E11: Election Night Special featuring Phil Hellmuth, Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner & more!

Evidence from the final 2020 results shows that Chamath’s prediction—that the election would be a nail‑biter rather than a landslide—matches what actually happened.

1. The election was not a landslide

• Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 232, the same Electoral College margin Trump had in 2016. (en.wikipedia.org)
• FactCheck.org explicitly notes that this 306–232 result is not a landslide by historical standards, placing it in the bottom tier of Electoral College margins and concluding that calling it a landslide is inaccurate. (factcheck.org)
• PolitiFact similarly says Biden’s win “wasn’t a landslide,” characterizing it instead as “decisive.” (politifact.com)

2. The outcome hinged on very narrow margins in a few states

• Nationally, Biden’s popular vote margin was about 4.5 percentage points (51.3% vs. 46.8%), or roughly 7 million votes. (en.wikipedia.org)
• But structurally, the election was close: across just three key states—Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin—Biden’s combined margin was under 45,000 votes, and those states’ electoral votes were enough to determine the winner. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Several decisive states had margins under 1% (e.g., Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin) or between 1% and 3% (e.g., Pennsylvania, Michigan), reinforcing that the tipping‑point terrain was tight. (en.wikipedia.org)

Given that (a) the result clearly was not a landslide by expert and historical standards, and (b) the Electoral College outcome depended on very small vote margins in a handful of swing states, Chamath’s call that 2020 would be a nail‑biter rather than a landslide is best judged as right.

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Major news organizations and the official electoral vote count confirm that Joe Biden won both the popular vote and the Electoral College, securing 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, and was subsequently inaugurated as the 46th president on January 20, 2021.

Because the prediction by sacks was that Trump would win (“I’m gonna go with what the markets are saying, which is Trump.”), and the actual outcome was a Biden victory, this prediction is wrong.

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 U.S. presidential election; Joe Biden won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, securing 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, with the result effectively settled in the days following November 3–4, 2020. This outcome is confirmed by official and media tallies of the certified results.

Since friedberg’s statement on election night—“the Treasury markets and the S&P futures are telling me that Donald Trump’s going to win”—was clearly a forward-looking prediction about the final election outcome, and the final outcome was that Trump lost, the prediction is incorrect.

Joe Biden did, in fact, win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, securing 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 232, with major news networks calling the race for Biden on November 7, 2020, and the Electoral College later confirming this outcome.

Given that Chamath’s prediction was that “it’s Biden” (i.e., Biden would win) made on election night (November 3, 2020) when live tallies and betting markets were more favorable to Trump, the eventual result clearly aligns with his forecast.

Therefore, the prediction is right.

Using final certified 2020 results for Pennsylvania:

• Statewide: Joe Biden 3,461,221 votes vs. Donald Trump 3,379,055, a Biden margin of 82,166 votes. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Philadelphia County: Biden 604,175 vs. Trump 132,870, a Biden margin of 471,305 votes (about “half a million”). (en.wikipedia.org)

If we separate Philadelphia from the rest of the state:

• Rest of Pennsylvania (all other counties combined) gives Trump a margin of 389,139 votes over Biden (3,246,185 – 2,857,046), inferred from the same county-level totals. (en.wikipedia.org)

Now, consider Chamath’s conditional: if Biden nets ~500,000 votes out of the Philadelphia-area count, that margin will be sufficient to carry Pennsylvania. Under the actual rest-of-state margin (Trump +389,139), a 500,000-vote Biden margin in Philadelphia alone would yield a statewide Biden lead of about 110,861 votes (500,000 − 389,139), so it would indeed be sufficient to win the state.

In reality, Biden’s Philadelphia margin ended up slightly below that (≈471k) yet was still large enough, together with his performance elsewhere, to produce the actual statewide win of ~82k votes. (ballotwire.com)

So, both the logic of the threshold (500k in Philadelphia being enough given how the rest of the state voted) and the outcome (Biden winning Pennsylvania with a Philadelphia margin in the same ballpark as Chamath’s “about 500k”) support scoring this prediction as right.

Outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election

• Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, receiving 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 232, and winning the national popular vote by over 7 million votes.

Pennsylvania and Philadelphia mail-in vote dynamics

• Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, counted many mail-in ballots after election night because state law did not allow processing of mail ballots far in advance. These late-counted mail-in votes were heavily pro-Biden and eroded, then overturned, Trump’s initial election-night lead in the state, which was widely discussed as the “blue shift” from mail-in ballots. (Multiple authoritative election-postmortem analyses describe that Biden’s eventual Pennsylvania win came as large, strongly Democratic mail-in batches from cities like Philadelphia were reported in the days following November 3, 2020.)

Comparison to the prediction

• Chamath’s normalized prediction: that Biden would win the 2020 election, and that this expectation rested on a strongly pro-Biden mail-in vote from Philadelphia being counted after election night.
• What happened: Biden did win the presidency, and Pennsylvania’s late-counted, urban mail-in ballots (including those from Philadelphia) played a crucial role in overcoming Trump’s early lead and securing Biden’s statewide victory, which in turn was pivotal to his overall Electoral College majority.

Because both the core outcome (Biden winning) and the described mechanism/timing (crucial, strongly pro-Biden Philadelphia/mail-in vote counted after election night) match what actually occurred, this prediction is right.

Chamath predicted that on election night 2020 there would be no final or reliable overall election result because Pennsylvania—and specifically Philadelphia—would not be fully counted or called, making any result that was called that night incomplete.

What actually happened:

• As of the early hours of November 4, 2020 (the morning after election day), no winner had been declared in the presidential race; key battleground states including Pennsylvania were still counting large numbers of ballots and were explicitly described as unresolved. (pbs.org)
• The Associated Press and major TV networks did not call Pennsylvania for Joe Biden until Saturday, November 7, around late morning Eastern time, four days after Election Day. That call, based on Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, is what pushed Biden over 270 and allowed those outlets to project him as the winner of the election. (washingtonpost.com)
• Philadelphia’s mail-ballot counting continued for days after Election Day; thousands of mail ballots were still being processed after election night, and city officials emphasized that counting would go on around the clock until finished. Philadelphia did not finish counting and certify its results until days later. (whyy.org)

No reputable national decision desk or major network called either Pennsylvania or the overall presidential race on election night itself; the eventual calls came only after additional days of counting in Pennsylvania, heavily driven by outstanding votes in places like Philadelphia. (pbs.org)

Because (1) there was no final or broadly accepted overall result on election night, and (2) this was indeed due in significant part to Pennsylvania—and especially Philadelphia—still counting votes and not being ready to be called, Chamath’s prediction matches the subsequent events.

Evaluation of the conditional prediction

• Chamath’s condition: If Joe Biden’s net margin (“gap”) out of Philadelphia is above roughly 350,000 votes, that will be enough for Biden to win Pennsylvania.
• Actual 2020 result in the City/County of Philadelphia: Biden received 603,790 votes; his net margin over Trump in the city was 471,050 votes. (inquirer.com)
  • 471,050 > 350,000, so the stated condition (a gap above ~350k in Philly) was satisfied.
• Statewide result: Pennsylvania’s certified tally shows Biden with 3,458,229 votes and Trump with 3,377,674, a Biden margin of 80,555 votes, meaning Biden did win Pennsylvania. (inquirer.com)

Because the condition (Philly margin > ~350k) occurred and the predicted outcome (Biden wins Pennsylvania) also occurred, the conditional prediction is correct.

Evidence from the days immediately following the November 3, 2020 U.S. election shows:

• Nationwide pattern: News reports on November 4 described “scattered protests” from Washington, D.C. to Washington state but emphasized that there were no signs of widespread unrest or violence linked to the election, and that demonstrations in cities like Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington, and New York were largely peaceful.【1search1】【1search7】
• Protests focused on counting, mostly peaceful: Many demonstrations were "count every vote" rallies urging that ballots be tallied; they were large but peaceful in multiple cities, with fears of broad civil unrest noted as not having materialized.【1search8】
• Localized disruptive incidents: There were some disruptive or tense events—e.g., a riot declaration and limited property damage in Portland with brief National Guard deployment,【1search4】【1search6】 and armed pro‑Trump crowds outside vote‑counting centers in places like Phoenix and Detroit that alarmed election officials but did not escalate into major violence.【0search0】【0search5】【2view0】 These were notable but geographically limited.
• Scale relative to expectations: Analysts and officials had widely feared broad post‑election violence; contemporaneous reporting stressed that such widespread violence and breakdown did not occur in the immediate post‑election days.【1search5】【1search7】
• Later violence outside the time window: Major violent events aimed at overturning the result, especially the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, occurred two months later, not in the “days immediately following” election night.【2view0】

Taken together, Americans largely did remain calm, with some protests and a few localized disturbances but no broad wave of violent or disruptive action in the immediate aftermath. That aligns well with Chamath’s prediction that there wouldn’t be “a lot of action” and that most people would sit tight while officials did their jobs, so the prediction is best judged as right overall, despite some limited counterexamples.

Jason’s prediction was that the week immediately following election night 2020 could be “incredibly violent” in the U.S.

What actually happened between roughly November 4–11, 2020:

• Election night itself saw only scattered, mostly peaceful protests. Associated Press coverage noted “scattered protests” but “no signs of widespread unrest or violence” as of election night and the immediate overnight period; demonstrations in cities like Seattle and New York were largely peaceful, with no broad breakdown in public order. (fox29.com)
• In the following days there were numerous demonstrations, but only localized violence. Monitoring by groups like Civicus and various news outlets describes marches and rallies in many cities (Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Phoenix, Detroit, etc.), including “Count Every Vote” and “Stop the Steal” events. Some of these led to clashes and arrests — e.g., New York police arrested around 50 protesters; Portland police declared a riot and arrested 11; Minneapolis saw protests blocking roads and confrontations with police — but reports emphasize that most protests remained peaceful and incidents were geographically limited. (globalnews.ca)
• Minneapolis is a good example of the pattern: intense but not mass-casualty violence. On election night, protesters in Minneapolis caused some property damage and shot fireworks at officers, leading to 14 arrests for alleged rioting and assault. The next day, a large march entered Interstate 94; police used tear gas and mass-arrested 646 people for unlawful assembly and related offenses, with a few individual assault charges (e.g., pointing a laser at an officer, kicking an officer). These were serious confrontations but involved very few serious injuries and no deaths. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Systematic data show most protest activity in this period was non‑violent. The ACLED/US Crisis Monitor weekly overview for November 1–7, 2020 documents an 80% jump in demonstrations around the election, but treats them largely as protests and intimidation/threat incidents rather than widespread lethal violence. (bridgingdivides.princeton.edu) Aggregated ACLED-based analyses of the broader May 24–November 28, 2020 period record 17,946 demonstration events, of which only about 4% involved violence and 3.5% involved police intervention, with 85 total fatalities linked to all political violence and demonstrations nationally across six months — indicating that, while tensions were high, outright violent events remained a small minority and there is no sign of a unique nationwide spike in killings or extreme bloodshed during the immediate post‑election week. (graphext.com)
• Later, much more severe political violence did occur—but outside the predicted week. The most dramatic election-related violence, the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, came more than two months after election night and is widely treated as the culmination of a prolonged contest over the election results, not something confined to November 4–11. (en.wikipedia.org)

Overall, the United States in the week after election night 2020 saw widespread protests and some localized riots, arrests, and minor clashes, but not the kind of pervasive, high‑casualty, or structurally destabilizing political violence that would reasonably be described as an “incredibly violent” week nationwide. Fears of mass violence and intimidation around the election were widely reported beforehand, but post‑election assessments and data agree that these worst‑case scenarios did not materialize at scale. (aeu.org)

Because the scenario Jason warned about — an immediately ensuing incredibly violent week — largely did not occur, this prediction is best scored as wrong.

1. The condition of the prediction was met. By the end of election night (Nov. 3, 2020) and into Nov. 4, there was still no clear presidential winner. Battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and others were still counting ballots, and major outlets did not project Biden as president‑elect until Nov. 7, 2020.       (politifact.com)

2. The implied “following trading day” is Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020. On that day, U.S. equity markets rallied strongly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 1.2–1.35%, the S&P 500 gained about 2.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped roughly 3.9%. A market recap for Nov. 4 describes U.S. stocks as having surged, led by technology shares, even as the presidential race remained undecided. (eoption.com)

3. A broad, sizable rally in major stock indices and growth/tech names is characteristic of a risk‑on move, not a modest risk‑off posture. Since the condition (no winner by that night) was satisfied but markets moved in the opposite direction of what was predicted, Chamath’s conditional prediction was wrong.

The prediction was explicitly conditional: if Republicans retained control of the U.S. Senate and/or the presidency after the 2020 election, they would then turn Jack Dorsey into the main symbol of tech censorship in the subsequent term.

In reality, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 presidential election, defeating the incumbent Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Democrats also ultimately secured effective control of the Senate for the 117th Congress (2021–2023) after the Georgia runoffs and the January 20, 2021 swearing‑in of Ossoff, Warnock, and Vice President Harris, giving Democrats the majority via the vice president’s tie‑breaking vote. Republicans therefore did not retain the presidency or a lasting Senate majority for the post‑2020 term described in the prediction. (en.wikipedia.org)

Republicans had already been aggressively attacking Dorsey and Twitter over alleged censorship in late 2020, including high‑profile Senate Commerce and Judiciary hearings where GOP senators focused on Twitter’s handling of the New York Post and broader claims of anti‑conservative bias. These hearings clearly cast Dorsey as a central face of alleged censorship, but they occurred during the pre‑election and lame‑duck period of the existing GOP Senate majority, not in a new term contingent on Republicans retaining the Senate or presidency. (judiciary.senate.gov)

Moreover, Dorsey resigned as Twitter CEO on November 29, 2021, and was replaced by Parag Agrawal, further limiting the relevance of the specific scenario envisioned (ongoing Republican control plus Dorsey as Twitter CEO throughout the subsequent term). (en.wikipedia.org)

Because the key condition of the forecast (Republicans holding the Senate and/or presidency for the next term) did not occur, we cannot observe whether the predicted behavior would have followed in that counterfactual world. For evaluation purposes, that makes the forecast ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.

Why this prediction is scored as ambiguous

1. The prediction was explicitly conditional on a scenario that did not occur.
   Sacks framed this as a “soft landing” scenario where: (a) Joe Biden wins the presidency by about two electoral votes, and (b) Republicans retain control of the U.S. Senate. In reality, Biden won the Electoral College 306–232, a 74‑vote margin, not a razor‑thin ~2‑vote win. (archives.gov) After the January 5, 2021 Georgia runoffs, Democrats won both Senate seats, producing a 50–50 Senate with Vice President Harris giving Democrats effective control—so Republicans did not hold the Senate during Biden’s first two years. (en.wikipedia.org) Because the specific antecedent (“Biden by ~2 EV + GOP Senate”) never happened, we cannot directly observe whether his forecast about that particular configuration would have been right.

2. The 2021–2025 period we actually got looked very different from his described ‘soft landing’.
   In the real timeline, unified Democratic control in 2021–2022 produced several large, contentious laws (e.g., the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act), i.e., not “limited” major legislation. (en.wikipedia.org) Political tensions also remained high or worsened: the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and its long aftermath kept national politics highly salient, not something most people could “ignore,” and surveys through 2022–2024 show deep, persistent polarization and widespread frustration with politics. (en.wikipedia.org) Those facts strongly contradict the spirit of his “temperature would go down, we could ignore Washington” narrative—but they occur under a different institutional setup than the one he conditioned on.

3. Why this leads to an ‘ambiguous’ verdict rather than ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
   Formally, Sacks’ claim was a counterfactual: if Biden barely squeaked by in the Electoral College and Republicans kept the Senate, then politics over the next four years would be relatively calm, with limited legislation and lower partisan temperature. Because that antecedent never came to pass, we cannot empirically test his core proposition about that exact divided‑government configuration. At the same time, the real 2021–2025 period does not resemble his forecasted “soft landing,” but that’s evidence against his broader intuition, not a clean falsification of the specific conditional claim. Hence the most accurate scoring under your scheme is “ambiguous”: enough time has passed, but the required condition never occurred, so the prediction’s truth value cannot be definitively determined from observed outcomes.

Public information does not establish whether Chamath Palihapitiya did or did not receive calls from senior Democratic Party leaders within 3–4 days after the November 3–4, 2020 Election Night episode.

Available episode listings and summaries for All-In E11 (the Election Night Special released November 4, 2020) and subsequent 2020 episodes describe the show’s election commentary but do not report any follow‑up about Democratic leaders calling Chamath in the days immediately afterward.(podcasts.apple.com)

Biographical coverage of Palihapitiya’s political activity notes that he was historically a substantial Democratic donor and later became a high‑profile supporter and fundraiser for Republican candidates (including Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy), yet these sources do not mention any Election‑Night‑era outreach from Democratic leadership as a notable event in his political trajectory.(en.wikipedia.org)

Because the prediction concerns private communications (phone calls) that would only be knowable if Chamath or party leaders publicly disclosed them—and no such disclosure appears in accessible reporting or transcripts—the truth of the prediction cannot be determined from public records. Enough time has passed that it is not a “too early” question; it is simply not knowable from available evidence.

Therefore the prediction’s status is ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.

Summary
Chamath’s prediction was directionally right overall. Since 2020, there has been:

1. Sustained, large-scale migration of people from heavily Democratic, high‑tax states to Republican‑run, lower‑tax states.

   • Census data for April 1, 2020–July 1, 2024 show the biggest net domestic in‑migration in states like Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Alabama, Oklahoma—nearly all Republican‑governed or strongly Republican at the state level. The largest net domestic out‑migration is from California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, D.C., all deep‑blue jurisdictions. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • California is a clear example: it had large net domestic outflows in 2021–2023 (over 400,000 net movers out in 2021 alone), mostly to states like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, with analysts noting that high cost of living, taxes, crime, and politics are key push factors. High‑income Californians disproportionately head to no‑income‑tax states such as Texas and Florida. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • A New York Times data project on post‑2020 moves (“Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action”) found that movers are increasingly self‑sorting by politics, leaving more mixed areas for places that are more clearly red or blue; commentators summarize that many movers from blue states end up in redder, lower‑regulation Sun Belt destinations. (naree.squarespace.com)
   • Editorial analysis (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, summarized in an AP editorial roundup) now explicitly warns that population flight from Democratic‑led states to Republican‑led ones could cost Democrats up to 10 House seats after 2030—precisely the partisan demographic effect Chamath suggested. (apnews.com)

2. A parallel wave of business and headquarters relocations from blue to red, low‑tax states.

   • Research on the “California exodus” finds that California had the highest net outflow of domestic companies in the U.S. from 2015–2025, with Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina the main destinations. Since 2019 more than 200 firms have left California; examples include Charles Schwab, Oracle, Palantir, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Chevron, and major Elon Musk ventures Tesla and SpaceX, which moved their headquarters to Texas. Analysts highlight taxes and regulation as central reasons. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Other blue‑state business moves fit the same pattern: Caterpillar announced in 2022 it was relocating its global HQ from Illinois to the Dallas–Fort Worth area in Texas, explicitly framing the move as a strategic fit for growth. (caterpillar.com)
   • A broader relocation of financial and exchange infrastructure is underway: for instance, the NYSE plans to move its 143‑year‑old Chicago exchange to Dallas, Texas, citing the state’s “pro‑business reputation, low taxes, and light regulation,” and noting Texas has attracted hundreds of HQs including Tesla and Chevron. (ft.com)
   • These corporate moves, combined with the high‑income household flight documented by IRS‑based and state‑level analyses, match Chamath’s thesis of companies and affluent individuals choosing Republican‑run, low‑tax environments.

3. Democratic governments vs. large companies has indeed become a recurring political front, especially on climate and labor—though not the only such front.

   • Democratic‑led states have escalated climate and environmental litigation against oil and gas majors. In 2023, California (a deep‑blue state) filed California v. Big Oil, suing Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and the American Petroleum Institute for decades of alleged deception about climate risks. (oag.ca.gov)
   • Multiple other Democratic‑run states (e.g., Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island) have brought similar suits or consumer‑protection actions against Exxon and other fossil‑fuel companies, accusing them of misleading investors and the public about climate impacts. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Republican attorneys general from 19 states went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court trying to block these Democratic‑state climate lawsuits, but in 2025 the Court refused to intervene—leaving Dem‑run states free to keep suing major energy companies in their own courts. (apnews.com)
   • At the federal level under Biden, Democratic appointees used antitrust and labor regulators to challenge big firms (notably in tech and logistics), and the then‑Democratic‑led NLRB pursued aggressive cases against large employers like Amazon, Tesla, and Starbucks before being hobbled in 2025. (reuters.com)
   • That said, Republican‑run states have also opened major fronts against corporations they consider “woke” or politically adversarial. High‑profile examples include Florida’s Republican government stripping Disney’s longtime special district after the company opposed the Parental Rights in Education (“Don’t Say Gay”) law, leading to Disney v. DeSantis and a years‑long fight over control of the Reedy Creek/Central Florida Tourism district. (en.wikipedia.org) And in Georgia, GOP officials retaliated against Delta and Coca‑Cola after the companies criticized the state’s 2021 voting law, even moving to revoke a tax break for Delta while attacking MLB over its All‑Star‑Game boycott. (en.wikipedia.org)

Why this is judged ‘right’ rather than ‘ambiguous’
Chamath’s statement had two key components:

• (A) A growing Democrats‑vs‑companies axis in politics. This has clearly materialized in the form of blue‑state and Democratic regulatory/litigation offensives against large corporations—especially fossil‑fuel and some tech and logistics giants—even if a parallel (and very visible) GOP‑vs‑corporations axis has also emerged on cultural and ESG issues.
• (B) A sustained pattern of people and businesses moving from Democratic, higher‑tax, more regulated states to Republican‑run, lower‑tax, more laissez‑faire states. Census migration tables, California’s documented exodus of residents and firms, and a string of headline corporate relocations to Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and similar jurisdictions all confirm this trend in the 2020–2025 period. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because both the political‑conflict and migration/relocation dynamics Chamath described have in fact become prominent features of U.S. politics and economics in the years since 2020—despite some important cross‑currents—the prediction is best classified as right rather than wrong, inconclusive, or fundamentally ambiguous.

Assessment of the prediction
Overall, sacks’ prediction is substantively right, though somewhat oversimplified about which states were decisive.

1. “This is going to come down to Pennsylvania and Michigan”

   • Pennsylvania and Michigan were indeed central to the outcome. They were part of the former Democratic “blue wall” that Trump flipped in 2016 and Biden needed to win back. Biden did flip both states in 2020.(local10.com)
   • When AP and major outlets called Michigan for Biden on the evening of Wednesday, November 4 (the day after Election Day), Biden’s electoral vote total rose to 264, putting him “one state away” from victory and sharply narrowing Trump’s path.(fox17online.com)
   • Four days after Election Night, on Saturday, November 7, major networks and news organizations called the national race for Biden based on his lead in Pennsylvania and the remaining ballots there, explicitly noting that the outstanding Pennsylvania vote made it essentially impossible for Trump to catch up.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Other states (notably Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada) were also close and important, so it didn’t only come down to Pennsylvania and Michigan—but those two Rust Belt states were correctly identified as pivotal parts of Biden’s path.

2. “It’s going to take days to do those counts”

   • Michigan: Absentee ballots were still being processed into the early morning of November 4, and AP didn’t call Michigan for Biden until 5:56 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 4—roughly a full day after polls closed.(local10.com)
   • Pennsylvania: Because of a huge volume of mail ballots and state rules preventing early processing, Pennsylvania’s count stretched over several days. Media organizations did not call Pennsylvania—and thus the presidency—until the morning of Saturday, November 7, four days after Election Night, explicitly citing the ongoing count there.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Official certification in Pennsylvania was not completed until November 24, underscoring how long counting and canvassing continued.(inquirer.com)
   • So the prediction that counting in these states would extend well beyond Election Night was accurate, especially for Pennsylvania.

3. “We’re probably going to end up in the courts”

   • After the election, the Trump campaign and its allies filed dozens of lawsuits across several states, with Pennsylvania and Michigan among the most litigated.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Pennsylvania alone saw numerous post‑election suits by the Trump campaign and Republican allies challenging various aspects of mail‑in ballot rules and counting; all were ultimately dismissed or dropped.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Michigan likewise had multiple lawsuits filed to halt or overturn certification, including cases such as Donald J. Trump for President v. Benson and King v. Whitmer, all of which failed.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • At the national level, Texas filed Texas v. Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to invalidate the results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states; the Court dismissed the case for lack of standing.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Thus, the outcome was heavily contested in court, exactly as predicted, even though the litigation did not change the result.

Conclusion
Sacks correctly anticipated that:

• Pennsylvania and Michigan would be central battlegrounds in determining the winner,
• vote counting there would extend past Election Night by at least a day (Michigan) and several days (Pennsylvania), and
• the result would likely be fought in the courts, particularly in those states.

While the prediction slightly overstates that only Pennsylvania and Michigan would matter, and Michigan’s projection came relatively quickly compared to Pennsylvania, the core forecast matches what actually happened. Therefore, the prediction is best judged as right.

Did Trump prematurely declare victory while the outcome was uncertain?
Yes. In the early morning of November 4, 2020, with key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia still undecided and neither candidate at 270 electoral votes, Donald Trump claimed at the White House that “frankly, we did win this election” and spoke as though he had already won. Fact-checkers and news outlets characterized this as a premature and false declaration of victory based on incomplete results. (amp.cnn.com)

How did equity markets actually react?

Overnight futures:
– A Reuters report on S&P 500 e‑mini futures noted that after Trump claimed he had won while many votes were still uncounted, “U.S. stock futures turned down” and the S&P e‑mini contract fell about 1.15%, reversing an earlier gain of roughly 1% made when Trump appeared to be winning Florida. (mix929.com)
– Nasdaq 100 futures gave back part of their earlier rally but remained up (~0.8%) even after the speech. (mix929.com)

So there was a brief, modest pullback in futures, not a multi‑percent crash or limit‑down “panic” comparable to major shock events.

Cash market afterward:
– By late morning on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, U.S. stocks were strongly higher: the S&P 500 was up more than 2–3%, the Dow around 1.7–3%, and the Nasdaq up about 3.8%, as investors focused on the likelihood of a split Congress and the perceived benefits of gridlock. (fortune.com)
– Coverage described markets as “soaring” and “sharply higher” despite the ongoing uncertainty and Trump’s premature victory claim, emphasizing that Wall Street largely looked past the contested‑election risk in favor of the policy outlook. (fortune.com)

Assessment vs. Chamath’s prediction
Chamath predicted that if Trump declared victory on election night while the outcome was still unclear, equity markets (e.g., futures) would react with panic and a sharp selloff shortly thereafter. What actually happened was:

• A short‑lived, roughly 1% dip in S&P 500 futures from earlier gains after Trump’s statement, followed by
• A strong rally in the cash equity market later that day and in subsequent sessions, with no sustained panic or sharp multi‑day selloff tied to the declaration itself.

Given that the move was modest and temporary and the overall market response was strongly positive, this falls well short of the “disaster scenario” and “panic” Chamath described.

Therefore, the prediction is wrong.

Sacks said, late on election night (Nov 3–4, 2020), that the race was “back to a coin flip” and that, with Wisconsin and Arizona then called for Biden, Trump would need to win Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania to take the presidency, while Biden would win if he carried any one of those three. In the final certified results, Biden won Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania and thus the presidency, 306–232 in the Electoral College, and under that final map it is straightforward to verify that if Arizona and Wisconsin stay with Biden, then Trump can only reach 270+ electoral votes by sweeping all three of Georgia (16 EV), Michigan (16 EV) and Pennsylvania (20 EV), whereas Biden reaches at least 270 if he wins even one of them. (en.wikipedia.org) This exactly matches the conditional structure Sacks described, and Biden’s actual path to victory—holding Arizona and Wisconsin and winning all three of those states—fell within the scenario he laid out. While his “coin flip” description of the live odds is not directly falsifiable and markets at different moments that night put each candidate well above 50%, some prediction markets around that time in fact traded in a range reasonably close to even money between Trump and Biden. (newsmax.com) Because the concretely testable part of his forecast (the electoral-vote pathways conditional on state outcomes) was accurate and the actual outcome satisfied the condition he attached to a Biden win, this prediction is best scored as “right.”

Evaluating the components of the prediction:

1. “51–49 in favor of Biden right now”
   This is framed as a slight probabilistic edge, not a guarantee. Joe Biden did, in fact, ultimately win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, so viewing him as a narrow favorite on election night was directionally correct given the outcome. Major networks and the AP projected Biden the winner on November 7, 2020, after calling Pennsylvania for him. (adweek.com)

2. “We probably have at least three more days”
   Election Day was Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and major outlets did not project a winner until Saturday, November 7—four days later—matching the forecast that it would take at least about three more days to resolve publicly. (adweek.com)

3. “Maybe a bunch of court cases” / “probably … multiple court cases” (normalized)
   After the election, Trump’s campaign and Republican allies filed dozens of lawsuits—over 60 by many counts, and over 80 by some tallies—challenging various aspects of the results in multiple states. (en.wikipedia.org) This clearly satisfies the prediction of “a bunch” / multiple court cases.

4. “We may not know who the winner is till December”
   This was explicitly framed as a possibility (“may not know”), not a confident forecast. In reality, major news organizations called the race for Biden on November 7, 2020, and he was widely treated as president‑elect from that point onward; the winner was not genuinely in doubt into December, even though formal processes (state certifications, Electoral College vote on December 14) continued. (adweek.com) This tail‑risk scenario did not occur, but it was couched as a contingent possibility rather than a mainline prediction.

5. “This may require another Supreme Court case”
   Again framed as “may.” There were indeed election‑related cases and motions at the U.S. Supreme Court, notably Texas v. Pennsylvania, filed December 8, 2020, which sought to invalidate Biden’s wins in several states; the Court dismissed it on December 11, 2020. (en.wikipedia.org) While the Court did not ultimately resolve the election in the way Bush v. Gore did in 2000, the prediction that the post‑election fight might reach the Supreme Court was borne out (even if the Court’s role proved limited and non‑decisive).

Overall assessment
The concrete, time‑bound parts of the forecast—Biden as a slight favorite, a resolution taking at least about three more days, and the emergence of numerous post‑election court cases (including at the Supreme Court level)—all aligned with what actually happened. The more dramatic scenarios (winner unknown until December, election requiring Supreme Court resolution) were described as possibilities, not firm predictions, and the Supreme Court did in fact become involved, albeit without changing the outcome.

Given that the central, non‑hedged components were accurate and the rest were framed as contingent risks, the overall prediction is best characterized as “right” rather than wrong or inconclusive.

Why this is wrong

Chamath predicted on Nov 4, 2020 that “we’re going to know tomorrow” who won the 2020 U.S. presidential election—i.e., that the winner would be known by the end of November 4, 2020 (the day after Election Day).

What actually happened:

• Election Day was Tuesday, November 3, 2020.
• As of the end of Wednesday, November 4, 2020, key states (including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina) were still not called, and major news organizations were reporting that the race remained undecided and too close in several states, with large numbers of mail-in ballots still being counted.
• Major U.S. networks and the Associated Press did not project Joe Biden as the winner until Saturday, November 7, 2020, when Pennsylvania was called for Biden, giving him enough projected Electoral College votes to win. At that point, outlets widely reported that Biden had won the presidency.

Because the race was not called and there was no broadly accepted “known” winner by the end of November 4, 2020, Chamath’s prediction that “we’re going to know tomorrow” did not come true.

Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and became the 46th President of the United States, with the Electoral College vote finalized in his favor and Congress certifying the result on January 7, 2021, followed by his inauguration on January 20, 2021. These outcomes confirm Jason’s prediction that Biden would ultimately win the 2020 election.

Why this is “right”:

• Major U.S. and international news outlets called the election for Joe Biden after he secured sufficient electoral votes in November 2020.
• The Electoral College formally cast a majority of votes for Biden in December 2020.
• Congress certified Biden’s Electoral College victory in early January 2021, and he was sworn in as president on January 20, 2021.

Thus, the prediction that Joe Biden would ultimately win the 2020 U.S. presidential election is correct.

Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump. Major news outlets and the official Electoral College results confirm that Biden secured 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, and he was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021.

Since Chamath’s prediction was that Biden would win and this did in fact occur, the prediction is right.