No company... all companies have been involved in all kinds of nefarious activities that you don't like, but you got to meet the moment for now. And you could always go back to them, right, at some point. That's the thing. You're sending a message right now like, I have to give up the Amazon stuff. I got to work on that today. Like, I use Amazon a lot. My wife's shifted to local retailers, which one of the problems is you can't find products because of the tariffs. Like, and that's stuff you use every day. But I'm really... I think this is a great effort, Scott Galloway. I just...
Scott Galloway 6:16 ↗
Thanks. And I mean, a few things. One, I'm not telling people not to go to work or not to buy groceries. I don't think someone who has the blessings I have is in a position to tell people to take risks with their employment or really sacrifice around things like food. What I'm suggesting is this is a signal and a framework for how you inflict the maximum damage with a minimum amount of sacrifice. And that is, if you were to say stop shopping at Kroger's and reduce your grocery spend, I think you have X impact. When you go after big tech, who has the president's ear and the market's, a year in subscription revenue where these companies are trading at 30, 50, 100 times revenues, you have 40x the impact on the administration with what is in my view a fairly minimal sacrifice. When you look at how many substitutes there are and when you actually uncover how much money you're spending and what is really required to not participate, it's not as much as you think. There's the tube, there's Uber X, there are a ton of streaming media platforms, there are free 30-day Spotify accounts if you cancel and then resubscribe. There's a lot of ways here to have a big impact without a huge... you don't have to take your entire Saturday and go to a protest. And I'm not discouraging people from doing that, but if you want to look at maximum impact relative to the investment or the sacrifice, I think this is it.
Kara Swisher 7:39 ↗
Yep. I like the 'three egregious Jeff Bezos acts ago.' We're in like 10 at this point. Anyway, keep going. Keep going. Keep putting those things up. I'll keep... Well, people, you can find hundreds of dollars that you can take away from them and they will know. It does add up. A little tiny drop becomes a great stream and then an ocean. So anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, so let's dig in. The Justice Department released, this was something over the weekend, 3.5 million new pages of Epstein-related files late last week. They're not even the worst ones. There's 3 million more. That must be the worst, including 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, a mere 42 days after the federally mandated deadline. By the way, they are not following the law. There are millions more they need to release. They said they weren't going to, but they are going to have to, I think. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the release brings the DOJ into compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It doesn't. The lawmakers and survivors are calling the document inadequate and filled with redaction errors. At least 5,300 documents mention Donald Trump. A lot of these are unverified tips, but Trump said he's been told the latest release absolves him. It does not. The files show how Epstein's network stretched across Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley. That's what's really quite fascinating here, with people like Brett Ratner, who was just at the White House, who did the Melania document, Howard Lutnick, who lied about being in touch with Epstein, who made a big show of not thinking he was awful and then was hanging out with him in his place in the Caribbean. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, all appearing in the documents. Elon Musk looks like he's having a stroke in real time over these things and trying to pretend he doesn't mean anything. So talk about this, and obviously another person has kind of caught up some... we've talked about Peter Attia, a number of really distasteful texts, thousands of them, actually. So lots of people involved, they really stretch the gamut and they're all very social with each other. Casey Wasserman, who's running the Olympic effort, for example, apologized. I'll take note just so you know, a lot of fake Elon emails floating out there, but it's clear his relationship with Elon is not how he's framed it in the past, which is he wasn't interested. He's been posting on X all weekend saying his emails to Epstein could be misinterpreted. He's also back and forth with Reid Hoffman, who really got him, saying if you really cared about the victims, you wouldn't have spent $210 million on Donald Trump and also have all that non-consensual stuff on Grok, which I think is absolutely right. So, thoughts, Scott? I mean, it's been pretty riveting in a lot of ways.
Scott Galloway 10:22 ↗
Yeah, I mean, there's just so much here. One, I think you have to put on your critical thinking cap and discern between different acts: criminal acts, poor judgment, and people who are just unlucky. Any other administration would be taking advantage of the moment to say we have appointed a special counsel here and we are going to prosecute people based on this information.
And the criminal... if you had sex with an underage girl, you should be subject to criminal prosecution. And these files seem to indicate that that absolutely happened here. And if all this is about concern over the victims, well, okay, the way you bring closure and create incentives such that other people don't do this is you criminally prosecute. There's another group of people that I think is even bigger, and that is the people who have demonstrated really poor judgment by cohorting, collaborating, commiserating with a convicted pedophile.
Kara Swisher 11:23 ↗
Let me add, Steve Bannon was right up in his group. They were like freaking...
Scott Galloway 11:27 ↗
Right. And those people should be shamed. Maybe those people... maybe we should not be comfortable with those people in leadership positions. I'd like to think the bar for, you know, president is that that would not clear that bar. So, but people get to decide if they're comfortable with those errors in judgment. And then I think an even bigger concentric circle is a lot of people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I don't... I'm not saying absolve them of all, or I don't think they're guiltless, but I do think a lot of people got invited to some conference about philanthropy or whatever and ended up in the Epstein files.
Kara Swisher 12:04 ↗
Yeah. No, I know. Listen, oddly enough, I will say full disclosure, we sent Epstein a note to go to dive into media because we bought a TED list, and he was a big... a lot of those people in these files are all ex-TED people. They were, and so we bought a mailing list, and there's an email which is a mailing list email. It wasn't from me. He was on it, and then for some reason some of the people around him sent him articles I wrote, and that's, you know, so I searched myself immediately, and that's the pretty... that's the extent of what I can find. I have been at parties, as I said, where big, huge dinner events at like TED... TED was where he showed up a lot, where he apparently was. I never met him, but I mean, that's what you're talking about, correct? But I think mine's even less than that.
Elon Musk, who appears... who had a decent amount of interaction with Jeffrey Epstein, immediately goes on the offensive and tries to start pulling Reid Hoffman into it, and Reid looks like he was squarely on the outer circle here.
Scott Galloway 13:08 ↗
Yeah, I would agree. I know a lot about his...
Kara Swisher 13:11 ↗
That's how gross this is getting. The other observation is that there's pedophilia, and what's going on here in some ways is worse. What do I mean by that? I do think there are pedophiles who have a psychiatric ailment where they are unnaturally attracted sexually to children, and I think a lot of them... not a lot of them, some of them recognize this ailment and seek treatment, some do not, and some end up becoming pedophiles and should end up in prison. I think in some ways this is worse in the sense that I think the people guilty of having sex with underage girls here, while the term is pedophilia, what it is is a group of people who feel they are not subject to laws and the standards that everyone else is subject to. I think they think, 'Oh, this is fun. It's a party, and if I have sex with an underage girl, that's fun and it's a thrill, and I can do it because I am not subject to the same standards and laws as everyone else.'
Scott Galloway 14:18 ↗
So, while I think a lot of these people, if in fact there was, and it appears there was, criminal rape, I'm not sure they're pedophiles. What they are is people who've decided that because of their money, power, and proximity to power, that they're not subject to any standards whatsoever.
Kara Swisher 14:35 ↗
Party. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway 14:37 ↗
In my opinion, in some ways, that's the sickness that infects our powerful.
Kara Swisher 14:43 ↗
Well, what's interesting is how it cuts across party lines, right? You have all these Democrat-leaning people...
Scott Galloway 14:50 ↗
Yeah.
Kara Swisher 14:51 ↗
Kibbitzing with like a Steve Bannon, kibbitzing with a this and that.
Scott Galloway 14:56 ↗
All unified around partying and having sex with...
Kara Swisher 14:58 ↗
St. Barts. Yeah.
Scott Galloway 15:00 ↗
Yeah.
Kara Swisher 15:00 ↗
Girls and stuff like that. That's what was gross. I do think I want to zero in on the judgment thing here because there is judgment of what you should and shouldn't do. Like, you know, everyone knew what this guy was back then. Trust me, they did, and they went anyway. And so, bad judgment on Bill Gates's part, and I think Melinda Gates has talked about this. Howard Lutnick literally went out of his way to say what good judgment he had by never... he had a massage day in his living room and bragged on how he rejected him, and then was at his place, stayed at his house, was like super friendly. Fuck that guy. Like, the judgment. I'm sorry. There's more there than that. The same thing with Peter Attia. I feel like everyone knew what was happening here. And so there should be a... you can decide what you want to do with these people, but there should be a price for this level of... it's in the same genre of 'we can do whatever we want. Who cares?' You know, haha, you know, 'is low carb.' Like, are you kidding me? Like, I mean, it would be... it's a stupid joke if the guy you were talking to was a sexual predator, right? And so that's why I find it a little more...
Scott Galloway 16:14 ↗
I see. I'm less... and it's safer just to say this is awful and these people should be cancelled. I do think that people, when they send private emails, should be granted a lot of license, and if they aren't guilty of a crime, you can decide not to listen to their podcast.
Kara Swisher 16:31 ↗
Yep. That's what I mean.
Scott Galloway 16:33 ↗
But I think we have a tendency to mix criminal activity with poor judgment. And I think you have to draw bright lines between them. And...
Kara Swisher 16:43 ↗
I don't... to me it just is like someone is accidentally mentioned in the Epstein files because they flew on a plane with other people to some nonprofit event talking about technology.
Scott Galloway 16:55 ↗
And people who might have been in the files, there is a report of an individual...
Kara Swisher 17:01 ↗
Mhm.
Scott Galloway 17:01 ↗
Who impregnated an 11-year-old.
Kara Swisher 17:03 ↗
Yeah.
Scott Galloway 17:04 ↗
I mean, one is spend the rest of your life in prison. The other was, okay, maybe you should do more diligence on the planes you're on.
Kara Swisher 17:11 ↗
Mhm.
Scott Galloway 17:11 ↗
And it feels like it's all been wrapped up into one amorphous blob.
Kara Swisher 17:15 ↗
I agree. I agree. But there are some very clear lines. When I'm talking about Lutnick, he went out of his way to say how much he hated the guy, and then right in the emails he did just... we're trying to rewrite history.
Scott Galloway 17:24 ↗
Yes. He's a liar. Listen, that we know. Same thing with Musk. He was just fine. Just made... Can't you just say I'm mad? You know who did that? Katie Couric went to a dinner at Epstein's house. One of these dinners. He used to have these like influencer dinners. She went, she said, 'I should have done more research. I apologize.' Like, she just took responsibility for her stupid judgment there, right? And I think that's fine. I don't think we should like... she...
Kara Swisher 17:51 ↗
But it brings up a point. Should Katie Couric do research on every dinner invitation?
Scott Galloway 17:55 ↗
No, not necessarily. But when it came to pass, what it was very clear, she apologized. She apologized and said, 'Oh, so dumb.' You're not hearing from Howard Lutnick. You're not hearing from Peter Attia. Like, I'm sure he's engaged a very expensive crisis manager here. But and then Elon, he is spinning so hard.
Kara Swisher 18:12 ↗
He's gone on the attack. He's trying to pretend that he somehow was protected or like was just so offended by Jeffrey Epstein. And can you believe what Reid Hoffman did, man?
Scott Galloway 18:22 ↗
Yes. Over... look over here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad Reid slapped him back to last Sunday because he's right, Elon. If you actually cared about women, you'd have helped the victims financially instead of giving money to Donald Trump. You'd have gotten your non-consensual sex off of Grok. But you don't care. You don't care. You don't care. Like, you don't have an interest in...
Kara Swisher 18:41 ↗
But again, the really shocking thing to me is, and I know very powerful and wealthy people, just the belief that they can just do anything, right? And they're going to be immune.
Scott Galloway 18:56 ↗
They do. They're like that.
I have friends who are fairly famous actors, and if they walk into a scenario with a lot of women or a party scene, they're like, 'I can't be here. I can't be here. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not even going to flirt with anybody, but I can't be here because if it hits the press, it'll upset my wife. It will create talking points that aren't good. They will insinuate.' I mean, I know people who are so careful and shape their lives realizing that unfair or not...
Kara Swisher 19:29 ↗
Picture a photo of you with...
Scott Galloway 19:30 ↗
And then these guys, Jeffrey Epstein...
These guys go to an island and start having sex with underage women and aren't worried, like believe that this isn't going to come back to haunt them.
Kara Swisher 19:41 ↗
There's also a lot of people that enable them. And one person that, by the way, I searched you immediately. You weren't...
Scott Galloway 19:48 ↗
In what? In the Epstein...
Kara Swisher 19:51 ↗
Yeah. No, that's one party I wasn't invited to.
Scott Galloway 19:54 ↗
You weren't. But...
Did you really search for me?
Kara Swisher 19:58 ↗
I searched everybody.
Scott Galloway 19:59 ↗
Did you really search for me?
Kara Swisher 20:01 ↗
I did. I had to. I work with you. I have to make certain.
Scott Galloway 20:04 ↗
Okay. All right.
Kara Swisher 20:06 ↗
Thank God.
Scott Galloway 20:06 ↗
Yeah. Yeah.
Kara Swisher 20:08 ↗
Come on. I searched like 20 names of people I know.
Scott Galloway 20:11 ↗
Season two. Gay hockey with the dog. Frosty, that's what you got to worry about. I'm going to be an extra. My next career: fluffer for gay badminton, the new original series on HBO.
Kara Swisher 20:24 ↗
I welcome any joyful sense of consensual sexual expression you want to have with Scott Galloway's god. At this point, when I orgasm, it's just mist coming out. There's just literally... it's got to be a Pam Grier film. A cattle prod up my ass and literally...
Scott Galloway 20:39 ↗
The cattle prod in the...
Kara Swisher 20:40 ↗
Like a serial shake, and I got to snort Viagra...
Scott Galloway 20:43 ↗
I'm going to mention one...
Kara Swisher 20:44 ↗
And watch Jackie Brown, and then it's go time. Say the people that are worse are not even worse, they're just as bad, are some of these enablers, and I will name them. John Brockman is throughout it, and I urge you to look up. He was a guy who was involved with all these intellectuals who Epstein was funding. He ran a billionaire's dinner at TED. I have attended that. He obviously... the facilitators, these kind of people, have to be looked at too. The way they sort of facilitated what you're talking about, which is this very easy-peasy 'let's get together and talk intellectual stuff,' which they loved. Let me tell you, the reason you're seeing a lot of tech people in this group, and you are, is because they desperately sought out validation through intellectual discourse. They used to love having these events, whatever they happen to be. And thank God, you know, one thing I did have our staff for our Code Conference look every... him up. He was on the wait list of D5, the one with Gates and Jobs, and we didn't let him in. I remember not particularly not letting him in, but he did somehow show up and talk to Tim Cook on the sidelines of one of my conferences, which I wasn't aware of. It was in the files, too. But he was...
Scott Galloway 21:56 ↗
My view is you go much harder on the people who are criminals.
Kara Swisher 22:01 ↗
Yes.
Scott Galloway 22:02 ↗
And quite frankly, you go much lighter on the people who... look, you get invited by a billionaire to go party on an island. If you see crime, you'll leave. But I don't... I think a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons... this guy had a big sphere around technology.
Kara Swisher 22:17 ↗
He was like an octopus in terms of trying to meet people, and a lot of people facilitated that for him.
Scott Galloway 22:23 ↗
So, but there needs to be more prison and more judgment around who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kara Swisher 22:29 ↗
Yes, I agree. But there's a lot of people who knew exactly what they were doing. So I think there's a stack ranking of what people were doing in some cases, and people like Peter Attia and others really deserve some... you can censure him or not, but I think he's grotesque. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's new Fed chair. Support for this show comes from BetterHelp. Sometimes February can make it seem like everyone has the perfect love life, that they've got it all together. But plenty of people out there are just trying to figure out what they want in a relationship and what makes them happy. Whether you're married, dating, single, or focusing on you, BetterHelp says therapy can help you see that more clearly and help take some pressure off yourself. BetterHelp does the initial matching between you and a licensed therapist so you can focus on your therapy goals. All you need to do is fill out a short questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences. And BetterHelp's 12-plus years of experience and industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And out of 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp's average rating is 4.5 out of five for a live session. You can sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/pivot. That's betterhelp.com/pivot.
Scott, we're back. President Trump has made his pick for Fed chair. I predicted it would be the most handsome of the white guys, and I was right. The best chair. Trump nominated former governor Kevin Warsh on Friday, calling him central casting, and says he'll go down as one of the great Fed chairmen, maybe the best. Of course, he did say that about Jerome Powell, although when he picked him, Trump also joked during his speech this weekend that he would sue Warsh if interest rates didn't get lower. Warsh is set to take the reins from Jerome Powell in May, but he needs to get through the Senate confirmation process first, which might be hard because Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who's suddenly found his balls, is already saying he's a no until the DOJ probe into Powell is resolved. Good for him. Tillis is really on fire. He's going to use up all his troublemaking before he leaves. He was sort of shoved to the side by Trump, by threats from Trump, but now he's still in power, so he can do something about it. So, talk about this pick. Warsh very briefly popped up in the Epstein file that we were missing on, saying he was on a guest list, St. Barts Christmas 2010. Again, what you were talking about, I get it. I get it. In that case, that's it. So, I don't think that should necessarily be... it shouldn't be a factor unless more stuff is found out. But, talk about this pick. What do you think about Warsh?
Scott Galloway 25:09 ↗
I think it's... to be blunt, I think it's a great pick given the context of who he could have selected.
Kara Swisher 25:15 ↗
Right. That's true. Could have been Don Jr.
Scott Galloway 25:19 ↗
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if he picked, you know, Lara Trump. I...
He does... to give credit where it's due, I think around these big financial appointments, I think he shows greater judgment around these appointments than he does around others. But essentially this guy, he's very qualified. He's been described as a hawk. The fear around this appointment was that it was someone who would be subject to the political pressures of the presidency, would immediately start cutting interest rates and begin an upward spiral of inflation. And that fear was sending metals to record highs. Silver and gold have exploded. And the best indication that the market likes this pick is that when the pick was announced, metals crashed or they pulled back. This guy's known as a hawk. He served as liaison between Bernanke and the Wall Street community during the '08 crisis, which most people think was handled really well. I like the fact he has a reputation as a hawk. I love the fact that these appointments, I believe...
Kara Swisher 26:22 ↗
Explain what a hawk is. He's got... he's...
Scott Galloway 26:24 ↗
Well, someone who's more worried about inflation than lower growth. Someone who will keep interest rates high longer than maybe they should. They err on the side of lower growth but less risk of inflation. And everyone is really worried that Trump is putting pressure and would rather...
Kara Swisher 26:42 ↗
I think resist the pressure. He saw what's happened with Powell.
Scott Galloway 26:46 ↗
That's what's great about these appointments is that they're 14-year tenures.
Kara Swisher 26:51 ↗
I get that. But like, he could undergo what Powell's undergone, fake criminal probes, etc. As far as I know, Powell's serving out his term and hasn't bent an inch, right?
Scott Galloway 27:01 ↗
I mean, and that's why it speaks to the importance of the independence of the Fed, but...
Kara Swisher 27:04 ↗
Well, you wonder what this guy said to Trump, right? And why did he say he's going to sue him? You know, that's all weird. I find it weird.
Scott Galloway 27:11 ↗
There's something about the power, and we've seen this on the Supreme Court. A lot of people show up with a history or say one thing to the Senate, and then they get on the Supreme Court and they take advantage of their lifetime appointment and they behave differently.
Kara Swisher 27:25 ↗
Yeah. So...
Scott Galloway 27:26 ↗
Not in a good way.
Kara Swisher 27:27 ↗
Well, actually, some of the older appointees...
Scott Galloway 27:31 ↗
Became, from our viewpoint, much more progressive.
Kara Swisher 27:35 ↗
Well, look at Earl Warren. Remember, I mean...
Scott Galloway 27:37 ↗
I mean, they really did over time. Think about what an incredible luxury it is to just focus on... to be granted the tenure, and this is the basis of tenure in colleges, to just try and pursue the truth and to screen out as many external forces as possible. That is a luxury, and it's reserved for what people think is the most important positions in the world, including what may be the most important position in the world, and that is the chairman of the Federal Reserve. So I was actually quite relieved when I saw this. I have a bias. I like Morgan Stanley. Anyone who ran M&A at Morgan Stanley has a pretty serious...
Kara Swisher 28:15 ↗
Well, he's a serious candidate, right? Cassid had been like genuflecting. He had knee pads on at one point, although he was considered very prominent.
I was worried it was going to be the MyPillow guy. I just wouldn't put anything past this president right now. This is, I think, a good pick. The markets like it. He's an adult. He has a command of the markets. He has a really good relationship with Wall Street, and I just hope that he shows...
Scott Galloway 28:41 ↗
I suspect they'll drop the Powell probe to get him through.
Kara Swisher 28:46 ↗
Well, here's the thing. Powell's going to still be on the board of governors.
Scott Galloway 28:49 ↗
Yeah. Well, that's what they're trying to do.
Kara Swisher 28:50 ↗
I don't care who the chairman is.
Scott Galloway 28:52 ↗
I don't care who the chairman is. The biggest voice in the room is still going to be Powell's.
Kara Swisher 28:56 ↗
Yep. Yep. Yep. We'll see. Anyway, good hair, Kevin. And I picked... I knew the handsome man would win. Also, besides the handsome man, I was right about Elon planning to merge SpaceX and xAI. That is precisely what happened. The acquisition will give the combined company a valuation of $1.25 trillion. Flimflamory works for Elon Musk. Investors have also been pushing the idea of bringing Tesla into this. Obviously, he had already merged Twitter, or X, the service, into xAI, sort of to hide it away in there, all their losses. So now it's Twitter, SpaceX, and xAI. And you can just imagine Tesla being next. In this scenario, xAI shares would be swapped for SpaceX shares. Just for people who don't know, SpaceX is weighing a June IPO listing, could seek to raise as much as $50 billion, making it the biggest IPO of all time. And again, if that sounds a little familiar, guess what? Kara Swisher predicted it last April, because I know how this guy thinks.
Scott Galloway 29:57 ↗
I've been doing research. She blew my mind with the notion of a combined Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX, you know, and I'm just like, that has totally blown my mind about...
Kara Swisher 30:09 ↗
Good. As long as you attribute it to me, just attribute it.
Scott Galloway 30:13 ↗
I do. But the idea of him merging all of those companies, like, I can't wrap my head around what that would mean.
Kara Swisher 30:19 ↗
He's got to... it's the only move. So, let's talk about that. The reason I thought about that was because he's an internal flimflam man and he needed a new narrative, and this works out for him. When he did the first Twitter-xAI merger, he just got rid of the problem of everyone talking about what a shitty business it was. Tesla's obviously troubled. xAI is being upheld by the valuations of AI companies, and SpaceX is a real winner. So what do you... and you could make an argument that they all fit together, right? Sure, why not? Like data, things moving, blah. And he'll do it. So what do you think?
Scott Galloway 30:57 ↗
After the disaster at Chernobyl, where radiation leaked for I guess hundreds or thousands of square miles, there's a lot of farmland and a lot of livestock. And what they found was, okay, a lot of the beef and lamb and chicken had traces of radiation from the radiation leak at Chernobyl. And the Russian officials decided, okay, we're not going to throw away this meat, we're just...
going to parse it out and send small amounts, mixed in with non-radiated meat, to different grocery stores, because a little bit of radiation, as long as we mix it with non-reactive meat, is okay.
This is Musk basically taking his radioactive meat, and that is Tesla, which isn't 10x the value of what it should be trading at. XAI, which is sort of working, isn't, and then wrapping it in the non-reactive meat, which is SpaceX, which in my opinion is one of the most impressive companies with the greatest differentiation in history right now: 90% of launch capability, two-thirds of low Earth satellites. And he's basically going to take all of it and say, okay, autonomous AI space launch capability.
Kara Swisher 32:07 ↗
Yeah, moving.
Scott Galloway 32:08 ↗
And take it all into one giant, one giant Musk AI innovation.
Kara Swisher 32:15 ↗
Robots.
Scott Galloway 32:16 ↗
That will get robots that will say, this is, you have to own this company because when you look at the...
Kara Swisher 32:22 ↗
Boop, that's right. When you look at Tesla, it's like, okay, it's an automobile company that should be trading at 30 bucks a share, not 400 or whatever it's at. When you look at XAI, all right, it's a distant seventh LLM. When you look at robots, those make no sense. But if you wrap all of that AI autonomous stew... Oh, and Twitter, you know, a platform that's probably worth 10 billion, not what he paid.

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APA

Swisher, K. (2026, February 3). Epstein Files: How New Documents Expose a Wider Network | Pivot [Interview transcript]. Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3002741/

MLA

Kara Swisher. "Epstein Files: How New Documents Expose a Wider Network | Pivot." Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, 3 Feb. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3002741/.

BibTeX
@misc{swisher2026_3002741,
  author       = {Kara Swisher},
  title        = {Epstein Files: How New Documents Expose a Wider Network | Pivot},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {feb},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3002741/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}