Anthony Scaramucci: What Elon Musk Got Wrong About Politics

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-06-07

YouTube video id: 1dPT3vIZUCw

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dPT3vIZUCw

This is green. See it? There's a There's
a red party, there's a blue party, and
there's a green party. I'm not talking
about the environment. This is the
party. And so Silicon Valley, they know
how to play on the green team. They can
get along when necessary if this is
involved. Same on Wall Street. In
Washington, you don't know what's going
on. There's a blue team, a red team, a
yellow team. One guy wants to be closer
to the president. that the other guy's
jealous that Elon's traveling with Trump
back and forth to Mara Lago and Air
Force One. They start shooting at the
guy and that's what happened. So, you
just think it was an inside job
basically that Trump allies who didn't
like Elon's vision just said just slowly
pushed him out of favor with the
president and the attacks on his
companies were orchestrated, right? To
think otherwise you don't understand how
it works. They orchestrated these
attacks on his companies. What about
like what he was there to do? Um because
his signature project was Doge. Do you
think that was a success?
Uh well, I don't think it was a failure.
I don't think it was as successful as
perhaps as they wanted it to be. I think
I think they learned something that it's
harder to cut the government than people
had anticipated. If you had said to me,
and you can find this in recordings
about me, is that well Doge, what's
going to happen? He's going to find some
things to cut. He's going to find it
harder to cut other things. He's going
to realize that the government is not a
business. You know, it's just a weird
thing. This is eternal. Almost like he
tried to do the Twitter cuts when the
government just didn't work. You can't
do that. So, he tried to Let me give a
news flash to the Silicon Valley people
listening in. The government is not a
business. You don't need a businessman
to run the government. You need a policy
wonk to run the government who can build
a consensus and can provide long-term
guidance to a government. You got to
move the aircraft carrier slowly. It's
not going to turn in the water like a
speedboat. And so you have to target
things. You know, Clinton understood
that. you know, we're going to target
the budget and we're going to get the
budget in a certain sequence so that the
growth of the economy is going to exceed
our spending and when we get to the end
of the Clinton term in 2000, we're
printing a $240 billion budget surplus,
last budget surplus that the US printed.
So, you have to think of the government
very differently than a business. You're
a conductor. You've got an orchestra. On
some days they want to play from the sha
same sheet music. On other days they
don't want to play together and the the
cacaphony of sounds coming out of the
government is very nasty. And it's your
job to try to calm everybody down and
get them on the same sheet music. It's
harder to do today because we've gotten
way more polarized and there's a lot
more entrenched interests that keep
themselves perpetually in power as
opposed to serving the people. So, so
Elon's stint in the government very well
intended. I think successful. He's
pointed out a lot of mistakes. I think
the declarative statements that he's
making on X today are evidence of his
knowledge and his now worldly
understanding of what goes on in the
government, which is why he is being so
critical. Mhm. He knows that that
spending bill is going to increase the
slope of spending at too fast of a rate
to the growth of the US economy, which
means the deficit is going to widen,
which means that we're stealing from
future generations of Americans, which
is very unfair at this point in our
history. It's very unfair to the next
two generations coming up in in the
country. Okay. Can I give you one more
explanation? By the way, this is not pro
anti- Elon. I'm just trying to like
think through what happened with him.
It's a very consequential moment for him
to I'll tell you some negative things
about Elon, too. I'll tell you positive
and negative. Okay. I'm not trying to be
pro. We're doing this as Yeah.
straightforward analysis. So, tell you
what he got wrong. So, but let me let me
just kind of throw this other idea out
there, which is that maybe it wasn't
maybe there were people within the
government that didn't like what he was
doing. Uh maybe the Democrats, you know,
sort of had it out for his businesses
because he had become so close to Trump.
Uh but maybe the reason why he's left
the left the government is because Doge
wasn't I mean it he aimed to cut
trillions of dollars. He ended up
cutting you know I think a couple
hundred billion maybe and he went to
Wisconsin to try to sway an election. He
failed after spending a lot of money and
his poll numbers were bad. So it's just
simple politics. Yeah. Well I mean but
worse than that. Worse than that. So
Model S comes out. Uh do you know who
Elon Musk is? 70% of the Americans say
they know who Elon Musk is. Do you have
a favorable opinion of Elon Musk? 70% of
the Americans that know Elon Musk say
they have a favorable opinion of Elon
Musk. He is the Tony Stark of our era.
Most people that know who he is. Wow.
We're glad he's one of us. He's an
American entrepreneur. Half the country
has a favorable opinion of him. You ask
people now, do you know Elon Mus? 90% of
the Americans know who he is. 70% of
those Americans have an unfavorable
opinion of them. So look at them
numbers. You've got a 63% negative
opinion and and when you go into
politics that happens. And what what if
he had talked to me, not that he would
have, but he had talked to me and said,
"Listen, you're selling cars to
progressives. You're selling cars to
people that believe that you are an
environmental pioneer. you're trying to
help heal this environmental catastrophe
that we've created and so you're a hero
to these people if you're going to side
with Trump and I get why because the
Democrats are out to lunch. They're uh
breaking your balls on SpaceX launches.
They're torturing you with the electric
car company because of the love affair
they have with the auto worker unions.
And I get why they're doing that to you.
But if you take a chill, this group of
Democrats, this older group of Democrats
is gonna pass. And then you could align
yourself with a newer group, like a
Roana group of Democrats, and be a way
better experience for you if you decide
to become politically active. But he
sees the shooting um and god forbid and
thank God Trump wasn't killed in Butler,
PA, July of
2024. And he's like, "Okay, this guy's
going to win." That visual picture of
Trump with his hand up in the air, blood
on his ear, American flag behind him is
a winning picture. Let's just be honest
with everybody. Elon sees this, he
immediately goes out and endorses him.
Shawn Maguire from Sequoia goes out and
endorses him. And now you've created
this portal for other Silicon Valley
people who have typically hid their
political stripes. There were way more
conservatives in Silicon Valley than
they were willing to admit to in 2012 or
2016 or even 2020, but now it's 2024 and
they're like, "Okay, the portal is open.
There's space for David Sachs. There's
space for Chamoth. There's Mark Mark
Andre. Mark Andre. There's space for
Elon. I think Horowitz was there then he
backed off." Right. Okay. And and so
now, but you're with the wrong guy. Let
me give you news flash. You're with the
wrong guy because this is a
transactionalist. It's not just that
he's a narcissist. He's an angry guy. He
hates himself and he's projecting that
hatred into the society and he's a
divisive guy and he's got ill-founded
policies as it relates to economics and
ill-founded policies as it relates to
tariffs. And I know Elon thinks he's an
imbecile. Let me just give you my proof
cuz it's like geometry in ninth grade.
Elon thinks he's an imbecile. Uh let me
apply the proof. He's tweeting about
Peter Navaro a couple of weeks ago. He
says he says Peter Navaro is as dumb as
a bag of rocks. And then there's another
tweet which I adored. No, no. I
apologize. I just want to personally
apologize to the bag of rocks. Okay, so
you got to love Elon for this. But look
at me. the fingerprint of Peter Navaro
and Donald Trump on trade and economics
is identical. So when you're saying that
someone's an imbecile and the person
that's identical to that person, that
person therefore definitionally also has
to be an imbecile. So So Elon's not a
dummy. He knows these tariffs are wrong.
He knows they're bad for the society.
And he knows this big, beautiful
spending bill is actually atrociously
ugly. Big, but atrociously ugly spending
bill and very harmful long term to the
interests of America and its citizens,
but very good short term for these pigs
in Washington free feeding at the trout.
Yeah. And Anthony, by the way, this is
why it's so great to have you here. And
folks, this is why I wanted to have this
conversation with Anthony. so difficult
to speak about Elon's role in politics.
Uh but here we have a Republican former
communication director of the Trump
White House. Why is it difficult?
Because he's a powerful guy and everyone
thinks you're coming in when you speak
about Elon with an axe to grind. But
that's not you. You're an investor in
Elon's companies. So, and I I think
that's the right diagnosis. By the way,
by the way, I have no axe to grind. I
Here's what I want Elon to go back to
work. I think he is literally the
quintessential American hero
entrepreneur. I think he's a brilliant
visionary. I think he's gotten so many
things right in his career. Uh this XAI,
the Gro stuff is phenomenal. It's helped
me in my business. It's helped me as a
person. Uh I think the stuff he's doing
with Neurolink is going to be
transformative for so many people with
disabilities. We had Nolan Arba, the
first Neurolink patient on the show a
couple months ago. It's pretty I've said
I've I've seen four technological
miracles in my life. The iPhone, Chachi
PT, driving in a driverless Whimo car
and watching Nolan play a video game and
beat me in a video game. But I I find
that people are nervous about saying
things about Elon because he's a
powerful guy and they don't want to get
in his field of vision and they don't
want to cross him. But I'm I'm, you
know, my attitude is, you know, I want
to be real with people because I think
that really smart people are real with
people and then they gravitate to each
other. Like if I've got a booger in my
nose, do I have a booger in my nose,
Alex? Oh, clear, Anthony. Okay. But if I
had one, I would want you to say, "Hey,
Mooch, you got a booger in your nose.
This way I could excuse myself and rip
the booger out of my nose." And you got
to be with people in life that are going
to talk to you straight, but they're
going to talk to you straight out of
love where they want to help you. And I
have, if anything, I think Tesla's a
great company. I think this robotic
stuff he's doing at Tesla is amazing. I
think he hurt his brand by going into
Washington. And I think there's plenty
of time to repair the brand. The great
news about America, F. Scott Fitzgerald
got something really wrong. Uh he was a
brilliant writer. 100th anniversary of a
Long Island novel, The Great Gatsby.
Yes. Came out in April of 1925.
But Fitzgerald got one major thing
wrong, Alex. He said, "There are no
second acts in American life." Very
famously said that 100 years ago. He got
it wrong. There's hundreds of second and
third acts for sure. There's 10th acts.
You know, Trump is an example of that.
I'm an example of that. I don't know
your life story, but I bet if you had a
shortcoming or a failure, you could pull
yourself together and come back from it.
America loves the comeback. They want
the success story. So, if you invite me
back in a year, I'll make a prediction
on your show. Elon will be flourishing
in a year. Uh his businesses will be
flourishing because he's that kind of a
guy. Uh but, you know, politics is a
rough sport, man. And I and and you're
talking to somebody who's got tire
tracks on his