The world is absolutely crazy right now.

This is one of the most interesting

moments of social, cultural, and

economic transition that I have ever

seen.

So, I wanted to do something that I've

never done before. I called upon three

of the leading voices on the social,

cultural, business, and economic issues

to give their unfiltered, unsensored

points of view so that we can all make

sense of all of this craziness happening

before our eyes. They don't always agree

on much, but today they thrash it out to

see if they can agree on something. We

go through the economy, Trump, Elon

Musk, AI, censorship, wokeness, and why

so many men are struggling.

Why are tens of thousands of

millionaires running away from the UK?

The terrifying truth and opportunity in

AI. And I ask all of them, what is the

most important thing in 2025 that nobody

is talking about with the aim of

reaching clarity, agreement, and having

a laugh in the process.

This is the episode you probably didn't

know you needed.

This has always blown my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to the show

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that you want me to speak to. And we'll

continue to do what we do. Thank you so

much.

You guys are

three of the best commentators, the most

articulate people I know that also have

the most interesting, broad experience,

and also I think political background.

So, I wanted to talk to you about

everything that's going on in the world,

and I wanted to ask you guys some of the

dumb questions that I ponder alone with

myself and with my dumb friends in my

WhatsApp group. It feels to me that the

world is at a real moment of transition

in many regards, so like social

transition, cultural transition,

economic transition. And I think the US

has been a catalyst for all of that. So,

that's why I wanted to have this

conversation today. We've got an

American here, Scott. I think Scott's

the only American here.

Um we've got Constantine, we've got

Daniel, who are two Brits, but spend a

lot of time between America as well. And

so, I I I want to come to Scott first

and ask Scott a question, which is a

very big, broad question, which is from

your perspective, Scott. You know, when

I talk about this feeling of transition

that seems to be like almost inside my

chest that we're a really historic

moment, what is your analysis on this?

What is the big picture here? What what

what what's happened over the last

three, four, five, six, seven months?

And how is that going to impact all of

us

around the world?

Well, if you if you think of the US is

setting setting the tone economically

and maybe even culturally for the West,

there's definitely a reversion away from

people feel that quote unquote wokeness,

and I don't like that word, but I'll use

it here,

was the sort of overcorrection to

systemic racism, and then it began

to cause more damage than it was

um

or cause more problems than it was

solving. And I think there's been a

serious kind of lurch back, if you will,

whether it's executive actions declaring

the border a state of emergency,

you know, stuff around

saying that gender is a thing, there's

male and female.

Uh and most of these issues the actually

American public supports. I would say on

a more

cynical level, America used to be a

platform for prosperity,

the protection of civil rights, the

projection of

women's rights, and power and democracy

abroad. And I would argue that

it would feels like a pretty quick

transition to almost like a

you know, I call it a kleptocracy, but

America's become a platform

for

um

acquiring wealth and then leveraging

that wealth

uh as a means or a proxy of power. And

the ultimate example of that was the

launch of two meme coins, the Trump coin

and the Melania coin,

the day before the presidency such that

this conversation could have already or

might happen this week, and I'll finish

here.

President Trump, it's Vlad. Uh we're

thinking about stabilizing our currency

or trying to stem the outflows of our

of our reserves. So, we're thinking

about pulsing in about 600 billion

rubles

into the Trump coin, which based on my

economist's estimation would take the

value of it to a 20 or 30 billion dollar

market cap,

Mr. Trump. And none of this would be

disclosable or transparent. Also, in

unrelated news, we'd really appreciate

you seizing arm shipments to Ukraine.

So, I I I think we've gone kind of full

kleptocracy is the way I would I would

describe it.

Are you optimistic, Scott?

Well, I'm a glass half empty kind of

guy. I don't

I I don't know if I'm just getting

older, but no, I don't I don't see a man

convicted of sexual abuse or found

liable who inspired an insurrection

retaking the White House as a point of

light for the American experience.

Constantine.

I I I suspect you'd have a slightly

different view on all of the above. How

are you feeling about everything that

happened yesterday? Did you watch the

inauguration? What is your big picture,

30,000 ft view?

Uh I think it's incre incredibly unwise

to make, you know, bold predictions

about what's going to happen over the

next 6 to 7 months. I do think uh what

America had at the election and what the

election of Donald Trump represents is

something that we in the UK don't have,

which is choice. Uh they had a very

clear choice between two very different

perspectives on the world, between two

very different approaches, between two

very different candidates. And

ultimately

uh criticisms of President Trump uh are

necessary and legitimate, of course they

are. But at the end of the day, I

believe, having spent quite a lot of

time in America around election time and

also just generally and traveling around

real America, not just in, you know, DC

and and LA and New York, um the the

reason that he was elected was that

the American people are not prepared to

accept what Europeans have decided

they're prepared to accept, which is

managed decline. The American people do

not want their country to become weaker,

they do not want it to become poorer,

they do not want to impoverish their

fellow citizens through net zero. What

they want is their country to be great,

their country to be powerful, their

country to be influential. Uh the

economic realities for most Americans

are not really reflected in the figures

that we are told. So, when people talk

about inflation, uh the reality of

people's lives on the ground is that the

cost of living has gone up very, very

significantly over the last few years.

Um

And that's not always reflected directly

in the in the overall inflation figure

that we're shown because certain things

are much more influential in people's

lives than others. Um and so, uh whether

the decision to elect President Trump

ends up being um this positive uh

thing for which the should be lots of

optimism is a matter of uh the next 4

years. Are we going to see

um a presidency that really does

everything it promises? And by the way,

you know, if you look at the things that

Donald Trump is promising,

uh I think whether you're left or right,

you have to acknowledge that they are

things that are worth doing. Uh having a

secure border so that people don't come

into your country legally is a basic

duty of government. Uh economic

prosperity is a basic duty of

government. Uh withdrawing America from

uh a kind of uh simultaneously

aggressive but weak posture around the

world where America sort of says, "Yeah,

yeah, we're going to get involved in

these foreign conflicts, but we're not

actually going to then practically help

Ukraine win that war." Is is a kind of

stupid position on both, whichever side

you're on. Um so, on all of these

things, and and of course, you know,

Scott mentioned wokeness. I think he's

absolutely right that the there is a

massive backlash happening around the

world because lots and lots of people

who were completely apolitical uh until

the last three or four years, or maybe

maybe until 2016, just feel like the

world has gone crazy, and suddenly

they're supposed to pretend that men can

change sex and become women, and now

they're entitled to be in female

prisons, and you know, if your teenager

says that they are the opposite sex,

you're supposed to chop their breasts

off, and all of this other stuff that

ordinary people just look at and go,

"This is crazy. Like, I am liberal, but

this isn't liberal. This is some kind of

weird thing that's going on." And I see

I see the the the backlash against all

of that all over the the the Western

world, and I think Donald Trump

signifies that that people are fed up of

that. And

uh I have been warning for a very long

time that if the the the woke left

continues to exercise this level of

influence on our public debate, the

reaction will be the rise of the right,

and uh Donald Trump is one of the most

uh diplomatic and pleasant versions of

what you're likely to get if the left

keeps going crazy. We will see

what challenges

uh the world throws at him over the next

4 years, and whether he's capable of

responding to them.

Scott, has the left lost its way in your

view? And if so, how did that happen?

And just to respond to some of

Constantine's points about Trump being

the best of a sort of right-wing

collective, are we going to see

right-wing sort of ideology spread

throughout the Western world over the

the coming years? What's your take on

all of the above?

Um you definitely

you know, we Democrats,

we get it right, and then we just go too

damn far.

And and so, I I look at I'm a I'm a

professor on a campus. DEI, 60 years ago

there were 12 black people at Princeton

and Yale and Harvard combined. That was

a problem. Race-based affirmative action

makes sense.

This year more than half of Harvard's

freshman class identifies as non-white.

But 70% of those non-whites come from

dual-income homes in the upper quintile

of income-earning homes. The academic

gap between black and white used to be

double what it was between rich and

poor. It's now flipped.

So DEI was a good idea that quite

frankly has gone insane and now just

represents the same racism it was trying

to

uh do away with. So and then we created

two candidates who

were the only candidates who could make

make each other viable.

Uh Vice President Harris, given the hand

she dealt with, did the best she did. I

think President Biden should be buried

in a crypt entitled narcissist who

decided that it made sense for him to to

go back on his pledge to be a transition

candidate

and gave us a British-style election

timing on the Democratic side without in

a in a marketplace where you need time

and money.

Uh so it was not we did not have a great

candidate. There is uh

uh

an understandable swing back from what

is an overcorrection around some of

these issues.

Um you know, parents we gave them a huge

issue with transgender rights. There's a

There's more pedal players in California

than transgender people and yet the

Democrats decided to conflate it with a

civil rights movement and think that it

was okay for

a woman who uh transitioned, a

transgender woman, to enter a bicycle

race and finish 5 minutes before

everybody else and then we all bark up

the same tree and decide that it's

inspiring. And parents all over the

nation are saying, "What has

you know, we've literally gone crazy?"

Where I would disagree a little bit with

Constantine is that America choosing

economic growth and prosperity there are

190 sovereign nations in the world. 189

would change places with America over

the last 4 years.

Uh we had 71 new record highs in the

markets. 97% of all AI we've created

more market capitalization in a 7-mi

radius of Vestavia International Airport

than Europe's created in the last 20

years. We have the lowest inflation in

the G7. We have the highest growth.

We've grown 10% since 2020. That's

triple the rate of Europe. Biden was

unable to communicate any of that

effectively

because there's this psychological

dynamic that when your wages go up, you

credit your own grit and character. And

when the price of cereal goes up, you

blame the president. Now, similar to the

future or what how William Gibson

described the future,

it's here. It's just not evenly

distributed. Prosperity is unprecedented

in the US over the last 4 years. It just

wasn't It just wasn't evenly

distributed. Now,

having said that, in America you can

stop working in August and you've

produced more and made more money than

you have in Europe the whole year. And

it has gotten better. It's got It's as

things are less bad than anywhere in the

world in the US. Biden was unable to

communicate it. And then talking about

how great the economy is when rents were

skyrocketing, tuition was going up, it

was an ineffective strategy. But I don't

think it's fair to say Americans chose

prosperity. We have prosperity. I would

argue that quite frankly some of the

Republican ideals around deficit

spending, which are nothing but taxes on

future generations pulled forward.

I mean, we'll see how that works. But

his signature policies, a clampdown on

immigration,

tariffs,

um these things are wildly inflationary.

So Constantine's right. It's going to be

difficult. It's You don't know what's

going to happen.

But it feels to me I would argue that

that my favorite appointment in the

Trump administration and the adult in

the room is the 10-year bond, which is

going to say, "Sorry, girlfriend" when I

believe the president tries to implement

some of these economic policies.

Constantine, is that true? Cuz what I

heard there is that effectively Trump

had a better marketing campaign.

Um and that reality is somewhat

different from what the Americans were

sold in the in the last election cycle.

Well, politics is about marketing and

Trump is the marketer-in-chief. He's

very good at branding and selling ideas

and partly that's what politics is

about. Uh but in terms of the economy, I

I think uh Scott is entirely right. It's

one of the reasons I I admire America so

much, the sense of dynamism and economic

growth and the desire to create things

and build things. It's an observation

I've had every time I've been there. You

know, if you if you have a successful

restaurant in the UK, you go, "Well,

I've got a successful restaurant." In

America, if you have a successful

restaurant, you open a second one and a

third one and you create a chain. Right?

So their attitude to business more

broadly is is is fantastic and I love

it. But I think the difference is that I

don't think Americans were comparing the

American economy under Joe Biden to the

European economies. They were comparing

the American economy under Joe Biden to

the American economy under Donald Trump

in his first term and also what they

expect him to do for the future. When

they look at the fact that he's got real

business leaders in government now like

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk talking

about government efficiency. We have to

admit that all Western countries have a

massively bloated civil service, what we

call civil service in the UK, and the

administrative state in the US that

wastes a huge amount of money, uh that

produces very little in terms of output

in many cases, and that needs to be

slimmed down. And people I think are

very excited about that. And when I talk

to

business leaders in America, including

ones that were never on the Trump train,

so to speak, so many of them went over

to his side in this election cycle

because they just felt that he was going

to

continue to accelerate American growth

and continue to deliver prosperity for

the American people. Now, Scott's point

about tariffs and all of these other

things,

uh you know, I I I am

uh I've listened to Donald Trump enough

now to know that you not necessarily

should not necessarily be taking him

literally. Uh I think many of the things

he said says are negotiation tactics and

signaling. So when he says, "I'm going

to build this or do that or do this,"

you have to sort of read between the

lines. When he says, you know, "This

will be the worst thing that" you just

go he's saying to people like, "You

better work with me, otherwise this is

going to work out badly for you" on all

of these things. Um and so it remains to

be seen whether he's successful in those

tactics at getting what he wants. Look,

America is always going to be an unequal

society. It's designed in a way that is

going to make it that way. In America,

the focus is how do we grow the pie? In

Europe, the focus is how do we divide it

up so everyone gets their fair little

share, right? So Americans are about

expanding the pie and then the people

who bake the pie get as much of it as

they possibly can. Um but the question

is can there be a sense in America that

the American dream is alive? That you do

not have to work three gig economy jobs

to pay your rent. That you're going to

be able to buy a house. That you're

going to be able to afford to have

children. That you're going to be able

to raise a family perhaps on a single

income, something that most people only

dream about nowadays. That's really what

this whole economic conversation is

about. And we will see over the next 4

years if Donald Trump is able to

slightly even change the direction of

travel towards those things that

actually Americans of my generation and

older used to take for granted as the

promise of the country that they live

in.

I've I've thought a lot about this over

the last couple of weeks in particular

because we're hearing these big

headlines in national papers in the UK

that millionaires are leaving the UK in

historic numbers. I think it's 10,800

millionaires left last year, which is an

increase of about 160% versus the

previous year. And the general sentiment

in terms of business confidence in the

UK is at a

a several-year low. So I think it's the

lowest it's been since just

post-pandemic. Um there's this I think

it's the Institute of Accountants. They

call up 1,000 accountants every year and

they get they run a survey to see how

much confidence they have in business in

this country. And it's fallen 14 points

to 0.2% confidence um in terms of

business.

There's but there's this big narrative

emerging amongst my entrepreneurial

friends that if you want to start a

business right now, the best place to be

in the world is to be in America. It's

to get over to America and to leave the

UK. Now, Dan, how does that square in?

And you have an accelerator. You speak

to lots of entrepreneurs. How does that

sort of compare or contrast with what

you're seeing at the moment?

Yeah, 100%. The value proposition for

the UK has dropped through the floor.

Very, very high tax. The the ecosystem

of businesses in decline. Some of the

smartest people are now in Dubai.

Um some incredible creators that I know

have moved to Singapore, Hong Kong,

Dubai. Um many are going to the USA. Um

so if people are interested in bigger

markets and bigger opportunities,

they're into the USA. If they're

interested in lower tax and more um

fringe opportunities, they're in the

Middle East. Um

and uh essentially, you know, the UK

hasn't found a place in the world. I

think there are three business models

the UK could go for. Um which is either

the

the head office of Europe, which is what

we were when we were inside the EU and

everyone used to come here uh to build a

European business. Um we could be the

back office of the USA. Um so the

incubator for the USA. A lot of a lot of

smart companies uh get to their first 50

million of value here in the UK and then

sell to a US private equity firm or a US

listed company.

Um and a lot of US companies are now

actually coming here to poach talent or

to outsource things to the UK uh more

cheaply than they could do it in the US.

Um the the the wages in the in the UK

are through the floor compared to what

you would pay in the US, especially, you

know, in tech roles.

So very smart people in the UK are

massively devalued. Um and then the

third option would be to be an

independent uh tax haven and to go with

the uh low-crime, low-tax

uh model of Dubai, Singapore,

you know, those kind of options. So, we

haven't really picked one of those three

yet. We're still, you know, all these

years after Brexit, and we haven't said

which of those three models we want to

adopt.

Scott, you moved here a couple of years

ago to the UK.

And despite everything that's going on

in the UK, are you still bullish on this

being a place for entrepreneurship and

business?

I was looking at some stats before we

started this conversation around the

sort of key areas of concern for me.

Business stats I've talked about there,

the the drop in business confidence, the

entrepreneur exodus that we're seeing,

but things like knife crime in the UK

are up 81% over the last decade, which I

think is a symptom probably of something

else. And one of the big things I think

a lot about as an entrepreneur at the

moment is artificial intelligence. And

our investment in artificial

intelligence from a global perspective

is is down about 2,000% versus a country

like America. So, you've moved here,

you've brought your family here. Are you

bullish on the UK versus the US from an

entrepreneur's perspective?

So, the the question I get most

frequently when I speak here is to

compare and contrast the US with the UK,

and I use a personal anecdote. My

parents immigrated to the US from

Glasgow and London when they were 19 and

22. They took enormous risks.

I've been an entrepreneur my whole life.

I like to think that's a lot of my

success is my fault, that I inherited

sort of that risk-taking DNA. And when I

speak to people

in the UK, I say the primary difference

is you're the ones that stayed.

And that is it kind of comes down to our

risk appetite. The US has five times per

capita the number of entrepreneurs. It

has five times the dollar volume per

startup. There's $5 million in venture

capital waiting to be deployed for every

startup in the US versus 1 million in

Europe.

I I loved what Constantine said about a

restaurant. I went into this great

little restaurant in SoHo a few weeks

ago called Dig Inn, and I loved it so

much I said I left my card and said,

"Can you have the owner? I'd like to

find that

I'd like to open another one. Does he

need money?"

I would never I just would never do that

here. I thought that was a really

interesting insight. In the In the

the collision of risk, crazy ideas that

occasionally become crazy genius,

and technology, and intellectual

property, and great universities

results in a company that no one had

heard of 5 years ago being worth more

than the entire UK stock market, Nvidia.

So, there's just a an enormous

difference. So, the way I would

summarize my impression of

the UK economy, I'll I'll just say

London. I have no experience in I I I I

don't go anywhere that's not walking

distance from Marble Arch. So, my bubble

is pretty opaque. But the way I would

describe the economy here is I love the

term the butler economy. And that is all

the money I see being made here

is people servicing

wealth created somewhere else.

Yeah, you're either in financial

services servicing with rich people,

you're either opening a restaurant or

hospitality servicing rich people, but I

don't see a lot of organic wealth

creation. I interviewed the two {quote}

{unquote} inventors of AI at one of your

prestigious universities. My first

question is, "How the hell were you not

able to make any money if you invented

AI?"

Why haven't you been able to capture any

money? But just for your listeners, my

summation of

Europe versus the US after molesting the

US for the last 35 years is US is still

the best place to make money, and Europe

is still the best place to spend it.

Is this a failing nation, Scott?

I think you have too much going for you

to be described as a failing nation. You

still have amazing universities. It's

the second London still the second best

city in the world.

Premier League is an unbelievable

export. I know how ridiculous that

sounds. People want to be here. There's

still rule of law, rule of play. You

still produce amazing rock and roll. I

just don't I just don't see how you

could say this is a failed

You know, I would argue that the

second only to our entry into Iraq, the

greatest self-inflicted wound was

Brexit. Like just I

An American can't understand why you

would decide to increase your prices

while reducing productivity in one fell

swoop. We can't it's difficult for us to

wrap our heads around some of the

economic decisions

the UK has made, but I think a a lot of

people are kind of betting or hoping

that the UK begins to grow again. So,

I'm I'm in a weird way I'm sort of I

would call myself cautiously optimistic

about the UK. I think at some point

it registers it begins to occupy the

place it could it should command, if you

will.

Constantine,

I I would ask the same question to you

as well. Do you think the UK is a

failing nation? And Scott describes

self-inflicted wounds there. I've heard

you speak of self-inflicted wounds when

you talk more broadly about the West and

what the West needs to to do to turn

itself around. And also just layering a

third point on top of that, which is

somewhat linked to this, is Elon Musk

has taken a particular interest in the

UK over the last month in particular.

And he's started to describe it online,

it seems, as a failing nation. What's

your view?

Well, I'm glad you asked me about Elon

Musk, because the thing that I love most

about the media having this massive

meltdown about, "Oh, no, these Americans

are interfering in our political" These

are the same media commentators who are

constantly banging on about American

politics and saying, "Donald Trump needs

to do this. You need to vote for this."

Like all of this stuff is ridiculous.

The reality is we download our culture,

our politics, our music, almost

everything from America. Right? They

America has become what Britain used to

be, which is the center of Western

civilization. And my request and ask and

begging of British people is if we're

going to download American culture and

politics, let's at least take the good

stuff instead of all this terrible woke

[ __ ] that we downloaded from them, the

DEI and all this other nonsense, and

actually take the entrepreneurial spirit

and all this all these other things that

are really great about America. The

optimism, the positivity, the

willingness to to have a go, to take a

risk, as Scott as Scott was talking

about. So, I wish we took more of that.

And it speaks to your question about are

we a failing nation? Look,

I think it's it's a pretty deliberately

inflammatory question, which I don't

want to

kind of actually accept it in in that

way. But what I think we should

acknowledge is are we trending up or are

we trending down? And when you talk

about over 10,000 millionaires have

left, I hear that through a normal

British person's ear.

And I worry that there's quite a lot of

British people who will hear that and

say, "Oh, good. All of these rich

parasites have left." Because that's our

attitude in the UK to a very large

extent. We see wealthy people not as

what they are, which is for the most

part, not everybody, but for the most

part, people who've created a tremendous

amount of value for their fellow human

beings, and as a result of that have

been rewarded. We see them because we,

you know, we have this history of the

landed gentry. And so, to us a

millionaire is someone who has these

ill-gotten gains that they don't

deserve, right? That is not really the

world we live in. When I talk to wealthy

people in this country and pretty much

everywhere else, for the most part,

especially in the Western world, these

are people who've created something that

has fundamentally helped other human

beings do something better, do something

easier, buy products cheaper, whatever

it is. That's who the successful people

really are.

And we just need an attitude shift.

That's what we should be downloading

from America. What we should be saying

inside our heads is, "This person is

successful because they've helped other

people. Great. We want How do we get

more of those people into our country?"

And I'm afraid I'm telling you something

that you know better than anyone,

Stephen. If you don't have entrepreneurs

in your country creating businesses and

creating jobs, the economy is going to

stagnate for the rest of eternity.

We have to get smart, talented, driven

people into our country instead of

chasing them out.

Dan, I know this is a subject that

you're very passionate about, and

Constantine's articulated it really,

really well. I've seen lots of your

posts about this subject, Dan. What are

you saying? And is it true that the

British attitude is a form of self-harm

that's holding us back from our

potential?

There there are definitely attitudinal

factors, but you'll also get the most

incredibly entrepreneurial people here

in London. London is a melting pot for

creativity. You've got Sitting in one

city, you've got people who are

phenomenal at media, finance,

technology, entertainment, politics,

defense. Like all of this Like if you

take the best of LA and Washington and

New York and Miami and kind of start

moving it into one city, you know, you

get elements of that in London.

It's a very diverse city from that point

of view, and it creates an

entrepreneurial melting pot. The issue

is taxes.

Nobody wants to pay 60% of their income

in taxes.

And as soon as you hit, you know, in in

the US, you don't hit the top tax rate

until you are six times the average

wage. Here in the UK, it's two and a

half times. So, as soon as you're two

and a half times the average wage, you

are you're in real trouble. There are so

many people in the UK who deliberately

hold their income at 50,000 pounds

because after 50,000 pounds, you get

taxed 40% of your income. So, people

just give up, and they say, "I'm not

going I know some really smart, really

talented people who could be earning a

lot more, and they refuse to pay the 40%

rate. So, they like keep everything

small because they don't want to go from

20 to 40% at the 50 grand rate, which is

crazy. And I've employed people who have

said, "Can I have a day off a week

rather than going over that threshold?"

So,

you know, that's that's a huge issue,

the tax issue. The company rate tax is

high. The corporate

capital gains rate is tax taxed very

high. The VAT is high. The council tax

is high. All of these additional taxes

just keep piling up.

And then the other cost at the moment,

if we want to have an AI economy, we

need cheap electricity. One thing that

Trump has committed to is is really

really cheap energy. There is no such

thing as a fast-growth, high, you know,

high-octane economy that has expensive

energy.

Cheap energy equals fast growth. And we

have the most expensive energy in the

world. We can't run data centers here

because the energy cost is going to be

too high. So, if we want to have an

AI-driven economy, you know, we can't do

it with windmills and solar panels that

have got frost all over them.

Scott, you look um

like a lot of a lot of thoughts are

going through your head following those

two comments. What are you thinking?

Well, uh with respect to energy, Trump

issued an executive order calling it an

energy crisis. Gasoline in the US, on an

inflation-adjusted basis, is less

expensive than it was 50 years ago. We

are now the largest oil producer in the

world.

I would argue I would argue that we have

um a housing crisis.

And that the executive order should have

been around that. It just going back to

the US, and I'm curious if the same

dynamics and whether Constantin and

Daniel agree with this. I believe this

the election in the US was supposed to

be a referendum on women's rights.

Women's rights did not show up.

This was a referendum on young men in my

view. And that is, if you look at the

two cohorts that swung most from blue

red versus 2020,

two of the three cohorts, other than

Latinas,

was people under the age of 30 who in

the US are 24% less wealthy than they

were 40 years ago. People over the age

of 70 are 72% wealthier. Our tax code is

basically an attempt to shove money from

the young to the old.

And two, 45-to-64-year-old

women, who I would affectionately

describe as their mother.

And that is, when your son's in the

basement vaping and playing video games,

and I think a lot about struggling young

men,

you don't give a flying [ __ ] about

territorial sovereignty in the Ukraine,

or Ukraine, excuse me, or transgender

rights. All you know is your kid isn't

doing well. And 210 times a day your

kid's getting a notification that

somebody he knows is on a Gulf Stream or

partying in St. Barts, and it's not him

or her. And so, we not only have young

people not doing as well,

this pornographic wealth is just shoved

in their face.

And you end up with uh in my opinion, uh

kind of a young struggling young man. No

group has fallen further faster in the

world, I would argue, than young men in

America.

They are if you go into a morgue in the

United States,

and there's five people who died by

suicide, four of them are men.

One in three men under the age of 30 has

a girlfriend. Two in three women under

the age of 30 has a boyfriend. Why do

you think that's mathematically

impossible? Cuz women are dating older

cuz they want more economically and

emotionally viable men.

There's one in five men live at home at

the age of 30. One in three under the

age of 25. They're not having sex.

They're more obese. They're more

depressed.

When women don't have a relationship,

they oftentimes channel that energy into

their professional lives. More women own

single women own homes in the US than

single men. Women in urban areas under

the age of 30 are making more money than

men.

When men don't have the guardrails of a

relationship or a job or being in

school, they pour that energy sometimes

into unproductive things. Misogyny,

nationalism or extreme nationalism,

conspiracy theory. In some, they become

really shitty citizens. They become

sequestered from society. So, I'm

worried in the US our biggest threat is

a new species of asexual, asocial young

men

who are incredibly dangerous, have lost

have opted out of America. 60% of

30-year-olds used to have one child in

America, now it's 27%.

So, people I think in the US, and I'm I

am just a genuine question. I don't know

if it's the same problem here.

Our tax policies have taken money from

the young,

stuffed them in the pockets of old

people, so Nana and Popkin upgrade from

Crystal Cruises. Meanwhile, young people

can't afford education, they can't

afford housing.

And we we especially see this really

acute emerging crisis

among young men who are just opting out

of America, who don't even want to try

and date, don't even want to enroll in

school, don't want even try and get a

job. Just stick in their basements and

go on Reddit or Discord. Or why go try

and shower, work out, and get a

relationship when you have YouPorn? Why

get a job when you can trade stocks or

crypto on Coinbase or Robinhood? I think

this is In my opinion, this is the most

dangerous trend in America right now. It

was almost like demonizing men for

decades has consequences.

I mean, this

this is what's been happening. Men are

the root of all evil, the root of all

evil, the root of all evil. Every advert

is about, you know, the woman is strong

and capable, the guy's pathetic. In

every movie, the woman's kicking ass and

the the man is pathetic. This has been

going on for decades. It's a cultural

thing as well as an economic thing. Um

and many of us have been saying that

when you take meaning uh and opportunity

away from men, if you create an

education system that punishes boys for

being boys, uh if you create a society

in which traditional masculine virtues

become vices,

uh then you will create exactly the sort

of thing that Scott is talking about.

It's a terrible thing that's been done.

Uh having said that, my message is

always the same to young men who who I

hope are listening, which is the answer

to your problems is never going to be,

as Scott says, porn and this and that.

The answer to your problems is going to

take responsibility, go out and get a

job or create a business, and and

actually make your life better. No one's

coming to save you. No one's coming to

help you. There is no uh

the the the sort of programs that we

have for women where we sort of go,

"Well, you know, let's give them an

opportunity here." No none of that's

happening for men. It's not going to

happen because for evolutionary reasons,

we just don't feel sorry for men the way

that we do for women. That's a reality.

I know it sucks, but the answer for men

is going to be the the answer that's

always been the answer for men, which is

for you to get off the sofa, to get off

the couch, and go out and actually do

and create and build and find your own

way through it. Even if you have to

acknowledge that the society you live in

has been conditioned for quite a long

time to think that you're a piece of

[ __ ] cuz cuz you happen to have the

genitalia that you do. Now,

that I I think it is is the harsh

reality of it. And I think Scott is

right to point this out as a problem,

and I hope that we start to have

both in terms of economic policy, but in

terms of also just the cultural

conversations and the way we talk about

these issues, we come back to something

that human beings have known through the

entire history of the our species, which

is men and women are both good and need

to work together in order to thrive and

succeed together, in order to have

families, in order to have children, and

in order for us to have healthy

communities and healthy societies. You

need healthy femininity, and you need

healthy masculinity, and they need to

come to together and work together.

That's what we're supposed to do. And

these stupid gender wars and this idea

that men as a group are this and women

as a group are that, all of that just

needs to end.

I was watching last night as Trump sat

there signing all of those executive

orders, and I also watched his

inauguration speech where he said, "We

will forge a society that is color blind

and merit-based."

And he signed a bunch of executive

orders last night to eliminate eliminate

a variety of different DEI programs in

the federal government, directing

agencies to dismantle these practices

within 60 days. And then over the last

couple of months, we've seen Meta come

out and dismantle and reverse some of

their DEI programs. We've seen

McDonald's, Walmart, Ford,

Harley-Davidson, Boeing, Amazon, Toyota.

It feels like there's a real shift

happening in both how, you know, sort of

um identity politics, but also in the

sort of corporate environment that those

identity politics have really emerged

from. Are you supportive of Trump's move

to roll back DEI measures?

So, I I I think there's a lot of nuance

here. I would argue in universities,

we've

DEI is used as a giant misdirect from

people such as myself who are enforcers

of the caste system and wake up every

morning and look in the mirror and ask

ourselves the same question, how do I

increase my compensation while

decreasing my accountability?

And what I found is the ultimate

strategy is to create an LVMA trajectory

as [ __ ] elitist strategy,

where Dartmouth sits on a endowment of

$8 billion and lets in 500 kids. So, the

conversation around who gets in is a

misdirect from the important question,

that is how many.

If you are not growing your endowment or

your freshman class faster than

population, you should lose your

tax-free status. We should be letting in

more gay kids, more trans kids, more

white Republicans from rural state. You

know who doesn't talk about DEI? Junior

colleges, cuz there's no admissions.

They don't have a problem with DEI. So,

I think DEI on campus has ended up

eating its own tail, started out with

the right idea. Now it's nothing. And I

would I would argue the same is somewhat

true to the Democratic Party. I went to

the the Democratic National Convention.

On the dnc.org website, it lists 17

special interest groups, and it says

explicitly who we serve.

Asian Pacific Islanders, seniors,

veterans, black Americans, the disabled.

It basically lists I added the sub 76%

of the population.

And when you say you're actively

advocating for 76% of the population,

you're not advocating for 76% of the

population, you're discriminating

against the 24%. It's gone too far. I

would argue in the workplace, having

served on

seven public company boards and

I'm going to do a lot of boasting here

cuz I'm desperate for all of your

affirmation, and 12 private company

boards, there's still work to be done in

the private sector. There still is a

cycle

40% of all venture capital and probably

70 or 80% of all venture capital

deployed are white guys from just two

universities, Stanford and Harvard. So I

would argue universities it's gotten out

of control. I'd love to see the DEI

apparatus disassembled as along with the

ethics department, the sustainability

department, the leadership department.

These are all [ __ ] where we hire

formally important people with no

standards. They never get fired. It just

translates to more student debt. In the

boardroom in corporations and certain

sectors, I do think there is a need to

be thoughtful about broadening the

aperture of the lens and bringing in

people

who are underrepresented. There's still

a dearth

of women raising venture capital. So I I

think it's nuanced based on sector.

Um but to just say all DEI is bad, I

want to move to where the University of

California did in 1997. They don't have

race-based affirmative action.

They have adversity-based affirmative

action. I'm a beneficiary of affirmative

action. I had something called Pell

Grants.

I was raised by a single immigrant

mother who lived and died a secretary.

So I got grants. I had unfair advantage

because I came from a household that was

low-income. And I think that there

should be affirmative action and I

should think it should be based on

color, but that color is green.

The poor need our help. The moment you

start advocating for special advantage

based on any external factors, I think

at this point in our society it probably

causes more problems than it solves.

That's exactly right. That's exactly

right, Steven. And I think if we take a

step back and look at why DEI has become

such a big part of the conversation,

it's precisely because instead of

addressing the reality

of people's lives, which is some people

are disadvantaged and some people are

advantaged,

actually what we've mainly done and and

the Scott alluded to

the very beginning of our discussion is

we've given a leg up to very

wealthy my ethnic minority people from

successful families. And they now their

children now get into prestigious

universities,

which they probably would have done

anyway, some of them because they come

from very advantaged backgrounds. And

the kids that are growing up in poverty,

black and white, have no shot

whatsoever. But the reason that it's

become such a big issue around the

Western world, actually I don't think

it's it's the nuances that we've delved

in into here, but actually something

else, which is we have created

the most ethnically diverse societies in

history. And what I mean by that is not

that we've created societies in which

there are large groups of people who are

different from each other, but for the

first time probably in human history

we've created societies in which there

is a lot of ethnic diversity and there

is no overt discrimination against some

groups of people in the sense of you

know, the imperial societies in the past

would have had one dominant ethnic

group, which is, you know, the Russians

in the Soviet Union or the the Turks in

the Ottoman Empire or the Brits in the

British Empire, whatever. That was the

ethnic group that was like the dominant

one. And everybody else was a kind of

second-class citizen and everybody knew

it, right? We don't have that anymore.

We have highly diverse societies where

people of every single background exist,

in which we have this idea

that we're all supposed to be equal. And

when we have programs that explicitly

discriminate against people, there were

times when the discrimination was

explicit against black people. Well,

we've got we've gone full circle now

where the discrimination was going the

other way in university admissions, in

hiring, in all sort in corporate

America, in government, in all sorts of

things. You know, in this country the

BBC has internships that aren't

available to white people, etc. When you

get to that point, as Scott said earlier

on, everyone just goes, "Look, I know

I'm not supposed to say this, but the

reality is this is racism. This is a

form of racism and I thought we were

trying to get away from the racism." So

to the extent that the the the

elimination of DEI is about creating a

merit-based society

in which people are given an opportunity

because they're skilled and talented and

they have the potential to actually

achieve things and create wealth, you

know, we all know this. We all employ

people, right? Uh how many of us are

thinking about the races of the people

we hire? I don't think we think about

that at all. What we are thinking about

is I run a business, I need the very

best possible

very best possible person for this job

at the price I'm willing to pay. I don't

care if they are purple, green, blue,

white, what whatever. It doesn't matter.

What matters is are we getting the best

person for the job? And my concern about

identity politics has always been that

if we do not adopt that worldview, then

what we will do is create a worldview in

which we have different racial groups

competing with each other on the basis

of race. And that is a very very

dangerous mix for a multiethnic society

like ours, which is why I've been

begging people to let go of the stupid

idea of identity politics and to say

first and foremost, we are all Brits or

we are all Americans. We have this

umbrella identity under which we all

operate and our personal ethnicity or

sex or whatever is secondary to that.

And actually for the purposes of

employment, for the purposes of college

admission, etc., is irrelevant. Yes, if

there is disadvantage, if we grow up in

a single-parent home with a low income,

we may need some extra support there. If

we had

terrible schooling or education was not

good, we may need extra support. If

there's certain things that make it

easier for us because of of the

disadvantages we've had to fulfill our

talent and potential, I'm all for that.

But what we've created

so far and that's why I'm delighted it's

being eliminated is an anti-meritocratic

system which says, "We don't care what

you bring to the workplace. We don't

care whether you deserve this place or

no, we don't care about the potential

you have. Actually, we just needed a

insert category tick box to fill this

slot. And you filled it. It doesn't

really matter that you're not doing your

job very well because now we can say,

you know, we're a diverse company." I

don't care about that and we shouldn't

care about that as a society. And thank

God that's now gone.

Yeah, I think the worst part about it,

too, is that it calls into question when

someone does succeed

and they're from a diverse background,

you know, it calls into question why

they got that job in the first place,

which I think is horrible.

You know, I just hired from two

candidates, the final two candidates. Um

was a was a guy and a woman. Um I would

hate if the woman felt that she got the

job because she's a woman and not

because she's best. She turns out she

was by far the best in the process. And

I would love for her to know that there

was absolutely nothing that changed our

view. We weren't trying to fill a a

position with a woman, we were trying to

fill the position with the best and she

should know she was the best. Um I think

the contrast that was really fascinating

was between Trump's website and um the

Democrats' website. So in the in the

Democrats' website it was who we're for,

which was what Scott was saying. But the

Trump's were Trump's website was the 20

things we're going to do. And it was

just a list of 20 These are the 20

action points. This is what we're going

to we're going to do this, we're going

to do this, we're going to do this,

we're going to do this. So it was a

to-do list as opposed to

the identities where held that that we

want to advantage list. Um and I think

that was the choice, you know, at the

beginning Constantine said, you know,

America had a choice. And for me when I

looked at those two websites, I saw this

choice between the identities being the

main thing or the to-do list

uh being the main thing. And they're

very different approaches.

Scott, I am when I was listening to that

Zuckerberg interview talking about um

masculinity and identity issues, one of

the lines he said in there sounded like

something you've said on my show before

where he said, "I think having a culture

that celebrates that aggression a little

bit more," talking about masculinity,

"has its own merits that are really

positive."

Now,

Mark Zuckerberg isn't necessarily

someone that I

saw closely aligning to your worldview.

Am I right in thinking that that's

something you agree with? Cuz I remember

you saying to me you you think people

should be able to walk in a room and

kick everyone's ass.

What I've said on your show is that I

think the male form, especially under

the age of 30 with its bone structure,

incredible double twitch muscle, and

then this amazing

amazing chemical called testosterone,

you're going to look back

at your 25-year-old self and think, "Why

wasn't I a [ __ ] monster like Steve

Bannon?"

Because and also

there there is

I I you know, some masculinity when

Russian soldiers pour over the border

in Ukraine, you want some of that big

dick energy that Daniel was was talking

about. In the case of Zuckerberg, I I

don't think

I don't think he really understands an

aspirational view of masculinity. I

think when he couches

immediately kind of trying to kiss

Trump's ass because Trump threatened to

put him in prison

and what he used to call moderation he's

now calling censorship. And when you

have an algorithm

that elevates incendiary hateful

content, I would not describe that as

masculinity. For me, masculinity comes

down to protection,

providing, and procreation.

And I don't think it's a I think to talk

about gendering a workplace in the

context of trying to

excuse

a

total elimination of what I would think

is probably healthy moderation.

I imagine Daniel and Constantine might

have a different view.

I don't I I think he's just couching his

his his supplicant obsequious kiss-ass

behavior under the auspices of

masculinity. It just doesn't ring true

for me. And I'm not sure we need to man

up or fem up organizations and companies

right now. When I talk about

masculinity,

you know, this If I say at a conference,

"Oh, women are better managers."

Everyone goes, "Yes, that's right.

That's right." Right? That's okay. If I

say men are more risk-aggressive and

make better entrepreneurs, you're a

misogynist.

You you're out.

And the reality is men and women bring

different attributes. But the masculine

and femininity, I think masculinity is a

wonderful thing, but I think we need a

different image of it. I think people

born as male have an easier time leaning

into those things. Having said that,

I work out at a CrossFit with a bunch of

lesbian firefighters. They bring great

masculine energy. I And they could carry

my ass out of a fire. So, a lot of men

demonstrate wonderful feminine

qualities. A lot of women demonstrate

wonderful masculine qualities. I don't

think these things are sequestered to

anyone born as a specific

a specific gender. What I think What I

talk about masculinity, I don't talk

about it in the role of corporations. I

think that

I think that's just fraught with risk

and not worth talking about. It should

be about shareholder value or

stakeholder value.

I think young men need a code. We're

going to church less. We have fewer

relationships. So, what's the code you

hold into onto in terms of

creating behaviors that are productive

for you, yourself, society. And I think

masculinity needs to be redefined as

something more aspirational where you're

celebrated for being really [ __ ]

strong. You're celebrated for not

complaining. You're celebrated for

creating surplus value. Create more tax

revenue than you absorb. You're

celebrated for being aggressive. You're

celebrated for breaking up fights at

bars, not

not not starting them. You're celebrated

for protecting your country, not

shitposting it. You know, there's You're

you're celebrated for approaching

strange women and expressing romantic

interest.

That's that's not a crime.

And if she's not interested, and you're

rejected, you're both going to be fine.

Uh you know, you're celebrated for

getting out of the house. You're

celebrated for working. You're

celebrated for making money and liking

money.

I think there just needs to be a

redefinition of masculinity in the

context of helping young men

find a code

that they used to get from the armed

services or from dual dual parent

households. And I I've I feel like

they're struggling. So, I like the idea

of something that they feel in their

bones and in their

in their body and in their DNA that they

can lean into, that we celebrate. And

the conversation is flipped entirely. 5

years ago, I was called a misogynist for

talking about masculinity. Now, the

conversation is being led in advocated

by one group, and it's mothers,

who are like, "I My son is not doing

well. I got three kids, two daughters.

Daughters in PR, and the other one's at

Penn, and my son is in the basement

vaping and playing video games. He needs

something to latch onto. He needs a

code." Anyways, but I apologize, word

salad.

Zuckerberg and masculinity, give me a

[ __ ] break. He looks like a Chechen

molly dealer.

Sorry, back to you, Stephen.

Well, it's just it's interesting when

you speak, Scott, because your views on

masculinity, um it appear to me to be

most better represented by the right

side of politics than the left side of

politics. They both have their own

vision of masculinity, and yours seems

to be a Republican view of masculinity.

He flew

To Trump's credit, he he saw the

opportunity, and he flew right into the

manosphere. Rockets, crypto, Joe Rogan,

uh Theo Von. He said, "No, I'm I'm I'm

not going to run from this. I'm going to

fly right into it." Now, I would argue

that his vision of masculinity has too

much coarseness, too much cruelty, too

much bullying. I don't think that's

masculinity.

I think when we talk about Elon Musk

taking risks, sending rockets that are

captured by scissors coming down,

inspiring the EV race, taking an

enormous risk, making a [ __ ] ton of

money. Yeah, that's a great form of

masculinity. Accusing men trying to save

Thai soccer players, calling them

pedophiles, calling your employees a sex

criminal such that they have to leave

their house, having 13 kids by five

women or three women, none of which you

live with, living next to sleeping next

to a loaded gun, losing control of your

of your your your your self-control

because of addiction, I don't think

that's a great role model. I I think

he's an amazing role role model for

boys. I don't think he's a great role

model for men.

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I'll put the link below.

Constantine,

Elon Musk, censorship. The word

censorship was used there by

um Scott. We've seen this reversal in

Meta's attitude, Facebook's attitude

that had been built up over a decade,

where it it almost felt like if you had

sort of right-leaning views or really

any unaccepted views, and you posted

those on Facebook, you would face maybe

having the post deleted or your account

suspended. This new world of um of

speech of free speech and as it pertains

to masculinity, do you think Elon Musk's

decision to buy X, which I noticed,

Scott, you'd left X. You no longer post

or tweet on X anymore. Do you think

Elon's

decision to buy X is a net positive for

society?

Uh net, yes, but I think what people

hear when you say that is there's no

problems with this system than, you

know, compared to the ones we had

before. Uh there are definitely

disadvantages to a free platform like uh

X now. And one of them is,

inevitably, when you remove censorship,

one of the things that censorship was

doing was keeping all all the deeply

unpleasant uh people uh

away from being able to shove things in

your face. And that happens quite a lot

on X. So, I don't enjoy that aspect of

it. Uh but I've always said that would

be the price that we would pay for

freedom. Uh freedom Freedom always has a

price, and that's what we're seeing. Uh

as for Zuckerberg,

his miraculous transformation into a

free speech warrior is just wonderful,

and I I'm delighted to welcome him. I'm

sure it's entirely genuine and not

anything to do with the election results

we've just seen in any way whatsoever

and the fact that the culture shifted.

And those of us who were being censored

by people like him for years actually

winning the argument. Well, what it

shows you is we've won the argument on

free speech

when it comes to the big tech platforms.

Um and it's going to be messy. Uh and I

always said it was going to be messy

because, inevitably, when you create

these large platforms that are

algorithmically driven,

uh where the truth and the moderate

reasonable take is not what usually gets

attention, you're going to see a lot of

unpleasantness.

I value

the ability to hear and communicate

truthful uh ideas and facts over my own

subjective feelings. Oh, someone said a

a thing I don't like, or someone was

racist, or someone was misogynistic. I

don't enjoy the fact that that happens,

but I would rather that happened, and

also we were not being censored from

saying, you know, COVID probably came

from a lab in China, which we were. Uh

you know, the the the the the Hunter

Biden laptop story isn't Russian

disinformation. Actually, it's an

important piece of information that

American voters need to hear when

they're making their decision about the

election.

Uh and all of these other things that

were being suppressed and censored

across social media for years, um

they're not anymore, and I think that's

a good thing. And I think that's

helpful. And if you look at, you know,

to bring it back to the UK for a moment,

Stephen, uh as you know, on

Trigonometry, we've tried to cover the

grooming gangs uh scandal. And it's an

outrage what happened in this country

over decades. We've we've been covering

that for years, since about 2019, 2020,

to very little purchase. And one of the

reasons is it was just something that

the media sort of covered and then moved

on. When it actually should have been

something we talked about on a daily

basis until serious action was taken,

and we saw real real change. Real change

in policing. real change in social work,

real change in government, real change

in the way that these racially

aggravated hate crimes were treated. Um,

well, none of that was really being

talked about seriously until Elon kicked

up a fuss, amplified the voices of

survivors, amplified the voices of

companions on X, which he bought, and

now the British government is forced to

do whatever it can to actually address

those issues uh to to to the extent that

it will, you know, a lot of people will

say it still doesn't go far enough.

Well, if it doesn't go far enough, we

now have a platform from which we can

continue to have that conversation until

there is the sort of inquiry and the

sort of outcomes that people want to

actually deliver real change. So, is

that a positive? God, yes. God, yes. We

needed that. Those women who were raped

on a mass scale needed their voices to

be amplified by someone like Elon Musk

on a platform like X, which is now free.

to the point where Keir Starmer is

forcing into defensive action. That I

wish that was around 30 years ago

because a hell of a lot of young girls

and women wouldn't have suffered the way

they did if we had the opportunity to

get that message out. So, God, yes, it's

a net positive. Just to pick up on that,

Constantine. I I I've had a question in

my mind for a while um

regarding the scandal, which is

horrific, I think we something we all

definitely agree on, is why has Elon

chosen now? And why has he chosen

Keir Starmer as the sort of central

target of this flurry of tweets around

the grooming scandals? Because there's

clearly you you

Elon's a I think an individual which you

can kind of see thinking in real time.

Like if you go back through his tweets

cuz there's so many of them and they

kind of come in these spurts, you can

almost see what he's getting at. Is

there an underlying reason why he's made

this essential issue over the last

couple of weeks?

I I think there are several reasons. One

of the reasons that it's happening now

is actually most Americans were

completely unaware of this issue until

recently. I remember a year ago being

speaking at a private event in New York

and somebody said to me, well, you know,

what what is the consequence of

political correctness? Well, why why are

you so against it? Why are you so

against censorship? And I talked about

the grooming gangs and and people were

horrified. They hadn't even And these

are well-informed, educated people who

are media savvy and whatever. So, one of

the reasons is I think to a lot of

Americans this issue is only coming to

the fore now in front of their mind. Uh

the second issue, I think, is that Elon

Musk understands what I said earlier,

which is we have a global Western

culture now. Uh and so what happens in

Britain matters just as much as what

happens in America because we are we are

symbiotic with each other now. When

there's a a restriction of speech in the

UK, when we have laws about what people

are and aren't allowed to say, that has

an impact across the world. When you see

the European Union trying to pass

legislation about online censorship,

that has an impact because if something

exists in the UK and in many European

countries, it's only a matter of time

before people in America going to say,

well, look, they've got this in Europe,

why don't we bring it over here? And

vice versa. So, what happens in America

affects us in Europe and in the UK and

what happens in Europe and the UK

affects America. So, what Elon, I think,

is trying to do is to say, we care about

our civilization. Elon doesn't really

talk that much about the United States,

he talks about our civilization as I do

because I believe that we are now one

thing to a very significant extent. Now,

from our civilizational point of view,

is it a good thing that mass rape gangs

in the UK are being insufficiently

investigated and treated improperly by

the police and the government? No, it's

not, it's a very bad thing. So, how do

we address that? Well, we address that

by putting pressure on the government of

the day. Now,

I don't see the grooming gangs as a

party political issue. The Tories didn't

really do anything about it properly

either, although there were individual

members of of the cabinet that tried to

to do something like Suella Braverman.

Um but he's putting pressure on the

government of the day. You can see him

going after Nigel Farage of all people

and saying Nigel Farage is not the right

leader for reform. So, he's he's in he's

attempting to shape British politics in

the direction that he feels is the right

way.

he want?

What outcome does he want? I look, I

don't know what Elon Musk want. I don't

know him personally. I haven't even yet

had a chance to interview him, which I

really look forward to doing cuz I think

he's one of the the great visionaries of

our time, whether you like him or not, I

think that's undeniably true.

Um but my sense is he's trying to uh

talk about all the things that we've

been discussing, freedom of expression,

the end of identity politics and the

pursuit of meritocracy, a pioneering

pioneering inspiring vision of the

future, which is why he's talking about

Mars and and a vision for our

civilization that goes beyond the narrow

squabbling that we do here on Earth.

Um a and and the the the understanding

that human beings are are meant we we

left the cave. We're not supposed to

stay in a place with the walls closing

in on us and feel like we're in decline.

We're not supposed to be a civilization

that has 1.5 children per woman and that

is simply just leaving the planet Earth

because we can't reproduce. We're

supposed to look at the future with hope

and optimism. We're going to we're

supposed to say, I want things to be

better. I want things to be better for

my children. I want to have children. I

want the vision of our society

be being one of positivity and optimism

and a sense of a pioneering vision and

inspiration. That's what I think he

wants and um

I don't really see any of that in the

current government in the UK and I think

he's right to go after them and say, you

are destroying your country's economy,

you're destroying its culture, you are

destroying its sense of cohesiveness by

allowing illegal immigration, you are

destroying that sense of optimism and

vision and you're not saying to people,

let's build something better, you're

saying, let's stay small, let's play

small, let's not rise above our station.

And I think

we need people like that, imperfect as

they may be in all sorts of different

ways, to drive our civilization forward,

to say to us, there is an inspiring

vision to which we're all moving as

opposed to just sitting there and

waiting to die, which is what we've been

doing for far too long. Yeah, I think I

think Elon is

taking at his word, you know, he said a

year ago that he was going to absolutely

dismantle the woke mind virus globally

and he was going to ensure meritocracy

and free speech.

And he when he sets his mind on

something, he has the ability to stay

focused on it for a very long time to a

degree most people can't fathom.

You know, and he's and he's absolutely

willing to endure pain. He loves a

fight. He he obviously has the kind of

mind that can't relax unless he's kind

of grinding up against some gear

as well. Like the way he the way he

works, he needs stress in his life. He

needs a big enemy, he needs a big fight

to to engage with.

And I think Keir Starmer just ticked all

of his boxes as someone to go up

against.

I think I think what's interesting is we

talk about these big tech. I love that

Scott has previously talked about

breaking up big tech and I think there's

potential for that in the next four

years. All of these guys like Trump and

JD Vance and

all of them have have

uh locked horns with big tech and

they've come you know, this is their

chance to get revenge on big tech in the

next four years. They could do a little

you know, you might see Google have to

you know, spin off YouTube or you might

see AWS have to come away from Amazon or

something like that. Who knows? But um

it's interesting that that a lot of

these big tech guys, they're probably

cozying up to Trump um because you know,

that could be on the cards as well.

There's been a lot of um Trump butt kick

butt kissing over the last couple of

weeks. I think Trump's almost bragged

about the fact that everybody's flown

down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his butt and

to cozy up with him and there's now

headlines saying that there's this tech

oligarchy forming in the United States

where Bezos and Elon and Zuck are all

now friends and they're stood behind

Trump as this unifying force. Just to

just to touch on a few points of that

but also on Constantine's message that

Elon is doing this for the betterment of

humanity, to further humanity, his

involvement with the UK but his broader

involvement in politics now. Scott, does

that square with how you think about

Elon? And I am quite

um curious to ask you why you made the

decision to leave X and to go to Blue

Sky and Threads and things like that.

Yeah, I can't speculate on what

motivates Elon Musk. I I just I quite

frankly just don't get the guy and I

don't also I don't I don't have the