The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry by Tevi Troy is out now.
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00:00Following the second assassination attempt on former President Trump, Tesla's CEO and
00:06the world's richest man, Elon Musk, tweeted and deleted, quote, and no one is even trying
00:12to assassinate Biden or Kamala, end quote.
00:16Shocking, appalling even, even for Mr. Musk.
00:20But the intersection between corporate leaders and presidents has never been more complicated,
00:25and historian Tevi Troy literally wrote the book on the subject.
00:29It's called The Power and the Money, epic clashes between commanders in chief and the
00:33titans of industry.
00:35Tevi, thanks so much for being here.
00:37Really appreciate it.
00:38A lot of history here.
00:40Have to get your reaction, though, to that shocking tweet from Elon Musk.
00:45Yeah, look, Elon Musk is clearly impulsive.
00:48He went on Saturday Night Live and he said that I rebuilt the electric car and I'm sending
00:53people to Mars.
00:54Did you expect I was going to be a normal, chill dude?
00:56And he's not.
00:57He's just different.
00:59He's not in any way condoning that crazy tweet, but he does not follow the mold of the standard
01:04in the box CEO who tries to be very careful about his relations with the media and is
01:08careful with his relations with politicians.
01:10He's chosen the side in this election.
01:12And that often, as I show in my book, The Power of the Money, that often does not work
01:15out well for for CEOs.
01:17Has there ever been a figure like Elon, a CEO weighing into presidential politics in
01:23this book?
01:24Now, granted, no one's ever explored space and invented electric cars.
01:27But in terms of that type of role and rhetoric.
01:30Yeah, absolutely.
01:31In my book, I talk about Henry Luce, who was the founder of Time magazine, and he hated
01:36Franklin Roosevelt, was constantly dumping on Franklin Roosevelt, tried to get him defeated,
01:40lost four times.
01:42And then later, when Eisenhower is running, he goes all in for Eisenhower.
01:46So all out on Roosevelt, all in on Ike.
01:50And both of them didn't work out well for him because FDR disliked him and froze him
01:53out of things.
01:54And Eisenhower, the overwhelming support that Luce had for him, it kind of made people wonder
02:00about Time magazine.
02:01And there was even a joke.
02:03Time magazine is evenhanded.
02:05Half the time, it supports the Republicans.
02:07The other half, it bashes the Democrats.
02:09I couldn't help initially when I saw Elon's support for Trump and and my political views
02:15are not part of this subject.
02:16But his buyers, Tesla buyers certainly lean left well to the left.
02:22How might this impact or backfire on Elon Musk, the businessman?
02:28It's a good question.
02:29But a lot of those people are buying electric cars, not because of Musk.
02:32They're buying electric cars.
02:33They like electric cars.
02:34But it reminds me of the famous Michael Jordan comment, Republicans buy sneakers, too.
02:38And you have to be really careful with your brand as the CEO.
02:42And if he alienates Tesla buyers, if he alienates people who want to buy environmentally sustainable
02:47cars, that's going to be a problem for his business model, just like it's been a problem
02:50with him at Twitter.
02:51Slash X.
02:52Yeah, it may have been different when there was one or two options, but now everyone's
02:56got an EV.
02:57And if you walk up to a car and think about a person that's generally a lose, lose.
03:02Historically, Silicon Valley support for a Republican candidate.
03:07Is this an unusual election in that regard?
03:10It is unusual.
03:11Usually, Silicon Valley has been pro-Democratic.
03:12You know, they haven't been around that long, but they tend to lean left.
03:16Their staff leans left.
03:18And that shapes their decisions sometimes.
03:20But if you look at the last go around, when Trump was in the White House last time, he
03:24did have outreach from Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook guys.
03:30Even though the Facebook staff didn't want Zuckerberg to do that, Zuckerberg recognized
03:33you can't alienate the president of the United States permanently.
03:36And Musk is interesting because Musk still to this day, he's never voted for Republican
03:39for president.
03:40He's probably going to vote for Trump this time.
03:41He's endorsed him.
03:42But he voted for Obama in 12, Hillary in 16 and Biden in 20.
03:47Does history show big business typically supports publicly or privately the Republican Party
03:52prior to Trump?
03:53Sure.
03:54So my book, Power and the Money, talks about this and it says that for the most part, business
03:58has been Republican friendly territory.
04:00But it also lays out a whole bunch of interesting exceptions.
04:03For example, John D. Rockefeller was generally supportive of Republicans, but Teddy Roosevelt,
04:08a Republican, came after him and ended up breaking up his company.
04:11So there are exceptions.
04:12That dynamic you wrote about, has Trump flipped it?
04:15Well, Trump, definitely because he alienated a lot of people on the left, especially in
04:20Hollywood and in Silicon Valley.
04:22It makes it hard for those companies to be neutral on him.
04:26But I would say that there are other issues going on that have led to this kind of breaking
04:30of the Republican monopoly on big business.
04:32I hear around this part a lot of support for Trump, but a lot of nervousness over tariffs.
04:38And that I think is really changing that dynamic.
04:40And we've seen dozens of business leaders supporting Kamala Harris, many signing on
04:45a public letter of support.
04:47Is this about policy or something else?
04:50Yeah, it's interesting.
04:51I wrote about that 88 person letter for a Fortune magazine, and a lot of those guys
04:56are formers because it speaks to the issue with Elon Musk.
05:00A lot of them, they don't want to endorse a candidate while they run a company.
05:04And a lot of them are also from, as we said, Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
05:07And some of them are like Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, brilliant guy,
05:11but not a business guy.
05:13So the 88 people is a more mixed picture.
05:16It's not an indication that all of business is on the Harris side right now.
05:20OK, so are more CEOs speaking out today?
05:23Because it sure feels that way.
05:24Or are we just putting more focus, more attention on what they're saying?
05:28Because government is so big and has such an involvement in their businesses and what
05:32they do and whether they can succeed, CEOs have to be more involved.
05:36And what I advise in the book, in The Power of the Money, is to have people increase their
05:41engagement but decrease their partisanship.
05:44So if it's like a tech board or something, you can raise one and decrease the other.
05:48Because if you're too partisan, that's going to hurt you.
05:50But if you're not involved, you're going to be left out.
05:52How do you do that?
05:53How do you become more engaged in the political dialogue without being partisan?
05:57Because in this environment, everyone needs you to be one or the other, to check one box,
06:02to be red or blue.
06:03I'm glad you asked that because there's a guy I highlight in the book, Jamie Dimon,
06:07who I think is really brilliant about this.
06:09He has this construction that I just love.
06:11He says, I'm barely a Democrat.
06:13The Democrats hear that and say, oh, well, he's a Democrat.
06:15We like that.
06:16He's a business guy.
06:17That's a surprise.
06:18The Republicans hear the barely and they say, oh, he's against the excesses of the woke
06:22left.
06:23So he's OK to us.
06:24And so that very careful construction lets him speak to both sides.
06:27Also, Dimon, when he started, he was going to Washington twice a year.
06:31Then he realized he had to go twice a month.
06:33So he really upped the involvement while he's careful on the partisanship.
06:36I've heard people from both sides of the aisle say we want Jamie Dimon to run for president.
06:40Not necessarily concerned about what his party is.
06:43They just want his leadership to run for office.
06:46Have to ask you about another endorsement, not in the corporate world, but of course,
06:49the world's famous, most famous person right now, Taylor Swift.
06:53Is there a risk that she takes in coming out in such a hyper partisan environment and endorsing
06:58Kamala Harris?
06:59Oh, absolutely.
07:00In my book, I talk about Oprah and how Oprah started with a platform and then got more
07:06involved and had a company.
07:09Most of the CEOs I talk about have companies and then go and buy media platforms.
07:13But Oprah has shown that she has political sway and she did endorse Obama in 2008.
07:18And it was a big deal.
07:20But she also alienates some of her viewers, which are, you know, women who watch those
07:25married women tend to be more Republican.
07:27So it's, it's, there's a danger when you go too far out there and you endorse the candidate.
07:32And again, Republicans buy sneakers too.
07:33It's really cool how many threads are similar today from history.
07:38And that's what you'll find in this book.
07:40So many common patterns that we think are unique.
07:43They've been going on for decades.
07:45The power and the money.
07:47He is Tevi Troy.
07:48Good to see you, sir.
07:49Thanks for having me.
07:50Excellent.