Co-Founder, Chewy
"Brink Of DISASTER!" Andrew Ross Sorkin On Elon Musk, AI Bubble + Ryan Cohen's “Hostile” eBay Plot
There’s growing concern about the state of the global economy.
Warnings about the so-called "AI bubble" and escalating conflict in the Middle East have led a number of commentators and market experts to predict that a major downturn could be on the horizon. Some have even gone further, with one renowned forecaster warning that the world may be heading towards a global depression.
With fears of history repeating itself, Piers Morgan is joined by broadcaster and author Andrew Ross Sorkin, whose new book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History examines the events that led to the...
About Ryan Cohen
Ryan Cohen, CEO of GameStop, made a $56 billion offer to acquire eBay in April 2026, proposing a half-cash, half-stock deal at $125 per share. Cohen described eBay as the second-largest e-commerce franchise in the U.S., stating that it is "under earning" and that he could make the business "much more profitable" by cutting costs and running it with an "owner's mentality." He said he has committed to $2 billion in cost cuts at eBay, comparing the opportunity to his turnaround of GameStop, which he said went from losing "hundreds of millions of dollars" per quarter to being profitable and making close to $400 million last year. Cohen characterized eBay's management and board as "employees collecting a paycheck" who have "perverse financial incentives," noting that the CEO has bought zero dollars of stock in the open market over six years while collecting close to $30 million annually. He stated that the fate of the business will be decided by shareholders, asking whether they want "an entrenched management team" or someone "putting all his chips on the table." Cohen said he has not taken any money out of GameStop or Chewy, stating, "I shouldn't get paid if I don't deliver results." In interviews, he described GameStop's current business as 1,600 U.S. stores focused on collectibles, trading cards, and refurbished tech, with reduced reliance on hardware and software. He said the company has cut SG&A by $800 million and reduced it by 47%. When asked about financing the eBay deal, Cohen repeatedly said the offer is "half cash, half stock" and directed questioners to the company's website. He said the transaction would be "accretive to both eBay shareholders and GameStop shareholders" because the combined business would increase earnings per share through efficiency. Cohen also said he believes skepticism about the deal is positive, stating, "the more negatively the majority of people think about GameStop, the more positive it is for me because generally most people are wrong."
Transcript (182 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin0:00
Elon Musk has been the winner of this game, by a mile. And he keeps finding new ways to make money when people think it's impossible.
P
Piers Morgan0:02
Right.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin0:08
The lesson of Warren Buffett is to have humility. You know, the phrase FOMO did not exist in 1929, but boy do we have it now. I think we're getting closer to the end of the story than the beginning, but I don't know how the end of the story really plays itself out just yet.
P
Piers Morgan0:23
Ultimately, you need guardrails to make a free market actually free, because what ends up happening is it's not free. It becomes about crony capitalism. The US, despite all of the hand-wringing, I think is the best economy in the world.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin0:35
There's the line, 'Lunch is for wimps.' Do you get a lunch?
P
Piers Morgan0:40
I just don't know what the power lunch is anymore.
N
Narrator0:44
Elon Musk is officially the world's first trillionaire, at least on paper. The record-breaking stock market debut of his company, SpaceX, makes him as rich as the poorer half of the world's entire population combined. If Musk was an autonomous country, he'd have the 20th biggest economy in the world. He could spend a million dollars every day for 3,000 years before emptying his bank account, and that's without accounting for interest. There's a big moral debate to be had about whether anybody should have that much money. But for today's show, we're looking at it slightly differently. Despite the unstoppable rise of Musk and a handful of major tech and AI companies, many experts currently think the economy is on the brink of disaster. In fact, a lot like the moments before the Great Depression of 1929. A booming economy built on shaky foundations, ordinary people saddled with debt, a stock market buoyed by overhyped stocks, a small group of major companies with massive power, and an even smaller group of extremely rich industrialists who got ever richer whilst workers' wages stagnated. So, is history repeating itself? Well, the broadcaster Andrew Ross Sorkin's new book, 1929, tackles exactly this subject. And he joined me in my London studio at the end of last week to discuss it.
P
Piers Morgan2:06
Welcome to London.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin2:07
I'm thrilled to see you, sir.
P
Piers Morgan2:07
Welcome to Uncensored. I can't think of anyone bigger to ask. Are we too big as a world to fail?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin2:14
Oh goodness, we are now officially too big to fail. There's no question we are too big to fail.
P
Piers Morgan2:19
Really? The whole thing couldn't collapse?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin2:22
Oh no. It could collapse. I'm just suggesting we now have a problem that is of a different magnitude if we were to fail. Do I think we're going to fail tomorrow? I don't know. I know there's been a lot of doomsday predictions and I obviously just wrote about the Great Depression.
P
Piers Morgan2:36
Yeah.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin2:37
I think we're getting closer to the end of the story than the beginning, but I don't know how the end of the story really plays itself out just yet.
P
Piers Morgan2:45
Are there obvious parallels with '29? One that struck me was when that last big depression occurred, the stock market was at an all-time high of 341 points. Today, the stock market is also at an all-time high, 500,000 whatever it is. Should that be a red flag?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin3:05
Oh. Flags, red flags, all the flags. When I was writing this book, I thought I was writing about 1929.
P
Piers Morgan3:13
Really?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin3:14
And as I was working on it...
P
Piers Morgan3:16
You were writing about '29? You mean you're writing about now?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin3:18
But as I was working on it, it became so clear to me that so many of the things that were happening then — new technology, automobiles, radio, everybody was excited. People thought a company RCA was the Nvidia of its time. And as I'm writing this book, and I'm seeing AI play out, the excitement we have around that technology. By the way, tariffs happened in 1930, Smoot-Hawley, happens now. The phrase 'democratization of finance' — we want to let everybody in, give everyone access to the lottery ticket. What phrase do we hear now? So there are these parallels. Are they the exact same? No. The biggest thing that I think we have to watch for, the match that lights the fire every time is debt. It's loans. Back then, you could walk into a brokerage house. By the way, you could walk at the old Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel, that was an EF Hutton. You could walk in, you give them a dollar, they would literally loan you $10 for every dollar you gave them. By the way, EF Hutton lived in Mar-a-Lago.
P
Piers Morgan4:17
Really?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin4:18
In 1929.
P
Piers Morgan4:18
Another parallel.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin4:19
Another parallel.
P
Piers Morgan4:21
You say in the book, 'The nation experiencing the implosion of the stock market felt like watching a heavyweight champion getting knocked out by an untested, unheralded amateur. It wasn't the way the world was supposed to work. It was destabilizing. A state of shock set in accompanied by paralysis of spirit and loss of confidence. People started questioning all the things they had taken for granted. Did a capitalist society make sense anymore? Could it depend upon going forward or had everyone been duped by the glorious markets of the '20s?' And there've been lots of gold rushes and equivalents. And obviously in 2008-9 we had a massive global crash.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin4:57
I could have written that sentence about 2008.
P
Piers Morgan4:59
Yes, you could. And I guess the big gold rush right now is AI. There's a belief that the top seven tech companies — they're spending gazillions on AI and that this may all blow up, that it may not be the great thing that everyone thinks it's going to be. And if they were to fail collectively, then the whole market disintegrates. So, is that even a possibility?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin5:22
Well, look, I actually think it's maybe more complicated and potentially worse than that because I see it as a double-edged sword. On one end, I worry about an AI bubble, meaning overspending on AI and ultimately it just doesn't catch up the way we want it to.
P
Piers Morgan5:35
The bubble of 2000.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin5:36
Exactly. But then think about the other side. In success, what does success with AI actually look like? Well, to justify these prices of these companies, you have to create extraordinary amount of productivity. Productivity means you have to grow at less cost. What is the cost?
P
Piers Morgan5:52
The humans.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin5:53
We are the cost. Right. Now, if we are the cost, who's going to have the money to pay for these things? So, to me there's a very tiny sliver. We have to land the plane to make this work out properly.
P
Piers Morgan6:06
And we are reliant on AI not learning how to self-design, which is the key warning that Professor Stephen Hawking gave to me shortly before he died, which is if that happens, that's the end of our world. Because if it can think for itself, it doesn't need us anymore.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin6:25
I think we're still some ways from that. Sergey Brin, who founded Google, recently came out and said he thinks there needs to be another major transformational invention, if you will, to get to the full...
P
Piers Morgan6:37
But I saw Anthropic saying just yesterday warning, we've got to slow down here because the rate of change is so quick that it can be like the genie getting out of the bottle. It's trying to get out and it may be that we just make a mistake and boom, it's gone.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin6:55
I don't know. I've talked to a lot of people in the industry to try to understand when we could get to a point where it's truly dangerous. I don't think we're there now. I don't even think we'd be there in two or three years from now. The question is, what does AI do on its own that genuinely injures us? And that may be once we get to robots. Elon with humanoid robots. If you think about them building factories on their own and then deciding to build a new factory on their own. Right.
P
Piers Morgan7:25
Because I'm thinking if he can do that with people, then control your brain. Right. So, the moment it's all for the good intention of people who've lost the ability to function properly, having this addition to their brain which helps them function properly again. But if you start to roll that out logically, if you can start to mess with the human brain in a way that makes us, I guess, robotic, well, we're becoming effectively robots, aren't we?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin7:51
Well, I think one of the things that I fear — I don't know how much time you spend with my new friend Claude or ChatGPT.
P
Piers Morgan7:59
Even before we get to that, just the loss of agency over your — I find myself asking it questions, and then if I don't think about it long enough, sometimes I'll realize that the answer's not right.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin8:14
Mhm.
P
Piers Morgan8:15
But think about it if you're a younger person, you don't have the experience. You've lost agency. I see people ask it questions about me, right? Whether it's Grok or whichever one. Particularly Grok — I use X a lot. And most of the time Grok is pretty accurate, but sometimes it's completely wrong. And people are taking this as a kind of biblical truth. It's like the draft of the constitution, but it's not. It's flawed at the moment, deeply flawed I would say.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin8:42
And if you identify — I sometimes say, 'Hey, I don't think you have this right.' And then it'll say, 'Oh, I apologize. I did make a mistake.' But unless you know to push back, that's going to be a much broader societal problem over the next couple of years.
P
Piers Morgan8:58
Is Elon Musk a force for good or not? In totality?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin9:03
I think ultimately he is a demonstrable force for good.
P
Piers Morgan9:07
Genius. That is unquestionable.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin9:10
I think what he's done with automobiles is extraordinary. What he's done with SpaceX is extraordinary. What he's doing with AI — I admire so much about what he has created.
P
Piers Morgan9:21
Can I critique certain things that he's said or done along the way? Absolutely. But if I look at the totality of this man, I mean, I think 100, 200 years from now, he's the person we'll be writing the history books about.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin9:36
Right.
P
Piers Morgan9:37
You've interviewed him, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos. If you had to put all your life savings — not inconsiderable, Andrew. Congratulations. Your books and movies and television work. Who am I going with? Who are you going with to invest in just one of them?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin9:48
Oh god. I don't know about that. All...
P
Piers Morgan9:57
Summer is almost upon us, and if you're not completely satisfied with your beach body, my condolences. That must be hard for you. It's not just because you're watching the World Cup and drinking beer. Once men hit their 30s, it's harder for the body to lose fat, retain muscle, and recover from injuries. The main culprit is testosterone, which drops off as you age. That's why you hear so many guys talking about it, taking it, and why they feel so much better for doing so. Well, there's no shortage of products available, so we wanted to choose one that's all natural, third-party tested, and made in the USA. Mars Men is exactly that. It's designed to support healthy levels, which can help your body to burn fat more efficiently and build lean muscle. No weird synthetic additives. For a limited time, we've teamed up to give our viewers and listeners 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at mengotomars.com. That's mengotomars.com for 50% off and three free gifts at checkout. And remember to tell them that I sent you.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin10:59
Oh, wow.
P
Piers Morgan11:00
And we'll assume all at their peak, right?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin11:01
So here's the complicated part. The thing is — on a — the question is, is it risk-adjusted? Elon Musk has been the winner of this game, by a mile, and he keeps finding new ways to make money when people think it's impossible, right? When the original investors in Tesla, people thought it was insane what he was doing.
P
Piers Morgan11:22
Is he the greatest businessman of all time?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin11:24
I think it's hard to come up with another one. Only because he keeps finding these new opportunities. Think about what he's just done, by the way, with SpaceX. He builds these data centers in the middle — nobody's focused on the data centers, and now he's selling access to Google and to Anthropic. He's coming up with new — even when things are not working for him, X, by the way, originally wasn't working for him as an economic animal. He then merges it with his AI company, and all of a sudden the data stream now has value, and he makes that work for the investors. So, I kind of think I'd probably give him the money.
P
Piers Morgan12:03
My only issue with X, for example, there's no doubt that he's leveled the playing field politically in a much fairer way. There's also no doubt, if you talk to any public figure that's been using it regularly, the amount of abuse you get — it's become real wild west. I had one troll calling me a satanic pedophile. So, obviously, for the record, I'm neither of those things, but I actually formally complained to X, just to see what would happen. And they rejected the complaint. It didn't cross any of their boundaries for any kind of action to be taken. And that was like, 'Well, if that's happening to me...
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin12:41
Oh, it happens to me. It happens to all of us.
P
Piers Morgan12:44
That isn't right, is it?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin12:45
That is not right. That is not right, but then the question — then we get back to the First Amendment question, free speech question, about what we want to allow, what we don't want to allow. Do we want to set up systems so that certain things can't be said? I don't know what the right — I have — I have gone from one end of the pendulum to the other, and I don't have a good one for you.
P
Piers Morgan13:01
What is the answer?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin13:02
I have gone from one end of the pendulum to the other, and I don't have a good one for you.
P
Piers Morgan13:08
Lewis Hamilton, the Formula 1 star, Sir Lewis, as he now is, made news this week by saying billionaires shouldn't exist. This is despite the fact he's nearly one himself, and his girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, is one. But you can believe something whilst also being that person. Does he have a point? I mean, there's a lot of very, very rich people who dominate the 1% of the world and that gap between them as a collective force and those with absolutely nothing has never been bigger. Can a society survive with that disparity?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin13:42
Well, so what I worry about is the political polarization that happens as a result of inequality more than anything else. Do I think billionaires should exist? I'm not here to tell you that billionaires shouldn't exist. I think the question is, if we have this kind of inequality, how do we pay for the services that the ordinary person ultimately needs, who's paying it, what's the tax structure look like, and those are some bigger issues. And this goes to the tax question, which is if you believe that the tax system is a manifestation of democracy, is it a fair system? Do people look and say it's fair how people are being taxed? And I would say right now people look and think it's not fair. And worse, the people with money are able to lobby — some people call it bribing the system — to keep either policies in place or to change policies to make it more attractive for them and less attractive for everybody else. And so that's the piece of it that I ultimately think needs to get solved before I would say we need to get rid of billionaires as a class.
P
Piers Morgan14:48
The current debt in America is how much?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin14:51
We are on our way towards 40 trillion dollars with a T by the end of this year.
P
Piers Morgan14:56
But the average person hears that and goes, how does this make any sense? How can America, the great superpower of the world, be that in debt and still be functioning, let alone having what appears to be a still pretty thriving economy?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin15:13
This is the thing singularly that I worry about more than anything else. People worry about AI, they worry about bubbles. I worry about the sovereign debt of the United States. And if there's going to be a moment, if we do have a bubble that bursts in the United States, the playbook we've learned from 2008, from the pandemic, is what do we do? We write a check.
P
Piers Morgan15:32
Right.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin15:33
Write a check to everybody. Bail everybody out.
P
Piers Morgan15:35
Out, adding to the debt.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin15:36
Adding to the debt. And so what I worry about is the next time we write that check, and it could be trillions of dollars, whatever that check is, that whatever invisible line you think exists in the bond market, that the investors say, 'No mas, we're not doing this anymore like this. We cannot do it like this.'
P
Piers Morgan15:49
Well, what happens then?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin15:50
Well, what happens is the bond investors say, 'We're only going to buy your bonds if there's double or triple the interest you're going to pay me for the risk that I'm taking on.' Well, if that happens, all of a sudden it completely re-scrambles the budget of the United States, meaning what government services are offered. And that's what can lead to real civil unrest potentially, but a devolution both in services and the economic implications.
P
Piers Morgan16:20
You say in the book, you quote President Hoover, who in response to the '29 crash said, 'The only problem with capitalism is capitalists. They're just too damn greedy.' That hasn't changed.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin16:31
That part hasn't changed. Look, capitalism is the best program that I've found over the years as it relates to socialism, but you do need some guardrails. Ultimately, you need guardrails to make a free market actually free. Because what ends up happening is it's not free. It becomes about crony capitalism. It becomes about all of these weird incentives that screw up the system. And that I think is ultimately the thing we got to watch for.
P
Piers Morgan16:56
Let's talk about Donald Trump before the war in Iran and now. Because there's a reason why I'm going to separate the two things. Obviously, a year ago he launched the tariff war. Many people predicted total financial Armageddon. It would be a total disaster, but that didn't happen. It wasn't a disaster, but was it by any qualitative assessment a success? What is the reality of where we are with tariffs?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin17:23
Okay, so there's two elements to it because by the way, I was in the category of 'this could be a real problem.' I was in that category and I think most people who were really worried at the moment were in that category on what was called Liberation Day. When he first came out with the tariff program...
P
Piers Morgan17:39
People freaked, but they freaked because the levels of the tariffs were extraordinarily higher than they ultimately were.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin17:46
Right. So part of it was that the plan changed.
P
Piers Morgan17:48
Is a tariff war a good strategy if you are the biggest beast in the room?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin17:54
I genuinely believe a tariff war is not good for consumers in America and I believe it's not good for them.
P
Piers Morgan17:59
Why? Because ultimately...
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin18:00
Because it's ultimately a tax that at least is partly borne by the consumer back in the United States. And not just that, I think there's a broader question which is to the degree that you are a nation that wants to have relationships with others that are long-term and loyal. We talk about here we are in the UK, the special relationship between the US and the UK. There was no problem between the US and the UK prior to this.
P
Piers Morgan18:25
Mhm.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin18:26
Do you believe that tariffs were warranted on the UK?
P
Piers Morgan18:29
I — no, the trouble is I could see the merit in some of it. Now, he's always had a thing about China, for example, ripping America off. He's always believed in the power of tariffs. So it's not — none of it was a surprise to me.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin18:40
Oh, by the way, I think you can use tariffs and the president by the way has authority to use tariffs and they can be used properly. There's — you know, if there's a country that demonstrably is doing something like China is and was, you can use tariffs against them. We have laws that allow for that. The idea of a cross-the-board tariff just as a toll, that creates its own problems.
P
Piers Morgan19:02
What was the state of the economy right before the war in Iran started, particularly in the US? What was the reality?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin19:09
The reality was that things were getting better on the whole.
P
Piers Morgan19:15
Still the best economy in the world?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin19:17
I think — look, that's the funny part about this is the US, despite all the hand-wringing, I think is the best economy in the world. I think it was the best economy in the world during the beginning of the Trump term. I think it was the best economy in the world, by the way, even at the end of the Biden term. And I say that hopefully just empirically on the data. You know, as we move into the war, I think there were some underlying questions underneath the economy, what was going on. By the way, this AI boom — I pointed it out in the book — but the AI boom has inflated everything.
P
Piers Morgan19:53
To an unhealthy degree?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin19:55
Well, to a concentrated degree. People would say concentration's unhealthy. If you take out the success of AI and remove it from GDP, you basically have a flat GDP. And then that raises the question of how healthy this really is.
P
Piers Morgan20:11
This Iran war I felt from day one was a strategic mistake that Trump got talked into. Peter — he won't accept that, but I think he did. And the longer it goes on clearly the more economic damage is being done, not just obviously to the Iranians but also to everybody, right? Because of the power of the Strait of Hormuz, which most people probably weren't even aware of before this happened. The longer it goes on, what is the real damage to the economy, do you think?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin20:40
Look, I've been surprised at how resilient it is.
P
Piers Morgan20:42
The markets don't seem to have even noticed it.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin20:44
It is head-scratching to me every day.
P
Piers Morgan20:47
How is that possible? Investors in the stock market are professional optimists. And by the way, you have to be. Or are they just — I'll say this respectfully because I know you have to — are they not just a bunch of lemmings? You look at the oil price graph, right? Since the start of the war. Every time Trump breaks wind, one way or another — no actual longer-term thinking, no assessment of what he's saying, whether it bears any relation to the reality on the ground or anything. They just burp up and down, and I'm like, that's not a sensible way of reacting to this news.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin21:26
The complication. There's two things going on. One is the stock market is supposed to be looking out 12 to 18 months from now. That is supposed to be the bet. So, the bet that's taking place today is that in 12 months or 18 months from now, call it, that there is no war, that the strait is open. That is what they're gambling on. Is that a good gamble? I don't know. I hope so. The other thing I just say, having studied 1929 and 2008, it has actually paid to be a professional optimist. I'm a professional skeptic. I'm a journalist. Both of us are — we're in the skeptical business.
P
Piers Morgan22:02
Our first instinct is who's lying to me and why.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin22:04
Right. Exactly. So, there is a little bit of a disconnect there, but if you look over the last 100 years, even with the 1929 crash, even with the 2008 or a dot-com, or go down the list, you have been better off being invested in the market than not being in the market. And in fact, there's been a number of studies that have shown if you look at wars, anytime a war has broken out, in the past, by the way, you used to see big movements in the stock market. I think people started clocking what was happening. Oftentimes, if you put money into the market when a war broke out, a year later, you were doing better. This is not investment advice. It's just historically, I think that's what this investor class today is looking at.
P
Piers Morgan22:48
In terms of getting rich, people look at someone like you, and they go, 'Well, come on, you're like an expert in this stuff. What is the best, safest way to get rich?'
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin23:03
It's the way that Warren Buffett has told people to get rich, which is to buy an index fund early on in your life, to compound your money. It is not sexy. It is not fast. But if you have some patience and you are consistent about it, you can get rich.
P
Piers Morgan23:23
Warren, I interviewed him on CNN, and he was certainly, I would say, the most impressive business person I've ever met. I thought his world view about it all, even down to — he sent one email ever, which ended up in a lawsuit, so he never emailed anybody again. He just uses a normal phone. He had a Nokia flip phone, which he just took calls on. And there was a massive book called Snowball, wasn't it, about him?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin23:50
Uh-huh. By Alice Schroeder.
P
Piers Morgan23:54
Right. And incredibly well done, but basically the sort of philosophy was to invest in great ball-run companies that generate lots of cash. But also, following the habits of human beings. So, when times were tough, people tended to stay at home. They'd order in pizza. They'd eat more confectionery and so on. And he would buy accordingly. And similarly, when times were great, he'd be into airlines and restaurants because that's what people are doing. In other words, he's chasing behavioral patterns and habits. I thought that was just incredibly simple, but fascinating.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin24:31
He has the strongest sort of emotional core.
P
Piers Morgan24:36
Yes.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin24:36
Most people, when the stock market falls, freak out. He says to himself, 'Oh my goodness, everything's on sale.'
P
Piers Morgan24:44
Well, he says, 'When others are fearful, be greedy. When others are greedy, be fearful.'
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin24:49
It's very hard, I think, for most people to be able to follow that path. I think it's the right path, but emotionally, it's not a natural act for most.
P
Piers Morgan24:58
You've got to have balls of steel, right?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin25:00
It's not a natural act for most.
P
Piers Morgan25:03
Your book is called 1929. We're heading towards 2029. So, 100 years later. What is it going to look like, the world, if you were a betting man? And things are looking pretty unpredictable right now, but your job is to try and predict these things. What are we going to look like, in particular, that relationship between AI and jobs? Because it seems to me to be the crucial fulcrum, forgetting about war and whatever else, stuff you can't control. The thing we can control is that balance between artificial intelligence, where it goes by 2029, and what that does to the human jobs market.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin25:44
Okay, so is this next 3 years? Next 3 years, actually, I don't think it necessarily takes all the jobs that we've been expecting. I don't know if you've been following what's happening with mammograms. They always thought that radiologists for mammograms were going to lose their jobs first because AI can read a mammogram better than a person. There are more people who are radiologists doing mammograms than ever before.
P
Piers Morgan26:08
Why?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin26:08
Because the price of mammograms has come down and more people are getting mammograms than ever, and somebody still has to read them and still has to talk to the patient personally. So, I think there's going to be an opportunity...
P
Piers Morgan26:21
How about, say, I guess about legal clerks, right? But their job is to just go and find old case studies. If you...
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin26:28
Yes. Those people are not going to have jobs.
P
Piers Morgan26:29
Right. So, then what happens to the ladder in industries like that? Because you have to...
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin26:35
Right. So, what happens to those people? Because if you can't get on the ladder, then surely the whole ladder eventually just falls. So, this is to me the issue. And what I don't know is that over the next 2 or 3 years, or is that over the next 5 or 10 years?
P
Piers Morgan26:48
It's going to be incredibly quick.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin26:50
So, I think it's going to be slow and then incredibly quick.
P
Piers Morgan26:54
You see companies like Facebook and others, you know, getting rid of thousands of people, the moment that starts to happen and they're citing AI as the reason, I'm not sure — surely that has to accelerate.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin27:04
Right. I'm a little worried that there's a little bit of theater going on in some of these announcements. Right now, I think people are using AI as an excuse for firing people and I'm not sure that's the actual case. By the way, one of the things that's happened in the last two weeks, the cost of using AI is so incredibly high, companies like Uber are saying that the ROI, the return on investment, doesn't make sense. They'd actually prefer to use engineers. So I think this is going to play itself out for some time. Then I think there'll probably be a cliff and there's going to be a big question about what that transition looks like. I think that's when it becomes a political and policy story, but I think it's probably a 2029 story.
P
Piers Morgan27:41
What's the number one lesson we should learn from the '29 crash?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin27:45
The lesson of Warren Buffett is to have humility. It's not to chase the next thing. You know, the phrase FOMO did not exist in 1929, but boy do we have it now. And when we see folks making a fortune, everybody wants a lottery ticket. Everybody wants the ticket. The problem is that most people who buy the ticket lose.
P
Piers Morgan28:07
Talking of people potentially winning or losing, after your highly entertaining interview on CNBC Squawk Box, you pressed Ryan Cohen on how GameStop could possibly finance its 56 billion-dollar bid to acquire eBay, saying the math just didn't work. So he came on Squawk Box to respond. He said this.
R
Ryan Cohen28:29
I was surprised by their lack of understanding of the structure because it's very simple. It's half cash, it's half stock. We have the ability to issue stock. Essentially, the eBay shareholders are going to continue owning eBay, except it's going to be run by an owner-operator as opposed to an entrenched management team that has zero invested and zero skin in the game. And the other half of the structure, we've got 9 billion of cash on our balance sheet and our bankers have advised us that they feel confident in our ability to raise 20 billion. So, it's a straightforward deal, but it was too complicated for them on CNBC.
P
Piers Morgan29:21
Now, the reason I wanted to play that to you is because it was way too complicated for me to understand. But is there anything that he said there that was actually credible? You've now heard it. He says it's too complicated for you to understand.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin29:35
No. I would beg to differ.
P
Piers Morgan29:36
But from what you just heard there, which was his kind of clarifying explanation, what would your response be?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin29:42
So, look, I think what he is trying to do is slightly different than what is a classic acquisition. And just for the record, I did understand exactly what the transaction was. I was desperately trying to get him to explain it to the public in a way that they could understand it. But in terms of what the deal is, typically when you buy a company, you have more money than the company that you're buying and you're buying out their shares. In fact, he said that he was buying it at a premium. That's not exactly what this deal is. He's paying some money to the company, but he's effectively telling eBay shareholders, 'You are going to roll in with me.' Meaning, a big portion of your shares are still coming here. So, I'm not really buying you out at all. You're going to roll in with me and if you like me as the manager and think that what I've done with Chewy — he had a great success with Chewy — if you think that what he's doing with GameStop was great, then you'll follow down this path. And that's what the deal is. The question is he needs to ultimately persuade those eBay shareholders, and those eBay shareholders are big Wall Street institutions, by the way. It's not retail investors necessarily. A lot of retail investors in GameStop got them very excited about GameStop. He's got to persuade BlackRock and T. Rowe Price and all the big funds that he's the guy to run this and that they need to trust him. That's what that's doing.
P
Piers Morgan31:05
Polymarket, when asked will GameStop acquire eBay by the end of the year, 15% are saying yes in the prediction market, down from 22%. Where would you put the percentage?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin31:18
Look, I think it's going to be a challenge for Ryan. I think he's done a great job with Chewy. I think he's doing a good job with GameStop.
P
Piers Morgan31:26
Can he pull it off?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin31:28
In the next — this year? I think it would be very, very challenging. Like almost impossible challenging. But that's because he effectively would have to get the board which doesn't want to hand over the reins, and he'd have to get all the big institutional investors behind him. Could he ultimately do it? Like over time? Maybe. But it's not an easy one.
P
Piers Morgan31:48
Is an easier one what's going to happen to SpaceX when it floats in a couple of weeks? Is that going to be the rocket that we all expect?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin31:54
So, it's interesting. It's a rocket that almost invariably has to be a rocket for the first couple of weeks because the Nasdaq, the stock exchange where it's going to go public, has an index fund called the QQQ. Anyone who buys the Nasdaq index fund is automatically within the first five days going to be buying shares of SpaceX. So, there is effectively an automated buyer of SpaceX shares. And by the way, there's other investment funds out there that try to mimic the Nasdaq fund. So, they have to automatically buy shares too. So, I think in the immediate aftermath, there will be lots of shares moving higher. Having said that, Elon's done something very interesting. Talking about the democratization of finance. He's allowing a lot more retail investors to buy in than historically.
P
Piers Morgan32:46
Why is he doing that?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin32:47
He believes in this idea of democratizing finance and believes there's a big audience for his shares. The question — and it's going to be a big test — most companies don't put the shares in retail investors' hands immediately because they're not considered diamond hands. They're considered quick hands that they may sell if the stock moves too high. So, it's going to be a very interesting one to watch.
P
Piers Morgan33:09
I sat with three billionaires about three, four years ago over lunch and I just said to them, 'Come on then. If you could invest in one stock, what would it be?' And they all said SpaceX.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin33:20
And you...
P
Piers Morgan33:20
I thought it was very interesting. So, it's going to be a fantastically exciting...
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin33:24
And watch for the next move. Elon's next move. SpaceX, I think, is going to ultimately buy Tesla.
P
Piers Morgan33:32
I think that's inevitable.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin33:33
And they're going to rename the company X for the whole enterprise.
P
Piers Morgan33:37
The whole thing?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin33:38
That's my call.
P
Piers Morgan33:39
Really? That's a big call, but you're usually right. I want to weigh in with one simple question. In Wall Street, perhaps the most iconic movie about Wall Street obviously, but about the financial world. The classic Oliver Stone film. There's the line, 'Lunch is for wimps.' Do you go to lunch?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:01
I used to go to lunch. These days I don't really go to lunch that much.
P
Piers Morgan34:06
Concluded lunch is for wimps?
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:09
I just don't know what the power lunch is anymore.
P
Piers Morgan34:12
I'll tell you what it is. It's Michael's in Midtown Manhattan with our mutual friend Jonathan Wald.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:20
Absolutely. Isn't that the epicenter of power lunches in New York?
P
Piers Morgan34:26
Andrew, great to see you.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:27
Great to see you.
P
Piers Morgan34:28
Inside the Crash, as you've got here a quote from David Grann, 'Riveting and illuminating.' It certainly is and a massive wake-up call for all of us right now, I would argue.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:38
Great to see you.
P
Piers Morgan34:39
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
A
Andrew Ross Sorkin34:41
Thanks very much.
P
Piers Morgan34:42
Well, joining us now to react to that interview is Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop. So, Ryan, you were listening there to Andrew. There was a little glimmer of hope. He didn't think it was impossible, just very difficult. What's your reaction?
R
Ryan Cohen34:57
It reminds me of the movie Dumb and Dumber, where the girl tells Jim Carrey — he asked, 'What are my chances?' And she says like one in a million or something, and he says, 'So, you're saying there's a chance.'
P
Piers Morgan35:17
I mean, look, Andrew is — notwithstanding your little dig, which I played to him — that he didn't understand it. I think he does understand it, and he outlined just now the reasons for his concern and wanting you to really articulate how you thought this would work. I mean, do you understand his concerns? Do you accept that he is pretty expert in this, and the concerns are valid?
R
Ryan Cohen35:43
Yeah, I mean, it's tough. Everything that I've done has always been tough. If you would have looked at what the chances of Chewy to succeed against Amazon, the odds were very, very low. And turning around GameStop, if you asked all of Wall Street what they thought the business was going to be doing in 2026, when I joined the board, they would have said that the company would have been bankrupt a few times over. So, yeah, it's tough.
P
Piers Morgan36:22
There have been reports today saying that you've not given up on this project, and you may now take your proposal directly to shareholders for an attempted hostile takeover. Is that true?
R
Ryan Cohen36:35
I'm definitely not going to give up. I'm not going to stop.
P
Piers Morgan36:42
You're not denying the report which includes the proposal potentially direct to shareholders for an attempted hostile takeover. Is that true?
R
Ryan Cohen36:52
Ultimately, the owners of the business are the shareholders and the fate of the business is going to be decided by the owners of the business and the vote is going to come down to who they want running the business. Do you want an entrenched management team that's collecting tens of millions of dollars in risk-free compensation running the business or do you want someone that's putting all his chips on the table, both through GameStop and me personally. But ultimately, the management team and the board has all kinds of perverse incentives, but I'm going to do everything to make sure that ultimately the owners of the business get to make that decision.
P
Piers Morgan37:38
That doesn't sound like a denial.
R
Ryan Cohen37:43
It's not a denial.
P
Piers Morgan37:45
Wow, okay. So, that is news. So, you are seriously considering a hostile takeover.
R
Ryan Cohen37:55
Going to do whatever we need to do in order to maximize shareholder value for GameStop. And we've made a big investment. We're one of the largest active shareholders of the business. And I love eBay. And the business is highly complementary to GameStop's business. And it's a business that I personally understand very well and is within my circle of competence. So, we'll see what happens.
P
Piers Morgan38:32
Well, it forward greatly to your next move on that. Just very quickly, SpaceX, we just heard Andrew talking about it, that it's going to be a rocket launch, but it's going to have to reach rocket levels to justify all the hype. What's your view about it?
R
Ryan Cohen38:53
I wouldn't bet against that. I wouldn't be arrogant enough to bet against Elon. And what I find interesting, on all the skeptics on Wall Street, is how quickly they are to take the side of the establishment. I don't know what it is. Maybe they play by the rules, they go on the show, they answer all their questions, they bow down to them, they get together in the Hamptons. I don't know what it is, but there's nothing that is more American than risking your own money. And if you end up making money, great. And if you end up losing money, then you lose money. And yet, you look at the mainstream media, like with GameStop as an example, and it's almost like everyone is rooting and wants to see our demise. And it's the same thing in this situation too. They want to see us fail. They hope we fail, and it doesn't really make sense to me. It's anti-American. What we're doing is tough, but we're taking on risk. And if you look at the current management team and the board, you've got a board of directors that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for attending a few board meetings. You've got a management team. You've got a CEO in particular that's making tens of millions of dollars, have never bought a single share of stock on the open market with his own money. And yet, why are they so quick to protect and want them to succeed? You talk about wealth inequality and all of these systemic risks. And then you have someone that's taking on a lot of risk and putting a lot of skin in the game. It's like, why do they want us to fail? I don't understand.
P
Piers Morgan40:56
You know, I love entrepreneurs. I think they make the world go around. I think that most people are risk averse and play safe in their lives and their business. And actually, if it wasn't for people like you and Elon Musk and others, the world would be a very dull place. And sometimes you got to speculate to accumulate, and you may crash and burn, but as we learned in Top Gun, sometimes you will crash and burn, but other times you're going to win. And I wouldn't bet against you either, Ryan. I've enjoyed talking to you the few times we've done it. I hope we continue to do it. And if you pull it off, it'll be amazing. And if you don't, well, you had a go.
R
Ryan Cohen41:34
I appreciate it, Piers. We're on the same page.
P
Piers Morgan41:37
We are. And we will talk again. Ryan, thank you very much.
R
Ryan Cohen41:41
Nice seeing you.
P
Piers Morgan41:44
Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. You enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. You subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate, and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent uncensored media has never been more critical, and we couldn't do it without you.