Elon dips from DOGE, and Silicon Valley enters the 'find out' stage

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elon Musk has officially announced he’s stepping down as a U.S. special government employee and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE. The move follows Musk’s cooling relationship with the Trump administration and slumping Tesla sales tied to his political advocacy. Today on Equity, Kirsten, Max and Anthony unpack who else is departing DOGE, and why Silicon Valley’s relationship with politics is entering, as Kirsten put it, the “find out” stage. Listen to the full episode for more of the week’s tech headlines including: GameStop bought $500 million of bitcoin, and the move is giving us 2021 déjà vu Neuralink’s $600 million raise, valuing Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface startup at $9 billion The New York Times and Amazon’s landmark AI licensing deal and what it signals for how editorial content powers generative AI Nvidia’s tale of two earnings, and why the forecast is not as bleak as CEO Jensen Huang makes it seem Equity will be back next week, so don’t miss it! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Affinity, the most trusted CRM for private capital.
0:17.0	There was a lot going on in 2021, to be honest, but maybe you'll remember this, which was the whole GameStop stock craze that was happening when all these people were on Robin Hood and like the stock was going bananas.
0:30.3	Do you recall this moment?
0:32.0	How could I forget?
0:33.1	Not a GameStop shareholder myself, but it was like this moment.
0:36.2	It felt like things were very unpredictable.
0:39.4	Okay.
0:39.7	Well, what was old is new again because GameStop has, I'm calling it the GameStop Gambit.
0:46.2	There's a whole new GameStop moment happening again, which I'm positive.
0:50.3	Both of you have followed this, but they bought $500 million of Bitcoin.
0:55.0	Well, and it feels like 2021 again, too, just because it's people talking about buying
0:58.4	Bitcoin in an excited way because that also feels like a throwback. It was this time when money
1:03.9	didn't mean anything. And I guess it doesn't mean anything again. It doesn't. It doesn't.
1:09.1	GameStop stock dropped like 11% when they announced that they were doing this. And I can't
1:13.9	say I understand exactly why they did this either. It kind of felt like, hey, why not? You know,
1:20.4	it's 2025. Bitcoin's back. You know, let's try some stuff out. And, you know, that's,
1:25.8	that's one way to run a public company. Speaking of meme coins, we are going to actually talk about Doge later, too.
1:32.0	So be prepared.
1:33.5	Welcome back, everyone, to Equity TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
1:40.5	Today is Friday, May 30th.
1:42.1	I'm Kirsten Koresak, transportation editor.
1:44.7	I'm Max F, senior reporter. I'm Anthony Ha, weekend editor.
	...

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