Chamath Palihapitiya on stock buybacks
From Chamath Palihapitiya-CNBC Interview 4-22-20 · · Andrew Sherman
“When you do things like buybacks and dividends what you are essentially saying is we're throwing your hands up in the air and declaring to the world I do not know what to do with this money and instead of decided to save that money to try to do M&A to try to invest in R&D to pay your employees more these people have given it back in an open market purchase.”
On , Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO at Social Capital, spoke about stock buybacks during Chamath Palihapitiya-CNBC Interview 4-22-20 on Andrew Sherman.
About Chamath Palihapitiya
In a May 2026 appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Chamath Palihapitiya discussed a range of topics including technology, economics, and governance. He argued that "attention" has been the central driver of technological revolutions over the past 30 years, citing Google, Facebook, and AI as examples. Palihapitiya also stated that the social compact between labor and capital has "totally collapsed," suggesting that corporate taxes should exceed personal taxes as a potential remedy. He compared the philanthropic efforts of past industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller to what he described as fewer "living tributes" built by modern capital. Palihapitiya also commented on government efficiency, estimating that 30 to 40% of the federal budget is lost due to "shitty code" and inefficiencies, and predicted that documenting government systems would reduce waste and fraud. Regarding China, he said the country's system rewards judgment and long-term priorities, which he described as "almost orthogonal" to the American system. On the topic of Elon Musk, Palihapitiya credited Musk's purchase of Twitter with preserving free speech, which he called a "core component of our civilization" that he believes was previously "curated" and "tightly controlled" by the federal government.