If I ever break up with you, I'm going to do it the Elon way. I'm going to unfollow you and let a bot break the news.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
I'm Scott Galloway.
By the way, many people are complimenting me on the last two shows. They said they really enjoy...
Well, you weren't complimenting us. Many people are complimenting... Let me just highlight how much people are complimenting me about us because they're enjoying the banter. You're such an [__].
Let me summarize all the comments. Can it be scot-free August forever? And the response I want to give, but I refuse to engage in the comments unless it's someone, you know, occasionally I say thank you. Yeah, there is something called scot-free August all the time. It's called On with Kara Swisher.
I know there's a lot of that, but that's okay. I don't care. I say no. I always push back. I do. I do. I don't read the comments.
Anyway, let's start because we've got some real juicy stuff and we've got some serious stuff. But Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk's longtime partner and mother of four of his children, says Musk has abruptly ended their relationship. Didn't see that coming. And that she went from in love to let go in a week, which she was an employee, by the way. I think she was on OpenAI. She was on Neuralink. Zilis shared the news publicly on X, including a screenshot of their recent text exchanges, responding to a post pointing out that Musk had unfollowed her. Zilis is the director of operations at Neuralink, which is a Musk company. Scott, if you ever abruptly break up with me, I will also post our texts. I don't know what to make of it.
I think that'll reflect more poorly on you. First off, they're at 2 a.m. You text me very late.
I can't believe you said this. Yeah, I heard from Michelle Samberg.
So, what? This is so strange. I feel sad. The whole thing was such an obsequious breakup. I was like, 'Girl, get it together.' And then of course Ashley St. Clair, another ex, said, 'We should have a group text thing with all the exes,' which I thought was funny.
Yeah. I feel even these people deserve a modicum of privacy. But when you announce your breakups on the guy's platform...
Can you imagine if Tom Keene, a really big reporter anchor on Bloomberg, went on Bloomberg TV to announce he was no longer in an affair with Michael Bloomberg?
It'd be strange and an HR issue.
But somehow this seems normal in these people.
It's not an HR issue. She works for him, too. You know, it's not even that. They've been together. I mean, they've been clear. It's fine. It's fine when they were together, but this was so strange. I've always thought she was very slavish towards him and I felt this... I really did. Like the others, at least, like Sinclair got a backbone. And of course, you know, Justine Musk has spoken out in this new Musk documentary coming out this week. But this was so odd and sad. I don't know what to say. I mean, seriously, it's this sort of... Here's what it reminded me of. All of these tech people just cannot shut up about anything, including their sorted romantic problems, everything. They just have to share. They seem to be oversharing in a way that's really quite disturbing to me, at least.
I mean, my first instincts are like she comes across as gracious, but women have agency. All I've learned... If I ever break up with you, I'm going to do it the Elon way. I'm going to unfollow you and let a bot break the news.
I just... I go back to the same thing, Kara.
Don't these people have friends?
Yes, exactly. You say that a lot. That would be a book.
Isn't there someone she could have said to over a couple glasses of whatever they say, rosé, or they go founder mode on skinny margaritas or whatever they do?
Say, 'Oh, I'm thinking of announcing our breakup on Twitter and being humiliated.'
And then having all these bros, these broligarchs and Musk acolytes weigh in and insult me. You and your kids don't need that.
My sense of her is that, you know, look, the genitals and the heart are the most powerful organs in history and the stupidest at the same time.
Yeah. You know, my advice would have been to her the same... Some of the best advice ever was given by Albert Brooks to William Hurt in Broadcast News when he says, 'What happens when your real life exceeds your wildest dreams?' And Albert Brooks says, 'Keep it to yourself.' Keep it to yourself. I feel like maybe there's some strategic reason for doing this. I don't know. Money. I don't know. It's really sad.
You know what? I hadn't thought of that. I wouldn't put it past him to say, 'I'll give you a million dollars a month if you say great things about me on my PL.' Who the [__] knows?
I feel like there's a strategery going on here. It seems so pathetic. Anyway, we'll move on from Shivon. Sorry, Shivon. I'm sure it'll all work out eventually. Breaking up is hard to do, especially with a guy who's now a trillionaire this week because of the SpaceX shares increase. Speaking of Elon, Sam Altman called Elon Musk a bully and said once in a while you got to punch a bully back in the nose in a new interview with Vanity Fair where he's posing. There's a lot of posing happening in it. During a rapid-fire word association, Altman called Trump powerful. Oh dear. Bernie Sanders consistent, and simply passed when asked about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. When talking about how the public views him, Altman said he once had an evil caricature of Mark Zuckerberg in his head, but realized after getting to know him that he'd been projecting. Oh, interesting. Okay, fine. Well, that's usually the case with most people. They're reasonable when you meet them, but that doesn't mean they don't do bad things. Let's do a rapid word association. Sam Altman, the gay son we all wanted and then didn't.
Oh man, these guys go from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader.
I know. It's really weird. That was really funny.
Remember a year ago, we all thought in his hushed tones, 'Well, Senator, that's a very interesting topic.' 'Oh, I don't take any money.' It was very appealing. I gave him far too much of the benefit of the doubt.
I mean, God, we keep falling for Sheryl Sandberg.
We keep getting Sandberg. We can't.
Oh, she's different. She's the different tech executive.
Oh, it's true. Anyway, he also said that we have to take some pain if we want AI. There's going to be some accidents, etc. I was like, 'Oh, not for you.' But it was some weird other podcast where he said, 'We have to take some pain.'
I actually sat two seats away from him. I sat next to him and in between us was this lovely woman who was on Mad Men. I forget her name. She played Pete's wife.
Couldn't have been more lovely. And then it was Sam. And that was awkward. I got to be honest. It was awkward.
The Vanity Fair Oscars dinner.
Oh, that one you went to. Oh, yeah.
Did you say hey? Did you say hello?
I introduced myself and shook his hand. But our only conversation was I asked him where the bathroom was.
He seemed like a nice man. Yeah, seemed like a nice man. But it was definitely awkward. I think the week before I'd called him like, I don't know, baby Stalin with a CS degree.
It's funny. He is a bully. I don't understand a bully.
No, he called Elon a bully. No, Elon more than a bully.
Sam is not a bully. No, he has other talents.
He's manipulative for sure.
It's not... I learned in business school. It's not manipulation. It's management.
Charles O'Reilly. I took HR in business school for some reason. He's like, notice how manipulation the first three...
You took an HR course. That's...
Well, I was forced to after the settlement.
You actually went to school about HR.
They don't call it HR. They call it...
They call it organizational behavior. But you know what all HR classes should be called? I could get everyone through business school in one semester and save everyone 75%.
All HR should be called use your common sense.
Use your common sense. And also any guy that becomes an officer of a company, your fly is up and locked.
All right. Okay. That's a fantastic course. So...
Well, no, but I'm being honest here. When I'm on boards, we always deal with these issues. You ask young people to be in a close environment, a tense situation, they're going to start having sex. I actually think it's a good thing. One in three relationships begin at work. Young people have at it. Disclose it to your boss. Tread lightly. Any person, man or woman, above an executive level, you don't [__] anybody. No excuse. You're fired. There's some amazing things about being an executive at a public corporation. People laugh at your jokes and make a [__] ton of money. One of the downsides, no sex at the office. You have a different set of rules. You make millions of dollars. You're right. It's different for you. It creates too much trouble in terms of the power asymmetry. Men will naturally mistake kindness for sexual interest. Women will mistake sexual interest for kindness. It creates problems when there's a power asymmetry behind a senior-level guy because some young woman laughs at his jokes. He thinks that she's sexually interested in him. Anyways, TED talk over.
All right. Well, it's good to have you back in the classroom and you've been kicked out again.
All right, let's actually... speaking of class.
Equal pay again. One of the most powerful women in Washington. That's the hot takes.
Yeah. I was also... you and I were the most powerful people in New York for some reason. Did you see that?
Yes. We got on some list. What was it? Was this one the 300 most powerful people?
It was a smaller group. It was a hundred, I think. Yeah, you and I together.
I want to be on one of these lists alone. Was it Swisher and Scott Galloway?
Yes, it was the two of us. Yeah, we're powerful together. Yeah, I still think you're a powerful Washington woman. So, that's fine.
All right, we're going to turn to... speaking of classrooms, we're talking about a difficult topic. You and I have been talking on the phone about this. Actually, Cornell's president is calling the rape allegations against seven fraternity members a defining moment for the school and promising this will not be a moment that passes. I'm not sure what he means by moment. The former student identified as Jane Doe has sued Cornell and seven men alleging she was drugged and repeatedly raped in 2024. We did discuss this briefly last week or the day before that. Attorneys for some of the men have denied the accusations. Cornell's president says the university supports an independent investigation. We'll also review fraternity culture on campus. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to do a fresh and thorough review of the case, which is sorely needed, and bring charges if warranted, which might be difficult given different laws in New York. I mentioned this, as I said, as my fail the other week, and since it's blown up, I just want to say a lot of good reporting has happened, a lot of texts from these young men, which are heinous. But I think, you know, and the university at first was sort of on its back heel and seems to be leaning into it to do a better job. One of the things that I would note, Cornell has this reputation, the frats do, and of course a couple hours before this happened, this particular frat had a drug raid too. There was just some reporting on that. And oddly enough, on White Lotus, the guy who was the douche, the frat douche, in the first season, I think had a Cornell hat on because the creator of the show said it was so well known. And it is well known that this is a school that just loves those douchy frats. But anyway, why don't you start? What would you like to talk about, Scott?
Kara, I don't think I've ever meant anything more when I say you go first.
Oh, okay. I think, as I said to you on the phone, look, we don't know. I think there's been a little bit of mob mentality online, which is very typical of online, and everyone does deserve a chance to defend themselves. That's my general stance on everything. That said, there was not a real independent investigation here. There was a botched investigation. It seems like through all the texts you're seeing and all the different back and forth that this woman tried hard to say, 'I went to something for a party and maybe to have some fun and then it spun out of control and I'm trying to figure it out.' And a lot of the men were trying to shut her down of those legitimate feelings she had that something turned badly. She said 100% it was rape, but it turned into rape at least. I think that there needs to be an independent investigation. That's what I would like to have happen so that we can deter, so that real law enforcement people can determine about this. I don't know where it's going to end up. It's kind of a long time. I don't know. I think it's really an opportunity to talk to not just our sons but our daughters and everyone else about this. And I know I spent a lot of time talking to my older sons about this a lot very early on. And in fact, I had a discussion with my 5-year-old when he was hitting and I was trying to not the no-means-no thing, but talking about the concept of kindness, men being kind. And I spent a lot of time with my sons. I had a great talk with Alex and Louis about this. Both of them have seen situations like this. They know they need to intervene. They can't believe that men would behave like this, which I felt good that their reaction was the same as mine. I think they came to it on their own. But it's really important to educate especially young men in situations like that to help, even if the woman's mad at you for pulling them out of a dangerous situation, to try to get in there, as you say, Scott, to be a protector. But it's the same thing for women that they have to... I talked to Clara just briefly. I'm like, listen, as you get older, you need to start thinking about how you operate in the world. And so we had like the seventh-year-old level discussion about it, but I want them to all be aware of both taking care of themselves and taking care of other people at the same time. And I think it's really an important opportunity in this sort of heinous story to do that. All right, Scott, you next.
Under advice of counsel, I am invoking my Fifth Amendment right. Okay. I was in a fraternity. I was president of a fraternity council.
Your son's in a fraternity.
I'm going to a regent meeting at the University of California in about an hour where we will talk about this. I have a lot of viewpoints on this and I have sons and my guess is my oldest son will probably join a fraternity. I think the three most accretive things in the world that would be the most beneficial things for the world are free, and that is one, getting rid of Citizens United, which has corrupted the most powerful and best nation in the world, the United States. Two, that everyone over the age of 72 would have to retire globally, Putin, Netanyahu, Trump, in the next year. And third, I think that we need fathers to be much more engaged in their sons' lives and have much more robust, fluid conversations and open and honest and raw conversations around things. And at the outset of the year, I said I had kind of two goals. I'm struggling out with purpose. I'm in my head too much. And one was kind of zero [__] given. The second is I want to think a lot about... we talk a lot about girl dads and boy moms, but we don't talk enough about boy dads. And that is the single point of failure for men across a lot of levels is when they have a lack of male mentorship and involvement. And so I thought, okay, everyone from my DJ to my personal trainer has a viewpoint on the attorney general, Cornell, the people involved in this case, New York laws. I'm like, okay, that's not how I want to approach this. I want to approach this as a dad and what I say to my sons. And I talked to my sons over the weekend about this. And I want to be clear around parenting. There's never been anything I've ever done that I am least certain about. My problem comes from too much certainty around too many issues. Where I have total healthy uncertainty is my approach to parenting because every parenting book I've read has one thing in common. It totally contradicts the one before it. But what I can tell you as a dad, the first thing is ask them what they think about it. Just get their views on it. Force them to think about it. And then I go to very macro and very micro things. And I try to limit it to a certain number of things. I almost always try to limit my lessons to my kids to three things because as a consultant I read somewhere that once you get past three, people forget the first. But two are macro and two are micro. And the first is that empathy isn't sympathy. It's putting yourself in that person's shoes. And I said in a situation like this, you need to imagine that you have a sister who's in an exact similar situation at a university across the campus and ask yourself how would you want the men there to behave? Like really empathize with people in weird situations or out of control situations and say, 'Okay, that's my sister in an alternative scenario. How would I want the men to behave?' And I like the idea of protector, but the reality is 93% of sexual assault is from someone the woman knows. So, to a certain extent, we've got to protect them from ourselves. And the way we need better men, we just need to raise better men who make better decisions. The second kind of global issue I talk about with my sons, your future self. I say whenever you're in a weird situation, or a situation involving drugs or alcohol or other people, imagine yourself in 10 years. I do the deathbed test. I don't think you can tell kids to do the deathbed test. They can't imagine being near death. But imagine yourself in 10 years. You have a wife, you have kids, you're professional. What would your future self tell you to do right now? Like go to your future self and say how do I make decisions here. And then I get very tactical, and this will cause the most pushback, but I get very tactical with my kids. I say, look, going out, getting maybe a little bit drunk, clothes on the floor, I think it's a lot of fun. It should never happen on first contact. The first time you are physical with a partner, you should be sober. And it means a reduction in first-time contact. But there's too much risk on everyone's part when the first time you have physical contact, and I've said this to my boys, just trust me on this. The first time you kiss or more with a partner, you should both be sober. It just makes things less dangerous for everybody involved. Just always be sober. If you're with your girlfriend and you've been out with someone four or five times and you want to go out and get [__] up and have wild sex, have at it. I think that's fun. I think that's great. The first time you have contact with anybody, you should be sober. Also, a trend among young people is choking.
Don't choke anybody here. Okay. All right. Okay.
Okay, I get it. I get it.
It's about the oxygen asphyxiation.
Yes, it is. It is something.
And also to be cognizant of the fact that porn takes you incrementally towards a normalization of violence against women.
You are correct. That is what... that's more to the point.
No choking and modulate your porn and be cognizant of the fact that porn is normalizing violence against women.
Yeah, and then the drug use that was heavy at this particular, you know...
First contact. You know, I smoke marijuana, I drink. So in some... your future self, what does empathy really mean? No first physical contact sober and nothing. Be cognizant of what violence can be and no violence. No violence. Anyway, that's my lecture.
That was very fair. That was really fair. I do think it gives everyone an opportunity. Everyone likes to, like, 'Oh, did she tell...' I thought one of the more heinous ones was Megyn Kelly very, very cruelly called this woman out for not reporting earlier when she herself took 10 years to report that Roger Ailes harassed her. So I don't think we need to... this stuff is going to go back and forth and what would the bad result be? Men and women not trusting each other. And that horse is out of the barn.
It isn't completely though. It isn't. It's that you have to just assume... look, this is obviously a situation where, you know, who failed everyone here besides these young men, I'm sorry, I think they did, was the college and then the local investigators, the local law enforcement. And that's the difficulty. And I know things are changing, but one of the things that has driven me crazy here is why didn't she take a few weeks... Let me tell you, it was only a few weeks that she took after something like this because you have to process these things and you really do have to understand... I was thinking this as I was writing up, I'm in New York today, abuse victims often talk to the people who abuse them, all kinds of abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc. And it's a very confusing thing. But the one thing is that I said to my son, both my sons, including my young one, is when you're in a position to help someone that seems in distress, you have to take it even if it costs you, right? Because just, you know, if you pulled a woman out of a bad situation at a frat, I was talking to Alex about this, I'm like, you'll... or maybe it was Louis, if they're mad at you, it's okay. You could have pre... you know what I mean. It's okay to take... or your friends are mad at you, or if they call you a vibe killer, it's fine. You'll get over that. Your sins of omission are the things you will very much regret. Anyway, hopefully we'll get a good investigation here and it won't turn into this finger-pointing crap. Anyway, we're going to move on, but hopefully there'll be some resolution here and some clarity, which would be great.
Okay, that was excellent, Scott. Thank you for talking about that.
Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, David Ellison makes a slew of announcements as the Paramount Warner Brothers merger closes.
Support for the show comes from Plaud. If your day is filled with meetings, calls, and important conversations, keeping track of what was said, what was decided, and what happens next can quickly become a job of its own. Whether you're meeting in person or online, taking conference calls, or conducting interviews, Plaud can help you make the most of your time. Plaud is the AI-powered note-taking device built for real-world conversations. Unlike relying on your phone or opening another app every time you want to take notes, Plaud is designed to be simple and always ready when you need it. With just one tap, you can start capturing a conversation. No app to open, no complicated setup, and no need to stop what you're doing. Afterwards, Plaud turns the conversation into a transcript, structured summary, key insights, and actionable next steps. And with Ask Plaud, you can ask questions about a past conversation and quickly find the specific detail or decision you need. It's for founders, executives, investors, journalists, consultants, sales teams, or anyone who spends a large part of the day in conversations. Because the value isn't just getting a transcript, it's making sure you don't lose an important detail, decision, or follow-up after the conversation ends. For a limited time, Pivot listeners can get 22% off Plaud with code pivot at plaud.ai/pivot, spelled p-l-a-u-d.ai/pivot.
Support for this show comes from Quince. There's nothing better than that sweater. You know the one, we all have it. It's perfectly warm and you can't help but reach for it again and again as the weather gets cooler. If you don't have one yet, there's probably one on Quince's website with your name on it. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50, giving you the softness and quality you expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. I am about to get a ton of Quince items because I'm going to be wearing them on the upcoming Pivot tour. But right now, I am actually using my cardigan, which I love from Quince. It's very comfortable. It's so soft and the weather's starting to get cooler. I also have an amazing blazer. I use a black blazer that just looks rich. It isn't expensive at all. So find the fall pieces you reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Pivot. It's the best way to support the show.
Scott, we're back. The Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery merger is set to close this week. A new name of the media monster is getting roasted online. CEO David Ellison announced on X late last week that the combined company would be called Skydance, the name of the production company he founded in 2006. Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures will keep their names as separate studios under the Skydance umbrella. Ellison says he wanted the combined company to have its own identity without overshadowing either studio, allowing the brands to remain in the spotlight. And there was this also from Reddit: 'Why abandon a century's worth of brand recognition for something that sounds like a stargazing app?' I don't know. He bought the company. The Ellisons bought it. They can call it whatever they want. They call it Phyllis. I don't... You're a branding person. Just explain to me whether this was good or not. I don't really care that he wants to call it that. People seem to not think that's a good idea, but the reasons were not very good except he's obnoxious for doing it. I don't think so. Like, it's a perfectly good name.
It's a mistake, but it's not a profound mistake because the parent company is a B2B brand. It's not... No one's going to not go see the movies because they're from the Skydance Studio versus Warner Brothers or Discovery. Both of those brands, though, are really storied brands. They connote quality too. Yeah. Paramount, they're all fantastic brands with real legacy and it's so hard to build that kind of... I mean, one of the things that's just so hard to do. Lexus was a better car than Porsche or Mercedes, but they just didn't have the iconic history and legacy. You can't build that. And so I was a brand consultant to all of those firms. And whenever I'd go to Germany, I'd be like, 'Talk about your heritage.' It's the only thing... Lexus was spun out of Toyota in like 1985 or something. They can't talk about winning the African, you know, DAR race in 1953. They can't talk about how you decided to share airbag technology in 1979 with everybody else. These are heritage brands. They're really powerful. It's not going to have much impact on the business.
What would you have called it?
It's hard because those are two good brands, Warner and Paramount. Discovery probably less so. So when Wells Fargo acquired Norwest, this happens all the time in an M&A. What you do is you have Norwest, a Wells Fargo... Norwest was actually a much bigger company than Wells Fargo. You have Norwest, a Wells Fargo company. Then you have Wells Fargo, Norwest, and then it's just Wells Fargo. Morgan Stanley acquired Dean Witter. For a brief amount of time, it was Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter. Then it just became Morgan Stanley because Morgan Stanley was a better brand. It probably would have been some mashup, a Warner company or something. At the end of the day, I just would have called the whole thing Warner. I would have said over time, Jack Warner and Warner is so storied, right up there. I just would have called... I just would have said...
Over time, what is the iconic name that means creativity and Hollywood? And I just would have called the parent company one name.
Would it be Warner Brothers or Warner?
