Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Weekdaily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay
Speaker 1: ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping
Speaker 1: today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news
Speaker 1: as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: The latest on the Charlie Kirk assassination. The suspect in
Speaker 2: the killing identified as Tyler Robinson, twenty two, of Utah
Speaker 2: after a tip from a family member led to his apprehension.
Speaker 2: Joining us is Josh wing Grove. He's Bloomberg New Senior
Speaker 2: White House correspondent. He joins us from the White House.
Speaker 2: He's featured on a new episode of the Bloomberg Big
Speaker 2: Take podcast discussing Charlie Kirk's impact on conservatism. It's called
Speaker 2: The Big Take, How Charlie Kirk Changed Conservatism. Josh joins
Speaker 2: us from the White House. Josh, we spoke earlier with
Speaker 2: Miles Miller about the latest on the case and what
Speaker 2: we heard at the press conference earlier. I want to
Speaker 2: take a big step back and understand the life and
Speaker 2: legacy of Charlie Kirk because no question, an outside sports
Speaker 2: when it comes to republic and politics, friends and close
Speaker 2: to so many in this current administration. What is the
Speaker 2: political legacy that he leaves behind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he was arguably the most influential conservative
Speaker 3: of his generation, starting with Turning Point USA, which looked
Speaker 3: to mobilize conservatives on campus. Of course, American conservatives have
Speaker 3: long complained that they don't get a fair shake on
Speaker 3: college campuses, and you know, the professors there are too liberal,
Speaker 3: and so they saw that as sort of one front
Speaker 3: of the struggle to sort of expand the conservative tent,
Speaker 3: as you will, and Kirk really led the push on that.
Speaker 3: He was also a very early supporter and advocate for
Speaker 3: Donald Trump specifically and spoke at its convention regularly. All
Speaker 3: this of course at a young age. It was thirty
Speaker 3: one when he was shot and killed on Wednesday. So
Speaker 3: this is just a very very intent influential figure. It's
Speaker 3: hard to really put into words. You know, Trump, his son,
Speaker 3: Vice President Vance. You know, everyone is putting on statements
Speaker 3: and mourning him. Of course, Trump himself this morning was
Speaker 3: the one who announced the arrest of or let it
Speaker 3: be a slip that there have been an arrest in
Speaker 3: the case in Utah, and so Kirk's influence is just
Speaker 3: so big. There questions now as to where this goes,
Speaker 3: of course, including more logistical ones about who will run
Speaker 3: turning point, can it still be as effective without Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 3: and more broad questions about you know, where we go
Speaker 3: from here. President Trump indicating that he you know, worries
Speaker 3: or is treating this as part of a larger left
Speaker 3: wing effort. And we should note there's no evidence yet
Speaker 3: from investigators that that is fully the case, in other words,
Speaker 3: that this shooter was participating in some sort of network.
Speaker 3: But President Trump thinks it is growing from you know,
Speaker 3: left wing protests and advocacy. In particularly this morning, renewed
Speaker 3: his threat to potentially pursue some sort of racketeering investigation
Speaker 3: investigation against George Soros, not for this, but more broadly
Speaker 3: for funding flesh wing protesters. So this has the chance
Speaker 3: to sort of be the basis on which Trump tries
Speaker 3: to do stuff. And that's what's got a lot of
Speaker 3: Democrats concerned.
Speaker 4: Got it.
Speaker 5: We just feel so broken, Josh in a moment of tragedy,
Speaker 5: and all I can think about is his friends, his family,
Speaker 5: you know, a loss of life. And I understand there's
Speaker 5: a lot of political discourse out there, and it just
Speaker 5: makes me think, like, why can't we all get along?
Speaker 5: Why can't we discuss the differences we have? You know?
Speaker 5: What is though, also the responsibility perhaps of those who
Speaker 5: know Charlie Kirk, of the president, perhaps of the Republican
Speaker 5: Party of Conservatives and maybe saying, hey, like enough, you know,
Speaker 5: there's been too many political targets and shootings and incidents
Speaker 5: and political violence. What's the responsibility of all politicians to
Speaker 5: step forward and say, like, we need to stop this,
Speaker 5: and what's the likelihood that any of that happens?
Speaker 3: I mean, the Utah governor has been calling to take
Speaker 3: down the temperature in his press conference this morning. He's
Speaker 3: a Republican. There are calls from both parties to do
Speaker 3: that lest this sort of spiral into other violent acts
Speaker 3: or without that even just sort of further embitter the
Speaker 3: partisan kind of environment that we're living in here in
Speaker 3: the US. But others don't see that, and there are
Speaker 3: conservative voices right now calling for you know, the way
Speaker 3: to sort of honor Charlie Kirk's legacy is to push
Speaker 3: back against the progressive and left wing groups that Kirk
Speaker 3: enjoyed sparring with. And so that's really the crossroads that
Speaker 3: we're at. I should note the President Trump himself is
Speaker 3: not really among those calling to take down the temperature.
Speaker 3: He has said he supports nonviolent action, but he also
Speaker 3: called Charlie kirkha martyr, and as I said earlier, as
Speaker 3: indicated that he plans to pursue sort of other measures
Speaker 3: in the wake of this fatal shooting on Wednesday, that,
Speaker 3: of course, is being treated by authorities as a political assassination.
Speaker 3: And so it is a fraught time here, no doubt
Speaker 3: about it. And you know, Kirk is so influential in
Speaker 3: the concern of community, the many you're simply grieving, including
Speaker 3: people in this building behind me who knew him personally.
Speaker 3: You know, this is just a tragedy where they've lost
Speaker 3: someone they know important to their movement, but also just
Speaker 3: on a personal level. It's also true that, of course
Speaker 3: some Democrats were not the biggest fans of Charlie Kirk
Speaker 3: and or you know, those who are speaking to that
Speaker 3: right now are being seized upon by conservatives who think
Speaker 3: this is not the time to be litigating what he
Speaker 3: said or what he didn't and so this is all
Speaker 3: just has the potential to really continue to be pretty fraud.
Speaker 3: Of course, we should know that Kirk leaves behind a
Speaker 3: wife and two kids. Focus on them as well right now,
Speaker 3: including from Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, who sent well wishes
Speaker 3: to his widow today. So this is just a tragedy
Speaker 3: on Wednesday. The hope of courses that it doesn't continue
Speaker 3: because we've seen too many of these. Of course, you know,
Speaker 3: shooting in Minnesota lawmakers. Earlier in Minnesota we had the
Speaker 3: of course of the arson outside Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's home.
Speaker 3: We've had shootings in the past of lawmakers, including Steve Scalize,
Speaker 3: a Republican, including Gabby Gifford's a Democrat. There have been
Speaker 3: too many of these in America, I think is a
Speaker 3: pretty widely held view right now. And the question is
Speaker 3: what can be done sort of bring down the temperature
Speaker 3: and not have these sort of spiral into god forbid,
Speaker 3: more violent acts. That's not something we should, you know,
Speaker 3: anyone wants to see happened. I should know that the President
Speaker 3: Trump is emphasizing though the acts that have targeted Republicans,
Speaker 3: not so much the ones that have targeted Democrats. So
Speaker 3: he's feeding sort of his audience a different view, a
Speaker 3: partial view of the overall landscape of political violence that
Speaker 3: we're seeing in America over recent years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as we know, violence doesn't distinguish between parties, and
Speaker 5: we certainly have seen that play out. Josh, I just
Speaker 5: want to layer something else on top of it, and
Speaker 5: has come out in some of the reporting and pointing
Speaker 5: to global forces kind of jumping on and seizing on
Speaker 5: you this moment of tragedy and turbulence in American politics.
Speaker 5: Is there anything to that.
Speaker 3: I think it's a little early to say yet, but
Speaker 3: there certainly are concerns and reports and indications that essentially
Speaker 3: bought armies or pouring gas on the fire, for lack
Speaker 3: of a better phrase, And that is a concern that
Speaker 3: predated the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. You know, to
Speaker 3: what extent are through social media platforms, Americans being exposed
Speaker 3: or manipulated by foreign actors. This is a long standing issue.
Speaker 3: We just don't know yet how much it's playing here.
Speaker 3: But of course, yeah, it's a concern that this is
Speaker 3: just another partisan issue that can be sort of seized
Speaker 3: upon by America's enemies to inflame domestic political tensions.
Speaker 2: Josh, A lot happening out of the nation's capital. We're
Speaker 2: speaking with Josh Wingrove, he senior White House correspondent. I
Speaker 2: want to talk a little bit about shifting gears, the
Speaker 2: US urging G seven sanctions on Russian oil as President
Speaker 2: Trump loses patients. I feel like the idea of losing
Speaker 2: patients is something that we've heard with regard to Russia
Speaker 2: quite a bit over the last few months. Josh, what's
Speaker 2: the latest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the US is proposing that the G seven sort
Speaker 3: of increased pressure on Russia, including by sanctioning China and
Speaker 3: India for their purchases of Russian oil. Of course, the
Speaker 3: US has taken steps towards India but not China itself,
Speaker 3: and talking about some other measures that measures in terms
Speaker 3: of trying to further monetize or even seize Russian assets
Speaker 3: that are frozen. Of course, most of them are frozen
Speaker 3: in Europe. In other words, the US can't get its
Speaker 3: hands on it quite yet, so they're sort of trying
Speaker 3: to tighten the screws on this at a time when
Speaker 3: Europe is already considering its biggest sanctions package or more
Speaker 3: recent as excuse me, sanctions package. I believe this would
Speaker 3: be the nineteenth one. And so they're all kind of
Speaker 3: deciding where to go from here. But of course the
Speaker 3: Europeans are also juggling what they you know, what they
Speaker 3: can count on from the US in terms of support
Speaker 3: for Ukraine, support for NATO troop levels and all that
Speaker 3: right now. So I think there are just so many
Speaker 3: moving parts on this, but the US is at least
Speaker 3: trying to get the G seven to to sort of
Speaker 3: try to turn the temperature up. President Trump indicating this
Speaker 3: morning in his interview with Fox News that he is
Speaker 3: losing sort of you know, patients with President Putin a
Speaker 3: little bit. But he had high hopes for that summit, remember,
Speaker 3: you know, so that there were a lot of people clutching,
Speaker 3: you know, the worried, I guess that it would backfire.
Speaker 3: And we just haven't seen any movement since that summit.
Speaker 3: And even behind me in this building, there's still photos
Speaker 3: of President Putin and President Trump from that summit on
Speaker 3: the walls of the White House. So he hasn't fully
Speaker 3: exhausted patients yet. We haven't seen President Trump fully commit
Speaker 3: to sort of you know, saying Oh, well, it doesn't
Speaker 3: seem like Russia's interested in getting some sort of into
Speaker 3: the fighting, so right now it remains in a murky area.
Speaker 3: And if you're the Europeans, and in the case of
Speaker 3: the G Seven also the Canadians and the Japanese, that
Speaker 3: has to be part of your calculus right now. So
Speaker 3: that's why there's so many movie pieces here as they
Speaker 3: consider what they can do, or can't do, or don't
Speaker 3: want to do to try to raise the pressure on Russia.
Speaker 3: One final note that President Trump continues to advocate for
Speaker 3: these secondary sanctions, in other words, sanctioning or tariffing, you know,
Speaker 3: countries that do business with the countries that they're trying
Speaker 3: to apply primary tariffs or restrictions to. That remains pretty
Speaker 3: uncharted ground, pretty untested authority. That could be a tricky
Speaker 3: one for the other countries to try to execute it,
Speaker 3: even if they chose to try to go down that path.
Speaker 2: Josh, appreciate you joining us on so much. Josh wingrove
Speaker 2: Is Bloomberg new senior White House correspondent. Also make sure
Speaker 2: to check out on the Bloomberg Terminal. A lot more
Speaker 2: stories from our team in Washington, DC, including the President
Speaker 2: sending the National Guard to Memphis in its next deployment.
Speaker 2: Also for more on Charlie Kirk, check out the latest
Speaker 2: episode of The Big Take podcast featuring josh Win Grove.
Speaker 2: It covers the legacy of Charlie Kirk and how his
Speaker 2: death is rippling through the political world. You're listening to
Speaker 2: and watching Bloomberg BusinessWeek Daily.
Speaker 6: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekday afternoons from two to five eas during
Speaker 1: Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
Speaker 1: or watch us Live on YouTube.
Speaker 5: Now, we want to get you some market news. There's
Speaker 5: a lot going on in It's not just Gemini, which
Speaker 5: is still up about thirty one percent in its first
Speaker 5: day of trading, and we're going to talk about that
Speaker 5: a little bit later on. We are also watching some
Speaker 5: of what's going on in some of the different asset classes.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if you've checked out gold recently, Tim,
Speaker 5: but it has rallied by nearly forty percent this year.
Speaker 5: It is making it one of the best performing commodities,
Speaker 5: outpacing other market gauges, and that includes the S and
Speaker 5: P five.
Speaker 2: Hundred Central Bank buying geopolitical uncertainties inflows into ETFs, all
Speaker 2: supporting the commodity. Our next guest is someone we've turned
Speaker 2: to for years to talk gold and much more back
Speaker 2: with us as Axel Merk, President and CIO of Merk Investments,
Speaker 2: joining us from Menlo Park on the West Coast. He
Speaker 2: manages the ASA Gold and Precious Medals Fund more than
Speaker 2: one hundred percent so far this se here. The van
Speaker 2: K mer GOLDIETF, with about two billion dollars in AUM meantime,
Speaker 2: is up thirty eight percent year to date and invests
Speaker 2: in the precious medal. Axel Carol mentioned how well the
Speaker 2: fund has done and how well the commodity has done
Speaker 2: in recent years. But let's look forward. What is the
Speaker 2: outlook for the remainder of this? You're in your view
Speaker 2: for gold.
Speaker 7: Great to be with you, and the fact that you're
Speaker 7: covering gold, I suppose means it's got the attention of that.
Speaker 2: So is that the top is the top?
Speaker 6: What this means, if.
Speaker 7: Anything, is the most pessimistic thing I've heard about gold
Speaker 7: in a long time. It took you so long to
Speaker 7: get me on the air, right. But I mean, obviously
Speaker 7: we've had a stunning run, right, and obviously we have
Speaker 7: to keep in mind if something is this volatile on
Speaker 7: the way up, there's always a risk on the downside correction.
Speaker 7: That said, if that they are two key drivers. I
Speaker 7: think one is in the US we have an easing
Speaker 7: path at the FED, and if you take the European
Speaker 7: Central Bank for example, as far as the eye can see,
Speaker 7: rates are going to be steady, so we have a
Speaker 7: more dabbish monitor policy. The other one is the broader
Speaker 7: debasement trade. And of course is that correlation or causations
Speaker 7: anybody's guess. If that is the case, that may have
Speaker 7: legs that might last year, so to speak, right, the
Speaker 7: dollar was always the cleanest shirt. One thing I'd like
Speaker 7: to mention that maybe not the other guests are not mentioning,
Speaker 7: is when when we talk about tariffs, it doesn't just
Speaker 7: impact the trade and the flow of goods. It impacts
Speaker 7: financial flows because that's the other side or of the
Speaker 7: goods trade. And so I happen to believe that a
Speaker 7: wrench has been thrown into the engine that we call
Speaker 7: the exorbitant privilege, that it's more difficult to use the
Speaker 7: US to finance things for higher returns abroad. Obviously this
Speaker 7: is not a light switch or anything like that, but
Speaker 7: a side effect. There's higher boring costs in the US,
Speaker 7: and in the absence of physical discipline, it means more
Speaker 7: pressure on the FED to low rates, and we've obviously
Speaker 7: seen plenty of that, and so that's the dynamic that
Speaker 7: has a lot of way to play out. And of
Speaker 7: course the other context is that valuations are somewhat high,
Speaker 7: and what do you in the equity marckets more broadly,
Speaker 7: and what do you do to diversify. Now, I'm not
Speaker 7: suggesting that the gold is very cheapyer, but gold historically
Speaker 7: is one of the things that does well in an
Speaker 7: easy environment, especially also that do as well if we
Speaker 7: were to have a more severe correction the stock market,
Speaker 7: and so an increasing number of people have been looking
Speaker 7: for this sort of diversification.
Speaker 5: Well, what's interesting too, as we've seen gold take off
Speaker 5: and you talk about throwing a rench into the US's
Speaker 5: exorbitant privilege. I mean, I'm looking at the dollar, which
Speaker 5: is the Dollar Index AXLE, which is down about ten
Speaker 5: percent year date. Tim and I constantly are asking guests,
Speaker 5: is the US and investible. You know, are the days
Speaker 5: of the US dollar running supreme over? Although so much
Speaker 5: is still done in dollars. Like I guess, we're just
Speaker 5: trying to get an idea if this is a tipping
Speaker 5: point where for the US dollar, especially too with the
Speaker 5: kind of rise of digital and stable coins.
Speaker 7: Perhaps I don't think digital is stable. I mean the
Speaker 7: stable coins are US dollar base. I actually think that's
Speaker 7: supportive of the dollar of anything. If you look at
Speaker 7: the breakdown in the G ten, the best performing currency
Speaker 7: is the Swedish corona versus the dollar. And guess what
Speaker 7: the Swedish economy is most as part of its GDP
Speaker 7: exposed to to to defense spending and as you may be,
Speaker 7: away of Europe is ramping up its defense spending. So
Speaker 7: there are specific things right and and of course, as
Speaker 7: a as a as a gold person, the debasement trait
Speaker 7: kind of fits into our narrative. Whether that's really the
Speaker 7: case is it remains to be seen. There is of
Speaker 7: course more competition, and some people say that there is
Speaker 7: no alternative, and while that may be true, my argument
Speaker 7: is there does not need to be an alternative. What
Speaker 7: I foresee is a greater fragmentation because if if you
Speaker 7: think I go back to the exorbit of privilege. Part
Speaker 7: of that is it's it's kind of a machinery. That's
Speaker 7: that that provides liquidity for the for the world. And
Speaker 7: if that begins to spiral somehow or is less effective
Speaker 7: than it has been us efficient, it doesn't mean the
Speaker 7: world's coming to an end, but it means that less
Speaker 7: trade might be happening, more things might be happening locally. Ultimately,
Speaker 7: that's of course healthy for emerging markets in particular if
Speaker 7: they finance more things domestically. But we have some structural
Speaker 7: transformations and the dollar might be weakening in that problem.
Speaker 5: He just got about twenty five seconds, Axel. So buy
Speaker 5: gold by the commodity, by the bullion by minors, or
Speaker 5: don't buy any of it at this point, Well, I
Speaker 5: do both.
Speaker 7: I haven't sold any of them. Make the gold and
Speaker 7: gold minor buyers are very different. The gold minus tend
Speaker 7: to respeculative, especially go to the more genius and the
Speaker 7: physical gold. It's the retf otherwise tends to be more
Speaker 7: of a diversification play. There's a lot that hasn't happened
Speaker 7: in the junior mining space. Very speculative, but some very
Speaker 7: interesting opportunities.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, we promise we will catch up more often.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, he was on in May. If you were
Speaker 2: watching us in May, it's a little six Okay, so
Speaker 2: it was a little while ago, but you.
Speaker 5: Know, we always appreciate Axel. Have a great weekend, Axel
Speaker 5: Mark Present, Chief Investment Officer of American Investments.
Speaker 6: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
Speaker 1: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarflay, and
Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also
Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station.
Speaker 1: Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg eleven thirty. Only only he
Speaker 1: can lead the company's next phase and his political engagement.
Speaker 7: It's up to him.
Speaker 5: As just two of the many, many headlines out of
Speaker 5: the Bloomberg Technology Team interview at Tesla board chair Robin
Speaker 5: Denholm bottom line, Tesla's chair saying Elon Musk is the
Speaker 5: man to continue to take Tesla to its next phase.
Speaker 8: The board's responsibility is to look at who the CEO
Speaker 8: is for the next period of time, and we believe
Speaker 8: that is the right CEO for Tesla over this transformative
Speaker 8: period of time, and our view is he's a generational leader.
Speaker 8: There aren't any other people out there like Elon who
Speaker 8: can actually lead the company over this next decade or so,
Speaker 8: and so once you decide who the leader should be,
Speaker 8: you need to put in place the compensation package to
Speaker 8: incent and motivate him to actually deliver natually.
Speaker 5: Knowledge would motivate me as well. That, of course, was
Speaker 5: Tesla board chair Robin Denholm talking to B Tech.
Speaker 7: The b Tech.
Speaker 5: Dynamo dynamic duo of Ed Ludlow and Caroline hyde A
Speaker 5: is co host of Bloomberg Technology every Monday through Friday
Speaker 5: eleven am Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV. He joins
Speaker 5: us now from the Bloomberg News Bureau in San Francisco.
Speaker 5: Tesla shares, by the way, folks, ralling up about six
Speaker 5: and a half percent. The number two gainer in both
Speaker 5: the S and P five hundred and now is TAK
Speaker 5: one hundred today and well done, well done, well done.
Speaker 5: You guys covered so much it was and it always
Speaker 5: is so much to cover when it's involving Elon and Tesla.
Speaker 5: What was a priority for you and Caroline and really
Speaker 5: your team as you thought about your interview with Robin Denhol.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when the news broke a week ago that there
Speaker 4: was a proposed pay package for Elon Musk, the headline
Speaker 4: was the trillion dollar value of the total award, right,
Speaker 4: But because of how the board had to communicate it
Speaker 4: in the proxy, it's like a very dense, three hundred
Speaker 4: plus page document that it's incumbent on shareholders to read
Speaker 4: the specifics. Get lost a little bit, and for me,
Speaker 4: you guys mentioned the politics angle. One of the few
Speaker 4: things that was like very explicitly codified in the proxy
Speaker 4: was that the board had got reassurances from Elon Musk
Speaker 4: that he would wind down political activity. Now, actually, the
Speaker 4: big takeaway from the interview was that they are actually
Speaker 4: pretty relaxed about the idea that Musk might continue to
Speaker 4: have in the political domain. You know, we pushed so
Speaker 4: hard when you guys say political activity, and when I said, sorry,
Speaker 4: that was too casual. When the board says political activity,
Speaker 4: what do you even mean? We asked that, do you
Speaker 4: mean Musk has told you he won't participate in a
Speaker 4: political party, or he'll stop making donations behind specific candidates
Speaker 4: or initiatives, and Denholm's response was really simple, is it's
Speaker 4: up to Elon Musk what his political activity is. But
Speaker 4: they are reassured enough that this package they will get
Speaker 4: in return somebody that will be focused on Tesla.
Speaker 2: You know, it's an I appreciated how you pushed her
Speaker 2: ed because if you think about Elon Musk's own political evolution,
Speaker 2: I mean, he said in the spring of last year
Speaker 2: that he wasn't going to donate to either political candidate.
Speaker 2: This was when Joe Biden and Donald Trump were running
Speaker 2: against each other. That all changed after Butler Pennsylvania in
Speaker 2: the assassination attempt, and then you know, Elon went full
Speaker 2: fledged and even served as part you know, in the
Speaker 2: administration in the capacity of Prdoge. So we saw how
Speaker 2: quickly he changed his mind in a very short period
Speaker 2: of time. So I guess it can only be up
Speaker 2: to him because he's the one who makes these decisions.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Well well the way that Robin Denholm put it, and
Speaker 4: you know this wasn't on the record on camera interview,
Speaker 4: and miss Denholm, I'm sure chose her words very carefully,
Speaker 4: but she said that Musk's political activity or time in
Speaker 4: government has concluded and he is now back focused on Tesla.
Speaker 4: You know, the main thing that we got to it
Speaker 4: was a long interview, right, but that again the details
Speaker 4: like so important in what the board is requiring a
Speaker 4: enon Musk, you know, these are not goals. The word
Speaker 4: goal is not correct to say that Musk gets a
Speaker 4: trillion dollars in the end if he hits goals, they're
Speaker 4: mandatory requirements. And if he doesn't hit the operational and
Speaker 4: financial goals. Denholm was very clear like he doesn't get
Speaker 4: not the dollar value comp But remember at the heart
Speaker 4: of this is that elon Musk's condition, it was a
Speaker 4: negotiation and what he wanted was voting power, because Musk's
Speaker 4: idea is that with greater voting power he will be
Speaker 4: able to keep Tesla focused on a future that is
Speaker 4: about artificial intelligence, not necessarily the legacy of Tesla, which
Speaker 4: is selling electric vehicles to consumers.
Speaker 5: Well, speaking of power and voting power and just power generally,
Speaker 5: I mean, there's been a lot of criticism I think
Speaker 5: it's fair to say ed of the Tesla board and
Speaker 5: who's in charge in you know, Robin Denholm. I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm looking at the Bloomberg description Australian business executive former
Speaker 5: Countan who's chair of Tesla, chosen by Elon in November
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen to be chair, and prior to that she
Speaker 5: is relatively unknown. I'm just curious about the board and
Speaker 5: correct me because you know this company, but nothing's correct.
Speaker 5: What do we need to know about the Tesla board
Speaker 5: and what they say and what it really means to work?
Speaker 5: Lan Kennon can't do.
Speaker 4: I regret not saying this out loud explicitly, even if
Speaker 4: I did not then ask, you know, I should have
Speaker 4: asked about it. But basically, the criticism from all kinds
Speaker 4: of investors, the biggest institutionals on Wall Street to the
Speaker 4: smallest retail investors is that it's a rubber stamp board
Speaker 4: that just does what Elon Musk wants. There's something really
Speaker 4: important to understand that it was a special committee that
Speaker 4: negotiated meeting with Elon Musk ten times this compensation package,
Speaker 4: so Musk had input into it. But the special committee
Speaker 4: is made up of just two people, Robin Denholm and
Speaker 4: then Kathleen Wilson Thompson, who also kind of shairs the
Speaker 4: financial and comp committee on the Tesla board. A board
Speaker 4: of two or a committee of two because Elon Musk
Speaker 4: is on the board, so he recuses himself technically even
Speaker 4: though he negotiates. And then his brother, Kimball Musk, is
Speaker 4: on the board of Tesla, but he's brother, so he
Speaker 4: recuses himself from negotiating the comp It actually was really
Speaker 4: important to say that out loud. Now at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, it's a shareholder right to vote on
Speaker 4: this package. On November sixth and a lot of Denholm
Speaker 4: was explaining and she really wanted to get this across.
Speaker 4: This is a proposal, you have the right to vote
Speaker 4: on it, so you need to understand what's in it,
Speaker 4: even though there is some sort of you know, there
Speaker 4: is skepticism about how solid that board is. Robin Denholm
Speaker 4: lives in Australia for what it's worth, but I can
Speaker 4: tell you from conversations in the company investors that I
Speaker 4: know she's highly engaged, reads everything, knows everything that's going on.
Speaker 2: Ed, Well, you've been on air with us. There's been
Speaker 2: some breaking news that we'd love for you to react
Speaker 2: to this about Apple Company that you follow very closely.
Speaker 2: Mark German reporting that Apple's AI and search executive Robbie Walker,
Speaker 2: Robbie Walker will leave the company, one of the iPhone
Speaker 2: maker's most senior AI executives. This, according people with knowledge
Speaker 2: of the matter, this follows a slew of folks who've
Speaker 2: left in recent months, not just to go to meta
Speaker 2: platforms for those huge pay packages. What's your immediate reaction to.
Speaker 4: This, Well, I'm just checking at the stock. You guys
Speaker 4: have the ticker up, okay, so the shares haven't sort
Speaker 4: of plummeted. What I know is limited about Robbie Walker.
Speaker 4: He had been reporting to John g Andrea, which I'm
Speaker 4: sure on this show you've discussed Mark's other reporting, which
Speaker 4: was about who was in charge. So to a point,
Speaker 4: John g Andrea had led the AI team, and a
Speaker 4: lot of the departures that we've reported on in Aggregate
Speaker 4: have left had been reporting.
Speaker 3: On to him.
Speaker 4: But you have to remember that Craig Federigi, who's like
Speaker 4: the software chief, the software guru at Apple, he had
Speaker 4: sort of taken command of the team. So I guess,
Speaker 4: and I pull up the draft and I'm scrambling to
Speaker 4: find it. But give me for that. But I think
Speaker 4: that it's just a signal that these exits have continued
Speaker 4: since that restructure.
Speaker 5: Is what I was going to say, no, you're you're
Speaker 5: laying it out really well.
Speaker 2: And the news came out when when Ed was speaking
Speaker 2: about Tesla. So yeah, yeah, OK, I'm believing.
Speaker 5: I guess his serial role. Walker became one of the
Speaker 5: top Apple execs working on the new AI powered web
Speaker 5: search system to compete with Perplexity and chat GBT. It's
Speaker 5: scheduled to debut next year. So yeah, I kind of fluid.
Speaker 4: Huh Yeah, I mean, I'm doing this deliberately because it's relevant.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Part of the Denholm conversation about why it has to
Speaker 4: be Elon Musk that leads Tesla is that you have
Speaker 4: right now this huge talent war. Apple is one of
Speaker 4: the losers of it. Let's be honest. Based on the reporting,
Speaker 4: Meta is paying over the nose to get people. And
Speaker 4: Denholm's argument about Elon Musk is that he's a draw,
Speaker 4: so the compensation doesn't really matter. People want to go
Speaker 4: and work for him because he's seen as this great
Speaker 4: engineering mind and he's so hands on, you know, in
Speaker 4: the trenches. I believe he's been in. The building I
Speaker 4: was in is three thousand Hanavi Street, which is like
Speaker 4: the Global Engineering HQ, and Elon Musk was there this
Speaker 4: week and getting involved in stuff that's the landscape right now.
Speaker 4: So these stories are so interesting because for AI, you know,
Speaker 4: the human capital, the human intelligence that's building out AI.
Speaker 4: That is a battleground, right, and that's all like I'm
Speaker 4: reflecting on.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, great stuff. As always, Thank you, Thank you,
Speaker 5: ed La Low breaking news are talking about breaking news
Speaker 5: in real time as well as folding it into an
Speaker 5: incredible interview that he and Caroline Hyde of the Bloomberg
Speaker 5: Tech Team had with the chair of Tesla's board, Eda Low,
Speaker 5: As we said, co host of Bloomberg Tech. Joining us
Speaker 5: from our San Francisco bureau.
Speaker 6: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekday afternoons from two to five eastering. Listen
Speaker 1: on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Up,
Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 7: Roam.
Speaker 5: How about you let me drive?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no no, this is not a toy, please.
Speaker 4: Honey, please, how do the gravels listen?
Speaker 7: I want to drive. It's a good question. Good time.
Speaker 1: This is the drive to the clothes cons the musing
Speaker 1: well down on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 5: All right, everybody, we've got just about eighteen nineteen minutes
Speaker 5: to go until we wrap up the trade on this Friday,
Speaker 5: wrapping up the Friday session and also the week overall.
Speaker 5: Gotta say very clear what I love about the Bloomberg
Speaker 5: is I always have these charts up of the S
Speaker 5: and P down and the Nasdaq one hundred.
Speaker 2: That's it, looking what's going on.
Speaker 5: You've got the S and P at its lows of
Speaker 5: the session, so a straight leg down. We're down only
Speaker 5: eight points, but the point is we're definitely off our
Speaker 5: best levels of the session, and we've seen this movement
Speaker 5: in like the last twenty thirty minutes. So makes me
Speaker 5: wonder a little bit of what's going on. Maybe people
Speaker 5: ahead of the FED meeting next week closing out positions.
Speaker 5: I'm not quite sure. Downjown's industrial average, it is down
Speaker 5: two hundred and eighty three points, down six tens of
Speaker 5: a percent, and NASDEK one hundred still in positive territory
Speaker 5: of about one third of one percent, but it too
Speaker 5: has rolled over off its best level of the session.
Speaker 5: So I'm taking a look at our markets live blog
Speaker 5: to see what is going on. Yeah, maybe it's just investors.
Speaker 5: It's been a bullish week for investors. We've seen several
Speaker 5: records and I'm just taking a look at where the
Speaker 5: S and P five hundred is for the week. Overall,
Speaker 5: we're still up about one and a half percent. So
Speaker 5: do you just kind of, for lack of a better phrase,
Speaker 5: take some money off the table heading into the weekend.
Speaker 2: And up twelve percent for the year. Let's see what
Speaker 2: Alan Lance has to say about this. He's president of
Speaker 2: the ria Allen b. Lands In Associates and director of
Speaker 2: research at the research firm Lance Global. He joins us
Speaker 2: once again from Toledo, Ohio. Been a while since we
Speaker 2: last had you on the program. Allen, how are you.
Speaker 6: We're doing well?
Speaker 2: Are you too, We're doing well. It's good to talk
Speaker 2: to you again. I wanted to just get your idea
Speaker 2: about where we are in this market cycle, given I
Speaker 2: think a lot has happened, especially since April so called
Speaker 2: Liberation Day and the way that investors have essentially shrugged
Speaker 2: off the threat or implementation of tariffs.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's been an incredible rebound and I agree with
Speaker 9: what investors are doing as far as the close here,
Speaker 9: and that's taken a little bit of profits. When you
Speaker 9: look at a company like Oracle, that's one of our
Speaker 9: core positions.
Speaker 6: But I'd be much.
Speaker 9: More inclined to take partial profits there and redeploy them
Speaker 9: into areas that haven't moved mitigate risk rather than chasing.
Speaker 9: I think we're about in the sixth inning. I know
Speaker 9: you have a lot of people on and they're talking
Speaker 9: first second inning, but really, when you look at the
Speaker 9: valuations here and now the IPO market's certain heat, we
Speaker 9: still have the ways to go.
Speaker 6: We're not at the end of this, but we're, you know,
Speaker 6: more than halfway through.
Speaker 9: So so those people loading up and chasing the AI plays,
Speaker 9: I think, uh, you know, uh, you got to be
Speaker 9: numble enough to get out in time, that's for sure.
Speaker 5: Well, investors look like they're getting out ahead of the weekend.
Speaker 5: I think it's kind of notable. And I'm sure you've
Speaker 5: got your screens up and you're looking at the trade.
Speaker 5: Is it just good week, bullush week? And maybe you
Speaker 5: just take a little bit of a breather ahead of
Speaker 5: next week's FED meeting or what.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think you got some positives and and they're
Speaker 9: getting discounted, Carol, So you get a situation where you know,
Speaker 9: it looks like interest rates will go down.
Speaker 6: You know, the IPO markets heating up. Uh, you know,
Speaker 6: good news with with you know, some of.
Speaker 9: The tech stocks and uhs as far as even the
Speaker 9: uh you know TAM you know situations as far as
Speaker 9: with the video and what have you. So I think
Speaker 9: it's it's a situation where why not take some money
Speaker 9: off the table.
Speaker 6: UH.
Speaker 9: The interesting thing, there's still some good by out there.
Speaker 9: You know, some you know leaders that haven't moved early
Speaker 9: part of the summer. We're buying Johnson Johnson and Pepsi.
Speaker 9: They have moved now with their other companies that have
Speaker 9: good dividends that I still think are attractive. So this
Speaker 9: is not like a two thousand and seven we talked
Speaker 9: and said, you know, get out and everything's overvalued. But
Speaker 9: it is something where I think you got to be
Speaker 9: a little precarious as far as in chasing.
Speaker 2: You said last year you started taking profits in in
Speaker 2: video that was that when it was out one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty dollars. You said you then redeployed some of
Speaker 2: those profits into companies like Snowflake or Mango dB. Do
Speaker 2: you regret selling in video last year at one not
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 9: You know, if you look at Snowflake, it's done better
Speaker 9: in the past year than than NA Video. And you know,
Speaker 9: Mango DV at the end of the year was down
Speaker 9: and it's up, you know, so again I think, you know,
Speaker 9: investors look at it like, oh, you know in videos hired,
Speaker 9: you know, one seventies now instead of one forty. But
Speaker 9: really it's been an underperformer compared to you know, the industry,
Speaker 9: which is hard to believe. Even Oracle it's up you know,
Speaker 9: forty some percent over the last five years. The industry's
Speaker 9: up eighteen eighteen is great, But if you're in the
Speaker 9: right areas, you can do you know, much more. So
Speaker 9: I think that diversification is important, tim and investors shouldn't
Speaker 9: just be in one or two or seven stocks, you know.
Speaker 9: I think it's going to broaden out, and that's what
Speaker 9: you have in the latter innings and that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 6: So yeah, you know, we're actually doing more of that.
Speaker 5: Well, if I'm doing play by play with the markets
Speaker 5: right now, we've now bounced kind of off our worst
Speaker 5: levels of the session on the S and PN down
Speaker 5: and we've seen investors come back. Blacky trade weird I
Speaker 5: don't know. Am I just too laser focused on the
Speaker 5: tick by tick today?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's short term. I wouldn't worry about that.
Speaker 9: I think the long term trends is, you know, it's
Speaker 9: going to be you know, the critical you know area.
Speaker 9: As far as that goes, and there's good you know investments,
Speaker 9: it still can be you know, purchase, which which you
Speaker 9: know I'm appreciative of. If everything's overvalued, then it gets
Speaker 9: really hard.
Speaker 6: So so to.
Speaker 9: Takes some money off the table, even in video, I
Speaker 9: think we'll go higher, you know, but take some money
Speaker 9: off the table and buy things that haven't moved yet,
Speaker 9: that have lesser risk, better risk reward, I think is
Speaker 9: prudent strategy right now.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about risks that
Speaker 2: you see out there and when you think it's time to,
Speaker 2: if at all, move to cash or you know, it's
Speaker 2: a question. I don't ask lightly because that's a drastic
Speaker 2: move for investors, and you know, people are always saying,
Speaker 2: do not time the market. I'm not giving financial advice here,
Speaker 2: but I'm just wondering how you're thinking about risk right now,
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of folks out there. You say,
Speaker 2: valuations are very high.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they are high in certain areas, and that's why
Speaker 9: you know, we are starting to take profits and you
Speaker 9: know again partial profits in Oracle and and companies have
Speaker 9: done well like in video. But I also think that
Speaker 9: there are areas you can still buy so you don't
Speaker 9: have to be and cash like in two thousand and
Speaker 9: seven and late nineteen ninety nine we're saying get in
Speaker 9: cash and be defensive. Now I think you could be
Speaker 9: defensive but still have companies that have dividends and are
Speaker 9: trading it historic lows really valuation wise in it. That's
Speaker 9: what makes us divergence, you know, interesting where you can
Speaker 9: get out and take some good profits or partial profits
Speaker 9: and redeploy the money and things that have yeah, lesser
Speaker 9: risk and better reward, like you know, as far as
Speaker 9: snow Frock had a year ago.
Speaker 2: Alan, sorry to jump in, but we've got like we've
Speaker 2: got a million questions left and only like a minute left.
Speaker 2: I just want to talk MP Materials because we had
Speaker 2: Jim Litinski on the show. We've spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking about that company. It was on your radar
Speaker 2: before it was on a lot of people's radar. You
Speaker 2: spoke with us about buying it. What's the status there?
Speaker 6: We would hold it again, not chase it. You know,
Speaker 6: we're buying it. You know, in the mid twenties it
Speaker 6: went down to ten. We're just buying more. Just long
Speaker 6: term play, you know, two good pieces of news.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 9: Earlier this summer we increased our target to eighty to
Speaker 9: ninety dollars, so we did take some profits. But again
Speaker 9: I think it's a good long term play. Again, another
Speaker 9: one of those high flowers that we would in chase.
Speaker 9: But you know, hopefully we can find some like MP
Speaker 9: materials from you know, six months ago that will do well,
Speaker 9: even though I don't think you'll see.
Speaker 5: Those kind of games twenty seconds really quick. You're comfortable
Speaker 5: with the government taking a stake, Yeah, I think on this.
Speaker 6: It's very important.
Speaker 9: I disagree with the intel and with the airspace and
Speaker 9: what have you, but on this I think it is
Speaker 9: critical and it really helped with the company.
Speaker 6: On the map.
Speaker 5: As we mentioned, this stock has been on a tear.
Speaker 5: It is more than three hundred percent yre today. Ellen
Speaker 5: Lance have a great weekend. President of Allen B. Lance
Speaker 5: and Associates joining us from Toledo, Ohio.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
Speaker 1: afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App.
Speaker 1: You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
Speaker 1: and always on the Bloomberg terminal