Howard Lutnick: How America Can Hit 6% GDP Growth in 2026

(0:00) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tells a hilarious Air Force One story (2:24) Chamath intros Secretary Lutnick (7:28) Full scope of the Commerce Department (12:59) How Trump's tariff agenda was planned and executed, how it's going (19:50) US-Japan trade deal, China's chaos-to-prowess strategy (36:54) Why the India deal has not yet happened (43:48) Pharma deals, lowering costs for Americans (53:28) Focus on fraud, immigration, gold cards (1:03:48) GDP: Could we see 5 or 6% growth in 2026? (1:11:49) How the Trump Admin revamped the CHIPS Act, Nvidia deal Follow Secretary Lutnick: https://x.com/howardlutnick Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect

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

• 0:00Howard Lutnick?

  What was the feeling the first time you were on Air Force One? It's just cool. Or Marine One, like is there a special thing where you're just like, what is going on? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when you're on these things, like,

• 0:13Howard Lutnick?

  it's amazing. Yeah. Right? You are where real conversations happen. We went to see Putin. So I get on Air Force One at 5:00 AM. He gets on at 5:45. We fly to Alaska. Alaska, right. So, we're talking about, then we, we're there for four hours with Putin. And then, we fly back. Now, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff go take a nap. Because we have to wait for Zelensky to wake up. To call Zelensky and we have to wait for the European leaders to wake up. Because it's the middle of the night. So I stay up with the President. And, we're just chatting, like, we're just chatting.

• 0:57Howard Lutnick?

  Watching golf, I mean, we're just, like, it's a lot of hours. Yeah. So, then Zelensky wakes up. Uh, so they get on the phone with Zelensky. And he talks to Zelensky on his phone. And then, when he calls the European leaders, when they get up, they want to have us only secure a call. So there's three secure handsets in his office. So he's on one.

• 1:20Howard Lutnick?

  Rubio's on one. And Witkoff's on one. And I'm just sitting on the couch. This is in, in Air Force One? In Air Force One, in his office, in Air Force One. So I'm just sitting on the couch. And I've been up for like, 20 hours, okay? And, uh, and the President's been up for 20 hours. But he's on the phone and the European leaders are talking, so I'm just sitting there. And they're all on handsets. So I can't hear a word that anybody's saying. Right. And I'm just sitting there, so I, uh, I fall asleep. Okay, so I'm just sitting there, they're talking on the phone, like, right there, and I fall asleep like this. So I'm like that. So Witkoff, elbows the President. Right? Points to me. And then he, uh, the President unrolls a tutsy roll. And he's like this. He tries to throw it into my mouth. Yeah.

• 2:04Howard Lutnick?

  He hits me in the face, I'm like, I wake up, he goes, he goes, "Howard, while you're napping, we're trying to settle world peace."

• 2:14Howard Lutnick?

  That's awesome.

• 2:25Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Well, welcome everybody to the All In interview. I'd like to welcome Secretary Howard Lutnick, our esteemed Secretary of Commerce. When we did the first interview with you, it was at the beginning of the administration. It was almost a year ago. And to be honest, it turned out to be one of the most popular things we've ever done. There's the Elon Musk view factor, but then there was the Howard Lutnick view factor, and they were pretty much side by side, actually. It's great that you gave us a chance a year later to come back and talk to you. Let's just start with the general look back for you. How has the year gone? And specifically, I would love to understand what surprised you as a businessman walking into the government? Let's just start with that.

• 3:08Howard Lutnick?

  So, overall, you know, I have a goal, which is I want to be the Cabinet Secretary who has the most fun, right? And so I set out with that goal, and which means I am outcome-driven. I don't, I don't really buy into I worked really hard at something and it failed. If I worked really hard and it failed, it's a fail.

• 3:35Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It's a fail.

• 3:36Howard Lutnick?

  Right? If I got lucky, and it just all fell into place and I did nothing, it's still success, right? Because the outcomes are what matter.

• 3:43Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 3:44Howard Lutnick?

  You know, you're not telling people how hard you worked and failed.

• 3:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 3:46Howard Lutnick?

  So, how you get things done in government is fascinating. It's just different. What happened is most people who've ever been in government tend to be incremental. They come in, they say, "How did this work?" So someone explains how they work, and they try to move the ball 10% forward. They don't really rethink it entirely. And so my objective was to come into this department, which is an awesome, incredibly diverse department, and really think through its powers and its possibilities.

• 4:29Howard Lutnick?

  Reimagine them, rethink them, hire people, and then mold those people to think outside the box. And so the first three months was really... Getting people to think, can I really challenge this? Can I really do this? Can I really try to do this? And then trying to convince everybody around me that this is an okay way to do it. You, the way it was done yesterday, isn't right. It was just what they did yesterday. You're not even saying it's wrong. You're just saying it's not you.

• 4:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Do you get the organ rejection, though, of career bureaucrats who think, wait a minute, Howard's out for my job? Or this is just a totally different way of doing things? I don't feel comfortable with this. I don't necessarily agree. We hear a lot about sort of this deep state, whatever that is, like this career lifers that sort of push back on radical change.

• 5:22Howard Lutnick?

  Well, look, in the beginning, we cut, you know, 20%. Like, I walked in the door here with 52,000 people in this department. And now there's 40,000 people in this department. So the idea is if you're going to cut 12,000 people, you have to do it fast.

• 5:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 5:42Howard Lutnick?

  So that everybody understands the next shoe is not going to drop tomorrow. Right? And find where, we had programs that just were like, this program was started in 1978. You'd be like, well, why are we doing it now? We had a department that was supporting advanced manufacturing, set up in 1986. What were they doing as advanced manufacturing 40 years ago as opposed to what people are doing now?

• 6:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 6:10Howard Lutnick?

  So that, so it was really not taking out what's the core. And so we did that quickly. And then, you know, I went and met every bureau at town halls. I went to their offices and I basically...

• 6:29Howard Lutnick?

  Told them where we were going, what we were doing and why. What I learned about government is the people here are very narrow experts. They're amazing. Their knowledge of this particular topic. So there's not generalists in government, but you have someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this. And then your job as the secretary is to weave that blanket together.

• 6:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 6:59Howard Lutnick?

  So that these specialists succeed. And so when you give them tasks that maximize their capacity, they get jazzed.

• 7:11Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 7:11Howard Lutnick?

  And so I'm getting amazing output from this department because they're jazzed because someone appreciates their capacity and is driving it to success.

• 7:24Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I want to jump into some of these verticals of expertise that you oversee, but it may be useful for the audience, actually, if you just gave an overview of the scope of commerce, because it is incredibly vast, from trade to job creation, to NOAA, to the Census Bureau, to spectrum. There's a lot of things that you can shape on behalf of the United States.

• 7:47Howard Lutnick?

  So tariffs, which have been a big conversation. There's two types of tariffs. There's general tariffs, that's in front of the Supreme Court. And then there's sectoral, specific tariffs. Those that are specific, industry specific, are in this building. Okay?

• 8:06Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Howard Lutnick?

  And they're part of BIS, the Bureau of Industry and Security. Right? And that is both where we have export controls. We don't want to sell our best chips to our adversaries. We don't want to sell whatever is the fill-in. That's the Bureau of Industry and Security. Or do we want a license? Just to make sure you use it in this sort of way or that sort of way. All of that is, and they have guns and badges. Right, so they have guns and badges. Yeah. Right, because they have to protect and defend that. And they find people. And that's, and they also control the auto tariffs, the steel tariffs.

• 8:48Howard Lutnick?

  Uh, pharmaceuticals, which we can talk about a bunch because it's been insanely successful driving down the price of, uh, pharmaceuticals in America. And, um, so that's the Bureau of Industry and Security, B I S. Then you have I T A, um, which basically is the advocate for business, right? We're, I'm the Secretary of Commerce. So that's like a fun job, like you're in charge of commerce. So we help companies sell things around the world. That's our job and we help states sort of bring in business to build and grow here. So we're the sort of the import, export assist model. Right, so we're always helping Boeing.

• 9:33Howard Lutnick?

  You know, so the guys, the senior executives of Boeing follow me around like a puppy. Cause everywhere at time I do a deal. And if you look at my big deals at the end, it says they buy 50 Boeing planes. You know, they buy a hundred Boeing planes. So we're always helping American companies sell overseas. And we're helping companies invest in America. Right. Right? Help them, help them with their permits, help them with whatever they need to build and grow. So we can grow our American jobs here. So those are, those are two examples. Then we have, um, N T I A, right? Telecommunications. That includes spectrum. Like, how are we going to do six G? Like, how are we going to do six G? Like, how, how do the pieces fit together?

• 10:16Howard Lutnick?

  That's our responsibility as the lead advisor. Right? And then inside of that, of course, we have the A I. The Center for A I, uh, advancement, right? So we study and then we put out reports. Like when Deep Sea comes out with their new model. Right, and there's all this press about it. Our department literally painstakingly studies it as compared to our models. And publishes what's the difference. Right. So that we actually, there's a standard of knowledge. Right. Not, you know, the press making this, that, or the other thing. So, and then we put out GDP.

• 11:00Howard Lutnick?

  Right, and we analyze and what's interesting about GDP is people don't realize what we do is we use the census. So there's business census calling around to companies. Uh, and it's not really calling around anymore. It's more, you know, economic connection to companies through APIs and otherwise. And one of the keys for me is to, uh, to get rid of everything that's manual that's left. And make it all automated, make it all connected with APIs, make it all, make it make sense. Right. You can do it amazingly well. Create GDP and then we put GDP out on the blockchain. Because if I'm publishing GDP, why not? Yeah. Like where, where's the holdup? And you started doing that in July, I think. I mean, how fun is that to say? Yeah. Why don't we do that?

• 11:45Howard Lutnick?

  And then, you know, we go to the Oval Office, I chat with the President, he goes, great. And then we do it. I mean, the reason you want to work for President Trump is his intuition is so extraordinary. And his knowledge base is so amazing that I can go in and talk to him about, should we put GDP on the blockchain? And just before that, he was doing something completely different, something completely different. And then he'll chat with you about three or five minutes and it goes, yeah, that sounds great. And then you just go do it. So it's really fun. We have the patent office, you know, and, uh, if you think of how valuable intellectual property is. How do we protect it? How do we defend it? What's the right way to think about?

• 12:30Howard Lutnick?

  So then you have NOAA, which is, uh, you know, we have inside of NOAA, of course, is the word atmosphere.

• 12:39Howard Lutnick?

  Right, it's oceans and atmosphere. What does that mean? Oceans and above 50,000 feet is space. Space commerce. So I have now the Office of Space Commerce, which I've taken out of NOAA, and then put in my office so that I can reimagine how do we handle commercial satellites?

• 13:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Okay, so we're going to dig into as many of these areas as we can, but let's go back to the first one. So can you bring us into the room leading into April 1st?

• 13:09Howard Lutnick?

  April 2nd.

• 13:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  April 2nd, sorry. And bring us into the room debating tariffs, debating where you wanted to start, debating the game theory. What were the puts and takes? And how did you come up with the decisions you made? And then if you could just reflect back on what went right? What would you want to redo? And what was maybe, and it still is misunderstood?

• 13:33Howard Lutnick?

  So the president in his first term, he's been talking about tariffs and how the trade deficit of the United States of America is really a ripoff of America. That people who don't weigh in very deep say, well, you have a trade deficit with the supermarket. Right? You know, I mean, you're always buying from the supermarket. So you have a trade deficit with the supermarket. That's, that's just silly, right? If you think about it, let's say there are two islands. Right? One produces and one invents.

• 14:15Howard Lutnick?

  So the inventor lets the other island produce and keeps buying it from that other island, pays them the money. And then that other island uses the money to buy the inventor's island.

• 14:29Howard Lutnick?

  And over a period of time, the producer owns the inventor's island. And the inventor works for the producer because he ran an infinite trade deficit and kept paying his money away. So what's supposed to happen, when I was in college, my, you know, freshman and sophomore professors basically said, if you run a trade deficit, you'll keep taking your silly paper money and giving it to them and buy their wine and buy their cars and buy all their cool stuff. And sooner or later, they're going to say, hey, I don't want your stupid paper and your dollar would devalue.

• 15:11Howard Lutnick?

  You wouldn't be able to buy their stuff and it would all balance. And that's sort of free foreign exchange, floating currency theory. But what if you're America and you invent the light bulb and then you invent the transistor and then you invent the GPU and you're just too darn smart. So what they do with those dollars is they come in and buy us. In 1985, we had net ownership of the rest of the world. So comparing the rest of the world's ownership of America and our ownership of them, that counts everything, their bonds, company stock, every, everything.

• 15:53Howard Lutnick?

  We were net an investor of $148 billion, more of them than they owned of us. Fast forward to 2024, 26 trillion the other way. They own 26 trillion of us, more, more than we owned of them.

• 16:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What you're saying is we became effective employees of the people that were producing the things that we created.

• 16:21Howard Lutnick?

  Right. So when we, so the beginning, so Donald Trump says, we're getting ripped off, we need to fix this. Right? And, and sort of like these junior economists fight it and say, no, no, no, no.

• 16:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let me just stop for a second. That is the first time I've heard that it is an extremely elegant framing, actually. It sets up. An incredibly powerful way to measure the effectiveness of tariffs.

• 16:45Howard Lutnick?

  Right.

• 16:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Which is, and is that how you think about it? Which is that imbalance is the North Star?

• 16:50Howard Lutnick?

  Yes.

• 16:51Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Once we own at least the same of them as they do of us.

• 16:56Howard Lutnick?

  That's balance.

• 16:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's balance.

• 16:58Howard Lutnick?

  We're balanced.

• 16:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right, and right now, we're at a $26 trillion.

• 17:01Howard Lutnick?

  Why would we? Why would we have that? So what happens is, you call a country up. And you say, I'm gonna set a tariff. They say, wait, wait, wait. Before you set a tariff. How about this? We'll invest $200 billion in your country.

• 17:18Howard Lutnick?

  And Toyota will build a factory. And Siemens will build a factory. And they'll all build a factory. And I'm like. You're just buying us.

• 17:27Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 17:28Howard Lutnick?

  You're literally buying us. I understand. What's better for you? Investing $200 billion in America? Or investing $200 billion where? Where's better than investing here? So what happens is. That natural argument. Which was always previously successful. Falls on deaf ears. And I'm pointing over there because that's his office, okay? The White House is like right there. And it just. He says, you're only investing here because it's great for you.

• 18:05Howard Lutnick?

  The answer is. I want to rebalance. And that's what we're out to do. Build it here, sell it here? Fine. Fine. Or pay for the.

• 18:19Howard Lutnick?

  Privilege of selling it.

• 18:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  How did you set the rates?

• 18:25Howard Lutnick?

  Well. The president on the campaign trail. Had two views. The debate. And he was really debating with the team and inside his mind. Does he want to set a universal tariff? Or a specific country by country? Obviously, a universal tariff. It's easy. You know, Tuesday morning, you say.

• 18:55Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Pick a number.

• 18:56Howard Lutnick?

  10%, Shazam.

• 18:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 18:59Howard Lutnick?

  But we settled on a country-specific model. Much more complex.

• 19:06Howard Lutnick?

  Much more difficult. But much more nuanced, much more clever. Uh, and much tougher. And he couldn't do that in his first term.

• 19:14Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:14Howard Lutnick?

  Because he didn't have believers around. He had too much of the people who, who believed that, that sophomore professors ideals. And even though we were out $26 trillion, you know, they, they, they thought that was too casually common. And so, uh, this administration came in with incredibly sharp people. Me included, Jameson Greer, uh, Scott Besson, who were on side.

• 19:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:47Howard Lutnick?

  On board. Driving for these outcomes.

• 19:51Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's double click into a couple of these deals because some of the terms you got, it would be just great if you could walk us through how you convinced them. So let's look at Japan. So the Japan trade deal, you walked out with, I think it was $550 billion of commitment. And terms, I, I mean, I mentioned on the spot, I've never seen terms like this before. Which you can explain, which is basically, you know, Japan gets your money back, then you get 90% of the profits. But can you just walk us through, when you go into the room with the Japanese government? Just get us to the outcome. How do you negotiate that deal with them?

• 20:23Howard Lutnick?

  Okay, so let's spend some time in Japan because it's really, it's, it's fascinating. So

• 20:30Howard Lutnick?

  when thinking about Japan, I reminded the president in 1853, Admiral Perry went with an armada and cannons and still had trouble opening the Japanese market.

• 20:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 20:45Howard Lutnick?

  So the Japanese market for cars, as an example.

• 20:50Howard Lutnick?

  Ninety-four percent of cars driven in Japan are Japanese. They don't drive German cars, they don't drive Korean cars, they don't drive American cars. The only American cars really in Japan are Chevrolets driven by the Yakuza. So, you know, I mean, you can't come home with a Chevy. And people think, ooh, you know, you got a new job. Right, right. So it's a culturally, technically, and economically closed market. So even if you opened it technically, and even if you opened it economically, you may not be able to open it socially. So what we did is we said, all right, you're going to pay a 25% tariff. Simple.

• 21:36Howard Lutnick?

  You won't open your market, right? I can't get you to really open your market. So you just pay us 25%. And, uh, and that's simple. We don't have to negotiate, you know, we just pay for the right and the math will fix itself over time. So their leadership called and said, we, we can't do that. And, you know, when someone says, I can't do that, I'm like. And what, when you say why? Yeah, so, and they explained why. They said, look, the way the Japanese auto manufacturers work is the government subsidizes the machinery that went to small manufacturers.

• 22:20Howard Lutnick?

  So what they did is, let's say, company A could have a thousand small companies and they make the cup holder for this particular model. Right. And, and so they have 50 people who work at this company who make the cup holder. For Toyota. And that, right, for Toyota, but that, the machinery was subsidized by the government. And so you have thousands, tens of thousands of these companies. And so they can't pick them up and move them to America.

• 22:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let me ask you just a question before you go back to this. Was it surprising to you that, not just Japan, but I'm sure you encountered it everywhere, all these other governments would be willing to shape and subsidize their own domestic productivity? Whereas Americans were a little bit more on their own?

• 23:06Howard Lutnick?

  It's amazing. The subsidies, the assistance, the, it's not a level playing field.

• 23:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That everybody else does for their own domestic internal economy?

• 23:19Howard Lutnick?

  But not on every product.

• 23:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 23:21Howard Lutnick?

  But on many. I mean, like, you know, we set steel and aluminum tariffs. You'd say like, why, why do you do the whole steel and aluminum thing? You'd say, well, if the Chinese give power, give, G I V E, the power to the steel producer.

• 23:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Free.

• 23:37Howard Lutnick?

  Think of, think of steel, right? It's like brown dirt.

• 23:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 23:41Howard Lutnick?

  So you process the brown dirt to make an iron ore. But you've all seen it's like dirt.

• 23:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 23:46Howard Lutnick?

  And then you know how much power you have to put into that to melt it? To make it look like one of those things we've seen on TV where you're pouring the iron ore? And imagine if I gave you the power for free. You'd be making your steel for 250 bucks a metric ton.

• 24:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 24:01Howard Lutnick?

  And you'd say, how much does it cost in America? 700 bucks a metric ton. So they're going to put our guys out of business, which means they put our guys out of business. And then Japan subsidizes it. Korea subsidizes it. So maybe they can do it for 400 bucks a metric ton. And meanwhile, our, so we start with 40 steel blast furnaces. Now we have 10. And if we kept going, we were going to have

• 24:27Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Zero.

• 24:27Howard Lutnick?

  Zero. And then what happens is you become basically subservient if you need steel. You want to build your own missiles? You have to call another country. Now, they may be your allies like Japan and Korea. And you can call them, but you are not self-sufficient. So Donald Trump says, we need steel. We need aluminum. We need copper, right? And we need to make our own semiconductors.

• 24:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Howard Lutnick?

  Right? We need to make our own pharmaceuticals.

• 24:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 24:57Howard Lutnick?

  Like, and once you understand this.

• 25:01Howard Lutnick?

  Right? And, and you really think about it. Donald Trump is, not only is he completely correct, it, it actually goes to the thank God, right? Like, you study pharmaceuticals, and you really study it, and you say, well, these generic pharmaceuticals are made in India. Say, oh, yeah, good, India's our ally. But the ingredients come from China.

• 25:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Exactly.

• 25:23Howard Lutnick?

  So that if, you know, if there's one nut or bolt that you need, and it comes from China, they don't send it to you.

• 25:30Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 25:31Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Like, there were these things called magnets. Okay, magnets go in a car. The value of a magnet that goes in a car is 20 bucks. 20 bucks! Right? You're buying a $30,000 car. It's a $20 part.

• 25:47Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 25:48Howard Lutnick?

  But if they don't have it?

• 25:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Cars don't work.

• 25:50Howard Lutnick?

  Oh, sorry, it can't work.

• 25:50Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 25:51Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Where do we get that part from? Well, China sells them, they buy the dirt, the ingredient, for $55 a pound, and they sell you the finished magnet for $55 a pound. So no one's gonna make the magnet if you could sell the raw material for 55 bucks. So they're basically just losing money. And the answer is?

• 26:14Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right. Do you think that this mercantilism, was it a purposeful strategy to weaken America? Or do you think it was just a byproduct of capitalism?

• 26:23Howard Lutnick?

  The answer is, uh, yes. It, the Chinese economy is one of overproduction. They have 50 mayors, provinces, and each of those provinces is trying to succeed. So each of those provinces wants to build an electric car company. And the government puts in all the money, builds the capital, gives them the power, invest. So if you're the mayor, you want the winning electric car company. Because, remember, China does not have oil and natural gas. So they have to build electric because they have coal. Right? So they have to build electric. We don't. We're being fools to think that we should have batteries

• 27:07Howard Lutnick?

  and everything that they make that we don't. That's just foolish. But- So that means if you have fifty mayors and they all have what? One electric car company? Nah, nah, they're probably gonna have two just in case. So that's a hundred electric car companies and they're all trying to kill each other, subsidized by the government. So they can cut their price thirty percent. Why? Because the government just says, look, let's just try to undersell everybody else. And then they make so many cars. What do they do with all these cars?

• 27:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 27:37Howard Lutnick?

  So then they dump them and they take the electric car, which cost them thirty thousand, and they sell it in Europe for fifteen thousand. So you go to an electric car in Europe and say fifteen thousand for this car? This is an amazing car for fifteen thousand. That's because it costs thirty thousand.

• 27:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  To make, yeah.

• 27:55Howard Lutnick?

  So what happens is that has the effect of putting Volkswagen out of business.

• 28:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 28:02Howard Lutnick?

  So what happens is it's their model, which is an attack chaos model. But the attack chaos model has overcapacity. And then they turn that overcapacity into an asset. Says, let's dump the overcapacity. We're gonna lose a fortune. Okay, but the government's just paying. We're gonna dump that overcapacity into America, right? Or into Europe or into anybody who'll take it, right? We'll put their industry out of business and then we'll have them over a barrel. We'll turn our economic chaos into international prowess.

• 28:43Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And leverage, right?

• 28:45Howard Lutnick?

  So that's...

• 28:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And so then the tariffs now then basically slow that leverage down because it takes that economic incentive off the table. Do you need to follow up with some other set of structural changes, though, to right the ship in the long term? We have to domesticate production? Like, what are the things that we need to do so that in eight years or twelve years, if the tariffs were to change, if a different administration takes a different point of view, what is structurally going to be left behind that prevents this from happening again?

• 29:18Howard Lutnick?

  Well, with respect to China...

• 29:21Howard Lutnick?

  If we blink, they will sell below cost in America and drive our domestic companies out of business. And then we will be beholden to them. Hmm. That's sort of a simple man, right? I mean, if, if, if you think about it, they spend a fortune convincing everyone that they should be environmentally friendly and have an EV car. But if, if Europe doesn't make batteries and they say have all EV cars by 2030, then who are they gonna buy their batteries from? Hmm. They have to buy it from China.

• 30:02Howard Lutnick?

  And now, they need to buy it from China, which means, what is their foreign policy with respect to China? It's very positive. That's all, right? They trade economic, you know, basically, I've gotten prowess over you. Yeah. So that you're gonna let me do this, that, and the other thing. And eventually, you know, they're not playing with the same rules that we play. And so, when you go around the world, and you study the world, like, Japan doesn't do cars by the same rules that we do. So they had to have cars be lower than 25%.

• 30:47Howard Lutnick?

  25% was basically a number that choked them. And so, we analyzed together with them that 15% would be the number they could live with, right? And keep making cars and build more here. And then I said, well, but why would we, since you're not really gonna open your market? You're not really gonna let us have access. Um, how are we gonna do it? And then, I spent months going back and forth with the Japanese and President Trump with different ideas. How about this? So, if you suggested I got it right the first time, that would not be true. I got it right.

• 31:32Howard Lutnick?

  You know, I've, I've always described my business success in life, I always came at it like this. Okay? And then, this, this, this. Iterate the success. Sooner or later, I got through. So, what we came up with was...

• 31:48Howard Lutnick?

  Five hundred and fifty billion dollars. That this is not foreign direct investment. This is not Toyota building a factory in America. This is they literally will finance. Any project we want to build in America. As long as it's like a good cash flowing project. Nuclear. We want to build a hundred billion dollars of nuclear plants. They will pay for it. So what happens is they'll borrow the money on like a thirty year bond in Japan.

• 32:17Chamath Palihapitiya?

  So the Japanese government goes and raises the five hundred and fifty billion from their domestic bondholders.

• 32:21Howard Lutnick?

  From their domestic bond.

• 32:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right, so they're an LP to you and you're the GP.

• 32:25Howard Lutnick?

  Exactly the right thing.

• 32:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Howard Lutnick?

  They're an LP. They give us the equity.

• 32:29Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Howard Lutnick?

  We build the nuclear power plant. And then it starts selling power. And we split the cash fifty fifty. Until they get back their money plus their interest. So that means in thirty years. The taxpayers of Japan broke even. And their dividend was a reduced tariff. That every day they had a lower tariff. They have more employment. They had this and that. And you know what? What's their stock market's up twenties?

• 33:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Howard Lutnick?

  Up, not down.

• 33:06Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 33:07Howard Lutnick?

  Up. So, um, you know, that that's the point, which is it didn't cost their taxpayers money over time. Right now, we it's pretty simple to understand how much we're going to make. You'd say, well, if it's five hundred and fifty billion and their interest rates are pretty low. So let's say over thirty years, you're going to get six hundred and fifty billion. When we pay them back six hundred and fifty billion. If you say to me, how much did America make? I would say six hundred and fifty billion because we split the money fifty fifty.

• 33:35Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 33:36Howard Lutnick?

  And after they get their money back because nuclear power plants last a long time.

• 33:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Howard Lutnick?

  Then the cash flow goes ninety to America and ten to Japan.

• 33:43Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And when you say to America, is there an account? How does that money then get spent or allocated or?

• 33:50Howard Lutnick?

  The only bank the United States of America has as far as like the Secretary of Commerce sees is called Treasury.

• 33:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Treasury.

• 33:58Howard Lutnick?

  So we have accounts at Treasury and all the money goes into Treasury. So all the tariff money goes into Treasury. All this money just goes into Treasury. So it reduces our deficit.

• 34:10Howard Lutnick?

  And it reduces, it is, it is taxes paid by others.

• 34:16Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 34:17Howard Lutnick?

  For us to get our house in order, right? That's why the president talks about the external revenue service, right? In this case, you're gonna make, you'd say, all right, well, over, over 20 years, you'd probably make 30 billion a year, right? That's 30 billion a year. You know how much tax we'd have to raise?

• 34:35Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Howard Lutnick?

  On Americans to cover 30 billion a year? That's 30 billion a year just on those trades. And then you have, the tariffs are 500 billion a year now, and they will grow over time to a trillion a year. And that money is not money we have to pay in taxes. And eventually, that puts our house in order, the lowers interest rates, drives our economy. But most importantly, we don't have to pay.

• 35:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  President Trump has talked about this. He said that as you kind of execute the tariff plan and extract this incremental capital, you could see a ratable reduction in income taxes. Is that the right way to think about this? Or do you think there are other ways to spend the money first that we need to before?

• 35:18Howard Lutnick?

  Who paid for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social security? Right? Tariffs.

• 35:27Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Tariffs.

• 35:28Howard Lutnick?

  So that's a, like, that's a down payment.

• 35:30Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 35:31Howard Lutnick?

  Right? But that's the idea. We should be able to reduce the tax burden from the bottom up.

• 35:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Help Americans who make less than $150,000, who earn overtime, who, who own, earn tips. Let's reduce their tax burden, right? Let's help Americans. And that's, by the way, that's 85% of America. It's not like it's a subset. And so I think the president is deeply focused on using the power of his administration to right a whole bunch of wrongs that have been ripped off about our country. And that we are the richest country in the world. And that means we don't have to take things away from people. Everybody assumes to, to balance the budget, if you asked a politician how you would fix social security, they would say, take the retirement age out.

• 36:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Out, right.

• 36:23Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Take away. They would never say, we are the greatest country on the earth. We have the greatest economy on the earth. Can't we figure out ways to enhance our revenues to keep?

• 36:38Howard Lutnick?

  The richest country in the world should be able to give people retirement at 65. We shouldn't change a darn thing. And that is his thinking.

• 36:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 36:47Howard Lutnick?

  And that's why it's so much more powerful than any politician before. Politicians think all they have to do is give or take, give or take, give or take, give or take.

• 36:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  The way that you've explained this, it makes an enormous amount of sense. It's like you set the stage of here's the historical imbalance. Here's how we want to reset it. We want some investment that we're going to get you whole foreign country. But at the end of the day, this is about American exceptionalism. It's worked in Japan. It's worked in Korea. You did the deal with Europe. You did the deal with the UK. What's sort of out there that's still there? I think India is kind of still out there, although it seems like they are capitulating a little bit. I saw that they just bought a lot of liquefied petroleum gas from the United States in November. What are the big sort of hot button places that you want to?

• 37:35Howard Lutnick?

  I'll tell you a story about India. So if you remember, so I did the first deal, the UK deal. And we told the UK that they had to get it done by two Fridays from now, that that was the date, that the train was going to leave the station by two Fridays, because I have a lot of other countries doing things and, you know, if someone else is first, they're first. And President Trump does deals like a staircase. First there gets the best deal.

• 38:07Howard Lutnick?

  You can't get the best deal after the first guy went. Everyone says, I want the UK deal. I want the UK deal. The answer is no, they were first. They took the chance. They moved quickest there first. Second, up a stair.

• 38:18Chamath Palihapitiya?

  So that sets the floor.

• 38:20Howard Lutnick?

  Right. And then the next one's got to be higher. And then the next one higher, and then the next one higher, and the next one higher. So he does things that way because that way it incents you to come to the table.

• 38:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 38:32Howard Lutnick?

  Right? You could have three countries who are the second deal. They all get done the same time.

• 38:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 38:37Howard Lutnick?

  But you know, if you want to wait and see how it goes, it's at your risk. So he does the UK deal and they had to get it done by Friday. And Thursday afternoon, Keir Starmer is on the phone, the president. We have, they do their deal. Wednesday night and on Thursday we have a press conference and we announce it. Okay, so everybody asked the president, who do you think is next? And if you look back at the time, he said, he talks about a variety of countries, but he names India a couple of times publicly, it's not, it's not like a big secret. And we were talking India and we told India, you had three Fridays. You put them on a shot clock.

• 39:20Howard Lutnick?

  Well, they have to get it done because what happens is I have lots of other countries. And when those other countries do their deal. The staircase goes up. And right, and now the president during all these deals, he would refer to me as the greatest table setter who ever lived. Okay, because you've never had anybody who is as successful as me as a businessman before, who's just the table setter, basically, you know, so, because what I would do is I would negotiate the contracts and set the whole deal up. But let's be clear, it's his deal. Yeah. Okay, he's the closer, he does the deal.

• 39:59Howard Lutnick?

  So I said, you gotta have Modi, it's all set up, you have to have Modi call the president. And they were uncomfortable doing it. So Modi didn't call. Wow. So that Friday left, middle of the next week, we did Indonesia, the Philippines, right, Vietnam, we announced a whole bunch of deals. Malaysia in that period. So we did these whole bunch of deals, so that's like. That staircase. And they were at, and because we negotiated them and assumed India was going to be done before them, I had negotiated them at a higher rate. So now the problem is the deals came out at a higher rate. Right.

• 40:41Howard Lutnick?

  And then India calls back and says, oh, okay, we were, we're ready. I said, ready for what? You know, it was like three weeks later, I go, are you ready for the train that left the station three weeks ago? So what happened is they just, you know, there's sometimes there's that seesaw and people aren't just the wrong side of the seesaw. You know, when I was a, when I was a young, uh.

• 41:05Howard Lutnick?

  When I was young in business and I was a trader. So one of my first jobs was a trader. And when I would start on the wrong side of the seesaw. You know, I'd buy, it would go down. And then I'd sell, it would go up, and then I'd buy, it would go down, and sell. Like, when you're on the right side of the seesaw, you can't lose. Yeah. You know, you buy, it goes up, and then you sell, and it goes down, and you buy, it goes up, and it sell, it goes down. And you feel like you're the king. Yeah. But when you're on the wrong side of the seesaw. What I used to do is I used to put the phone down. I used to go in the bathroom, fill a bucket with water. Take a rag, and I would wash the plants in the office. Because it was much cheaper than me picking up the phone.

• 41:43Howard Lutnick?

  So, and then, and then people would call and say. You know, can I speak to Howard? And they go, no, he's in a meeting. And meanwhile, they'd look up, and there I am, washing the plants. Because whatever I did, I would get back in there, and I'd touch it, it would go the wrong way. So what happened is, India just was, you know, on the wrong side of the seesaw. And it wasn't, it was just, they couldn't get it done when they needed to. And then they couldn't get it done, and then they couldn't get it done, and then they couldn't get it done. And so what happened is, all these other countries kept doing deals. And they're just further in the back of the line. And now, when they say, but, but what I want is I want the deal in between the UK and Vietnam. Right. Because that's what I negotiate. Right.

• 42:27Howard Lutnick?

  And they, and they remember. And I remember. And they say, but, but you agreed. And I said, then. Then. Not now, then. And so that's, that's the problem. India will work it out. But it's just, you know, there's a lot of countries. And, and they each have their own deep internal politics. Hmm hmm. And to get something approved by their parliament, or their diet, or their, you know, these are deeply complex thing. And, and we're dealing with the world. But we've gotten them done. You know, we got Europe done, right?

• 43:12Howard Lutnick?

  We did Japan, then I did Europe, then we did Korea, and, and we've done country after country after country. And, uh, and these are durable. Meaning, these are deals that take care of the countries.

• 43:29Howard Lutnick?

  Autos, farmacuticals, semiconductors, you know, things that really matter. And the tariffs have been incredibly effective. And you can use them to change the trade deficit.

• 43:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Sure.

• 43:44Howard Lutnick?

  But you can also use them to change behavior. We should spend some time talking about drugs and pharmaceuticals.

• 43:50Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Well, this is what I wanted to do. Let's double click into AI and drugs, but let's start with drugs. So you were pretty integrally involved in some of the pharmaceutical repricing and manufacturing deals. Just walk us through what the goal of those were and how Americans will feel the impact of the deals that you've been able to get to.

• 44:08Howard Lutnick?

  So.

• 44:10Howard Lutnick?

  Everybody who studies pharmaceuticals.

• 44:16Howard Lutnick?

  Learns that America is the client, is the consumer, is the payer.

• 44:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Worldwide.

• 44:24Howard Lutnick?

  Worldwide. We pay all the money. So these drug companies make 75% of their revenues in America. And it's 100% of their profit. Because what happens is we pay, let's say, $1,000 for a drug. And then Europe says, yeah, we have socialized medicine. We're not buying it less. What's your cost? And the drug company says, 100 bucks. So they say, we'll pay you 175 dollars. You can make 75 bucks. And then the drug company says, no. And then Europe says, okay, I'm not buying it then. You'd say, what do you mean you're not buying it? You're not going to give medicine to your people? No, we can't afford it. No. So eventually the drug company says, eh, fine.

• 45:08Howard Lutnick?

  So we're paying 1,000. And they're paying 175 bucks.

• 45:15Howard Lutnick?

  You know, six times less. And you'd be like, what? And that is how the whole world's drug model was working. We're paying a thousand. Everyone else in the world is paying a hundred and seventy five bucks. So Donald Trump says, I want to fix. And I want MFN price. You want to charge us?

• 45:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Most favored nations.

• 45:38Howard Lutnick?

  Most favored nations, so.

• 45:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We're the cheapest price in the world?

• 45:40Howard Lutnick?

  Right, but you could charge them five hundred. And then you could charge us five hundred. Fine.

• 45:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 45:47Howard Lutnick?

  But if you're willing to sell it to them for a hundred and seventy five bucks, don't come here and tell me that I have to pay a thousand.

• 45:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 45:54Howard Lutnick?

  It's just unfair.

• 45:55Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You're not dictating price in America. You're essentially dictating the lower bound price abroad.

• 46:00Howard Lutnick?

  We are dictating fairness.

• 46:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Fairness, yeah.

• 46:03Howard Lutnick?

  Like, if we're your biggest customer, treat us like fairly. We're not even saying treat us the best. We're saying treat us fairly. I mean, it's amazing. So he writes a letter to seventeen giant pharmaceutical companies. Said, I want MFN. And I got to tell you, I don't know a single person in this administration who thought he could do it. It was so audacious, so bold, so powerful. I was like, I don't know, geez. I mean, you know, you just write a letter to all the big drug companies saying, you're going to give us MFN and you like write a stern letter. And I'm like, okay.

• 46:42Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Good luck with that.

• 46:42Howard Lutnick?

  How's this baby going to work?

• 46:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 46:44Howard Lutnick?

  You know, and then, so I sit with, uh, we have this amazing meeting with Bobby Kennedy and, uh, and his team. And we say, look,

• 46:56Howard Lutnick?

  I've got these two thirty two tariffs.

• 46:59Howard Lutnick?

  I could smash these companies. Smash them because they all make it overseas and then export it to us. And we're, and we're all the money. So we could charge them any tariff we want. We charge them five hundred percent. So let's do something that's never been done before. Let's literally be a team. Okay? You lead. So Bobby and his team who are amazing, Dr. Oz, Chris Club. I mean, these guys, it's spectacular.

• 47:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Great guys, yeah.

• 47:27Howard Lutnick?

  They led, but I was the hammer, right?

• 47:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  From cable setter to hammer?

• 47:33Howard Lutnick?

  To hammer. So now I'm the hammer.

• 47:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Okay.

• 47:35Howard Lutnick?

  Right? So I'm like in the background like hammer. And then like say, look.

• 47:41Howard Lutnick?

  You have two things we want from you. We want your best drugs at MFN prices. You can't sell it to anybody in the world at a better price than you sell to us. Of the countries that have money. Right. Right, we're not talking about if you sell to Sub-Saharan Africa. We're talking about, you know, the, the, the big countries, the OECD. You know, let's say call it the big 10 or the big 20. Charge us the same. And reshore. And I'll waive your tariff while you're reshoring. Provided you do those two. Or hammer. Just hammer. And what's the hammer mean? I don't know, hundreds of percent tariff, starting, I don't know, what do you think?

• 48:26Howard Lutnick?

  30 days from now? Like bang. So. So you're just there in the corner. They just see, just. I'm like the handsome guy in the back, just gonna, you know? Like, so if you see me at the meetings, I'm like, yeah, like, la la la. But if you look at the, uh, pictures that are put out. Everybody puts out the picture of Bobby signing and me signing. Right. Right, you say, what do you sign, Howard? I'm signing the, uh, no hammer rule. So. The result is Ozempic and Munjaro are on Medicaid and Medicare for $149 instead of not on it. Right.

• 49:11Howard Lutnick?

  And generally for sale for thousands. Right. So think about it, instead of generally for sale for thousands, everyone in America can have it for 149 bucks. And, and that's going to reduce, I mean, it's going to change. These drugs, we had, we had drug companies say, you know what? I'm just going to give it to you. One of the drug companies, Merck, so they're gonna just give us their number one drug in the world.

• 49:38Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 49:39Howard Lutnick?

  They're gonna give it to Medicaid, Medicare for zero.

• 49:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 49:43Howard Lutnick?

  Right, so we saved twenty-five, thirty-five billion dollars a year, but more importantly, we made drugs accessible to America at a fair price and stop always being the one who pays. We are the richest country in the world and the world viewed us. Remember when I was growing up, uh, there were all these cartoons on TV and there was always this one where there was a guy stuck on a desert island and he looks at the other guy and as the other guy walks by, he starts looking at him, he looks like a, a big chicken leg, you know, he's like starving, so he looks at the other guy.

• 50:22Howard Lutnick?

  He sees him, like, I mean, the world views us as a giant chicken leg. You know, that they should just, we're so rich, we won't miss it. And so they all, the trade deals were bad, the drug deals were bad, the, you know, you can go chapter and verse, the immigration system is the most ridiculous thing. Imagine, we are the richest, most successful country in the world and we give a lottery, a lottery. So let's say we have a lottery to come into America. If you win the lottery, you win.

• 51:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 51:03Howard Lutnick?

  But who's paying for the lottery? We are, so it's not like, you know, the normal lottery, everybody pays in a dollar and the winner gets X percent of the money.

• 51:13Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 51:14Howard Lutnick?

  Here, the people win the lottery and we lose.

• 51:18Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 51:18Howard Lutnick?

  Like it's, it's like a win-lose and that's like, and you would say, gosh, why would we do that?

• 51:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Howard Lutnick?

  And it's only because Donald Trump is willing to literally challenge.

• 51:34Howard Lutnick?

  Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? He has incredibly capable people around him who are willing to challenge it and then come up with a better answer, attack that better answer, and deliver the outcome. Meaning, just talking about it, as I said in the beginning, doesn't count. You either change the immigration system, you change the price of drugs, you change the trade deficit, which halved, which is awesome, right? You change the budget deficit of the country, down $600 billion this year. You just relentlessly deliver. What happens is if you have a businessman in that office, and Donald Trump has the best intuition

• 52:19Howard Lutnick?

  of anybody I've ever met. I could tell you stories and stories of just... Like, when they said to me, I don't know, maybe we talked about it last time, "What's that flag on the back of those ships?" And I was like, "I don't know." He goes, "You ever seen a flag on the back of a ship that you know where it was from?" And I was like, "No." He goes, "Why is that?" And then you look it up, and the number-one flag on the back of a ship is Liberia. All these ships, like all the tankers...

• 52:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Like all the tankers, cargo ships. And why is it?

• 52:52Howard Lutnick?

  It's a tax scam. It's a flag of convenience.

• 52:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 52:57Howard Lutnick?

  And then what they do is they then... So they make all their money on the seas, and they charge the port is an expense. Right? So they pick it up from Europe, it's an expense. They drop it off in America, that's an expense. And all their profits are on the high seas where they pay no tax. Right? So what do you think they do? Then they buy the ports.

• 53:16Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 53:17Howard Lutnick?

  Right? It's all a tax scam. So the president, by intuition, sends us out, like he sends me out. He loves to send me out and stuff because, you know, I just love this stuff and I find it. And we're going to attack. The next year, you're going to see this government attack fraud. And the fraud is probably a trillion dollars a year of people who just have figured out how to rip off the system. And...

• 53:52Howard Lutnick?

  The system, remember, America had open borders till 1914. The reason they had open borders in 1914 is because it gave you nothing.

• 54:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 54:02Howard Lutnick?

  So like if you were sick, you couldn't go to the hospital unless you could pay the bill.

• 54:06Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 54:06Howard Lutnick?

  So if you're sick, you die. What do you want from me? Right? Get a job, take care of yourself, or get lost.

• 54:12Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 54:13Howard Lutnick?

  And when we went to have a welfare state, you have to close the borders. Because if the people are gonna give their money, they need to give it to each other. You can't really open the border and say, "I'm gonna give my money to anybody who wants to come in."

• 54:30Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 54:31Howard Lutnick?

  That's getting it wrong. So when people say, "Open immigration is how we built America", they are right. And open immigration would be something interesting if we gave people nothing. Because if we gave them nothing, if they weren't smart enough, capable, entrepreneurial enough, driven enough,

• 54:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:54Howard Lutnick?

  they would starve to death. And so they wouldn't stay here. They would self-deport and leave.

• 55:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 55:00Howard Lutnick?

  But if you're gonna give them welfare, and you're gonna give them food stamps, and you're gonna give them housing, and you're gonna give them this, that, then everybody's gonna come and just leech off of us, and we're gonna pay, and pay, and pay, until...

• 55:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Now, in the...

• 55:16Howard Lutnick?

  It's wrong.

• 55:16Chamath Palihapitiya?

  On this immigration side, you've launched two versions of the Trump card, I think, right? There's the million-dollar Trump card, and then the five-million-dollar card. Where are those programs, and how have they been working so far?

• 55:28Howard Lutnick?

  So they're... It's out right now. Trumpcard.gov. It's a really nice website. And what happens is, the idea is to stop letting people into the country without a clear benefit to the country. Right? You should come in if you're gonna give us a clear benefit to the country. Like, it should be black and white.

• 55:51Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We want you. Yeah.

• 55:52Howard Lutnick?

  Right, you can help us.

• 55:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Howard Lutnick?

  So, the average green card, if you looked for the last five years, the average American makes, in the 60s, a thousand dollars a year. And the average green card recipient made in the 40s. So we are bringing in the bottom quartile.

• 56:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 56:09Howard Lutnick?

  Like, why? Why? We're the only country in the world. Who was bringing in the bottom, more likely to be on welfare, more likely to be on food stamps, more likely to, you know, on some, you know, getting stuff from the government. Because they were all coming to get stuff from the government.

• 56:28Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 56:29Howard Lutnick?

  And so the idea for us is, okay, here's the gold card. You want to come in? Prove to us you're going to make a benefit to this country. Give the United States a million dollars, which pays off our deficit, reduces taxes we have to charge Americans, and then you come in, you've proven that you're going to be a good citizen. We have to vet you, we spent fifteen thousand on the greatest vet we've ever done, and then you come in and you're going to be top quarter, maybe top desa.

• 56:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 57:00Howard Lutnick?

  But you're going to help America be better.

• 57:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Have you announced how many people have applied or the first batches yet that have been granted this?

• 57:07Howard Lutnick?

  No, the president, the president, the first week, uh, put out that we had sold a billion dollars worth.

• 57:13Chamath Palihapitiya?

  In the first week?

• 57:14Howard Lutnick?

  Yeah.

• 57:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Oh, wow.

• 57:16Howard Lutnick?

  So, but that's a, but there's a process, and that this process is going along, fixing the immigration system, right? Not letting people come in by lottery, selecting who they are, not bringing in people who would take a trainee job, right? People who graduate universities around the world and people who graduates.

• 57:40Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Fixing the H1B.

• 57:41Howard Lutnick?

  Yeah, I mean, look, I think H1B is fantastic for someone who makes five hundred thousand dollars, who's a cool engineer, but it's not okay if it's a sixty thousand dollar college graduate. Hire from the universities of America, don't hire from the universities of the world. It just doesn't make sense. And what happens is people steal the history of America. And they lie, change the piece shape and try to stick in it. By saying, you know, America was born with, you know, immigration and open, yes, that's when we gave nothing. But if you're gonna give everybody the gift of America, we better get something back.

• 58:25Howard Lutnick?

  And that's why you're hearing about all this fraud. These people came in in order to defraud America. It's not, it's not like a random act. Right. They figured this is the richest country in the world. We live in a crap hole. Let's get out of here and these morons are gonna let us have a BMW. Right. And we're not gonna be hardworking industrious people. We're just gonna figure out the model and screw them. And America was not designed with walls and barriers. We were designed with an entrepreneurial spirit to make the world shine. You know, that's who we are. We are, you know, when I, when I give talks.

• 59:07Howard Lutnick?

  I say, if you wanna understand the greatness of America. Close your eyes and imagine a world without America.

• 59:17Howard Lutnick?

  It's dark. Yeah. Really dark. Now, open your eyes and say, what makes the world shine? When America is shining the brightest. So you'd say, well, if that's true, America reset the world order of trade. Right? And properly set the balance where, since we're the best economy, we're in the best position. And so if you're right, Howard, and the world shines brighter when America shines brighter. Then even though the world's paying America, they should be in better shape. Yeah. Korean stock market up seventy percent. Japan up like twenties or thirties.

• 59:59Howard Lutnick?

  Europe up more than fifteen, right? All of these up. And you'd say, well, I don't understand. How could they pay us and be up because because the world and you know, stocks are a long-term outcome.

• 1:00:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's right.

• 1:00:16Howard Lutnick?

  Right? And the long-term outcome is if the United States is powerful and strong and creating the greatest weapons in the world and selling us the greatest weapons in the world and protecting us and defending us and building an economy that we can rely upon and trust upon, our companies are going to do great.

• 1:00:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, the

• 1:00:31Howard Lutnick?

  They're going to do great.

• 1:00:32Chamath Palihapitiya?

  This is an excellent point that no one has actually made. The narrative that the media has been trying to paint recently is this is a debasement problem for the US dollar, but I actually think what you said is more accurate, which is what people looked through were the tariffs and saw a level of economic resilience in these other markets that made them very attractive in a way that they weren't attractive at the current course and speed. That's why Korea did so well, Japan did so well, Europe did so well. It's why a lot of these base commodities did well because now you're seeing an increasing of demand because you're going to see production capacity all over the country. It was a huge change, actually. It really resets how capitalism and capital markets will work. I don't know if it was an intended consequence, but it's a very positive consequence. I want to talk though about what you just said about 2026.

• 1:01:16Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You said, "We will be surprised at the level of focus that you and the president put on fraud and you think there's a trillion dollars." Can you just double click into what that means, how you're going to go after it? And is it at the federal level, at the state level? Just kind of give us the rough game plan, what you can say?

• 1:01:37Howard Lutnick?

  Sure. So the president is the federal, right? So if if the federal government gives money to the state and the state gives it out, then we have a dog in the hunt.

• 1:01:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:01:50Howard Lutnick?

  Okay? If it's their money and they're giving it out, we don't really have a dog in the hunt. But we have a dog in almost every hunt because they take the federal money that goes in, you know, and then they administer welfare. But it comes from, it comes from us. So this is The success we had in pharmaceuticals was the Commerce Department and HHS working together in a way that these departments have never worked together before, that he understood my power and I understood his power and together we changed the outcome to incredible success. So that's how we're going to look at it. We're going to have

• 1:02:32Howard Lutnick?

  a multiple departments working together, right? No one has ever looked at, if you're getting Medicaid and Medicare, how much money do you make? No one's ever compared the two. Really? Yeah. Yeah, you're supposed to tell us. But if you're a fraudster- It's the honor system. Yeah, but the world of America is built, but now with modern technology. Right. And then you have a beast like me. Right. Right? Fabric. And, and, and probably the guy with the best intuition in the world, sitting right over there, who's also a businessman. Right.

• 1:03:15Howard Lutnick?

  And, you know, we'd say, okay, we're going to build the technology to do this. We are going to build it. And everybody's on board. So you have the THS, you have HHS, you have Commerce, right? We're all working together and we are going to come out with models and methods to seek the fraud out and not on a limited to Minnesota scale. Oh, no. We're going to go after it big time, right? And you have, so you have that on one side and then you have the execution of the first year and the second, which means

• 1:03:58Howard Lutnick?

  you have the president saying, we have $18 trillion of committed capital. Okay. Open your plan. We have spreadsheets. I went over them yesterday.

• 1:04:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:04:08Howard Lutnick?

  We have spreadsheets of promises.

• 1:04:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:04:11Howard Lutnick?

  All these people have made these promises. Okay. Call them. Thirty construction projects. Launched. That would never have been launched. So. Here's my view. I told you that I thought in the end of this year. We would get to four percent GDP growth. I said it in the first quarter.

• 1:04:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:34Howard Lutnick?

  And four point three. Now, the fourth quarter is going to be. Uh, a mess because of the shutdown. Seriously, this is accounting in America. If someone works for the government. They count them as GDP.

• 1:04:49Howard Lutnick?

  And you would say, right, that face exactly made. You go, what? So, so let's get, wait, stop, stop, stop. You hire someone in your department. GDP just went up. Even though they don't do anything. I thought GDP would be like if you make.

• 1:05:04Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Productivity, something.

• 1:05:05Howard Lutnick?

  Like you do something. Nope. So here's the fun part. When you furlough them.

• 1:05:13Howard Lutnick?

  Uh, on the shutdown. Right? You're still paying them. That's the deficit. But they're not actually working at the government, so they're not productive. So they take it away from GDP. And you'd say, this is actually like the silliest thing in the world. You're giving the guy the same amount of money. What's the difference? Well. These are the rules. So our fourth quarter GDP will be a point and a half lower than it otherwise would be. For this oddity.

• 1:05:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Just the furlough. That's a hundred and fifty basis points.

• 1:05:44Howard Lutnick?

  Like, like the common economists think the fourth quarter growth is going to be a point. Okay, they're just like, wrong. I said they were wrong in the third quarter. I said they were wrong in the second quarter. We have a three point eight and then four point three. Probably be like two and a half.

• 1:06:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  But that would have been to your point four.

• 1:06:01Howard Lutnick?

  Four.

• 1:06:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:06:03Howard Lutnick?

  Next year with all this construction in the ground. Like this Friday, I'm flying up to New York to a, uh, to Micron's groundbreaking of their tens of billions of dollar factory in upstate New York.

• 1:06:15Howard Lutnick?

  That's just another example. Right? Then I go to Detroit where they're doing a huge, you know, new bill. Uh, new, new auto plant and they're building their engine plant and it just.

• 1:06:29Howard Lutnick?

  Fives. You're gonna see fives in the greatest economy in the world. You're going to see fives. And people think, you can't, you can't.

• 1:06:42Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Five percent GDP on a base this big is just, it's enormous.

• 1:06:45Howard Lutnick?

  Right. We have a $30 trillion, so 5% is 1.5 trillion in growth. And if we cut rates, you'll see sixes. And people do not, would never, before Donald Trump walked into that office, they would, don't think that's possible. And what's six mean?

• 1:07:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's just put six in context. Six was China at its peak under central planning with a tight control on every aspect of its economy. That was what the world knew as what six looked like in the modern era. And now the alternative version of six will be the president, you, the team, in a much more open way.

• 1:07:25Howard Lutnick?

  You have said it could never happen.

• 1:07:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I would be shocked. I mean, that's an incredible.

• 1:07:28Howard Lutnick?

  You're gonna, put it this way, you know, it wouldn't even be fun for you when we see the five.

• 1:07:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Howard Lutnick?

  Because they'll be so soon, they could be this quarter, as in the first quarter. So then I'd say, well, you have to come back and see me when it's two five. But then you'll come back in a couple of months and then you'd say, Howard, I just spoke to you for an hour. I don't, you know, I don't need to speak to you again. But you're gonna see fives, like as in early in 26.

• 1:07:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's incredible.

• 1:07:50Howard Lutnick?

  And then if they cut rates, and that's the thing, I need a new Fed chair who cuts rates, and if they cut rates.

• 1:07:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Sixes.

• 1:07:58Howard Lutnick?

  You'll see sixes. And what you're going to see, what that means is jobs are abundant.

• 1:08:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Howard Lutnick?

  Good jobs are abundant. High-paying jobs are abundant.

• 1:08:07Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:08:07Howard Lutnick?

  Construction jobs, you just get paid more money to be who you are. You make more money. And that is not inflation. That is called 6% GDP growth. See, if, if we have no growth and I pay you more because you demand more, that's inflation. That's right. But if I'm like trying to build a factory because I'm kicking tail and, and I have to share some of my profits with you to convince you to come to work.

• 1:08:35Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Well, I'll give you a perfect example of this. I am the lead investor in a 1 gigawatt data center project in Arizona. We have to pay electricians between 500 and 750,000 dollars a year, which is more than what we pay the engineers that work at the models at a Facebook. But it's an example, to your point, of just the economy has created earnings potential across the board in ways that I've never seen in my career. It's really quite incredible.

• 1:09:03Howard Lutnick?

  The society under Obama, the Obama view of the country, he blew it, right? He got rid of shop class. When I, when I grew up, you know, took shop class.

• 1:09:17Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Totally.

• 1:09:17Howard Lutnick?

  There were things to use with your hands.

• 1:09:19Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:20Howard Lutnick?

  And then we sort of ruled that out in America. Said, you gotta go to a liberal arts college. You have to end up with 200,000 dollars in debt, right? And then these people thought, like, what job am I getting that gets me to pay off my 200,000 dollars in debt? It, you know, and then you, you have Biden jams in inflation. So the price of a house goes up. And then the American dream sort of slips further and further away.

• 1:09:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Howard Lutnick?

  And you get Donald Trump saying, okay, the way to fix it is I need to get the people working with their hands. Six million Americans sitting on the sidelines because the jobs are not the right jobs for them. Get them out. Technicians, fix robotics.

• 1:10:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Howard Lutnick?

  Right? I had, I went out to Arizona to the TSMC plant and I met the, uh, these guys were pipe fitters. I met a pipe fitter. And I said, so how's a job? He goes, I play Tetris every day. He goes, I've got to get these kind of pipes through this kind of thing in this kind of way. I've got, they give me this much space and I gotta do all this thing. He goes, I have the greatest job ever.

• 1:10:27Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Can I tell you something about that TSMC plant? That's a four nanometer plant. They are at better yields or equivalent yields than the best operating four nanometer plant in the world, which is in China. Isn't that incredible? American technicians are now dollar for dollar as good as what was happening in China. It's incredible.

• 1:10:45Howard Lutnick?

  They'll be great.

• 1:10:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Nobody knows this, by the way, but it's incredible.

• 1:10:47Howard Lutnick?

  So TSMC, when I, when I walked in, there was this CHIPS Act.

• 1:10:51Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:52Howard Lutnick?

  Okay? So the CHIPS Act. Had fifty two billion dollars because we make no chips in America. Semiconductor.

• 1:11:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Howard Lutnick?

  But by the way, so just as a sort of a fun story. A wafer, these are things you know, but a wafer is the size of a like a pizza in a restaurant.

• 1:11:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:10Howard Lutnick?

  It's like a personal pizza.

• 1:11:12Chamath Palihapitiya?

  A small pizza, yeah.

• 1:11:12Howard Lutnick?

  Yeah, it's like a twelve inch pizza.

• 1:11:13Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Howard Lutnick?

  Okay, and then what they do is they break it in little chips.

• 1:11:18Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Howard Lutnick?

  And that's why it's called a semiconductor chip. They literally like chip it.

• 1:11:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Howard Lutnick?

  Right, so the beauty of AI, like these GPUs that Jensen builds from Nvidia is instead of making four thousand little chips out of that pizza, they make ten. Hey, these are big things like this thing's the size of a refrigerator. Like you think of a chip, think of a little teeny thing going in your iPhone, right? And these things are the size of a refrigerator.

• 1:11:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:11:46Howard Lutnick?

  And so it's it's a different kind of model, but.

• 1:11:52Howard Lutnick?

  You know, they had, they gave Intel ten billion dollars, gave.

• 1:11:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Gee. Yeah, actually, let me just stop there because I think one of the things that you did, you basically just put a pause on the CHIPS Act and ripped it apart and restarted it effectively.

• 1:12:06Howard Lutnick?

  Yep.

• 1:12:07Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Because it was initially under Biden, again, just as an outsider looking at it, it was largely giveaways.

• 1:12:13Howard Lutnick?

  Giveaways.

• 1:12:14Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And I think you flipped it around and you essentially said, stop. And my understanding is you actually haven't, you've committed to a lot, but you've been pretty judicious and disciplined about giving the money out. I think only six billion has gone out because there's a bunch of conditions and you have to actually meet these milestones and the CHIPS Act is is very different than how it started.

• 1:12:33Howard Lutnick?

  So.

• 1:12:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Is that fair?

• 1:12:35Howard Lutnick?

  Yeah, because the Biden administration viewed the fifty billion dollars as I'll give you ten percent. You build a sixty billion dollar plant, I'll give you a six billion dollars. And.

• 1:12:47Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And why does that not work? Like, why? Why would that not have worked? Or why was that not working when you came in?

• 1:12:52Howard Lutnick?

  Why would you give six billion dollars to TSMC, which is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Corporation, when their stock is worth a trillion?

• 1:13:04Howard Lutnick?

  So what Donald Trump does is says, hey, hey, how about this? How about this? I'll charge you a hundred percent tariff. How about that? And then the guy says, okay, I'll build in America. See, I don't have to give you six billion. Like, you know, Donald Trump can dissect it.

• 1:13:18Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Howard Lutnick?

  Right? In a paragraph.

• 1:13:20Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Howard Lutnick?

  In a paragraph.

• 1:13:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:13:22Howard Lutnick?

  So what we did is we we said to TSMC, look, you you sign the contract, there's 20 pages of DEI stuff in. You need to hire a blind.

• 1:13:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  DEI stuff.

• 1:13:33Howard Lutnick?

  Oh, you have to hire a blind contractor. You have to have like,

• 1:13:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's stop.

• 1:13:38Howard Lutnick?

  Uh, you know, trans lesbian engineers. I'm not kidding, by the way. And, you know, so think about the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, right? How many lithography engineers does Taiwan have that are female? Let alone what their sexuality choices are.

• 1:13:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:13:58Howard Lutnick?

  They've never had a female. They're all men. So I said, listen, you're in breach.

• 1:14:04Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Everybody thinks like a Republican will just rip that stuff up. Not this kind of Republican. This kind of Republican reads the contract and says, you know,

• 1:14:12Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You're in breach of the DEI companies.

• 1:14:13Howard Lutnick?

  You didn't build a daycare center in the middle of your clean room fab. Like, you signed that contract, so you're in breach. Okay, so how about this? How about add a hundred billion?

• 1:14:26Howard Lutnick?

  So instead of building 60 billion, you build 160 billion.

• 1:14:30Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:14:32Howard Lutnick?

  And we agreed. So now I feel better.

• 1:14:35Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And then do you waive the DEI requirements?

• 1:14:37Howard Lutnick?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:14:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:38Howard Lutnick?

  Hey, build another 100 billion. We can rip that stuff up. No problem. So what happens is you now have a 165 billion dollar plant going in. And I think, I'm gonna let TSC, TSMC announce, but they are going to get much bigger. Even from the 165 billion. And this is, remember, this is a factory.

• 1:14:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Howard Lutnick?

  That makes the stuff that Nvidia sells for five times higher.

• 1:15:04Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Okay, let's talk about Nvidia for a second. You did a deal at the end of this year. I don't think we've ever seen a deal like this. And you can tell me if it's wrong. But you control the export licenses. And as you said, Jamar, we don't want our adversaries to get the most advanced silicon, which makes sense. And then you struck an agreement with Jensen, where now, I think it's the H200s, which are not quite the most advanced chips, but maybe one generation before.

• 1:15:30Howard Lutnick?

  They're more advanced than what China makes.

• 1:15:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right. But in return, you got a 25% marketing fee. What do you kind of rev share?

• 1:15:41Howard Lutnick?

  Tariff.

• 1:15:42Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Tariff. Just describe to us the construction of that deal and what it means for these kinds of deals in the future.

• 1:15:50Howard Lutnick?

  So Jensen Wang, who runs Nvidia, is obviously a businessman of extraordinary capacity. Can't run a $5 trillion company unless you're like

• 1:16:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Incredibly impressive.

• 1:16:02Howard Lutnick?

  Impressive. So he comes in, and I promised him in the beginning, when I first met him, that I would help him have really easy access to the president. Because he's a national treasure.

• 1:16:17Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Howard Lutnick?

  Right? And our great companies are national treasures for America. So so he, his argument to the president, buy it or not, is that if you shut off China entirely, then all of their economics go to their national champion to build new stuff. And all their economics go to that company, and that helps that company grow. And then if you give them better than what they have, you don't have to give them your best. You just have to give them better than what they have. Right? This is his argument. Then they'll give less to their champion.

• 1:16:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:17:00Howard Lutnick?

  And more to you, and it'll have a positive economic relationship with China and positive for us overall. Now, there are plenty of people who disagree. Right? But that was Jensen's argument. And that was the discussion, the argument, the debate that we had. And then when that was done. And over, then the president said, and you gotta give me 25%. So the 25% was a throwaway. Right. But it was like, look, if I'm doing all this for you, you still gotta give me 25%. So the way we're doing it is he has to send the chips to America.

• 1:17:46Howard Lutnick?

  We test the chip to make sure that he hasn't enhanced it in any way. Okay. Cause the H20 was oddly enhanced. You know that it had. Yeah. It had less flops, but more. Yeah. Memory. In fact, it had more memory than the H100, which one could argue was a little, you know, not everybody knew, say it that way. So we test it.

• 1:18:09Howard Lutnick?

  On the way in, we can charge it a tariff, regular 25% tariff. And then we can give export licenses to who he wants. And then he sends it to China and then. And he sends it to China or he sends it, you know, whoever he's selling it to. So I think we, the president.

• 1:18:25Howard Lutnick?

  This is the president's deal and, and my job is to make sure all the smart people are in the room. With, with both opinions. Okay. Never let one opinion, you know, people think, oh, the last person who met Donald Trump. No, they don't.

• 1:18:43Howard Lutnick?

  Donald Trump hears so many different views that often he'll call the person he likes that he's gonna go with the last one before he gives it. Cause that makes sense. Like if I'm gonna say yes to you. Yeah. Right? I'm saying no to him, but I'm saying yes to you. So what a shock. I call him and say no, and then I call you and say yes. And he'd say, oh, he called Chamath last and that's why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was, you know, Jensen did a great job making the case and convincing the president of the United States, who has a very, very detailed and nuanced view about China. And not everybody agrees with him. Right.

• 1:19:23Howard Lutnick?

  But, you know, my take on having worked closely, been his friend for 30 years, but been, worked closely with him this year is.

• 1:19:33Howard Lutnick?

  He does have the best intuition of anybody I've ever met in the whole wide world. And when he thinks it's okay, and I know he's had full information.

• 1:19:45Howard Lutnick?

  Right? And he makes, he makes really.

• 1:19:50Chamath Palihapitiya?

  When you look at.

• 1:19:50Howard Lutnick?

  He makes strong decisions. You might disagree.

• 1:19:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Howard Lutnick?

  He doesn't always agree with me.

• 1:19:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:55Howard Lutnick?

  But it's a strong decision which has deep base thought and balance to it. And he's done that, you know, e- every time. And it's, it's amazing. He, he does play a better game of chess. He just does play a better game of chess. And that's why it's so fun for me because, you know, I, I was very successful in business. And, and in my companies, which had, I don't know, 13,000 employees, like I was the one up here.

• 1:20:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Howard Lutnick?

  And for me to work for somebody.

• 1:20:29Chamath Palihapitiya?

  The bar is high.

• 1:20:30Howard Lutnick?

  The bar had better be high. And he's, he's just the most fun to work for.

• 1:20:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Do you think that the deals that we're seeing, so there's a 25% rev share on the H200s from Nvidia? You were able to get, I think, 10% of Intel?

• 1:20:41Howard Lutnick?

  10%.

• 1:20:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  10% of Intel. There, there's a lot of these deals where you could say, all these companies that are on the bleeding edge of America, America's national treasures. They need help that only you or the president, the infrastructure of America can provide.

• 1:20:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Should America get something in return?

• 1:21:00Howard Lutnick?

  I think the way President Trump thinks about it is that.

• 1:21:06Howard Lutnick?

  If you can do it on your own, you do it on your own.

• 1:21:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:10Howard Lutnick?

  But if you really need his help and you need him to open the door, to drive the door, to change it. You need America to make it happen for you. Isn't there something for the American taxpayer there?

• 1:21:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 1:21:25Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Because if, in the end, if we can balance the budget.

• 1:21:30Howard Lutnick?

  Then then he can take care of the people who make less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year and change America. And that's what he wants to do. So he's looking for, look, why would we give the money to Intel? It was given to Intel. Contract signed, given to Intel. So to turn that around to where America owns ten percent of Intel. Right? That can fix, use that money to fix Social Security. Use that money to reduce our deficit. Use that money to charge less in taxes. Use the money to make America great. Right? And, you know, look, I think if we get rid of the fraud, that'll save the country a trillion dollars.

• 1:22:15Howard Lutnick?

  Right. If you figure out ways to make a trillion dollars, you could reduce our deficit, or you could start the process of solving Social Security and not, like, the scary part for me is if I say the word Social Security, it doesn't matter what you say with the word Social Security, they assume you're taking something away from them. Because every politician who's ever said Social Security says they're going to take something away. Yeah. But the answer is, if you hit it with outside money, and just start hitting it with money that you've made out here, and you fix it, you take nothing away. Right.

• 1:22:57Howard Lutnick?

  And that's, if we're the richest country in the world, if we get rid of the fraud, and we can run America smart, we can do it all. Because we're the greatest country in the world. Imagine it, you grow six percent, you're going to fix the deficit, you're going to fix taxes, you're going to fix all. It's mathematical, no, it's mathematical. You start to do it, you get full employment, you, people get paid, it's, I think we can win. And, uh, and that's why I can achieve the goal of being the Secretary who has the most fun. Because I'm in the room where it happens, right, with Donald Trump, where he thinks about things, and he thinks about them. And I was at a meeting yesterday with him where there were like eight advisors sitting

• 1:23:42Howard Lutnick?

  around the, you know, the Resolute Desk, and he's on that side, and they all had this opinion, and he had it, and he said, no, no, that'll have this derivative result, and we're not doing that.

• 1:23:57Howard Lutnick?

  And everybody in the room was like, he's right. I mean, you got eight guys, like, you know, guys and women, you know, and he just says that. I mean, he's, he's, he's great, great.

• 1:24:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I have one final question, which is an audience question. It's from Brandon L. from New York, who asks, who is your favorite child?

• 1:24:20Howard Lutnick?

  So, I have four kids, okay? So, the joke in my house was, I had the oldest, that's my son Kyle. I had the youngest, my son Ryan. I had my only daughter, who's my daughter Casey. So, my son Brandon, uh, would sign his birthday card, your fourth favorite. Because he was neither the youngest, nor the oldest, nor the daughter. So, he would sign your fourth favorite. And whenever one of the other kids screwed something up, and one of the funniest things you've ever seen, my wife and I would be sitting in our bedroom, and Brandon would come running in and say, third! And he'd run back out.

• 1:25:03Howard Lutnick?

  And he was doing this when he was like 12, you know, so it's hysterical. So, that's, that's a really funny question. And, uh, you know, I have, I have the best wife. Uh, she's both. You know, I've been married 31 years, uh, I love her to death. She's, she's just a wonderful woman and a spectacular mom. And, uh, we have great kids, really smart, really capable, because, you know, great mom, great mom. And, uh, and we're really close. So, people ask me, like, where'd you go on vacation? I said, a simple question. I asked my adult children where they wanted to go, and that's where we went.

• 1:25:42Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:43Howard Lutnick?

  Because if I went somewhere else, they wouldn't go with me.

• 1:25:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Howard Lutnick?

  And I want them to be there. And there was a picture of me with, uh, with Bobby Kennedy in Aspen, where there was absolutely no snow. And so, you say, well, why did you go? I said, because my adult children are here, and that's why. We both were on the same, uh...

• 1:25:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You're on the same train.

• 1:26:00Howard Lutnick?

  Same page. So, I think, I think if you have, uh, I, I found the right girl for me. And, and so, I have the best family and, uh, and it lets me do this. And it lets me be completely committed, uh, to the government. And, uh, you know, I was very successful in business. You know, I had whatever company that did more than $10 billion of revenues a year, made lots of money, and I don't have it anymore. I was, I used to joke that I was the only Commerce Secretary who had patents, but I have none because I had to divest all of them. But I understand the patent office. I understand, I understand business.

• 1:26:44Howard Lutnick?

  Donald Trump understands business. And we have really, really impressive people in this cabinet who are fun to work with. And you are going to see great things in the second year.

• 1:26:55Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Howard Lutnick, thank you for joining, Olin.

• 1:26:57Howard Lutnick?

  It was really fun to talk.

• 1:26:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Thank you.