E18: Inauguration talk, breaking down the $1.9T stimulus, the case for recalling Gavin Newsom & more

McConnell did in fact make a notably direct statement on January 19, 2021, saying the Capitol mob was "fed lies" and "provoked by the president and other powerful people," which matches the setup Chamath described. (cnbc.com)

In the actual Senate trial, Trump was acquitted on February 13, 2021. The final vote was 57–43 in favor of conviction, 10 votes short of the two‑thirds (67) needed. Seven Republican senators broke with their party to vote to convict; Democrats would have needed 17 Republicans to join them for conviction. (en.wikipedia.org) This is more GOP defection than in Trump’s first impeachment (when only Mitt Romney voted to convict) but still far from the number required to make conviction genuinely imminent.

Chamath’s normalized prediction is that McConnell’s statement would lead enough Republicans to break ranks that the second impeachment trial "has a real chance" to result in conviction rather than acquittal. Because this is a probabilistic and vague claim about ex‑ante likelihood ("real chance") rather than a straightforward forecast that Trump would be convicted, and because we cannot directly observe the underlying probabilities or internal deliberations, its truth value cannot be determined objectively from the outcome alone. The trial ended in acquittal despite some GOP defections, so parts of his narrative (McConnell’s criticism, multiple Republicans voting to convict) materialized, but the key qualitative judgment about a "real chance" of conviction remains inherently subjective. Therefore the prediction is best classified as ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.

The prediction depended on a specific conditional scenario:

1. Core condition did not occur

   • Trump was rumored to be considering a new “Patriot Party” in January 2021, but his team explicitly disavowed any such organization and said he had no plans to leave the GOP. (snopes.com)
   • On February 28, 2021, at CPAC, Trump publicly stated: “We’re not starting new parties. We have the Republican Party. It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before” and pledged to remain within the GOP. (aljazeera.com)
   • No Trump-led “Patriot Party” attracting ~20 million defectors from the GOP was ever formed between 2021–2024, and Republicans instead largely re‑embraced Trump.

2. The forecast was about what would happen if that split occurred
   Friedberg’s statement was explicitly hypothetical: if Republicans “kick Trump out” and he creates a fringe party, then Democrats would move further left and the U.S. would become “a very different America in the next 2 to 3 years.” Since the antecedent (formal expulsion plus a large Trumpist third party) never materialized, we cannot directly test his causal claim about how party ideologies would have shifted under that counterfactual.

3. Why this is not just ‘wrong’
   Labeling it “wrong” would imply the described scenario happened and his downstream effects failed to appear. Instead, the scenario itself did not occur, so we learn little about the accuracy of the conditional claim about party movement and polarization; we only know the trigger conditions weren’t met.

Because enough time has passed (2021–2024) but the predicted conditional scenario never actually came to pass, the accuracy of the prediction cannot be determined from real‑world outcomes.

Conclusion: ambiguous — the key precondition (a Trump‑led Patriot Party splitting the GOP) never occurred, so the scenario he was forecasting about party shifts and polarization cannot be evaluated.

The prediction is explicitly conditional: it describes what would happen if Donald Trump were to create a new third party (e.g., a “Patriot Party”) that splits the right-of-center vote. As of late 2025, Trump has not created or led a formal third party; he has remained within the Republican Party and run as its nominee, rather than heading a separate Patriot Party or similar.

Because the triggering condition (Trump forming a third party that fractures the GOP vote) never occurred, we can’t evaluate the stated consequence (“Republicans would basically lose every election… from now until Trump is no longer a force”). The scenario simply hasn’t happened, so the prediction can’t be judged as right or wrong.

Therefore, the correct classification is inconclusive (too early / untriggered condition) rather than right, wrong, or ambiguous in hindsight.

By late 2025, large U.S. tech platforms such as Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook) remain conventional, highly profitable, shareholder-owned corporations whose core behavior is still profit maximization, despite increased regulatory and political pressure.

Evidence:

• Alphabet (Google)

  • Alphabet’s revenue and profits have grown substantially since 2021. For 2024 it reported about $350 billion in revenue (up ~14% YoY), with operating income of ~$112 billion and net income of ~$100 billion, reflecting very strong margins and cash generation. (assetroom.net)
  • Q4 2024 earnings showed continued double‑digit revenue growth and rising operating margins, with tens of billions in free cash flow and large share repurchases—classic profit-maximizing behavior. (finance.yahoo.com)
  • Alphabet’s market value has surged; recent analysis describes it as nearing a $4 trillion valuation and emphasizes its entrenched dominance and monetization power, not any transformation away from being a normal private profit-driven company. (barrons.com)

• Meta Platforms (Facebook)

  • Meta’s gross profit has also grown strongly: 2024 gross profit was about $134 billion, up 23% from 2023, with further double‑digit growth into 2025, indicating a thriving ad‑driven business. (macrotrends.net)
  • Equity analysts in 2025 still frame Meta purely as a return‑seeking investment, projecting significant upside based on ad monetization and AI‑driven improvements to its ad business, again underscoring its status as a standard profit‑maximizing firm. (marketwatch.com)

• Regulation vs. business model

  • The EU’s Digital Markets Act and similar measures have imposed stricter obligations on big platforms (e.g., data‑sharing, interoperability, self‑preferencing limits), and U.S. authorities have brought antitrust suits (such as United States v. Google LLC over ad tech). (en.wikipedia.org)
  • However, these actions have not turned the companies into public utilities, non‑profits, or otherwise fundamentally altered them so that they are “not allowed to be companies.” They remain listed corporations, with boards, shareholders, and strategies focused on maximizing earnings and market value.

Timing matters as well: the quote (“will not be allowed to be companies much longer”) was made in January 2021. As of November 2025—almost five years later—Alphabet and Meta are larger, more profitable, and more valuable than at the time of the prediction, and still operate in their familiar corporate form under capitalism.

Because the core claim that these platforms would no longer be allowed to operate as normal profit‑maximizing private companies has clearly not materialized by now, the prediction is wrong.

By late 2025, major U.S. big tech platforms (e.g., Alphabet/Google, Meta/Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) remain highly profitable, independent commercial enterprises—not quasi-nonprofits or quasi-governmental utilities operating primarily on behalf of national governments.

Evidence:

1. They remain strongly for‑profit, with massive earnings and market caps.

   • Alphabet (Google) reported tens of billions in annual net income and maintains a market capitalization well over a trillion dollars, driven by advertising and cloud profits.
   • Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft similarly report large operating margins and high stock valuations, driven by commercial business strategies rather than utility‑style rate regulation or cost‑plus models. (Any up‑to‑date earnings reports for these firms show substantial net income, confirming they are not operating as quasi‑nonprofits.)

2. Regulation has increased, but not to the level of turning them into utilities.

   • In the U.S., there have been antitrust lawsuits (e.g., against Google and Meta) and hearings, plus discussions of platform regulation and content moderation rules, but Congress has not passed comprehensive federal legislation that reclassifies the major platforms as public utilities or imposes utility‑style rate or profit controls.
   • In the EU, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) impose significant obligations on large platforms (gatekeepers) but explicitly leave them as private, for‑profit entities competing in markets; they are not converted into state‑directed utilities or non‑profit service arms of governments.

3. Corporate control and strategic autonomy remain private.

   • Boards of directors and executive teams are appointed and removed via standard corporate governance and shareholder mechanisms, not by governments. No major U.S. platform has been nationalized, converted into a government‑chartered public utility, or required to operate on a non‑profit basis.
   • These firms routinely make strategic decisions (e.g., product changes, pricing, acquisitions, layoffs, advertising policies) primarily to optimize revenue, growth, or shareholder value, often in tension with government preferences and sometimes actively litigating against regulators.

4. Relationship to governments is regulatory and adversarial, not an operational arm.

   • While big tech firms must comply with laws (privacy, competition, content, data access), they are not operating “on behalf of” governments in the way a quasi‑governmental utility would. They are regulated private intermediaries, frequently challenging rules in court and lobbying to shape legislation.

Because:

• No major U.S. big tech firm has been structurally transformed into a quasi‑governmental utility or quasi‑nonprofit.
• They still operate as highly profitable, shareholder‑driven corporations with substantial autonomy.
• Regulatory burdens, though heavier than in 2021, have not reached the level of effectively converting their role into that of government utilities.

The prediction that, within several years of 2021, these platforms would function as quasi‑governmental, quasi‑nonprofit utilities working largely on behalf of governments is therefore wrong.

As of November 29, 2025, major U.S. tech platforms like Facebook/Meta, Google/YouTube, X (Twitter), etc. have not been classified or regulated as public utilities or common carriers under U.S. federal law.

Key points:

• There is no federal statute or FCC rule that designates social media or search platforms as public utilities or common carriers. They remain primarily governed by the Communications Act framework (including Section 230) and general competition/consumer-protection law, not utility-style rate or nondiscrimination regulation. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Texas’s HB 20 explicitly claims large social media platforms are common carriers and imposes nondiscrimination duties, and Florida passed a similar law; these are the closest moves toward utility-style obligations. (en.wikipedia.org) However, the U.S. Supreme Court in Moody v. NetChoice (covering both the Texas and Florida cases) vacated the lower-court rulings and remanded, while leaving injunctions in place, so neither law is in force. (en.wikipedia.org) The Court did not endorse treating platforms as common carriers or utilities.
• Other recent laws, such as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act targeting TikTok, or various state child-safety and age-verification statutes (many of which are being blocked in court), are narrow, issue-specific regulations, not a general public-utility regime applied to “major big tech platforms.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Commentary and legal analysis continue to stress that social media and search companies are not public utilities and argue against imposing utility-style or common-carrier regulation on them. (wired.com)
• Even for broadband ISPs—where utility-style treatment has the strongest foothold—an attempt to reimpose Title II/common-carrier classification and net neutrality rules was struck down by the Sixth Circuit in Ohio Telecom Association v. FCC in 2025, underscoring judicial resistance to expanding utility-style regulation rather than cementing it. (en.wikipedia.org)

Given that, by several years after the 2021 prediction, major platforms have not been regulated in a manner similar to public utilities in the U.S., and the leading efforts to move in that direction are either blocked or not in effect, the prediction is best classified as wrong for the implied "coming years" timeframe.

Under Biden, the TikTok issue was not “swept under the rug,” and the U.S. did impose meaningful restrictions and a sale‑or‑ban framework on TikTok.

Key facts:

1. Revoking Trump’s specific EOs but keeping the national‑security focus. In June 2021, President Biden revoked Trump’s executive orders that attempted to ban TikTok and WeChat, but he replaced them with a new order directing the Commerce Department to systematically review and potentially restrict “connected software applications” tied to foreign adversaries. This continued, rather than abandoned, the security scrutiny of TikTok and similar apps.

2. Federal device ban. On December 29, 2022, Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act into law, which prohibits TikTok on all federal government devices (with narrow exceptions). That is an explicit, nationwide legal restriction on where TikTok can operate within the federal system, not “no restrictions.” (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Divest‑or‑ban national law specifically targeting TikTok. On April 24, 2024, Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA). The law:

   • Explicitly designates TikTok/ByteDance as foreign‑adversary‑controlled applications.
   • Requires ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations by January 19, 2025 or face a ban.
   • Prohibits app‑store distribution, hosting, maintenance, and updates for such apps in the U.S. unless a “qualified divestiture” occurs. These are substantial legal restrictions on TikTok’s operation in the United States. (en.wikipedia.org)

4. Supreme Court and enforcement posture. In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this law, confirming that the divest‑or‑ban regime is constitutional. The Biden administration chose not to personally carry out the final enforcement steps right before leaving office and instead left day‑to‑day enforcement timing to the incoming Trump administration, but the restrictive legal framework itself was crafted, signed, and defended by Biden’s team. (reuters.com)

Given that the Biden administration (a) signed a federal law banning TikTok on government devices and (b) signed and defended a statute that forces TikTok’s sale or a nationwide ban, the prediction that “there’ll be no restrictions on TikTok” and that the Trump‑era sanctions push would be “swept under the rug” is not borne out by events.

Therefore, the prediction is wrong.

As of November 29, 2025, we are only about 4–5 years into Chamath’s stated 10–20 year window ("in the next ten and 20 years" from 2021), so the forecast period extends roughly to 2031–2041. The core claims are:

1. The U.S. will “re‑emerge like a phoenix” economically over that window.
2. The main drivers will be innovation in climate tech, agriculture, biotech, and technology.
3. This will generate on the order of $20–30T of GDP per year over that 10–20 year period, for $300–500T cumulative additional GDP.

By late 2025:

• U.S. nominal GDP is around $28T and has grown since 2021, but the full 10–20 year trajectory and whether cumulative $300–500T of additional GDP tied specifically to those sectors will materialize cannot yet be evaluated.
• Innovation and investment are indeed strong in climate tech, AI/technology, and biotech, but it’s far too early to attribute long‑run GDP outcomes over 2021–2041.

Because the forecast interval is still ongoing and the quantitative claim is about the entire 10–20 year period, it is too early to judge the prediction as right or wrong. Therefore the appropriate status is inconclusive (too early).

Public records from the California Secretary of State show that the recall petition against Governor Gavin Newsom surpassed the required 1,495,709 valid signatures in April 2021, with 1,626,042 verified at that stage, explicitly stating that the threshold to trigger the recall had been met. (sos.ca.gov) After the subsequent withdrawal period, counties reported that 1,719,900 verified signatures remained—still above the requirement—prompting the Secretary of State to notify the Department of Finance that enough signatures remained to initiate a recall election. (sos.ca.gov) On July 1, 2021, the Secretary of State certified the recall petition with 1,719,900 valid signatures out of 2,161,349 submitted, and the Lieutenant Governor then set the recall election date for September 14, 2021. (sos.ca.gov) A statewide gubernatorial recall election was in fact held on September 14, 2021. (en.wikipedia.org) Since the normalized prediction only claims that the recall petition would successfully qualify and trigger a recall election in 2021—not that Newsom would be removed from office—this prediction is right.

Public records show that organizers of the Gavin Newsom recall submitted about 2,117,730 signatures by the extended deadline of March 17, 2021.(mynspr.org) The legal requirement was 1,495,709 valid signatures.(sos.ca.gov) After county officials completed verification, the California Secretary of State reported 1,626,042 valid signatures, comfortably above the required threshold, all drawn from petitions turned in by the March 17 deadline.(kcra.com) This implies a statewide validity rate of roughly the high‑70% range, consistent with contemporaneous reports of validity rates in the mid‑70s to low‑80s.(latimes.com) The Secretary of State formally announced on April 26, 2021 that the recall had qualified for the ballot, confirming that the threshold of verified signatures had indeed been met based on the petitions filed by March 17.(sos.ca.gov) Since Friedberg’s normalized prediction was that the recall would still end up with enough valid signatures by the March 17, 2021 deadline—even under lower verification‑rate scenarios—and in fact the campaign did meet and exceed the necessary number of valid signatures from submissions by that date, the prediction is best scored as right.

Evidence shows that the recall petition did obtain enough certified signatures, but the timing of the recall election was substantially different from the prediction.

• On 26 April 2021, the California Secretary of State announced that counties had reported 1,626,042 verified signatures for the Newsom recall, exceeding the 1,495,709 required and thus meeting the threshold to trigger a recall process.(sos.ca.gov)
• On 1 July 2021, the Secretary of State formally certified the recall petition as sufficient, reporting 1,719,900 valid signatures.(sos.ca.gov)
• That same day, the lieutenant governor set the recall election date for 14 September 2021, which was 76 days (about two and a half months) after certification, not 4–5 months, and not in July as forecast.(timesofsandiego.com)

So while the forecast correctly anticipated that the recall petition would qualify, it specifically predicted an election roughly 4–5 months after certification and "looking at July". In reality, the election was held in mid‑September 2021, about 2.5 months after certification. Because the core dated part of the prediction (July timing and 4–5 month lag) was wrong, the overall prediction is rated wrong.