Celebrity Problems With FTX, and Elon's Current & Future Breakthrough

It's a mixed bag today as we talk through some news that has been coming out. There's a lot of smoke around the celebrities who endorsed FTX as lawsuits come into play. Neuralink has been cleared and Twitter is being slept on. 

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Eddie Thomas: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the modern outlook podcast. And today, we're jumping into a few things, a lot of a business related, not really business related, a little bit of a mixed bag today. And I'm excited for it. So let's get right into it. Hope everyone's doing well, summer is finally starting to come around. It's about to be June. So that's exciting. I guess if you're a summer person, I'm not a big summer person. I don't love the heat. But I know for most people, that's like the prime time for them. And it is nice when the weather starts to turn a little bit. So no complaints, no complaints, but hope everyone's doing well. And first thing I was doing this morning was just looking through some newsletters that I get, just from different sources, mostly business related, but a lot of them enter into the pop culture realm as well, or just other other stuff that comes to mind for them. So a good source of information decided to pull a couple of things from them, talk about them a little bit, nothing too in depth today, just kind of wanted to get on here and record something and start a conversation a little bit. So first thing I popped up though, and this has actually been going on for months now like a long time. And if you hadn't seen it, then do your research on it, because it's a crazy story. But the FTX crypto company that is pretty much gone. I mean, it's bankrupt, and scammed people out of a lot of money. And I'm not going to dive into that as much do your own research on that piece of it. See what they did see what people are saying it's a really deep web of lies and interplay between different people and companies. And it's just a lot to dive into. So I'm not gonna dive into that deep. But what I do want to talk about today, because what I've been seeing a ton of is all of the celebrities that endorsed FTX. And its services or products or whatever you want to put that and what that means for them and for us and how well we should take on what I take from it. It's kind of crazy. So the reason this came to my mind and I know it's been going on since the beginning of the year pretty much is there's a lot of reports recently coming out that Shaq Shaquille O'Neal, NBA player, endorsed by FTX, endorse FTX to consumers was avoiding court documents and avoiding the class action lawsuit pages that are coming at them all the celebrities for endorsing it. And that just kind of got me thinking again, like that is a crazy thing that just kind of got swept under the rug. And for someone like Shaq to be avoiding those papers, kind of feels like a little bit that potentially they knew that they were doing something a little wrong if you're trying to dodge that type of stuff. So there's 10 Other celebrities in the suit with Shaq. And when you take a look at it. It's something that you kind of think, why would they do it? What was in it for them? Obviously, they're getting paid a ton of money to do it. And is that all it ever was? So when you take a look, I'll just read off a couple of the names that are also involved. Tom Brady and Giselle I can't pronounce your last name so I'm not going to try. Steph Curry, Trevor Lawrence Shohei Otani. Kevin O'Leary Nona, non athlete but world renowned businessman and investor, Shaquille O'Neal, David Ortiz, Naomi Sokka, and others, but I'll leave it up there for them. The one person that actually didn't do it before I dive into that is Taylor Swift, my girlfriend's a huge Taylor Swift Fan. So as soon as the news dropped, that she didn't partake, when they reached out to her to endorse the product and be a spokesperson for it. She was she was telling me how great she is. And that's kind of funny. But also that kind of shows what these other people maybe should have been doing. If you're a celebrity. And if you're someone of influence, you know, what kind of pull you have on people, whether you want to take that on and do good or bad or whatever helps you doesn't help other people and all these people have charities and they all help a ton of people. So these people are not bad people. However, it should goes to show that when there's a lot of money on the table, potentially the background research that goes into it is lacking a little bit and for us as consumers. I think what FTX does with all of these celebrities is actually push everyone into a place where we can't and shouldn't trust celebrities for their word. And of course you see celebrities endorse everything. So I don't know if anyone out there says hey, this person did less than this. So it must be legit, or they endorse this product. So I need to try buy that product. But there is a little bit to that. I mean, there's marketing theories into that where people see it personal power, and they want to follow that person. That's just how influence works. So when you look at FTX, and you see these long laundry list of top top celebrities, top names and media, and sports, in everyday business and investing, it's hard to ignore that. It's really, really hard to ignore that. And you what you would think at that point is that their teams did the background research, of making sure everything checked out and everything was legal, especially in something like crypto, you would think that all that stuff kind of went through the processing in the background data that they knew it was all checked out and legal, and nothing was going to happen or nothing that they could see what's going to happen. But then you turn around and you look into the celebrities like Taylor Swift that didn't take the endorsement and take the money. And apparently it was an I'm paraphrasing, but it's as simple as her team asking them. How is this legal? And how does it actually work? to pretty much make sure it makes sense for her to endorse and that she's not leading people astray. And that was a breakdown in the conversation I was asking someone has illegal and how does it work? And that is the end of that conversation. So you wonder what the celebrities that did endorse it did take the money, what their conversations were, like, if you're Tom Brady, or Shaq, you will multi multi multi millions of dollars, potentially billions in the long run. What questions were you were? Weren't you asking? When that time came? It feels like, hey, is this legal? was probably one of them? Or should have been one of them? How does this actually work? Is it safe for people. And again, because it's such a deep web of lies and deception, a lot of it maybe passed the sniff test for them. And there were some big big investors and players in it, which also added a credibility on the surface level. So I'm not fully blaming them. But for us as consumers, for them as celebrities, I feel like a lot, you have to take it with a little bit of a grain of salt, like they have to know that this is something that we potentially have to look out for other people I understand it's a huge deal for them. But they have to understand their influence. And and for us, when you're going forward and you see your next product or service or whatever it is that's endorsed by an athlete or celebrity or business person, whatever it is. Maybe I don't know, take a little bit and just think about it. Because it's crazy. It's actually insane that these celebrities have to go in this lawsuit and answer for this. And they should have to, because a lot of people have lost a lot of money and terrible. And these people work on on the forefront, whether you want to believe it or not, or agree or not, they were on the forefront. And I guarantee there's people that invested in this product, because these celebrities decided that it's a good product, or decided to convey the message that they believe that it's a good product, whether they did or not behind the scenes, and potentially it never even reached them. They just had their managers or lawyers or accountants or whatever it is, whoever it is, look into it and say, Hey, this is good, let's Greenlight this. But I think it's a wake up call for a lot of people, especially in the crypto space to really start looking around and think All right, if we're gonna endorse something, we got to make sure it's buttoned up because we don't want to see something like this again, and we'll see kind of how it lays out for and then when this lawsuit rolls around, and they start calling the court of what exactly this means for them. And I'm not sure what a good answer is, you potentially say, Hey, you have to pay back all the money that FTX gave you. Because in essence, it was just investors money that was being siphoned off to and FTX. Again, I don't know the lot, I don't know the entire web of it. I don't know the deals, that is just potentially what had happened. And we'll see how it comes from there. But that's the first thing that popped up. And I thought that was that's a crazy story that's not getting a ton of media attention, and maybe it will in the future. But man oh man, Tom Brady, Shaq, Giselle and alien, whoever it is. It's, it's gonna be interesting to see how that kind of plays out. Second thing I saw today, and this is this one's a little bit scary. I don't know how I feel about this one is neural link. The company by Elon Musk. That is a chip that goes into people's brains that can pretty much well, he claims in the future will cure things like strokes and paralysis and amazing things occur that we don't have a cure for right now. And the potential for long term is seriously the sky's the limit. We don't know what this thing can do. However, it just got clear for the first time by the FDA for its first in human study. And that's a scary thought. It's a scary thought, isn't it? Saying someone's going to put this chip in your brain? And for all intents and purposes, it's going to cure whatever it is. You need Cure. Which is amazing. But anytime you're implanting anything in your brain, especially like a chip or any piece of technology like this is, it turns into something a little different, right? It gets a little bit like cyborg II like robot, it almost like this is the next step to us being like, first it was TVs, and then you fast forward. And the next big piece of technology that came out that really changed our lives is obviously our cell phones, or computers first, and then our cell phones. And if you ever watched one of those, like evolution, videos, with regards to how people how AI says human race is gonna evolve. It's always it starts with low tech, TVs, computers, phones, and then it turns into, you just see pieces of robots being put on humans, like a cyborg arm, or legs or head or just whatever it is. And it feels like this is like the next step into that. Like, we always have our phones attached to our hand, it's always in our pockets, we always know where it is. And if you don't have your phone at this point, unless you plan on having your phone on you. It's like almost anxiety inducing, which is terrible. And it sucks that it's like that. But it's like, what if I miss a call or a text? Or what if I can't check Instagram or social media? And it's a lot, and I think potentially long term this neural link. Again, this is long term is the next step of that. Yes, for a while, I think it's going to be used as a medical device only, which is amazing. I want anybody who's had a stroke or suffers from paralysis, or anything like that to be cured. And if this neural link chip can do that, that is something that will be the biggest one of the biggest medical feats we've ever had. However, long term, if this turns into a thing, where you just can answer text messages in your head without thinking about it, or talk back and forth of that actually talking, just say sending, like thoughts back and forth via knurling, chip or any other chip. That's a scary thought. And I don't know how far off we are from that. 10 years, 1020 years 3040 50, who nobody knows. But this is the first step into it. This is the first step into it. And we will see how it goes, I really hope it works. I won't be the first one in line, that's for sure. I won't be the second, third, fourth or fifth person in line. I'll let it out that for a lot of years. Make sure they get it right before I put it in my brain. But gosh, I hope it works. I really do for the people that need it. And the last thing, Twitter, the all encompassing the media headline driving Twitter, and Elon Musk behind. I've talked in the past about Elon buying Twitter, crazy concept that he bought a public company with just his own funds and obviously pull a little bit of investor funds. But I think Twitter's a sneaky company going forward. I really do. They just had Ron DeSantis announced his presidential election campaign on the platform, and Twitter spaces. And Tucker Carlson Carlson, I believe is going to have a Twitter spaces show as well, long term. And I think you're starting to see the ground kind of move around Twitter, where it's gonna be more than just the platform you go on to be and to be mad at people and annoy people. And to yell back and forth at everyone. I think it's gonna turn into a real media power when people decide to do their announcements on Twitter via live feed and decide to take their shows on to Twitter when Twitter spaces. I think there's a lot more there than people are seeing right now. Again, Elon Musk said that at one point it is it's his biggest priority right now above Tesla above neural link above his many, many other projects, SpaceX and the others. And I don't think you bet against someone like Elon Musk, I do this one of the smartest guys, if not the smartest guy in the world. I think if he buys a company, and he thinks he can get it going, and he thinks he could turn into something special, you have to really put some thought into that. And Twitter's kind of already on its way, even if you don't want to believe that or not. It's going to be something insane to watch over the next five to seven years. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the breadth of actual streaming companies like a YouTube like a Netflix with the shows they have on it and the custom content that they can create through their creators. We'll see what it turns into long term and they have a lot of people they gotta change the minds of in the meantime, like myself, I hate Twitter. I don't like Twitter, I don't have I have a Twitter, I follow like 10 people, and I've never been on there. I've never tweeted a single thing and I never will. But if it comes into a place where you're consuming content, I'll open a Twitter and just be one of those people that never tweets but just watches things like I do on my other social media. So it's something to think about though, is gonna be a sneaky company going forward that I think could do some something pretty crazy and disrupt a lot of other companies. So that's what I saw this morning on the news. That's what I wanted to talk about today. Let's see where some of those things go. Let's keep our tabs on the FDA approval and FTX thing especially in Twitter is gonna be a long term thing but we'll see. Anyway, enjoy your day guys, and I'll catch you on the next one. Stay happy, stay healthy, and I'll see you. Securities offered through securities America Inc. Member FINRA slash SIPC. advisory services offered through securities America advisors Inc. Wealth Management Services and securities America are separate entities. The opinions and forecasts expressed are those of the author and may not actually come to pass. This information is subject to change at anytime based on market and other conditions and should not be construed as a recommendation of any specific security or investment plan. Past performance does not guarantee future results.