Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / You can bet on Elon's Missed Promises

Transcript

You can bet on Elon's Missed Promises · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Pinterest just announced layoffs for up to 15% of its workforce.
• 0:05
  The reason for that was AI in this lands In the same week Elon
• 0:09
  Musk made headlines for a public spat with Ryanair CEO Michael
• 0:13
  O'Leary and batters on Polly Market found a way to profit by
• 0:16
  wagering against Musk's promises.
• 0:19
  Last part is interesting, right? So what connects Pinterest and
• 0:26
  their job cuts? A billionaire ego clash in
• 0:30
  prediction market skeptics? The answer is simpler than you'd
• 0:34
  think. Comes down to how tech leaders
• 0:36
  are using AI as a shield, a sword, and sometimes just an
• 0:40
  excuse. We're going to look at what
• 0:42
  Pinterest is actually doing, why Musk's credibility is now a
• 0:45
  tradable asset, and what all of this tells you about the state
• 0:48
  of tech in 2026. And we'll get right into that
• 0:51
  after this very short break. So Pinterest is cutting jobs
• 0:57
  while posting strong earnings. Company filed paperwork saying
• 1:00
  it expects to eliminate up to 675 positions by September.
• 1:04
  That changes the math for employees who thought good
• 1:07
  numbers meant job security. And Pinterest had about 4500
• 1:10
  workers globally as of last April.
• 1:13
  Now the company says it needs to reallocate resources toward AI
• 1:17
  powered products. A quick definition here,
• 1:19
  reallocating resources as corpus speak for moving money and
• 1:23
  people from one project to another and often meaning people
• 1:27
  are going to get fired in the areas being de prioritized.
• 1:32
  Now Pinterest is not struggling. CEO Bill Reddy said in November
• 1:37
  that investments in AI and product innovation are paying
• 1:40
  off. Company claimed it has turned
• 1:42
  its platform into an AI powered shopping assistant serving 600
• 1:46
  million users. So things are going well.
• 1:49
  Why cut people out and fire them?
• 1:53
  Company says it wants to prioritize AI powered
• 1:56
  capabilities. And now that raises a fair
• 1:58
  question. Is this a genuine strategy or is
• 2:02
  it something else? And there's a term for this,
• 2:05
  it's called AI washing. That means companies exaggerate
• 2:09
  how much AI factors into decisions, using it as cover for
• 2:13
  standard cost cutting moves. A consulting firm found that AI
• 2:17
  was the stated blame for around 55,000 layoffs in the US last
• 2:23
  year. It puts pressure on workers to
• 2:25
  wonder whether their employer is truly pivoting the AI or just
• 2:28
  using the buzzword to justify headcount reductions.
• 2:33
  Pinterest also said it is cutting office space.
• 2:37
  Computers don't need cubicles, people do.
• 2:39
  So don't pay that rent if you don't need to right now.
• 2:43
  I've been digging into the analytics of this show and I
• 2:45
  found out that 39% of you are following or subscribe to the
• 2:49
  channel. Thank you so much, 60. 1% of you
• 2:53
  are not though, and you probably listen to an episode or two and
• 2:56
  just haven't hit the follow or subscribe button going to ask
• 2:58
  you for one second your time hit that.
• 3:00
  It means so much to the show and it helps us out tremendously.
• 3:04
  So thank you for that. Now let's move on to Elon.
• 3:08
  He got into a public clash with Ryanair CEO Michael O'lary
• 3:11
  recently. O'lary reportedly rejected some
• 3:15
  form of outreach or proposal from Elon and Musk did not take
• 3:18
  it well. It was kind of described as a
• 3:22
  hissy fit by Elon. Somebody else called it a battle
• 3:25
  between a big idiot and an insufferable chimp.
• 3:29
  The exchange became fodder from marketing analysis asking what
• 3:33
  brands can learn from watching 2 billionaires trade insults on
• 3:37
  social media. Now Musk's public persona has
• 3:40
  become so predictable that people are now betting money on
• 3:44
  this. On Polymarket, which is a
• 3:46
  prediction market platform, users have found a profitable
• 3:49
  strategy. They let people wager real money
• 3:52
  on whether specific events will happen.
• 3:55
  If Musk says something will occur by a certain date, betters
• 3:58
  can put money on it not happening.
• 4:01
  And apparently that bet has been paying off.
• 4:04
  So what do we do about this? Musk has a long history of,
• 4:08
  let's call them ambitious timelines that slip.
• 4:11
  Self driving cars by a certain year.
• 4:13
  Full self driving by, I think it was 5-6 years ago.
• 4:18
  Robots in production by a certain quarter of 2026.
• 4:22
  Mars missions by 6 years ago. Now that opens the financial
• 4:28
  opportunity for skeptics. If enough people believe Musk
• 4:32
  will miss the target, the market prices that in and betters who
• 4:36
  wager against him collect what he does not deliver.
• 4:40
  It's not just one person, though.
• 4:41
  It reflects something broader about trust in the leadership of
• 4:45
  technology. When a CE OS word becomes
• 4:48
  treatable and it can make you money, it's profitable to bet on
• 4:52
  this. That limits how much credibility
• 4:54
  that person could deploy in the future.
• 4:56
  Investors in the public start to discount promises automatically.
• 5:00
  That makes it harder to rally support for new projects.
• 5:02
  Eli doesn't really have this problem quite yet, but in time,
• 5:07
  who knows? Pinterest cutting workers while
• 5:10
  claiming AI leadership has been happening.
• 5:12
  Musk losing credibility to the point where prediction markets
• 5:16
  profit from his missed deadlines.
• 5:19
  These are not isolated stories. There's a pattern going on here.
• 5:23
  Companies and leaders use AI as a justification for decisions
• 5:26
  that might otherwise face more scrutiny.
• 5:29
  And when promises consistently fall short like Elon's, we find
• 5:33
  a way to price that in. Pinterest is laying off up to
• 5:38
  675 people despite strong earnings and those people made
• 5:42
  money for Pinterest company says it's prioritizing AI might be AI
• 5:47
  washing Elon Musk clash with Ryanair CEO betters on
• 5:52
  Polymarket are making money from this crazy in a take away is
• 5:58
  that you have to watch what these companies do, not just
• 6:00
  who's in charge and what they say.
• 6:02
  If a firm post record earnings and then cuts a bunch of people
• 6:06
  in the name of AI, ask whether the technology truly requires
• 6:10
  fewer people or whether AI is just a convenient excuse for
• 6:15
  people to make more profits. And if a tech leader's word has
• 6:19
  become so unreliable like Elon's, the betting against him
• 6:23
  is profitable. You can go on Poly Matter right
• 6:26
  now and bet on when the next Starship is going to launch and
• 6:30
  if it's going to launch in the timeline that Elon says.
• 6:33
  And will robots go to Mars this year?
• 6:35
  Well, Elon is bet against that himself.
• 6:38
  You can factor that into how you evaluate their next big
• 6:42
  announcement. Can you just brush it off and be
• 6:43
  like, it might happen sometime, but the market's ready for you.
• 6:47
  You can go do this yourself if you want to.
• 6:49
  Maybe you can make some profit from it.
• 6:51
  Might be interesting. At least go check it out because
• 6:54
  there's a lot of naysayers there and it's funny conversation
• 6:56
  sometimes. So thanks for listening.
• 6:59
  Everybody take care of yourselves and each other, and
• 7:01
  I'll see you in the next one.