About an interesting report from the Wall Street Journal that
President Trump. Former President Trump considering Elon Musk for an
informal position in the second Trump administration.
If you're a Tesla investor,
what do you make of that?
Elon Trump is a brilliant guy.
I think I don't agree with him on a lot
of his comments.
I think he's spreading himself awfully thin.
I think this is a really risky and dicey moment
for
Tesla shareholders when he's basically not.
Basically, he is threatening them.
Give me 50, whatever, 5258 billion.
Otherwise, I'm taking my ball,
my toys, and I'm going home.
That's alarming. Now, what I find to be funny is
that Trump just came out and made a comment saying
that he was going to basically kill the EV market,
at least coming in from overseas.
That can't be a bullish statement for Elon Musk.
So, you know, it'd be interesting if Elon Musk wants
to do it.
Apparently he's able to do more in 24 hours than
than anybody else that I know.
So maybe he could add that to his repertoire.
I think if that's the case.
Now you have some questions
about Twitter or about Axe and you say if he
is in the Trump administration,
is there a conflict of interest there?
Were there that the fact that he owns,
you know, one of the largest social media platforms
and what, what does that look like now?
A totally different topic, but also talking about potential conflict.
What I'm fascinated by right now,
there's a trial going on.
And I'm not talking about the one in New York,
but there's a trial with the DOJ going up against
Live Nation and Ticketmaster. And I think
everybody's fascinated by that because I don't think you could
walk down the street and ask somebody and say,
listen, what do you think about the charges that go
on?
Because your ticket is $150.00 and
then you're fees, whatever those are,
are 75 or $80.00. It's,
it's insane. Now what I'm fascinated by is their argument
to say why they think they should be able to
do it.
And I'm an entrepreneur. And I think that,
you know, one of the great things about our country
is if you have an idea and you follow the
rules,
go ahead, have at it.
But this is the deal that the government approved with
some qualifications.
The question is for me,
is the government going to be able to prove their
case and say that Live Nation didn't do what they
said they were supposed to do?
And I think it's really hinging right now on a
Kanye West Drake concert that was a fundraiser where they
they didn't allow, I think 100 people in who had
bought tickets on StubHub because they said unless you're going
through Ticketmaster,
your ticket's not valid.
Personally, I think that Live Nation is going to lose.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens if
they get,
if this gets broken up.
And it's going to be great for consumers because now
you're going to have real competition and you're going to
get to really truly see what the price of a
ticket should be. Are you that confident that it'll increase
competition and lower prices if they're broken up?
Yes, absolutely. There is no question because I there are
products out there that are ready to compete.
But the problem is if you're threatened by the 10,000
LB gorilla,
what do you do? You can't do it.
They can bear you. So you say it's not worth
fighting.
It's not worth whatever we have to battle.
And the most smaller firms don't have the deep pockets
to go into a court case.
So not that I'm a big fan of the DOJ
stepping in and filing lawsuits.
But in this case, listen,
they just had to go with Google.
And I don't, I think the case is over.
I don't think it's been decided.
I don't know if there's been a decision that's been
made in that,
you know, question whether they have a monopoly.
I mean, personally, I think Amazon is going to be
Next up.
You know, how how can little companies compete with Amazon?
And you know, everybody loves getting their product in hours
or days,
you know, versus days or weeks.
But at some point what damages is doing to local
economies when you have little stores that just can't stay
open,
You know, your neighborhood stores can't compete with Amazon.
So we have created some behemoths.
And I think now we need to figure out,
is this the direction that we think is best for
the country
or do we need to modify and say
we got to break some,
you know, some up? I don't know if you guys
are old enough,
but the baby bows.
You know, you look at bows,
you look at Exxon, you know,
you look at Standard Oil.
So this isn't new. I mean,
this has happened time and time again.
What concerns me is that the DOJ,
you know, is picking up a case that the government
approved.
So it was approved. So my question is maybe we
should be
putting a little more effort and scrutiny into these deals
and saying,
is this really best for the country because to go
back and fix a mass is way harder than just
to prevent it in the 1st place.
Scott, good to get your take.
Thank you for joining us from Chicago.
Scott Sheridan, CEO of Tasty at Trade.