Tech culture wars: Elon vs. SBF, Sabotaging Republicans with Trump

The recording starts mid-anecdote. One speaker says a pilot texted that a flight the next day could not go ahead because of an error message that had to be resolved first. The speaker then asked whether he could get on a flight with Saks instead, got silence for three hours, and was finally told the aircraft had been cleared. He says he texted Saks that it was all sorted, and that Saks replied within eight seconds with an upbeat 'Awesome'.

The reply is turned into a joke: someone claims Saks had 'zero intention' of taking him and his family along, and the line 'He fell a buster' is repeated back. Another speaker pushes back that the plane was in fact with him and that he would happily lend it when he is not using it. The exchange is banter, and the source gives no way to check the underlying details.

The banter then moves to restaurant bills. A speaker narrates a 'Saks going for his wallet' moment and says it is almost there, while others tease that they cannot remember the last time Saks picked up a check. Saks answers that he pays on the way in, 'maybe for a slice of pizza'. Another speaker calls Saks one of the most generous people he knows, which is plainly sarcastic given the setup.

The bit ends with a story about a bar where the group had only still water, a diet coke and free nuts, and one speaker says he handed the bartender a 20. A speaker then jokes that the bar nuts are on him because Chamath paid for the white truffles and the flaming dish the week before, and offers to add cashews and trail mix. The scene is a running gag about the hosts' wealth and who covers meals.

After a brief aside about open-sourcing the show to its fans, the hosts formally open Episode 105. One speaker says the podcast hit a new high last week, 16th overall in the world, and congratulates everyone. Another recalls that it had peaked at 14, and the first confirms that figure, so the ranking details are only as reliable as the hosts' memory.

A speaker who was in DC this week says he had a number of meetings and that many staffers told him they listen to the podcast every week. He calls the reach of the show 'really crazy'. Another host jokes about how gleeful those staffers must have been over Saks's 'absolute shellacking' last week, saying the Democrats won twice because Trump announced and Saks lost. This is a jab, not a reported fact.

The teasing continues with a remark about SBF and how much money he gave to stop a 'red wave', which draws protests of 'take it easy'. The DC speaker says he talked to many people about energy policy, life sciences (two areas where he says he invests a lot) and foreign policy, and adds that Saks would be surprised how many fans he has there.

Saks says that General Milley, whom the hosts discussed the previous week, has come around, and that Jake Sullivan said this week that Ukrainians had been told, as reported, they cannot have Crimea back and should get realistic. In Saks's telling, Sullivan and Milley are now 'the voices of reason' in the administration, saying what he has said for a long time while being 'excoriated by the foreign policy establishment'. These are his characterizations and a press report he cites, not something verified in the source.

Saks describes a Twitter spat with Ian Bremner this week, after Bremner posted that everybody had been saying privately that negotiations were needed. Saks replies that Bremner had publicly denounced Elon as a Kremlin agent for posting a poll suggesting Ukraine should negotiate. He calls Bremner a 'weather vain' for the foreign policy establishment and argues that the vane no longer pointing away from negotiations is the good news.

Later, Saks says his view on Ukraine is not adopted by either party, and that McConnell and others in leadership are very much on board with the Biden administration's policy. He describes the whole establishment as hawkish and as 'one consolidated blob'. This is his own framing of the political landscape.

A host asks whether Saks would be nominated to a cabinet post if DeSantis wins the presidency, and which job he would want. Saks rules out Treasury, the others press him, and one says he should take any offer. The question is hypothetical and rests only on the hosts' speculation.

Pressed on whether a White House position would be a dream, Saks says that if the president of the United States called and asked him to do something, you obviously have to serve your country, but it is not something he is looking for. The others take that as a yes. A host then asks about being made ambassador to Burkina Faso, which prompts laughter.

A speaker notes that ambassador roles are funny because people compete for the good ones while others get stuck with the bad ones. Another says they are available for purchase and describes an unwritten 'menu', suggesting that the UK ambassadorship is about $10,000,000. This is presented as hearsay, and one speaker says outright, 'This is what I've heard. I mean, I don't know.'

A speaker adds that every ambassadorship comes with an annual budget but that running the embassy and throwing the parties costs much more. For the UK and France, he says the gap is about 10,000,000 a year that the ambassador has to fund personally. He says a friend who was ambassador to the UK under Obama had a great life and threw impressive parties. The figures are anecdotal and unverified.

Another speaker clarifies that the money he means is the cost of buying one of these posts, typically by bundling a large amount of donations. A host then jokes about SBF's parents and a possible Elizabeth Ward presidency, and someone replies that it 'gets a pass'. The group laughs that the Illuminati have revoked their cards for discussing it, and one host uses the topic to pivot to buying politicians and an FTX update.

A host steers the conversation to Trump. Saks says he is entitled to an 'I told you so': he cites a story in which the FBI said Trump kept the boxes in his basement to preserve mementos, not to sell state secrets to the Saudis, as some people theorized. He says the show discussed exactly this, and another host says he also thought they were keepsakes. A third speaker says he would not put it past Trump, whom he calls a maniac.

One host argues that if the memento explanation is right, the FBI's raid with armed personnel was heavy handed, even if legally permitted. He then offers a theory that the Biden administration is trying to keep Trump in the news and provoke him into running. This is his speculation about motives, not an established fact.

He compares it to the $50,000,000 that he says went into Republican primaries to support election-denier candidates, which he calls reckless, hypocritical and Machiavellian but effective, since you cannot claim these candidates threaten democracy while funding them. He expects Democrats to keep Trump in the news for the same reason, and notes that CNN ran his whole announcement speech last Tuesday.

A host predicts that if Trump wins the Republican nomination, which another host says he will, he will lose the presidency, pointing to midterm exit polls showing him as massively unfavorable. In the primaries, he says, there are a non-trivial number of paths where Trump beats DeSantis, which would worry Republicans and delight Democrats. He argues that Democrats should do whatever induces Trump to run, since it would fracture the Republican vote, and says Saks is right. Another host is teased for grinning as he admits to the hypocrisy.

One host turns the previous point back on a colleague: having screamed about Trump as a threat to democracy and claimed he is on the payroll of the Kremlin or foreign governments, the same people want to keep him in the news and see him as the nominee. The speaker then challenges Republicans for lacking the common sense to kick him out of the party. These are accusations made in argument, not findings.

Another speaker replies that he has been on the DeSantis train since before the midterms. He says that he already said he supports DeSantis (the transcript renders the name as 'Santos'), and asks what more is expected. He accuses Democrats and parts of the media of hypocrisy for calling Trump a unique threat to democracy while hoping to keep him in the news because they think he is more beatable. He agrees Trump is less electable than DeSantis and says DeSantis would get more done.

He adds that the nomination is not a foregone conclusion. He cites new post-midterm polling that, in his account, shows DeSantis now ahead of Trump among Republican primary voters across several slices, including likely voters and Fox News viewers. The poll figures are his summary and are not checked in the source.