In this bonus episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, Joanna Coles speaks with former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, tracing his unlikely path from Second City alongside comedy heavyweights to the nerve center of Silicon Valley power, before plunging into the high-stakes collision between Big Tech and politics. Costolo pulls back the curtain on Trump’s opaque new tech advisory circle—stacked with billionaires like Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang—and explains why Silicon Valley abruptly stopped ignoring Washington and started trying to shape it. He delivers an insider’s account of government pressure during the Obama years, the messy reality of moderating platforms flooded with extremism, and the unintended consequences behind viral “censorship” flashpoints. The conversation then pivots to today’s fractured social media landscape under Elon Musk, where outrage drives engagement, before landing on the looming AI power struggle—from internal industry rifts to Pentagon tensions over autonomy and control—revealing just how unprepared even the people building it are for what comes next.
#trump #news #podcast #elonmusk #siliconvalley
00:00 - AI Arms Race
04:25 - From Second City Comedy to Running Twitter
08:50 - Trump’s New Tech Power Circle
13:15 - Silicon Valley’s Political Awakening
17:40 - Costolo’s Obama-Era Tech Meetings and Government Pressure
22:05 - The Brutal Reality of Running Twitter
26:30 - Why Social Platforms Drift Toward Conflict
30:55 - Can AI Fix the Internet?
35:20 - Why the “More Jobs” Narrative Doesn’t Add Up
📖 Title: I Know What All the Tech Bros Want from Trump
👂 Podcast: The Daily Beast Podcast
📺 Episode: Bonus Episode
🎧 Format: Full Podcast
📅 Date: April 4, 2026
👨💼 Guest: Dick Costolo
🎙️ Host: Joanna Coles
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