好吧，戴维，你想把它拿下来吗？

是的。大家好，感谢大家今天加入我们。我们今天请到了维韦克·拉马斯瓦米，他是一位美国商界领袖，也是《纽约时报》畅销书作者。他是 Strive 的创始人，这是一家总部位于俄亥俄州的资产管理公司，与贝莱德、道富、Vanguard 竞争。在此之前，他创立并领导了一家名为 Roiven Sciences 的成功生物科技公司，并在那里负责监督新药的开发，这些药物后来获得了 FDA 批准。

彭博社称他是反 ESG 运动的领军人物，《纽约客》则称他为“反觉醒公司”的首席执行官。他毕业于哈佛大学和耶鲁法学院。他是两名移民的儿子。他与 Apoorva 结婚，她是一名咽喉外科医生；他还是两个儿子的父亲，儿子分别为 3 岁和 1 岁。那么，维韦克，感谢你今天加入我们。

是的。很高兴来参加，伙计们。我期待的是在这里进行更多对话，而不只是发表一篇预先写好的演讲。不过戴维，你能很清楚地听到我说话吗？是的，是的，我们能听到你。

嗯。

太好了。尼隆，很高兴，很高兴终于见到你，伙计。

是的，是的，我期待见面。是的，很期待这次对话。是的，很好。不过，我是说，戴维的介绍非常精彩，而我想说，我同意所有那些，所阐述的一切，也祝贺你迄今取得的一切成就。而且我觉得，你知道，其实我觉得大家只是想更多地了解，你知道，更多地了解你，而且，而且，是的，我想，无论你想说什么

都行，听起来不错。我们，我们就此开始吧。大多数人几乎没听说过我，而这场总统竞选才，才刚刚开始升温。不过，是的，我的父母 40 年前几乎身无分文地来到这个国家，而后来我创办了价值数十亿美元的公司，还，还没达到埃隆·马斯克的水平，但，但尽管如此，这些公司，你知道，以积极的方式影响了人们的生活。而我在做到这些的同时结了婚，遵循自己对上帝的信仰，并把两个儿子带到这个世界上，如今由我们抚养他们。

而我确实担心，除非我们为此采取行动，否则对我的两个儿子和他们这一代人来说，美国梦将不复存在。我认为很长一段时间以来，我们一直在逃离某种东西。我参加这场竞选的原因是，我没有料到自己会竞选总统，但我看到一个竞选阵容正在形成，当然是在共和党一边，其中有很多人是在逃离某种东西。我没看到任何人是在奔向某种东西。

而我认为，那才是我们需要做的。

嗯，我觉得你在这一点上确实有点说到要害了。比如，我认为存在这样一种情况。实际上，人们有时对未来相当悲观。而人们会想，嗯，我觉得在某种程度上，比如，嗯，我们该做什么？比如，什么是美好的未来？你知道，嗯。而且，你知道，显然，两者都有。有宗教信仰的人，而那是。我当然尊重这一点。但还有。还有，就像，你知道，如果你不一定有宗教信仰，或者即使你有，也会觉得。

就像，嗯，好吧，存在的。存在的意义是什么？是的。你知道，什么。我们应该做什么？我们又如何知道它是不是更好？

是的。我认为这些正是我们应该提出的问题。而且我认为，埃隆，我们生活在这样一个时刻，比如，我正在和你说话，对吧。某种意义上，是以我这一代人的一员的身份，我 37 岁。我是有史以来第一个以共和党人身份竞选美国总统的千禧一代。我认为，我们这一代人正在经历的事情是，我们都极度缺乏目标、意义和身份认同。是的，我认为是这样。而且我认为，我们渴望成为某种比我们自身更宏大之事的一部分，但我们还没有确定那是什么。

你知道，我觉得其中有些事超出了我的职权范围。对吧。我认为其中有些事要由牧师来承担，让上帝复兴，让对某种真正更崇高之物的信仰复兴。这是真的。但我正在为此尽一小份力。好吧。民族认同的复兴也有某种小小的作用。对吧？回答。身为美国人意味着什么。这是某种东西。这是。人们，你知道，像我这么大或更年轻的人，身为美国人意味着什么？

你会得到一种像车灯前的鹿那样呆住的反应，比如，哇，那是什么？你刚才问了我什么？我认为，只要我们用对这个问题的明确答案，哪怕只是填补民族认同上的那片真空，那就是成为这个国家的公民意味着什么。而如果是另一个国家，那也没关系。那个国家对他们的问题也有明确答案。但我担心的是这个国家，它填补了那片真空、那片空白的一部分。

这就是我的想法。这是。这就是我所说的。这就是让我来劲的东西。我认为这就是那个问题的部分答案。

是的，我觉得我们应该，就像。我们应该，就像，立志成为好人，你知道吗？

嗯，你这是什么意思。是啊，我不知道。

我的意思只是，你知道，就像我算是，你知道，看着大量美国电影和电视、读着漫画之类的东西长大的。而且你知道，我其实算是那个，我喜欢那个。美国曾经有一种道德观，我认为其实相当不错。就像，就像这样一种观念：善其实是存在的。并不是，不是，并不只是一切都是相对的，你知道，不是某种相对道德，而是善、至善和绝对之物是存在的，而那。

而且我们，你知道，我们应该努力、力求成为一个良善的文明，成为善良、善良的人，你知道，在那里我们善待彼此、努力工作，而且你知道，创造伟大的新事物。而这似乎就是，你知道，我们应该努力去做的事，并且只是努力更多地了解宇宙的本质以及，就像，我们在其中的位置，而且你知道，我们今天身处何方？

你知道，就像，这就是为什么我是拓展人类范围和规模、拓展意识的忠实拥护者，并且主张文明是一件好事，而不是坏事。而且，而且它，你知道，而且实际上它是我们应该推动发展的东西，并且，而且最终，你知道，成为一个多行星物种，就像一个太空框架文明，你知道，并让我们所看到的、我们在科幻作品中见过的那些事物成为现实，让那些，但不要让那些永远只是虚构。

所以，我很喜欢这一点，因为我认为你和我在某些方面肩负着相似的使命，但正朝着互补却不同的方向前进。对吧。我认为真理这种东西确实存在。善这种东西确实存在。而且。

嗯，是的，我认为，我认为，如果你说，像这样带着对错误的承认去看待真理，就像，是很重要的。也就是，你知道，要说，像，我们认为这是真的，但也可能是错的。你知道，一般来说，我认为是。但我认为人可以立志更接近真理。

当然。而且有。让一个人能够追求真理的条件是什么？我认为，我们正在进行这场对话的平台，我想你买下它，至少有部分抱负是出于这样一种信念：思想的自由交流是通向真理的道路的一部分。而且你知道，我认为我们每个人都不同。对不同领域感兴趣。对吧。我认为你的部分热情，似乎在于向地球之外的宇宙前沿拓展，去探索，成为开拓者、探索者，甚至去其他行星。

我看。是的，是的，是的。

而且说得非常清楚一点，我，就像，我肯定赞成，就像，嘿，我们别把这个星球搞砸了。

你知道，有道理，有道理。

你知道，并不是说，你知道，我会说，嘿，我们逃到另一个行星吧。

行星。

我是说，我们就确保地球上的一切都好好的。但之后，就像，嘿，要是《星际迷航》之类的，而且，而且，你知道，有朝一日能成为现实，那就好了。

你知道，就像那些很酷的科幻作品，

我认为那会是。我认为那会非常了不起。而且，而且我认为，对我来说，我的热情是，好吧，把那两个留给比我级别更高的人，再说一次。但我认为，我们可以重新发现的部分真理、善的一部分，就是复兴诸如这个星球上的个人自我价值、扎根于家庭的感觉、扎根于国家的感觉之类的东西。而我认为，这一切也甚至是。甚至远在我们抵达火星之前，或远在我们抵达另一个前沿之前，因为我认为，拓展人类成就和探索的前沿会非常好。

还有向内的探索，对吧？我觉得我们就像，你知道，我们，有时使用的类比是，我们就像，你知道，我们就像一群在洞穴里四处飞行的盲眼蝙蝠，试图弄清自己在哪里，对吧？而那个洞穴可能是宇宙，也可能只是这个地球上的一个洞穴。但是，你知道，我们发出声呐信号，它们反弹回来并说，嘿，这就是我所在的位置。因为我是瞎的，我其实看不见自己在哪里。

那么，这些信号会从哪些事物上反弹回来呢？可能是家庭。可能是这样一个让我脚踏实地的事实：我是这个国家的公民。这是真的。这对我来说意义重大。可能是我的信仰，我相信上帝，你知道，我是这个信仰的一员。我是一个独立的个体。我努力工作，我创造了某种东西。可能是我供职或创办的公司，它会把信号反射回来，告诉我，我就在这里。

所以我认为，在国内有很多这方面的工作要做。我只是觉得，你知道，埃隆，我们所追求的目标在某些方面是互补的。但我认为，我们生活在这样一个时刻：就在地球上的家园这里，甚至在美国，甚至在我今天所在的爱荷华州中部，许多其他支柱都已经消失了。我认为，正在发生的部分情况是，我们发出这些声呐信号，却什么回声都没有，于是我们迷失了。

我认为我们现在就是这样。所以我的使命是重建其中一些基础。

好吧，嗯，我认为我们绝对不应该失去对美国的那种自豪感。我们应该为身为美国人而自豪。我当然感到自豪。而且你知道，你知道，有时候感觉好像存在一种相当奇怪的、反美的、自我毁灭的因素，尤其是在美国的那些，你知道，精英圈子里，这在我看来有点疯狂。在一些大学和高中里，他们好像在很多情况下都在教导学生，当美国人是不好的。

我就觉得，这太荒谬了。你知道，这就像，这不是真的。

嗯，在旧金山，他们把亚伯拉罕·林肯的名字从其中一所高中撤掉了。

这太荒谬了。

真是疯狂。

你知道，

还有一些例子，比如乔治·华盛顿的雕像被推倒。

对。我认为这只是一种症状，你知道，我们说我们憎恨美国，但这其实是一种自我憎恨，甚至在个人层面也是如此。对，没错。我们想因为成功而鞭笞自己。这与学校里的孩子为何会那样是同一种心态。一个以全班第一名从高中毕业的孩子，在这个国家的大多数公立学校里都不得不隐藏自己的成就，因为取得成就并不酷。嗯，美国在许多方面都关乎成就，所以美国就不酷了。

所以我认为，这是丧失自我价值感的一种症状。要问我们如何重振这种价值感，并不是一件容易的事。对吧。我认为我们观察到了问题，而这一部分从某些方面来说很容易做到。我认为，我们该如何重建已经失去的那种自信，无论是创办一家小企业的自信，还是启程前往火星的自信，或者至少是说出这句话的自信：我是这个建立在人类历史上最令人钦佩的理想之上的国家的公民，我要为此感到自豪。

这不会容易，但我认为这就是领导这个国家的人所面临的挑战，你知道，而我的目标是成为下一个这样的人。我认为在未来 20 年里，如果我们不能正确处理这件事，我不认为我们还会拥有同一种国家，让我们还能再谈论美国例外论。我认为，这不仅会是美国的损失，也会是世界的损失。

因为美国在世界上的部分作用，就是提供一个范例，展示当一个国家建立在那些理想之上时，什么是可能的。而一旦你开始为那些理想道歉，我认为那将会是历史上永久性的损失。所以，你知道，我对此有一些想法。也许你也有一些想法。但我认为，对于问题的识别，我们都看得很清楚。至于我们要怎么做，我认为这将是一个。

是一个更棘手的问题。我对此有自己的看法。但是，你知道，埃隆，也许你也有。对，对。

立即停止这种胡闹，并严厉批评教育体系向孩子们灌输这种荒谬的东西。

你知道，就像，到底是怎么回事？而且，那些大学以及，你知道，高中之类机构的捐赠者，应该撤回他们的捐款，并质问：你们这些人到底在干什么？

对，这是个开始。你知道，这件事很大一部分与联邦政府有关。

别再送了。

联邦政府也是个大问题。我的意思是，你谈到那些地方学校，它们到底在干什么？那是美国教育部造成的。所以对很多人来说，这一点有些隐蔽。这不只是家长们现在乐于参与其中的那些学区委员会。美国政府说，除非你采纳这些有害的、自我憎恨的，你知道，种族和性别意识形态，否则你就拿不到联邦政府的钱，而这笔钱约占这个国家公立学校预算的 10%。

但它更广泛，总体而言，更像是一种全国性的自我厌恶意识形态。我认为，就像许多事情一样，这是可以解决的。

我们正在花钱让人们憎恨美国。

是的，我们是。是的，我们是。而且我认为这是可以解决的。那一块。是可以解决的。

对。我的意思是，这就像我们只是在

往自己脸上挥拳。我建议我们别再往自己

脸上挥拳了，而这又回到了宗教上。埃隆，你想知道为什么吗？因为这就像一种自我鞭笞，对吧？就像穿苦衣。这算是人们会去从事的一种宗教实践。这个特点很有意思。存在于某些基督教传统中，存在于某些印度教传统中，世界上基本每一种主要传统里都存在某个进行短暂自我鞭笞的教派。

所以我认为这里正在发生的是，我们国家现在有一群人，他们同样渴望成为某种比自己更宏大之物的一部分，心中有一个上帝那么大的空洞，而传统宗教或上帝无法填补它。于是他们转而进行另一种自我鞭笞。顺便说一句，我相信，我相信国际上的气候邪教在很大程度上就是这么回事，是宗教的替代品，是自我鞭笞。

但我认为美国人的自我憎恨也是如此。这很复杂。

我完全不同意关于气候的那些说法。

我们可以深入谈谈这个。你想稍微深入谈谈吗？

我认为就个人而言，我可能已经，作为个人，我认为我在帮助解决气候问题方面所做的可能比任何、任何其他个人都多，而且优势相当、相当大。所以有时候人们会莫名其妙地认为我像是右翼之类的。我就想，我真的是在为了拯救环境倾注更高一个层次的血汗和泪水。你在说什么？这太疯狂了。所以我，我，我至少认为自己是个温和派，而且我，而且我，而且我立志成为一个温和、而且、而且、而且理性的人，并且、并且不要采取，而且就只是，你知道，关心我们人类同胞并推动文明向前发展。

而且，而且你知道，我认为部分原因还在于，美国长期以来一直处于顶端，以至于当你一直在赢的时候，就会产生某种自满，比如美国确实已经赢了这么久，这就像，就像一支职业运动队赢了这么久，你会变得有点自满，你知道，而，而且我认为我们应该对此保持警惕。我们不应该自满。

然后你开始觉得好像没有任何外部敌人。就像古罗马一样。如果罗马没有外部敌人，他们就会爆发内战。

是的。

所以在缺少，你知道，如果你只是认为自己基本上坚不可摧，那么内部冲突就变成了这种情况的自然结果，因为没有外部敌人。好吧，听着，我认为现实中算是有，或者至少存在外部竞争者，你知道，而我们显然正面临当今世界正在发生的一场巨大转变，显然就是中国的崛起，以及中国经济规模可能会达到美国经济的2至3倍这一事实。

这确实是一个巨大的变化，因为只要是任何人有生以来，美国一直拥有世界上最大的经济体。但如果就中国而言，你只是说，假设其相对于美国的人均 DP 效率为70%，那将大致相当于美国有10亿人口，或者是我们当前人口的3倍。所以这个概率就像真的试图，我们将处于一种相当奇怪的局面，没有人实际上还能记得一个经济体规模达到我们2倍的情形。

对，所以我认为对这些趋势的判断是正确的。我认为这里面有几个要点，埃隆，是非常重要的要点。说来也怪，它们其实对美国是令人鼓舞的。你关于什么的观点来着？我们的成功滋生了我们的特权心态这一事实。对。这是不可避免的。这就是历史。对。成功滋生特权心态。

是的，是的。

而且这对……来说是正常的。

这是人之常情。

这是人性使然。然后，特权意识滋生懒惰。接着，当然，受害者文化也随之而来，因为受害者身份为懒惰正名。你在罗马也看到了这一点。所以我很欣赏这个古罗马帝国的类比。事实上，我的第2本书完全是在探讨我们是否正处于相当于罗马帝国末期的阶段。是的。而这是我们应该担忧的。我认为我们应该讨论这件事。

我们应该讨论这件事。所以我在写那本书时，写到《受害者之国》中途，思路转向了一个阴暗的方向；写到全书一半时，我得出的结论是，实际上，如果我们能成为罗马，那就算很幸运了，因为罗马延续了几千年。对吧。如果你看后半部分，而且你知道，我们可能更像迦太基，它只延续了几百年。是的。但我。嗯，实际上要看，相当长的

时间，但肯定在那里被中途打断了。

是的，确实如此。确实如此。所以。所以我认为那是其中一种说法。但实际上，我对它进行更仔细的研究后发现，我们谈论罗马帝国的兴衰。事实证明，其实有过多次兴起和多次衰落。

是的。

并不存在一次兴起和一次衰落。我某种程度上也以同样的方式看待这场美国实验的兴起。我认为会有多次兴起，也会有多次衰落。但我不认为这场球赛已经结束。我认为我们仍然可以。我们仍然可以处于上升阶段。所以仅从算术上看，埃隆，你说得对。如果你把现有的 GDP 增长率曲线外推，并按复合增长率将其线性延展下去。

这正是你谈到中国与美国的关系时所说的，而这也是为什么，作为美国总统领导这个国家。其中我优先考虑的核心事项之一，就是切实把 GDP 增长作为一项我们在这个国家真正关心的指标。而且从某些方面来说，比起我们选择的其他某项指标，比如碳排放，或者当天可能流行的任何指标，我更愿意衡量经济繁荣。让我们真正选择那个更能追踪我国未来 50 年繁荣与实力的指标。

而且我认为，这实际上会比我们所说的更容易实现。

嗯，我的意思是，我们希望确保美国在很大程度上仍然是一个任人唯贤的社会，一个人的成功是其技能和辛勤工作的结果，而且我们实际上不存在任何根深蒂固的，你知道的，富裕阶层。所以这一点非常重要，否则就会导致某种社会僵化。因此，我们希望继续真正以才能为重。显然，我认为我们希望努力吸引世界各地那些同样重视才能并希望加入这个国家的人，而且我们应该让他们更容易加入。

我同意这一点。实际上我完全同意这一点。而这正是我认为共和党需要明确我们实际立场的事项之一。现在存在一股反对合法移民的暗流，你知道，也就是。也就是，也就是。也就是我将在 1 个月后登上辩论舞台。而这将是一个问题，如果有人对此有任何、任何顾虑，你知道，我认为我会真的对此有意见，因为择优移民是解决这个国家经济增长问题的办法之一。

不过，才能才是真正的关键。

事实上，我想用一种我认为每个人都能理解的方式来表达，那就是想象美国是一支职业运动队。我们想赢得冠军，我们想不断赢得冠军。另一支球队里有一些王牌球员，他们非常想加入我们的球队。现在我们可以让他们与我们对抗，也可以让他们加入我们的球队，然后直接碾压对手。而且我认为，如果第8名球员想加入我们的球队，请加入。

这才是延续成功的方式。

没错。欢迎回来。

并且不要设置所有这些荒谬的障碍。

嗯，我认为你会有那种反应，部分原因是，沿用你的类比。相反，我们现在的情况是，一个甚至都没有报名加入球队的人，直接就能出现在赛场上。这就是我们现在的情况，这会引发现有队员的反弹，让他们说我们不想再要任何人了，而事实上我们应该说的是，我们想要那些前来遵循流程、真正接受训练并加入球队的最优秀的人。

而我认为，以择优为基础的合法移民制度就应该是这样。但我确实认为这是可以实现的。对吧。我认为，如果你这样看，即使沿用罗马的类比，只是从历史的宏大进程来思考这件事，如果把东半部算进去，那就是2,000年。在这种情况下，我认为目前的情况是：作为一个国家，我们并不是处于罗马帝国的末期。其实我们还很年轻，只是在经历我们自己的青春期，弄清楚长大后要成为什么样的人。

然后，当你透过这个视角来看时，埃隆，气氛就会稍微缓和一些：是的，我们正在经历这场身份危机。是的，我们正在经历这种全国性的自我鞭挞，一种自我厌恶，包括我在内的大多数人在青春期时当然都多少经历过这种情况。但如果你真的能走到另一端，进入我们国家的成年期，你会变得更强大。

所以我愿意相信，我们并非处于衰落之中，而是正在上升。也许甚至还没到大本营，但正在前往山顶的路上。

绝对应该采取这种态度。我同意。这完全就是应有的正确态度。比如，我，我讨厌这个。我只知道，他们教给孩子们的这种失败主义屁话，没错，必须停止。所以我才会说，比如，你知道，资助者应该撤回对那些教授这种胡说八道的学校的资助。而很多这种事正在发生。所以这是人们、捐赠者没有意识到的，他们应该直接说，嘿，嘿。比如，嘿，去关注一下你的钱正在做什么。

而且它，它正在做一些非常愚蠢的事情，那就撤回资助。你知道，如果他们继续教，你知道，孩子们说美国在某种程度上是邪恶的，这简直疯了。

是捐赠者，埃隆。是学校的人。学校的捐赠者。坦率地说，还有一件很多人不知道的事。我知道你知道，但很多人不知道。就是他们自己的退休账户也在促使美国企业采用同样的理念。对吧。在公司董事会投票支持公平性审计，从某些方面来说就是同一种理念的体现。而我们不知道的是，我们自己的钱正被用来做这件事。

无论是纳税人的钱，还是 401k 的钱。其中一些问题很容易解决。

是的。我的意思是，你在这里指出了一个根本性的治理问题，因为我认为股市中大约一半是被动基金或指数基金，这意味着它们只是跟随，你知道，某个指数之类的东西。而这些基金会在富达、贝莱德、普信，所有这类通常的，你知道，退休金管理机构那里。

对。

但是当。但是这些投票随后通常会外包给2个组织中的1个，即机构股东服务公司，我有时称它为 ISIS。

这取决于正确的使用场景。我一直想知道 ISIL 和 ISIS 之间有什么区别。现在我知道哪个是 ISIS 了。那很好。

是的。有时他们表现得就像企业界的 ISIS。然后还有 Glass Lewis，这两家是主要的机构。还有其他几个。但实际上，当，你知道，当一半的股市把投票决策外包给相当于一小撮活动人士或那些在这些 Glass Doors 和 ISS 中显然有自己议程的人时，实质上就是由一小撮人对一半的公共软件进行投票。

而埃隆，你知道我竞选总统前创办的上一家公司，或者你知道，Strive。我的意思是，这就是我的整个出发点，对吧？把这个去掉。所以我创办了，我的意思是，我创办的那家规模更大的公司是一家生物科技公司。有一批获得 FDA 批准的药物。但这是一次不同的，这是一次不同的冒险。去年，去年8月，事实上我们共同的朋友彼得是，是帮助公司起步的支持者之一，但它实际上是一家指数基金提供商，创建了一些指数基金，而这些指数基金的前提是，你实际上会按照通过提供卓越产品和服务来实现价值最大化的原则投票。

就是不说你要从某些公司撤资或投资其他公司。很多人玩这种游戏，但我们只是说不。还是同样的被动敞口。哦，然后顺便说一句，它还有一个独立部门，代表那些不想受困于双头垄断的人进行代理投票。因此，在其他条件相同的情况下，我希望政府尽可能少地介入解决这些问题。

这应该通过市场来解决。人们被它吸引，你知道，你知道，很快就，就起步了。但这，这将需要看清这些复杂的挑战，它们不同于我们半个世纪前看到的对自由或文化的传统威胁。

是的，嗯，我认为从根本上说，公众正在、正在被误导，而他们没有意识到自己正被误导，因为他们把自己的积蓄交给了这些401k计划和这些指数基金，而这实际上构成了半个市场。他们假定，这些股份的投票方式会符合股东利益，会让他们的最终回报最大化，并让他们获得最理想的那类退休储蓄之类的东西。

但实际上，发生的并不是这种情况。事实上，在许多情况下，投票结果都与股东利益相悖。

哦，它们与股东利益直接相悖。所以我给你举2个有意思的例子。

但公众并不知道这一点。

这完全是不可见的。完全是不可见的。所以我的意思是，这一直是。我已经尽了最大努力。过去几年里，我就此写了2本书。但你触及，它们是技术性主题。而我意识到的一点是，它被设计得具有技术性是有原因的。这充分说明了为什么我们会看到像ESG这样的技术官僚式缩写。听起来很无聊。你知道，CBDC，不管它是什么，它被设计得听起来很无聊是有原因的，就是我们想让人们难以看清，比如说，他们自己的投资账户是如何被武器化，用来对付他们自身在那个具体案例中的最佳利益。

埃隆，这大概是，我认为我基本上对反垄断持怀疑态度，但如果你相信反垄断法，那么这可以说是人类历史上最大的反垄断违法行为：同样3家公司既是主要竞争对手的最大股东，同时又互为最大股东，并且作为相同社会承诺的签署方，以一种协调一致的教条运用其投票权，因为相同的养老基金对它们感兴趣或投资了它们。

但真正的问题是，是的，不，

我认为所有那些，比如，你知道，贝莱德、富达、T. Rowe，都需要像这样说，嘿，听着，这些船将会以股东价值最大化为目标，而不是为了某种，你知道，随机的工作或其他议程，也就是这些外包股东服务公司正在推动的议程。也就是，是不是，那基本上就是我所说的，比如，你知道，蒂罗、布莱克、贝莱德、富达，它们正在违背约定。

没错。

与、与它们客户之间的约定。

它们确实如此。

好吧，它们正在违背约定，因为这个约定是。并且如果你，如果约定是让股东价值最大化，那么约定并不是去做一大堆社会变革。

没错。你知道它们现在怎么说吗？当然。所以我始终主张把另一方最有力的论点摆到桌面上。因此它们会说，不，不，你不明白。这就是在实现价值最大化。这关乎长期价值，而不是短期价值。而且我们明白，更具多样性的团队，当然这是胡说八道。我们得戳穿它。所以最有意思的事情是，比如拿苹果来说，对吧？你那边的朋友蒂姆，你知道，所以，所以苹果。

所以有这么一项提案，这其实是个有意思的故事。有一个团体提出了这项提案，要求对苹果进行种族公平审计。

好，好。

就好像，就好像他们拥有，比如他们想要2股，而且它像是一个非营利团体。所以苹果董事会当然颇为明智地说，绝对不行。我们，任人唯贤是我们招聘工程人才理念的一部分。因此，对种族公平审计，敬谢不敏。但随后发生的是，那项随意提出的提案，猜猜谁投票支持它？贝莱德投了赞成票，道富投了赞成票。其他一大批金融机构也投了赞成票。

数量如此之多，以至于它获得了超过50%的股东支持。但随后，为了避免难堪，苹果董事会说，哦，哦不，不，跟大家开玩笑的。你知道，这关乎长期价值最大化。所以现在，如果有某个新人来到桌前，对吧，你知道，比如Strive，就是我创立的那家公司，对吧，我们的经历是，然后你会出现在那家就在2年前还在对这种荒谬之事说绝对不行的公司，因为他们被迫屈膝，并且受到了惩戒，而在他们对这件事的感受和经历中，他们因此遭到了公开羞辱。

然后，如果有人说，不，不，不，我们为什么不干脆撤销那个你本来就不想采纳的东西？他们会说，不，不，不，不，现在这关乎，他们几乎已经和皈依者中的狂热分子站在一起了。这关乎长期价值最大化，让那种自我鞭笞的文化延续下去。所以，这就是目前 ESG 辩论的前沿所在，它藏在这场长期主义的闹剧背后，而这其实只不过，真的只不过就是一场闹剧，但我们必须能够用现实戳穿它。

这是假的。

这是假的。对。而且显然，我非常支持环保。你知道，很难有人比我更支持环保。但问题是，我们就是不知道，比如说，我们基本上不希望某种怪异的、重新包装过的共产主义之类的东西，也就是 ESG 中很大一部分的实质，在实际股东不知情的情况下被强加给美国企业，而这正是正在发生的事情。所以我的意思是，公众正在被他们欺骗，真的，他们正在被欺骗。

我在这里点名，是因为我了解贝莱德、富达、蒂罗，也认识你们这些人。而你们需要告诉自己的客户，你们做出的并不是让股东价值最优化的决策，因为事实就是这样。

而这也是过去 50 年里，你知道，美国与欧洲之间差异的一部分。我不是说这是唯一的差异。但埃隆，我认为这是一个因素：在大约 50 年的时间里，美国股票的表现优于欧洲股票。美国公司治理的基本模式是价值最大化。欧洲公司治理的基本模式则是多利益相关方模式。

我认为我们这一方赢了。现在究竟为什么，用你的篮球队类比来说，一支篮球队会采用败队的策略，把它变成自己的策略？如果它要打比赛的下一节？这正是我们正在做的事。而这，而这在我看来是个问题。

关于 ESG 这件事，我其实还要说另一点，那就是我认为，那些，那些，那些大，那些大公司，T BlackRock，你知道，你知道，Vanguard，所有这些公司，它们就像是在让自己面临一场规模大出一个数量级的、集体诉讼史上最大的集体诉讼。是的，因为如果，如果它们，因为它们，它们，它们没有，它们没有，它们违背了与它们的，它们的客户之间的约定，而且它们没有实现股东价值最大化。

嗯，埃隆，你知道真正让自己面临诉讼的是谁吗，问题在于，那些把钱交给他们的人，交出的甚至都不是自己的钱。

对。

那些要么是养老基金，要么是全国各地的投资顾问之类的中介机构。对。他们就像是在 Raymond James 或别的什么地方挂牌营业的本地从业者。是他们在把别人的钱送出去。因此 BlackRock 和 Vanguard 的借口是：嗯，我们现在向客户披露了所有这些事情，而他们仍然把钱交给我们。可是，那个客户，问题在于，他本人并不是资本的所有者。

所以事实上，这波诉讼很可能首先会找上全世界那些 BlackRock、Vanguard 和 State Street。它们会把责任往上游推，说不，不，我们披露过了，我们的客户仍然把钱交了过来。但它们的客户本身也是替其他人管理资金的经理。这就是当一个行业被如此层层中介化时会发生的事，资金瀑布中有如此多的层级，实际上非常容易滋生腐败。

但你提到的更深层次的一点是，而且它的影响远远超出了 ESG 这个问题本身，那就是我们正在被欺骗。我想你又说了一遍，而我认为这触及了当下的核心，就像那部电影一样，对吧？

普通投资者正在受到误导。

普通投资者正在受到误导。埃隆，我们就实话实说吧。普通公民受到政府误导，与普通投资者受到觉醒工业复合体的领导者、资产管理公司或不管你

想怎么称呼它的人的误导，是一样的。

没错。

而这归根结底是。你看过那部电影《好人寥寥》吗，就是，你知道，归根结底是那个问题，你知道，杰克·尼科尔森的角色，对吧？我们其实承受得了真相。而我认为，这就是我们美国人所处的时刻。我们承受得了这样的真相：一种病毒来自哪里、口罩是否有效、疫苗是否有副作用、亨特·拜登笔记本电脑的报道是否属实，或者你是否在动用我的钱。

对。

我们承受得了真相。而这就是我们生活的时代。而这就是美国的。我是说，这实际上就是美国革命。因为旧世界的观念是，我们人民无法承受真相。我们不值得信任。必须由宫殿深处的一小群人替整个社会的其他人作出决定。但在大西洋这一边，1776 年，我们说，你知道吗？

不，我们拒绝那样做。有时我们可能会弄错，有时我们可能会做对。但不管是好是坏，我们人民决定如何治理自己。这就是美国革命的意义所在。而且埃隆，与你不同，我其实不是温和派。我不喜欢那些标签。我不用那些标签。但我加入进来，是因为美国的理想其实有些极端。对吧。言论自由。我觉得你也不是温和派，但我不这么认为。

我不把这看作一种党派活动。我的全部观点是，美国的理想本身就是相当极端的理想。对吧？言论自由、自治，以及我们人民能够承受真相这一事实，这很极端。在人类历史的大部分时间里。人类历史的大部分时间里采用的都是另一种方式。但正是那一套极端的理想将我们团结起来。正是它让我们成为美国人。正是它让我们变得伟大。正是它造就了美国本身。

而且从某些方面来说，埃隆，我其实认为，这才是我们更有可能在这个国家实现全国团结的方式，并不一定是说我们要，你知道，在50码线处妥协，手牵着手唱《Kumbaya》，然后妥协。我其实认为，这要靠我们在一定程度上对那些将我们团结起来的理想毫不妥协。是的，那些是极端的理想，但这很酷。这就是美国，这就是我们。

我认为，这就是我们所处的时刻：我们想要很多政客都声称能够提供的渐进式改革吗，包括在我正参加共和党初选的这场竞选中？或者从某种意义上说，你想要的是美国革命，是美国革命的理想吗？而我，我站在美国革命这一边。我认为，这实际上是我们团结起来并重新发现自己是谁的最后且最好的机会。

而且我们应该为此感到自豪。

我同意。

所以，重要的是，重要的是，重要的是不要掉进认为所有这些解决方案都将来自政府的陷阱。我的意思是，你每天都在做、在推进的那些事情。对吧。你现在对X所做的事情。

我的意思是，总体而言，我认为我们希望政府在经济中所占的比重更小而不是更大，只是因为从极限意义上说，政府实际上就是一家公司。有时人们认为政府与公司不同，但其实只不过是，从极限意义上说，政府是一家公司。它是最公司化的公司，而且它垄断了暴力。所以你必须，比如说，好吧，你希望一个垄断暴力的庞然大物做多少事情？

是的，你知道，总体而言，不是少那么多，不是更多。

而且你知道，我们已经，你知道，一次又一次地证明了自由企业和竞。以及竞争的力量。我们确实需要确保这些市场中存在良好的竞争。竞争，你知道，会让企业诚实，并促使它们更加努力地服务客户，而这就是，这就是，你知道，让人们感到快乐并创造一个更美好世界的东西。你知道，你不会希望只有，比如说，1家汽车公司，你知道，1家航空公司，你知道，你会希望，你会希望它们相互竞争，而且你知道，而那就是让事情变得更好，并且要让这种情况全面存在。

所以，每当某样东西转到政府手中，重要的，比如说，那就像是在说，好吧，现在我们现在已经消除了竞争，而且，而且促进改进的反馈循环非常小，而且，而且你知道，所以同一个人在政府部门或在、在、在私营行业里，他们将会，在私营行业里的生产力要高得多。

是的。

所以我们，我们只是想确保我们的人力配置流向生产力最高、能为人民带来最佳生活水平的方面。

顺便说一句，我完全愿意回答问题。作为一个的联合主持人，我其实非常糟糕。这其实是我第一次主持Spaces。所以实际上，实际上我不知道该怎么接，但如果你们，你们的萨克斯想接问题。是的，来吧。

所以。好吧，我只想尽量置身事外。

嗯，我们聊得很不错，萨克森。All-In。我喜欢那次。实际上，我们没有。我们。上次你和我聊的时候，我们在乌克兰问题上停了下来。但是。好吧，你们想聊什么我都乐意。

是的。顺便说一句，大家都应该去听听我们上一期播客。All-In 播客。大约1周半前，我们和维韦克聊了2个小时，所以大家都应该去听听。不过说到公众无法承受的真相，我在 Twitter 上看到，据迈克尔·特雷西报道，格伦·格林沃尔德转发了他的消息，参议院刚刚投票否决了为乌克兰配备一名会计的提议。你知道，他们通常把这叫作监察员。

账目的一种花哨说法。没错。

我们能承受真相。我们能承受这样一个真相：我们的钱被抽走，用来供一群腐败的乌克兰人玩乐，包括那个。包括政府账单。很多人，埃隆，就我们的钱而言，不知道钱是怎么被使用的。还有一件事。美国人不知道这一点，但我们的纳税人的钱实际上正在支付乌克兰政府工作人员的工资。如果我们要这么做，那至少让我们看清楚，对吧？

至少让我们能够核算这笔钱，并看到这些美元。

是的，不过，是的，我是说，我觉得我支持援助乌克兰，但我们只是，是的，我们想知道这些钱确实被用来提供帮助了。

那么为什么？为什么，埃隆，我可以问你这个问题吗？

不是。我们只是想确保这一点。我们是在让某些。一小撮寡头变得更富有，还是确实在帮助乌克兰人民？我们只需要确保，我们确实在尽可能多地帮助乌克兰人民。我觉得我甚至不会把销售当成某种不可能达到的标准，比如说，不，完全没有腐败。因为我觉得即使在美国，我们也存在一些腐败。所以标准不能是完全没有腐败，但就比如说，弄清楚，你知道，有多大比例流向了军阀，而不是人民，你知道，而且人民应该得到其中的大部分。

好吧，不过说到军阀，我很想听听你的看法，埃隆，我尊重你的观点，但在这个问题上，我还没有听过你谈为什么你认为我们待在那里很重要。你提到了军阀这个词。我认为这件事将如何收场，而且可能就在接下来的12个月内，就是它不会给乌克兰带来好的结局。我们投入的所有那些钱，其中很大一部分是军事装备的形式，最终将落入某个后泽连斯基时代军阀的手中。

然后，这就会完全重演苏联入侵阿富汗后我们武装圣战者时所做的事情。这样的戏码我们已经看了一遍又一遍，而我有点担心，除其他原因外，这也是为什么就我个人而言，我并不支持美国援助乌克兰；我们可以从实际层面详细讨论。我认为，按照我们目前的发展轨迹，最终会有大约2000亿的军事装备落入某个人手中。

是谁。我们完全不知道那个人究竟是谁。而且我们只会在事后才发现，就像过去50年失败的干预主义战略中发生过那么多次一样。不过，开放心态联盟。很想知道你对此有什么看法。

好吧，我能不能就。我能不能提醒一下大家，埃隆曾发布过一个关于乌克兰的投票，我想那是在去年9月，大约9个月前。那基本上是一个投票，一项和平进程提案，提出按以下条件实现和平。大致是乌克兰将保持中立，也就是说它不会加入北约或任何其他军事联盟，而克里米亚和顿巴斯地区的归属将由自决权来决定，基本上就是举行自由且

公正的选举，由国际方面仲裁、监督、进行国际监督。没错。

所以这些地区的人民将作出决定，然后假设克里米亚选择俄罗斯，因为从历史上看它一直是俄罗斯的，而且你知道，那里有80%到90%是俄罗斯人，那么他们的用水权将得到保障。这样他们就不会，你知道，不会死于饥荒之类的。那基本上就是这项和平提案。而它在推特上遭到了铺天盖地的抨击，包括泽连斯基本人这样重量级的人物，他说这是一项亲俄提案。

而在过去1年里，任何提议和平的人几乎都遭到了铺天盖地的抨击，被冠以最恶劣的称呼，被叫作绥靖主义者，你知道，被叫作，你知道，普京的傀儡，以及诸如此类的各种称呼，而实际上我们只是想为这一局势找到一个友好或合理的妥协方案。而且，你知道，大约60%的人投票反对这项和平提案。但现在如果你看看局势，我们得到的并没有更好。

而是糟糕得多。

是的，从现在起情况会变得更糟，而不是更好。没错。我提出那项提案的原因是为了乌克兰的利益，而不是俄罗斯的利益。

所以，我想说的是，我要明确一点，我非常支持乌克兰。而且我已经用，你知道，行动证明了这一点，你知道，星链提供了大规模支持，乌克兰政府也多次承认这一点。坦率地说，它在，你知道，在这场战争中发挥了关键作用。

所以这其实是个有意思的问题，可能是因为我们3个人在这里的视角算是互为补充。在这件事上我站在美国一边，因为我正在竞选美国总统，但我并不。我不确定我们所描述的那种非黑即白的乌克兰一方对俄罗斯一方，是否真有那么泾渭分明，因为顿巴斯地区有很多历史，而且也有很多关于，你知道，北约曾表示我们不会扩张的历史。

这是美国国务卿詹姆斯·贝克在1991年对戈尔巴乔夫作出的承诺，即我们不会扩张一英寸。那就是著名的越过德国后“一英寸也不扩张”的承诺。然而现在我们走到了这一步：苏联解体后，我们接纳加入北约的国家不仅比苏联时期接纳的还要多，现在甚至还在考虑乌克兰加入北约的可能性，而这正是普京在真正决定扣动扳机、入侵乌克兰之前所要求，或者至少看起来曾要求的唯一一项硬性承诺。

所以我想我会很好奇，埃隆，比如，为什么。你为什么站在乌克兰一边？

是的，嗯，首先，让我先说明白，你知道，当我研究一个主题时，我经常会有点，就像，强迫症发作一样，会钻研到，就像，疯狂细致的程度，以便精确地理解究竟发生了什么，并尽量减少我理解中的误差。而这个。所以我实际上读了这个地区几乎全部的历史。所以，你知道，从，你知道，奥列格开始，他，你知道，在1882年夺取了基辅，并基本上构成了基辅和罗斯的开端，之后的事情就没完没了，你知道，而且。

而这个。我想大概是1893年的叶卡捷琳娜大帝，她试图迫使整个乌克兰都说俄语。这里有，就像。有太多了。有太多来来回回的事情。就像，积怨清单长得简直。

那个。

那个，就连概括一下这份积怨清单都要花上数小时。所以这个。这个。问题是，如果你去看历史，乌克兰和。和俄罗斯的人都能找到100万个憎恨对方的理由。所以这就是为什么，你知道，基督教“有人打你的右脸，连左脸也转过来由他打”的原则非常明智，因为如果你最终不原谅你的敌人。你就会永远困在报复的循环之中。

所以，即使你的敌人，他们可能做过非常恶劣的事情，但如果你只是，如果你一直想要报复，一次又一次，来来回回地报复，你知道，以眼还眼，最终每个人都会失明。所以这就是为什么必须有宽恕，也必须有一些现实主义。我们还需要看待乌克兰和俄罗斯，不能把俄罗斯视为纯粹的恶魔，把乌克兰视为纯粹的天使。这是。战争中没有天使。

双方都不是。双方当然都做过可怕的事情。当然。当然。综合来看，我认为显然这个，你知道，我仍然支持。支持乌克兰，但，但是我认为这里有，这里有，你知道，如果我们必须现实地看待接下来会发生什么。而且，而且，而且，而且我们，你知道，就在我们说话的时候，乌克兰最优秀的年轻人正在战壕中死去。

所以那个形而上的该死的充分理由，其实并不重要。这些男孩为什么要死？

为了什么？

而这是一个我们自己尚未回答的好问题，关于宽恕这一点。伊兰，还有我认为你刚才对那份没完没了的积怨清单说得很精彩。这非常复杂，而且取决于你从情节的哪里开始，又在情节的哪里结束，取决于你所看到的美国是。所以真正让我非常恼火的是，我想那是在战争第一年的4月，在2022年4月，泽连斯基已经准备好坐到谈判桌前进行和平谈判。

而鲍里斯·约翰逊，因为他当时正面临自己那个，你知道，“派对门”事件，似乎想把注意力从那件事上转移开，于是现身了。然后美国说，不，不，我们会武装你，从而说服泽连斯基继续战斗。我认为那其实才是真正的错误，因为我不认为普京的目标有多么在于征服乌克兰。他甚至没有去进攻基辅。

对。

他更加关注哈尔科夫和顿巴斯地区。所以我担心的是，相比让这2个国家自行解决问题，我们反而让事情变得更糟了。

是的。问题在于，越往西走，当地对俄罗斯的支持就呈指数级下降。所以很明显，说乌克兰语的人通常会非常反，你知道，反俄。但是，但是我认为大多数说俄语的人其实是亲俄的。而当你阅读美国媒体时，很难相信这一点。

是的。

所以。而且还有，说所有俄罗斯人都是邪恶的也不是真的。这是错误的。我们应该停下来，而且我们应该，你知道，而且我们应该，我们也应该为有俄罗斯男孩死在那些战壕里感到悲伤，而不只是为有乌克兰男孩死在那里感到悲伤，因为他们自己真的也想待在那里吗？

这些年轻人为什么要死？因为老年人之间的分歧。

为什么在法式战争中，只交换了几英里的土地，代价是什么？归根结底，每英里牺牲多少条生命才值得？

而我认为现实是，对美国来说，我是说，俄罗斯在这里面临的国家利益风险比美国更大。中国也正在援助俄罗斯，这件事不存在任何一种，你知道，我并不是从一种无立场的视角来看待这件事。我是从美国视角来看待这件事，因为这是我在这里所戴的帽子。从美国视角来看，这件事不可能有好的结局。而且我确实认为，那种迅速实现和平、结束冲突并达成和平解决方案的做法，其中包括我们作出北约不会接纳乌克兰的坚定承诺。

北约绝对是必不可少的，也是势在必行的。最奇怪的是，你和我曾经谈过。这是，这是唯一一项两党共识，对吧。我们谈到，美国的共和党人与民主党人之间实际上正处于全国严重分裂的时期。在这件事上，拜登及其阵营，以及，你知道，共和党的大多数人，除了我，或许还有1个或2个，你知道，你知道，塔克，或许还有另外1个或2个人，我们几乎根本算不上共和党的一员，实际上持有一种与美国除此之外最强烈的那项两党共识相背离的观点，而那项共识就是向一场我们并没有可明确识别的国家利益牵涉其中的战争投入更多资金。

而且，你知道，我认为这就是研究历史的意义之一。而且我，我很赞赏，埃隆，你谈到了你特意去研究历史这个事实。这为其他人树立了一个很好的榜样，就是你会意识到，即使你研究美国的近代史，这个故事也不会有好结局。

是的。

所以不管怎样，我认为在乌克兰

局势中，

需要进行现实的和平谈判，而且越早越好。而这正是我们西方应该推动去做的事情，就是拿出某种合理的方案，别再把年轻人送去战壕里送死

而且不要炸毁北溪管道。或许甚至可以把让北溪1号和2号重新投入运营作为其中一部分，这会是个好主意。然后，恢复西欧与俄罗斯之间的经济关系，实际上可能是一件好事，而不是通过把俄罗斯逼入绝境，与。

是的。

我认为我们了解到的一件事是，维韦克，你提到了伊斯坦布尔协议，鲍里斯·约翰逊基本上亲自前往基辅否决了它。这些细节后来才披露出来。那份伊斯坦布尔协议的实质，与埃隆在那次 Twitter 投票中提出的和平方案非常相似。同样，它以乌克兰保持中立，加上乌克兰东部那些地区的人民实行自决为基础。

所以他们本可以达成那项协议。我的意思是，那项协议已经摆在桌面上，而西方拒绝了它，因为坦率地说，军工复合体一心执意要扩张北约。正如你提到的，这一直是我们的核心政策，可以追溯到90年代，当时我们违背了向戈尔巴乔夫作出的不扩张北约的承诺。扩张北约毫无疑问是美国和西方的政策。他们一心执意要进行这种扩张。

这就是为什么无论在战争之前还是战争开始之后，我们都拒绝了每一项提议。我的意思是，这是人所共知的。实际上，自新冠疫情以来，媒体最大的煤气灯操纵领域之一，就是声称这场战争与北约扩张毫无关系。在我们与俄罗斯人进行的每一次谈话、外交谈话中，这一直是他们最关切的问题：他们不希望一个被他们视为敌对的军事联盟，带着军队、武器、基地、生物实验室，甚至核武器，诸如此类，直接部署在他们最脆弱的边境上。

这对他们而言是完全不可接受的。这是他们的红线。他们说过很多很多次。我们自己的外交官，包括现任中央情报局局长鲍·伯恩斯，也这样说过。所以，不只是俄罗斯人在这样说。我们的专家多年来一直表示，我们想要，我们实际上是执意发动一场运动，把北约一路扩张到俄罗斯边境，最终会导致与俄罗斯发生敌对冲突。而这正是把我们带到今天这一步的原因。

而我们正处在不断升级此事的边缘，它可能演变成第三次世界大战。所以，维韦克，我确实赞赏你明确表示，我们需要停止这场北约扩张的运动，并认识到这里通往和平的道路是让乌克兰保持中立。而且你知道，明确这样说的总统候选人少之又少。你说了。小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪也说了。我想你们可能是仅有的2个人。

我想，说过这话的就这些。

就这些。这就是整场较量的全部。

所以我真的为此赞赏你。我们必须停止在这个问题上操弄他人认知。这一点早已为人所知，专家们几十年来一直这样说。而现在，我们却假装北约与这场冲突毫无关系。它确实有关系。你刚刚在维尔纽斯又看到了这一点。所以，你知道，我们需要把真相公之于众：这是此事根源的一个重要组成部分。这场战争中的这场冲突。因此，它将是解决方案中不可或缺的一部分，没有它，我们永远不可能实现和平。

这里有一条值得关注的、更深层的联系，因为我认为这关系到这里另一个独立的问题，当然也是我们3个人都关心的问题，那就是这个国家的言论自由。而且，这不仅仅是政府对言论自由的威胁。还有，埃隆，顺便说一句，我很喜欢“推特文件”。我也说过，当我入主白宫，或者如果我，你知道，有幸在1年半之后或随便什么时候到那里，我们将公布“国家行为文件”，也就是这件事的另一面：至少在过去5年里，只要有政府官员向任何公司施压，不只是推特，而是任何公司，我们都会将其公布，至少让公众看到。

是的，但、但、但这不仅仅是政府审查。还有某种围绕乌克兰的文化审查。当我说出萨克斯刚才说的那些话，对吧，也就是确确实实地谈论北约扩张主义，以及我们在这里的目标是什么？是在违反我们先前所作承诺的情况下扩张北约，我得到的感觉，对吧。就是、就是、就是那种，你知道，它所体现的精神。这感觉很像2020年年中，我们这些说过病毒可能起源于武汉一间实验室的人当时的处境。

这件事有某种让人觉得接受它就有些离经叛道的东西。而我认为，过去几年我们学到的一件事是，你知道，至少由此形成的肌肉记忆是。是有用的，也就是说，每当你说出一些以理性和事实为依据的话，却感到周围在文化上形成统一阵线时，就像萨克斯刚才提到的、以历史为依据的那些话，你知道，一个实验室，原始病毒起源于一个他们在那里开展研究、功能增益研究的地方，恰恰就是全球大流行起源的那个地方。

就是觉得似乎没错。听起来也差不多。但随后你感觉到周围的文化力量在告诉你，不、不、不，你得闭嘴、坐下，回去照吩咐办事。我认为那是。那些实际上是我们最需要反复深入探究，并真正查明真相的一些问题。从某些方面说，你知道，世界各地有许多问题，我认为美国对此都有看法。

但让我更加关注这个问题的部分原因，正是围绕这个问题在文化上形成的统一阵线。

是的，我认为这只是这种感觉，在没有当地民众支持的情况下，人们有些高估了俄罗斯能够夺取多少领土。所以在顿巴斯和克里米亚，当地民众给予了相当大的支持。他们得以取得重大进展。乌克兰西部显然不是这种情况。如果你看看，比如冬季战争，当时斯大林，你知道，至少可以说他是个强硬进取的人物，你知道，试图入侵芬兰并失败了。

好。所以是的。比如当你遭到、遭到当地民众的强烈抵抗，而且基本上所有人都反对你时，全体民众就是军队。

所以这样一来、这样一来你会说，哦，我们有一支30万人的军队。可他们有一支200万人的军队，因为全体民众都反对这件事。在那种情况下你不会取得进展。俄罗斯可以直接横扫这些国家的说法是错误的。

没错。或者说他们会有这么做的意愿，我是说，就拿波兰来说，与北约其他国家不同，它实际上会为自己的国防买单。如果我们确实达成了一项以美国利益作为保障的和平条约，俄罗斯就没有理由非得对波兰下手。因此，你知道，我确实认为，我确实认为这是，你知道，我认为泽连斯基仅仅基于眼前的短期情况，正在背叛乌克兰的长远利益。

坦率。

我认为。所以这让他冲昏了头脑，你知道，你知道，他被淡化太多次了。比如，如果你每天告诉某个人17次他们棒极了，那就会，你知道，这让他冲昏了头脑，完全坦率地说，比如，所以，你知道，而且、而且所以我们要阻止这种情况，我们会说，比如，听着，你的人民正在死去。你知道，正如你指出的，这不是长远的，这真的不是长远来看明智的做法。那些人、那些孩子永远不会回来了，你知道，所以，而且我们正在为1英里的领土而死，这太疯狂了。

你知道，这件事有一点很有意思，我以前没有广泛讲过这个故事，但你知道，事实上在这个问题上，所谓极右翼人士和所谓极左翼人士之间存在一个显而易见却被忽视的、奇怪但我认为充满希望并令人鼓舞的联盟。所以，你知道，许多属于、属于那个，你知道，反伊拉克的极左翼人士。我是说，像伯尼·桑德斯这样的人，我相信，虽然我听到他谈论这件事的次数没有我希望的那么多，但我认为他们确实赞同像我这样、在许多其他问题上与他们意见相左的人。

所以，你知道，事实上就在几周前，我参加完一场活动出来时，忽然意识到，在这个话题上，我找不到哪怕1名共和党人，甚至也找不到许多温和派民主党人赞同我。所以我真的给伯尼打了个电话，以为我们其实可以把这件事谈清楚。但我认为他觉得那是一通恶作剧电话，所以他、他并不想真的讨论这件事。姑且说，温和地讲，那就是那次对话的经过。

但我希望改天能和他谈谈，因为这实际上是我们重新洗牌并重新划定边界的一种有趣方式，我认为，在乌克兰问题上理性所及带来的一个积极亮点是，我们在美利坚合众国并非生活在一种单轴两极化的党派政治分歧之中。它是人为的。它是编造出来的。而我们试图硬套进这一框架的许多事情，对吧，管理阶层与公民之间的斗争，甚至包括美国在外交政策上应该或不应该冒着损失军事装备、或牺牲年轻男女的风险去捍卫哪些优先事项的问题，这些都不符合传统的共和党与民主党界线。

而且我认为，从退一步看的意义上来说，这实际上也应该让我们这个国家抱有希望，如果我们有勇气真正退后一步，看清这并不是黑人对白人，也不是红方对蓝方，而是如果我们能够公开地就那些我认为是我们这个时代最棘手的问题展开理性的辩论。因此，我个人希望这会是其中一个附带影响。所以，作为一个国家，我们尚未就实际上应该在乌克兰做什么展开公开辩论，而这场辩论所产生的净正面附带影响之一，就是它戳穿了那套本来就是人为事后拼凑出来的右翼对左翼、共和党对民主党的模式；我认为这种模式在很大程度上并不存在。

它已经过时了。而且，你知道，希望这是有助于我们揭露这一点的问题之一。

所以，扎克，我们已经超过1个小时了。你想接着回答问题，还是你想……我们可以继续干起来，也可以改天再来一次。我都可以。我还有半个小时。

好吧，让我们看看外面有没有人。

我可以待到这个小时的半点。

好，好，行，太好了。嗯，让我们看看。我知道理查德·哈纳尼有一本关于觉醒主义的书即将出版。书名叫《觉醒主义的起源》。理查德，你有一个关于……的问题。好的，当然。

嗨，戴维。嗨，维韦克，你们两位。我很感谢你们两位都为我的书写了推荐语，而且……嗨，嗨，埃隆。很高兴，你知道，很高兴和你交谈，维韦克。伙计，我对你印象太深刻了。我是说，我们，我们一直在谈，你知道，从你参选之前就在谈，而当

你说你要参选时，我当时，你知道，持怀疑态度。

作为一个稍微懂一点政治学、稍微了解一点历史的人。并不是说我认为你没有

出色的个性，以及可能非常出色的

主张，但只是，这总是希望渺茫。我是说，总统，你知道，你不是，你知道，你不是，你不是还骑着辅助轮。你不是从某件，你知道，某件容易的事开始。你是直接奔着那份最重要的工作去的。而你，你让我刮目相看。

我是说，这一主张是，你知道，那种，那种积极的文化战争主张。

那个，你知道，那种认为存在

的不只是一场文化战争，而是还有某种我们可以朝之迈进的卓越。

这确实引起了人们的共鸣。

我只想说，你

知道，你一直，你知道，你真的、真的给我留下了深刻印象，我很高兴看到一直以来发生的事情。谢谢你。

是的，当然。

也谢谢你。也感谢你说，你知道，提到欧洲相对于美国有多穷。我认为这一点被提及得还远远不够。你只要在Twitter上把数字摆给人们看，他们就不太喜欢。但我喜欢，你知道，我喜欢

这样一个事实：你只是，你知道，

你正把它公开讲出来：是的，我们，你知道，这种试验已经做过了。大政府，你知道，政府支出占GDP的50%，高税率，

严苛的

劳动法规，那些都是问题。

他们试过了，但没有奏效。所以尽管我们有种种问题，我会选择

美国，任何时候都是如此。我也感谢关于乌克兰的讨论。我只是想问一下，你知道，你谈过民权法，也谈过某种回归择优原则的重要性。我们谈过这个，比如第11246号行政命令，以及政府平权行动和政府承包。我只是想知道，你是否已经在相当大的程度上充实了这些想法。

等你确实就任之后，这

不，现在开始讨论这些事情并不算太早。

算是吧。

你认为，大致来说，

应对民权问题的主要、主要举措是什么？你在考虑哪些部门？

我是说，你是否已经开始考虑

人事安排之类的事情？

我只是想知道你的

想法在这件事上是如何随时间发展的。是的，嗯，首先，伙计，你的书对影响我的思考起到了重要作用，甚至包括你在出书前写的那些文章。而且你知道，我认为你拓宽了这件事上的奥弗顿之窗。对吧？我认为你，你在许多方面进一步撬开了那些以前不可触碰的问题，比如甚至包括《1964年民权法案》造成的人们不希望看到的或非预期的影响。

我认为这其实是我们应该能够公开讨论的事情。所以我先告诉你上任第一天最简单的一件事，这会让你了解我的思路。你提到了第11246号行政命令。除了，你知道，像你我这样钻研民权法的学者或学生，大多数人都不知道，那是林登·约翰逊签署的一项行政命令。它没有经过国会。美国

总统就这样大笔一挥，让它生效了。它规定，如果你如今与美国政府做生意，这涉及大约20%的美国劳动力，你就必须针对种族、性别和其他指标采用配额制度。林登·约翰逊之后的每一任总统本来都可以拿起笔把它划掉。事实上，共和党总统尼克松反而让情况变得更糟，作为他对抗工会的一部分，他朝着相反方向走了，而这，我认为，也是这个故事中一段未被讲述的内容。

这是一个两党共同造成的问题。问题。我说过，我会在上任第一天拿起笔把它划掉。我确实相信美国存在所谓不分肤色的唯才制度，我确实相信这样一个梦想：无论你是谁、你的父母来自哪里，或者你的肤色是什么，评判你的依据都不应是你的肤色，而应是你的品格和贡献，并据此给予你相应的回报。

而我看到的很多事情，都，都，都，你知道，违反了民权法。而我们会，我们会，你知道，就像哈佛案的判决是一个助力。我们将运用法律，确保我们做到这一点。恢复这个国家不分肤色的唯才制度。你是，你知道，在说什么。我只是想接着问这一点。

你会吗。

你怎么看，你知道，《民权法案》有点像是神圣不可侵犯的，对吧？我喜欢把它表述为民权法。但我，你知道，我明白这里会有，你知道，会有困难。你有多大信心能够把那个信息带回去，而且，你知道，

你能把它推销出去？因为我认为这并不容易，尽管我确实认为这件事值得做，而且是可以做到的。

嗯，我会推销它。至于我能否成功，则取决于这个国家人民的反应。但我的整个前提是，我宁愿讲真话而输掉选举，也不愿靠玩某种政治版的蛇梯棋来获胜。到目前为止，这一直有效。它让我从零上升到，你知道，民调第三名，或者说我们现在所处的位置。伙计，你正紧追德桑蒂斯。我看到了，看到了那些民调，但我们走着瞧。我并不，我并不执着于某个特定结果。

我执着于真相。我的看法是，听着，实际上我施压了。不妨直接把这件事告诉大家。我在这件事上向特朗普的人施压了，对吧？我问他们为什么不干脆拿起笔把它划掉。他们说，这是他们不愿为之付出政治代价的一座山头。而我的看法是，如果你立足于原则，立足于道德根基和第一性原理，不是出于报复、怨恨或对任何人的敌意，而是真正出于严肃态度和第一性原理，那么你就不必担心政治后果。

而人们往往会追随领导者，而不是追随那些害怕自己所领导之人的人。而且，你知道，我的判断是，理查德，我认为我们会成功。我认为，所谓敌意工作环境诉讼的许多判例法，不知怎么把不得基于种族或性别歧视解释成了：你不能营造敌意工作环境，也就是说，你不能说别人不同意的话，否则你就是在违反民权法。

不，我不认为它原本应该这样运作。你知道，作为一名印度教徒，我是半开玩笑地这么说，但这只是一个说法。对我来说，这里没有什么神圣不可侵犯的东西，你知道，至少在涉及美国法律时没有。我认为我们必须直抵问题核心的核心。而且我确实认为，这里出现了许多非预期后果，即便当年投票支持《民权法案》的人知道这些法案如今被这样运用，我想他们也会不寒而栗。

而我认为，我们至少必须把那段历史考虑进去。

没错。

是的。

我们实际上正在违背那些制定这些法律之人的初衷。

是的。有一个很精彩的故事。我的意思是，在书里，我稍微谈到了《民权法案》的最初意图。我的意思是，他们加入了一个。

他们加入了一个。

他们就在里面加入了一项条款。他们担心差别影响。

他们担心，哦，如果有人设置了一项测试，而某个人比另一个人表现得更好，那怎么办？

你知道，一个种族比另一个种族表现得更好？

那会是违法的吗？之所以会出现这个问题，是因为在伊利诺伊州，他们有一个类似《民权法案》的版本，然后他们就

因此对摩托罗拉采取了行动，而他们实际上在《民权法案》中专门加入了一项条款，以防止这种情况发生。《纽约时报》发表社论反对差别影响。所有人都认为这是一个新颖、荒谬的概念。这里有这个。

你可以看看那个。

一些对该法案投票的参议员说过这样的话，你知道，你仍然可以有。如果白人比黑人受教育程度更高，而你的员工全是白人，你

可以把标准定得想多高就多高。

这无关紧要，只要你知道自己是在按能力招聘。我的意思是，历史记录绝对清楚。

你看看那些法院案件，它们

就此作出了裁决，却基本上无视了那段历史记录。他们把它撕毁了。

我们现在有一个不错的。我们现在有一个不错的最高法院，愿意，你知道，推动我们。

在这些问题上推动我们朝更好的方向前进。所以，是的，你说得完全正确。

我的意思是，这里的历史清晰得如同水晶

把法律细节明确地放到一边。我的意思是，不是要。我尽量不为这些事太生气，因为我只想专注于我们竞选的目标。你知道，这很有意思。甚至是 America，对吧。这个词。没有多少人知道这一点。它曾是。你知道，它是。我以前。我曾试图弄清楚，它跟 merit 有没有关系？听起来像是。Merit America。结果发现，merit 来自一个拉丁语词根，而 America 来自，你知道，America Vespucci，他的名字取自他的祖父，他祖父的名字是 Amalric。

Amalric 是一个古老的哥特语词。Rick 的意思是主人，而 Amal 的意思是工作。

好。

所以它有点像是工作的主人，这几乎就是美国的传承。

其实挺酷的。我之前不知道这一点。实际上，我确实真的拥有 etymology，我却不知道这个词源。

所以你拥有 etymology.com？

对。

哇。埃隆，你愿意卖掉它吗？我不知道。

我们可以，对。如果有人真的想做到极致

在词源学方面，对，那很好。但不管怎样，这，这，这是一个很好的提醒，让我们记住这就是我们美国人的身份。通过努力工作出人头地，不分肤色的贤能制度。这就是我们。对。

好吧，让我试试。所以我一直在点那些我认得、而且有意思的人。有意思的，你知道，X 账号。那接下来我们请 Amid，然后再听听 Mario。Ian Alx。

好的，谢谢各位。谢谢戴维。谢谢阿隆再次做这件事。很棒的内容。Vec。

伙计，你最近怎么样？

很高兴和你聊聊。

嘿，挺好的，伙计。

所以，就说一件你提到的事，你希望民主党人反战。那艘船已经开走了。别忘了，国会进步派国会党团撤回了他们要求开展外交斡旋的信。这足以说明桑德斯和他的同类被收编到了什么程度。但我想问你的一件事是 FTX，美国历史上最大的庞氏骗局。你可能并不意外。它的 ESG 评分比埃克森美孚还高。

但萨姆·班克曼-弗里德捐出了超过100美元

百万给与民主党有关的事业。而昨天，司法部宣布撤销对他的所有竞选资金相关指控。作为总统，你会采取什么措施来解决司法部被武器化的问题，阻止这类事情以及亨特·拜登这场闹剧再次发生？

嗯，我确实认为，在这当中，你知道，一份不能理赔的保险有什么用？你知道，所以 SBF 的问题在于，他没有购买凯迪拉克计划，因为我认为，他，他实际上承诺要捐出一笔大得离谱的钱，而他只捐了其中一小部分。所以我认为，他们最终会确保他因为没有购买完整的凯迪拉克保单而受到惩罚，因为如果他买了完整的凯迪拉克保单，他早就脱身了。

但这份部分保单确实理赔了，让竞选资金相关指控被撤销。所以，你知道，这显然很愤世嫉俗，而且只是，而且只是在半开玩笑。但真正的。所以我其实想借这个机会谈谈我提出的一项主张，很多人认为它很极端。但你了解得越多，它实际上就越不极端。它其实非常务实。我认为我们需要关闭联邦调查局。

好。

就拿联邦调查局来说。所以先听我说一会儿。先听我说一会儿。埃隆，你是个爱读书的人，对吧？所以我要向你推荐一本书。我妻子，我妻子读书比我快。她看这本书比我进度快，但它叫《G-Man》。这是一本获得普利策奖的书。它讲述了这个机构、J·埃德加·胡佛以及这个机构如何建立起来的历史。这很引人入胜。不过，是的，他有一些问题。

它至今仍是联邦调查局的 J·埃德加·胡佛大楼。所以它仍然是一个颂扬其遗产的机构。但从实际情况来说，对吧，在地方层面，你有地方警察，也有地方检察官。你不会有这个单独的、庞大的官僚泥潭夹在中间。

好。

嗯，事实证明，在联邦层面，你有美国法警局这样的机构，据我看，总体而言，没有任何证据表明它已经腐化。他们携带，他们会捣毁儿童性交易团伙。他们做了很多出色的工作。毒品案件有缉毒局，财政部有金融犯罪执法网络。所以如果你拿联邦调查局来说，对吧。那里有35,000名工作人员。其中20,000人从事后台职能，但其实已经承担了政策制定的角色。

对。

他们并不是在执法。他们有点是在决定政策应该是什么。我会让他们卷铺盖走人，他们得去私营部门找份正当工作，或者做任何他们想做的事，但不能再靠纳税人供养。不过，对于那15,000名真正身处一线的人，我们会把他们调到美国法警局、缉毒局等等。然后你就真的抽干了一个官僚机构的命脉。

说回奥米德的问题，在这些案例中，政府被武器化的许多原罪，不只是今天，我是说，可以追溯到威胁马丁·路德·金自杀、敲诈他。这个机构是在你拥有一个职能重叠的官僚体系时建立起来的。这几乎就像一条物理定律。

好。

职能重叠的官僚体系是滋生腐败的公式。所以，你知道，这没有听起来那么极端。

是的。我是说，顺便说一句，郑重说明一下，我、我见过很多中情局和联邦调查局的人，而、而且他们全都是非常正直的人。我只是想说清楚，你知道，比如，我不是说任何组织里都没有一些害群之马。但老兄，我、我、我真的，我没、我真的没遇到过坏人。

而且我认为那15,000人，我是说，所以当我说关闭它时，那并不意味着、意味着每个人都是坏人。对，他们中的任何人都是坏人。问题出在职能重叠的官僚体系的性质上，就像，埃隆，我认为发生的情况是专业化。对吧。当人们专业化时，他们往往更有效。当他们变成通才时，也许就没那么有效了，至少在政府里，我是这么认为的。而那15,000人，如果我们把他们调到各自的专业职能岗位，你知道，我认为这实际上会成为一种更切实可行的执法方式，而不是那种纸上谈兵的方式。

你的意思基本上是，所有领域都由其他机构覆盖了，所以我们把人员分配到那些机构，而不是保留今天存在的职能重叠。但是、但是你有信心，如果我们这么做，在、在那些，你知道，需要处理的重大犯罪方面不会出现缺口，而且

不仅不会出现缺口，我们实际上还会更有效。

这就是你的意思。

只是确认一下措辞，这、这就是你的意思吗？

是的，是的。

好的。

完全正确。

好的。

我想回到前面，大卫，如果你不介意，我来问我的问题。很高兴再次见到你。

问吧。

很高兴再次见到你，维韦克。感谢邀请。我们谈到乌克兰战争时，你说过，美国让战争变得最糟了。你知道，我们之前在一些 Spaces 里讨论过建制派或军工复合体。我相对比较天真，不过看到乌克兰发生的事情之后，就没那么天真了。但如果你真的成为总统，你能做些什么吗？因为在我看来，这确实像是系统性问题。

而谈到你一直相当担忧的对华紧张关系时，风险有多大？是的。所以，听着，我认为五角大楼的管理阶层是时候走人了。我认为这是一个陈旧过时的群体，在那里。这有点像我们刚才谈到联邦调查局时所用的类比。大多数人，我没有遇到过这样的人：曾经或目前在美军服役，却不是身在其中，内心是出于正确的理由投身其中。

但我认为事实就是如此。对吧。我们中的任何人，他们有130万。是的，但五角大楼存在一个管理阶层，他们没有明确阐述使命和宗旨。所以，当使命和宗旨出现真空时。

对。

我认为，美国军队的目的应该是威慑战争并赢得战争，按优先顺序来说，威慑战争最为重要，然后是在我们卷入战争时取胜。而最重要的是，优先保护美国本土上美国人的生命。有了这一明确的使命宣言，我们就可以衡量我们在伊拉克所做的事，或者现在在乌克兰所做的事；我认为，如果我们继续沿着当前方向走下去，乌克兰注定会再次变成伊拉克或越南。

这是我们所需要的一部分，也就是恢复目标。所以，并不是说这些人作为个人是坏人，而是当一个机构在没有目标的情况下继续存在时，这个机构就会找到新的事情来做，而这些事情会在其目标不复存在后继续存在；这本身就造成了一种腐败，也许实际上没有任何一个人要为此负责，而这只是其本性，是这头野兽自身的一个特征。所以，我要说的一点是，在美国军队服役的人中，实际在五角大楼工作的人只占很小一部分。

但我会，你知道，基本上对那里进行一次大清洗，引进，你知道，一批新型人才，真正把我认为如今弥漫于五角大楼大部分地方的新保守主义教条冲进马桶。然后回归到，姑且这么说吧，找一些冷战时期的现实主义者进来，你知道，乔治·凯南、詹姆斯·贝克这样的人，这类人在如今的外交政策建制派或军事建制派中实际上并不存在。

这些就是我们想要的那类人才。顺便说一句，我们正在着手确定要安排到联邦政府每个部门最高层的各类人才。但这应该能让你大致了解，我会把什么样的人安排为五角大楼的新一类领导层；而三军统帅的职责——如果我当选，那将是我的职责——就是明确说明美国军队究竟应该关注什么，明确其使命和目标；对我来说，首要任务是在美国本土保护美国人的生命。

威慑战争，并在必要时赢得战争，仅此而已。无论你关注的是我们在乌克兰所做的事，还是军队中觉醒主义的兴起，在我看来，这些都是更深层次的目标丧失所产生的症状。

对，你在这儿。

同意。

是的。我认为特朗普最大的错误之一，就是雇用了所有这些新保守主义者。我实在不明白，因为他的本能是让我们远离战争。事实上，他确实让我们远离了战争。新的战争。而且，你知道，我认为他在本能上更偏向现实主义和不干涉主义，但他却任命了所有这些人，比如博尔顿、蓬佩奥等等，他们想让我们卷入所有这些，你知道，新的冲突。

也许并没有，你知道，也许外交政策建制派就是如此充斥着群体思维，某种新保守主义的群体思维，以至于他没有足够多的人才可供选择。但我不知道。

戴维，实际上，我认为这就是问题的一部分，因为现在审视这件事，而且我们，我们已经开始了。特朗普的另一个错误是，过渡规划开始得太晚了。所以我们已经在做了，我已经安排了一个负责人，他已经在制定我们的人员配置方案。而这就是人才储备所在的一个领域。我的意思是，贝克和凯南，我是说，这些人已经去世了。对吧。

所以。

没错。嗯，但他们正是合适的那类人。我的意思是，乔治·凯南是个天才。他是我们冷战遏制政策的设计者。他也反对我们卷入越南战争。他事先就这样说过。他在国会作过证。而在90年代末，他在自己最后几次采访中的一次里谈到，我们推动北约扩张是多么巨大的错误，这将毁掉他毕生的工作；我们已经赢得了冷战，我们与俄罗斯人之间处于和平状态，但把北约推进到他的边境，将导致新的对立，并将使一切倒退。

而且他用了“悲剧性错误”这个词。所以，几十年来，他算是预见到了一切。詹姆斯·贝克同样也非常能干。我们似乎确实缺少那种能力极强、懂得如何通过谈判达成和平安排的外交人物。现在这些人似乎只是在进行武力恫吓，而且，你知道，像是在寻找新的战争、想把我们卷进去的十字军战士。

也许我们需要让一些真正懂得如何达成交易的风险投资家进去。是啊。

我还认为，公众并没有充分认识到，美国国务院相当好战。真的就像。

对，对。

你知道，嗯，他们刚刚把维多利亚·纽兰提拔为二号人物，在那之后。

你是认真的吗？

是啊。

她确实要为今天乌克兰发生的许多事情负责。对。她是罪魁祸首。她在这件事上就是罪魁祸首。绝对是。她是个十足的战争贩子。

所以，是啊，我是说，这太疯狂了。国务院本该是外交官所在的地方，而不是战争贩子所在的地方。但我们实际上处在这样一种讽刺的局面中：军人想要和平，五角大楼想要和平，而外交官却想要战争，顺便说一句，这种情况也出现在《奇爱博士》中。所以，你知道，我们就是需要告诉我们那该死的国务院，停止这种胡扯，因为他们没有把情况告知公众。

他们就像是在代表美国公众采取行动。但我认为公众并不知道这件事，你知道，所以我们要

让他们知道。这就是答案。这是唯一的解决办法。是啊，就像。

就像我们在干涉所有这些其他国家，而且，你知道，还投入大量某种美国资源来对付它，我认为这也造成了很多对美国的怨恨。是的。所以，你知道，因为，你知道，如果。如果有某种，你知道，我们就像。我们就像，就像某种巨人。我们就像一个。在经济上有点像个食人魔，你知道。所以我们很容易不小心踩到小国，或者，你知道，或者撞到它们，却没有真正意识到。

所以，然后我们就像是在做坏事，而且，而且有人正在死去，我们正在制造敌意。而这一切都在公众不知情的情况下发生。

就是摇摇晃晃地闯进去，笨拙地摇摇晃晃闯进去，然后，然后以一种笨手笨脚的方式把事情搞得一团糟。现在，我觉得成功了，却又根本没成功。如果你很擅长此事，那是一回事，即使如此，我可能还是会反对，但如果你很擅长此事，那会是另一回事。至少那样会有一个更难反驳的论点。然而，政权更迭进行得怎么样了？

让我们看看，让我们看看。古巴，菲德尔·卡斯特罗比所有试图暗杀他的美国总统都活得久，而这，顺

便说一句，让我们把不便明说的部分大声说出来。我确实认为，那就是此处俄罗斯问题背后潜藏的推动力。我的意思是，当你。当你算是触及这种直觉的核心时，对吧，我们实际上是在求解什么？是，你知道，我们不。我们不。这有点像 ESG 这样的坏词。他们不再说 ESG 了。他们为它编出一些新词。就像我们不再看到政权更迭了。但从实际作用上说，那就是。

那就是我们在俄罗斯所图谋的。我们在完成之前不会停手。我认为这是一种耻辱，也是我们尚未吸取的教训。这。

这非常愚蠢，因为任何人，任何将要除掉普京的人，都不会是什么和平脖子的人，他们很可能甚至比普京更强硬，因为他们杀了他。

好，没错，没错。无论如何，这是否意味着我信任普京？不，我不信任普京，但我相信他会遵循自身利益，而他也可以相信我们会遵循我们的利益。这就是为什么我也希望我们放弃这种做法：选择性地声称我们不知怎的在保护全世界的民主，而事实上，如果我处在要离开的位置，我会说这就是我的工作，而且我会在内部这么说，也会对外这么说：我参与其中是为了推进美国的利益。

所以现在你知道你可以信任我，因为我会以此方式作出决定。而我预期你会推进俄罗斯的利益，或者你会推进波兰的利益。然后我们大家可以达成一项协议，无论那项协议是什么，以确保每个人都能从这笔交易中得到一些东西。好交易就是这样运作的。每个人出来时都必须获得一些进去时没有的东西，而且我们可以对此更加坦诚，而不是用这层道德饰面来探测它；这层饰面原本就如此虚伪，以至于我们立刻因此受到指责，因为它打一开始显然就是假的。

那么，发布一道行政命令，禁止美国参与政权更迭行动，彻底禁止，就此打住，怎么样？我的意思是，乌克兰的这整场冲突基本上始于2014年，伴随着几个针对该国民选领导人的迈丹政变，并得到了美国的支持。现在，我们支持到什么程度存在争议，人们对此各有辩论，但我认为美国确实支持了它，这一点毫无疑问，而我们的介入至少玷污了。

如果那是一个，如果那是乌克兰人民意愿的正当表达，我们本应让它自行发生，不要有我们的任何介入。

哦，这是毫无疑问的。我的意思是，他们在这件事上说得很客气，大卫。这是毫无疑问的。去听听纽兰那些泄露的录音。没错，那些正是我们刚才谈到的那个人，涉及我们在挑选乌克兰下一任领导人方面所扮演的角色。她不知道那些通话正在被录音，你知道。但现在我们明白了，绝对是我们在推动这件事。

所以，是的，对。

你知道，话虽如此，如果我们吸取教训，并因此在今后采取不同的做法，我，我，我是可以乐观面对这件事的。但我不认为压制信息、蒙骗公众，从而未能吸取这一教训，会是我们正确的答案。

不，完全正确。

而且我可以这样想。所以在乌克兰问题上，我们更大的关切应该只是，等一切尘埃落定时，比如，你知道，那个。边界最终会在哪里，又有多少人死去。我认为我们应该认真思考这一点，不要牺牲乌克兰露丝的精华，不要牺牲乌克兰年轻一代的精华，让他们死在战壕里却一无所获，而这正是我们目前在逼迫他们做的事。这太疯狂了。

所以。而且那件事。那件事必须停止。对，

我很来劲。萨克斯，你想再选1个或2个吗？我聊得太开心了，不过是的，我还能再回答几个。我聊得太开心了，但遗憾的是我得，你知道。好吧。我可以和你们聊一整天，但我。但，你知道，很快就得走了。

好的。

Alx，你有问题吗？有。

所以你提到，如果你当选总统，你会发布类似“推特文件”或“Facebook 文件”那样的东西，但你会针对所有曾与政府互动并受到某种施压的公司这样做。那会，那会是什么样子？对，所以基本上，我认为如今发生的很多事情，都是政府授权私营公司从后门去做政府无法直接从前门做的事情。

对。所以埃隆发布“推特文件”，证实了我几年前在《华尔街日报》版面上，你知道，所推测的事情，而所有人当时都斥之为阴谋论：这种事情绝对正在发生，而且在社交媒体公司中，其规模大得难以想象；你们回应政府的威胁，以及在某些情况下的利诱，通过胡萝卜加大棒的方式，去审查政府无法直接审查的言论。

我的意思是，甚至具体到点名个人。亚历克斯·贝伦森，你们为什么不封掉他的 Twitter 账号，这个人，在白宫的一场会议上。嗯，这简直。这简直就是。如果第一修正案的创设是为了做1件事，比如从字面上说，第一修正案存在的目的只有1个。那就是保护人们，让他们能够批评政府及其政策。而这个人的滔天大罪，就是他批评了政府的 COVID-19 政策。

然后政府说，不行，必须让这个人闭嘴。如果 Twitter 不照办，他们最后甚至会隐含地威胁对 Twitter 实施监管，你怎么可能这样？所以，在埃隆之前的 Twitter，你知道，其管理阶层确实按照这一威胁照办了。然后他们得到了政府拍拍后背说“干得好”。所以这是1个例子。但这并不仅限于社交媒体。事实上，我认为这种情况遍布整个美国经济。

我认为，比如约翰·克里担任气候沙皇期间发生的很多事情就是如此。他们无法让《绿色新政》在国会获得通过。而他曾吹嘘自己与这个国家的银行首席执行官们，也就是大多数主要银行的首席执行官们会面，让他们签署一份承诺，一种气候承诺，加入一个北美净零联盟。我要提醒你们，银行不是慈善机构。

对。这是一种双向关系。那么他们签署那份承诺能得到什么回报？再说一次，这是一种从后门办成某件事的方式，而那些对政治负责、由我们选进国会的人，本来绝不可能从前门办成这件事。就连乔·曼钦也不会袖手旁观，任由他们这么做。所以我说过，如果你是联邦雇员，那么我是一个认同“国家行为原则”的人，也就是说，如果，如果这是披着伪装的国家行为，那么我认为宪法仍然适用，这意味着政府不能利用私营部门里的傀儡来替自己干脏活。

它受到与联邦政府相同的约束。所以我们应该知道这件事。所以我要说的是，在刑事处罚的威慑下，任何有文件记录的证据，只要表明某位政府雇员曾向私营参与者施压，以实现政府无法实现、无法自行实现的目标。我们只需对其适用一项阳光法案。让公众看到它。把那根木头翻过来，看看有什么东西爬出来。

关于那项特定条款，就这些，对吧？我的意思是，对于废除许多违宪的联邦法规以及重组联邦政府，我有很多不同的看法。但在这件事上，就这么简单。而且我认为，让真相回归那项原则的第一步就是：我们能够承受真相。只要告诉我们，告诉我们真相是什么。我们能应对它，能消化它，能承受它。

但至少让我们看看那种腐败究竟深入到了什么程度。而我以一名普通公民的身份坐在这里，观察它的一些小例子浮出水面，这就像破窗理论，也就是说，如果你看到一扇破窗，就意味着还有别的地方出了问题。在这个社区里。我认为现在发生的就是这种事。所以希望这回答了你的问题。这是可以做到的，也很容易。这正是你会期待并希望一位掌管政府行政部门的行政首长去做的事。

而且这至少是一件很容易兑现的事情，有助于重建公众信任，我认为我们一直极度缺乏这种信任。所以无论是，无论是不明飞行物，无论是杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的客户名单，无论是疫苗的有效性，还是我们刚刚谈到的事情，我的看法都是：我们能够承受真相，把真相托付给公众，而这实际上将颇具讽刺意味地重建公众对各类机构的信任，而公众如今早已正确地失去了这种信任。

嘿，维韦克。

太棒了。

谢谢。鉴于上一个选举周期出现的问题，我们当时遇到了选举基础设施问题。大卫，再选最后1个问题，然后我们就结束。

听得到我吗？

听得到，去提问吧。

你好。

嗯，我们有，我们有伊昂、伊恩和纽安斯，兄弟。

要不，要不美国人一起？

这可能吗？

哦，得了吧。

显然，上一个选举周期的选举基础设施存在问题，但我认为其中一个细微之处。哦，伊恩，我不认为纽安斯。你先说，戴维。你能听到新的人。对，我觉得维韦克听不到我。对，所以。

嘿，埃隆。

戴维、维韦克，聊得很精彩。谢谢你们让我上来。我觉得听众真的很享受这一整场来来回回的交流。

我觉得这真是一股

清新空气，能在 X Spaces 上进行这样一场开放的对话。所以我想问你的问题，这也与我们在 Mario Space 上的一次谈话有关。你提到，如果你当选，你会希望禁止美国企业在中国开展业务。你当时并没有真正详细说明这一点。所以我的问题是，你知道，这对 Apple 甚至 Tesla 这样的公司要怎么运作，它们，你知道，在那里经营？

在我看来，美国大型公司进入全球最大的市场是合理的。但关键是，你能否澄清一下你对美国企业在中国开展业务的政策？

你会怎么处理这件事？当然。而且，而且我其实想，我想说清楚。我其实认为，世界最理想的状态是，在一种经济中，每个人都遵循同一套规则，就像我认为我们将会，你的西欧和俄罗斯将会通过北溪 2 号管道开放经济关系而获益。那就是我希望在这里看到的。也一样。但我们必须确保每个人实际上都在遵循同一套规则。

对我来说，非常重要的是，不再强制转让知识产权，不再强制转移数据，不再强制，你知道，实际上提供非经济性质的服务，把公司变成游说的棋子，你知道，实际上附加一个很不错的小条件，才能获得在国内开展业务的许可。如果你是 BlackRock，在中国销售共同基金，就要确保你不会把适用于美国公司的同一套标准用在中国公司身上。

这就是我基本上所主张的，也就是公平的竞争环境。这正是我们所需要的。而且我认为这种环境并不存在。我认为大多数人都承认这一点。我认为这不会自动实现。顺便说一句，这将需要一项我认为也非常重要、与之直接配套的政策，那就是重新加入环太平洋其他地区的贸易关系。

CPTPP。我认为我们应该重新加入。我认为这与特朗普采取的行动路线，也就是退出TPP，有一点不同。我认为那实际上，也许它

对这边的人来说更合理，对吧。因为我认为特朗普取消它，首先是因为它对美国人不公平。对，确实不公平。

但也要对这边的人公平，

它对企业有利，但对当地农民、你们的夫妻店没有好处，他们本来会被TPP彻底摧毁。所以，也许一个公平版本的协定会是合理的。

没错。而且我是一个善于看到一线希望的人。我认为，我可以利用我们确实已经退出这一事实所带来的筹码，说，好吧，以下是我们需要在包括日本及其以南的多个国家以不同方式完成的事情，从而能够说明我们该如何以更公平的条件重新加入。所以这就是我希望看到的。而且我认为，这实际上是早期要做的事情之一，甚至就相关问题而言，先不谈我们最终会在中国问题上走到哪一步。

最先、也最容易做的事情，其实是重新加入太平洋地区其余的贸易关系，包括CPTPP的其他成员。这会让我们从贸易角度处于强势地位，然后再审视我们相对于中国处于什么位置。所以这个问题我可以讲上几个小时，你知道，我们也可以，但我想。我们再回答最后一个问题。

是啊，让我们在中国问题上拷问一下你。你知道，因为你有一次提到你受到了赏识。而这让我担忧，因为我经常批评他们。而且我总是担心，你知道，途经香港。我是说，他们有没有给过你一个

他们封禁你的理由？

不过只是考虑到时间，我只是想确保我们能回答这里最后一个问题。我知道我个人。

对，不，那就是最后一个问题。

好了，你们现在能听到我了，对吧？能。你怎么样，伙计？太棒了。那么，选举基础设施显然是上一个选举周期中的一个重大议题，但我认为更重要的甚至是选举，也就是候选人的资金。

对。

所以在很多选举中，左翼筹集的资金都大幅超过右翼。如果你，你获得提名，你打算在即将到来的选举中，无论初选还是大选，做些什么？你知道，这样你就能比索罗斯之类的人筹到更多资金；在上一个选举周期，我是说，1.7亿，他是所有个人中出资最多的。然后除了这1.7亿之外，还包括其他方面的1.4亿，以及另外6000万。

这甚至还没有算上开放社会基金会，它们在那段时间投入了大约10亿美元。你认为世界首富应该参与进来，也许，你知道，接替索罗斯在那方面的地位吗？我不知道埃隆对此有没有什么想法，但你对此怎么看？你打算如何，你知道，用左翼自己的手段击败他们？嗯，那是，那是。我不会代表埃隆发言。

埃隆，你想先说吗？

嗯，当然。而且，你知道，我认为这是一次重要的讨论，而且我得说，我认为你正在争取到很多人，我想是因为你的立场，因为我认为，你知道，我听到你说的那些话非常、非常有道理。比如，不管怎样，比如我认为，我认为这，我认为你实际上在这场、这场、这场对话中争取到了很多人。

所以，你知道。是的，抱歉。我其实没跟上。

他刚才只是在问金钱对政治的影响。

是这些有点。这些事情中有很多都用了这种、这种名不副实的名称，听起来好像是支持民主，但实际上基本就是收集选票。而且这里有一种疯狂的、这种钻空子的办法，你知道，我是说，乔治·索罗斯确实像是一位极其有才华的套利者。而且他，你知道，他是。他把这种才华运用到了金钱和政治上。所以他发现，通过慈善组织，你可以用税前资金推动各种事业。

而且这不会被计入任何政治方面的事项。所以它实际上极其有效。你实际上并不攻击候选人，只是攻击他们所持的立场。

然后你算是雇用一个庞大的团队，去疗养院收集选票，以及诸如此类的事情。这些都是确实发生过的事情。

所以，你知道，这里面，你知道，怎么说呢，比如，我认为我们不应该以腐败对抗腐败，但是，你知道，我认为我们确实需要，确实需要有一场动员选民投票的活动，而且，你知道。

对，对。

共和党人当然需要更加努力地争取胜利、争取选民，尤其是在关键的参议院选举、众议院选举和总统选举中。但这，你知道，

埃隆，我很感谢你这么说。而对我来说，真正的区别甚至不在共和党人与民主党人之间。如果我们支持美国，拥护同样的、拥护这个国家立国所依据的原则，那么在我看来，我们就是同一支队伍。而对我来说，在这段历程中，我认为这也是我为什么作为一个局外人加入进来的部分原因。我认为，要改变这套游戏规则，需要一定数量并非在职业政治中成长起来的人。

这个国家赐予了我很多。对吧。所以我和这次通话中的许多人一样，实现了完整的美国梦。而我到目前为止，在此之前。我想在请其他任何人为这场竞选投入资金之前，先投入我自己的钱。所以我已经投入了超过1500万美元自己辛苦赚来的钱，恰恰是因为我不想拿着一个锡罐，向一群其他人请求参选的许可。

而那，那确实伴随着期望。有意思的是，你知道，即使在民主党内，许多人过去也会基于原则说，要让巨额资金远离政治。现在你听不到这种话了。而那确实伴随着某些牵连和期望，我确实认为这些东西败坏了我们民主进程的运作方式。话虽如此，像我这样的人如果想成功，就必须有能力竞争。网球里有句老话，你知道，你要么赢，要么把血留在球场上。

而我不想把血留在球场上。我想赢。而且你知道，如果你们，你知道，我想，我的意思是，老实说，这是有一点出于自身利益的宣传，但也完全坦诚地说，你知道，其他候选人有规模庞大的超级政治行动委员会在电视上投放广告。我们在共和党初选中占三分之一。我们还没有购买电视广告。但无论谁赢得这次选举，为了做到这一点，最终都将花费大约20亿美元。

那就是我的问题。大致就是这个意思。你打算怎么做到？那基本上就是我的问题。所以是这样的，我希望我们能做到。但说到方式，以下是我不会采用的方式。我不会靠变成某个人的傀儡来做到。我宁愿输掉这次选举，也不愿，你知道，向我认为已经破坏这个体制的众多特殊利益集团低头。话虽如此，以下是我们迄今为止的做法。

在这场竞选最初的几个月里，我们获得了70,000名小额捐款人。我实际上是个局外人。我这辈子从来没有过捐款人或捐款人名单。而参加8月首场共和党辩论的门槛是40,000人，我们在7月初时已经达到70,000人，其中40%是有史以来第一次向共和党捐款的人。通常这个数字实际上是2%。所以，你知道，考虑到这次通话中有很多具备商业思维的人，我给你们一个指标，你想知道如何预测一场选举。

我会给你，我要给你预测选举结果的最佳指标。特朗普在2015年证明了这一点。不是当前的民调，对吧？我的意思是，人们会看民调，而我很感激，在最近几版民调中，我表现还可以，表现不错。但那并不重要。看看民调中每个单位花了多少美元。所以，民调中每获得1个百分点，就看看为了这1个百分点花了多少广告费。

对2015年选举中的大多数候选人来说，杰布·布什，你要谈斯科特·沃克、当时的克里斯·克里斯蒂，民调中每1个百分点都要花费数百万美元。对唐纳德·特朗普来说，当时是数千美元，低了3个数量级。而在这场竞选中，我们看到了同样的情况。共和党候选人阵营中的其他候选人，民调中每1个百分点的广告购买费用都是数百万美元；就我目前的情况而言，实际上是数千美元。

那么我们对此怎么说？这条信息现在正让我们振奋起来。我们赌的是，希望只要你把它建起来，他们就会来。但这正是我需要人们的地方。所以，其他任何人能直接捐给竞选活动的最高金额是6600美元。如果有人现在愿意去vivek2024.com并捐款，我们会非常感激，但还有各种各样的，你知道，我是说，这个，这场游戏太复杂了。还有各种各样的其他组织会，会花钱支持候选人。

而我的模式是，你知道，我们，我们会把它建起来，也就是说，传达一个清晰的信息，它是诚实的、透明的，它信任公众，相信公众能够承受真相，它希望恢复让这个国家伟大的1776年原则，而不为此道歉。认真地做，真诚地做，并且押注这个制度会按其应有的方式运作，而且至少值得庆幸的是，我有能力投入。

你知道，我是说，我没有数十亿美元可以投入。但除此之外，我会用我确实拥有的一切，不惜一切代价，这让我们在起步时有一个很好的优势。但这将需要很多人，真的需要每一个人，无论是1美元，还是有人投入巨额资金，才能真正把这件事推过终点线。所以我希望从几周后开始，能有机会在辩论舞台上向全国介绍自己。

我认为这在这场竞选中至关重要。坦率地说，我会继续使用像这样的论坛。我是说，这太棒了。想想看。没有单独的媒体在我们传递信息时居中介入，对吧？没有任何东西，没有任何东西经过预先过滤。如果没有这样的现代媒体，像我这样的人根本无法竞争，埃隆。所以，希望这能改变游戏规则。

对，不，我是说，这说明了某种东西，比如你确实能，你确实能，你知道，你反应敏捷，而且你能，你能应对围绕困难议题的连珠炮式交谈。

我是说，这个，你知道，并不是每个人都能做到。而且你确实是在表达，你知道，你的表达带着信念，而且，而且，而且你不只是在，你知道，播放那些老掉牙的政治录音和所有人，以及所有人已经听过100万遍的那些陈词滥调，而且老实说，它们毫无说服力。所以我认为，实际上这场，你知道，你知道，至少在这次、这次、这次谈话之后，我肯定对你评价很高。

而且，而且我，我猜很多人、其他人也是如此。

我很感激，伙计。你知道，我想我最后就说这个，因为我希望这对我们的国家有好处。你知道，你和我，或者这次通话中的其他任何人，我们不会在100%的事情上都意见一致，这没关系。对吧？是的，当然，你知道，你和我会，我是说，我和萨克斯不会在100%的事情上意见一致，而且，你知道，你和萨克斯也不会在100%的事情上意见一致。这次通话中其他人的每一种组合也都是如此，但，你知道，假设大多数时候你都同意我，但至少你知道，我100%的时候都在告诉你我所相信的，那就是。

那就是你能对一位民选领导人提出的最高要求，而我至少会给你这一点。而且，希望这会成为能够吸引足够支持的东西。是的。让我能够担任这个国家的下一任总统，并且，你知道，引领一场。引领一场全国复兴。于2033年1月卸任。我的孩子们会在上高中。也许我们会继续去。也许到那时我们会前往火星。但，你知道，在此期间，我们会看看能否复兴这个国家。

而且。而且我乐观地认为我们能够做到。

嗯，遇到一个不是NPC的政治人物很少见，所以请把这当作很高的赞誉。

我很感激，兄弟。

谢谢。好了，那么，感谢你们两位如此慷慨地拿出时间。我们在这里差不多聊了2个小时。我想原本只安排了1个小时，而我们只是，你知道，时间飞逝，所以。谢谢你，埃隆。谢谢你，维韦克，也感谢各位参与。

我很感激。

谢谢，各位。谢谢你，戴维。谢谢各位。

谢谢。

谢谢。

All right, David, do you want to take it off?

Yeah. Hey everyone, thanks for joining us today. We're here with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is an American business leader and New York Times best selling author. He's the founder of Strive, which is an Ohio based asset management firm that competes with BlackRock, State Street Vanguard. Before that, he founded and led a successful biotech company called Roiven Sciences, where he oversaw the development of new drugs that went on to become FDA approved.

Bloomberg has called him a leading anti ESG crusader and the New Yorker dubbed him the CEO of Anti Woke Inc. He's a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School. He is the son of two immigrants. He's married to Apoorva, who is a throat surgeon and he's the father of two sons, age 3 and 1. So with that, Vivek, thanks for joining us today.

Yes. Good to be on guys. I'm looking forward to more of a conversation than just a pre scripted speech here. But David, can you hear me pretty well? Yeah, yeah, we can hear you.

Yep.

Sweet. Nealon, it's good to, good to finally meet you, man.

Yeah, yeah, I look forward to meeting. Yeah, looking forward to this. Yeah, it's good. But I mean that was a great intro by David and I to say I agree with all those, everything that was articulated and congratulations on everything you achieved so far. And I think, you know, actually I think people would just like to know more, you know, more about you and, and yeah, I guess whatever you'd like

to say sounds good. We'll, we'll kick this off. Most people have barely heard of me and, and this presidential race is, is just getting warmed up. But yeah, my parents came to this country 40 years ago with almost no money and I've gone on to found multibillion dollar companies, not, not Elon Musk level yet, but, but nonetheless, companies that have, you know, impacted people's lives in a positive way. And I did it while getting married, following my faith in God and bringing two sons into this world who we raise today.

And I am genuinely worried that that American dream will not exist for my two sons and their generation unless we do something about it. I think for a long time we've been running from something. And the reason I entered this race, I did not expect to be running for president, but I saw a field certainly on the Republican side forming where I saw a lot of people who were running from something. I didn't see anybody who was running to something.

And I think that's what we need to do.

Well, I Think you've got a really sort of a point there in that. Like, I think there's this. There's actually sometimes quite a pessimism about the future. And with people like, well, I think there's some degree, like, well, what should we do? Like, what is the good future? You know, um. And, you know, obviously, both. There's both those that are religious, and that's. I certainly respect that. But then there's. There's also, like, you know, just if you're not necessarily religious or even if you are, it's like.

It's like, well, okay, what's the. What's the point of existence? Yeah. You know, what. What should we be doing? And how would we know if it was better?

Yeah. I think that these are the questions we should be asking. And I think we live in a moment, Elon, where, like, I'm speaking to you, right. As a member of my generation, in some ways, I'm 37. I'm the first millennial ever to run for US president as a Republican. And I think that the thing that's going on in our generation is that we are all so starved for purpose and meaning and identity. Yeah, I think that. And I think we're hungering to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and yet we haven't yet identified what that is.

You know, I think some of this is beyond my pay grade. Right. I think some of this is for pastors to take on the revival of God, the revival of faith in something truly higher. That is true. But I'm doing one small part of this. Okay. There's some small role for the revival of national identity, too. Right? Answer. What it means to be an American. That's something. That's. People, you know, my age or younger, what does it mean to be an American?

You get a deer in the headlights response, like, whoa, what was that? What did you just ask me? And I think if we fill even that vacuum of national identity with a clear answer to that question, that's what it means to be a citizen of this nation. And if it's a different nation, so be it. That nation has a clear answer to their question, too. But I'm worried about this country that fills part of that vacuum, that void.

And that's what I think. That's. That's what I'm saying. That's what gets me going. And I think that's part of the answer to the question.

Yeah, I think we should, like. We should, like, aspire to be the good guys, you know?

Well, what do you mean by that. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean just, you know, like I kind of, you know, grew up watching a lot of American movies and TVs and reading comics and whatnot. And you know, I actually sort of the, I like the. There was a morality to America that I think is actually quite good. It's like, like this notion that there is actually good. There is not, it's not, it's not just all relative, you know, sort of a relative morality that there is good and the good and the absolute and that.

And that we, you know, we should try strive to be a good civilization, a good, good people that, you know, where we treat each other well and work hard and you know, build great new things. And that seems like, you know, what we should be trying to do and just trying to understand more about the nature of the universe and like our place in it and you know, where are we today?

You know, like that's why I'm like a big fan of expanding the scope and scale of humanity, of expanding consciousness and saying that civilization is a good thing, not a bad thing. And, and it's, you know, and really it's something we should further and, and ultimately, you know, be a multi planet species, like a space frame civilization, you know, and make true the things that we see, we've seen in science fiction that let that, but let that not always be fiction.

So and I love that because I think that you and I are in some ways on a similar mission but going in, in complementary but different directions. Right. I think that there is such a thing as truth. There is such a thing as the good. And.

Well, yes, I think, I think if you say like this truth with acknowledged error, like is important. Which you know, to say like we think this is true might be wrong. You know, generally speaking I think is. But I think one can aspire to get closer to the truth.

Absolutely. And there's. What are the conditions that allow one to aspire to truth? I think that this platform we're having this conversation on, I think you bought it at least with part of the aspiration of believing that the free exchange of ideas is part of the path that leads to truth. And you know, I think each of us is different. It is interested in different spheres. Right. I think part of your passion, it seems is expanding to the frontiers of the universe beyond this earth being, exploring, being the pioneers, the explorers, even on other planets.

I look at. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And to be totally clear, I like, I for sure am fan of like hey, let's not mess this planet up.

You know, fair enough, fair enough.

You know, it's not like, you know, I'm like, hey, let's escape to another planet.

Planet.

I'm like, let's just make sure things are cool on Earth. But then, like, hey, it'd be nice if like Star Trek and, and, you know, was real one day.

You know, like the cool science fiction,

I think that'd be. I think that'd be phenomenal. And, and I think that for me, my passion is all right, leaving those two, again, a higher pay grade than mine. But I think part of the truth we can rediscover, part of what is good is the revival of things like individual self worth on this planet, a sense of grounding in family, a sense of grounding in the nation. And I think that all of this too is even. Even long before we get to Mars or long before we get to another frontier, as I think would be great for expanding the frontier of human achievement and exploration.

There's exploration within, right? I think we're like, you know, we, the analogy sometimes uses, we're like, you know, we're like a bunch of blind bats flying around in a cave trying to figure out where we are, right? And that cave could be the universe, and that cave could just be a cave on this Earth. But, you know, we send out sonar signals and they bounce back and they say, hey, this is where I am. Because I'm blind, I can't really see where I am.

And so what are those things that bounces off of? Could be family. Could be my grounding in the fact that I'm a citizen of this nation. That is true. That means something to me. Could be my faith that I believe in God, that, you know, I'm a person of this faith. I'm an individual. I worked hard, I created something. Could be the company that I work for or that I created, that bounces back and tells me this is where I am.

And so I think there's a lot of that to do at home. And I just think that, you know, our pursuits are in some ways complimentary, Elon. But I think that we live in a moment where a lot of those other pillars right here at home on Earth, even in the United States of America, even in central Iowa, where I am today, those pillars have disappeared. And I think part of what's happening is we send out these sonar signals and then nothing comes back and we're lost.

And that's where I think we are. And so my mission is to rebuild some of those basics.

Okay, well, I mean, I Think we should definitely not lose like pride in America. Like we should be proud to be American. And I certainly am. And you know, you know, sometimes it feels like there's like quite a weird, like anti American, self destructive element, especially in like the, you know, elite circles within the US which seems kind of crazy to me. And at some of the colleges and high schools, they like, in a lot of cases they're like teaching it's bad to be an American.

I'm like, this is insane. You know, it's like, it's not true.

Well, in San Francisco, they ripped Abraham Lincoln's name off one of the high schools.

This is insane.

Really crazy.

You know,

other examples where George Washington statue is being ripped down.

Right. And I think this is just a symptom of, you know, we say we hate America, but it's really a form of self hatred, even at the individual level. Yeah, right. We want to flog ourselves for success. It's the same mentality for why kids in school. A kid who graduates at the top of his class in high school and most public schools in this country has to hide his achievement because achievement isn't cool. Well, America is about achievement in many ways, and so America's not cool.

So I think it's a symptom of the loss of self worth. And it's not an easy thing to ask how we revive that. Right. I think we observe the problem and that part's in some ways easy to do. I think what we do to build up that self confidence that we've lost is whether it's the self confidence to start a small business or the self confidence to set out to mars, or at least the self confidence to say, I'm a citizen of the nation founded on the most admirable ideals in human history and I'm gonna be proud of that.

That ain't gonna be easy, but I think that is the challenge that, you know, whoever leads this country, and I'm aiming to be that person next, I think in the next 20 years, if we don't get this right, I don't think we're gonna have a country of the same kind of that we will be talking about American exceptionalism anymore. And I think that will be not just a loss for the United States of America. I think that will be a loss for the world.

Because part of America's role in the world is to provide an example of what is possible when you have a country founded on those ideals. And once you start apologizing for those ideals, I think that's going to be a permanent loss for history. And so, you know, I have thoughts on this. Maybe you have thoughts on this too. But identifying the problem, I think we're all seeing it with clear eyes. What we do about it, I think is going to be a.

Is a tougher question. And I have my views on it. But, you know, Elon, maybe you do too. Yeah, yeah.

Stop this nonsense immediately and castigate the educational system for teaching kids such nonsense.

You know, like, what the hell's going on? And like the donors to these universities and, you know, high schools and whatnot should be like rescinding their donations and saying, what the hell are you guys doing?

Yeah, that's a start. You know, a big part of this is the federal government.

Stop sending.

Federal government's a big problem too. I mean, you talk about those local schools, what the heck are they doing? That comes from the US Department of Education. So it's a little bit invisible to a lot of people. It's not just the school boards that parents are happily now engaged in. The US Government says you don't get money from the federal government, which covers about 10% of public school budgets in this country, unless you adopt these toxic self hating, you know, racial and gender ideologies.

But it's broader, broadly, more of a national self loathing ideology. And I think that like many things, this is solvable.

We're paying people to hate America.

Yes, we are. Yes, we are. And I think that's solvable. That piece of. It's solvable.

Yeah. I mean, this is like we're just

punching ourselves in the face here. I suggest we stop punching ourselves in

the face and this gets back to religion. Elon, you want to know why? Because it's like a self flogging, right? It's like wearing a hair shirt. This is sort of religious practice people, you know, engage in. This is an interesting feature of. Exist in certain Christian tradition, exist in certain Hindu traditions, exist in basically every major tradition in the world is there's some sect that does engage in a short form of self flogging.

And so I think what's happening here is we have a group of people in our country right now who are again, hungry to be part of something bigger than themselves, have a hole the size of God in their heart and traditional religion or God doesn't fill it. They engage in a different kind of self flogging instead. I believe, by the way, I believe that's much of what the climate cult internationally is all about, is a substitute for religion, self flogging.

But I Think the same goes for American self hatred. It's complicated.

Completely disagree with the climate stuff.

We can go into that. You want to go into that a little bit?

I think as an individual I might have, as an individual I think I might have done more to help with climate things than any, any other individual by pretty, pretty big margin. And so sometimes people like will bizarrely think I'm like right wing or something. I'm like, I've been like literally pouring blood, sweat and tears next level into saving the environment. What are you talking about? It was so insane. So I, I, I, at least I perceive myself to be a moderate and I, and I, and I aspire to be a moderate and, and, and reasonable and, and not to take and like just to you know, care about our fellow humans and further civilization.

And, and you know, I think part of it also is that the United States has been the on top for such a long time that there's a certain complacency that results when you've been winning for like the United States really has been winning for so long and it's like, it's like a pro sports team that has been winning for so long, you get a little complacent, you know, and, and that's, I think we should be wary of that. We should not be complacent.

And you start thinking like there aren't any external enemies. Just like with ancient Rome. If Rome didn't have an external enemy, they would have civil war.

Yes.

And so in the absence of, you know, if you just perceive yourself to be essentially invulnerable, then it become internal conflict is a natural consequence of that because there are no external enemies. Well, look, I think in reality there sort of are, or at least there is external competitors, you know, and we're obviously facing a huge transition that's happening in the world today is obviously the rise of China and the fact that the Chinese economy is probably going to be two to three times the size of the US economy.

This is really a big change because for as long as anyone's been alive, the United States has the biggest economy in the world. But if in the case of China you simply said assume a DP per capita efficiency relative to the US of 70%, that would be roughly equivalent to a billion people in the US or three times our current population. So the probability is like really trying to, we will be in a rather odd situation that no one actually can even remember where there is an economy twice our size.

Yeah, so I think that that's correct on the Trajectories. I think there's a couple points in there, Elon, really important points that. That are actually encouraging for the United States, oddly enough. What was your point about? The fact that our success bred our entitlement. Right. It's inevitable. It is just history. Right. Success breeds entitlement.

Yes, yes.

And it's normal for.

It's a human thing.

It's a human thing. And then entitlement breeds laziness. And then, of course, victimhood, culture follows because victimhood vindicates laziness. And you saw this in Rome too. And so I appreciate the Ancient Roman Empire analogy. Actually, my second book was all about exploring whether or not we are at the equivalent of the end of the Roman Empire. Yeah. And which we should be worried about. I think we should be talking about it.

We should be talking about it. So I had took a dark turn during that book midway through Nation of Victims, and halfway through the book, I concluded that actually we should be so lucky as to be Rome, because Rome lasted a couple thousand years. Right. If you go in the second half and you know, we might be more like Carthage, which only lasted a few hundred. Yeah. But I. Well, actually depends for quite a long

time, but definitely got short circuited there.

Yes, it did. It did. And so. And so I think that that was one version of it. But actually my more careful study of it was that we talk about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It turns out there were many rises and many falls, actually.

Yes.

There was no one rise and one fall. And I kind of see the rise of this American experiment the same way. I think there will be many rises and there will be many falls. But I don't think we're done with this ball game yet. I think we are still can. We still can be in our ascent. And so just the arithmetic of it, Elon, you're right. If you extrapolate the existing GDP growth rate curves and linearly play them out on a compounding rate.

It's exactly what you said for China in relation to the US that is a big part of the reason why, leading the country as US President. One of the core things I've prioritized is actually making GDP growth a metric that we actually care about in this country. And in some ways, I'd rather measure economic prosperity than some other metric that we've chosen, carbon emissions, or whatever the metric of the day may be. Let's actually choose the one that better tracks the prosperity and might of our country over the next 50 years.

And I think it's actually going to be more achievable than we've made it out to be.

Well, I mean, we want to make sure that the United States remains very much a meritocracy, that that is a function of someone's skill and hard work that results in their success and that we do not have any sort of an entrenched, you know, rich class effectively. So this is very important because otherwise results in sort of ossification of society. So we want to remain really merit focused. We want to obviously, I think, try to attract the people from around the world who are also merit focused and wish to join the country and we should make it much easier for them to join.

I agree with that. I actually fully agree with that. And that's one of the things where I think the Republican Party needs to define where we actually stand. There is an anti legal immigration current that, you know, which is. Which, which. Which I'm going to be on the debate stage in a month. And this is going to be something that if anybody has any, any qualms with this, you know, I think I'm going to have a real problem with that because merit based immigration is one of the fixes to economic growth in this country.

But merit is the key though, really.

In fact, I think I want to say it in a way that I think everyone can understand, which is imagine America's a pro sports team. We want to win the championship, we want to keep winning the championship. And there's some ace players on another team and they really want to join our team. And now we can make them fight us or we can have them join our team and just crush. And I think if eighth players want to join our team, please do.

That is the way to continue success.

Exactly. And welcome back.

And not have all these ridiculous obstacles.

Well, I think part of the reason you have that reaction is to play your analogy. Instead, what we have is somebody who doesn't even sign up for the team just gets to show up on the field. And that's what we have now, which creates a backlash from the existing team members to say we don't want any more, when in fact what we should be saying is we want the best ones who come and follow the process for actually training and joining the team.

And that's what I think merit based legal immigration ought to be about. But I do think that this is achievable. Right. I think that if you view it, even if you play the Roman analogy, just to think about this in the big arc of history, if you count the eastern half, it's 2,000 years. And in that case, here's what I think is going on is as a nation, we're not at the end of the Roman Empire. We're really just a little young actually going through our own version of adolescence, figuring out who we're going to be when we grow up.

And then when you view it through that lens, Elon, it kind of takes the temperature down a little bit where yes, we're going through this identity crisis. Yes, we're going through this national self flogging, a self loathing, the kind that most people, including me, certainly did experience a little bit when going through adolescence. But you get to the other side of it stronger if you actually get there to our national adulthood.

And so I'd like to think that's where we are not in decline, but in our ascent. Maybe not even at base camp yet, on our way to the mountaintop.

Definitely take that attitude. I agree. That's like totally the right attitude to have. Like, I, I hate this. I just know this defeatist BS that's right. That they're teaching kids needs to stop. That's why I'm saying like, you know, funders should revoke funding from schools that teach this nonsense. And a lot of it is happening. So that's people donors are unaware of and they should just go, hey, hey. Like, hey, go pay attention to what your money's doing.

And it's, it's doing some very foolish things and revoke funding. You know, if they keep teaching, you know, kids that America is somehow evil, which is insane.

It's donors, Elon. It's school people. Donors to schools. It's also, frankly, people who don't know this. I know you know this, but many people don't. Is their own retirement accounts are causing corporate America to adopt the same philosophy too. Right. Voting for equity audits at a corporate board is in some ways a manifestation of that same philosophy. And what we don't know is our own money is being used to do it.

Be a taxpayer money or 401k money. And some of this is easily solvable.

Yes. I mean, there's a fundamental governance issue that you've highlighted here where because I think it's roughly half the stock market are passive or index funds, meaning they're just following, you know, an index or something. And these will be at Fidelity, blackrock, T. Rowe, all the normal sort of, you know, retirement places.

Right.

But when. But those votes are then outsourced to usually one of two organizations, Institutional Shareholder Services, who I sometimes call the isis.

It's about the right use case. I always wondered what the difference was between isil. ISIL and isis. Now I know which one's isis. That's good.

Yes. Sometimes they behave like corporate isis. And then this glass Lewis, those are the two main ones. There are a few others. But effectively when the, you know, when half the stock market is outsourcing the voting decisions to what amount to a handful of activists or people who certainly have an agenda at these glass doors and iss, you've essentially got a handful of people voting half of the public software.

And Elon, you are aware of my last company before running for president or you know, you strive. I mean this was my whole premise, right? Taking this off. So I started, I mean my, my bigger company that I founded is a biotech company. Got a bunch of medicines that are FDA approved. But this is a different, this is a different adventure. Last year, last August and actually our, you know, mutual friend Peter was one of the, one of the backers of the company to help get it off the ground, but was an index fund provider actually, which created index funds where the premise of the index funds was that you actually vote according to whatever maximizes value by providing excellent products and services.

By literally not saying that there's, you're going to divest from certain companies or invest in others. Many people play that game, but just say no. It's the same passive exposure. Oh, and then by the way, there's a separate arm of it that does proxy voting on behalf of people who don't want to be stuck with the duopoly. And so I believe all else equal, I want to see the government stay out of this as minimally as they can to solve these problems.

This should be solved through the market. People gravitated to it, you know, you know, got, got off the ground pretty quickly. But it's, it's going to require seeing these complicated challenges which are different than the classical threats to liberty or culture that we saw half a century ago.

Yeah, Well, I think like fundamentally here the public is, is being misled and they don't realize they're being misled in that they've given their savings to these 401k plans and these index funds and that's what really constitutes half the market. And they're on the assumption that the way that those shares will be voted is in the shareholder interest that will maximize their ultimate return and have the best sort of retirement savings and that kind of thing.

But actually that is not what is occurring. In fact, the votes are in many cases contrary to the shareholders interest.

Oh, they're directly contrary to them. So I'll give you two funny examples.

But the public doesn't know this.

It's totally invisible. It's totally invisible. So I mean this is been. I've tried my best. I wrote two books in the last couple of years about it. But you reach it's their technical subjects. And the thing I've realized is it is designed to be technical for a reason. And that says a lot about why we see technocratic abbreviations like esg. It sounds boring. You know, cbdc, whatever it is, it's designed to sound boring for a reason is we want to make it difficult for people to see the way in which their own investment accounts say are weaponized against their own best interests on that particular case.

Elon, this is probably, I think I'm an antitrust skeptic mostly, but if you believe in antitrust law, this is arguably the largest antitrust violation in human history of the same three firms being the largest shareholders of major competitors and of each other at the same time using their votes in a coordinated dogma as a signatory of the same social commitments because the same pension funds are interested in them or invested in them.

But the real question is, yeah, no,

I think all those like, you know, blackrock, Fidelity, T. Rowe, all need to be like, hey look, the boats are going to be to maximize shareholder value, not for some, you know, random sort of work or other agenda that the, these outsourced shareholder services companies are promoting. Which is, is that, that's basically what I'm saying is like, you know, Tiro, Black, blackrock, Fidelity, they're breaking the deal.

That's right.

With the, with their customers.

They are.

Okay, they're breaking the deal because the deal is the. And if you, if the deal is maximize shareholder value, the deal is not go make a bunch of social changes.

That's right. And you know what they say now? Of course. So I always believe in getting the best arguments for the other side on the table. So they'll say, no, no, you don't understand. This is maximizing value. It's about long run value rather than short run value. And we understand that more diverse teams, of course it's B.S. we got to cut through it. And so the funniest thing is like take Apple, right? Your friend Tim over there is, you know, so, so Apple.

So there's this proposal, this is a funny story actually. So there's a group that puts up this proposal for a racial equity audit at Apple.

Okay, okay.

It's like it's like they own, like they want two shares and it's like nonprofit group. And so Apple's board of course, rather sensibly says hell no. We meritocracy is part of what our hiring philosophy is for our engineering talent. So no, thank you to the racial equity audit. And then what happens is though that random proposal, guess who votes for it? BlackRock votes for it, State street votes for it. A bunch of other financial institutions vote for it.

So many that it gets over 50% shareholder support. But then Apple, to avoid embarrassment, the board says, oh, oh no, no, just kidding guys. You know, this is about long run value maximization. So then now if somebody new shows up at the table, right, you know, so strive, say the firm, I found it right, that the experience that we had was you'll then show up at the very company that even two years before was saying hell no to this nonsense because they've been forced to bend the knee and been chastened and in their sense and experience of it, publicly shamed by it.

Then if somebody says no, no, no, why don't we just undo that very thing you didn't want to adopt? What they say is no, no, no, no, this is now about, they've been almost with the ardents of the converted. This is about long run value maximization perpetuating that culture of self flogging. And so that's, that's where the frontier of the ESG debate is right now, is behind this farce of long runism, which is really just, really just that it's a farce but we have to be able to cut through it with reality.

It's false.

It's false. Yeah. And obviously I'm very pro environment. You know, it's hard to get more pro environments than me. But like we just don't know, like we don't want basically some sort of like bizarre like communism rebranded thing, which is like a lot of what ESG is and to be inflicted upon corporate America without the knowledge of the actual shareholders, which is what's going on. And so I'm saying the public is being lied to by their, really, they're being lied to.

And I'm naming names here because I know blackrock, Fidelity, Tiro, and I know you guys. And you need to tell your customers that you're not making the optimal decisions for shareholder value because that's what's going on.

And this is part of what the difference was between and you know, the US and Europe over the last 50 years. I'm not saying this was the sole difference. But I think it was a factor, Elon, where US stocks over like a 50 year period have outperformed European stocks. And the fundamental model of corporate governance in the US was value maximization. The fundamental model of corporate governance in Europe was the multi stakeholder model.

I think our side won. Why on earth now, to play your basketball team analogy, would the basketball team adopt the strategy of the losing team to adopt that as its own? If it's playing the next quarter of the game? That's exactly what we're doing. Which, which I think is a problem.

I'll actually say one other thing about this ESG thing is that I think the, the, the big, the big firms, the T blackrock, you know, you know, Vanguard, all of them, they're like they're setting themselves up for the, the biggest class action lawsuit in the history of class action lawsuits by an order of magnitude. Yes, because if, if they, because they're, they're, they're not, they're not, they're breaking the deal with, with their, their customers and they're not maximizing shareholder value.

Well, you know who's really setting themselves up for the, for the lawsuits, Elon, is the problem is it's not even the people who are giving them the money aren't even giving them their own money.

Right.

Those are either pension funds or they are intermediaries like investment advisors across the country. Right. They're like the local guy that hung a shingle at Raymond James or wherever. They're the ones sending somebody else's money. And so BlackRock and Vanguard, their excuses. Well, we now disclose all of this stuff to clients and they're still sending us the money. Well, that client, the problem with that was not himself the owner of capital.

And so actually the wave of lawsuits is first going to probably come to the blackrocks and Vanguards and state streets of the world. They're going to kick it upstream and say no, no, we disclosed it and our clients still sent the money. But their clients were themselves money managers for other people. That's what happens when you have an industry that's so intermediated that there's so many layers to the waterfall that's actually ripe for corruption.

But the deeper point that you mentioned is, and it has far implications far beyond just the ESG question is we're being lied to. I think you said it again and I think that gets to the heart of the moment where it's like the movie, right?

The average investor is being misled.

The average investor is being misled. Elon let's just be real. The average citizen is being misled by the government in the same way that the average investor is being misled by the leaders of the woke industrial complex or asset management firms or whatever you

want to call it.

Exactly.

And it comes down to. You ever watch that movie A Few Good Men is, you know, it comes down to the question of, you know, Jack Nicholson character, right? We can handle the truth, actually. And I think that is the moment we're in as Americans. We can handle the truth of where a virus came from, or whether masks work or whether vaccines have side effects, or whether a Hunter Biden laptop story was real, or whether you're using my money.

Right.

We can handle the truth. And that's the moment we live in. And that's the American. I mean, that was the American Revolution, actually. Because the old world vision was that we the people could not handle the truth. We could not be trusted. It had to be a small group of people in the back of palace halls that made the decisions for the rest of society at large. But on this side of the pond, in 1776, we said that, you know what?

No, we reject that. Sometimes we might get it wrong, sometimes we might get it right. But for better or worse, we the people decide how we govern ourselves. That was what the American Revolution was about. And unlike you, Elon, I'm not a moderate, actually. I don't like those labels. I don't use those labels. But I'm in because the American ideals are kind of extreme, actually. Right. Free speech. I don't think you're a moderate either, but I don't think that.

I don't view this as a partisan exercise. My whole point is the American ideals are themselves rather extreme ideals. Right? Free speech, self governance, the fact that we the people can handle the truth, that's extreme. For most of human history. It was done the other way for most of human history. But that extreme set of ideals, that is what unites us. That is what makes us American. That is what makes us great. That is what makes America itself.

And in some ways, I think that's actually how I think we're more likely, Elon, to get to national unity in this country is actually not by necessarily saying we're gonna, you know, Compromise at the 50 yard line, hold hands and sing Kumbaya and compromise. I actually think it is by being in some measure uncompromising about the ideals that unite us. And yes, those are extreme ideals, but that's cool. That's America, that's us.

And I think that's the moment we live in is do we want incremental reform which a lot of politicians are claiming to offer, including in this race that I'm running in a Republican primary? Or in some sense do you want the American Revolution, the ideals of the American Revolution? And I, I stand on the side of the American Revolution. And I think that's actually our last best chance of uniting and rediscovering who we are.

And we should be proud of it.

I agree.

So it's, it's, it's important to not fall into the trap of thinking that all these solutions are going to come from government. I mean the things you're doing, working on, on a given day. Right. What you're doing with X right now.

I mean generally speaking, I think we want the government percentage of the economy to be smaller rather than larger just because the government is really a corporation in the limit. Sometimes people think a government is different from a corporation, but it's really just the government is a corporation in the limit. It is the most corporation corporation and it's got a monopoly on violence. And so you have to like say okay, how much do you want a giant monopoly on violence to do?

Yep, you know, not that much less generally, not more.

And you know, we've, you know, shown over and over again that the power of free enterprise and comp. And competition. We do need to make sure that there's good competition in these markets. Competition, you know, makes companies honest and makes them work harder to serve their customers, which is, that's what, you know, makes people happy and makes for a better world. You know, if you wouldn't want to have just like one car company, you know, one airline, you know, you want, you want them to compete and you know, and that that's what makes things better and have that across the board.

So whenever something moves to the government, the important like then it's like saying okay, now we've now got rid of competition and, and the feedback loop for improvement is, is very small and, and you know, so the same person in government or in, in, in private industry, they're going to be, is far more productive in private industry.

Yep.

So we, we just want to make sure our personnel allocation is towards that which is most productive, yields the best standard of living for the people.

And by the way, I'm totally down to take questions. I'm actually very bad co host of a. This is actually the first spaces that I have been a host of. So that's actually, actually I don't know how to take it but if you guys, your sacks want to take questions. Yeah, go for it.

So. Well, I'm just gonna try to stay out of it.

Well, we had a good one, Saxon. All in. I liked that. And actually, we didn't. We. We left off on Ukraine last with you and I spoke. But. Well, I'm happy to go wherever you guys want.

Yeah. And by the way, everyone should check out the last pod that we did. The all in pod. We did two hours of Vivek about a week and a half ago, so everyone should check that out. But speaking of truths the public can't handle, I'm seeing on Twitter, reported by Michael Tracy and Glenn Greenwald retweeted him that the Senate just voted down having an accountant for Ukraine. You know, they call it an inspector, generally.

A fancy term for an account. Exactly.

We can handle the truth. We can handle the truth that our money was siphoned to play a bunch of Ukrainian corrupt people, including the. Including the government bills. A lot of people, Elon, in terms of our money not knowing how money is being used. Here's another one. People in the US don't know this, but our taxpayer money is literally paying the salaries of the people who work for the Ukrainian government. And if we're going to do it, let's at least see it, right?

Let's at least be able to account for it and see the dollars.

Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, like, I think I believe in supporting Ukraine, but we just, yeah, we want to know that the money is actually going to help.

So why? Why, Elon, can I ask you that?

It's not. We just want to make sure. Are we enriching some. A handful of oligarchs or are we actually helping the people of Ukraine? And we just need to make sure we're actually helping the people of Ukraine as much as possible. I think I wouldn't even accept sale as like some impossible standard for like, no, no corruption. Because I think we have some corruption even in the US So it can't be like, no corruption, but let's just like, say, like, you know, what percentage is going to like a warlord versus the people, you know, and the people should get most of it.

Well, speaking of warlords, though, and I would love to hear your perspective, Elon, which I respect, but I haven't heard it on this issue, on why you think it's important for us to be there. You talk about the word warlords. I think the way this is going to end and possibly like in the next 12 months is it's not going to end well for Ukraine. All that money we poured in is much of it in the form of military equipment that's going to end up in the hand of some post Zelensky warlord.

And then we have exactly a repetition of exactly what we did when we armed the Mujahideen after the USSR invaded Afghanistan. We've seen this movie time and again and I'm a little bit worried that among other reasons why I personally do not come down on the side of supporting the US supporting Ukraine, which we can go into as a practical matter, I think that is where we're currently on track to head is about 200 billion of military equipment ending up in somebody's hands.

Who. We have no idea who that really is. And we're only going to find out after the fact, like we have so many times in the last 50 years of failed interventionist strategy. But open mind league. Curious what your perspective is on this.

Well, can I just. Can I just remind everyone that Elon posted a poll on Ukraine, I think this is in September of last year, about nine months ago. And it was basically a poll, a peace process proposal which proposed peace on the following terms. It was roughly that Ukraine would remain neutral, which is to say it wouldn't join NATO or any other military alliance, and the territories of Crimea and Donbass would be decided by the right of self determination, basically to hold free and

fair elections, arbitrated, supervised, internationally supervised. Exactly.

So the people of those territories would decide and then assuming Crimea went with Russia, because historically it has been Russian and you know, it's 80 to 90% Russian, that their water rights would be secured. So they didn't, you know, they didn't die of famine or something. And that was basically the peace proposal. And it was massively shouted down on Twitter, including by no less a person than Zelensky himself, who said that this was a pro Russian proposal.

And anyone proposing peace really over the last year has been pretty much shouted down and called the worst names, called an appeaser, you know, called, you know, a Putin puppet and all sorts of things like that, when really we just wanted to figure out a amicable or reasonable compromise to the situation. And, you know, about 60% of the people voted against the peace proposal. But now if you look at the situation, what we're getting is not better.

It's much worse.

Yeah, it's going to get worse from here, not better. Exactly. The reason I put that for that proposal was for the benefit of Ukraine, not the benefit of Russia.

So it's like I want to Be clear, I'm on Ukraine's side here big time. And I've demonstrated that with, you know, actions, you know, with the massive support that starlink has provided, which the Ukrainian government has been acknowledged many times, frankly, it was instrumental in, you know, in the war.

So this is a fun one, actually, probably because the three of us have kind of complementary perspectives here. I'm on America's side on this because I'm running to be the US President, but I'm not. I'm not sure that the cut and dry Ukraine side of this versus Russia side of this is as clean as we make it out to be in the sense that there's a lot of history here in the Donbass region, and there's a lot of history for, you know, NATO saying that we would not expand.

This is James Baker, the US secretary of state's commitment to Gorbachev in 1991, that we would not expand one inch. That was the famous not one inch commitment beyond Germany. And yet here we are now, even, not only admitting more nations to NATO after the fall of the USSR than we ever did during the ussr, but now even entertaining the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, which was the one hard commitment that Putin required or at least appeared to demand prior to his decision to actually pull the trigger and invade Ukraine.

And so I guess I'd be curious, Elon, like, why. Why are you on the side of Ukraine?

Yeah, well, first of all, let me just make it clear that, you know, when I look at a subject, I'll often get, like, just OCD on it and go, like, just to insane levels of detail to understand exactly what is going on at a precise level and minimize the error of my understanding. And the. So I actually read almost the entire history of the region. So, you know, starting from, you know, Oleg, who, you know, seized Kiev in 1882 and essentially formed the beginning of Kiev and Rus, and it goes on and on from there, you know, and.

And the. I think it was Catherine the great in, like, 1893, tried to force all of Ukraine to speak Russian. There's, like. There's so much. There's so much back and forth. Like, the grudge list is so long that.

That.

That if it would take hours to just even summarize the grudge list. So the. The. The thing is that people in Ukraine and in. And Russia can find a million reasons to hate the other side if you just look at the history. So this is why, you know, the Christian principle of turn the other cheek is a very wise one, because if you do not ultimately forgive your enemy. You're stuck in a cycle of retribution forever.

And so even though your enemy, they might have done really bad things, if you just, if you keep wanting to get revenge, back and back, back forth and back forth, you know, an eye for an eye, eventually everyone's blind. So that's why there has to be forgiveness and there has to be some realism. And we need to also look at Ukraine and Russia not as Russia is pure devil and Ukraine is pure angel. This is. There are no angels in war.

Neither side. There have been terrible things done by both sides, of course. Course. Now, on balance, I think obviously the, you know, I still support. Support Ukraine, but, but I think there's, there's, you know, if we have to be realistic about what's going forward. And, and, and, and we, you know, as we speak, the flower of Ukrainian youth is dying in trenches.

So the metaphysical damn good reason for that, it actually doesn't matter. Why are these boys dying?

For what?

And that's a good question we haven't ourselves answered and to the point about forgiveness. Ilan And I thought you beautifully just said about the endless list of grievances. It's very complicated and depends on where you start the plot and where you end the plot, depending on what you see is the US So the thing that bothers the heck out of me is that I think it was in April of the first year of the war, In April of 2022, Zelensky was ready to come to the table for peace negotiations.

And Boris Johnson, because he was facing his own, you know, party gate thing, appeared to want to deflect attention from that and shows up. And then the US Convinces Zelensky to fight on by saying, no, no, we're going to arm you. And I think that was actually the real mistake because I don't think that Putin's goal so much is to conquer Ukraine. He's not even going after Kyiv.

Right.

He's much more focused on Kharkiv and the Donbas region. And so I think we've made this worse is my concern actually, relative to the two nations just working it out amongst themselves.

Yes. The thing is, as you progress further westward, the local support for Russia drops exponentially. So obviously for Ukrainian speakers, they're generally going to be very anti, you know, anti Russian. But, but I think most of the Russian speakers are actually pro Russian. And it's hard to believe that when you read American media.

Yes.

So. And it's, it's also, it's not true that all Russians are evil. This is false. We should stop and we should, you know, and we should, we should be also sad that, that there are Russian boys dying in those trenches, not just that there are Ukrainian boys, because do they want to actually be there either?

Why are these young men dying? Because of disagreements among old men.

Why in French warfare where only a few miles are exchanged, at what price? How many lives per mile ultimately is it worth?

And I think that the reality is for the U.S. i mean, Russia has more of a national interest at stake here than the US Does. China is also coming to Russia's aid that there's no version of this that is, you know, I'm not looking at this from a view from nowhere. I'm looking at this from a US View because that's the hat I wear here. As from a US View, there's no way this is going to end well. And I do think that that sort of getting to peace quickly and ending and reaching a peaceable resolution where we make, among other things, a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to.

NATO is absolutely a must and an imperative. And the weirdest thing is that you and I were talking about. This is, this is the one bipartisan consensus, right. We talk about actually a time of deep national division between Republicans and Democrats in the United States. This is one where Biden in his ranks and, you know, most of the gop, save for me and maybe one or two, you know, you know, Tucker, maybe one or two other people, we're barely part of the GOP at all, have actually a defecting view from what is otherwise the single greatest bipartisan consensus that we have in the United States, which is to pour more money into a war where we do not have an identifiable national interest at stake.

And, you know, I think that's one of the things about studying history. And I, I appreciate, Elon, that you talked about the fact that you bothered to study the history. It's a good example for other people, is you realize that this story doesn't end well even if you study the recent history of the United States.

Yeah.

So anyway, I think in the Ukraine

situation,

there needs to be a realistic peace negotiation and the sooner the better. And that is what we should be pushing from the west to do is come up with something sensible and stop sending boys to die in the trenches

and don't blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. And maybe even as part of this, it would be a good idea to get Nord Stream 1 and 2 operational again. And then having restored economic relations between Western Europe and Russia, can actually be a good thing rather than a bad thing by pushing Russia into a corner with.

Yeah.

And I think one of the things we learned is, Vivek, you referenced the Istanbul agreement, which Boris Johnson did, basically travel to Kiev to shoot down. Those details came out subsequently. And the substance of that Istanbul agreement was very similar to the peace proposal that Elon floated in that Twitter poll. Again, it was based on neutrality for Ukraine plus self determination for the people in those eastern regions of Ukraine.

And so they could have had that deal. I mean, that deal was on the table and the west rejected it because frankly, the military industrial complex is hell bent on NATO expansion. It has been our central policy, like you mentioned, going back to the 90s when we broke our pledge to Gorbachev not to expand NATO. That NATO expansion is absolutely the policy of the US and the West. And they are hell bent on this expansion.

And that is why we have rejected every proposal both before the war and after the start of the war. I mean, this was known. This is one of the biggest areas of media gaslighting really since COVID is this idea that this war has nothing to do with NATO expansion. In every conversation, diplomatic conversation that we've had with the Russians, this has been the central issue for them is that they do not want what they regard as a hostile military alliance directly on their most vulnerable border with troops, weapons, bases, biolabs, nuclear weapons, even, you name it.

That is completely unacceptable to them. That is a red line for them. They said it many, many times. And our own diplomats, including the current head of the CIA, Bo Burns, said it. So it's not just the Russians saying it. Our experts said for many years that our desire, our crusade really to expand NATO right to Russia's borders would eventually result in hostilities with Russia. And that is what has brought us to this day.

And we are on the brink of continually escalating this into something that could turn into World War three. So, Vivek, I do applaud you for saying explicitly that we need to stop this crusade of NATO expansion and recognize that the path to peace here is for Ukraine to be neutral. And you know, there are precious few presidential candidates saying it. You're saying it. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is saying it. I think you guys might be the only two.

I think that's it said that.

That's it. That's the whole ball game.

So I really applaud you for that. And we have to stop the gaslighting on this subject. This was known, it was said by experts for decades. And now we're pretending like NATO has nothing to do with this conflict. It really does. And you just saw that at Vilnius again. So, you know, we need to get the truth out there that that is a major component of the root of this. This conflict in this war. And therefore, it's going to be an essential component to the solution, and we're never going to have peace without it.

There's an interesting deeper line to connect, because I think this relates to a separate issue here that we, all three of us care about certainly is free speech in this country. And it's not just the threats to free speech from the government. And, you know, I loved the Twitter files, by the way, Elon. And I have said that when I'm in the White House or if I, you know, fortunately get there in a year and a half or whatever, we'll do the state action files, which is the other side of this, which is anytime a government official has pressured any company, not just Twitter, any company in the last five years, at least, we will publish it, at least for the public to see.

Yeah, but, but, but it's not just the governmental censorship. It's sort of this cultural censorship on Ukraine. When I say the things that Sachs just said, right, which is literally talking about NATO expansionism and what are our objectives here? To expand NATO in violation of prior commitments we made, the feel that I get right. Just, just, just the, you know, the ethos of it. It feels a lot like when those of us who said it said that the virus likely originated in a lab in Wuhan in mid-2020.

There's something about it that it's sort of beyond the pale to accept. And I think one of the things we've learned in the last few years is, you know, at least the muscle memory of that is. Is useful, which is any time you sort of feel a cultural closing of ranks around you saying something that's grounded in reason and fact, what Sachs just mentioned, grounded in history, you know, a lab, original virus originating in a place where they do research, gain of function, research on exactly that very place where a global pandemic originates.

It just sort of feels right. Sounds about right. But then you feel the cultural forces around you telling you that, no, no, no, you got to shut up, sit down, and go back to doing as you're told. I think that's. Those are actually some of the most important questions for us to actually double and triple click on and actually get to the bottom of. And in some ways, you know, there's many issues around the world that the US I think has views on.

But that's part of what's drawn me to this issue. Even more is the cultural closing of ranks on this question.

Yeah, I think this was just this feel somewhat overestimate how much ground Russia can take if there's not without support of the local population. So in the case of Donbass and Crimea, there was significant support from the local population. They were able to make significant progress. This is obviously not true of western Ukraine. And if you look at say the Winter War where Stalin, you know, who's a hard driving personality to say the least, you know, try to invade Finland and failed.

Okay. So yep. Like when you have severe resistance from the, the local population and basically everyone's against you, the entire population is the army.

So then, then you're like, oh, we've got a 300,000 person army. Well they've got a 2 million person army because the entire population's opposed to it. You will not make progress in that situation. This notion that Russia can just steamroll in these countries as false.

That's right. Or that they would have a desire to, I mean, take Poland, who unlike the rest of NATO actually pays for their own defense. There's no reason why Russia would have to go after Poland if we've actually reached a peace treaty that's backstopped by interests of the U.S. and so, you know, I do think that, I do think it's, you know, Zelensky I think is betraying, I think Ukraine's long run interests based on the short run here only.

Frank.

I think. So it's gone to his head, you know, you know, he's been faded too many times. Like if he keeps telling someone they're awesome 17 times a day, it's, you know, it's gone to his head to be totally frank, like so, you know, and, and so we're going to stop that and we're going to say like, look, your people are dying. You know, it's as you point out, it's not the long, it's really not a long term smart thing. Those people, those kids are never coming back, you know, so, and that we're dying for a mile of territory, like this is insane.

You know, here's something funny on this is I haven't shared this story broadly before but you know, there's actually a weird and I think promising and encouraging alliance hiding in plain sight between those on the so called far right and those on the so called far left on this issue actually. So, you know, many people on the, on the, you know, anti Iraq, far left. I mean, folks like Bernie Sanders, I believe I haven't heard him say as much as I would like, but I think do agree with folks like myself who otherwise disagree on a lot else.

And so, you know, actually just a few weeks ago I was coming out of an event and it occurred to me I couldn't find a single Republican and even many moderate Democrats to agree with me on this topic. And so I actually gave Bernie a call and thought we could actually talk it out. But I think he thought it was a prank call and so he, he didn't want to actually discuss it. Let's just say, to put it mildly is the way the conversation went.

But I hope I get to talk to him another time because it's actually an interesting way that we can reshuffle and redraw the boundaries where one positive silver lining coming out of, I think the reaching of reason on the question of Ukraine is that we do not live in a single axis to pole political partisan divide in the United States of America. It is artificial. It is made up. And much of what we're trying to retrofit into that, right, the struggle between the managerial class and the citizen, the, even the questions of foreign policy about which priorities the US should and should not actually risk our military equipment or our young men and women to defend, these do not track traditional Republican and Democrat boundaries.

And I think that that also in the sense of taking a step back, that should actually be hopeful for us as a country, if we have the courage to actually step back and see it's not about black versus white or red versus blue, if we're able to actually have a reasoned debate in the open about what are I think the most difficult questions of our time. And so I am personally hopeful that that is one of the side effects. So one of the net positive side effects to come out of our yet to be had open debate as a country on what actually we should do in Ukraine is that it calls the bluff on the otherwise artificial retrofitted model of right versus left, Republican versus Democrat, which I think in large measure doesn't exist.

It's antiquated. And you know, hopefully this is one of those issues that helps us smoke that out.

So Zach, we already went through the hour. You want to take up questions or do you want to. We can rock and roll and do this again another time too. I'm down to. I got another half hour.

Well, let's see if there's folks out there.

I'm good to the bottom of the hour.

Yeah, yeah, okay, great. Well, let's see. I know Richard Hanani has got a book on woke coming out. It's called the Origins of Woke. And Richard, you have a question on. Yeah, sure.

Hey, David. Hey, Vivek, both of you guys. I appreciate you guys are both giving me blurbs on the book and. Hey, hey, Elon. It's nice to, you know, it's nice to talk to you, Vivek. Man, I've been so impressed with you. I mean, we, we've been talking, you know, from before you ran, and when

you said you were going to run, I was, you know, skeptical.

As someone who's knows a little bit of political science, knows a little bit about the history. Not that I didn't think you had

a great personality and potentially a great

message, but it's just, it's always a long shot. I mean, the president, you know, you weren't, you know, you weren't, you weren't on training wheels. You weren't starting out with something, you know, something easy. You were going straight for the big job. And you've, you've impressed me.

I mean, the message is, you know, the, the positive sort of culture war message.

The, you know, the idea that there's

not just a culture war, but there's like some kind of excellence we could be moving towards.

It's really hit with people.

And I just want to say, you

know, you've been, you know, you've really, really impressed me and I'm glad to see what's been going on. And thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

And thank you. Thank you also for saying, you know, mentioning how poor Europe is relative to the U.S. i think that's a point that doesn't get made often enough. You just give people the numbers on Twitter and they don't like it very much. But I like, you know, I like

the fact that you just, you know,

you're putting it out there that, yeah, we, you know, this experiment has been tried. The big government, you know, 50% of GDP, government spending, large tax rates,

large

labor regulations, those are a problem.

They've tried it and it hasn't worked. So for all our problems, I'll take

the US Any day. And I appreciate the Ukraine discussion. I just wanted to ask about, you know, you've talked about the civil rights law and you've talked about sort of the importance of getting back to merit. We've talked about that, like the executive order 11246 and the, the government affirmative action and government contracting. And I just wanted to know if you've sort of fleshed out these ideas to any great extent.

Once you do get into office, it's

not, it's not too early to start talking about these things.

Sort of.

What do you see as sort of

the main, the main initiatives to take on civil rights? What offices are you looking at?

I mean, have you started thinking about

personnel, any kind of thing like that?

I just want to know how you're

thoughts have developed over time on this. Yeah, well, first of all, man, your book has been instrumental in affecting my thinking and even the articles you wrote leading up to it. And you know, I think you're able to expand the Overton window on this. Right? I think you're, you're in many ways cracking that open further on issues that were previously untouchable, like even the undesired or unintended effects of civil Rights Acts of 1964.

I think that that's actually something that we ought to be able to talk about in the open. So let me just tell you the simplest thing on day one, and that'll give you a sense for how I think you referred to Executive Order 11246. Most people outside of, you know, nerdy civil rights law scholars or students like you and I won't know it is an executive order that Lyndon Johnson signed. It didn't go through Congress. The U.S.

president just sort of penned it into action. That said that if you do business with the US government today, that includes about 20% of the US workforce, that you have to adopt quota systems for race, gender and other metrics. Every president since Lyndon Johnson could have taken a pen and crossed it out. Actually, Nixon, a Republican president, made it worse, went in the other direction as part of his battle against unions, which, which is, I think, an untold part of this story too.

This is a bipartisan problem. Problem. What I've said is I would take a pen and cross it out on day one. I do believe in such a thing as colorblind meritocracy in the US I do believe in the dream that no matter who you are or where your parents came from or what your skin color is, you should be judged not on the color of your skin, but on the content of your character and your contributions and rewarded accordingly.

And so much of what I see is, is, is, you know, a violation of civil rights law. And we'll, we'll, you know, just like the Harvard case that came out is one tailwind. We'll use the law to make sure that we do it. Restore colorblind meritocracy in the country. Are you know, saying something. I just wanted to follow that.

Do you.

What do you think about, you know, the Civil Rights act is sort of a sacrosanct, right? I like to frame it as civil rights law. But I, you know, I understand that there's going to be, you know, there's going to be difficulties here. How confident are you that you could take that back message and, you know,

you could sell it? Because I don't think it's going to be easy, even though I do think it's worth doing and it's doable.

Well, I'm going to sell it. And whether I succeed or not depends on the responses of people of this country. But my whole premise is I'd rather speak truth and lose the election than to win by playing some political snakes and ladders. So far, it's been working. Got me from zero to, you know, third in the polls or whatever we are now. You're nipping on DeSantis's heels, man. I see the, see the polls, but we'll see. I'm not, I'm not attached to a particular result.

I'm attached to the truth. And my view is, look, actually pushed. I might as well just share this with people. I pushed Trump's people on this, right? I asked them why they didn't just take a pen and cross it out. And what they said is that was a political hill they didn't want to die on. And my view is if you're grounded in principle and you're grounded in moral foundations and first principles, not vengeance or grievance or animus towards anyone, but really just gravity and first principles, then you should not have to worry about what the political fallout is.

And people tend to follow leaders rather than people who are afraid of the people they're leading. And, you know, my bet is, Richard, I think we're going to be successful. I think a lot of the jurisprudence of so called hostile work environment lawsuits, somehow non discrimination on the basis of race or gender became interpreted to say, you can't create a hostile work environment, which means you say things that people disagree with, or else you're violating the civil rights laws.

No, I don't think that's the way it was supposed to work. You know, I say this tongue in cheek as a Hindu, but as an expression. There are no sacred cows here for me, you know, not when it comes to the US Laws, at least. I think we have to go to the heart of the heart of the matter. And I do think that there were many unintended consequences where even if the people who voted for the Civil Rights Acts then knew that they were being applied the way they are today, I think they'd be shuddering.

And I think we have to at least take that history into account.

Exactly.

Yes.

We're actually violating the spirit of those who put the laws in.

Yeah. There's a great story. I mean, in the book, I go over this a little bit about the original intent of the Civil Rights Act. I mean, they put a.

They put a.

They put a provision right in there. They were worried about disparate impact.

They were worried, oh, what if somebody has a test and somebody does better than someone else?

You know, one race does better than the other?

Is that going to be illegal? It came up because in Illinois, they had a kind of a version of the Civil Rights act, and they went

after Motorola for this, and they actually put a provision into the Civil Rights act specifically so this would not happen. The New York Times editorialized against disparate impact. Everyone thought that this was original, ridiculous concept. There's the.

You can look at the.

Some of the senators who voted on the bill said things like, you know, you could still have. If whites have more education than blacks and your workforce is all whites, you

could set the standard as high as you want.

It doesn't matter, as long as you know you're hiring by merit. I mean, the historical record is absolutely clear.

You look at those court cases that

have ruled on this, they basically ignore that historical record. They've torn it up.

We've got a good. We've got a good Supreme Court now that's willing to, you know, move us.

Move us in a better direction on these matters. So, yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, the history here is crystal

clear in the legal specifics to one side. I mean, not to be. I try not to get too angry about this stuff because I want to just stay focused on what we're running to. You know, it's interesting. Even America, right. The word. Not a lot of people know this. It was. You know, it's. I used to. I was on a quest to say, does it have anything to do with merit? Sounds like it. Merit America. And it turns out merit comes from a Latin root, and America comes from, you know, America Vespucci, who was named after his grandfather, whose name was Amalric.

Amalric is an old Gothic word. Rick means master, and Amal means work.

Okay.

So it's like sort of the master of work that is almost America's heritage.

Kind of cool, actually. I wasn't aware of that. I actually literally own etymology to and I wasn't aware of that etymology.

So you own etymology.com?

yeah.

Wow. Would you be willing to sell it, Elon? I don't know.

We could, yeah. If somebody wants to really go hardcore

on etymology, yes, that's good. But anyway, it's, it's, it's a good reminder that that's who we are as Americans. Get ahead through hard work, colorblind meritocracy. It's who we are. Yeah.

All right, let me try. So I've just been calling on people who I recognize are of interest. Interesting. You know, X accounts. So why don't we go to Amid next and then we'll hear from Mario. Ian Alx.

Yeah, thanks guys. Thanks David. Thanks Alon, for doing this again. Awesome stuff. Vec.

How you been man?

Good to talk to you.

Hey, good man.

So just one thing you mentioned on hoping that Democrats are anti war. That ship is sailed. Don't forget that the Congressional Progressive Congress caucus withdrew their letter asking for diplomacy. That's how co opted Sanders and his ilk are. But the one thing I wanted to ask you about was ftx, largest Ponzi scheme in US history. You probably aren't surprised. Its ESG score was higher than ExxonMobil.

But Sam Bankman Fried donated over $100

million to Democratic linked causes. And yesterday the Department of Justice announced that it was withdrawing all campaign finance related charges against him. What will you do as president to address the weaponization of the Department of Justice to stop things like this and the fiasco that is Hunter Biden from happening ever again?

Well, I do think amid that, you know, what good is an insurance policy if it doesn't pay out? You know, so the problem with SBF's problem is going to be he didn't buy the Cadillac plan because I think he, he actually committed some like ungodly sum of money he was going to give and that he only gave a fraction of it. And so I think they're going to ultimately make sure that he gets punished for not buying the full Cadillac policy because had he bought the full Cadillac policy, he'd already be off the hook.

But for the partial policy, it paid out to let go the campaign finance charges. So, you know, obviously cynical and only, and only half joking here. But the real. So I actually want to take this chance to go into a proposal I've made that a lot of people view as extreme. But then the more you learn about it, the less extreme it actually is. It's actually very practical. I think we need to shut down the FBI.

Okay.

Like take the FBI. So stay with me for a sec. Stay with me for a sec. And Elon, you're a reader, right? So I'm going to recommend a book to you. My wife's, my wife's a faster reader than me. She's ahead of me on it, but it's called G Man. It's a Pulitzer Prize winning book. It's about the history of this institution and J. Edgar Hoover and the way in which the institution was built. And it's fascinating. But yeah, he had some issues.

It's still the J. Edgar Hoover building of the FBI. So it's still an institution that celebrates his legacy. But as a practical matter, right, at the local level, you have local police and you've got local prosecutors. You don't have this separate giant bureaucratic morass sitting in between.

Okay.

Well, it turns out at the federal level you have institutions like the U.S. marshals, which have, I think, by and large have no evidence to suggest has been corrupted at all. They carry, they bust up child sex trafficking rings. They did a lot of good work. You got the DEA on the drug cases, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the Treasury. So if you take that FBI, right. There's 35,000 people who work there. 20,000 of them are in back office functions, but are really have taken on a policy making role.

Right.

It's not like they're enforcing the law. They're kind of deciding what the policy ought to be. I'm going to send them packing and they got to find honest work in the private sector or whatever they'd like to do, but it's not going to be working for the taxpayer. But the 15,000 people who are actually on the front lines will move them to the US Marshals, to the DEA and so on. And then you actually have drained the lifeblood out of a bureaucracy.

Where to bring it back to Omid's question, where a lot of the original sin in the weaponization of government in these cases, not just today, I mean, dating back to threatening Martin Luther King with suicide, blackmailing him. It's an institution that was built when you have a redundant bureaucracy. It's almost like a law of physics.

Okay.

A redundant bureaucracy is a formula for corruption. So, you know, it's less extreme than it sounds.

Yeah. I mean, just, just by the way, for the record, I, I've met a lot of people at the CIA and FBI and, and they've all been really high integrity people. I just want to be, you know, like, I'm not Saying that there aren't some bad apples in any organization. But man, I, I, I really, I've not, I've not really met a bad person.

And I think the 15, 000, I mean, so when I say shut it down, that doesn't mean that, that everyone's a bad person. Yeah, any of them are a bad person. It's something about the nature of a redundant bureaucracy where, like Elon, I think what's happened is specialization. Right. When people are specialized, they tend to be more effective. When they become generalists, maybe less so, at least in government, I think. And those 15,000, if we move them to their specialized functions, you know, I think that actually becomes a more practical way of effectuating the laws rather than the sort of armchair manner.

You're saying basically that, that all the bases are covered by other organizations and so we distribute the personnel to those organizations rather than have the redundancy that that exists today. But, but you're confident that if we did so, that there would not be gaps in, in, you know, important crimes that need to be dealt with, and

not only would there not be gaps, we would actually be more effective.

That's what you're saying.

Just phrasing, is that, is that what you're saying?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

I want to go back, David, if you don't mind, I'll ask my question. And Good to see you again.

Go for it.

Good see you again, Vivek. Appreciate the invite. You said something when we're talking about the Ukraine war, about the US made the war worst. And you know, we've had discussions in previous spaces about the establishment or the military industrial complex. I'm relatively naive, less naive after what I saw happen in Ukraine. But if you do become president, is there anything you can do? Because it does seem systemic to me.

And how big of a risk is it when it comes to the tensions with China, which you've been pretty concerned about. Yes. So, look, I think that the managerial class at the Pentagon, it's time to go. I think that this is a antiquated group where. Kind of like the analogy we just had about the FBI. Most people I haven't met, somebody who has served or serves currently in the US military that isn't in it, whose heart is in it for the right reasons.

But I think that's just the truth. Right. Any of us, 1.3 million of them. Yeah, but there's the managerial class of the Pentagon where they haven't offered a clear statement of mission and purpose. And so when you have a vacuum of mission and purpose.

Right.

I think the purpose of the US Military should be to deter wars and win wars in order of priority, deter wars being most important, and then win them when we get into them. And most importantly, prioritize protecting the lives of Americans on American soil. With that clear mission statement, we could measure up what we have done in Iraq or now in Ukraine, which I think is destined to be in Iraq or a Vietnam all over again if we keep going in the current direction.

That's part of what we need is a restoration of purpose. And so it's not that these are bad people as individuals, but when an institution continues to exist without a purpose, then the institution finds new things to do that outlive its purpose, and that itself creates a form of corruption that maybe no one individual is actually responsible for, but was just a nature, a feature of the beast itself. And so one of the things I would say is that's a tiny fraction of the people who serve in the US Military that actually work in the Pentagon.

But I'm going to, you know, largely be cleaning house there and bringing in, you know, a new form of talent, really flushing the toilet on the neocon sort of dogma that I think pervades much of the Pentagon today. And to come back to, let's just say, get some Cold War realists in there, you know, the George Kennan's, the James Bakers, that doesn't really exist in today's foreign policy establishment or military establishment.

And those would be the kinds of talents. And by the way, we are working on identifying the kinds of talents we're going to staff the top layers of every part of the federal government with. But that would give you a flavor of the kinds of people I would put as a new sort of leadership at the Pentagon and the job of the commander in chief, that'd be my job if I'm elected, is to offer a clear statement of mission and purpose of what the US Military is even supposed to be concerned about, which for me is protecting American lives foremost on American soil.

Deter wars and when necessary, win wars, and that's it. And whether you care about what we're doing in Ukraine or the rise of wokeism in the military, these are symptoms of that deeper loss of purpose, in my view.

Yeah, you're here.

Agreed.

Yeah. I think one of Trump's biggest mistakes was hiring all these neocons. I don't really get it, because his instincts were to keep us out of wars. In fact, he did keep us out of wars. New Wars. And, you know, I think he had more realist and non interventionist instincts, but yet he appointed all these people like Bolton and Pompeo and on and on, who want to get us involved in all these, you know, new conflicts.

Maybe there wasn't, you know, maybe the foreign policy establishment is just so rife with groupthink, sort of neocon group think that he didn't have enough talent to choose from. But I don't know.

I think that's part of the problem, David, actually, because looking at this now, and we're, we're already beginning. It's also one of Trump's mistakes was transition planning began way too late. So we're already, I've got a guy in charge who's already putting together our plans for what the staffing would look like. And this is one area where the benches lie. I mean, Baker and Kennan, I mean, these guys are dead. Right.

And so.

Exactly. Well, but those are the right types of people. I mean, George Kennan was a genius. He was the architect of our Cold War containment policy. He also was against us getting involved in the Vietnam War. He said so in advance. He testified before Congress. And in the late 90s, one of the last interviews he did, he talked about what a huge mistake we were making with NATO expansion, that it was going to undo his life's work, that we had won the Cold War, we had a peaceful situation with the Russians, but bringing NATO up to his border was going to result in new antagonism and it was going to unwind everything.

And he used the word tragic mistake. So he kind of foresaw everything for decades. And James Baker, similarly, was very competent. It does seem like we have a dearth of those highly competent diplomatic figures who know how to negotiate peaceful arrangements. It just seems like the people we have now just rattled a saber and, you know, are crusaders looking for new wars to get us into.

Maybe we need some venture capitalists in there who actually understand how to do deals. Yeah.

I think also, just like the public doesn't appreciate it fully that the US State Department is quite belligerent. It's really like.

Yes, yes.

You know, well, they just promoted Victoria Nuland to number two after.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Who is literally responsible for much of what's going on in Ukraine today. Right. She's the head of the snake. She's the head of the snake on this. Absolutely. She's a total warmonger.

So, yeah, I mean, it's insane. The State Department's supposed to be the place of the diplomats, not the warmongers. But we're actually in this ironic situation where the warriors want peace, the Pentagon wants peace, and the diplomats want war, which, by the way, also happened in Dr. Strangelove. So, you know, and we just need to tell our damn State Department to stop this bullshit because they're not informing the public.

They're like taking actions on behalf of the American public. But I don't think the public's aware of this, you know, so we're going

to make them aware. This is the answer. It's the only solution. Yeah, it's like.

Like we're interfering in all these other countries and, you know, and putting a lot of sort of US Resources against it and I think also creating a lot of resentment against America. Yes. So, you know, because, you know, if. If there's some, you know, we're like. We're like, like sort of a giant. We're like a. Somewhat of an ogre, you know, economically. And so it's easy for us to accidentally step on or, you know, or bump into small countries, not really realize it.

And so then we're like, doing bad things and, and people are dying and we're generating bad blood. And this is all happening without the knowledge of the public.

It's just waddling in, sloppily waddling in and then, and then making a mess in a clumsy way. Now, I think succeeding and not even succeeding. It's one thing if you were good at it, even still might be against it, but it'd be one thing if you were good at it. At least there would be a tougher argument. And yet, how has regime change gone?

Let's see, let's see. Cuba, Fidel Castro outlived all American presidents that try to assassinate him, which, by

the way, let's say the quiet part out loud. I do think that that is the latent impetus in Russia here. I mean, when you. When you sort of get to the heart of the intuition, right, what are we actually solving for? It's, you know, we don't. We don't. It's a bit of bad words like esg. They don't say ESG anymore. They make up some new words for it. It's like we don't see regime change anymore. But functionally, that's.

That's what we're playing for in Russia. We will not stop until we're done. And I think it's a shame and it's a lesson we haven't learned. It's.

It's very foolish because anyone, anyone who is going to take Out Putin is not going to be some peace neck are probably they're even more hardcore than Putin because they killed him.

Okay, that's right, that's right. And either way, does that mean I trust Putin? No, I do not trust Putin, but I trust him to follow his self interest and he can trust us to follow ours. Which is why I also want us to abandon this thing where we selectively invoke the fact that we're somehow protecting democracy around the world, when in fact, if I'm in the position to leave, here's what I'm going to say is my job, and I'll say it internally, but I'll say it externally too is I'm in this to advance America's interests.

And so now you know you can trust me because that's how I'm going to make my decisions. And I expect that you are going to advance Russia's interests or you are going to advance Poland's interests. And then we can all have a deal, whatever that deal may be, to be able to make sure each person gets something out of the trade. That's how good deals work. Everyone has to emerge with something they didn't have going in and we can be more honest about it rather than dowsing it in this moral veneer which is otherwise so hypocritical that we immediately called out on it because it was obviously false in the first place.

Well, how about an executive order that prohibits the US from being involved in regime change operations, period, end of story. I mean, this whole conflict in Ukraine basically started in 2014 with a couple the Maidan coup against the democratically elected leader of the country with the backings of the United States. Now, the extent of our backing is in dispute and people debate it, but I don't think there's any question that the US did back it and our involvement at a minimum, tainted.

If it was a, if it was a legitimate expression of the will of the people of Ukraine, we should have just let it happen without our involvement whatsoever.

Oh, there's no question about it. I mean they were kind about that, David. There's no question about it. Listen to the leaked tapes of Nuland. The Right, those were the very person we were just talking about a moment ago in our role in picking Ukraine's next leader. She didn't know those were, you know, being taped calls. But now we understand that we were absolutely driving that.

So, yes, yeah.

You know, all that said, I'm, I, I can be cheerful about this if we learn the lesson and we behave differently. Going forward as a consequence. But I do not think suppressing the information and tricking the public to fail to learn that lesson is going to be the right answer for us.

No, exactly.

And I can think like. So on the Ukraine front, our larger concern should just be, when all said and done, like, you know, where the. Where are the boundaries going to be and how many people died. And I think we should just think hard about that and not sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian Ruth, not sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in trenches to achieve nothing, which is currently what we're pushing them to do. And that's insane.

So. And that. That needs to stop. Yeah,

I'm into it. Sax, you want to take one or two more? I'm having too much fun, but yeah, I could take a couple more. I'm having too much fun, but unfortunately I gotta, you know. Okay. I could talk to you guys all day, but I'm. But, you know, gotta roll pretty soon.

All right.

Alx, you have a question? Yeah.

So you mentioned that if you became president, that you would release like a similar style Twitter files or Facebook files type thing, but you do it for all companies that the government has interacted with and sort of tried to pressure. How would that, how would that look like? Yeah, so basically a lot of what I think is happening today is the government is deputizing private companies to do through the back door what the government couldn't directly do through the front door.

Right. So Elon releasing the Twitter files confirmed what I, you know, on the page of the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago, surmised and everyone dismissed as a conspiracy theory that absolutely this was happening and at a scale unimaginable with social media companies, you responding to government threats and in some cases, inducements, carrots and sticks to censor speech that the government could not censor directly.

I mean, even down to individuals like by name. Alex Berenson, why didn't you shut down his Twitter account, this individual, in a meeting in the White House? Well, it's just. It's just this is. If the first Amendment was created to do one thing, like literally, there's just one thing the first Amendment exists for. It is to protect people, to be able to criticize the government and its policies. That's what this guy's high crime was, is he criticized government policies on COVID 19.

And then the government is saying, no, this guy needs to be shut down. How could you possibly end with an implicit threat of regulation over Twitter if they Twitter didn't follow through? And so the pre Elon, Twitter, you know, managerial class did indeed follow through on the threat. And then they get an attaboy on the back from the government. So that's one example. But it's not just limited to social media. I think this is pervasive across the US economy, actually.

I think it's much of what's going on, say with John Kerry in his role as the climate czar. He's somebody who they could not pass the Green New Deal through Congress. And so he has boasted about meeting with the banking CEOs of this country, the CEOs of most major banks, getting them to sign a pledge, a sort of climate pledge, to join a North American Net zero alliance. I'll remind you that banks are not charitable institutions.

Right. This is a two way relationship. So what are they getting in return for signing that pledge? Again, it's a backdoor way of getting done what the politically accountable class people we elect in Congress would have never been able to do through the front door. Even Joe Manchin would not have stood by and let them do it. And so what I've said is that if you're a federal employee, so I'm a State Action doctrine guy, which is if, if it's state action in disguise, then I think the Constitution still applies, which means that the government can't use a puppet in the private sector to get done its dirty work.

It's bound by the same constraints as the federal government. So we should know about it. So what I would say is that on pain of criminal penalties, any evidence of a documented evidence of a government employee who has pressured a private actor to achieve a goal that the government couldn't achieve, have achieved itself. We just have a sunshine law applied to it. Let the public see it. Roll that log over, let's see what crawls out.

And that's it for that particular provision, right? I mean, I have a lot of different views on rescinding a lot of unconstitutional federal regulations and reorganizing the federal government. But on this one, it's that simple. And I think that the first step of restoring truth back to that principle, we can handle the truth. Just tell us, tell us what the truth is. We can deal with it, we can process it, we can handle it.

But let's at least see how deep that rot runs. And the fact that I'm sitting here as a private citizen observing small examples of it bubbling up to the surface, it's like a broken windows theory, which is if you see a broken window, it means that there's something else wrong. In the neighborhood. That's what I think is going on. And so hopefully that addresses your question. That's doable, it's easy. It's what you would expect and hope for of a chief executive who's in charge of the executive branch of the government.

And that's an easy thing to at least be able to deliver on to help rebuild public trust, which is, I think, something we've been badly lacking. And so whether it's, whether it's UFOs, whether it's the Jeffrey Epstein client lists, whether it is the effectiveness of vaccines, whether it's what we just talked about, my view is we can handle the truth, trust the public with it, and then that's going to actually ironically rebuild trust in institutions that the public has otherwise now long correctly lost.

Hey, Vivek.

Awesome.

Thank you. Given the problem with the last election cycle, we had the election infrastructure problems. Take one last one, David, and then we'll wrap.

Hear me?

Yeah, let's go to ask.

Hello.

Well, we have, we have Eon, Ian and Nuance, bro.

How about, how about American together?

Is that possible?

Oh, come on.

Obviously there were problems with election infrastructure during the last election cycle, but I think one of the nuance. Oh, Ian, I don't think Nuance. You go first, David. You can hear new ones. Yeah, I don't think Vivek can hear me. Yeah, so.

Hey, Elon.

David, Vivek, great conversation. Thanks for having me up. I think the audience is really enjoying this whole back and forth.

I feel it's a real breath of

fresh air to have such an open conversation on Xspaces. So my question for you, and this ties back to one of our conversations that we had on Mario Space. You mentioned that if you were elected, you'd want for American businesses to be banned from doing business in China. Now, you didn't really elaborate on that. And so my question is how you know that work for companies like Apple or even Tesla, which, you know, operate over there?

In my opinion, it makes sense for large American companies to hit the world's largest market. But crucially, can you clarify your policy on American businesses in China?

How would you deal with that? Sure. And, and I want to actually, I want to be clear. I actually think that the best state of the world would be everybody playing by the same set of rules in an economy where just like I think we're going to be, your Western Europe and Russia are going to be better off by opening economic relations through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That's what I want to see here. As well. But we've got to make sure that everybody's actually playing by the same set of rules.

And to me it's very important that no more forced IP transfers, no more forced data transfers, no more forced, you know, effectively service of non economic nature turning companies into lobbying pawns, you know, effectively having a nice little condition to be able to get a domestic license to do business. If you're blackrock selling mutual funds in China to make sure that you don't apply the same standards to Chinese companies as you apply to American ones.

That's what I basically stand for is level playing field. That's what we need. And I think that that doesn't exist. I think that most people acknowledge that. I think that that's not going to happen automatically. That's going to require by the way, a policy that I think is also really important that goes straight along with it is re entering the Pacific trade relationships around the rest of the rim of the Pacific.

The cptpp. I think we should re enter it. I think this is a little bit different than what, you know, the course of action taken by Trump and exiting the tpp. I think that was actually, maybe it

makes more sense for the people over here, right. Because I think Trump canceled it because first of all it wasn't fair to Americans. Right, it really wasn't.

But also fair to people over here,

it was beneficial to corporations, but not to the local farmers, your mom and pop stores who would have completely been obliterated by the tpp. So maybe a fair version of that would make sense.

Exactly. And I think that I'm a silver lining guy. I think that I can use the leverage of the fact that we did exit it to be able to say, all right, here's what we need done differently in a number of the countries from Japan on down to be able to say here's how we reenter that on fairer terms. And so that's what I'd like to see. And I think that's one of the things early on actually even in relation forgetting about where we get to on China.

The first thing that's easiest to do is actually to re enter the rest of that pacific trade relationship, including the other members of the cptpp. That puts us in then a strong position from a trade perspective to then take a look at where we stand vis a vis China. So I could go on for hours on this one and you know, we could, but I want to. We'll take one last question.

Yeah, let's grill you on China. You know because you mentioned once that you were appreciated. And that's a concern of mine because I criticize them quite a bit. And I'm always worried about, you know, traveling through Hong Kong. I mean, have they given you a

reason why they ban you?

But just in the interest of time, I just want to make sure we can get to the last question here. I know I personally.

Yeah, no, that was the last question.

Okay, you can hear me now, right? Yes. How you doing, man? Awesome. So election infrastructure was obviously like a big issue in the last election cycle, but I think even more so is election just funding for candidates.

Right.

So the left was outraising the right pretty significantly in a lot of races. What do you plan to do in the upcoming election, both in the primary and the general, if you, you are nominated? You know, so you can outraise people like Soros, who in the last election cycle, I mean, 170 million, he was the top person out of any individual. And then including on top of the 170 million, 140 million and other things, another 60 million.

His not even getting into open society foundations that did about a billion dollars during that time. Do you think the richest man in the world should get involved to maybe, you know, take over Soros and that? I don't know if Elon has any thoughts about that, but what are your thoughts on that? How are you gonna, you know, beat the left at their own game? Well, that's, that's. I'm not going to speak on behalf of Elon.

Elon, you want to go first?

Well, sure. And you know, I think this is an important discussion and I think you're winning over a lot of people, I should say, I think with your position, because I think, you know, what I've heard you say makes, makes a ton of sense. Like, anyway, like I think, I think this, I think you're running up a lot of people actually in this, in this, this conversation.

So, you know. Yeah, so my apologies. I actually lost track of.

He was just asking about the influence of money in politics.

Is these sort of. There are a bunch of things which have these, these misnomers of like that sound like they're pro democracy, but they're actually basically ballot harvesting. And there is like this crazy, this sort of hack that, you know, I mean, George Soros is really like an incredibly talented arbitrage. And he's, you know, he's. That applied that talent monetarily and politically. And so he figured out that through charitable organizations you can promote causes with pre tax money.

And that doesn't count in any of the political stuff. So it's actually extremely effective. You don't actually attack the candidate, you just attack the positions that they hold.

And then you sort of hire a big team to go and harvest ballots from nursing homes and all that sort of stuff. These are real things that have happened.

And so, you know, there's, you know, what, like, I don't think we should like, you know, counter corruption with corruption, but, you know, I think we do need to, there does need to be like a get out the vote campaign and, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Certainly Republicans need to work harder at winning, at winning over voters and especially in the key sort of Senate races and House races and presidency. But it's, you know,

I appreciate you saying that, Elon. And for me, you know, the real distinction isn't even between Republicans and Democrats. If we're pro American, we stand for the same, stand for the principles this nation was founded on. The way I look at it is we're on the same team. And for me, in this journey, this is, I think, part of why I came into this as an outsider. I think it will take some measure of people who didn't grow up in professional politics to change that game.

This country has blessed me with much. Right. And so I've lived, like so many of you on this call, live the full American dream. And I have so far before. I wanted to ask anybody else to invest money in this campaign, want to invest my own first. And so I've put in over $15 million of my hard earned money already precisely because I did not want to take a tin can asking a bunch of other people for permission to run.

And that, that does come with expectations. And the funny thing is, you know, even in the Democrat party, many people on a principled basis used to say keep mega money out of politics. You don't hear that anymore. And that does come with certain ties and expectations that I do think corrupt the way our democratic process works. That being said, a guy like me, if I want to succeed, has to be able to compete. The old saying in tennis, you know, you got to either win or you leave blood on the court.

And I don't want to leave blood on the court. I want to win. And you know, if you guys, you know, I think, I mean, this is this little bit self interested plug, to be honest with you, but just to be totally transparent as well, you know, other candidates have mega super PACs that have ads on television. We're a third in the Republican primary. We haven't bought TV ads. But it's going to be whoever wins this election, it's going to be about $2 billion that gets spent in order to do it.

That was my question. That's sort of the gist. How are you going to do it? That was basically my question. So here's so I hope we do it. But the way, here's how I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it by turning into somebody's puppet. I'd rather lose this election than to, you know, bow down to I think a lot of the special interests that have broken the system. That being said, here's how we're doing it so far.

We got 70,000 small dollar donors in the first few months of this campaign. I'm literally an outside. I've never had a donor or donor list in my life. And 40,000 was the threshold for reaching the first Republican debate by August, sitting in early July where it 70,000 and so 40% of them are first time ever donors to the Republican Party. Normally that number is 2% actually. And so you know, give a lot of business minded folks on this call, I'll give you kind of a metric, you want to know how to predict an election.

I'll give you going to give you the best metric to predict an election result. And Trump proved it in 2015. It's not the current polls, right? I mean people look at the polls and I'm grateful in the recent versions of them, I'm doing okay, I'm doing well. But that's not what matters. Look at how much dollars are being spent per unit in the polls. So for every percentage point in the polls, look at how many ad dollars are being spent for that percentage point.

For most candidates in the 2015 election, Jeb Bush, you want to talk about Scott Walker, Chris Christie back then, millions of dollars per percentage point in the polls. For Donald Trump, back then it was thousands, three orders of magnitude lower. And in this race we're seeing the same thing. There's the other candidates in the Republican field. Millions of dollars in ad buys per percentage point in the polls in my case right now is literally in the thousands.

And so what do we say there? The message is lifting us up now. The bet is we hope that if you build it they will come. But that's where I need people. And so the maximum anybody else can give to the campaign directly is 6600 bucks. And somebody wants to go to vivek2024.com right now and do it, we would appreciate it but there's all kinds of, you know, I mean, there's this, the game is so complicated. There's all kinds of other organizations that get, that spend money supporting candidates.

And my model is, you know, we, we will build it, which is to say, deliver a clear message that is honest, that is transparent, that trusts the public, believes the public can handle the truth, that wants to restore the 1776 principles that made this country great without apologizing for it. Do it earnestly, do it sincerely, and bet that the system works as it's supposed to, and at least gratefully I'm able to put in.

You know, I mean, I don't have billions of dollars to put in. But short of that, what I do have will stop at nothing, which gives us a good advantage to start. But it's going to take a lot of really everybody, whether it's a dollar or whether it's people putting in massive amounts of money to actually lift this across the finish line. And so I'm hoping for a chance to introduce myself to the country on the debate stage starting in a few weeks.

I think that's going to be critical in this race. I'm going to continue to use, frankly forums like this one. I mean, this is great. Think about it. There's no separate media intermediating our messages, right? There's nothing, nothing pre filtered. A guy like me couldn't compete, Elon, if it weren't for modern media like this. And so here's to hoping that that changes the game.

Yeah, no, I mean it says something like you can, you can actually, you know, you're quick on your feet and you can, you can handle a rapid fire conversation on difficult subjects.

I mean, that's, you know, couldn't be said for everyone. And you actually speak, you know, you speak with conviction and, and, and you're not just, you know, playing the old same old political tapes and that everyone's, and the tropes that everyone's heard a million times and, and are honestly unconvincing. So I think that actually this is, you know, you know, I certainly have a high opinion of you after this, this, this conversation.

And, and I, I suspect a lot of people, other people do too.

I appreciate that, man. And you know, I think I'll just say this in closing because I hope it's good for our country. And you know, you and I or anybody else on this call, we're not going to agree on 100% of things and that's okay. Right? Yeah, of course, you know, you and I will, I mean, me and Sachs don't agree on 100% of things, and, you know, you and Sachs don't agree on 100% of things. And so for every other combination of people on this call, but, you know, let's say you agree with me most of the time, but you at least know, I'm telling you what I believe 100% of the time, that's.

That's the best you can ask of an elected leader, and I'll at least give you that. And that's going to be, hopefully, something that attracts enough support. Yes. To allow me to serve as the next president of this country and, you know, lead a. Lead a national revival. Leaving office in January 2033. My kids will be in high school. Maybe we'll move on to. Maybe we'll be going to Mars by then. But, you know, in the meantime, we'll see if we can revive this country.

And. And I'm optimistic that we can.

Well, it's rare to meet a politician that's not an npc, and so please take that as a high compliment.

I appreciate it, brother.

Thank you. All right, well, thank you both for being so generous with your time. We almost went for two hours here. I think it was only scheduled to be an hour, and we just, you know, time went flying by, so. Thank you, Elon. Thank you, Vivek, and thanks, everyone, for joining.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, David. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.