Ex-FTX Exec Near Plea Deal, Tesla Mulls Metal Miner Bid

to plead guilty to US criminal charges. We bring you the latest development of the f t X fallout, and we continue our deep dive into the world of artificial intelligence and speak with someone investing in the space. Kevin Dunlap, Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner, joins us later this hour. All that and more that stick in the world of crypto. Binance, which operates the world's largest crypto exchange, is now considering ending relationships with US business partners as

regulators turn up the heat. I want to bring in bloombergs Uchi Yang, who broke this story earlier today, Ugly, thank you so much for joining us. What are the latest details from your reporting? Thanks for having me so we're learning that buiness the global exchange is starting to have to think about a plan to retreat from the US,

especially it's remaining business relationships in the US. We're reporting that Biness is considering pulling back its vent investments in the country, is looking at potentially cutting ties with some of the intermediary firms such as banks and other services firms. And it's also in assessment of delisting some of the

US based tokens, potentially including a major stable one. And I have to add that these are preliminary considerations, no firm decisions have been made, but that these are assessment that the company now has to deliberate given the ongoing regulatory crackdown in the US, as we've seen from a

flurry of reenforcement actions in recent days. You know, our sources giving us a pretty good sense of what the company is considering and why we should point out that Binance did issue a statement or comment in response to the story. We'll bring it up on the screen now utually just to show our audience. Like every other blockchain company, we're conducting a careful cost benefit analysis and will pivot our business as necessary to protect our global user base.

That according to a Binance spokesperson, I guess the easy question now utually is what happens next while we're looking to see what exacts that finance will be taking where we also understand that Biness is in settlement talks with US regulators over some of the investigations that have previously been reported by US and other press, and there's no clear details on either the timeline of the settlement or

the minetor amount of the settlement. And we also know that more Brady other cryptal companies are starting to look into plans of potentially moving offshore as well. We know that Naxos, for example, a crypto leander, had already made announcement too to pull out from the market after receiving

orders from other states. So Buyinice wouldn't be the first one to to start considering how a retreet will look like UM and I had to mention that Bynese US, which is set up as a separate platform design for US UM users, currently said that they have no plan to acceed the US. Alright, blood g Yang, thank you.

In Washington to U S senators are urging a key national security panel to quote impose strict structural restrictions between TikTok's American operations and its Chinese parent company, bike Dance, And in other news, the CEOs of Meta, Amazon, Might Soft and others have been subpoenaed by the GOP. For a deeper dive on what's happening on tech regulation out on the Hill, we're joined by Bloomberg's and editing in d C, and of course our big Tech correspondent Alex Brinka,

who's in Los Angeles. And let's start with you on this issue of TikTok. We've covered all week, um the strange relations between the US and China, We've covered your reporting on TikTok. What is the mood right now in d C about how to act with TikTok? Yeah, I'd

really summarize it as one of distrust. And what was just striking about this letter that we saw, I believe it was just yesterday, so a letter from Richard Bloomenthal, Connecticut Democrat and Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, is that they said, we just don't believe what we're hearing from TikTok when it comes to assurances that their Chinese parent company, by Dance doesn't have access to user data

and a thumb on the scale of the algorithm. They said, you know, we don't trust the security arrangements that we're hearing described from the company and even you know, assurances from their lead lobbyist here in Washington, even the CEO himself. We don't trust that there's going to be enough to protect US users from Chinese interference. You know, TikTok CEO is due to go to the hill, you know, attend hearings.

What do we know about that? And I guess in the corridors of lawmaking center of our world, what's the attitude towards TikTok going into it. Yeah, it's striking how bipartisan this is. That there's a lot of mistrust from both Democrats and Republicans about really what TikTok's interests is

in growing the influence here in the US. You know, they're saying things like, why would you spend one point five billion dollars on lobbying when you can invest that in the product, you know, if if you weren't doing something nefarious. So, you know, there's a lot of kind of disconnect between the popularity of the app among normal

users and kind of the national security concerns. So we hear echo here in Congress, and that's part of kind of the broader uh discomfort with Chinese relations right now. You know, things like this balloon that was shot down allegedly for Chinese surveillance was um something that just kind of ramped up tensions even further and made it even more likely that that both Republicans and Democrats are going to feel pressure to push back on a company, you

know that's part of a Chinese parent company. I think, Sprinka, I'll bring you in from Los Angeles and let's get the company side of this story. Because TikTok has a massive user footprint in the United States. You and I have discussed a number of times that the user base doesn't get it. They feel like the risk hasn't been communicated to them from lawmakers those that represent them. What are the company actually doing to kind of address some

of those concerns. Well, if you've been following this closely, then I'm sure you've heard of something called Project Taxes. It's a big effort for the company to bring in additional people to help with security, to migrate all the data onto Oracle servers, and to basically make sure that you know, there is nothing of of user's data or influence on the algorithm that will get kind of nefarious. Now, that is the exact plan that, as Anna said, lawmakers

seem to be very skeptical of. But at the same time, TikTok is continuing to push forward on its user efforts. I was on the app just today and they've launched a new trivia tool where you could go in and and answer questions. So it seems like they're they're moving full steam ahead in terms of making sure that people find a lot of delight in the app, and folks are I think that the latest numbers, folks are spending about a hundred minutes in the US on the app

every single day. So there is this kind of like interesting divide where there is big concern in DC and mostly just big concern about being entertained from users here in the United States. Right, But also, Alex, you know what you notice not just for TikTok. I know this to be true of course, of Meta previously of Twitter is the huge lobbying effort that's going behind the scenes. How much energy is the company putting in, how aggressive

are they into winning our coolmakers? Yeah, it's interesting. So last fall UM. We wrote this kind of big take out on their lobbying efforts. They were basically talking to friendly parties down in DC. They weren't giving a lot of love to the Josh Hollies of the world, the mark of Rubio's of the world. The folks were the loudest in the room bringing up concerns against them. It seems like that strategy has not worked in their favor. We have heard and there's been reporting from elsewhere that

they've changed cats to start the year. They've been a lot more aggressive and getting in front of some of their detractors. So the company is making moves. Definitely, those dollars are going toward UM these kind of behind the scenes conversations. But again, skesticism abound from the folks in DC and all of those big tech CEOs have been subpoena and what are you we hearing from sources about what could come out of that. Yeah, so this is

really what we're expecting from House Republicans this year. You know, with Senate Democrats having the majority and House Republicans having the majority on the other side of the capital, there's not much chance that there's going to be UM tech focus legislation that's going to get through the House. Republicans are really using their majority for this investigation, and their main concern is getting to the bottom of stories like the Hunter Biden laptop. Why was that story, um, they

would say, suppressed before the last presidential election. The cooperation between the Biden White House and these big tech platforms on addressing misinformation around things like COVID. Now Republicans will say that this is a free speech issue that they're worried about the government kind of putting its thumb on the scale of speech in the United States using these

very important tech platforms. And this is going to be kind of like the opening salvo and demanding documents from these CEOs to make sure that they are getting the kind of transparency that House Republicans believe they deserve. Bloom Bugs and Edgison and Alex Brinka, thank you. Now coming up, Saudi Arabia's public Investment Fund just became the largest outside shareholder of Nintendo. Will explain why. In talking tech. That's next, This is Bloomberg. Nintendo has taken the scalp of its

great Japanese rival Sony. Sales of Nintendo Switch, its flagship console have overtaken those of the PlayStation four. You can see in this chart it's gradually hauled in the mighty PS four. Interestingly, though, look at this a slight slackening of growth in the most recent months, of which a bit more later you say that's not a fair comparison. Sony has since released the PlayStation five. Even taking that into account, you can see Nintendo is out selling the

total unit sales of PlayStations from across the board. The wrinkle when it comes to nintend though, it is not expecting to sell as much this year as people had expected, and see these pace of sales for Nintennis, which is not as bullish. As a consequence, the share price is being punished. Hm. Hm, Time now for talking tech, and let's stick with Nintendo for a second, because Saudi Arabia's public investment fund just became the largest outside shareholder of

the video game company. This the latest move by the Gulf state to lower its reliance on oil. The sovereign web fund now owns eight point three percent of the Kyoto based games company, according to a filing, up from about six percent at the start of the year. That puts it ahead of Japan's government pension investment fund and behind only Nintendo Zone holdings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Now moving onto the world of PC makers, Lenovo's profit fell for the first time in almost three years on waning demand for personal computers, forcing the company to warn of job cuts. The company has been struggling with a tumble in global demand following that pandemic error work from home boom, but the company also saying the PC market

may stabilize quote sooner than expected. And back to Krypto, with the SEC saying crypto fugitive Do Quan and the firm he founded, Terraform Labs, transferring ten thousand bitcoin out of their doomed projects and turned some of that token into cash virus. Swiss Bank j one has previously denied wrong doing in South Korean authorities are still seeking help

in the hunt to find him alright. Turning to Tesla and reaction to that news Thursday that Tesla is recalling three hundred and sixty three thousand vehicles over an issue with its self driving technology, Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langard says the recall has little financial impacts, but the risk clearly remains as other investigations are ongoing at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and delighted to say Colin joins US now you have an equal weight recommendation, a hundred

and fifty dollar price target on Tesla, and Collin, you're basically pointing out that the recall happening and over the air update fix doesn't kind of do away with longer term concerns. In other words, is still looking and asking questions of Tesla. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, financially it's an over the air update. It's going to be you know, really at no cost to Tesla. Um, but I think it does show that the ns is willing to take action. There are I think reportedly you know, over three dozen

investigations that's been ongoing. And it's really not just NITZA. There's a reportedly a Department of Justice investigation. There is an indication that ten K that they're asking for information, so it seems like that's very likely. Uh, and there's the SEC reportedly might be investigating again. So UM, there's just a lot of those risks out there, and I

think Tesla investors need to keep that in mind. I mean, autopilot is extremely important feature that's a competitive advantage for Tesla, and if there's regulations that limit its use or or pullback functionality, that's clearly going to be a concern for

the stock. Elon must get this interview in June where he basically described the overwhelming focus for Tesla being to crack full self driving, and he said it's essential because really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth zero is their success on FSD Beta. Do you model that into your price targets? Do you agree with kind of that thesis on how Tesla should be valued? Uh? Not really. I mean I think he's kind of already walked back some of those targets. Right.

It's it's become very clear across the board, I mean across all the different autonomous startups that to get to full autonomy is very challenging. UM and you know, full self driving is you know, as now indicated is not full self driving level four, level five. It's going to be an advanced level to eight as type system at

least at this point. So I don't see, you know, from most of the experts that I talked to an autonomy you know, the strategies like it's going to take a very long time if it's ever all possible, particularly without lighter. So I actually don't put a high probability of anything near term on on true full self driving the way people are thinking about, you know, could that you know, massively change the valuation, absolutely if they could

deliver it. I just don't think the technology is there young. As you heard at the top of the show, Tesla is considering a bid for battery metals minus signor lithium. You know, a source told me earlier it's just one name that Tessa is looking at. So clearly test is looking at supply chain right on the battery side. On March, the first we will get master Plan Part three, which you know, a part of we understand will be how to scale beyond Tesla's current level. What are your expectations

for what we'll learn from Elon Musk and co. Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at what's happening with Tesla, right, I mean, we've had it seems like there were clear signs that demand was softening. We've had this massive price cut that spurred the demand. The question comes as how long does that price cut keep demand going? And so you actually need to kind of start to

get line of sight to what's the next driver. And so I think at the investor day of the key event is going to be focused around, you know, understanding. You know, what I think they've talked about is the

sort of Gen three model. I'm guessing and I think most people are guessing that's going to be a lower price model that will actually give them coverage for the vast majority of the price points in the auto segment if you get it to thirty thousand or below UM and that obviously widens the TAM and the addressable market and could get people excited if you could do that economically. And I think that's what people are expecting, is, you know,

a discussion of cheaper price model with strong economics behind it. Colin, I noticed a Friday night. I know that maybe Elon musk Tesla, it's not how you want to end your day, But you tolds about regulatory risk being a damage to credibility. What are the other risk tests facing right now? Real quick? I mean, uh, you know, expectations are high after the

recent run. I think we have to see what happens April one, when you know the you know, the full iary credits come in the seven thousand, five hundred may go down. We'll see if demand is impacted there. I think there's high expectations into the investor day and yeah, I mean I think it's probably gonna be longer term for your seeing some sort of regulatory action that might be more aggressive than what we saw yesterday, but still remains a long term risk that investors shouldn't forget about.

I mean, maybe it'll all blow over, but it's still something to consider. All right. Well, as fagoys called it, Langon, thank you, Happy Friday, have a great long weekend opening. I deserves a ton of credit for taking what happened with transformers and large language models and taking it out of the research labs of these big tech companies. They're really at the front lines of bringing these technology to

lots of application developers and users. So to give up any credit they when they released chat GPT, they were very careful to put in place safeguards to prevent certain types of toxic or harmful content or dangerous content from being I wouldn't be surprised if in the next six to twelve months we have models that are actually capable of truthfulness. I think every company is going to be an AI company, and everything we do at work and how we live is going to be transformed by AI.

Those were just some of Bloomberg Technologies guests sharing their recent thoughts on the booming generative AI sector and open Aies contribution in particular. So for more on what's going on and the impact to tech moving forward, I want to bring in Bloomberg Intelligence is Man Deep Seeing and Mandy, you have this note out this Friday about actually where the real impact you think chat g people t will come. So much focus on what it will do in the

search wars right being revival versus Google. But for you, this is a story about cloud. Explain your thesis. Sure, So look, I think what you're gonna see is everything around us when it comes to apps, website, software will become more intelligent. And what you need to drive that is cloud infrastructure. So think of you know how our data centers are set up right now, it's essentially you know, work certain kind of workloads which are mostly CPU driven.

Now that we have power of these you know, custom chips that can run AI workloads, that can run these large language models, it allows us to leverage all of that in our day to day experience of accessing the Internet, and which is why I think cloud growth was extremely strong even before they slowdown. And I think this even accelerates that on the server side, and I wouldn't be surprised if it drives up the refresh cycle on the

edge or the you know, the consumer devices as well. Yeah, in the conversation we've had certainly in Cilicon Valley, right, of course, AWS dominates this market. The AWS hasn't even shown his hand yet really when it comes to their their AI or at least sort of there out there consumer facing AI competence. There's a piece of data analysis that you do in your debt that you've published about how much search is actually going to be connected to

large language models. I think you say that somewhere between fifteen and search queries or images will be linked to l l ns. Why did you point that out? Yeah, so think of you know, how many types of searches

actually require that large language context. I mean some of these searches are essentially looking for a website you are l or just some basic information we're a large language model can add value is if you want to summarize a large corpus of text or you know, drive some intelligence around the type of query where you just don't want to access the u r L but actually make it intelligent in terms of saving the time and driving productivity.

And when you look at all the queries, the type of queries people do on Google, we kind of narrowed it down to fifteen over the next two to three years. Obvious see this sort of big gradual, but you can see you know, education and a lot of that A use case right now is using a negative context around you know, copying essays or that kind of stuff. But there is a real use case around education as well as you know, queries where you can do a lot

of things in terms of summarizing things quickly. And I think that's where we get through that number, all right, Bloomberg Intelligent Senior Technology analyst, mandyat Singh thank you. Kevin Dunlap, Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner, is with me now this Friday. Calibrate which announced their second fund of ninety seven million dollars back in December one, specifically to invest in early stage AI and automation startups across healthcare, logistics, education,

financial services. Kevin, let's get the big picture from you. First, you heard Mandy eat there, you've heard all the data points, just some up what you're seeing right now as the moment in AI, what is it that is before us? When we started calibrate first and two thousand seventeen, we believe that there was a large economic unlock that was going to occur, similar to what happened in sas in

the early two thousand's. And now we're seeing that the ability for companies to build quickly on top of these large language models, as well as thinking about the middle where middle layer to actually take and implement these actions into realities in the real world is what's exciting to us to calibrate. The chronology or the timeline here for me is so interesting. You started or launch your fund

in December one. I don't know how much of the capitol you've you've committed yet, but really this took off in November, right And I just wonder how you feel about how much open ai has dominated the headlines, because you know the names you're looking at have nothing to do with open AI. At this moment in time, everyone's all of our companies are looking at how to use generative I. UM some have looked at using open AI, others are looking at using other types of models, are

actually implementing other own models into that. But the timing and the pro press it's receives about open AI, I think is actually great. Um. It actually highlights the opportunity that's out there and even some of the things that you're seeing, even some of the potentially negative things you're seeing around open ay and the chat I think also

highlight where we are in a cycle. Right. We're at the very early cycle of this, and there needs to be a lot of moderation, content filtering, UM and honing of these models to actually understand and take them into full enterprise A complications were we were discussing the potential

for cloud and enterprise at a generative AI. But the consumer facing excitement is about search and we will ask our own audience all the developments in AI enough to view the consumer to jump from Google to another search engine. These are the results, will bring them up for you. UM. I don't know how surprising it is, Kevin see respondent saying it's too early to tell, of respondents saying, yes, being is now more exciting. Is that really true? Is

this a game changer? In the search engine competition. I think it's a game changer in bing stability to catching partner share. And if I was joking about this the other day, you know, if you'd asked me a year ago, what are the chances that I would download thing? They were probably zero. But I actually downloaded it and I let it keep its notifications on it simply so I know when i'd be able to get full access to it.

So I think it is a ga game changer for Microsoft and the ability to actually catch the market share around search. So I go back to my last question about open ai. Should we be thanking open ai for what they've done to give momentum around generative AI. I think we should be. I think that what it's doing is it's opening up opportunities. It's allowing startups to be more cost effective how they deploy solutions to actually get

products to market sooner and allow scale faster. So I think the attention that's been brought on by open i AI is actually a positive um. But with everything every early product launched, there's always a balance of the perfect product versus speed to market and first mover, and I think we've seen a little bit of that here, but the honing that's going to be having the ability to actually customize that they just had an announcement on last night.

I think those will do wonders for the products and offering and the way that people interact with it. You've been doing this since two thousand sev and ninety seven million dollar fund at the end of one How are you valuing your portfolio companies? There's a lot of froth in the public markets, and of course looking to public peers is one way of benchmarking your private portfolio, right, but gains for Big Bear AI more than a hundred percent year to date for uh C three AI must

be a nightmare. Yeah. And the benefit of being an early stage venture investors that we have a very long term horizon and that although we've seen a rise in the seed in Series eight prices for companies um that's starting to come off a little bit and we're seeing a little bit more of return to normal. I think the hardest place to play right now is in the later stage financing of these pre I p O companies.

I think that's where I'd be the most cautiousness an investor, because that's where it's a hard time actually understanding what the public markets will ultimately evaluate the set in the future. At the earlier stage of the curve, are you having to write bigger checks? I guess there's a proxy for it being more competitive to get into promising companies in artificial intelligence. I think the round sizes have increased of somewhat. I think it's buying companies more more runway to actually

execute on their offerings in their platforms. We've been fortunately, we've been doing this a long time, and so our expertise and the cross product pollinations between our companies has been most benefit for us to lead in win deals even when they're over subscribed. Kevin, what is your personal relationship like with artificial intelligence? Bear with me on that one, but you know you're an investor in the space. I'm trying to get in on the chat GPT waitlist, right.

I want to understand better how it works. Do you sit at your desk every day and communicate with AI and all the different A p I s and tools that are available to you? In general, I think we're interacting with AI and lots of ways without even knowing it. Right, We've got robotics companies that use AI to decide what motions have taken the real world we're being delivered ads in our web search is probably using all some forms

of generative AI now without us knowing. I love playing with uh GPT chat and asking questions and seeing out how it responds. But I also take every response that I get with a grain of salt. Right, I know

this is an early language, large language model. I know that the answers were getting need to be verified and need to be understood in the appropriate way, And so I think people all also need to take that same approach and understand that this is the very beginning, and you also need to verify the information from getting Kevin done that. Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner will have you on later in the cycle and see how

it went. Now, coming up, Draft Kings soaring after a fourth quarter revenue beating estimates, an analysts responding positively to that be we'll have more on the quarternex and here from DraftKings CEO Jason Robbins, Mr Bloomberg, we've teed up over one one point three trillion dollars worth of different investment in areas like semiconductors, green technology, green grid. You know, they're very smart workers being laid off from a lot

of the tech companies. Hopefully they find other homes and helped generate that productive capacity that was bmos Carol Schlife. They're talking about how investing in companies that are going to benefit from the investment in EV charging infrastructure, also how there's opportunity in tech layoffs, and how companies might benefit from those that are seeking a job, especially those much bagloged industries looking for a bit of a boost.

And speaking of evs, General Motors CEO Mary Barraw says, this year is the year the GM moves past it's traditional rivals and starts its attempt to close the gap on Tesla in the EV race. It's along away to push and GM has talked for four years about thirty new evs that will use its old tim battery, but

only has recently stided production. Have a listened. It's critically important if we want to achieve goals to get to forty fifty and beyond a percentage of all new vehicles sold to be electric vehicles, you have to get into that thirty range because that's where the bulk of the market is. And so that's why I'm so proud of the Chevrolet Equinox and the Chevrolet Blazer, both evs that

are coming out this year. You know that the Equinox will be around thirty thousand dollars and the Blazer will be in the You know that, and those are very affordable vehicles. And draft King shares close higher at the end of the trading day in New York, reaching their highest level since August. This after the sports Bedding Company reported fourth court of revenue that was better than expected and raised guidance as well for the four year in three.

CEO Jason Robbins join my colleagues Shinali Basset and remained Bostick earlier today, and here's what he had to say about whether the company can be profitable by the fourth quarter of this year. Really feel good about the trajectory of the business. Center on really great track to to have Q four be a big quarter for us, a

big quarter. And I think a lot of people sort of looking at this idea here sort of what drives the growth going forward here, Jason, I mean, this is a business that I think to a certain degree was kind of out in front. You know, it was kind of early, I think to the big sort of shift to more of these UH gaining platforms here, and a lot of people sort of want to know, is this growth story one of additional users or is it maybe trying to monetize a user base that you already have.

I think it's all the above. We're really in a very the very infancy stage of the industry. There's still tons of new users coming in. States are passing legislation, and new markets are opening up, and you're finding customers that are you know, adopting new sports, new products UH and growing their spend with us too. So if you look at it, we've had very consistent growth both in our monthly users and in our average revenue per user, and we expect that to continue. UM. We have Massachusetts

opening up hopefully in March. That will be another big growth spurt for US. So lots of great stuff on the horizon. What about M and A of Jason, Do you see yourself entertaining another large deal after the environment has frankly changed? You know, obviously right now we're very focused on our internal operations, on becoming more efficient, on

finding ways to cut costs, finding ways to grow revenue. UM. That's been a huge plus for us that we really you know, as the environment is transition, really it's afforded us the opportunity to look internally and spend a lot of time asking ourselves, how can we be more efficient? How can we be more cost effective? Um. So that's been the theme for the last year, and I expect that to continue through twenty three. Jason talked us a

little bit about partnerships. One thing that struck me was, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, I happened to notice in one of your competitors, I think it was Fanatics, actually had set up a whole sports book operation, uh in one of the main NFL stadiums down in Washington. And I'm curious, are these types of deals necessary? I guess to continue to sort of capture market share, and I guess to keep people tether to your specific brand. Well, you know, we have a handful

of retail sports books across the country. I think they serve a great purpose. We're building a really big one at Wrigley Field, another one at UM the side of the TPC Scottsdale, the WM Phoenix open Um, so you know, they do have a place. I think that it really depends on the deal. If there's a good deal to be done that we feel it is going to be a profitable one for the company's cost efficient. Um, you know,

I think that's something we pursue. We're mostly focused online, that's obviously the vast majority of our business, but there is a place for retail where it makes sense. That was DraftKings CEO Jason Robots. So let's take a look at the chase again. Actually closing fifteen percent higher, short change them a little bit, but still the biggest jump since November in the stock closing at this highest level since August. There for Draft Kings want to watch for sure,

it's going viral. Ben Sigmahan is looking to get as much as nine billion dollars in a potential sale of w w E, the company he returned to this year. The asking price thirty seven percent above the company's current market value for around six point five billion dollars. Bloomberg's Lucas Shore broke that story and joins me. Now, so,

Lucas is anyone buying any office come in yet? According to the people familiar with the conversation, has there have been at least a couple of offers for the whole company. You know, there was a story about a month ago that that Saudi Arabia already had a deal to buy it. Uh that was dismissed by Nik Cohn, who's the CEO and a former agent at Creative Artist Agency. But we

know that there's interest from Middle Eastern investors. We know that there's interest from Endeavor, which already owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You know, the big question in this is whether there's a lot of interest from what would be considered the strategic partners, the big media companies Comcast, which already airs some of the w W, Fox, which are

some of the Www, Netflix, Disney and its peers. So far, it seems like the interest is more from the Saudias and Endeavor, But there are folks who say that they've gotten offers from people beyond kind of the the expected list. I'm looking at w W SHA is really jumping actually after the headlines and you're reporting dropped. Why such a high valuation? What justifies it, I guess to Vince Mmon's mind, Well, the company right now, it's it's market cap is about

six and a half. Now, that's up a lot, in part because people expect there to be a deal. But anytime you sell you know, you aim for a premium, so you add at least a you know, a billion or two on top of it, and that puts it in the eight to nine billion range. It doesn't seem that crazy, you know, in terms of why the company is worth that much. It is able to deliver, you know, a very consistent audience. It delivers at least most of

the time alive audience. And there are already companies paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the rights to show this programming. If you already or to own it, you know, you could then have a lot more control over it. You can advertise the cost over more time. And there's been sort of ongoing efforts or desires at least to take some of those characters from the regular shows and turn them into film, television something like that.

Any owner can do that as well. Bloomberg's Lucas sure keeping eyes on that deal, will continue to track it. Thank you so much. I want to get back to those breaking headlines on Tesla. According to sources, Tesla weighing up a bid for the lithium minor Sigma Lithium, a Canadian firm. You can see the market reaction Sigma's U s A d r s jumping in after hours, even on a Friday, I'm sure, amid thin volumes. According to sources,

Tesla speaking with advisors and has been considering this. Of course, no deal is certain, but one deal will continue to track. That does it know. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology, what a week. Don't forget to recap on our podcast wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, iHeart or Apple podcasts. A lot more to discuss around the world of techn ology. This is Bloomberg