E103: Tech layoffs surge, big tech freezes hiring, optimizing for profits, election preview & more

Two key parts of Friedberg’s conditional scenario did not materialize in the 2023–2024 window he specified.

1. Musk making Twitter/X “much more profitable” via deep cuts and setting a new profitability benchmark
   Musk did execute extremely deep layoffs—roughly half the staff was cut in late 2022. (en.wikipedia.org) However, in 2023–2024 X’s business performance deteriorated rather than becoming a standout profitability model:

• Ad revenue and total revenue fell sharply after the takeover. External data show X’s ad sales for 2023 projected around $2.5–2.9 billion versus about $4.7 billion in ad revenue in the last four quarters before Musk took over, with Musk himself citing roughly a 50–60% drop in ad revenue and negative cash flow. (investing.com)
• Detailed analyses of X’s finances show revenue declining from about $4.4 billion in 2022 to $3.4 billion in 2023 and $2.6 billion in 2024, indicating a shrinking, not dramatically more profitable, business. (businesstechweekly.com)
• Local subsidiaries such as the UK and India units reported large revenue collapses and steep profit declines despite massive workforce reductions, contradicting the idea that the cuts quickly yielded exceptional profitability. (theguardian.com)
  Within 2023–2024, X was generally portrayed as struggling with revenue loss, advertiser boycotts and high debt service, not as setting a “new standard” for tech profitability.

2. A flurry of PE buyouts of distressed small/mid-cap software firms explicitly emulating the “Elon playbook” (2023–2024)
   There was notable private‑equity public‑to‑private activity, but its pattern and stated drivers don’t match the prediction:

• Across all sectors, global PE take‑privates hit a 16‑year high in 2023, driven mainly by depressed public valuations, SPAC delistings and attractive pricing—standard market-dislocation reasons, not Musk/X. (spglobal.com)
• In tech/software specifically, 2023 PE tech M&A and take‑privates fell versus 2021–2022; a Cooley review notes PE’s share of tech M&A hit a six‑year low, with only 16 U.S. tech take‑privates in 2023 and major sponsors like Thoma Bravo and Vista stepping back compared to 2022. (mondaq.com)
• Software take‑privates in 2023–2024 (Qualtrics, New Relic, EngageSmart, etc.) are discussed in deal reports as responses to valuation gaps, interest‑rate dynamics and AI/strategic fit, not as intentional copies of Musk’s Twitter cost‑cutting; sector overviews attribute the activity to cheap public valuations and financing conditions. (ionanalytics.com)
• Broader management commentary explicitly warns against “mimicking Musk’s playbook” of mass layoffs, framing his approach as a cautionary reference rather than a model PE firms are following. (forbes.com)

Because (a) X/Twitter did not clearly become “much more profitable” or a widely recognized benchmark for tech profitability in 2023–2024, and (b) there is no evidence of a PE “flurry” in distressed small/mid‑cap software driven by explicit imitation of Musk’s Twitter cost‑cutting—even though sufficient time has passed—the prediction’s envisioned scenario did not occur. Therefore it is best classified as wrong.

Evidence about deal volumes and market structure indicates that Chamath’s prediction did not come close to playing out at the scale he described.

Chamath’s premise was based on a chart of roughly 200 public software companies; he argued that about two‑thirds of the unprofitable names had “no line of sight” to profitability in 2–3 years and that around 100 of those public software firms might end up as PE deals (take‑privates) as a result.(moneymorning.com) The user’s normalized prediction matches this: on the order of 100 of those ~200 names leaving public markets via PE‑led take‑privates or similarly punitive capital raises over the 2023–2025 window.

What actually happened:

• Cooley’s 2024 Tech M&A review reports only 19 take‑privates of US‑listed tech companies by PE sponsors in 2024, 16 in 2023, and 21 in each of 2021 and 2022—about 77 total across all US‑listed tech, not just SaaS/software, over four years.(cooleyma.com) Even if every single 2023–2024 tech take‑private were one of Chamath’s 200 software names (an unrealistic upper bound), the count would still be well below 100.
• TechCrunch, citing PitchBook, similarly notes 136 PE‑led take‑private deals across all sectors in 2023 and 97 such deals by mid‑2024, 46 of which were in technology.(techcrunch.com) This aligns with Cooley’s much smaller US‑tech subset and confirms that the entire global tech take‑private pipeline is too small for 100 of one specific 200‑company basket to have disappeared.
• S&P Global/Preqin show that global public‑to‑private deal counts hit a 16‑year high in 2023 with 96 PE take‑privates year‑to‑date by late October, across all industries. Software was a favored sector, but still just a slice of that 96.(spglobal.com) Again, this total is inconsistent with ~100 companies from one sub‑index alone being taken private in 2–3 years.
• By early‑to‑mid 2025, M&A commentators are still talking about an expected or upcoming wave of software/SaaS consolidation driven by AI and depressed valuations—language that would not be used if a 100‑company take‑private purge had already occurred.(ionanalytics.com)
• Many of the sort of cloud/SaaS names that appear in public‑software baskets (Amplitude, Freshworks, Procore, Toast and others) are still public in late 2025, with normal trading and ongoing operations, not taken private or forced into visible “egregious” rescue financings.(trueup.io)

Putting the data together:

1. Across the entire US‑listed tech universe there were on the order of dozens, not hundreds, of PE take‑privates from 2021–2024, and an even smaller number if you restrict to software/SaaS.
2. It is mathematically impossible for ~100 of Chamath’s specific ~200 public software companies to have exited via PE take‑privates in 2023–2025, given the aggregate deal counts.
3. The broader prediction that “all” the unprofitable companies would be forced into capital at “very egregious terms” or PE exits also hasn’t materialized: many firms instead cut costs, slowed growth, and remained public while capital markets (including converts and follow‑ons) and valuations partially recovered.

Because both the scale (≈100 take‑privates out of ~200) and the mechanism (broadly forced PE exits or punitive financings within 2–3 years) are contradicted by observed deal volumes and by the continued public listing of many of these companies by late 2025, the prediction is best classified as wrong.

Available data on private‑equity take‑private activity in software/tech shows nowhere near ~100 buyouts of the kind Friedberg envisioned within 18–24 months of November 2022, especially not concentrated in a universe of ~200 public software names.

Key points:

• PitchBook data cited by TechCrunch shows 136 total PE‑led take‑private deals across all sectors in 2023, and 97 such deals by mid‑2024, with only 46 of those 97 in the technology sector (not just software). This implies perhaps on the order of a few dozen tech/software take‑privates per year globally, not ~100 just within 200 specific software stocks. (longportapp.com)
• A Q1 2023 U.S. PE breakdown notes that software take‑privates comprised about half of just 10 public‑to‑private deals announced that quarter (so ~5 software take‑privates in Q1 2023), underscoring that the quarterly run‑rate for software take‑privates was in the single digits, not anywhere close to the pace needed to hit 100 in two years for one narrow cohort. (scribd.com)
• Well‑known examples of PE take‑privates of public software companies in that window include Zendesk (taken private November 2022 by a Hellman & Friedman/Permira consortium), Qualtrics (Silver Lake and CPP Investments, 2023), Sumo Logic and New Relic (Francisco Partners/TPG, 2023), among others. (en.wikipedia.org) Publicly tracked transactions of this kind number in the dozens globally, not ~100 just from a list of ~200 public software firms followed by the podcast.
• Because the entire global universe of PE‑led tech/software take‑privates during Nov 2022–Nov 2024 is well under 100, it is mathematically impossible that roughly 100 such buyouts occurred solely within the ~200 public software companies the hosts were discussing.

Given these sector‑wide deal counts and the visibility of large take‑privates, Friedberg’s forecast of "100 PE deals" (buyouts) in that specific public‑software cohort within 18–24 months clearly did not materialize.

Macroeconomic data show that the U.S. did not enter a sharp, economy‑wide recession starting in late 2022.

• Output kept growing instead of contracting. Revised BEA figures show real U.S. GDP grew 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023, and about 2.8% in 2024, rather than falling or stagnating as in a deep recession. (apps.bea.gov) Quarterly data likewise show solid positive growth in late 2022 and strong growth in 2023 Q3 (5.2% annualized). (bea.gov)
• No official recession was dated after the COVID slump. The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee identifies the most recent trough as April 2020 and continues to classify the period since May 2020 as an expansion, with no later recession episode designated through 2025. (nber.org)
• The labor market stayed historically tight. The unemployment rate hovered around 3.5–3.9% in 2022–23 and only gradually rose to roughly 4.0–4.2% in 2024–early 2025, still low by historical standards and inconsistent with a "significant" recession and economy "off a cliff." (federalreserve.gov)
• Contemporary analyses described a soft landing, not a deep downturn. Major forecasters and media noted that the U.S. avoided the widely expected 2023 recession and was on track for, or had largely achieved, a soft landing—inflation falling while growth and employment remained resilient. (cnbc.com)
• Forward-looking forecasts still show modest growth, not a slump. BEA data into 2025 and OECD projections for 2025–26 point to slowing but positive GDP growth, not the aftermath of a deep, economy‑wide contraction. (bea.gov)

Some sectors—especially tech—did experience pronounced layoffs and a cyclical cooldown, which matches the sectoral mood in late 2022. But at the whole‑economy level the U.S. experienced a slowdown from the post‑COVID boom, not the severe, broad recession implied by “headed off a cliff” and a deep, economy‑wide slump. Therefore, the prediction is wrong.

Sacks predicted in November 2022 that the U.S. was at the start of a long cycle of rising unemployment and entering a “really serious” recession that would be deeper and more sustained than the brief technical recession earlier in 2022.

Unemployment path: The unemployment rate in late 2022 was about 3.6%. BLS data show it only inched up over the following years: around 3.8% by Q4 2023 and 4.2% by Q4 2024, with the 2023 labor market described by BLS as still strong and unemployment “low by historical standards.”(bls.gov)(bls.gov) By mid‑2025, unemployment was roughly 4.0–4.4%, the highest in a few years but still moderate, with ongoing (if slower) job growth and reports emphasizing labor‑market resilience rather than a collapse.(reuters.com)(reuters.com) That represents a mild, gradual rise rather than the kind of sharp, prolonged spike typically associated with a severe recession.

Recession severity: After the two quarters of negative GDP in early 2022, real GDP turned positive and grew through late 2022 and all of 2023–2024, with annual growth around 2–3% and strong consumer spending.(bea.gov)(apnews.com)(barrons.com) In 2025, GDP contracted modestly in Q1 but then rebounded strongly in Q2, so there has not been a multi‑quarter contraction. Independent of the “two quarters” rule, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s business‑cycle chronology still shows the last U.S. recession ending in April 2020, with no new recession dated through 2025.(nber.org) Major coverage in 2025 likewise notes that, as of late 2025, the U.S. is not officially in recession, even though some indicators weakened.(ft.com)

Taken together, the U.S. did not experience a deep, sustained recession after November 2022, and unemployment rose only modestly from very low levels rather than entering a pronounced, long‑running upcycle. The core of Sacks’s prediction—an imminent, "really serious" recession worse than the brief 2022 episode—has not materialized, so the prediction is best judged wrong overall.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate was 3.7% in December 2023, only slightly above 3.5–3.7% in late 2022 (e.g., 3.6% in November 2022 and 3.5% in December 2022), and never reached 5–6% at any point in 2023. (bls.gov)

Since the prediction was that by the end of 2023 unemployment would have risen from the low‑3% range to approximately 5–6%, and the actual rate was still in the high‑3% range, the prediction did not come true.

Chamath updated his view in November 2022, saying that instead of the worst being over by mid‑2023, rates could stay high and “we could be in this market till early 25.”

Interest‑rate path (“rates could be higher for much longer”) – largely correct

• The Fed continued hiking through July 2023, taking the federal funds target range to 5.25%–5.50% and then holding near that peak well into 2024, much longer than a mid‑2023 “all clear.” (forbes.com)
• The first clear easing phase came only in late 2024, with consecutive cuts down to 4.25%–4.50% at the December 2024 FOMC meeting. (jpmorgan.com)
• Even the Fed’s own projections in March 2025 still had the policy rate around 3.9% for year‑end 2025, versus a longer‑run neutral estimate just above 3%, implying policy would remain somewhat restrictive through 2025. (federalreserve.gov)
  Taken literally, the claim that rates would be “higher for much longer” and remain elevated into early 2025 is broadly borne out.

Financing conditions and “tough macro environment” to early 2025 – mostly not borne out

• By early 2025, multiple indicators show financial conditions were not especially tight. The Chicago Fed’s National Financial Conditions Index was significantly negative (around ‑0.5), which the Fed defines as looser than average conditions. (fred.stlouisfed.org) A January 2025 Reuters analysis noted that despite a still‑high policy rate, markets, credit spreads, and risk assets pointed to “somewhat accommodative” or historically easy conditions. (reuters.com)
• For broad public‑market investors, conditions were far from “tough”: the S&P 500 delivered strong total returns of roughly +26% in 2023, +25% in 2024, and +17% in 2025, a three‑year run more consistent with a bull market than with a prolonged macro squeeze. (slickcharts.com)
• For private markets and startups, 2023 was indeed very difficult: global VC funding fell about 38% from 2022 to 2023. (news.crunchbase.com) But the environment began to improve before early 2025. Global VC investment rose again in 2024 (to roughly $350–370B, with the U.S. recording its third‑highest VC total in 20 years) and then accelerated further in the first half of 2025, with global PE/VC‑backed funding up about 25% year‑over‑year. (kpmg.com) That pattern looks like a funding slump followed by stabilization and recovery, not an unbroken period of severe tightness through early 2025.

Why the verdict is “ambiguous”

• One part of the prediction—that policy rates would stay elevated well past mid‑2023 and into early 2025—was essentially right.
• The stronger claim that tight financing and a broadly “tough macro environment” for companies and investors would persist all the way to early 2025 does not match what actually happened: by 2023–2024 the U.S. economy achieved a soft‑landing‑type outcome with strong equity returns, easing financial‑conditions indices, and a recovering (though more selective) funding market.

Because the forecast bundles an accurate call on the duration of high rates with an overstated call on the persistence of tight, punishing conditions for investors and companies, its overall accuracy depends heavily on how you interpret “this market.” That makes the prediction neither cleanly right nor cleanly wrong, so “ambiguous” is the most defensible classification.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the official arbiter of U.S. business cycles, the most recent U.S. recession ran from a peak in February 2020 to a trough in April 2020. NBER’s chronology shows no subsequent recession dates after April 2020, meaning the U.S. economy has been in an expansion since May 2020 and did not enter a new recession in late 2022 or during 2023–2024. (nber.org)

Macroeconomic data back this up. Real GDP growth remained positive year‑over‑year throughout 2022–2024, with U.S. real GDP growing 1.9% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2023, and continuing to grow at roughly 2–3% annual rates into 2024–2025. (ycharts.com) Labor-market indicators also stayed relatively strong: the unemployment rate was in the mid‑3% range through 2023 and averaged around 4.0% in 2024—levels typically associated with expansion, not a deep, multi‑year recession. (statistico.com)

Because the U.S. never actually entered the kind of broad, officially recognized recession he described in late 2022, the prediction that “this recession” would last about two years (through late 2024) did not come true in macroeconomic terms.

The prediction of a broad 2022 midterm “Republican wave” significantly outperforming Democrats across federal races did not come true.

In the U.S. House, Republicans gained only a small majority—222–213, a net pickup of 9 seats—far short of a landslide or wave outcome. (en.wikipedia.org) In the U.S. Senate, Democrats expanded their majority from a 50–50 split to a 51–49 edge by flipping Pennsylvania and holding all other vulnerable seats, directly contradicting the idea of a Republican wave across federal contests. (en.wikipedia.org)

At the broader 2022 election level, major analyses noted that the widely anticipated “red wave” failed to materialize: Democrats outperformed historical midterm patterns, gaining a Senate seat and suffering only modest House losses, while also achieving a net gain in governorships—an unusually strong showing for the president’s party. (en.wikipedia.org) Because Republicans achieved only a narrow House majority and underperformed expectations in the Senate and many key statewide races, the outcome does not match the prediction of a broad Republican wave beyond a narrow chamber win.

Sacks predicted that in the November 8, 2022 U.S. midterms, Republicans would gain control of both chambers of Congress, picking up roughly four net Senate seats by winning in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and New Hampshire, and gaining about 31 House seats. In fact, the 2022 elections resulted in a Democratic hold of the U.S. Senate, with Democrats achieving a net gain of one seat rather than Republicans gaining four. (en.wikipedia.org) Republicans also failed to win the key Senate races he named: Democrats Mark Kelly in Arizona, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Raphael Warnock in Georgia, and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire all won re‑election. (en.wikipedia.org) Republicans did gain a narrow majority in the House, but their net gain was 9 seats (ending at 222 Republicans vs. 213 Democrats), far short of the roughly 31 seats he cited. (en.wikipedia.org) Because Republicans did not capture the Senate, did not gain four net Senate seats or win the specific races he pointed to, and significantly under‑shot the projected House seat gain, the overall prediction is best classified as wrong, despite correctly anticipating a GOP House majority in general terms.

Republicans did in fact win a majority in the U.S. House in the November 8, 2022 midterm elections, securing 222 seats to Democrats’ 213, giving them control of the chamber.【(en.wikipedia.org)】 That makes the categorical part of Chamath’s prediction (“Republicans will have the majority in the House”) correct. For the Senate, Democrats ultimately retained and slightly expanded their control, ending up with an effective 51–49 majority in the new Senate after all 2022 races (including the Georgia runoff) were decided.【(en.wikipedia.org)】 However, Chamath did not say Republicans would definitely win the Senate; he said there was a plurality/material chance they would. Contemporary evidence shows that this was true at the time: FiveThirtyEight’s final Senate forecast on the eve of the election gave Republicans a slight edge, projecting on average about 50.9 GOP seats (essentially a 51–49 GOP Senate), meaning the model’s most likely single outcome was Republican control.【(fivethirtyeight.com)】 Betting markets on election day similarly priced the combined outcome of a Republican House and Republican Senate as the most likely scenario, with odds around -250 at Caesars, higher than for any other House/Senate combination, which implies a clear plurality (indeed majority) probability for GOP Senate control conditional on the broader election.【(covers.com)】 So: (1) his concrete outcome call on the House was borne out by events, and (2) his statement about there being a ‘plurality of scenarios’ in which Republicans also win the Senate accurately reflected mainstream probabilistic forecasts and market odds at the time. Taken together, the prediction as normalized is best classified as right.

Republicans did in fact win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 8, 2022 midterm elections, securing a narrow majority (222 seats to Democrats’ 213). This matches the prediction that the House would “almost certainly go Republican.”

For the Senate, Democrats retained control: the post-election Senate was effectively 51–49 in Democrats’ favor (including independents who caucus with Democrats), after Democrats held all their seats and flipped Pennsylvania. Republicans did not win the Senate. However, the prediction here was probabilistic: roughly a 55% chance that Republicans would win the Senate. A 55% probability event failing to occur is fully consistent with the prediction; it does not make the forecast wrong, only indicates that the less likely outcome (Democrats holding the Senate) happened in this particular realization.

Since:

• The categorical prediction about the House was correct, and
• The Senate statement was an explicitly probabilistic forecast with a modest edge (55%) that failed in this instance but is still within expectations for such probabilities,

the overall prediction, interpreted as a forecast rather than a categorical claim about the Senate, should be judged right in terms of calibration and outcome on the main discrete claim (House control).

The prediction described a plausible outcome in which, if a Republican wave materialized in the November 8, 2022 midterms, the U.S. Senate could end up around 55–45 in favor of Republicans instead of a closely divided 51–49 split.

What actually happened:

• In the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, Democrats retained control of the Senate.
• After the elections and the December 2022 Georgia runoff, the effective balance of power was 51–49 in favor of Democrats (including independents who caucus with Democrats). Multiple major outlets report this 51–49 Democratic majority as the final result of the 2022 Senate map.
• There was no Republican wave in the Senate; Republicans did not expand their seat count to anything close to 55, nor did they even gain control of the chamber.

Because the scenario described (a GOP wave leading to a 55–45 Republican Senate) did not occur, and the actual outcome was the opposite (a 51–49 Democratic majority), the prediction about the resulting Senate composition is wrong in terms of realized outcome.

Official 2022 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate election results show that Democrat John Fetterman defeated Republican Mehmet Oz on November 8, 2022, winning roughly 51.2% to 46.3% of the vote and flipping the seat from Republican to Democrat. (ballotwire.com)

Sacks predicted that Oz would win and that the seat would tip to Republicans. In reality, the opposite occurred: Fetterman won and the seat tipped away from Republicans, helping Democrats maintain their Senate majority. (apnews.com)

The 2022 U.S. Senate election in Ohio, held on November 8, 2022, was won by Republican candidate J.D. Vance, who defeated Democratic candidate Tim Ryan. This meant the Ohio Senate seat was held by the Republican Party following the election, matching the prediction that “Ohio is going Republican.”

Official results for the 2022 Arizona U.S. Senate election show that incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly won re‑election on November 8, 2022, with about 51.4% of the vote (1,322,027 votes) to Republican Blake Masters’ 46.5% (1,196,308 votes).(en.wikipedia.org) Blake Masters is explicitly described in post‑election coverage as having been defeated by Kelly by roughly a 4.9‑point margin and later conceding the race.(en.wikipedia.org)

The prediction claimed that the race would be extremely close and that Blake Masters would ultimately win. While the race was competitive, Kelly’s near‑5‑point victory and clear status as the winner mean the core prediction—Masters winning—did not come true.

Breakdown of the prediction vs. what happened (2023–2024):

1. Divided government with Republicans in Congress and Biden as president

   • After the 2022 midterms, Republicans won a narrow majority in the House while Democrats retained control of the Senate, and Joe Biden remained president. This created divided government for the remainder of Biden’s term covered by the 118th Congress (Jan 2023–Jan 2025). (en.wikipedia.org)
   • The quote says Republicans would “control Congress,” which is imprecise (they controlled only the House), but the core point—divided government rather than unified Democratic control—was correct.

2. “Largely in a gridlock situation”

   • With split partisan control, there were repeated showdowns over the debt ceiling, appropriations, and shutdown threats, and Biden was unable to pass anything comparable in scale or ambition to his early-term partisan bills like the American Rescue Plan or Inflation Reduction Act. (justapedia.org)
   • Nonetheless, important bipartisan legislation did pass, including the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (debt‑ceiling deal with spending caps) and the annual National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2024, along with multiple continuing resolutions and other bills. (justapedia.org)
   • So politics were often gridlocked on big new initiatives, but not so gridlocked that Congress stopped legislating altogether. Describing it as “largely” gridlocked is directionally reasonable.

3. “Orgy of spending and money printing … is going to stop”

   • Federal spending/deficits: The overall federal deficit rose after the midterms: from about $1.4T in FY 2022 to $1.7T in 2023 and $1.8T in 2024, with total outlays also rising. (en.wikipedia.org) In other words, the aggregate fiscal “orgy of spending” did not stop; deficits stayed very large and actually increased versus 2022.
   • What did change is that the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 imposed statutory caps on discretionary spending for FY 2024–2025, cut non‑defense discretionary spending below 2023 levels, and clawed back some unspent COVID and IRS funds. (budget.house.gov) That’s a move toward restraint on new discretionary spending, but it didn’t meaningfully halt overall high federal spending driven by entitlements and interest.
   • Money printing: Here the prediction was accurate. The Federal Reserve had already ended quantitative easing and by mid‑2022 was in quantitative tightening, shrinking its balance sheet. Between March 2023 and September 2023 the balance sheet fell from about $8.7T to $8.0T, and it continued down to around $7.1T by September 2024 and $6.7T by March 2025—a cumulative reduction of roughly $2+ trillion from the 2022 peak. (federalreserve.gov) This is the opposite of “money printing,” so the claim that aggressive money creation would stop (and reverse) did come true.

4. Republican investigations, including into COVID

   • In January 2023, with their new House majority, Republicans rechartered the existing COVID oversight panel as the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, explicitly tasked with investigating COVID’s origins, gain‑of‑function research, pandemic spending, and mandates. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • The subcommittee conducted dozens of hearings, depositions, and document requests; probed figures like Anthony Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance; and issued interim and final reports concluding COVID most likely originated from a lab‑related incident in Wuhan and criticizing aspects of the federal response. (oversight.house.gov)
   • This matches the prediction that, even if Republicans couldn’t pass much substantive legislation, they would run multiple investigations, including into the federal COVID response.

Overall assessment:

• Core structural claim—divided government with Republicans controlling (part of) Congress, Biden in the White House, and politics shifting toward gridlock and investigations rather than big new Democratic spending bills—was borne out.
• The prediction overstated how much overall federal “spending” would stop (deficits and outlays remained very high and grew), though it was correct about Fed “money printing” ending and about Congress imposing tighter caps on new discretionary appropriations.

Because the central features of the forecast came true, with the spending part notably weaker but not enough to overturn the main thesis, the best overall rating is “right” (directionally accurate with important caveats).

Jason was referring to the joint ProPublica/Vanity Fair investigation into the COVID‑19 lab‑leak theory, titled “COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a ‘Complex and Grave Situation’ Inside a Wuhan Lab”, published October 28, 2022.(propublica.org) He predicted that ProPublica (and possibly Vanity Fair) would win a Pulitzer Prize for this reporting.

Pulitzer records from 2023–2025 show no prize or finalist citation for this investigation, nor any Pulitzer mentioning ProPublica or Vanity Fair for work on COVID‑19 origins or the lab‑leak theory. ProPublica’s post‑2022 Pulitzers are for other topics: public service in 2024 for its Supreme Court ethics investigation and in 2025 for the “Life of the Mother” series on abortion‑related maternal deaths, and explanatory reporting in 2025 for a series on mental‑health insurance denials.(en.wikipedia.org) Earlier pandemic‑related work by ProPublica was only a finalist for public service, and that citation covers accountability reporting on the U.S. COVID response, not the Wuhan lab‑leak story.(propublica.org) Vanity Fair does not appear in any Pulitzer winner or finalist lists for this period.(en.wikipedia.org)

Instead of being prize‑winning, the joint lab‑leak piece has been widely criticized for translation errors and evidentiary weaknesses, including a Los Angeles Times column calling the ProPublica/Vanity Fair exposé a “train wreck,” and broader critiques summarized in coverage of the COVID‑19 lab‑leak theory.(latimes.com) Given that multiple Pulitzer cycles (2023, 2024, 2025) have passed with no recognition of this investigation, Jason’s prediction that this specific lab‑leak reporting would win a Pulitzer has not come true.

Official data show the U.S. was not in a recession during 2024 and around the 2024 election cycle. The National Bureau of Economic Research’s recession indicators remain at zero for all quarters of 2023–2024, indicating no recession was dated in that period. (ycharts.com)

Instead, real GDP grew by about 2.8% in 2024, continuing the post‑2020 expansion rather than contracting. (bea.gov) Labor market data also contradict the prediction of “high unemployment”: the national unemployment rate averaged about 4.0% in 2024 and was 4.1% in October 2024, only modestly above 2023 levels and low by historical recession standards. (bls.gov)

While there was some "economic damage" from earlier inflation and high interest rates, the specific forecast that the U.S. would be in the middle of a recession (or just barely emerging from one) with high unemployment going into the 2024 election cycle did not occur. On the core elements of the prediction—recessionary conditions and high unemployment around the 2024 election—the prediction was wrong.

Evidence since late 2022 lines up with Chamath’s core claims about (1) the SPR being heavily depleted and thus less available as a price‑control tool and (2) Saudi/OPEC+ choosing to cut output despite U.S. preferences.

1. SPR depletion and limited room for further price‑suppressing releases

• Between Biden’s inauguration and mid‑2023, about 291 million barrels were sold from the SPR, a 46% reduction, taking stocks down to roughly 347 million barrels—levels last seen in the early 1980s. (forbes.com)
• As of April 2024, the SPR held about 365.7 million barrels, down 38% from end‑2021, and analysts explicitly noted that this “limited capacity restricts its effectiveness in stabilizing markets.” (investopedia.com)
• CRS and EIA data show that by end‑2024 the SPR was still only around 394 million barrels, well below both its physical capacity (~714 million barrels) and its pre‑2022 level (~600+ million barrels). (congress.gov)
• After the record 2022 emergency release (180 million barrels) the administration did not execute another comparably large discretionary release; instead, policy shifted toward modest refilling and managing congressionally mandated sales. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, the U.S. did end up with a much smaller SPR and politically/security‑constrained scope for further big drawdowns to “bring the price down,” which matches Chamath’s point that the reserve was effectively “running out” as a repeatable price‑suppression tool.

2. Saudi Arabia/OPEC+ cuts to support higher prices, despite weak U.S. leverage

• Relations with Saudi Arabia were already described as at a low point in 2022; the Saudis rejected U.S. requests to delay or soften an October 2022 OPEC+ cut of 2 million bpd, and Biden publicly threatened “consequences,” illustrating limited leverage. (en.wikipedia.org)
• After Chamath’s November 2022 comments, OPEC+ executed multiple further rounds of cuts: a 1.65 million bpd voluntary cut by key members in April 2023, followed by an additional 2.2 million bpd of voluntary cuts for 2024, on top of an earlier 2 million bpd group cut—bringing total reductions to about 5.3 million bpd (≈5% of global demand) as of 2025. (opec.org)
• Saudi Arabia specifically layered on a 1 million bpd unilateral cut in mid‑2023 and repeatedly extended it through at least mid‑2024, keeping its output near 9 million bpd. (cnbc.com)
• These cuts were consistently framed by OPEC+ and Riyadh as measures to “support market stability” and prevent price declines, i.e., to actively manage prices rather than accede to U.S. pressure for higher output.

3. Impact on the Biden administration’s ability to use SPR or diplomacy to lower gas prices

• By 2023–2024, commentators and analysts were explicitly warning that the reduced SPR volume limited its usefulness as a market‑stabilization and price‑management tool. (investopedia.com)
• Despite U.S. political pressure, Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ maintained significant output restraint throughout the remainder of Biden’s term; the first clear OPEC+ production hike doesn’t come until April 2025, under the subsequent administration. (reuters.com)
• U.S. gasoline prices did fall from their 2022 peak (from an average of about $4.08/gal in 2022 to the low‑$3 range in 2023–2025), but EIA and other analyses attribute this primarily to broader supply‑demand dynamics and rising non‑OPEC production, not to new large SPR releases or successful U.S. pressure on OPEC+. (eia.gov)

So even though global prices eventually eased, the mechanism Chamath described is broadly borne out: after an unprecedented SPR drawdown, the U.S. had much less room for further politically acceptable releases, and Saudi/OPEC+ responded with sustained supply cuts that Washington could not prevent. That combination did, in practice, constrain the Biden administration’s ability to further reduce gasoline prices via SPR deployments or diplomatic leverage, making the prediction substantively correct.

Republicans did in fact win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 8, 2022 midterm elections, securing 222 seats to Democrats’ 213, thus taking control of the chamber. Control of the Senate, however, was genuinely uncertain in the days leading up to and immediately following Election Day because several key races were very close, and the Georgia Senate race went to a December 6, 2022 runoff before Democrats ultimately retained a 51–49 majority (including independents who caucus with Democrats).

Chamath’s prediction, as normalized—Republicans will win a majority in the House of Representatives, while control of the Senate is uncertain at the time of this statement—matches what actually occurred in the House, and correctly characterizes the then-uncertain status of the Senate at the time he spoke. Therefore, the prediction is right regarding its concrete, checkable component (GOP House majority), and its description of the Senate as "up for grabs" was accurate for that moment.

Macroeconomic data between late 2022 and the November 2024 U.S. election point to a surprisingly resilient economy, not persistently “bad” underlying conditions.

Growth and jobs:

• Real U.S. GDP grew 1.9% in 2022, 2.5% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024, with especially strong quarterly growth in late 2023–2024, indicating solid, above‑trend expansion rather than sustained weakness. (apps-fd.bea.gov)
• The unemployment rate stayed below 4% from early 2022 through the end of 2023, averaging 3.6% in both 2022 and 2023, and only drifted up to about 4.0–4.2% in 2024—still near levels economists consider “full employment.” (ycharts.com)

Inflation and the “soft landing”:

• Inflation did surge in 2022 (peaking around 9% in June 2022), but then fell steadily to roughly 3–4% in 2023 and below 3% by late 2024, while growth remained positive. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Major forecasters and analysts (Goldman Sachs, S&P Global, Morgan Stanley, among others) and retrospective commentary describe this outcome as a U.S. “soft landing”—inflation coming down without a recession and with continued job creation. (goldmansachs.com)

Conditions on the ground:

• Consumer sentiment hit an all‑time low in mid‑2022 but then rebounded sharply; by January 2024 the University of Michigan index had risen to around 79, well above its 2022 trough, and later readings in 2024 remained far off crisis levels, even though opinions about the future were mixed. (news.umich.edu)
• Households still felt the sting of higher price levels, but combining robust GDP growth, very low unemployment, and moderating inflation is inconsistent with a claim that underlying economic conditions were broadly “bad” throughout the 2022–2024 pre‑election period.

There were no large, new negative macroeconomic policy shocks in that window that would flip this assessment; instead, the economy outperformed many pessimistic forecasts. Given the data, Chamath’s prediction that the baseline conditions between late 2022 and the 2024 election would be inherently “bad” is best assessed as wrong.

From November 2022 through November 2025, the United States did not experience an energy and economic crisis comparable to Germany’s 2022 gas crisis, which led Germany to nationalize Uniper and take over other key energy assets.(forbes.com)

In addition, after the November 8, 2022 midterm elections, the U.S. has had a split federal government: Democrats retained the presidency and control of the Senate, while Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress.(en.wikipedia.org)

Chamath’s normalized prediction is conditional and counterfactual: he claims that if U.S. economic and energy conditions were to deteriorate severely (like Germany’s 2022 crisis) and government were not split, then nationalization or similar extreme interventions would be a “realistic possibility.” Since (1) the antecedent conditions—Germany‑level energy crisis plus unified government—never occurred in the U.S. during the period after the podcast, and (2) he did not specify a time frame by which such a scenario must arise, we cannot evaluate whether his claim about what would happen under those hypothetical conditions is correct or incorrect.

Because the key scenario never materialized and the statement is about a hypothetical possibility rather than a concrete dated forecast, the prediction’s accuracy cannot be determined; hence it is best classified as ambiguous rather than right, wrong, or merely “too early.”

The prediction was that the 2024 U.S. presidential election would be Ron DeSantis vs. Gavin Newsom.

In reality:

• The Republican nominee in 2024 was Donald Trump, who secured the GOP nomination after winning the Republican primaries; Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump in January 2024.
• The Democratic nomination process initially centered on Joe Biden, but after Biden withdrew from the race in July 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee following consolidation of party support.

At no point did either Ron DeSantis or Gavin Newsom become their party’s official presidential nominee in 2024. Therefore, the specific prediction "DeSantis versus Newsom" did not come true.

(Sources: contemporary 2024 U.S. election coverage and official primary/nomination results from major U.S. news organizations and election trackers confirming Trump as the GOP nominee and Harris as the Democratic nominee.)