Prof G Markets: Global Pushback on Tariffs + Can the FTC Beat Meta?

Scott and Ed discuss gold hitting a record high, the Trump administration’s new restrictions on chip exports, and Jerome Powell’s comments on tariffs. Then, they unpack how other nations are pushing back against the tariffs, highlighting Trump’s key strategic missteps—including his underestimation of global rivals. Finally, they dissect the key moments from the Meta antitrust trial so far, with Scott laying out the economic upsides of breaking up the company, and Ed outlining how the FTC could actually come out on top. Subscribe to the Prof G Markets newsletter Order "The Algebra of Wealth," out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Follow Scott on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business, you start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com/aplewatchseries12.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:48Ed Elson?

  Hey Prof G listeners, it's Ed. If you're hearing this message, it's because you're still listening on the Prof G Pod feed, which means you are missing half of our episodes, which are on the Prof G Markets feed. So for all of the content, head over to the Prof G Markets podcast and hit follow. We've also left a link in the description to make it easier. You'll see it's a different logo. Prof G Pod is turquoise with Scott's face. Prof G Markets is green with me and Scott's face. Thank you, and I'll see you over on the other feed.

• 2:16Scott Galloway?

  Today's number 476. That's how many S and P 500 companies Warren Buffett could buy with the cash pile he's sitting on. True story, Ed. This morning I was taking a dump and I immediately got up. I got startled by something and for a brief moment I was in between the basin and the floor and I realized, Ed, I'm an astronaut and I am here for feminism and hear me roar and we're all one, Ed. We're all one.

• 2:54Scott Galloway?

  I'm an astronaut, Ed. I'm an a- can you believe the amount of shit these women are getting? Isn't- I'm so here for this. Ed, how are you?

• 3:01Ed Elson?

  I'm doing well, Scott. I like your shirt. For those who are not watching on YouTube, Scott is wearing a Harvard Club of New York shirt. I assume this is a political statement.

• 3:10Scott Galloway?

  Well, you know me. I don't like to draw attention to myself, Ed.

• 3:15Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I wore a Canada shirt around. It was amazing. When I got bored last time I was in New York, I'd put on my Canada, my, you know, big Canadian leaf, whatever the maple leaf thing is, and I'd walk around Soho and people would go like, "Hey, thank you. We appreciate your support." That's my Canadian accent, whatever that was. It sounded like a dead language that twins speak to each other, but yeah, I'm- I- it literally took Donald Trump to make me like Harvard. And I can't stand Harvard. You know what I hate the most? Even Princeton douches aren't this bad. You know what I just fucking hate? I'll say someone will come like, "Where did you go to college?" And someone goes, "I went to college in Boston."

• 3:49Ed Elson?

  No, they say in Cambridge.

• 3:50Scott Galloway?

  You went to Harvard and you want everyone to know it, but you want to pretend to be humble because it's so fucking awesome to have gone to Harvard that you pretend that it's like, you really shouldn't rub your six- it- I want to- I want to strangle them. I want to send them to space. By the way, I think Katy Perry was replaced up there with someone else. I just- you know what the best thing about that Blue Origin thing was? This is a true story. They're, you know, they're trying to pretend it's for all mankind, right? First off, that was a giant leap backwards for women when they, did you hear them screaming on the way down?

• 4:24Speaker 04

  There was all the drug parachutes, just free falling right there until those drugs.

• 4:28Scott Galloway?

  Bah, bah.

• 4:31Scott Galloway?

  It's like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's a woman's world. It's a woman's world. But when they were about to take off on launch, you know, they try to make it all dramatic and they're like, T minus two minutes and there's all these newscasters, broadcasters, like desperate to get anyone to watch anything so they can sell more opioid induced constipation meds. And they're like, and this is just in, Katy Perry is actually going to sing when she's up there. And literally on cue, when they said that, the guy in the control room goes, warning, one minute.

• 5:05Scott Galloway?

  And I'm like, one minute, they're like, here's your warning, she's going to be singing in one minute. What did you think of the Blue Origin launch and these, these very brave women?

• 5:13Ed Elson?

  I genuinely couldn't give a fuck. I had no interest in the Blue Origin launch. I love how everyone's shitting on them, but I wasn't watching it when it happened. I didn't watch any of the press releases. I really, I, I, I couldn't care less. I just think it's insane that they still think that just by hawking these celebrities, they're going to win everyone over. I mean, apparently they're, they're planning another one and they've got another batch of celebrities, only it's men this time.

• 5:40Scott Galloway?

  I bet a few of those guys are going to come up with reasons they can't do it. This is a bad luck.

• 5:45Ed Elson?

  Absolutely. I mean, this is probably the worst celebrity PR event since the Imagine video during COVID. I think that probably, I, I went back and I watched that again.

• 5:58Scott Galloway?

  I was just thinking that.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try.

• 6:08Ed Elson?

  That was the worst I've ever seen. It's actually shocking if you go back and watch it, just how cringe worthy. I mean, it makes, it really makes your skin crawl. This was not quite at that level, but it was close. And I think, I think people just need to get into their heads. We don't really care about these celebrities anymore. It doesn't make us like you that Katy Perry is friends with you.

• 6:30Scott Galloway?

  I think we're having a series of small revolutions and I think the Black Lives Matter. As basically in the Me Too movement is righteous movements where systemic racism or abuse of power by men in corporations, people had just had enough. But in each of those instances in this one, they go after rich people. They're not talking about racism, small, medium sized companies. They're not talking about systemic racism across the middle class. They're talking, they go after, it's sort of almost like a vehicle to go after rich people. And I think that essentially people are just so fed up with how much prosperity has been crammed into the top 1%. When they see someone who is rich, like if you're rich, be rich and quiet. Go up in a fucking dildo if that's what you want.

• 7:14Scott Galloway?

  Pay the money, fine, have at it. But to try and capture social status and portray to rebrand vanity and rebrand wealth as any sort of like virtue, people are just like, we've had it with these people. We've literally, we've had it. We don't, I think these folks surround themselves in bubbles where they think they are super interesting and that what they do is inspiring and everything they do can be couched as something inspiring. And then the rest of the world goes, okay, if you're rich and you can go up in a rocket and you're in your betrothed to the third wealthiest man in the world, good for fucking you, but we don't need to hear about it. Keep it to yourself. Your thoughts, Ed?

• 7:54Ed Elson?

  Should we, should we start this show?

• 7:55Scott Galloway?

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Bring us back, get to the headlines.

• 7:58Ed Elson?

  Let's start with our weekly review of market vitals.

• 8:07Ed Elson?

  The S and P 500 declined, the dollar struggled to recover from its three year low, bitcoin was volatile and the yield on 10 year treasuries fell. Shifting to the headlines, gold hit a record high, surpassing $3,300 per ounce for the first time in history. Goldman Sachs projected prices could sort of 4,500 by the end of 2025 in a worst case risk scenario. The Trump administration announced new restrictions on chip exports by Nvidia and AMD, which will cost the companies $5.5 billion and $800 million respectively. The news sent shares of both companies down around 7%, which dragged the Nasdaq 2% lower. And finally, Jerome Powell called tariffs a challenging scenario for the Federal Reserve,

• 8:52Ed Elson?

  warning they will likely lead to higher prices and rising unemployment. A day later, Trump responded on Truth Social and he said, quote, Powell's termination cannot come fast enough.

• 9:05Ed Elson?

  So Scott, let's get your thoughts here, starting with gold. I just want to quickly highlight some additional data I found here from the Bank of America Fund Manager Survey. They survey all the top hedge funds, all the top pension funds, money managers all around the world, and just some of the results here. So half of fund managers say they believe long gold is currently the most crowded trade in the world right now, more crowded than long magnificent seven, which has been the top trade for the past several years. And then also 42% of managers said they believe gold will be the best performing asset class in 2025. So quite striking, this reversal in the market trends away from tech, away

• 9:50Ed Elson?

  from stocks and towards gold. Your thoughts?

• 9:53Scott Galloway?

  So the uncertainty index in the United States has hit a, it's at the highest it's been since the 80s. So people are feeling more uncertain about the US economy right now than when we had a virus killing. You know, they killed a million people and there was lockdowns and they closed schools. People are more uncertain today than they were during COVID. And there's always a flight to quality or a fight, not even a flight to quality, a flight to hard assets where if shit gets real, I can take my gold bars and head to my bunker, right? It's this, it is kind of, the gold is really sort of an uncertainty index. And the reason why the trade is so crowded is not only because of uncertainty, but because of greed. Because if you look at economic history, if you look at every recession, let's go through each of them and how gold performed relative to the S and

• 10:35Scott Galloway?

  P 500, from 73 to 75, it returned, gold returned 73%. The S and P was down 37. From 1980 to 82, the S and P lost 27% of its value. Gold is up 120%. 90 to 91, I remember this, this is when I got out of grad school and couldn't find a job. The S and P returned negative 3%. Gold is up 7. 2001, market down 13, gold up 5. 2007 to 2009, actually from 07 to 2011, gold doubled.

• 11:07Scott Galloway?

  And then in 2020 during COVID Q1, the S and P was down 34% year to date for the whole year was up 16, but gold was up 30%. Now, is this a giant buy signal? I don't know, I would buy or beware because a lot of that, I mean, it was just such an obvious and smart, things seem so obvious in hindsight. A couple of weeks ago, when he announced his tariffs, really think, okay, this is going to create uncertainty, it's stupid, he's declaring war on everyone all at once. What would be a good trade? And this feels like obvious in hindsight now? I don't know. Basically, when a trade is super crowded, you get scared because that means it's probably a bit overvalued. I mean, the run up here has been pretty significant.

• 11:45Ed Elson?

  One thing that's quite interesting, though, is what's happening to Bitcoin because remember Bitcoin is supposed to be the same thing.

• 11:51Scott Galloway?

  Not, it's correlated.

• 11:52Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 11:52Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Ed Elson?

  It's supposed to be, you know, like the ultimate gold, even safer than gold. But you look at the price of Bitcoin, it fell in concert with the S and P right after the tariff. It's down 10% year to date. The S and P is down 10% year to date as well. It's basically tracked with the stock market. And then you look at gold, which is up 26% so far. So this really, I mean, there have been so many moments where it's been Bitcoin's big opportunity to step up as the new digital gold. I mean, I think the first example I would think of would have been Russia invading Ukraine, where we had another sort of uncertain doomsday global warfare scenario on our hands.

• 12:37Ed Elson?

  The stock market tanked, gold rallied, but then you look at Bitcoin and it was just tracking with the stock market. Here we're seeing the same thing again. I'm not saying Bitcoin isn't digital gold. I think you can make the argument that it could be, but at least right now, today in 2025, the market does not view it as that. But let's move on here to what happened with these chipmakers and this new order from the Trump administration, which is restricting these H20 chips for Nvidia. I want to just clarify what this actually means for Nvidia because, you know, the headlines are saying that Nvidia is taking a $5.5 billion hit, which is a little bit misleading.

• 13:20Ed Elson?

  So that $5.5 billion number, that is the number that Nvidia cited in this regulatory filing, saying this is what we expect to be charged.

• 13:32Ed Elson?

  With this new H20 chip restriction. But it's a backward looking number because it's only describing all of the money they've already spent on these H20 chips. What it doesn't include is all of the revenue they're about to lose on not selling all of those chips to China. And that number is closer to around 15 to 16 to 17 billion dollars. And so that's why you saw this huge decline in Nvidia stock, which brought the rest of the tech markets down with it. Because this new order from the administration, it essentially wipes out all of Nvidia's China revenue. And last year, China accounted for around 13% of Nvidia's total revenue.

• 14:17Ed Elson?

  And today it's going to be zero. So, you know, when you read that headline, you know, or you read the executive order, which says, we're putting a restriction on this specific chip at Nvidia, this specific H20 chip. That's not really what's happening. What they're basically saying is China is now off limits for Nvidia. And what I've been wondering in the wake of this order is what on earth is going through Jensen Huang's head right now? Because you might recall, you know, why does this H20 chip even exist? The reason that that was created was it was Jensen Huang's response to a Biden administration order, which said that we can't be selling our most advanced chips to China.

• 15:02Ed Elson?

  And so Jensen Huang and Nvidia responded by creating this slower, less capable chip. And that was their attempt to fall in line. It was designed specifically for China. And now, two years later, the government is saying, actually, never mind, we're not going to let you sell these chips at all. So this is really a logistical nightmare for Nvidia. And I do find it hilarious to think about how Trump was touted for so long as the pro business candidate. And all these CEOs believed it and they were super excited. But so far, what we're seeing is that this is pretty much the most anti-business president America has ever seen. So it will be interesting to see how Jensen deals with it. I just read recently that he actually just flew to China and met with Chinese officials.

• 15:45Ed Elson?

  But this is definitely a big problem for Jensen Huang. And that's why you're seeing this big devaluation in the stock.

• 15:52Scott Galloway?

  I was initially in favor of the chip bans to China because I thought, okay, these are the same chips that are used in missiles to help guide them real time or drones. But what did they do? They came up with a workaround. They came up with essentially deep seek. So there's an argument that, okay, all you're doing is inspiring them to come up, make their own investments, then come up with their own chips and develop their own industry. So, you know, if there's a company that could give back some gains and be fine, it'd be Nvidia. But just the amount of time they're spending trying to navigate this bullshit as opposed to making a better chip, you can just see there's, this is, this is the Republican

• 16:33Scott Galloway?

  argument. Government needs to get out of the way with stuff like this. And this is creating just a lot of unnecessary time and energy and waste. But the export ban hands the Chinese AI market over to domestic competitors, including Huawei. So it's kind of a gift. Again, I keep thinking that all of this kind of, kind of bubbles up to medium and long-term gains for, for China. I think, I used to think that China's hit a pretty big speed bump the last five or seven years, and then America was pulling away. I think over the next, actually, everyone talks about our ability to ruin China's, China's economy. I think in two or three years, relative to US performance, China's gonna, and maybe India, it'll be interesting

• 17:18Scott Galloway?

  to see what India does, but I think China's gonna, China's gonna outperform.

• 17:22Ed Elson?

  Yeah, I think to your point, if you're very worried about China, then creating this all-out ban on, on sending any AI chips to China is probably reasonable. What's funny just is that this was supposed to be the tech industry's guide. But then we keep seeing these policies that can only spell just disaster from a supply chain perspective for many of these big tech CEOs. And so how is Jensen gonna deal with it? Is he gonna continue to, you know, fall in line and, you know, be quite polite and gracious towards the president? Or is he gonna start getting upset? And we saw this trip to China, maybe that's an indication

• 18:06Ed Elson?

  that he's about to move in the other direction. I think that's the thing that we want to keep an eye on. How do you? Manage your public relationship with the president. I think at first we saw they all decided we're going to kowtow to him. We're going to show up to the inauguration, we're going to donate to the inauguration fund, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I can see that beginning to change in the next few months or so. Once they all realize this guy isn't really making through on the promises that he that he told us.

• 18:35Scott Galloway?

  I agree, and this, we'll talk more about this in predictions, but I think the worm has turned. I think that essentially there's an enormously ripe opportunity for for people in both the Republican Party and in corporations to stand up and go basically what the Harvard president did said, you know, look, look, boss. What you're doing is wrong and we're not going to put up with it. And we're not going to try and kiss your ass and massage and figure out a way to couch, you know, to call your, your, you know, your quote unquote 4D chess of eating the pieces somehow genius. We've had it, you're, you're, they're going to find a polite, starched way to say, you're a fucking idiot and we're not down with this.

• 19:17Scott Galloway?

  And it's been striking the silence from these guys. All 500 S and B CEOs think this is just fucking stupid, bad for America, bad for everybody. Zero of them have spoken out because what Trump has done is created an incentive system where for short term shareholder value, just stay quiet and nod and announce that you're building a $500 billion plant that you're always planning to encredit him and give him a million bucks. That has changed. There's now an enormous consumer opportunity to stand up and, and, you know, be an American and show some leadership.

• 19:51Ed Elson?

  I think at a certain point, once, once your market cap is eviscerated as much as many of these companies are, you don't really have a choice.

• 19:59Scott Galloway?

  You know who's perfect for this?

• 20:00Ed Elson?

  Who?

• 20:01Scott Galloway?

  Because they are an aggressive brand, they're an American brand.

• 20:05Ed Elson?

  Palantir.

• 20:07Scott Galloway?

  I don't think it's Palantir. I think Palantir is so overvalued right now. To your point, it needs to be a company that's been gotten the shit kicked out of it and doesn't have a lot to lose. I think this would be the gangster move for Nike.

• 20:18Ed Elson?

  Great point.

• 20:19Scott Galloway?

  I think, cause they came out, they came out for soft.

• 20:22Ed Elson?

  The all American company, yeah.

• 20:23Scott Galloway?

  Well, Elliott Hill doesn't have a lot to lose, stocks at a 12 year low. He's in a honeymoon phase, is the new CEO. They have a history of being unafraid around politics. They were very smart around the Colin, capturing the moment with Colin Kaepernick. If they weaponize Whedon Kennedy or some of the most creative people in the world and said, there's something about America and competition and fair play. And having people from different backgrounds and the power of immigrants who become American and in sport, they could come up with something really moving that highlights what's going on here is not American. And look at it through the lens of sport and look at it through the lens of a great American company like Nike.

• 21:06Scott Galloway?

  And to your point, they don't have a lot to lose at this point. There has never been a bigger, a more ripe opportunity for a Fortune 500 CEO to stand up and say, all right, you know, the men have shown up.

• 21:20Ed Elson?

  And they're saying the quiet parts out loud. I mean, it's, they know that everyone else agrees with them. And those are usually the people who are rewarded, who are the people who are the first ones to say it.

• 21:29Scott Galloway?

  It's a smart move economically. The wealthiest 10% control 50% of the consumer economy now.

• 21:36Scott Galloway?

  And what percentage of those people do you think are waiting for someone to stand up and to call bullshit on all this bullshit? There's an enormous opportunity for a consumer brand to come out and be the good guys here.

• 21:47Ed Elson?

  Also enormous risk in being the second, third, fourth or fifth one to come out and and and say like.

• 21:54Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, the juice is squeezed. The first guy who does this, the juice is squeezed. The Harvard president, this was the best brand move of 2025 year to date, probably. It was Harvard, all of a sudden they look like the good guys in Columbia.

• 22:06Ed Elson?

  But if all the other Ivies start to follow suit, they, they look weak.

• 22:09Scott Galloway?

  I wouldn't say they look weak, they just don't look as good.

• 22:12Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Scott Galloway?

  The first CEO who stands up and says, okay, come after me, have at it, sees a massive inflow of goodwill from foreign and domestic manufacturers and consumers. And the person that goes, the half-life here, the drop-off will be enormous. And numbers two, three, four, five, and six get 10% of the credit that the first person gets. This is, and no one's done it yet. Even, even a guy like Jamie Dimon's been kind of like dancing around, being like, just in case you want me as Treasury Secretary, I'm here and I don't want to say anything to offend anybody. You know, enough already, enough.

• 22:49Ed Elson?

  Absolutely. Let's move on to Jerome Powell, his comments, and then Trump's response. I just find this hilarious because you actually look at Jerome Powell's comments, they were incredibly tame. And I'll just read you what he said here. He said, quote, "These are very fundamental policy changes. There isn't a modern experience of how to think about this. The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated. We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual mandate goals are in tension." Very uncontroversial thing to say, you know, calling it like it is, but calmly and without being aggressive or pugnacious. And then Trump goes on this tweet

• 23:34Ed Elson?

  storm, or his truth storm, saying, quote, "Powell's termination cannot come fast enough." Exclamation point. Essentially threatening that he's going to fire the Fed chair. Now, many people are arguing whether that's even possible. Technically it is, but he needs to have a reason. You can only fire a member of the Board of the Fed for cause. So he needs to have proven that he's done something legitimately wrong. But beyond that, just kind of remarkable to see the president threatening the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Scott, your reactions?

• 24:11Scott Galloway?

  It's very difficult to predict the actions of the Mad King at this point. But I do, you do get the sense, based on him blinking last week, that he does listen to the markets. And if you want to talk about waking up to a 3.5, maybe even an 8,000-point drop in the Dow, fire Chairman Powell.

• 24:32Scott Galloway?

  Because a key component and accepted general best practice across Western economies is you have to insulate the head of the bank, the central bank and the Fed or whatever the equivalent institution is, you have to separate it, you have to give it protection or immunity from political pressure because these guys are all so horny for power. The economy, most people have voted out of office. The number one reason is people are dissatisfied with the economy. And the easiest way to juice the economy is just to call, you know, the chairman and say, I'm going to fire you unless you cut interest rates by, I need you to announce five cuts and the market will go up. That could be disastrous though for the economy.

• 25:15Scott Galloway?

  And these people are supposed to just look at all the data and do their best job and decide interest rates and take into account the million points of light they observe and do what is best for the economy over the medium and long term, not based on what is going to get this guy reelected. The scary part is, I think his term is up next year, is that right?

• 25:34Ed Elson?

  2026, yeah.

• 25:35Scott Galloway?

  So the scary part is who does he put in? Does he put in ass clown Lutnik? I mean, does he put in Stephen Miller?

• 25:40Ed Elson?

  Does he put in Kid Rock?

• 25:42Scott Galloway?

  We're cutting interest rates to 0%. Let America bloom, let our companies run. And it's like, okay, now we have 22% inflation with, I mean, Chairman Powell, arguably, if you consider him technically part of the administration, is the most competent person in the administration or has the best reputation. So I think the next Democratic president is going to give him the National Medal of Freedom.

• 26:06Ed Elson?

  Yeah. It really is just inflation 101. Like you look at any society or an economy where you've had runaway hyperinflation, you look at Zimbabwe, you look at Venezuela, you get all these other-

• 26:18Scott Galloway?

  Weimar Germany.

• 26:19Ed Elson?

  Weimar Germany, all these other situations. And basically what happens is the central bank loses its independence, it becomes captive to the dictator. The dictator says, you know, I want to juice the economy. They start printing money like crazy to meet all these short-term demands and then suddenly you have runaway inflation. This is not unlike that. And Trump is literally threatening him and ordering him to cut rates. He's calling him too late Powell. And this is coming at a time when inflation is set to explode because of what we're seeing with the tariffs. Like it's- It's kind of funny how stereotypical the situation is when you look through history

• 27:01Ed Elson?

  and why runaway inflation happens in the first place. Now, we're not at that point, and the good news is we have a great Fed chair who is rational, sensible, but most importantly, very strong, clearly. I don't think he's going to reverse any decision just because Trump told him to. But again, the implication here is pretty massive. You know, if Trump were successful in removing Powell, it would be a huge hit to the stock market, as you say, also to the treasury markets. And what we'd see in the yield, we wouldn't be at four and a half percent. We'd be hitting five, six, probably seven percent. I mean, it would totally eviscerate our credibility in the debt markets.

• 27:46Scott Galloway?

  So I have a friend who lives in London, who has a company doing independent research on media and technology. And his name's Richard Kramer. He runs this niche, very high quality research firm. I think it's called Aret. I don't know. It's like some name that's hard to pronounce. Anyways, he sent me an email saying the following. Did you see the B of A survey? Global fund managers' interest in investing in U.S. is at a 30-year low. So what does that mean? It means we're going to have to raise our, you know, we're going to have to raise the interest rates we pay for money to come in, and that's going to be inflationary.

• 28:27Scott Galloway?

  This is really, I'm like, I'm trying to work through all the second order effects here. Can you imagine what's going to happen to the earnings of export and import dependent companies?

• 28:38Ed Elson?

  Exactly. We haven't even seen the earnings yet, and it's going to be in a few months from now. Like, we haven't even been able to price any of this in yet properly.

• 28:45Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, they don't know what to order. They don't know if to stop all shipments. They can't just flip a switch and massively reconfigure their supply chain and start getting...

• 28:55Scott Galloway?

  You know, start getting outdoor furniture from overnight from Chile as opposed to China. It's just, yeah, I gotta think there's, you are gonna hear the term uncertainty and impact from tariffs in almost, it's gonna be a more common used phrase than AI in earnings calls over the next three months. Everyone's gonna be like, they'll blame, and some of it'll be untrue, some of it just becomes, are performing well, but they'll blame everything. It is gonna be, literally everyone's gonna blame everything on this.

• 29:27Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back after the break with a look at how the world is pushing back on tariffs. If you're enjoying the show so far, be sure to give the Prof G Markets fee a follow wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:45Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Superhuman. The pace of modern work can be relentless. You're getting a constant influx of messages from a ton of different apps. You haven't closed all your browser tabs in a year. Everything seems urgent and staying on top of it all feels like an impossible task. Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, help you be the best version of yourself at work. It handles the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the work that only you can do. Whether you need to summarize an endless email thread or prep for a meeting that's happening in five minutes, Superhuman Go works inside the tools and sites you already use, your browser, inbox, docs, and your project tools.

• 30:26Scott Galloway?

  And its AI chat is available on the side of your browser and it's always ready. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. This is AI that works with you, not on top of you, so that you have the time and brain space to solve the problems that matter. Check it out. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 30:48Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The Ragentic Trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof?

• 31:33Scott Galloway?

  Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash prof G for $1,000 off. Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently.

• 32:17Scott Galloway?

  The Ragentic Trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof? Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash prof G for $1,000 off.

• 33:07Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. The trade war is officially on and Trump's strategy for the US is clear. Shock and awe tariffs. But other countries aren't sitting still. They're responding with strategic moves of their own. China is leading the economic pushback. China's central bank told state owned banks to cut their US dollar purchases. It also ordered its airlines to stop deliveries of Boeing jets and they curbed their rare earth exports to the US. But it's not just China. Canada is starting to boycott US goods such as American whiskey. Brazil passed a bill to impose their own tariff countermeasures. And in Denmark, the largest grocer in the country is putting Black Star labels on European

• 33:51Ed Elson?

  products to encourage a boycott of American products. So Scott, the world appears to be coalescing against a common enemy here in the US. Any thoughts on how this might all play out and what we as investors should do about it?

• 34:12Scott Galloway?

  I mean, there's just some of the most basics of strategy. If you're 5% of the world's economy or world's population, but you have a quarter of its economic growth or a quarter of its prosperity, you are highly levered to the upside. And some of that comes from this most basic of advantages as a species. You have leveraged the most basic species and that is cooperation. And generally speaking, the US believes in free trade. We make outstanding products. So we say to people, okay, well, for the most part, we'll compete and we win on a regular basis. And to declare war on everyone all at once is just, okay, that, that absolutely, you

• 34:57Scott Galloway?

  know, makes no sense. In addition, his second really big strategic error was underestimating the competition. While we have issued tariffs based on some junior economic analysts.

• 35:10Scott Galloway?

  And fed it into ChatGPT. And he's claimed that 75 nations are lining up to talk to us. We don't have, in this administration, we don't have the human capital or the brain power to even begin those conversations, distinct to the fact it's a lie and all of these nations are lining up to exit relationships with the US. What they're doing is they're having conversations with each other. There are more. It's really interesting. Donald Trump's actions are actually going to inspire, in my opinion, some growth over the medium and long term, because I think every, I think he is going to say, all right, enough of this shit. The best way to fight back is for us to put our shit aside and deregulate and to bring down trade barriers. You're just going to see all these strange bedfellows to say, hey, Brazil, we're Denmark.

• 35:55Scott Galloway?

  Why don't we lower all of our trade barriers and, you know, you buy more, I don't know, more cobbler shoes and we buy more steak or whatever. I don't know what it is that Denmark, what did the Danish produce?

• 36:06Ed Elson?

  Ozempic.

• 36:07Scott Galloway?

  Oh, is that right? Is that where Novo Nordisk is?

• 36:09Ed Elson?

  Yep.

• 36:10Scott Galloway?

  Oh, there you go.

• 36:11Ed Elson?

  But, I mean, just as an example here, I mean, we're seeing, we're beginning to see that in very niche categories. For example, Cote d'Ivoire, which produces 40% of the world's cocoa, they're now throttling their prices on the US and now forming a partnership with the EU. So, I mean, just small examples like that, where you have little nations that are kind of like, wait, what are these stuffs and why are you trying to hurt us? And the natural response is to go find allies somewhere else. But then you look at China's actions, which are probably the most dangerous to our economy.

• 36:52Ed Elson?

  I mean, I mentioned that boycott of Boeing jets. I mean, China has historically accounted for a quarter of Boeing's sales.

• 37:02Scott Galloway?

  Our biggest exporter by dollar by Boeing.

• 37:05Ed Elson?

  Largest exporter. They're also curbing these rare earth minerals. And these are the materials we use to create jets, to create satellites, to create batteries. And they control 90% of the global production supply of rare earth minerals. And it does sort of beg the question, like, can we actually win this? I mean, even if China is our enemy, even if we...

• 37:33Ed Elson?

  Do want a trade war if we decide that's something we actually want. Are we actually going to win that? Especially if they start teaming up with everyone else. Is this like even a winnable war?

• 37:43Scott Galloway?

  We're a services economy. We talk about Boeing and big manufacturers and, you know, Jack Daniels. At some point, it's going to jump the shark. And the biggest IPOs in the world of companies not headquartered in the US. They're going to say, we're not using Goldman or JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley. We're going to go with Deutsche Bank.

• 38:01Ed Elson?

  HSBC.

• 38:03Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, we're going to go with other investment banks. We don't need this bullshit. And by the way, David Solomon and Jamie Dimon, grow a fucking pair. Say something for God's sakes. And that's the opportunity. David Solomon, who I know, if he just came out and said, this is just fucking insane. I think he would get a torrent of this. Their best business, the business they've all tried to evolve is wealth management. Cause it's much more predictable. They can produce between 50 and 100 basis points a year on AUM from wealthy people by managing their taxes, being thoughtful. And by the way, I know firsthand, they do a great job. They do a great job and it's a better business because it's not subject to all these fluctuations from the market. If they want more AUM, they should come out and say, this is bullshit.

• 38:47Scott Galloway?

  Canada is our friends. The EU is, they are our friends. These are our allies. You know what's going to happen? A bunch of really super wealthy people are going to say, oh my God. I'd like to invest in the company run by a guy who has fucking testicles. There is such a huge opportunity for one of these guys to stand up and say enough is enough and couch it as we have wonderful relations with companies and people in Europe. JP Morgan does a huge amount of business in Europe and in Asia. And they are going to see Trump full of bluster and anger and threaten to weaponize the DOJ against him. And then like a cat chasing a fucking red dot who'll go on to the next thing.

• 39:31Scott Galloway?

  And that company is going to get more business over the next 12 or 24 months. Cause you know what, Ed? The North remembers. The North remembers. And right now, the North is everyone else. They will remember who actually stood up to this shit. There is never, it's never the wrong time to do the right thing.

• 39:50Ed Elson?

  Just on that point that we're sort of declaring war on everyone else and, and what a ridiculous idea that is, this, this reminds me, I've been thinking about, about this amazing joke by one of my favorite comedians, Norm MacDonald, where he's talking about the German strategy in World War I and in World War II.

• 40:12Speaker 06

  There is one country that worries me though, not Iraq, not Iran, not North Korea. The only country that really worries me is the country of Germany. I don't know if you guys are history buffs or not, but

• 40:32Speaker 06

  in the early part of the previous century, Germany decided to go to war. And who did they go to war with? The world.

• 40:44Speaker 06

  It had never been tried before.

• 40:47Speaker 06

  And so you figure that would take about five seconds for the world to win, but no, it was actually close.

• 41:00Speaker 06

  Then about, then about 30 years pass and Germany decides again to go to war and again, it chooses as its enemy, the world.

• 41:14Ed Elson?

  Yeah, I just, I love that clip.

• 41:16Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, and now Germany's the good guys.

• 41:17Ed Elson?

  But I mean, is that not what's happening in America right now? We have chosen the world as, no one puts it as our enemy?

• 41:24Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, take on everyone all at once, including university. I mean, they're taking on everywhere. Who is he not at war with right now? Uh, let me think, universities, every foreign nation. I mean, it's just, okay, who, who, who's next? What's next? We're all kind of waiting for.

• 41:44Scott Galloway?

  We're waiting for one of two things. We're waiting for it to get much, much worse, or we're waiting for someone to show up. There, I don't, I don't think I've ever seen a vacuum of leadership like this. I don't, the Democrats seem neutered. There's no one who's emerged. I'm, I did a podcast, I was on Governor Newsom's podcast yesterday or two days ago.

• 42:07Ed Elson?

  Oh, wow.

• 42:08Scott Galloway?

  And I, I basically said, I think someone should announce they're running for president and start, if someone announced today they were running for president, they'd be the leader of the Democratic Party and they would be on TV every day making, hitting a series of softballs out of the park, just responding to all this ridiculous shit.

• 42:29Ed Elson?

  They need a new guy. Are you gonna do it?

• 42:31Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, that's right. A chicken in every pot of Cialis in every cupboard.

• 42:36Ed Elson?

  It's slowly, I mean, this is how movements start. It starts as a meme. It's sort of like, ha, that would be kind of funny, but it's, I'm increasingly hearing calls to Scott Galloway for president. I think we need a non-ironic, actual response from you on this question right now. Would you ever actually consider running for president?

• 42:56Scott Galloway?

  I have considered it. I had a company and some individuals call me and say, if you put up 10 million, we'll put up 10 million and you won't, you're not running for president, you're running for change. And that it's not about winning, it's about shaping the messaging and having an influence on America. The same way Andrew Yang made UBI more palatable in the redistribution of income. I mean, that was Andrew's real victory here. And I'm a narcissist. I have all the qualities to be president. I'm white, I'm male, and I'm a narcissist and I'm rich. So those are the primary considerations. The other thing though is you have to be, you have to like people. I don't have that.

• 43:30Ed Elson?

  You would, you would not be good at the meet and greets. I agree with you.

• 43:35Scott Galloway?

  And just to be very honest, I am, I'm 60 and the idea of lightning striking and I end up probably not winning, but maybe end up with an, you know, get two or three percent, which is enough to leverage myself into some sort of cabinet role. I want to hang out with my wife and kids and do amazing things and go to go to F1 and be irresponsible when I want to be irresponsible. And I don't I the reality is I don't feel that same sense of patriotism. If I was more patriotic, I think I would decide to give up eight years and try and do something more meaningful. But I've also decided, I think, Ed, I think the two of us right now, especially you, because you're younger and you're kind

• 44:18Scott Galloway?

  of coming into your sweet spot. I think we can have a lot of impact from outside the tent. And that is be unbridled, try and entertain, try and educate, and try and help get great leaders elected. I think there's a lot of really good people who'd be a lot more qualified and enjoyed a lot more than me. And that when I really ask myself, why am I receptive to calls to run for office? It's too much of my ego and my narcissism and not enough of a vision and a calling to help the country. And that is, that means I shouldn't run. And but what we can do is we can absolutely take our time, treasure and talent to help some of the amazing people who are out there and see what man or woman rises to the moment and get behind them.

• 45:04Ed Elson?

  What about if you got offered a position like a cabinet position? Would you take like, sort of go the Howard Lutnick route? Did you take Commerce Secretary, something like that?

• 45:12Scott Galloway?

  I just think there's so many people who would be so much better than me. Did you ever meet Gina Raimondo, the former head of Commerce? She was just so good, so intelligent. I just think there's so much. Michael Bennett should be Secretary of Education. Vivek Murthy would be an outstanding head of HHS. I just think there's so many incredible people. I think our job is to prop those people up. So I think people are mistaking some fame and some ability to articulate ideas over actual operational excellence.

• 45:45Scott Galloway?

  So I think I'm self-aware enough to know that, okay, how could, if you're really loyal to the country, if you really want to see America be America again, then part of that is saying, how can I be most effective? And so, no, I think our job, Ed, I'm going to run you for something such that I can get you to help me engage in massive tax avoidance when I'm 80 and just doing nothing but counting my pennies and yelling at people. I'll get you to become a senator, but until then, the two of us and the good people that are here at Prop G are going to help great Americans get elected and make America, America again.

• 46:23Ed Elson?

  I love that. We'll be right back with a look at the Meta Antitrust Trial. If you're enjoying the show so far, hit follow and leave us a review on the Prop G Markets feed.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 47:12Speaker 07

  Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline? That's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 47:21Speaker 08

  My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had: impressions.

• 47:29Speaker 07

  Cut the bullspend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 47:43Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Nutraful, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand used by over one and a half million people. When you get to the stage of life where you start to notice hair loss, you have a few options. You can shave it all off and enjoy your new look, or you can commit to a new team whose logo you wouldn't mind constantly spotting on a hat, or you can actually restore some of your hair's former glory with Nutraful. Nutraful has formulas built for men at different life stages, such as Nutraful Men for guys aged 18 to 49, or the new Nutraful Men 50 and older. It's the first product of its kind specifically made for men over 50. You can address the key root causes of thinning wherever you are in life. Grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in three to six months. Start

• 48:25Scott Galloway?

  Nutraful today and make the hat optional. Visit nutraful.com and enter promo code PROVGE for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out why Nutraful is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at nutraful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code PROVGE. That's nutraful.com promo code PROVGE.

• 48:54Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. After nearly six years of investigation, the Meta antitrust trial is finally underway. The case is focused on whether Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp violated competition laws. Mark Zuckerberg has already taken the stand. Potential upcoming witnesses include former COO Sheryl Sandberg, ex-CTO Mike Shropshire, and executives from rival social media platforms. The trial is expected to last up to two months. I'll just kick this off and highlight what's at stake here for Meta. If the FTC wins this case, and they could, it would be a huge deal for the company

• 49:33Ed Elson?

  and for big tech at large. We are increasingly seeing more momentum on the antitrust front. Google, in fact, there was just a judge just ruled that Google was operating a monopoly on the ad market and the server market, and that's the second time that's happened in less than a year. Of course, we covered back in August when Judge Maita in Washington, he declared that Google was a monopoly in the search market. So this is becoming a trend. Now, what would happen to Meta if the FTC won?

• 50:07Ed Elson?

  The most likely remedy that people are talking about is that Meta would have to sell WhatsApp and they'd also have to sell Instagram. And that is a huge deal because WhatsApp is one of their most popular products. They have almost three billion users. But also Instagram now makes up more than half of Meta's ad revenue. It was 50.4% coming from Instagram ads in 2025. So this would essentially dismantle the world's largest social media company. So Scott, first, just any initial reactions on what's happening with the Meta antitrust trial and how it's what's happening with antitrust at large with this new ruling on Google.

• 50:49Scott Galloway?

  The two greatest tax cuts in the modern economy would be the following. Well, okay, the third. Number one would be the ass clown gets reined in somehow. But distinct to that, one, if the Chinese and the American leadership were to kiss and make up, they have the ultimate supply chain of things we don't want to produce at that cost. We have IP and incredible consumption economy and innovation. It would lower everyone's costs in the world by 10 to 20%. The second biggest oxygenation of the economy would be if we broke up big tech. And that is because of the monopoly power they've established. One firm owns 50% or controls 50% of e-commerce, Amazon. One firm, 90% of search, Google.

• 51:34Scott Galloway?

  One firm, 70% of all social media. Meta, they're able to extract monopoly rents, whether it's the percentage they charge third-party retailers on their platform, whether it's search words, whatever it is. And the rents, and I've always said this, the greatest rents they're charging are non-economic. Think about the rents, and you don't know this because you don't have kids. The rents that Meta has raised on parents in the form of stress and strain, because they're so powerful and they have so much data and they have such mendacious leadership. And we allow them to get away with these things because of the idolatry of the dollar and this worship of technology.

• 52:16Scott Galloway?

  If you took those four companies and broke them into 11 or 12, who wins? Society wins because they're too powerful and they've made our discourse more coarse and they haven't been able to resist radicalizing young men on YouTube or depressing young girls on Meta.

• 52:33Scott Galloway?

  Society wins, the rents go down. Shareholders win. Can you imagine Instagram trades or Meta trades at about 7.7 times revenue? Can you imagine what an independent Instagram would trade at? A pure play Instagram? That company would trade at 15 to 20 times revenue. WhatsApp, instead of being a body bag of data to inform the core dying out platform of Facebook, they would try and turn it into what it is, a truly the largest global telco. And they'd start monetizing it. These companies, independent of one of each other, would create more competition, more shareholder value, more tax revenue, because I believe they'd be more profitable.

• 53:14Scott Galloway?

  They would increase wages because there'd be more companies trying to rent human labor. I mean, where do you, if you want to be in social media and make a shit ton of money, what are you going to go to Pinterest? No, you go to Meta. Pinterest basically gets everyone that Meta doesn't. You know, or what, you're going to go to Snap? I think those two firms are in business because Meta has made the conscious decision not to put them out of business so they can pretend they have competition. I'm serious. I think

• 53:38Ed Elson?

  That's a great point.

• 53:39Scott Galloway?

  Somebody came in and said, oh, we can put Pinterest out of business in six months. We're going to launch, we're going to launch Insta boards. And Zuckerberg said, no, talk to Nick Clegg or whoever else has their finger on the pulse of DC and goes, no, that they're shitty, their business model sucks, and it gives people the illusion we have actual competition. Just don't, just let them have their little four or five billion dollars a year and their eight billion dollar market caps. Meanwhile, we have a trillion dollar market cap. Just let them, let them survive to create the illusion of competition. The only people that lose in a breakup, it's almost impossible to find a breakup that didn't end up working for everybody. The only people that lose are the person who controls the voting shares, the super

• 54:23Scott Galloway?

  shares, who's decided they want to sit on the iron throne of all seven realms, not just Westeros.

• 54:27Ed Elson?

  Yeah, a lot there. I mean, what would it take for them to win the case? One, they need to prove that Meta suppressed the competition via these acquisitions. And the emails there are Incredible, and I'll go over a few of them in a second. And two, they also need to prove that Meta is indeed a monopoly. And those are two different arguments they need to prove. So on the first argument, the case is incredibly strong. And it's all because of these emails that they found from Zuckerberg and Sandberg and all these other executives. I'm just going to read off some of them to you right now. So Mark Zuckerberg in 2012, quote, Instagram and Path are nascent, but the network's established.

• 55:09Ed Elson?

  The brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large scale, they could be very disruptive to us. From an internal executive, quote, in the time it has taken us to get our act together on this, Instagram has become a large and viable competitor to us, which will increasingly be the future of photos. Sheryl Sandberg, 2012, quote, Instagram was growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion. And then, this is the best one. Mark Zuckerberg in 2008, in regards to the Instagram acquisition, he says, quote, "It is better to buy than to compete." And that is basically case closed right there. That is the FTC's smoking gun, is that email from Zuckerberg in 2008.

• 55:52Ed Elson?

  So they can definitely prove that Meta was suppressing the competition by just buying up these other companies. The trouble is proving whether or not Meta is actually a monopoly. And that is a harder argument to make because, you know, as you mentioned, there are all these other platforms now. There's TikTok, there's Snapchat, there's Pinterest, there's YouTube, even iMessage, which is technically competing with WhatsApp. And Meta shared this number. They shared that 20% of the total time spent on social media platforms today, 20% is accounted for by Meta. So at 20%, it is definitely harder to argue that this is a monopoly.

• 56:36Ed Elson?

  And I think if the FTC loses this case, it's going to be on that front. They're going to be able to prove very fair and square. Yes, Meta suppressed the competition by buying these companies. But did they also do that and successfully become a monopoly? And that's going to be a little bit harder to prove. And one final point here.

• 56:58Ed Elson?

  I just want to quickly highlight this incredible article in the Wall Street Journal that takes you through the negotiations between Andrew Ferguson at the FTC and Mark Zuckerberg. So the FTC actually offered to settle this case with Meta for $30 billion. But after Trump appointed this new guy, Andrew Ferguson, as the new chair of the FTC, Mark Zuckerberg called him and he gave him a counter offer. And Mark Zuckerberg's counter offer was $450 million. So a 99% discount on the original settlement offer. And apparently on that call, Mark Zuckerberg was very confident that Trump was going to back him up.

• 57:42Ed Elson?

  You know, he had just traveled to Mar-a-Lago multiple times. He just donated a million dollars to the inauguration fund. He went to the inauguration. He, as you point out, he appointed this former Trump advisor to the Meta board, Dana White. He'd just done this 180 on the content moderation policy. I mean, he had his full-on MAGA rebrand. And then Andrew Ferguson, they have the conversation, and he says no. So then Zuckerberg goes to the White House and he starts pleading with Trump to drop the case. And Trump was apparently considering it. But it wasn't until April 8th, when both Andrew Ferguson of the FTC and Gail Slater

• 58:22Ed Elson?

  of the DOJ, they both go to Trump and they say, no, Mr. President, you have to let this trial go through. And Trump was convinced. He gave them his blessing. And now here we are, Zuckerberg is back in court, back in the suit and tie, and it looks as if Meta may be broken up at this point. So it's an amazing story of Zuckerberg's failed attempts at kissing the president's arse. But it's also an amazing story of strength from Ferguson, from Gail Slater, who, as we have said on this podcast before, are actually highly competent litigators, highly competent regulators. And I think if there's anything that Trump has gotten right in this administration, it

• 59:07Ed Elson?

  would be hiring those two to run the FTC and the DOJ because they are proving that they are not to be fucked with.

• 59:13Scott Galloway?

  You know, we'll call balls and strikes. So far, I think we should commend the president on sticking to his guns here. The thing that's sad is that... Mark Zuckerberg, and I've said, Mark and Sheryl, I think there's few people you could point to that have made more money while doing more damage to America than Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg. But there's just no getting around it. They're both incredibly talented executives, and I would argue that Zuckerberg is probably the, really probably one of the business geniuses of the last 50 years. But when one of the most brilliant business minds has decided and is convinced that he can buy his way out of regulation by giving money to the Trump administration and traveling there, what does that say about our nation?

• 59:57Scott Galloway?

  And by the way, he still may be right. We'll see. I, I hope the president sticks to his guns here. But the brightest business mind, you know, in a generation puts a bunch of hardcore MAGA people on his board, shows up at the inauguration, gives money and says, okay, regardless of my violating laws, regardless of the fact I suppress competition, regardless of the fact that I'm levying huge taxes every day emotionally and mentally on our youth and on their parents, I think I can buy my way out of this in today's America. I hope he's wrong. I hope he's wrong.

• 1:00:34Ed Elson?

  Let's take a look at the week ahead. We'll see earnings from Tesla, from SAP and Alphabet. Scott, do you have any predictions?

• 1:00:43Scott Galloway?

  Well, it goes back to what we were saying. I think there's an enormous opportunity, and I do think the worm has turned and that, I mean, let me save you at, at business school, we have, we have ethics, we have leadership, and we have sustainability courses, and they each cost, every course costs $7,000. Let me save you $21,000. Ethics. Think about right and wrong. Think about what you're doing might be wrong or right. Like, there is a right and a wrong. Okay, that's the ethics course. Leadership.

• 1:01:12Scott Galloway?

  Do the right thing, even when it's hard. Boom, you're done with leadership. And the sustainability, thinking about doing the right thing, doing the right thing when it's really hard, you might make money out of it. You might actually make money out of it. Boom, you're done. I just saved you $21,000. My prediction is the following. I think there's such an enormous vacuum for leadership here that someone is going to step into it and reap enormous rewards, both in terms of their status, their leadership, what goes on their tombstone, and also shareholder value. I just think there's so many people lining up against this guy that he's losing his power. 100 third graders can line up against a big angry sixth grader if they're unified and

• 1:01:55Scott Galloway?

  this guy has given us reason to be unified. Someone is going to step into the void of leadership here. And the person I'm reminded of, or the situation, is a gentleman named Martin Niemöller. And Martin is credited with this fantastic quote that loosely is reduced to "first they came for." He was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany in the 20s and 30s. He was actually very kind of pro-Nazi and supported radically right-wing political movements. After Hitler came to power in 33, however, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler's interference in the Protestant church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule in prisons and concentration camps.

• 1:02:40Scott Galloway?

  And he's best remembered for his post-war statement, which begins, "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then, they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then, they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." And that is so powerful. And I think that when, on a very crude and economic level, when you don't speak out on behalf of our wonderful allies and other companies, and speak out on behalf of your own company, just wait, folks.

• 1:03:24Scott Galloway?

  In the long run, it's just really bad for you, not speaking out. And even on a more substantive level, when we allow people to be rounded up because they have the wrong tattoo, or because they're illegal undocumented workers, and send them to a hellscape prison...

• 1:03:42Scott Galloway?

  Just be careful when the knock comes on your door. This is a threat to everybody. And so I'm, I'm hopeful. I think America has a ton of great leaders. And I think this has gotten so bad. My prediction is in the next one, two, four weeks, we're going to see some prominent leaders and we don't, we can't guess that. Who knows where they come from, right? This Harvard president has shown real leadership. But I think that there's going to be several people step into this void of leadership and realize that I need to speak up.

• 1:04:17Ed Elson?

  This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Mia Silverio is our research lead. Isabella Kinsel is our research associate. Dan Shalon is our intern. Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Join us on Thursday for our conversation with Ryan Peterson, only on Prof G Markets.

• 1:05:24Scott Galloway?

  I mean, I remember when, was it the Challenger disaster? That's one of the things you remember where you were. I was in the shower of my fraternity and this guy came in and, and first he gave me head. It was that kind of fraternity. And then, I don't know. Why do I find that funny? You always find that funny.

• 1:05:46Speaker 09

  When you shop pickup at Kroger, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries selected just for you. Our associates are committed to getting every detail right, carefully handpicking your items, checking for quality and freshness, and packing your order with care. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. And right now, enjoy $20 off your first online order of $75 or more. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger. Fresh for everyone.

• 1:06:16Speaker 10

  Looking for a simple way to thank your clients or recognize employees for a job well done? A Starbucks Card is more than a gift. It's a pick-me-up, a break in their day, and a reminder that you appreciate them. Whether you're shopping for digital or physical cards in bulk, Starbucks Cards are the perfect gift to brighten anyone's day. Share the joy of coffee and connection when you give the gift of Starbucks. Shop Starbucks Cards in Bulk now at StarbucksCardV2B.com.

• 1:06:44Speaker 11

  Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order.

• 1:07:12Speaker 04

  1-800-CONTACTS.