Musk Tanks Tesla, Trump Threatens Tariffs, AI Replaces Interviews

First up, Elon Musk floats a new political party and Tesla stock tanks. Turns out investors don't love it when your CEO declares war on the president of the United States. Then your next job interview might be with a robot named Alex. It asks questions. It mimics human speech, but it can't necessarily answer any of your questions. Donald Trump threatens 25% tariffs on longtime allies, then immediately hints he might not follow through. Paul Krugman calls it a classic taco. Trump always chickens out. Seed oils are either poisonous or perfectly healthy, depending on who you ask. We break down what NPR, National Public Radio found when they asked actual scientists. And finally, inside the Chinese factories churning at, get this, $3,000 AI sex dolls that talk, flirt, and remember your name. You won't believe who's buying them. All that and more Today on the community. Hi, I'm T.J. walker. This is the show where news meets personal development. I've been a media trainer and personal development coach for decades, helping top Wall street executives, billionaire fund managers, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, plus presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and Ms. Universes. In this show, I take you behind the scenes to see what's really going on when newsmakers are crafting messages and communicating to you so that you can improve your own personal success. That's what we're about right here. In segment one, Musk America party tanks Tesla stock. You know things are bad when Elon Musk idea of damage control is launching a third political party. Musk voted the American party on X. 80% of his followers said yes. Well, you know who didn't say yes? Wall street Tesla stock dropped 7% yesterday. It's now down 40% from its December peak. Investors once loved political antics from Musk. Now they see them as a distraction. Tesla's second quarter deliveries, they're down 14% year over year. Sales are falling. Musk is brawling with Trump and no one steering the stock price north. Okay, let's look at a few more facts here. As I mentioned, Tesla stock down 40%. They delivered 384,000 cars in the last quarter. That's down 14%. That's a pretty significant drop for something that's supposed to be a big growth company. Here's the bigger issue that I don't think gets talked about enough. It gets talked about some, but I want to tie this together in a way that's really meaningful for you. Elon Musk is not just starting a new political party. He's not just tweeting about every controversial issue in the world all day long. But he holds leadership roles in Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, the Boring Company XXI. He's now juggling about 10 different companies and picking fights with global leaders. Trump called him a train wreck on Truth Social. Well, that may be calling the pod calling the kettle black, but there does seem to be a lack of focus. Now, Elon Musk is clearly someone who has a lot of talents. He's an innovator. He is the richest man in the world at the moment. And you certainly can't discount his business savvy and his technological savvy with what he's done with electric vehicles, rockets, things. So I'm not saying this guy's a dummy. What I am saying is it's becoming increasingly clear to owners of one company, Tesla, that this guy is giving very little of his attention in terms of percentage to this company that is one of the biggest companies in the world. So typically forget a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars or close to a trillion dollars at any one point. Companies worth more than a billion dollars, even a few hundred million dollars, typically have a CEO with one job being the CEO of that company. And they give every waking moment when they're not devoted to downtime, rest time, eating and family and sleep to that one company. Here is Musk trying to juggle seemingly dozens of companies all at once. And investors don't like it. If profits kept on going up, if sales kept on going up, if innovation went up, if new, new products came out, okay, he could get away with it. But right now it looks like he is sidetracked. He's not giving Tesla. He's certainly not giving it all of his attention, which most investors of a company that's floundering or at least seeing declining sales would want. But it's stretches credulity to think he's even giving it half of his attention. Here's the message for you and me. No matter how good you are at something, it doesn't mean you're good at everything and it doesn't mean you're good at doing everything simultaneously. And that's unfortunately the curse of being not only a billionaire, but but the richest man in the world is everybody's telling you what a genius you are all the time. You start to believe it. And it's just not possible for someone to be great at everything at a dozen different industries all at the same time. When people start doubting your commitment to something where they're putting their money into it, they will retreat quickly. They will figure out a way to not want to work with you. Now, how does this really have an impact on your media? You and I are not going to start 10 companies at once that all have billion dollar valuations, I'm guessing. But what it does mean is when there's something important to you, you've got to send signals to maybe not investors, but at least to your boss, to co workers, people who report to you that your attention is on this one thing you care about. I'm not saying you can't have a hobby, not even saying you can't have a side gig most of the time. For most really successful people, they're not focused on side gigs. They're focused on doing one thing really well. Now, Elon Musk purports to have a lot of respect for the late Steve Jobs. Most people in the tech industry do. And Steve Jobs was notorious and a good way for focusing on one thing at a time. His whole theory was the biggest key to success is the ability to say no to almost everything that crosses his desk or comes in front of him. That's Warren Buffett's philosophy as well. You've got to learn to say no. And Elon Musk doesn't seem to be able to say no to anything. Any new business idea, any new new app, any controversial tweet, he can't say no to it. He's got to hop in and run here and run there. And it just makes you wonder if he is a stable person. So I think Tesla investors are going to continue to punish Tesla. And, you know, let's be truthful, if Tesla were valued like any other traditional car company, it would still see its stock price go down 95%. Hold on. I'm not predicting it does that. I'm not here giving you stock tips. This is a show about business, technology and culture decoded through the lens of communication to make you more successful. That's what we're about. You can make your own stock judgments and pricing judgments later or from other sources. But for now, I do think that it's a learning moment to see how Elon Musk is simply gone too far. Doesn't mean he can't start a successful political party. But I don't think he's going to start a successful political party, become the most powerful political operator in America, and be the CEO of Tesla and continue to bring that valuation up and beyond the head of all these other companies, while at the same time taking significant investments in more AI companies. I don't think he can do all of it. And we're getting to the point where investors have had enough. Frankly, I don't blame the end disclosure. I personally do not own any Tesla and I'm not shorting Tesla. So just in case you're wondering, in other news, your interviewer is now a robot. Let's say you prep for a big interview. Job interview. Log in and find out. Your interviewer is an AI named Alex. Now this story comes courtesy of the New York Times. Fascinating story. It happened to someone they interviewed. Jennifer Dunn and more. Job seekers are now facing agentic AI bots that run interviews using scripts, facial tracking and fake empathy. Some candidates call it dehumanizing, others just awkward. I know these bots can't necessarily answer your questions about the company or what your job is. They're often trained to just ask questions, record your answers and process it. A few more facts. AI bots now run interviews via tools like ribbon, AI Talently and a priora. Bots can mimic human pauses and ask follow up questions. Some job seekers say it feels like a horror movie. Others appreciate the lack of human pressure. Sort of takes the pressure off. You're not talking to a real human judging you. Now the real problem, bots can't answer candidate questions or explain job rules. At least that's the problem that some people are complaining about. One applicant never heard back and saw the job reposted a week later. And that kind of made her feel like she was just being used to train AI and she was being exploited. Is this the future of recruiting or just an efficiency trick masquerading as technology? That's the big question here today. Full disclosure, I have an AI bot. Tjwalker AI. Now, it's not interviewing you for a job at my company. What it can do is rehearse an interview for you. So everyone has biases. Let me reveal my biases. I have a strong bias in favor of interactive video clones. Having conversations with people, training people. People come to my training bot to prepare for job interviews, to prepare for media interviews, to practice speeches. And yes, you can get feedback on how's your lighting today? How's the quality of your mic? What does your backdrop look like? Are you saying anything interesting? So I'm a huge, huge fan of interactive AI video cloning technology. In my case, it's cloning me. A company might not clone their CEO but clone the database from their company. So couple of things. I understand that people are weirded out by this. I get it, I understand it. But I also remember the very first time I left a Voicemail message. That was weird. I'm old enough to remember the first time I heard an Apple answering machine. Oh, what is this? And then you had to leave a message and it was all awkward. Now, these days, some people don't leave messages on voicemail. It's certainly done on answering machines either. But there was a time when it was strange, it was alien. And then for a few decades, everyone did it without second thought. Now that's becoming strange again. When you look at the history of technology adoption, it always seems really weird to people at first. The first time people saw motion pictures, they jumped out of their chairs and were terrified because they thought the train on the screen was going to come run them down. The very first time people heard music coming out of a phonograph, they thought the room was possessed by demons. So I understand if initially some people don't like it. I want to reframe this again. To help you become more successful in your career, don't think of it as, oh, this is this horrible, evil, dehumanizing experience. Just think of it as another step to help you get to the point where you talk to a real person who ends up hiring you. Very few companies are simply making the final hire based on how someone did with a job interview, they're doing it based on with an AI job interview, they're doing it as an additional screen. You already know that if you send out 200 resumes a day, there probably aren't real people studying your resume for 30 minutes. It's going into a computer, it's going into an algorithm. It's looking for certain keywords, weeding some in, weeding some out. Because a lot of companies, especially a big one like Google, might have thousands, even tens of thousands of resumes come in for any one job opening. So they have to use AI for the filtering process. This is just another filtering process. There was a time when no one used resumes or email. All job interviews, all, all the process of looking for a job was talking to people face to face and then at one point using a letter and a stamp, mailing off a resume. That was new, fancy technology. Some people didn't like that, presumably when it started. So the technology is always going to change. You've got to focus on what you really want in your career. What's the next job you want? Who do you want to work with? If you focus on that, then these other things are not going to matter. And this idea that the robot couldn't answer some of your questions, well, guess what? A real human Being in HR might not know all the nuances of what your job is. That's life. One applicant in this story in the New York Times was complaining. I never heard back. I saw the thing still being advertised. I think I was used. Well, boo ho ho. Guess what I've not heard back from plenty of jobs I've interviewed for. It's called life. That's called capitalism. That's called the modern job market. There's an old saying, don't call us, we'll call you. If the company were interested, they would have contacted the person. You have to be willing to face rejection. I face rejection every single day at some level. Starting new business ventures, creating a show like this, hoping for 10 billion people to watch, and maybe fewer than 10 billion people watch. That's a form of rejection. Soliciting advertisers, new clients. I often get requests for proposals from companies, businesses, organizations around the world. Guess what? They don't always hire me for training services. And most of the time after I've talked to them, we have a pleasant conversation. I send a proposal. If they don't hire me, they don't call me up or even write and say, oh, we're not hiring you. I just don't hear from them. And you know what? That's okay. They gave me time. I gave them time. It wasn't a good fit. They've got to pick the best for them. That's the attitude I believe you need to have with any company you're working with. And look at this as a game. Actually, you know the first step, Finding out about a job interview. The next step, at least for a lot of people, sending a resume. The next step, getting an interview. And now the next step of that interview may be going through an AI robotic interview. First, it's still an opportunity for you to make the best possible impression. When you're sending a cover letter or a resume, that's an opportunity for you to make a great impression. It's an opportunity to make a horrible impression. If your resume has typos or misspellings or the font is so small no one can read it, that's going to reflect poorly on you. You're probably not going to get the job. Well, if you go into a job interview, whether it's with a real human being or whether it is with an AI robot, how you conduct yourself is going to reflect well on you or poorly on you. So realize that. And apologies if I sound mean or rude or harsh, but suck it up and keep your eyes on the end game. You want the job offer. You might not even want the job, but you want a job offer. So let's play the game as it is today. Too many people waste too much time thinking about why can't things be like they used to. And that's kind of when you know you're old too. That's one of the beauties of 22 year olds hitting the job market is they're not typically saying why can't things be like they used to be? But that can be a problem for people. 40s, 50s, 60s. You can't get in a time machine and go back. All you can do is be a part of your world as it exists today and do the best you can. So that's why I urge you, if you have an opportunity to do a job interview with the robot, look at it as something new and exciting. If nothing else, it's going to give you more experience under your belt to be less nervous for the next one you have to do. And it's going to give you more confidence that hey, at least I'm not doing this for the first time. When you are in your second or third or fourth interview that way. And also quick plug at absolutely no charge, you can do a rehearsal for your next AI clone agentic interview with my own clone TJWalker AI. Check it out. Next up, Trump's tariff blitz, then backpedals. Trump sent tariff threat letters to more than a dozen countries earlier this week, then immediately backpedal 25 to 40% duties on all goods from Japan, South Korea and others set to start August 1st. But wait. Trump later said the deadline was not 100% firm. Paul Krugman, the esteemed Nobel winning economist and pundit calls it taco. He's not the originator of that phrase, but he's popularizing it. Which means Trump always chickens out. Let's look at the facts. Letters were sent July 7 to 14 countries. Tariffs to go up to 25 to 40% on all exports. Now South Korea already has a free trade deal with the United States. Japan has a most favored nation status with the United States. Krugman says these threats are fake deals in the making. Economists say these tariffs would reduce Trans Pacific trade by 60%. Markets rose slightly after Trump softened his tone a little. Samsung reported profits down 56%, partly due to tariff fears. So here's the issue with Trump. He has, in the last five plus months he's been in office, made countless, countless threats of tariffs. Riled up the markets, got everyone agitated. Markets sometimes some stock indices went down 30%, up and down, roller coaster. And then he typically chickens out at the end, or he declares victory, or he says, they gave in, they gave me a great deal. But that you look for the piece of paper, there is in fact, no deal. And it really is coming across to many astute observers as this is just stuff Donald Trump is doing to get attention on tv. And by that metric, it's wildly successful. It's hard to look at a newspaper, certainly one the United States, on its website, without seeing 10 of the top 12 stories either directly talking about Trump, quoting Trump or quoting someone in his administration. So he is the master of getting attention. Is it somehow changing the economy to make things better for the Americans? Absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. It is true the stock market has bounced back since its extreme lows a few months ago where things had dropped again on some major indices, 30%. It's now back to all time highs. But is it going to stay? There's so much uncertainty now. What Paul Krugman has pointed out, excellent analogy. He says that imagine your next door neighbor comes over to your house screaming and yelling, saying, you know, if you don't stop dumping garbage in my house, I'm going to slit your tires. Stop dumping garbage in my backyard. And you're not dumping any garbage in your neighbor's backyard. What do you do? How do you start negotiating at that point? Because you've been accused of something you're not guilty of. And how do you negotiate a deal with someone when you already have a deal? As the case of Korea and Japan, we have deals in place by all accounts, across the political spectrum and across the spectrum of economic analyst, it's working really well. Tariffs are 2, 3% quite often and they're often reciprocal and we have an agreement. So when Trump says, oh, you're ripping us off, you're breaking agreements, you're treating us poorly, you're treating us badly. A lot of people in Korea and Japan, what is he talking about? And it's difficult to sort of rush forward to try to negotiate with someone when you already have a signed negotiation in place and you're being charged of doing things you're not guilty of. So it really puts our trading partners in an awkward spot. Now, is this hurting Trump in the polls? Right. Doesn't seem to be. His polling numbers are actually a little higher than they were even a few months ago. It is important to point out that he is one of the least popular presidents in the history of modern polling, and by some measures the most unpopular president, especially for the first six months, I don't think any president of the United States has had polling this low, but it's not bringing him down lower. So what's the real lesson here for you? You got to decide what industry you're in. You got to decide what business you're in. And we live in a modern world where attention is important to any business. It's certainly important to politicians, there's no doubt about it. But what is your real goal? The frustration so many people across the political spectrum have right now about this administration in Washington is nobody really knows what the objective is or if there is an objective beyond stirring things up today, getting on the cameras and acting like a big tough guy who negotiates a big deal. What does this mean? Now, we saw this in the first term of President Trump when he made a big deal of ripping up the negotiations with Mexico, the Free Trade Agreement, the North, the North American Free Trade Agreement between United States, Mexico and Canada. He talked about it was the worst deal ever. He then in fact started the whole negotiation again, proclaimed victory, got a new deal. And when economists and trade experts looked at the new deal, there was pretty much a consensus like this is the same as the old deal. What really happened here? Not much happened other than Trump got to act like a big, important tough guy on tv. So what's the real lesson for you? You got to figure out, are you trying to get short term headlines? Are you trying to accomplish something of significance? Because it is relatively easy these days. Whether you're in business, whether you are a movie star, whether you are an influencer, a pundit, almost any industry you're in, the easiest way to get attention is to attack, attack, attack. So this is the worst treatment anybody in the entire history of the universe has ever received. What I'm receiving from this guy over here or this person over here, that's always going to be the easiest way. And I'm going to stand up to you. I'm going to pick a fight. That's the easiest way to get attention. It's not necessarily the easiest way to build a business, improve a country, change public policy for the better. So it's a constant battle. And for example, I mean, here I am in this show talking about these things. Yes, I'm offering some criticism, but I specifically, pointedly did not want this to be the lead story. I didn't want that to be my headline. I didn't want the attack of a politician to be the main lead that you got bringing you into this show. So am I going to sacrifice some audience, sure. But I'm willing to pay that price. What price are you willing to pay for your career? Whether you're trying to build a business advance up the corporate ladder, create a government entity to be more effective, or even just helping out your community as a volunteer on city commissions, what is it you're willing to sacrifice short term so that you can make a bigger long term difference? That's what I want you to think about today because I think it's, it's more relevant than ever today as we go increasingly to an attention based economy where every politician's fighting for eyeballs, every business leader, every startup, every venture capitalist, everyone is fighting for attention. I want to thank you for joining me today. Quick Timeout. This is Communiverse with T.J. walker. That's me. This is where the news meets personal development. Every day we look at top news stories related to business, technology and culture. We decode these stories through the lens of communication skills in order to boost your personal success. That's what we're about. If you like anything you hear here, please sign up. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you're listening to this on itunes, subscribe on itunes or Spotify or any one of the numerous podcasting services. If you're watching this on Facebook or elsewhere, be sure to like it. Leave a comment and leave suggestions for future topics you would like me to discuss. I record these live, but then they are put out on demand and they'll be put out in different formats as well. So I'm trying to reach you where you are, when you want it and how you want it. So that's really what we're about right here at the Communiverse segment 4. Are seed oils really bad for you? RFK Jr calls seed oils a national poison, but NPR asked actual scientists their verdict. Not dangerous and maybe even helpful. Critics say canola oil is a particular problem and others too. So let me give you the specifics of what they're saying. They're saying soybean promotes inflammation as well as canola. But no trials show. Excuse me, Trials do show no increase in inflammatory markers and in fact omega 6 lower LDL cholesterol. Here are some of the facts. According to National Public Radio, a well respected news source, there's the so called hateful eight oils. Soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, Rice bran, grapeseed. They're processed with hexane, but residue is non toxic and evaporates when heated. Omega 6s don't cause inflammation in real world studies, the best move, increase omega 6. Excuse me, omega 3s from fish, walnuts and chia. And I eat a lot of chia every day. Walnuts. I'm a big fan of eating raw nuts and seeds on a daily basis in my oatmeal. Ultra processed seeds, excuse me, ultra processed foods, not seed oils, are the real problem, according to most scientists and experts in the medical community. Seed oils are healthier than lard, butter or coconut oil, according to Stanford's Chris Gardner. In short, it's time to stop panicking about canola and start panicking about your third bag of chips. Now, full disclosure, I am not a medical doctor. I do not have a PhD in biochemistry. So I'm not asking you to listen to me as your health guru. I'm a communication expert, and I can tell you the easiest way to get a lot of attention on the Internet, the easiest way to get a lot of clicks, the easiest way to sell a bunch of fake, phony, diced, you know, liver supplements that are actually sawdust is to start attacking and say, the health establishment doesn't want you to know, but seed oil is killing you. It's dangerous. And if you could just get rid of this boogeyman, then you'll be so much healthier. Well, the boogeyman for most of us is right in front of us in the form of the Standard American Diet. That's right. It's SAD is the acronym for it. It's lots and lots of processed food. It's way too much meat. It's gallons and gallons of sugary water for most people are a lot of Americans. On a weekly basis, it's 75 pounds of sugar consumption a year on average or more. It's the sugar, it's the processed flours, it's the processed carbohydrates, it's the things that come in the pretty boxes and bags and packages with lots of color on it. And you taste it and mmm, it's got that magic bliss point. It's got just the right amount of fat, salt, sugar, and it melts in your mouth. That's what a potato chip does, that's what a Dorito does. And if you put one in my mouth, yeah, I'll like it too. I'm human, but I don't go out and buy them. Try not to let them ever come in my house. So that's what you've really got to focus. Let's focus on the fundamentals. So many people in my work as a personal development expert helping people with Healthy habits and with weight loss and with learning better exercise and trying to become healthier, get sidetracked. Because we all want to believe there's one magic boogeyman out there. Oh, if I just don't eat potatoes, I'll be healthy. And we're all looking for that magic bullet point. Oh, if I just get this one magic fruit that grows in a tropical paradise on the other side of the world that's then turned into a smoothie or in some magic pill, I'll magically lose 40 pounds of excess fat. Well, I'm here to tell you it's a waste of time. I'm guilty. We've all been guilty of that. But there's no one magic evil. Although you could argue processed sugar and artificial sugar is. Is a magic evil. But if you just deleted that, you'd be much better off. There's certainly a lot of experts who said if you just take someone who is overweight, perhaps diabetic, pre diabetic, and you just shifted them to start drinking this. And those of you listening on the podcast, I'm drinking a glass of water. If you could just switch from drinking sugar water to actual water or even fruit juice to water, you would be many, many pounds lighter at the end of the year. Some cases 5, 10, even 15 pounds lighter, just making that one switch. Whereas obsessing over your oil when most Americans are eating such garbage. Junk food, candy, cookies, Pop tarts. We're eating all of that garbage and you're worried about a seed oil where there's no conclusive medical evidence it's harming you. It reminds me of the time, it was many years ago, I was at a beach summer share and one of the people in the share was saying, oh, my God, this is amazing. Did you see how awful this is? People are actually drinking water from water bottles that have been left in their car overnight. And here's this new study about all the plastics. Well, yeah, maybe that is less than ideal. But you know what she was doing when lamenting this danger? She was smoking a cigarette, sun tanning all day long without any sunscreen or cover. Those risks are substantially bigger than occasionally taking a swig of water from a bottle. And I understand there's plastic in our bodies. And I'm not saying there's no danger in drinking water that's been left in a bottle in a car. But I mean, compared to smoking and being in the sun all day long without sunscreen and eating junk food, we've got to learn how to put things in perspective and Focus on the really important. Thanks. I see 7x says hello and says history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Yes, it does. Thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate your time and for stopping by on the live feed. So here's the real message I have for you. All of us have a vested interest in our own health. And we live in a world where every single day we are bombarded with thousands and thousands. And the estimate is as many as 10,000 ads, marketing messages, images, brand logos bombarding us every day. How many of them are bombarding us to drink more tap water? Filter tap water? Pretty much zero. In any given day, how many ads are we seeing urging us to eat fresh broccoli? Typically none. Whereas we're seeing a few thousand to drink sugar water. Every Pepsi ad, Coke ad, Mountain Dew ad, for that matter, orange juice, it's got so much sugar in it. It's simply not healthy and is not needed. It's definitely not as good for you as a glass of water. So this is unique in the history of humanity. For most of human history, the biggest problem when it came to your body and health was starving to death. That was the norm for most people in most cultures that you simply had to expect there's going to be scarcity of food. And the biggest problem for most people was starving to death. Well, now we've gone from scarcity to overabundance. In addition to the overabundance of cheap, tasty food, we are all bombarded through things like this. Our cell phone with ads and images and logos and every billboard on the highway and every helpful sign going down the street, oh, Maybe there's a McDonald's in two miles. There are the golden arches. We are absolutely bombarded every second of the day with nudges, with encouragements to eat garbage. And I, I'm not saying it's a direct conspiracy, but I do think people who obsess over things like seed oils, demonizing them, are not in bed with the fast food industry and the junk food industry and the candy industry, but they are unwitting accomplices. Because if you're sitting there eating Doritos and M M's and drinking a Coke and eating fish, fried chicken and saying, oh my gosh, isn't it awful what seed oils are doing to a. It's really a diversionary tactic and it's forcing a lot of people to miss out the thing that is killing them right in front of them, what they're putting in their own mouth, what they're drinking and looking for some ghost over here or something that isn't necessarily even real. So that's my problem with seed oil. Now, at some point could some research come out and say, wow, the science was all wrong. We've now done numerous double blind studies with gigantic, gigantic sample sizes of people. And what do you know, everybody dies after six months after having this amount of seed oil. I'll be happy to retract. You know, part of some part. Someone who believes in science is you believe that the current science is going to be proven wrong by attempting.