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Start free trial →Decoder with Nilay Patel · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026
Pritzker on The Verge's Decoder, recorded during the 2026 midterm campaign while he was running for reelection. Host Nilay Patel asked whether a generational political realignment is changing how government deals with big business and tech.
That is not our intention. We are, in fact, in discussions with the Bears and the NFL about keeping the Bears either in Chicago or in Arlington Heights, but in Illinois.
…the lawsuit. The next day, the Ellison family is like, we never, we're from California. We would never leave. I see a parallel here with the Bears that is connected to that larger realignment about how government and business should interact. Do you see that parallel? Do you feel that realignment?
…in Chicago and Illinois. And that's really what we're in the midst of now with the Bears. But I understand your point about realignment. I mean, there is a generational change, and I think it's also an attitudinal change about protecting taxpayers, protecting people who frankly are among the most vulnerable to all the. The technology that's overtaking people's lives and invading people's homes. I do believe that government has to be more active now and become a fighter for our people and not just a collaborator with business on everything. And so I'm not, you know, I'm a businessman, as you know, before I became governor, but I also know that the people of Illinois anyway, my job is to protect the working people of this state who often don't have anybody protecting them except a government that will stand up for them. That's kind of the realignment that I see. And that generational shift, I agree with you. It's partly a Democratic…
There are two places where I see the realignment in particular. One is data centers. One is privacy, right? And you just see that as a bipartisan backlash to those things. I would actually add a third, right? Which is antitrust broadly. It's weird if you go into Silicon Valley. David Sachs lately…
I can't speak to the Paramount situation well enough to give you an answer. And so it would be unfair for me to do so. I can say once again that our orientation today, and I think about the big AI companies and the big social media companies as well, our orientation really has to be like, wait a…
And I wanted to start with some of the brinksmanship we have seen in the negotiations between particularly states and the big companies, because that brinksmanship is real. The threat is we will leave. We just covered, I don't know, Kevin O'Leary in Utah talking about data centers and the people of…