Why Deplatforming Trump Didn't Work

So here's why deplatforming Donald Trump didn't work. So I'm looking at this post from Nate Silver right now on Twitter or X. And here's the thing. So here's what he said. He said, Trump is more popular than he's been in a long while, and it's time to admit that deplatforming him didn't work. And he's basically the Republican nominee right now. And he's like far and away the leader, right? And if it's him versus Joe— and Neil and I aren't saying we're voting for one or the other, we're just talking marketing here right now. But if it's him versus Joe Biden, he's probably going to win. Right.

That's what the polls are saying. But polls are also off. So who really knows?

Yeah, that's my guess. Right. That's not Neil's opinion. But here's what it says. Okay, here's what it says. So there's this graph over here. It says, do Americans have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump? Right. So favorable is 42%, unfavorable is 52%. And this shows a timeline from basically, it looks like January 2021 until January 2024. And the number has been the same the whole time. It hasn't changed at all where it's like up or down, like all these Crazy things happening. It's been the same the whole time.

So I'm confused. You said from January 2021 to 2024, what's the same?

So basically the rating. So what I just said, favorable is 42% and unfavorable is 52%. It's been the same the whole time. It's this straight line, unfavorable throughout the years, even though he's been deplatformed or whatever. And people are talking negatively about him.

But that doesn't necessarily change how many people are following him or—

It didn't. But it didn't change the people's opinion of him. For example, when the US tried to take Russia out of the SWIFT system, they tried to do all these things to hurt them economically. And then Russia just—

Which isn't working, by the way.

It didn't work. So when you try to do these things to people, when you try to cut their legs out from under them, it either doesn't do anything or it might potentially make them stronger.

Yeah. And what's funny too is, didn't X let Donald Trump back on the platform because users voted?

Yeah, I think it was in 2023.

And has Trump even tweeted anything since then?

Yes, he has.

So is he tweeting on—

uh, he's not on Twitter. I thought he tweeted something.

He's not tweeting.

Yeah, maybe not.

But dude, the last one is from August 24th, 2023. Before that is 2021. Then an ad, 2021, 2021. Dude, he hasn't been tweeting.

The fact is though, he's stronger than ever.

Yes, but I think he's also stronger than ever because people aren't happy in America where things are going. I'm not saying that's the president's fault or not his fault. I'm just saying people aren't happy with the way the world is.

I think main point here is like, you know, it didn't work. And I think whenever you see this deplatforming, whether it's trying to deplatform a nation-state or an ex-president, probably won't work.

Dude, okay, so remember the social network that he ended up— that was a Donald Trump social network? Truth Social, right? The moment he won the Iowa caucus, did you see their stock popped up?

Are they public?

Yeah, they're publicly traded, dude. The stock went up. I was like, man, I should have bought that stock. Oh, well, let me see. No joke, it went up. Go check it out. Go Google Truth Social stock. Truth Social.

Digital World Acquisition Corp.

There you go.

Oh, soared 30%. Yeah, but you wouldn't know what to— you would just be trading it. I would have traded out right then and then.

Like, I made some quick money, I'm out.

Wow, that's, that's a lesson for everyone. Okay, what do you think about trading?

I love trading, although I trade quite a bit.

Warren Buffett would say don't trade, right? Yeah, so would Charlie Munger. But I don't— they actually don't trade much, right? I don't think they trade.

They don't trade much, but I also don't day trade often either. I did when the bank stocks were going bankrupt, a lot of the small ones. I did really well on that. I started shorting them and I was pretty aggressive. I was also doing options too. And then I made a killing on First Republic. Going up, and then I cashed out before it went down.

Going up. Okay, explain that.

Well, First Republic, do you remember what happened?

Yeah.

Everyone was worried they were going to go under. Eventually they did. And then Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan, said they were going to backstop them. And a few other banks said as well. And then the government also came out saying, hey, we're not going to end up just letting people lose money. Remember what happened with SVB? So the moment people knew that their funds were okay, I made, let's just say, a really nice return on First Republic in less than a 48-hour period.

Yeah.

And because that day it hit the market on Monday morning, it kept going down. So I just bought at a nice price and then it just started skyrocketing up.

So this is good for everyone to know, right? It's like, what does Neil have on all the time? CNBC, right? So it's like, sometimes, you know, it's like whatever information you're taking in, you're just going to make a bet on it, right?

Yeah.

So you got to be careful where you take information from.

That's true. But I always still do my own research.

I'm saying it's a good thing. I'm saying it's a good thing.

Yeah. But like, same with Coinbase. I made a killing on Coinbase. I bought it at one of its all-time lows or close enough to its all-time low. And the thesis was with FTX having issues, Binance at that time, I assumed would also have issues, but no one knew what was going to happen with Binance. And then eventually CZ did one of the largest settlements with the government.

$43 billion. Not $43 billion. $4.3 billion. Sorry, $4.3 billion.

$43 billion would have been a lot of cash. And I was like, you know what, what are people going to trust with crypto? And I didn't know if Bitcoin, how much it was going to go up or down or anything. I'm like, well, I'm like, people are still going to trade it. Your best, safest place, in my opinion, this isn't financial advice, was Coinbase. And I assumed with Binance and FTX having issues, more volume would go to Coinbase on the next bull run. And also on top of that, what ended up happening, the SEC, I was assuming, will eventually figure out what they're going to do with some of these tokens. And what ended up happening is Ripple ended up winning against the SEC. So that drove up the price. FTX and Binance issues also helped Coinbase. And then the Bitcoin ETF also helped. And I cashed out, but not at the peak. It was a nice return.

I think the lesson for everyone too is you have to understand what are— usually you should understand, maybe all the time you should understand what you're investing in. So for example, when Meta got creamed and they dropped down to what? They dropped down to like $114 or was it something really low, right? Because what's Meta at right now?

Meta's up a lot. I should have kept my Meta stock.

Yeah. So point is like, you know, Neil also had HubSpot, right? Like we both are in SaaS, we're both in marketing. We understand how things are going there. Meta's at $383 right now, right? But when you look at a 5-year period, they had dropped all the way down to $99 actually, right? And that was a situation where it's like, if you understand Meta, if you understand all the attention that they control, you're a marketer, for example, you might buy in because you actually understand it. That's where you have an edge, right? So whether you're trying to buy a business or you're trying to invest in a company, when you invest in stocks, ideally you're looking at it as a company, right? And then like Neil will trade like, you know, the macro, right? If he thinks it's like, it might just pop out, then he's just going to dip, right?

Yeah.

So he can come in and out. Not financial advice by any means, but we're trying to get you to think in terms of like a marketer, but also like investors too.

But with most of my stock trades, dude, I just buy and I hold and I don't really check them out. Like the stocks or anything like that.

I've just held onto my Coinbase the whole time. I just leave it there.

Yeah. And then when I see things shifting, I'll buy and I'll go in with large positions and I'm all in. So I tend to not buy tons of different types of stocks. I try to have very concentrated positions. And although people think I'm crazy for that, all wealth advisors say I'm stupid. And that takes energy.

They're incentivized to say that.

It's like if you look at Bill Gates, you know, I think you talked about this. Bill Gates met Warren Buffett. And you know what he did after he met Warren Buffett?

What?

He diversified.

Yeah.

You know, if he didn't diversify, how much Bill Gates would be worth right now?

No.

Over a trillion dollars.

If he didn't diversify?

Yeah, if he didn't diversify.

You know what's funny? Warren Buffett has said, you know, put all your eggs in one basket and watch it like a hawk. I think it was him that said it, right? And then I think Mark Cuban said diversification is for idiots, right? And so, so like, I, I don't diversify.

But if you look at Bill Gates, what he did, and he was looking at Berkshire Hathaway because it is very diversified.

Yeah.

He started— he took that from Warren's playbook and it's hurt him financially. If you look at, if you look at Bill Gates's net worth, and I get he's donated, he's given away a lot.

I think he's worth $120 billion or something.

He's worth $120 billion as of this recording. He's given away half, so call it $240. And then look at his CEO, his CEO, his old CEO, Steve Ballmer. And if you look at his net worth, it's $115 million. Now I get Gates is worth roughly double him because he's donated half his money, but you know what the difference between Ballmer and Gates is? Gates owned a fraction of Microsoft compared to— I mean, Ballmer owned fractions. Ballmer's close.

Ballmer's more now. No?

No, at the time Ballmer owned a fraction of Microsoft than what Gates did. He wasn't a co-founder. But what Ballmer did is he didn't diversify. He just held onto his Microsoft stock. He's like, I bleed Microsoft, ride or die. And he believed in the company. It's the same thing. When I'm in on something, I'm all in. Just like right now, you and I were talking about this this morning. I'm buying tons of agencies. I mean, I bought one in November. I'm in LOI on 2 agencies right now. I'm about to be in an LOI on a 3rd one right now. I was late to this podcast recording because I was trying to get a 4th one. I'm trying to buy 10+ this year. Like, I'm all in. When I have conviction on something and I want something, I don't care. I'm all in. I don't care about the diversification or anything like that. I think diversification is a sucker's bet. But yeah, you know, I'm not the richest person in the room by any means. It's true.

Well, no, you are the richest person in this room.

But generally in the world, there's a lot more people who've done way better than me.

Yes. And to your point, going back to Warren Buffett again, he would prefer not to diversify because— but because they have so many shareholders, they kind of have to— all the money that they're managing, they have to diversify, right? But there's a book I read before. There's this book called Rule One Investing. And the whole premise around it is like, you know, Warren Buffett's 2 rules, right? It's like, rule number one, don't lose money. Rule number 2, look at rule number one, right? But the whole thing is like this, the way this guy teaches— his name's Phil Town. He teaches Warren Buffett's style of investing. He's like, guys, Don't hold more than like 10 stocks, maybe 15 max. Right. Um, but you don't need to diversify more than that. Just watch them like a hawk.

And then like kind of like the Bill Ackman, Bill Ackman doesn't have tons of stocks.

Yeah. You don't need that many. You know what our main stock is? Our business.

Right.

It's, it's no different than that. I think if you guys can all think like that, it's going to help you make a lot more money. I don't care if you're a marketer. I don't care if you're working somewhere or whatever. If you can think long-term and bet on, bet hard, press hard. Charlie Munger says this, right? You press hard when you have the advantage. And it's not really a gamble at the end of the day. It's just a bet on yourself.

Dude, what's the— you showed me a chart of how people generate their wealth. Do you still have that chart?

Yeah, it's— let me see if I can pull it up.

So Eric sent me this chart. I don't know when it was. It was probably a month plus ago. And this chart ends up breaking down— you may want to be careful on what shows in the camera if you're looking at your charts. No, no, you're good. You're good.

You're good. You're good. You're good.

I have nothing.

I thought about that.

I thought about that already.

I thought about that already. Yeah.

So, uh, I got it, I got it, I got it. Okay, so read up what's in the chart. How do people make their money based on their category of wealth?

Let me read this chart out and this will be the last thing here. So, uh, the chart says what assets make up wealth. Okay, so what did our parents tell us when we're growing up?

Our parents told us just go get an education and get a job.

And then what?

Buy a home.

Exactly, buy a home, right? So, okay, here's the thing. When you look at the net worth here at like $10K to $100K to $1 million, let's go all the way up to $1 million, okay? Now, liquid is—

actually, let's start at the beginning. Go from all of them.

I'm curious. We're going to go from $10K. Okay. So $10K, if your net worth is $10K, your primary residence is like, I don't know, 25% of your net worth.

Right.

And then your vehicle is like, I don't know, it's a big— your vehicle is actually a big chunk of your net worth.

Right.

Because it's $10K. Right. So the vehicle, call it like, you know, 10%, 15% or so. And then your liquids, maybe like, I don't know, it looks like 5%, 10% or so. And then the rest, like retirement, you know, pension, life insurance, and all that. So main thing is it goes into your primary residence, vehicles, and then you have a little money liquid, right? Ironically, at $10K net worth, the liquid amount is the highest it'll ever be, the percentage, right? And then you go to $100K. I'm not gonna read— I'm gonna switch to like, uh, $100 million and a billion in a second. I'm not gonna read all these. But if you look at $100K, the primary residence becomes a lot bigger. It looks like about 30 to 40% now. Wow. Liquid goes a little lower, vehicle goes a lot lower, right? And then your retirement pension actually goes a lot higher, 20%, which is exactly what our parents— my mom always talks to me right now, you know, pension, you know, your home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, dude, your home is going to return like what, 6% a year or something like that? Yeah, that's the cap rate, right? 5-6%?

I have no idea.

I hate real estate. Me too.

But keep going. Actually go through like, what's the next one? $100,000? What's next?

Next one's $1 million. So, $1 million. Your primary residence goes down significantly. It goes down to like maybe 15% or 20% now. Your retirement, your IRA now, that's maybe now 20%. And then your life insurance, which is— oh, business interest in blue now pops up all of a sudden. That's maybe like 10% or so. And then you have some in stocks and things like that too, right? Stocks goes up to like 10% or so. So what's interesting is what our parents told us, like, yes, it is actually true. Your primary residence is a big factor. Stocks, pension, IRA. But here's the thing, our friends and even us being in business, nobody talks about that. Once you're like plus $10 million or so, the majority of your wealth comes from your business interests. So, at $10 million, it's like 30%. At $100 million, it's like 50%, okay? At a billion, it's like 70%. Yeah.

So, majority of people who are really wealthy, billion plus, you're saying 70% at that category is their interest in their own company.

Yep. And then like 20%, like Call it five, five, ten, fifteen percent goes to stocks. Like stocks is still a significant portion, but when you look at your primary residence and you look at liquid, liquid is like nothing, and then primary residence is like nothing.

Yeah, it's like Steve Ballmer's majority is Microsoft. His next big chunk is probably the Clippers.

Yeah, and that was a good buy for him actually, I think, because he bought them for two billion dollars. I think they're higher now.

I think he would have made more with Microsoft stock.

Oh, probably. But you when you're that rich, you just want a sports team. Steve Ballmer.

I'll tell you actually right now. So in August 2014, he bought the Clippers for $2 billion. Look up how much the Clippers are worth. I call bullcrap. I bet you he would have made way more money from Microsoft.

I'd say they're worth $2.7 to $3 billion now.

Okay. In 2014, it was, let's call it $45 or $42.

Forbes, Forbes, Forbes. $4.65 billion calculated by Forbes. Okay.

$398 divided by $45 is $8.4. So his Clippers $2 billion investment would have been worth $16.8 billion in Microsoft stock right now.

Yeah, you're right. But hey, you know, when you have that much, it just doesn't matter.

That's true. So I think the guy's just trying to have fun and I don't think he cared about the return.

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