Biden and Inflation, and Tesla's Stock Split

Plus developing news out of Tesla. The company is asking shareholders to authorize a three for one stock split, and there's a surprising departure from the board of directors. Plus a culture clash at Disney Drives the TV chief out, We're gonna talk about the future of the entertainment giant undersea out Bob Cha Peck. I want to get back

to those inflation numbers now. President Biden paying a visit to the Port of Los Angeles and talking about surging prices as inflation hits a forty year high, including some of the biggest jumps ever in gas prices. The President going after Exxon, which is seen not only record profits but also a record rise in its share price. Take a listen to what the President had to say, Exxon made more money than God this year. And by the way, nothing's changed and they're not by the one thing I

want to say about the old companies. They talked about how we have they have nine thousands permits to drill, they're not drilling. Why aren't they drilling? Because they make more money not producing more oil. Joining us now from the Port of l A. Bloomberg's Atlin Law, so walk us through the President's message. He got pretty heated at

times he did, and it was interesting. He started on hit port of Los Angeles is the work they've done, the coordination between the different tentacles of the ports system, the truckers, the operators, the shipping companies. But he also talked a lot about the broader problem around supply chains, which included impact from the war in Ukraine. He didn't just have kind of ire for the oil companies, where he basically wants oil production to increase so prices come down.

But he also talked about foreign shipping companies. And the reason he did is that a big driver of inflation has been the rate that retailers in this country, Walmart's targets, Amazon's pay to move goods from A to B and he essentially said those rates are unpalatably high. He called on Congress to do something to bring them down. But you know, we tracked this data at Bloomberg. Of course I do. On my Bloomberg terminal, I see that since September shipping rates have come down. So he kind of

did this rapid spray. Look at what's happening. The underlying message, though, things here have improved them. So let's talk about the role of technology here. Obviously tech companies have been acutely in pacted by the supply chain delays. What does this all mean for check? So we're on a tech show. You and I talked about the cutting edge of say drones and and ask fishal intelligence, et cetera. But in this case, it's the lack of technology. It's a very

manual process. A container gets lifted off a ship by a crane, put down on the bottom of a truck cab, and they're driven off to his destination or he gets moved onto a rail. The message I'm hearing over and over from executives and officials is rail is letting us down because they have cranes that take the containers of ships directly onto rail lines, but there are no rail carts to meet them, so they just pile up and left idly. A positive is Friday. Let's end on a positive.

I think the sports system, the executives, I suppose to you throughout the day are really happy about the administration getting out their checkbook putting money into the ports system to the tunes of billions of dollars to modernize that. We can get more automation. We can have software systems that get all of these folks talking to one another, and so we prove and what we saw in the

lost happening eighteen months from happening again. Ludlow. Thanks, We're going to see you a bit later in this show when we talk about the president's push for electric cars and the role Tesla plays in all of that. I want to continue this conversation on inflation and the broader market implications and bringing Tim Sullivan, the CEO of Oceanic. Tim, thank you so much. What do you make of the

notes that the President struck today? Um? I think there's you know, a lot more to inflation that includes monetary policy and demand pull and cost push. I think the manufactured demand by you know, strinkling five trillion dollars out of the economy over COVID, UH created you know, kind of a virtual demand. UM supply in fact diminished some of the things that were shut down during COVID haven't haven't restarted and and may never restart, So diminished supply

and and manufactured demand that's now decreasing. The combination is leading to inflation that's kind of at a runaway pace right now. Obviously the Feds got a lot to do. So are you saying that the President shouldn't just be blaming X on there are other factors at play. Uh, there's definitely other factors at play in as far as Exxon goes or any of their old companies for that matter. UM investments in energy over the last eight to ten years have have not been what they should have been.

UM money has been kind of transitioned over to green projects under the things. And at this time when there's a war in Russia and we're basically reduced by three million barrels a day, the OPEC increase it's coming in July four and fifty thousand barrels a day is a drop in the bucket, and and we're going to obviously feel that as a country. So how long do you think this inflation and this general market funk is going to be with us? I mean, that's one of the

toughest questions I think out there. I personally see my market, which is the private markets, uh, existing at least, you know, through the end of the year, it being a tumultuous, choppy at best, and recovery hopefully starting sometime next year. So let's talk about what it's going to take, you know, otherwise to get inflation under control. Are there are other things that the administration, in your view, could and should be doing to alleviate the pressure on consumers. That's a

tough one. I think. You know, they're using every tool that they can to moderate inflation, and you know, using tightening and trying to manage the workforce and employment numbers things like that. So it's, you know, it's become a bit of a whip saw right now, and inflation numbers are obviously getting pretty tough. I see milk at the grocery store ten dollars a gallon here in California and gas over seven dollars um. It's it's gonna be tough

for a lot of people to night. I don't think there's an instant panacea that the government has that they can employ. You're also a venture capitalist, and I'm curious what the impact is that you're seeing on the private markets. Obviously, we see what's happening in the public markets. We're hearing that companies are having trouble raising money, doing um down rounds,

slashing their valuations, lay offs, hiring freezes. You know, what do you think the fallout from this period of time is going to be on all of these private companies that were, you know, living high on the hog for a while there. Yeah, I mean I've seen this in two thousand and two thousand and eight, and uh, it's to me, it's kind of like, uh, one of these California fires that we have. It. It's horrible and horrendous and and terrifying UM and a lot of companies will

will be absorbed in. Other companies will just disappear UM. But at the end, typically a situation like this creates a lot of new growth. And in the private markets, we are really the public markets are leading indicator for the private markets. So a lot of the private company valuations are are pegged off of uh, you know, public company valuations on future value, and if the public company valuations decrease significantly, the future value of those few private

companies that are buying to be number one. In some cases there's only two or three market leaders in the private company space, they are all going to take a huge hit. And so, like you said, we are seeing um difficulty, challenges with financing terms that are changing, liquidation preferences that are increasing, you know, from one to two to three to who knows what um, and and of course to manage cash flow, people are gonna get laid off, and it's it's going to be it is going to

be a rough road for for everyone. Tough. Indeed, Tim Salivan, CEO of Oceanic, thank you for giving us your view there on what we're dealing with. Thank you well. Tesla shares are up in late trading as it plans for a three for one stock split, the ev maker joining other tech companies with lofty share prices that have taken similar steps to make ownership more accessible to individual investors. Tesla also announcing Oracle founder Larry Ellison will step down

from the Tesla board. Will have more on this developing story later this hour. Stopping counter it luxury goods. Stock x has taken a leading role in this and as new data out on the rise of counterfeit items that are flooding the market. Joining me now, stock x CEO Scott Cutler. Scott great to have you back with us. So just how many more of these things are flooding the market now? Well, just taken a step back. If

you look at the trends for consumers. Consumers are inspired by what they see with brands, and brands are going more directly to consumer, but they're also releasing product, their best product in scarce quantities and sometimes it's very difficult to get and so consumers are going to marketplaces to actually get product that they can't get in other channels.

So stock x has been at the forefront of being a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers and we've authenticated over thirty five million products that have gone through our rigorous authentication process and it's a service that we provide to our customers to essentially ensure that they're getting access to great product from brands at authenticated. So what kind

of fake stuff are you seeing more of? Well, if you look at the last twelve months alone, we have protected customers by rejecting over three hundred thousand products worth more than a hundred million dollars. Those products range from sneakers to apparel, accessories, handbags, across a broad category of goods that today consumers are defining as a next generation

asset class. But when we reject an item for being inauthentic, what's interesting When you peel back the report that we put out this week, you'll realize that the most common reason for us rejecting something as a manufacturing defect, it could be a glue stitching, it could be the way that product was manufactured, damaged, boxed, use product, and then

fake product. So essentially we're looking at that end to end experience and want to be able to deliver for that customer, as you know, a legitimate brand experience that they quite frankly expect from us. So obviously we know what stock X does to keep these kind of things off the market. Is there something more broadly that you think should be happening to prevent these black markets, if

you will, from flourishing. Well, if you look at where the consumer is today, as I said, going to places where they can't find product, and so they're going to other marketplaces that range from social networks to peer to peer marketplaces. And the challenge with these marketplaces is that there's a lack of quality. Uh, there's no certification around authenticity,

and typically it's a bad user experience. And so when we started, we created the highest standard among the industry for marketplaces and quite frankly, revolutionized a process to authenticate every single product that's sold on our platform before it

gets to the consumer. And so I think the cha challenge and quite frankly, I think the challenge to marketplaces is to stand up for your consumer, authenticate that product, and stand by the product that's being sold on your platform, and take responsibility as a platform, which is what we do every single day. Now, you've been in the midst of this ongoing legal battle with Nike. Nike suit you over an n f T series based on Nike shoes and then more recently accused sock x of selling counterfeits.

You know what's your response to this response to this latest salvo. So from a from a legal perspective, we believe the original case has no merit. The additional amendment equally has no merit. We have the right to use any brand's name and trademarks when selling products, and that's

well established under current law. I think as it relates to the experience, and that's the experience in the most recent recent claims is just backed up by the facts that we authenticate one of the products that are sold on our platform. And I think we have a really symbiotic relationship with great brands that are releasing great product because stock x you can see every single day what is this great product worth and what could it be

traded for? And we provide an economic opportunity for those sellers that hold onto those assets and then sell them to buyers. But we stand in the middle of that transaction to authenticate every single one and so you know, to claim that we're not doing that is patently false. But most importantly for us, it's really about ensuring that user experience. So, if that's the case, what went wrong with the relationship with Nike, because I assume you have

to maintain strong relationships with a lot of brands. Well, if you if you look at the platform itself, we're actually intermediary between sellers and buyers. Those sellers are typically consumers. Um, we do have relationships with brands that actually release product and sub product, but a vast majority of what transact on the platform is not coming from a brand directly, but it's coming from consumers to get access to that product over time. You know, we have partnered in so

many different ways with the industry on on counterfeits. In fact, even Nike itself have come to us to say, we think you're among the highest standards in the marketplace. Partner with us with the Department of Homeland Security on other councils, participating in in preventing counterfeits for getting to the market, and so I think we work in partnership with the

industry and hold ourselves to those standards. Now, you spent a lot of time at the New York Stock Exchange, and I'm curious what unique perspective that gives you on the market turmoil that we're seeing now, and you specifically oversaw listings, you know, you know, do you think this I p O window is shut? And what does that mean for stock X, which we were expecting to go public potentially soon. Well, you know, everybody is watching the

headlines in the markets today. What I would say is for the market overall, today's headlines are rarely tomorrow's history, so we will get through this time. UM. It's certainly

a very difficult time for the consumer. UM for us specifically, I can't comment on rumors speculation about us, but we are focused on executing our business, growing our business during these challenging times, and expanding into other exciting categories and areas to attract this next generation of consumer to our platform.

Stock X also sells collectibles like trading cars, figurines. You know, talk to us about your plans for non shoe alternative assets and the kind of demand you see from gen Z and millennials, especially in the midst of a downturn. Well in two thousand and six, team we started with with this idea of creating a real time marketplace for

high demand consumer goods. We started with sneakers. Our second category actually was in watches, and then handbags, and then we got into apparel and that's expanded now and to

collect to bowls. It's all part of a big trend that I think includes digital assets, include some of these physical assets where the next generation consumer gen Z jen A actually looking at different things besides oil and commodities and even the market itself as a place to invest their time, their energy, their passions, and now you have opportunities to actually turn that passion into an economic opportunity.

And so it's a big trend across all the things that trade into our platform that these are considered assets by this set of consumers. All right, Scott Cutler, CEO of stock X, Great to have you with us. Thanks Scott for stopping by. Coming up another stock split in the tech sector. This time it's Tesla. Why the e

V maker is eyeing a three for one split? Up next, this is Bloomberg now today is on Tesla that broke just after the US market closed, the e V company saying in a proxy statement it is asking shareholders to vote on a three for one stock split. Joining us now on the phone for more Bloomware, Stata Hall, who covers Tesla Flora, So it works for Alphabet, it worked for Amazon, giving the stocks a bit of a jump when they did their own stocks. That's why is Tesla

doing this? Dantum, well, Tessaly the stock split a couple of years ago that was wildly popular with retail investors because you know, fans of the company loved the company, loved the stock. But as the stock price rises, it's harder for them to get an entry point, and so Tesla wants to do this not just for retail shareholders, but also for its own employees. I mean, they give stock options to employees and it's a big part of

the compensation. And um, you know, I think the last stock split was just wildly popular and there's no reason not to do it again. Meantime, Tesla also announcing that Larry Elson is stepping down from the board, which is interesting given that Larry is one of the big backers of Elon Steal to buy Twitter. What do you make of this? Yeah, that was a surprise. Larry has been

on the board since lateen He is considered an independent director. Um, he just is not standing for re elections and his charm is up and he's not gonna, you know, be be reelected. The board is gonna shrink from eight members to seven. Um. You know, I don't know what is behind that. Um. I mean we know that Mr Ellison spends a lot of his time in Lamai, Hawaii. Maybe he just didn't have time to come to all the board meetings or wants to do other things. But he

has been a pretty instrumental player on the board. And yeah, obviously is backing Elon's bid to buy Twitter. So I'm not entirely sure went what went on there. We were just covering Bloomberg's big takes focused on Larry Allison and Lanni. How does this change the constitution of the Tesla board in the meantime? Uh, well, Larry's departure just means that the board shrinks and um and so, you know, seven people is pretty small for a company of Tesla size.

I mean most boards are going in the opposite direction, adding members, add more diversity. Tesla is kind of you know, shrinking its numbers even though it's become this massive company. All right, well, we'll continue to follow your reporting on this. Dana Hall of Bloomberg News, who covers Tesla for us. Thank you Dana for that update. Welcome back to Bloomberg

Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco. This week, the Biden administration announced new steps to build out the first ever national network of five thousand electric car chargers along US highways and in select neighborhood. This is a key piece of the bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Let's get back to ad Ludlow joining us down from l A, where President Biden spoke just a few hours ago. So I talked to us about these new charging stations and just how

much this could supercharge electric car ownership. This is a case of build it and they will come right. Biden's administration laid out seven and a half BI in dollars for charging infrastructure, and they were very specific in the wording of the rules. They basically want an America where

the standards are the same. It doesn't matter if you drive yourself a Tesla, a Ford, Mustang, Marquis and Nissan Leaf that you should dependably be able to drive up to the nearest service station, plug in your e V and off you go. There's been skepticism that this money materializes in the numbers promised. There's been skepticism that it will be built in time. But there are also a

number of private sector players. Right you have Electrify America charge point and they have all gone about, along with Tesla, building out these networks relatively quickly. The discussion around adoption is still a debate because the pre order numbers for the F one fifty Lightning for example, or a Riviewan or even the backlog that you see in Tesla shows that there's demand here in the United States, but the

backward looking data speaks for itself. Basically, the ev adoption is just a few percentage points of all new car sales. In China, it's almost twenty percent. So that's why I say it's a question of building and will and will they come. That's what the Biden administration hopes that making this infrastruction more commonplace will make EVIED option more commonplace

as well. Now, something really curious, and we've seen a rift grow between President Biden and Elon Musk, who you would think is a natural ally in this administration, and in this push to electric cards, we've seen barbs from both, you know, in in you know, towards each other. Why is this? Why haven't they been able to form some

sort of alliance? You know? I remember very vividly when I sat in l a at CODE conference or RECO conference and Elon Musk sat in the chair and said that President Biden is leading the Russian quote Russian revolution in electric vehicles. We've known since early in the year that Elon Musk and the President don't have a direct

relation ship. We know that When President Biden talks about the electrification movement, he is kind of primarily name check forward in GM's leadership in that despite Tesla dominating the sale of electric vehicles in this country and globally. Frankly, but there's the other side of the story as well. Elon Musk has an unwunusual way of doing things. Tesla is not a union shop. It does not have unionized labor. Biden is the president of the labor movement. He's very

open about that. And now we see this shift where Elon must has shifted his politics. The thing is, Elon Musk is the world's richest man and he himself is incredibly popular, and we won't be able to quantify it, but it will be interesting as we approach November in the mid terms. Does Elon Musk take some votership away from Biden. That's a question I'm going to be asking. Fascinating, fascinating question. All right at Lunlow. Thank you from the

Port of l I appreciate your reporting. Meantime, we continue to celebrate pride. This month of June, Bloomberg Television is focusing on a wide range of topics highlighting what equality means for the economy, companies and investors. Today, we're speaking with neuroscientists and entrepreneur Dr Vivian Ming, who founded SOCO Slabs, which uses AI driven research to address inclusion and gender in business. Dr Meng, thank you so much for joining us.

You and I first met when I was researching my book pro Topia, and I'm so fascinated by a very unique perspective in this industry. Let's start with AI. How can I, or AI driven research, as you say, address some of these really deep seated problems. Well, let's be honest, what I believe we humans could potentially solve these problems. But AI is an incredibly powerful tool. I once had the opportunity to scratch an itch what drives wage gap?

And we built UH. And I say we I built an AI that went out analyzed websites of sixty thou different companies, looked at their quarterly reports, analyzed the photos of the board and the leadership team, and we found the single biggest UH predictor of wage gap within a company all around the world was the number of male faces UH in those pictures. The more women, the lower

the wage gap. A pretty unique finding. It took one day and as it turns out, one person in that sense, AI can be an incredibly powerful tool to explore questions of inclusion. Um. Although there's some pretty notorious stories of a going in the wrong direction, tell us a little bit about your personal story and you know this perspective you have, unlike many other people, about how people in Silicon Valley, for example, are treated differently. Yeah, you know,

it's a funny thing. When I started my first tech company was an ad tech company. This was before Corsera and con Academy, and we're going out, my wife and I together to try and his money. And I remember this one case in factor was the first time we had an entire partner vote from a venture capital firm on us. And this one guy happened to be the oldest guy in the room. Uh, No tough questions, no questions at all. He literally just patted me on the head as I left the room and said, you should

be so proud of what you built. And then he ended up being the one person who voted against fundings. Uh. And you know, maybe this is an experience that could happen to anyone. It wasn't just that I was a woman, or just that I was a married women that were the founders. Except this wasn't actually my first company. My first company was years before, a film company, and I was a man, and in a decade in between, I

had gone through transition. And let me tell you, it was extraordinarily more difficult raising money as a woman, despite the fact that in the inner reading years I'd gained a couple of PhD s. Uh. In the years since that I founded six companies, had five of them acquired I We had a good business plan. I truly believe what we were trying to build. The people couldn't see it.

And I will tell you that if you've ever wondered whether it's truly different for men and women, for gay and straight, black and white, as someone that's seen both sides, yes, Silicon Valley can be a wildly different town. As someone who's seen both sides and perhaps has one of the most decorated resumes of anyone in Silicon Valley, how much progress do you think has actually been made over the years.

Of course, we had um the Me Too movement, that Black Lives Matter movement, Then we had the pandemic and concerns about backsliding in the pandemic, Do you feel like we've made significant steps forward or or not? Yeah? You know, I'm a hard number scientist in the end, and so I like to collect data. One of the projects we run at SOCO SLABS is called the Inclusion Impact Index.

We collaborate with crunch Base, pitch Book, the US Patent Bureau, and the Census collecting data and we look at questions like do lgbt founders um raised as much as straight founders, how many jobs are created by women starting companies in the Southeast, And what we clearly saw, for example, during the pandemic is funding of non traditional founders read UH, women,

ethnic minorities, lgbt Q went down substantially UM. Some of that is because many of them were starting companies for the first time, and funding for new companies dropped dirt with the uncertainty, but the drop for someone like me was pronounced lee larger, So there's clearly some backsliding going on UH. And that kind of data is incredibly useful because I'll tell you I have never talked with a VC that wasn't convinced they were the most rational person

in the entire world. We are moving into an even more tech enabled world. You know, this future of the metaverse. Who knows if it happens, but you know a number of companies are certainly trying to push us in that direction. Do you see this posing or presenting more challenges or opportunities when it comes to creating a more equal world? Uh?

You know, let's be blunt, it's both. Uh. We look at some new research on the rate of data flow, how incredibly connected we are, how easy it is with my phone or online for to collect any piece of information I want to get, And paradoxically, it's actually slowing down innovation. And so in that sense, independent of diversity, technology seems to make us explore less and that's deeply problematic. But we can fight against that, and we can really

lean into technology. For example, technology I built from my son who has autism, to help him understand people that don't have autism without cheering him. He's already got a superpower. He sees the world different than everyone around him. He just needs a little help and understanding other people. That's where technology can make a difference by actually celebrating what makes us different and even augmenting it, not just making

us all sort of boringly the same. So what do you see it is next here in this discussion, In this conversation, I know there are so many things that we don't talk about that, don't you know, we don't shed enough light on what should we be talking about. Well, I gotta tell you, as was mentioned in some of your earlier interviews, Uh, it's a change world in California. Their requirements about board representation. I have never gotten so

many board inquiries. I mean, honestly, a transgender women with a multi racial disabled family, everybody is calling me up and asking if I'll join their board. Um, but I think it's performative. What we really need to do is see that there is value, uh, in arguable value and having people that think differently about problems. Gender, race, sexuality are certainly not the only ways in the world people

think differently, but they are powerful ones. So for the last year two we've actually been looking at this fascinating space, the neuroscience of trust. Why it is that our brains process different people differently and we just need to accept in the end that we're human and we're imperfect and sometimes it's going to take extra effort to connect with someone that's different. Where our brains are just not set up to handle it. M Dr Vivian, men, you sharing

your perspective with us today is truly a gift. Thank you. It is time now for our Crypto report and I want to talk about securing block change. Joining me now, Nko Sandrico, Janapolis. He is the CEO of Metrica, which provides monitoring and analytics for blockchain communities. He nicos, thank you so much for joining us, So talk to us about the problems that you're trying to solve with your company.

So Metric is trying to make blockchain networks reliable and performance so that the Web three world can be built on top. So think of it. We've got used to the resiliency and the performance of telecommunication networks. We are applying and we're building the same tools in the blogsain world. And that is very important because if we want to build applications for Web three applications that are required figher

operational requirements. Think of it like the next Zoom, the next Facebook, the next Netflix on top of Web three. We need the blockchain networks to be performing really well. So we were building the tools end to end monitoring, analytics, operational intelligence so that anyone who runs infrastructure can run it reliably, and also the applications can get that visibility and can know how the network performs. The blockchain network

performed underneath our network. Allergies and attacks on the blockchain more serious than they would be on other networks. I think they are. I think the the assets that exist on the blockchain networks are much more valuable than video or voice that exists on conventional telecom networks or the Internet. And I think we're putting our banking system, we're putting nuancets,

We're putting digital assets on those networks. So I think both security and performance are much more important than what it were in the in the telecom world. And I think we're gonna see the highest value bids traversing the world, uh than we saw before in the web two world in the Internet. So chat to us that about how the scales in the future. If you know, these kinds

of adages and attacks are more serious for blockchain technology. Yeah, I mean, just to give you an example of what happens today when there is when there is an outage, UM, everyone runs a note on the blocks in network and they run some kind of local monitoring on those notes, and what happens is that everybody sees that their notice down and they try to figure out is it the node, is it the network, is it the application that is wrong?

Nobody knows what is going on exactly. So everybody goes on social media, they go on Twitter, they go on discourt, and they start asking each other are you seeing the same thing? Are you experiencing the same things that we see? And then there is a long process of coordination for bringing a network back in order. So these are operations

in the early days that we're experiencing. Now. We need infrastructure like the one that Metric is building, so that we can have monitoring, community monitoring, end to end visibility into the network, and so that those outages can either be prevented or when they happen, we can very quickly recover and the network can be can be back. So I think we're seeing things that as we build up infrastructure and as we build more tools in the space,

will start becoming less and less frequent. We've been talking a lot about the market turmoil and crypto market terminal. Bitcoin still now below thirty dollars. What's your read on where this is all headed. I think definitely. The markets are in a turmoil and we're we're getting into a bare market. But I think for for crypto, this actually might be a good thing in the sense that people will focus a lot on building. And every time that we've seen in the past during burn markets, there is

a lot of infrastructure being built. The foundations of blockchain and crypto are being built. In a movement further along, I would say investors also kind of change their appetite and they become much more focused on the value of what is being built rather than on financial engineering or on crypt economics. And I think that's that's a healthy

kind of phase that we go through. When we've seen that in the past, it has never stopped the progress in building up more more things in the cryptal world. All right, Metrica CEO Niko Sanrica Jannapolis, thank you for joining us coming up. A clash of styles over at Disney led to a veteran, Peter Rice's dismissal, and it took CEO Pop j Pack just seven minutes. We'll talk about what happened next, Mrs Bloomberg. Peter Rice has one of the longer resumes in the entertainment industry, but when

his time at Disney came to an end. It was over in seven minutes. That is how long it took Disney CEO Bob J Peck to fire the head of his TV division this week and what insiders say was a clash of styles at the world's largest entertainment company, blooms Chris Paul Mary joins us Now to discuss. So, Chris, what happened and why did it only take seven minutes?

Ha ha ha. Well, this is one of those things where we'll look back at this as a data point and if you know, the tenure of Bob Kause CEO is ultimately a successful one, we'll say, well, there's a guy who made quick decisions and uh, you know, I

wasn't afraid to make hard choices. Uh If if ultimately he's not successful, and you know, and it could go either way at this point, Uh, people will say, oh, you know, boy, there's a guy who had really no people's skills and uh, you know, didn't behave the way Hollywood normally behaves when it terminates very senior executives like Peter Rice. J Peck has obviously been facing some pretty tough and kind of public battles what does this say

about his leadership at this point? Well, in a white bigger news this week, uh than Peter Rice, was the fact that the Disney's Board of Directors put out a statement on Thursday saying that Japec and his team Habits have their full support. Uh. And that's significant because this guy has definitely been under fire. Stocks down by more than a third this year alone. Uh. He had that pr debacle in Florida that's ongoing over the school's bill, and had a you know this, you know, municipal district

taken away from them. He had plenty of problems before that, internally not popular, moving a lot of US to Florida Scarlett Johansson lawsuit last year. If you recall so so, Shafick's had more than his share of struggles. Shares are way down. I mean, how long though, do you think the board is going to put up with this? Well? Uh, you know, his contract runs for another few months. I would say for certainly he's given the statement that they

put out just yesterday, he's certainly safe this year. Uh. It's coming at a time where you know, Netflix had those bad subscriber numbers. The whole media sector is down in a big way. So Disney isn't alone. You know, the theme park says we've talked about before, are really killing it and that's been a savior. That was where Speck sort of last served. And uh and and that business is doing great, so uh, it's a big test time. They're rolling out Disney Plus in a number of new

markets this summer all over the world. And and Speck has promised that the second half of the year will show even stronger subscriber growth than the first half, So those data points is still to come. Has bot Biker had at all a role in the aftermath of all of this, I mean, I know there's been some speculation of him coming back, which he has said is totally ridiculous.

Just curious what Eiger is up to. H He hasn't publicly commented on SHAPEX leadership, but people have tried to read between the lines and some of his public statements um people have argued, For example, he tweeted out retweeted a statement from President Joe Biden on the Florida Schools bill that's sort of in a way made people ask what Disney's official position and set in motion that whole

chain of events Uh. He's also commented public on on the decision, uh, saying essentially was a no brainer for Disney to oppose the bill, uh, something that SHAPEC had initially been reluctant to do so. In a way indirectly, he's offered his opinions on the I think so going on interesting? All right, Chris Paul Mary, who covers Disney for us. We'll stay tuned for the next twist in this very dramatic story. And that does it for this

edition of Bloomberg Technology. My colleague David Weston is coming up next with Wall Street Week former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers there. He's got some harsh words for the FED, calling them delusional on inflation. And don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get our podcasts. Have a wonderful weekend. Everyone. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg