Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hyde at Broomberg's world headquarters in New York
Speaker 1: and them D Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Technology coming up the funding secured fraud trial. You know,
Speaker 1: Mask could lose billions in court over his infamous tweet.
Speaker 1: Jury selection is underway over an investor lawsuit after Musk
Speaker 1: claimed he had funding to take Tesla private all that
Speaker 1: five years ago. And Ryan Cohen's latest bet on Ali
Speaker 1: Barber risks a clash with Beijing. We look into his
Speaker 1: requests and investor activism in China, plus tenure and Hinge
Speaker 1: think users are willing to cough up big bucks. We're
Speaker 1: talking up to five dollars per month for an elite
Speaker 1: membership subscription on dating apps. Or we're going to have
Speaker 1: fun with that one, as you did on social media
Speaker 1: when we took a poll of your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: But first and form, as Elon Musk said to me,
Speaker 1: what star witness and a jury trial that started tuesday
Speaker 1: in San Francisco Federal court as he mentioned, and it's
Speaker 1: over his infamous tweets just all that time ago, four
Speaker 1: and a half years ago. To be is precise about
Speaker 1: a plan staying eavy maker private with quote funding secured,
Speaker 1: who makes Peter Blumberg joins us to get us up
Speaker 1: to speed with basically who's likely to win here, Peter,
Speaker 1: because they're gonna be going out to it, and we
Speaker 1: know Elon Musk quite likes a bit of a fight. Well,
Speaker 1: he does, and it's it's really unusual for a case
Speaker 1: like this securities fraud trial brought by UH private investors
Speaker 1: as a class action too, it's unlikely to sort to
Speaker 1: go to trial in the first place. Usually they settle
Speaker 1: because there's so much money at stake, and in this
Speaker 1: case there there's billions of dollars on the line. But
Speaker 1: as you say, Musk is always up for a fight,
Speaker 1: and in this case he's had a really unusual disadvantage
Speaker 1: because the judge ruled months ago that the tweets were false,
Speaker 1: and the judge is going to tell that to the
Speaker 1: jury at the get go. There's still other things that
Speaker 1: the jury has to decide, and it could still be
Speaker 1: resolved in Musk's favor, but it's definitely a disadvantage for
Speaker 1: him going into this. I think let's talk about mechanics.
Speaker 1: I As you know, Pec, you've been my editor on
Speaker 1: more than one occasion covering these kind of blow by
Speaker 1: blow trials. But the jury's key here and so are
Speaker 1: the mechanics. So we're going through jury selection right now,
Speaker 1: and not a surprise, some of the potential jurors had
Speaker 1: issues of Elon Musk. Remember Elon must tried to move
Speaker 1: this trial away from San Francisco because he argued there
Speaker 1: was bias among the jury pool. But this isn't going
Speaker 1: to happen quickly, and Elon Musk is going to be
Speaker 1: a star witness to walk us through what happens from here.
Speaker 1: Right Well, they're they're getting close to selecting a jury,
Speaker 1: and they've been very carefully questioning the jurors about their
Speaker 1: views and whether they can commit to being fair and impartial.
Speaker 1: And of course the lawyers on both sides uh get
Speaker 1: get a chance to uh speak up and dismiss jurors
Speaker 1: that they don't feel comfortable with. But there's a feeling
Speaker 1: that they're going to reach a consensus before the end
Speaker 1: of the day and pick a jury. And then we've
Speaker 1: got about a two and a half week trial where
Speaker 1: we will hear from a variety of witnesses beyond Musk himself,
Speaker 1: including some of the high finance people who were involved
Speaker 1: in some of the behind the scenes talks about funding
Speaker 1: this transaction, as well as UH some professor types expert
Speaker 1: witnesses who are gonna talk to the jury about their
Speaker 1: theories of how the tweets may have influenced UH investors
Speaker 1: to make trades and also to talk about UH what
Speaker 1: kind of damage this did too, and bardsters and how
Speaker 1: much money they should collect. Page thank you for getting
Speaker 1: us up to feed. It's going to run for a
Speaker 1: little while. Let's think at least until every first. Meanwhile, Apple,
Speaker 1: it just rolled out it's new products. Have you spotted
Speaker 1: that ed has a new Apple products on them today?
Speaker 1: In fact, but we digress from various broken phones and
Speaker 1: we go back to the high end MacBook Pro, the
Speaker 1: laptops as well as the Mac Mini desks that they've
Speaker 1: just been announced today. Let's see what all the fuss
Speaker 1: is all about, bing legs, Mark gam and they haven't announced,
Speaker 1: but they've gone on sale. Right, Mom, What do we
Speaker 1: know about these products that you hadn't already broken in
Speaker 1: the past. Yes, So, the new MacBook Pro and the
Speaker 1: new Mac Minie those were introduced today. They're available for
Speaker 1: pre order on Apple's website and they start shipping on January,
Speaker 1: so just in about a week from now. Now these
Speaker 1: are marginal upgrades. They look identical to the previous models.
Speaker 1: The Mac Minie last rolled out in the first Mac
Speaker 1: to get the M one chip part of the transition
Speaker 1: away from Intel. The Mac Pro less updated at the
Speaker 1: end of one Now why are these so significant, Well,
Speaker 1: they introduced the new generation of Apple's chips. So the
Speaker 1: Mac Minie gets the same M two chip launched in
Speaker 1: the mat Book Air and the low end thirteen inch
Speaker 1: Maco Pro last year, but it also gets the first
Speaker 1: M two Pro chip that adds a little bit more
Speaker 1: horsepower on both the CPU and the GPU side. So
Speaker 1: the CPUs the chip that is for the main performance,
Speaker 1: the overall speed of the computer, while the GPU handles
Speaker 1: graphics and video editing and stuff of that nature. Now,
Speaker 1: the MacBook Pro also gets that same M two pro
Speaker 1: chip in the Mac Mini, but also a more advanced
Speaker 1: chip called the M to max, which essentially doubles the
Speaker 1: amount of horsepower you get on the graphics side. So
Speaker 1: that's really a high end machine for video editors, programmers,
Speaker 1: engineers and such that really need the most horse power
Speaker 1: you can get in a laptop. What Caroline was alluding
Speaker 1: to Mark is this weekend, I dropped my phone and
Speaker 1: it smashed, and now I face a choice of whether
Speaker 1: to upgrade or Wait. You and I talk about this
Speaker 1: behind closed doors all the time. Anyway, we digress. What
Speaker 1: Tim Cook alluded to in a tweet was Apple silicon right,
Speaker 1: you're just talking about it there that the emphasis Apples
Speaker 1: had not just on supply chain but controlling its I
Speaker 1: P controlling its technology. What I'm confused about is I
Speaker 1: thought that this latest gen of Mac was supposed to
Speaker 1: come out last year. Was there a delay? What happened?
Speaker 1: So there was a delay. So the M two line
Speaker 1: first started rolling out in last year. It started to
Speaker 1: launch actually at the end of July. There was a
Speaker 1: delay back then because of the manufacturing facilities in China.
Speaker 1: They all got shut down for about a month. That
Speaker 1: delayed the rollout of the MacBook Air In the MacBook probe, that,
Speaker 1: in addition to other factors regarding the chip shortage and
Speaker 1: the overall needs to allocate more manufacturing to more pressing
Speaker 1: products like the iPhones and the iPads last year and
Speaker 1: the Apple watches, meant that something had to give in
Speaker 1: what gave was this was this new map book Pro
Speaker 1: and the Mac Mini Those were originally supposed to roll
Speaker 1: out this past October. Alright, Bloomberg's Mark German always bringing
Speaker 1: us the latest headlines and gadgets from the world of Apple.
Speaker 1: Now Microsoft plans to cut jobs and a number of
Speaker 1: engineering divisions as early as Wednesday. That, according to a
Speaker 1: Bloomberg source, is unclear how many of the two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand workers will be affected, and it is the third
Speaker 1: round of layoffs since July of last year. Microsoft, which
Speaker 1: declined to comment, has also eliminated open positions and paused
Speaker 1: hirings in many departments chat GPT, and it is still
Speaker 1: in the headlines, and this time because Microsoft's putting the
Speaker 1: tool to use right this after the tech John we
Speaker 1: already know reportedly as mulling an additional ten billion dollar
Speaker 1: investment in chatch epts creator open Ai. But just get
Speaker 1: us up to speed with what Microsoft's overall plans are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was an interesting and curiously times blog post from
Speaker 1: the company, partly because Davos is going on and you
Speaker 1: know how things work over in Davos, but also because
Speaker 1: of how fresh that reporting was around them boosting their
Speaker 1: funding into open Ai. Right, they've already invested a billion
Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen. But simply they're going to take
Speaker 1: open aies tools and bring them into the Azure Cloud platform. Actually,
Speaker 1: if we flip up the boards, we can get some
Speaker 1: detail on that in some limited capacity. He Since Microsoft
Speaker 1: has often offered a very small group of its Azure
Speaker 1: clients the ability to use open ai tools if they
Speaker 1: have their own tools hosted in Asual Cloud, that all
Speaker 1: sounds very niche, but frankly so we put if you're
Speaker 1: a company that hosts your own tools on the Asual
Speaker 1: Cloud platform, you have now access to use GPT three
Speaker 1: point five dally for example. And now they're making that
Speaker 1: more accessible. They're opening it up to a wide wider
Speaker 1: range of customers. Why do we care? When we were
Speaker 1: asking when that news came around about the ten billion
Speaker 1: dollar potential investment, what's in it? For Microsoft? There is
Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on being their search engine, right,
Speaker 1: how could chat GPT in particularly improve that platform? But
Speaker 1: read Dina Basses reporting on the Bloomberg Tunel Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: there are other use cases as well about how the
Speaker 1: language models and the underlying artificial intelligence could improve office
Speaker 1: for example, and teams might stuff teams as well. So
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting development that are now being a
Speaker 1: little bit more open about, although there was still a
Speaker 1: lot that they did not say in that blog post. Yeah,
Speaker 1: more questions and answers is always the way, but let's
Speaker 1: put more questions to one. Michael Dancy now his managing
Speaker 1: partner over at Compound, has a number of investments actually
Speaker 1: an AI and machine learning startups and two around million
Speaker 1: dollars in assets and the management. Michael, great to catch
Speaker 1: up with you and give us the iteration, the scale,
Speaker 1: the applications you're most excited about for something like chat
Speaker 1: GPT or generative AI. Yeah, I think for chat GPT specifically,
Speaker 1: search is probably the thing that gets everyone really excited
Speaker 1: on a first order. You can think about how existential
Speaker 1: that is to Google and how they are kind of
Speaker 1: economic model works. I think as you start to see
Speaker 1: more and more of these use cases has become more
Speaker 1: emergent and more professional already in areas that start off
Speaker 1: as needing kind of inspiration and move towards needing n
Speaker 1: percent perfection and eventually make their way all the way
Speaker 1: to kind of plus. You can think of like legal
Speaker 1: as an exam ample, um. And then in those middle
Speaker 1: areas you can think of areas like biology, material discovery,
Speaker 1: things like that, as well as a bunch of other
Speaker 1: enterprise software use cases. So we really think this is
Speaker 1: something that's interesting across a bunch of different industries and
Speaker 1: it's going to cut into a bunch of different companies
Speaker 1: kind of supposed modes over time. A lot of hype
Speaker 1: and actually a lot of handwringing around some of the
Speaker 1: ethics around it all. Michael, is that developing simultaneously with
Speaker 1: the innovation you worried about basically the rules of regulations,
Speaker 1: the steering of the road not being formed quickly enough. Um.
Speaker 1: I think with all emergent technologies, especially when they get
Speaker 1: the type of adoption that's been rampant for chat GPT,
Speaker 1: you'd see this concern around can we roll this out properly,
Speaker 1: which is ironic as Opening Eye was originally built around
Speaker 1: this idea of deploying AI in a kind of safe manner. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about it as much. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of open questions around kind of artists attribution,
Speaker 1: around kind of fair right usage of different types of data,
Speaker 1: where if you're pulling from a different sources, a bunch
Speaker 1: of different sources. Should you need to cite those sources,
Speaker 1: but in general, I think that the value continually outstrips
Speaker 1: kind of the the downsides, and we really should focus
Speaker 1: on the the optimistic version of these technologies. What are
Speaker 1: you surprised as somebody tracking the space between the time
Speaker 1: that reports came out, Microsoft was thinking about boosting its
Speaker 1: investment in open ai and then last night when a
Speaker 1: blog post comes out talking about how they're going to
Speaker 1: incorporate the underlying technology into their own platforms. Is somebody
Speaker 1: that knows how these deals work and also what the
Speaker 1: utility is. What's your read on the news announcements. I
Speaker 1: think it's just a continual um you know. I just
Speaker 1: continually am impressed by Microsoft over years now, and I
Speaker 1: think they see the strategic asset that having these kind
Speaker 1: of foundation models and large language models implemented into their
Speaker 1: products can be and also we can allow them to
Speaker 1: potentially leap frog competitors. And I think what you're going
Speaker 1: to see is um as we all know a lot
Speaker 1: of other large companies that are figuring out what are
Speaker 1: they going to do? Google is the most notable one
Speaker 1: sideline I think they have bigger regulatory headwinds and so
Speaker 1: they are being very very careful about this. But I
Speaker 1: think all of us knew the scale of people there
Speaker 1: that care about these problems that are could have very
Speaker 1: interested in figuring out, you know, what are the ways
Speaker 1: in which we can disrupt ourselves and or disrupt our
Speaker 1: biggest competitors. And for Microsoft, it's always been about disrupting
Speaker 1: competitors and specifically doing it from the enterprise layer. And
Speaker 1: I think what we're going to see is that Microsoft's
Speaker 1: ambitions are going to continue to expand far outside of
Speaker 1: just enterprise software, and I think that's where people should
Speaker 1: be maybe less surprised over the next twenty four months. Michael,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there are some parallels between the experience you're
Speaker 1: having at the moment, particularly in your inbox and mining
Speaker 1: Carolines that since this story took off, you know, lots
Speaker 1: of emails come across about startops were king in the
Speaker 1: field of AI. It's hard to discern and distinguish the
Speaker 1: sort of those players that have genuine promise, those that
Speaker 1: have something unique about them, that have a you know,
Speaker 1: a strong underlying technology or i P. Is that your
Speaker 1: experience so you're getting pitches, you people seeking investment from you,
Speaker 1: and you're saying, God, I don't know what is real
Speaker 1: in the world of AI and what's not. Yeah, someone
Speaker 1: who has spent you know, the better part of the
Speaker 1: eight years and AI and also in similar time, my
Speaker 1: time in crypto from I'm used to these kind of
Speaker 1: hype cycles and people adding burbiage, whether it's Web three
Speaker 1: or now AI to their UM, you know, to their pitch.
Speaker 1: I think that you have to kind of understand what
Speaker 1: are the core special skills or special sources of these
Speaker 1: founders and entrepreneurs. Are they products centric? Are they technology centric?
Speaker 1: Are they distribution centric? And I think really most of
Speaker 1: these teams are not technology centric and kind of you're
Speaker 1: not at the bleeding edge of machine learning artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: And if you're not there, then you have to be
Speaker 1: elite on the product side. And so I think what
Speaker 1: we're gonna see is both a lot of people that
Speaker 1: pitch AI and never even get there, but also much
Speaker 1: people that integrate you know, Opening Eye, a p I
Speaker 1: S or other types of companies APIs and build products
Speaker 1: that UM take up quite quickly, but are kind of
Speaker 1: suffering from death by a thousand cuts are suffering by
Speaker 1: having no real modes in these businesses. I think, is
Speaker 1: you brought up Google and I think back to a
Speaker 1: UK startup, deep Mind, that it first purchased, and the
Speaker 1: focus that the UK had in artificial intelligence. Where in
Speaker 1: the world are these companies getting built at the moment,
Speaker 1: Because we seem to be very US centric about it
Speaker 1: at this moment in time, I actually think the UK
Speaker 1: is one of the most interesting places in the world
Speaker 1: for artificial intelligence today. I think it's the U S.
Speaker 1: It's Canada and Toronto Waterloo and the UK um and
Speaker 1: Europe has a few other disparate areas, but the concentration
Speaker 1: of talent in those places is pretty obvious. And I
Speaker 1: think the best part really for the UK specifically, were
Speaker 1: investors in a company called wave Ai, which is a
Speaker 1: self driving company using a very advanced type of machine
Speaker 1: learning to get their cards to drive themselves. What we're
Speaker 1: seeing now, how is a kind of renaissance of news
Speaker 1: machine learning researchers no longer wanting to be in research
Speaker 1: or academic settings, and so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people in Europe, specifically in London specifically, we're in deep
Speaker 1: Mind kind of really enjoying publishing these amazing paper as,
Speaker 1: whether as Alpha Fold or a bunch of others. And
Speaker 1: now they're seeing chat GPT hit five million people on
Speaker 1: a couple of days, and we're saying, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's been cool sitting around and working on technology for years,
Speaker 1: but it's time to go and build alright. Michael Densi,
Speaker 1: managing partner Compound, trying to discern what has promised what
Speaker 1: does not in the world of AI. Now coming up,
Speaker 1: the energy crisis in Europe, the potential recession in the US.
Speaker 1: Is there still some light at the end of the tunnel?
Speaker 1: Ib and Vice chairman Gary Cone seems to think so.
Speaker 1: More in that next, this is Bloomberg over in Davos,
Speaker 1: where the World Economic Forum is on the way. Some
Speaker 1: tech leaders are actually optimistic about the economy. IBM's vice
Speaker 1: chairman Gary Cone, for example, suppose to Bloomberg's David Weston
Speaker 1: about that and the energy crisis over in Europe, have
Speaker 1: a listen. I thought that the risk to Germany was
Speaker 1: really the energy situation going into the winter, to the
Speaker 1: extent that we had a very cold winter and they
Speaker 1: had to start rationing energy and they had to cut
Speaker 1: back industrial Germany to keep people warm. I felt that
Speaker 1: that was a really tough situation. Potentially, we're now deep
Speaker 1: enough into the winter and we sort of know where
Speaker 1: we are, we know what's in reserve and storage. I
Speaker 1: think Germany is going to get through the winter very
Speaker 1: fairly easily with energy and I think they're going to
Speaker 1: continue to power through this. So I'm in agreement with
Speaker 1: the Chancellor. The biggest economy in Europe. Does I say
Speaker 1: about Europe in general? Every recession in Europe, Well, I
Speaker 1: think Europe is going to model through this. The UK
Speaker 1: not as clear, but it's it's it's it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be easy. You know, We've still got pretty pretty high
Speaker 1: inflation in Europe. It's it's it's a difficult situation. You know,
Speaker 1: in the United States, when we raise interest rates and
Speaker 1: we can all handle it that the interest rate picture
Speaker 1: in Europe, the leaguard has to deal with this is
Speaker 1: a little bit different. You know, Germany can handle higher
Speaker 1: interest rates as you start raising interest rates, Southern Europe
Speaker 1: has a lot more difficulty with the reality of what's
Speaker 1: going on. You're director of the National Economic Council, so
Speaker 1: you followed the US aunty pretty closely, But about the
Speaker 1: United States, what are the chances of hercession? I talked
Speaker 1: earlier today with Jane Fraser City she thinks second half,
Speaker 1: it's quite possible. You know, it's interesting. We've been around
Speaker 1: Davos and everyone here is negative. So the first of
Speaker 1: all that that tells me we should be positive. But
Speaker 1: you know, is it a dinner last night with a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of CEOs, global CEOs, and you know,
Speaker 1: most of them raised their hands. They're pretty negative about
Speaker 1: the economy. Then when they talked about their business, they
Speaker 1: were all pretty positive about their business. So I think
Speaker 1: everyone thinks everyone else has a problem. My my opinion
Speaker 1: is I'm pretty optimistic. That doesn't mean we're having a
Speaker 1: bullish economy. What I'm optimistic about is I think we
Speaker 1: can muddle through where we are. I think the Feds
Speaker 1: getting to the end of their tightening cycle. We may
Speaker 1: have a couple more twenty five basis point increases from
Speaker 1: the Fed. We top out around five percent in FED
Speaker 1: funds here. But I think we've all factored that factor
Speaker 1: that into the situation, and I feel like we're in
Speaker 1: a relatively good situation. The consumer is okay, they're not great,
Speaker 1: We're starting to see a few cracks. Um, the economy
Speaker 1: is slowing down. But I think we're going to model
Speaker 1: through modeling through the IBMS Vice chair Gary Cone over
Speaker 1: there in Davos. Meanwhile, let's talk about crypto for a moment,
Speaker 1: because shares of the bank silver Gate, they spike today
Speaker 1: as an outline steps like shutting assets to whether the
Speaker 1: ft X collapse. That's off the posting in one million
Speaker 1: loss earlier this month. Remember look, Silvergate is a lending
Speaker 1: focused on digital asset industry what large, and it's trying
Speaker 1: to navigate the fallout from f t X, which pronto
Speaker 1: clients to draw down more than seven billion dollars in deposits.
Speaker 1: The company has said it's got four point six billion
Speaker 1: in cash on hand. Welcome back to blom Bow Technology.
Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hyde in New York and I'm Ed Ludlow
Speaker 1: in San Francisco now. And it's a pretty air case
Speaker 1: actually of an activist targeting if I'm in a Chinese company. Now,
Speaker 1: his mean stock investor who actually means stock royalty, Ryan Cohen,
Speaker 1: He's taking a state get this in Ali Baba, and
Speaker 1: he wants the e commerce giant to buy back more
Speaker 1: shares Funnily enough, if I could put Cohen maybe even
Speaker 1: at allders with China's own president, Sheinping, whose administration has
Speaker 1: kind of wiped out growth at Ali Baba and other
Speaker 1: big tech companies. But it's a returning of the guard.
Speaker 1: Promose Yuhuan Chan is with us who's been reporting on this,
Speaker 1: and and actually first and foremost we know his power
Speaker 1: over game Stop, over bed Bath and beyond, but he
Speaker 1: hasn't had much power over the share price movement of
Speaker 1: Ali Baba on the day. Yeah, it's interesting because if
Speaker 1: you'll look at the share at the store market reaction,
Speaker 1: Ali Baba is actually down around one point six percent
Speaker 1: alongways all the Chinese A d R stocks during the
Speaker 1: U S session. It only managed to go up slightly
Speaker 1: overnight in Hong Kong when the news initial accoun out.
Speaker 1: So it's very different from the huge rally we saw
Speaker 1: in the mean stock rail where he cuts on. So
Speaker 1: I think it appoints to something about the bigger questions
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from invester. Is there question is because this
Speaker 1: is a Chinese company, and ask for an activist, how
Speaker 1: much real impact and the influence he could have on
Speaker 1: the board, because you know, First, his steak is pretty
Speaker 1: small thinking about Olive blah blah as this huge tech
Speaker 1: giant of more than three hundred billion market cab in
Speaker 1: his stake his positions like hundreds of millions. So that's
Speaker 1: limited power, right. And also I think what's tricky and
Speaker 1: more interesting is Beijing's perspective is Beijing is taking off
Speaker 1: this so called golden shears. So it's a minority stake,
Speaker 1: but well allowed the Chinese government um to you know,
Speaker 1: have the rights or the control over or influence on
Speaker 1: the board or sway in important decisions. So from that perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, the activists voice could ultimately be undermined, you know,
Speaker 1: if they are at odds right. And so I think
Speaker 1: that also points to the overall background is vary. We're
Speaker 1: in China, you see a real activists to push just
Speaker 1: Asian investor is also not much for Lola with that
Speaker 1: concept or you know, is that kind of compare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was only last Thursday that the reports came out
Speaker 1: that that Chinese government entities we're taking so called golden
Speaker 1: shares not just value Barba, but ten cent as well.
Speaker 1: And activism is more rare, right when it comes to
Speaker 1: China tech mainland Chinese companies. I guess my question is
Speaker 1: you strip out all the noise and his demands, what
Speaker 1: is the outlook for Ali Barber. You know there was
Speaker 1: a bit more optimism at the end of two because
Speaker 1: there was a pullback on COVID zero, a bit more
Speaker 1: supportive of e commerce stocks. Yeah, that's right, and so
Speaker 1: one hour the agree is right now it's actually for
Speaker 1: the activists or as an investor, uh, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: good entrying point because many would argument now we are
Speaker 1: at an inflection point for China equities, right, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it's because of the lots of the China reopening trades
Speaker 1: is raising hope and also on the regulator reference, we
Speaker 1: are seeing more and war science space during is finally
Speaker 1: easing away from the regular crackdown and that's like the
Speaker 1: initial trigger that caused the brutal cell off in Ali Baba. Right,
Speaker 1: So now you know people are more conveyced the wars
Speaker 1: is behind, the hewing is over, and hopefully with this
Speaker 1: influential investors engagement it well lived the sentiments or you know,
Speaker 1: bring more attention from the retail traders um in the US.
Speaker 1: And right, what about Ali Baba buying Pakistan stock. I mean,
Speaker 1: given them still about six and the discounted versus the
Speaker 1: highs of twenty dwying with Ali Baba's management with without
Speaker 1: Ryan Ko and think it's not a bad idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And actually Ali Baba has already started to
Speaker 1: do so from last year and has expanded shareholder share
Speaker 1: buy back program, So it's underway. I think, just romant
Speaker 1: to see if like they will speed up the or
Speaker 1: ramp up their effort. But it's something like already on
Speaker 1: the table. If you're Ryan Cohen and you're trying to
Speaker 1: convince Ali Barber's board or the Chinese government of change,
Speaker 1: which demand do you think is most likely? That's a
Speaker 1: difficult question, you shim, But which demand is he pushing foremost?
Speaker 1: I what sink here? Share buy back is probably the
Speaker 1: right aspect, just given that years she was sitting on
Speaker 1: piles of cash and how to better use that part
Speaker 1: of capital is a you know, a like strategy. I
Speaker 1: think the board needs to be considered, um, you know,
Speaker 1: thoroughly fascinating. I mean what Ali Baba is about fifty
Speaker 1: times the size the game stops, so it's quite a
Speaker 1: different ballpart that he's playing in now. You should Chen.
Speaker 1: We thank you sir so much for saying a top
Speaker 1: the news. We might we've had a little bit of
Speaker 1: news in the world of autos. Yeah, it was an
Speaker 1: interesting early start talking to GM because Chevrolet just unveiled
Speaker 1: the first ever electrified corvette. Okay, electrified kind of seventy
Speaker 1: years after the first corvette concept was unveiled in New
Speaker 1: York City. Actually, this is a hybrid zero to sixty
Speaker 1: and two point five seconds, not a plug in hybrid though,
Speaker 1: and I caught up with GM's president Mark Royce about
Speaker 1: why they put a battery of sorts in their sports
Speaker 1: car and what this fits in with GM's transition to electric.
Speaker 1: Take a listen, the car itself is is so different, um,
Speaker 1: and it really is something that takes advantage of the
Speaker 1: whole mill engine architecture in getting power to the front
Speaker 1: and rear wheels and makes it really an all weather machine.
Speaker 1: So we're very proud of it. It's an interestant engineering
Speaker 1: Marvel and uh, you know, today is a big day
Speaker 1: for the whole team. This is the fastest ever production corvette.
Speaker 1: The electric or electrified propulsion system is a big part
Speaker 1: of that, right In going back to basics, this is
Speaker 1: not a plug in hybrid. There are two separate propulsion
Speaker 1: systems that that work in conjunction with one another. My question,
Speaker 1: I guess Mark, is is this a sign that the
Speaker 1: Corvette customer is not ready to go full electric, to
Speaker 1: go full battery electric. That's a great question. Um, I
Speaker 1: think you know, the Corvette customer is ever changing, and
Speaker 1: so is the car, and so i'd say, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the next step in the evolution of getting Um,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred sixty horse power in the front
Speaker 1: and four on a ninety horse power in the rear,
Speaker 1: all to the ground, and so you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little faster, a little quicker, I should say, than there's
Speaker 1: zero six at two and a half seconds, But um,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's very different. And so when you
Speaker 1: drive the car from a vehicle dynamic standpoint, it's at
Speaker 1: home on the track, it's at home, you know, um,
Speaker 1: every day, as Corvettes usually are on on all streets.
Speaker 1: So this is the next step. And you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, the Corvette buyer is a were changing and
Speaker 1: so you know, this is a pretty exciting time for us.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's a question of whether someone's
Speaker 1: ready or not. You know, I think people are when
Speaker 1: they look at the car and they discover, um, the
Speaker 1: integration of the power as you mentioned that, and then
Speaker 1: you know how we're doing it, and the sophistication and
Speaker 1: the integration of things like stealth mode and the launch itself. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then the like I said, the vehicle dynamics on
Speaker 1: the track when you actually have you know, um, the
Speaker 1: front wheels actually pulling and and doing things that you know,
Speaker 1: the regular sate doesn't do. So I think it's just
Speaker 1: the national evolution in propulsion performance, vehicle dynamics and sophistication. Mark,
Speaker 1: let's get an update on on the electrification plan more broadly,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's a lot of excitement and
Speaker 1: quite clearly a book of demand for the Lyric and
Speaker 1: the hummery V. But you know from bloom Bags reporting
Speaker 1: that the output still seems quite low for those two vehicles.
Speaker 1: What what's the situation there? Well, you know, we we've
Speaker 1: we've we've been off a lot in terms of having
Speaker 1: um lower volume vehicles until our cell plants, our own
Speaker 1: cell plants, our ultium cell plants are brought online. So
Speaker 1: we just brought our first plant online, you know, for
Speaker 1: the cells of all those vehicles in Largetown, Ohio. The
Speaker 1: next one on a volume basis comes from spring Hill,
Speaker 1: which is built just adjacent to the Lyrics. So, um,
Speaker 1: we also you know this is these are all new
Speaker 1: electric vehicle platforms. They're not retrofit architectures with batteries. So
Speaker 1: some of our competitors have done so, um, we are
Speaker 1: doing this right. We're doing it for the next twenty years.
Speaker 1: We're not doing it for the next two years. And
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna see those cell plants come online
Speaker 1: and high volume, which are is happening right now, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna see the output of the first Ultium vehicles
Speaker 1: increased quite dramatically over the next year. GM President up early.
Speaker 1: We'll around like great conversation. And meanwhile, more news in
Speaker 1: the auto world for you. Uber and Hurts they're joining
Speaker 1: forces for expansion plans across Europe and Hurts it's going
Speaker 1: to be making as many as twenty five thousand electric
Speaker 1: vehicles available to Uber drivers in European capital cities. By
Speaker 1: almost fifty thousand Uber drivers have rented a Tesla through
Speaker 1: Hurt since those two companies partner in last October. So
Speaker 1: the Uber hurts expansion. It's gonna begin in London this month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fascinating talking about demand, asking where they're going to get
Speaker 1: all those evs from anyway, coming up a new bill
Speaker 1: in the UK could put tech executives behind bars. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg meta Platforms President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg
Speaker 1: says the company is in a period of transition, but
Speaker 1: also in the very very early stages of that transition
Speaker 1: to the metaverse. That says, growing legislation and scrutiny is
Speaker 1: placed on social media apps around the world. Clerk spoke
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg tv is David Weston in Davos about the
Speaker 1: transition and the threat of other tech giants like TikTok
Speaker 1: owner bike Dance take a lesson. HM. So, I think
Speaker 1: you see this huge pendulum swing from the kind of
Speaker 1: tech euphoria of the past where tech could do no wrong.
Speaker 1: You know that the era of the Arab Spring, where
Speaker 1: all things bright and beautiful were held to be produced
Speaker 1: by tech, and now, of course the pendulum has swung
Speaker 1: pretty kind of pretty dramatically the opposite direction, and everything
Speaker 1: that is bad, whether it's an election or a referendum
Speaker 1: outcome that people don't like or individual distresses is ascribed
Speaker 1: to social media, and I think part of part of
Speaker 1: kind of finding a resting place for that pendulum, because
Speaker 1: extreme optimism and extreme pessimism of both as foolish as
Speaker 1: he is each other, of course, involves regulation. There are
Speaker 1: issues like data privacy, content rules, data portability, the rules
Speaker 1: of of of how social media platform should operate during
Speaker 1: a lection and time and so on. All of those
Speaker 1: are rules that should be set not by technologists, not
Speaker 1: by engineers on the West Coast, but by but by legislature,
Speaker 1: by legislators elected by voters. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: process you're seeing. It's most advanced in Europe, but you're
Speaker 1: seeing that you're seeing that debate in DC as well.
Speaker 1: It's not producing legislation as much as as as occurs,
Speaker 1: but also in Brussels, in London, in in in Australia.
Speaker 1: You're seeing this move towards regulation. I suspect some of
Speaker 1: it won't work very well and won't stand the test
Speaker 1: of time, and other bits of regulation will will make
Speaker 1: sense and will stand the test of time. I suspect
Speaker 1: one of the reasons you have your important position in
Speaker 1: meta is you have been on both sides I mean,
Speaker 1: you have been elected to parliament, you have been Deputy
Speaker 1: Prime Minister in the United Kingdom, so you've seen the
Speaker 1: government side of it, and now you're seeing the private
Speaker 1: sector side of as well. I'm not saying there's any
Speaker 1: right answer. I'm not asking for what the regulation is,
Speaker 1: but give some principles from your experience on both sides
Speaker 1: of it. What is the basic principles you think that
Speaker 1: should be followed? Well, I think I think the secret
Speaker 1: is in that name, the sort of the best recipes,
Speaker 1: and that's in that word principles. I think where things
Speaker 1: go wrong is when legislators who are not engineers, they're
Speaker 1: not technologists. They don't know how algorithms work, or how
Speaker 1: AI works and so on and so forth. And given
Speaker 1: that technology evolves so rapidly, I think where things go
Speaker 1: wrong is where legislators try and impose some sort of
Speaker 1: static condition on on technology that moves very fast. I
Speaker 1: think where where legislation and regulation makes more senses when
Speaker 1: it's based on some principles which are sort of evergreen
Speaker 1: principles that can that can apply to different technology, and too,
Speaker 1: technologies that evolve over time, so to you know, look
Speaker 1: at these big companies like Metal, like Google, like Twitter,
Speaker 1: like Apple, and so on, look at their systems, hold
Speaker 1: their systems to account, but don't try and kind of
Speaker 1: micromanage every bit of content or every change in in
Speaker 1: in you know, every every change in the code that
Speaker 1: is used to produce the product. I think that's the
Speaker 1: that's the fundamental lesson that I've certainly kind of observed
Speaker 1: so far as we sit here in domagistrates with one
Speaker 1: of the big issues not just endeavors, but for the
Speaker 1: globe right now, is some differences and systems. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there are difference between Europe and the United States
Speaker 1: and regularly learning tech for example, but fundamentally the systems
Speaker 1: are saying. China is quite different. They have a different
Speaker 1: approach to social media, including other things. Can we have
Speaker 1: a world in which those are integrated or do they
Speaker 1: have to essentially bifurkate. Do's China have to go it's
Speaker 1: away in social media and the West goat it's way.
Speaker 1: I think they already have bifurcated. We don't have a
Speaker 1: We don't have a global internet. People keep talking about
Speaker 1: the global Internet. It doesn't exist. You have a Chinese Internet,
Speaker 1: which by its own on its own terms is highly successful.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's walled off from the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: It's it's subject to a great deal of internal surveillance.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't it doesn't welcome. You know, for instance,
Speaker 1: Facebook is not allowed to operate in China, whilst of
Speaker 1: calls Chinese social media companies are allowed to operate in
Speaker 1: the States, tik Tak Taxica. How big a risk is
Speaker 1: that a national security risk? Because many in Washington think
Speaker 1: it really is. Look, I'll leave that to the national
Speaker 1: security experts. What I would observe though, to your earlier question,
Speaker 1: which is you know that there isn't a level playing field.
Speaker 1: Chinese social media companies are able to operate in both
Speaker 1: in China and in Europe and America. We're able to
Speaker 1: operate in American Europe, but not in China. So you know,
Speaker 1: at the moment there's an imbalance imbalance there, which doesn't
Speaker 1: I think in the long run make a make a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. And they and it's partly because
Speaker 1: the the approach to data, the approach to privacy is
Speaker 1: just very very different culturally and legally and politically in
Speaker 1: China than it is elsewhere. And then there are slightly
Speaker 1: more subtle, narrower differences between the EU and the US
Speaker 1: as well. And I think one of the interesting dynamics
Speaker 1: you have is that you have the European Union now
Speaker 1: leading on new rules, need leading on new regulation, but
Speaker 1: not leading technologically or commercially. You don't have in all
Speaker 1: the big tech giants are either in the United States
Speaker 1: or China. And yet it's Europe that doesn't have the
Speaker 1: big tech giants that is inventing the rules for them.
Speaker 1: So it's a very interesting jigsaw where I would I
Speaker 1: would actually add a fourth element. I think India. I
Speaker 1: think you have Europe, America, China and India. Those are
Speaker 1: the four great, big sort of jigsaw pieces that make
Speaker 1: up how the the Internet operates in the modern world.
Speaker 1: Meta Platforms President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg. They're having
Speaker 1: a very global and a very legislation focused conversation there.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about global legislation. Let's talk about the UK,
Speaker 1: of course, where Nick Clegg used to be our deputy
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, because it could be on the verge of
Speaker 1: passing legislation. Social media bosses behind bars if they break
Speaker 1: certain rules. Now Prime Minister is she soonak intends to
Speaker 1: sign the Online Safety Bill with criminal sanctions for tech
Speaker 1: executives that the bill aims to protect anyone under eighteen
Speaker 1: from harmful content. That means, if regulators find that a
Speaker 1: platform has been pushing teams to see content and citing violence, harassment,
Speaker 1: misinformation for example, some executives could face up to two
Speaker 1: years behind bars. The Online Safety Bill is expected to
Speaker 1: be signed. It's early as spring head, and this is
Speaker 1: after what was a big backlash from his own Conservative
Speaker 1: Party members, the backbenches as they're known, wanting to take
Speaker 1: out a certain amendment that would remove any criminal liability.
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting is basically taking a leaf out
Speaker 1: of Ireland's book, right because they've already sort of got
Speaker 1: this precedent set. You know, all social media players have
Speaker 1: been thinking about this issue for years, and I think
Speaker 1: metas are really interesting example in like of what the
Speaker 1: UK is doing, because go back to two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's op ed in the Washington Post, we need new
Speaker 1: rules for the Internet meta. Then Facebook shouldn't be the
Speaker 1: ones to form those rules. Then you have the Meta
Speaker 1: Oversight Board, an independent body brought in. It's always been
Speaker 1: that someone else should act. Well, now they are acting
Speaker 1: and this is actually a pretty sort of severe course
Speaker 1: of action the UK appears to be taking. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think the Irish legislation, for example, it does have
Speaker 1: checks before that isn't suddenly you're deemed legally culpable and
Speaker 1: you're put behind MARS. I mean you get apparently a
Speaker 1: series of checks, including if they do not comply with
Speaker 1: warning notices from the country as Online Safety Commissioner. And
Speaker 1: in fact these rules are already applied to certain industries
Speaker 1: in the UK. Think of builders for example, the construction companies.
Speaker 1: Banks even do have a layer of accountability up to
Speaker 1: the highest executives. It's just going to be interesting how
Speaker 1: this is kind of navigated, both legally and in practice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and social media is just as societally important of those
Speaker 1: things that you just mentioned, so it will be slow moving.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Can you put a price on love well
Speaker 1: hinge the dating a phone by match? I think so
Speaker 1: they're going to be offering a new subscription level at
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty a month. The idea go after gen
Speaker 1: z app users who are quote highly motivated datas and
Speaker 1: in return offer them enhanced features that boosts their profile
Speaker 1: and their chances of finding a match. But it's quite
Speaker 1: a jump from Hinges existing thirty five dollar a month
Speaker 1: offering now match teas the new Hinged here in their
Speaker 1: latest earnings reports, saying it would be targeted it quote
Speaker 1: the most intention users who have a higher quote propensity
Speaker 1: to pay fifty to sixty dollars a month? Can you
Speaker 1: predifice some love? Can you? Did you? I mean, I
Speaker 1: know that you're a man who's well, many have found
Speaker 1: love right through for certain dating applications, And would you,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, spend six thousand a year? But it is
Speaker 1: kind of an amazing way to be amplifying your margin
Speaker 1: at this particular moment. Right, but these are two different products, right,
Speaker 1: So you have Hinge sixty dollars a month palatable, You've
Speaker 1: then got Tinder thinking about five hundred dollars a month. Well,
Speaker 1: we asked the audience, right, what do they think? I
Speaker 1: think the results are pretty well they speak for themselves. Caroline.
Speaker 1: I mean we threw in sort of are you sitting
Speaker 1: on the sense on the fence or do you think
Speaker 1: this is all ridiculous? And it seems as though it's
Speaker 1: all ridiculous. Romance is dead? And think that seven percent
Speaker 1: said yes, sign me up. I feel as though this
Speaker 1: is trying to take on those sort of elitist, elite
Speaker 1: dating apps where you do pay an round, but you
Speaker 1: get perhaps a little bit more of a specific targeted audience.
Speaker 1: Do you at least right full disclosure? I met my
Speaker 1: wife on Hinge all those years ago. Had I known
Speaker 1: them what I know now, cough up the cash. Probably
Speaker 1: do it? They work, That does it. For this edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Technology Wednesday, we're going to be talking all
Speaker 1: things crypto and Bitcoin's bullish run and d y d
Speaker 1: x he d Yeah, don't forget. There's so much recap
Speaker 1: the podcast on the terminal Apple. I heart Spotify. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg