Lyft Plunges and Twitter Under Regulatory Scrutiny

telling lawmakers to hold off on regulating online content. Will bring you the y plus the latest details on Disney as activist investor Nelson Peltz stands down on his proxy fight. But is the battle over all that so much more coming up? We dig in first and foremost to those markets that once again swoon the first two day lows we've seen since December, the worst two days, sal off about two points of the course of two days, and then AzaC of by another percentage point on the day.

We're worried as again on the macro, on the federal reserve, on interest rates going higher. That's why we see well overall concerned anxiety as evidence in the vix. The volatility index picks up to a twenty handle. The ten year yields of boring costs they rise. No wander stocks full. Let's switch it on because I want to show also this worry about the canary in the cold mine. That is well, the retail investor, they're getting bullish, the first

time we've seen that since April. Many say, oh, we're now late to the party. Had Yeah, it's interesting. So many stories for individual stocks as well. Alphabet down another four point four percent this Thursday or two day drop, the biggest two day drops since March, as we continue to have worries about their barred AI search. Disney is so interesting. We're gonna get into it later in the show. But it was up significantly, ending up lower one point

three percent. We'll get into Tiger's success story so far at the entertainment company. Global Foundries is an't to deal with GM to supply semi conductors your Homemaker, boosting that stock up three and a half percent, and continued momentum in Tesla. But right now it is all about earnings. Let's get straight to PayPal actually giving a pretty tepid forecast in terms of dollar value of bookings or transactions through their platform. But crucially CEO Dan Shaman, he is

going to step down and retire at year end. That as we see sales growth slowing and Lift, oh my goodness down after hours. Really, what the market seeson on is the fiscal first quarter forecast for ebit dar adjusted basis five million to fifteen million. The street was looking for a forecast of around eighty four million. So that is a significant miss on expectations. Let's get more and bringing row Hit called Carnie, an analyst at rough m K M row Hit, you have a whole rating on

Lift twenty dollar price target. What's your reaction to the numbers? Um? This is this feels like a big recent quarter, one more recent quarter from coming from left. There is more evidence that they're probably losing market share to uber Um. They're landing on the recovery from West coast exposure, and on top of it, there are kind of execution issues that they have their own insidence kind of way of doing things, which which is probably placerbating how things are

being reported. Here. Hey, right here, Dara Kostrasha, here the uber sere It's hold Bloomberg twenty four hours ago that he thinks Uber is taking market share from Left. Do you see the numbers as evidence of that? Absolutely over the last three quarters when we look at the mobility trends, but Uber is showing on a sequential growth, although the disclosures across both companies are highly inconsistent. So it's not

apples to apples, it's probably apples to pineapples. But having said that, I think just the growth rate that these companies are putting up are diverging in a way that they weren't a while back. So I feel Uber is definitely gaining market share and probably that share gain is accelerating as we speak. So what do you want to hear from Left leadership right now? As it I think the most important thing here is what is the path

to sustainable cash flow generation UM? The company did put out UM target with regards to how high of a cash flow generation that they can have. I feel given the given the guidance that they have of software revenues and much software bit da, I feel they just need to provide some confidence to the investors that look, this is what these are the steps we can take to get to a point that we can generate incremental cash and then we can be UM investing in investing for growth.

I feel that confidence is completely lost after looking at their numbers today. There is definitely some noise and confusion, But I feel that's what we need to hear when that confidence is lost. Do you have to change the ratings? You have to change the whole positions. You have to change the price target that is now well off that twenty large you currently have at the momentum. Again, what I would say is everybody on the street will revisit their financial models after earnings, so we are in the

process of doing that. And ANU here from more from us. Right here, we asked our audience on Twitter, does Lift need to go outside of his existing lane move into other areas to stay relevant? These are the conclusions of respondents saying, no, stay in your lane. I ask you the same question to Lift need to move into delivery UM That is going to be a very very expensive value proposition right now. I think staying in their own lane,

UM focusing on mobility and focusing on profitability. I think that's that's what is UH something that they need to focus on even more. UM that's expanding into lateral markets is just going to be more expensive. That is just going to push the cash flow generation point much more further down the road, and that's going to be hurtful to the stock even more. Right here, industry colleagues Tom Why at d A. Davidson told us twenty four hours

ago that the advantage Lift has is its brand. It's it's resonance with gen Z. Can it leverage that to fight back against you that So far we are finding very limited evidence of the fact that they are able to leverage that brand. Yes, there is definitely a certain cohort of the population that prefers left over Uber, but I think at the end of the day, right sharing has has very limited amount of loyalty. To some extent, both companies are trying to build loyalty around their subscription plans.

But this is a very very price sensitive product. So I feel, regardless of affinity with a certain cohort off consumers, that affinity may not linger if the company has to change their value proposition increased prices. And at the same time, Uber is improved in the marketplace at a much more rapid clip, so they have market care to hold onto. Yeah, I mean many, I mean include myself. I love using the lift bikes, but they need some investment here in

New York. There's been a lot of handwringing about it. I'm interested. Therefore, as we point ourselves forwards, do you feel frustrated with management that they didn't guide you to this sort of a slow down earlier? When you see such a share price hit UM, it's it's hard to hard to have that level of visibility nowadays. Again, there

are a lot of macro factors. There are micro factors industry trends that make it even harder for management teams to UM to have that level of visibility under normal circumstances. This there is there is nothing called as normal from a UM from a visibility standpoint nowadays, there are kind of driver trends, there is gas prices that are reopening,

travel trends. Just the externalities just complicate their lives. But having said that, a little bit of consistency of our predictability in UM in fundamentals is something that any investors appreciates. It may be lawer, but still that's consistency is what we're looking for. Well, we love your consistency on the show and coming on giving your viewpoint ahead of reworking some of those models will let you get back to it.

Our head kill Kany, We thank him a roth M k M. China's spy balloons onboard or antennae and solar panels, so the US says it could collect US electronic communications. In short, this is no ordinary weather research balloon, as China is trying to claim. Overall. The US also thinks it's managed to identify which company makes these spy balloons and says they have direct relationships with the Chinese military. The Binn administration could therefore be forced to take yet

further harsher steps of US technology export to China. They don't want the sort of thing getting in the hands of the Chinese military and security agencies to be used against them. And in fact, the whole saga has completely consumed Washington and indeed the rest of the United States. We've just seen a resolution passed by Congress condemning the actions of China and saying that it was in brazen

violation of the US sovereignty. They want more information from the White House and if really tensions weren't enough between China and the US already, particularly from a business perspective, right right, Yeah, I think what's so astonishing about the reporting is the US making the case this is part of a program of espionage and led espionage. We cover tech on the show. We haven't quite gone there yet on the tech used for spying. And it's an astonishing

picture they've painted about what's not just one isolated incident. Yeah, and that's whether or not this was made in China technology or whether it was Western made. And they're in lies some of the tension that's just going to be I'm sure talked around around again over in Capitol Hill and right here, all right, exactly so, and I want

to stay with Washington actually for a second. The idea of oversight, the idea of lawmaking, because former Twitter officials testified on Wednesday and basically told lawmakers that they should hold off on regulating online content until they better understand how social media companies work, telling lawmakers you don't quite get it yet, let's bring in Kurt Wagner for more.

I mean, is that the idea they're saying, actually, you, the oversight bodies, should actually have a deeper understanding of how we actually work before you go jumping into regulating. Yeah, and remember we have been having this conversation for years now, right, We've been talking about it with Facebook, with YouTube, with Twitter.

There is a big misunderstanding, I would say, among lawmakers as to, uh, you know what section through two thirty does for companies and in some cases sort of the difference between that and the First Amendment, right and what companies are required by law to do and not. And so I think there's this feeling that everyone Democrats and Republicans are kind of rushing for order to change this. They think it's not working how it is, and they all want to change it, but that they don't necessarily

have a grasp on how it should be changed. Let's look at it from the company's perspective. You've been very busy for a year or so covering Twitter, but you do cover social media broadly. How important is Section to thirty from the company's perspective, It's incredibly important. It's it's probably the most important kind of legal protection that they have, right because in general, what this means is that they

can't be legally liable when some of their users post things. Right, so long as they're taking down things like child pornography or terrorists content or other things, you know, they're not going to be legally held when you know you d or Nie Kurt comes and says something that might get

them into trouble, and so um. You know, they've said that if these are protections are repealed, it will actually be worse because they'll have to take down a lot more stuff to protect their own back many that much of that is sort of looking at fact checking, their own fact checkers and how you protect that. Interesting me over in Europe, Twitter has also caught the eye of the regulators because they're worried that there's just not enough

power in place, enough commitment to empowering fact checkers. They're they're worried about disinformation in particular. Right, Yeah, well, Carolina, what's interesting as we're seeing this not just in the EU, but kind of in general, that regulators are really taking a tough look at Twitter because they've just lost so many people. There's a lot of skepticism that they can continue to do the kinds of things they need to do from a privacy or in this case, fact checking standpoint.

As you mentioned the EU, you know, a bunch of tech companies are supposed to hand over sort of their plans for misinformation. Twitter's was inadequate, and so you know, again there's there's a concern that because Ellen came in and just fired so many people with institutional knowledge of the company, that they just are having enough troubles keeping the site up. They're not necessarily able to do the

other things that the regulators expect them to do. And I just want to take a bit of a pivot cut. And it's an emotive subject Turkey at the moment, the need for social media, the need for sharing of information. But Twitter itself was down at one point. Can you talk us through anything you know on that front. Yeah, I mean there's still a lot that is unknown. But

the timing was, of course terrible. Right. We saw that Twitter was down earlier this week, right when a lot of the safety groups were trying to organize on Twitter, when it was being used for important and critical information sharing. You know, we saw Elon Musk, you know who's now running Twitter, of course say that. Um, you know, they got word from the government that that was going to be reinstated, and I believe it has been. But again,

the timing was terrible. Um, it's always bad when something like that happens, but in the wake of a natural disaster like that. Um it just really you know, put Twitter once again in the lime light. There, well said cut Wag. Now, we thank you so much for the latest in terms of the business. What is facing let's talk about well, the pressure from a regulatory perspective and perhaps the lack of investors now able to push for that too. A junior capital is no, well, it's a

real expert in this field. In fact, the managing partner and former Twitter activists investor joined us. Now Natasha Lamb for more on this. And you know you are of course deeply knowledgeable on when it was a publicly traded company and the pressure you could exert it no longer is. And how difficult does that therefore mean in terms of making change and making sure that the right regulation and the right compliance is in place. Oh, I think unfortunately

we've just frozen on, Natasha. But let's talk about this, said, because I think where our junior capital had found it was. I think she's back, Natasha. We can go to you. The fact that you no longer can exert pressure from a publicly traded an investor perspective, But what pressure can

regulators now wield on something like Twitter? I mean I think that's that's the crux of it that you know, decide the fact that investors for the last six years have been asking companies to clean up their act have had some success in getting transparency. UM, it's clear that the companies are not doing enough. Twitter is not doing enough. It's now private, and it brings up a host of concerns as to whom Twitter is accountable to, other than

Elon musk UM. So now with Twitter no longer a public company, no longer having that level of accountability to investors, it's going to have to be accountable to regulators because you know, time just keeps going by and nothing, uh, nothing's happened. There is not UM a level of standard here that is preventing some of the harm that's being done. And recently you've seen action on a number of fronts. We saw President Biden call for bipartisan regulation of social

media companies. Just like last night at the sort of Union UM, this month's expected Twitter will have to think the strictest content rules UM in the European Union because of the number of large active users that it has UM. And we're seeing cases go before the Supreme Court UM, who's hearing cases this month on weather. Social media companies it or being one of them, are responsible for propagating growist content and attached on delights to have you on

the program. You've been coming on for a very long time, and respectfully, I feel a sense of deja vu. UM. My question is, you know, when are these things that you're going you're calling for going to happen. I'm not sure what's changed now from say two or four years ago. I mean, I think it's a really fair question. And you know, obviously investors were not able to exert enough pressure for the companies to clean up their act on their own UM, and so regulations seems to be kind

of the last ditch effort UM. And you know, I if you look at you know, section to thirty, which the previous gentleman was speaking about, UM to protect these companies against legal liability. But it's clear the policy needs to evolve because of the level of harm that's being done. Look at a lects, look at genocide that's happened, UM, public health crime, the government insurrection, UM. These they are all issues that ride to a level that government regulation

is needed. And we know how difficult it is in this country to get bipartisan support. Um, but really that's what's needed, Natasha, dig in there, because this is so nuanced. This argument you want it to evolve is the regulation. Do you have confidence that the regulators get the need to protect certain elements, perhaps that companies might argue for their own self moderation so that to thirty can evolve in the right ways. Do you think Yeah? I mean,

I think it's a fair point. Policymakers are policymakers, and um, you know they're they're not tech experts, and this space has evolved so much over the last decade that regulators are looking to catch up that that I think is why it's Oh, dear, we've just had another technical glitch.

Are you still there, Natasha? I think we might have lost her carrow, which is a shame, because you know, her point is something has to happen, and she's signing the recent references of President Biden addressing this last night. The point I was trying to make to her is we've heard President Biden say that before in previous speeches. It's sort of not new territory. What I would have asked her is just because Twitter is now private, and

just because it's owned by Elon Musk. Does that add more impetus or more energy from lawmakers to do something or regulate to do something. It's hard to say yeah. And in many ways Europe is worried by the fact that this is now a privately held company. They've been flagging ever since he took the company private, that they want to see the right commitments put in place to tackle things and disinformation. I hate to set as a brit but time and time again it feels like Europe

needs the charge. And actually, you know, the Britain doesn't have much to do with some of the European regulation that's now coming into place. But ultimately Europe does seem to be able to get the right regulation in place in many ways, or at least drive it forward, and it often leaves the US playing catch up in some way. Well, what is it that the said Ellen Musk in Twitter will fly by our rules? Which I thought was a very quick and witty poke, and we know that Elon

Muster has been talking to Europe. It's one will continue to track now coming up. Unfortunately, more job cuts underway, with Delivery slashing nine percent of its staff. Will get more of the details in Talking Tech. That's next Curac And let's a quick look at another after ours, Mover, because there have been plenty after this, earnings coming thick and fast. Actually Experience managing to bounce off of its loans. We're currently off by only two percent now had some

more than sem percent at one point. All of this regarding the online travel agency, Yes they missed estimates in terms of the holiday sales, but all that to do with weather. So some analysts out there saying, look, actually this was a miss, but there were temporary reasons behind it related to some poor weather, and demand remains robust. Well to come in terms of the earnings front, visa

bloom time Now for Talking Tech. First up, Apple hiring its first Chief People Officer and removing HR responsibilities from its head of retail, overhauling the way the company hires and supports employees. In a memo to employees, Tim Cook announced Carol Surface will assume the role and said quote she brings an incredible depth of experience. Microsoft will begin color coding employees expense reports as part of a new

agreement with American Express. This comes as the tech giant already announced its slashing thousands of jobs The company will integrate the technology into its internal expense system later this year, with employees uploading photo is of receipts, which will be coded as green if automatic approval is recommended, yellow if it needs another look, or red Caroline if it should be denied. And Delivery a latest company, unfortunately to announce

job cuts. The food delivery business will slash three fifty jobs, focusing of course on profits and a way to deal with what is difficult consumer environments right now. CEO Will Shoe said the cuts will effect roles at all levels,

although some employees will be really deployed. Caroline certainly company that has been used a lot in London over the years, and I know we are going to take a really hard look at the cost for everything that we make, both across television and film, because things in a very competitive world have just simply gotten more expensive. And that's something that is already under right here, I'll come back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline had in New York and

well Disney CEO Bob Biger. They're speaking on the company's earnings call that was about twenty four hours ago. Ed what a lot has changed in those twenty four hours, it feels like, yeah, it's all about restructuring. And you know, the bigger news probably that Peltz has pulled back this activist investors stepping away from ambition to take a board seat, push for change at Disney, because change is what we've got. The statements short and sweet. The proxy fight is over.

This is a win for all shareholders. And the question we've been asking for twenty four hours or so is what placated Pelts. I've got this terminal chart that kind of tells the story and the challenge for Eiger. They're targeting five point five billion dollars of cost savings. Right, you look at the white line, which is the top line,

essentially revenues at record levels but sales slowing. Then you go down to their income and operating profit or net profit down the bottom were still at half where we were from the pandemic peak. And that's really SEMs to be what is going off to and it also seems to be enough to cheer investors. So let's get more in that and bring in Bloomberg's entertainment editor out in our l A, Chris Palm Mary. Same question to you, Chris,

what placated Pelts. Well, you could see a lot of reasons for this, you know, despite his reputation Try and Partners since it's founding in two thousand five. They know this was only their fourth proxy fight out of thirty times they've engaged these companies that you know, this isn't something they really want to do. They preferred to sort of negotiate an appearance on the board. And uh, it's expensive. And I think they've spent twenty five million fighting Procter

and Gamble proxy fight. So that's number one. Number two is Eiger addressed a lot of the things that Nelson Peltz was complaining about on the call yesterday. Cost Cutting said the board would consider reinstating the divid end. Already, the stocks up quite a bit this year since Nelson Peltz started buying, so he's sitting on an ice game. So I think all of those factors and just maybe the fear of losing if if it came down to that in a vote Naple made him rethink interesting talk

to us. Therefore, also the enthusiasm perhaps being served up around the restructuring Ultimately previous activist investors. I'm thinking of Dan loeb Wold want to see the spinoff of ESPN.

A lot of talk around that after this restructuring, the fact that it's now stand alone, But actually we all started talking about Hunu as well after today, right, I mean, so Bob Iger said on a call yesterday that yeah, they are for the first time really spelling out exactly how much money ESPN makes, which you could see as a signis im prepping it first spin off, But he said that's not why they're doing it, but certainly it is going to allow investors to take a look at

that piece of the business in a way that they haven't before. And and so on Hulu, he said this morning that, um, you know, he said he has a deal to buy the other third of it from Comcast next year, but the price is not there's a floor price, but not a specific price, and so both Comcasts and he said, oh, you know, we're interested. You know, maybe we're not. I mean, I think there's a bit of

game dismanship going on here. I think ultimately Bob Iger would like to own the rest of Hulu and incorporated in the rest of Disney streaming businesses. What else would Bob blake in terms of how long he's going to be there for example, Well, of course, you know, the perennial issue is who's going to replace him, and he's he said he's going to stick around for just two more years. Big you know announcements today in terms of

the people running the major businesses. Uh and so, um, you know that's going to be a focus of him and Mark Parker, the new chairman who takes over in April. Uh and uh, but you know, I think Bob fundamentally he'll say this, Uh, it really cares about the creative. And he's admitted that animation and Disney needs a little work. He said, they've you know, produced a little too much content. Uh. You know, Disney has always been kind of about you know a few big great movies and not you know,

everything everywhere, uh to quote another film. So so I think creative is going to be a big focus. Hey, Chris, let's go about to basics to finish. What does the new look Disney look like? The three parts that it's being reformed into. Well, you're seeing the merger definitively of movies and TV there's basically one division and and streaming.

So so that's all becoming just basic general entertainment and family content than a separate sports streaming business and TV business, and then of course the parks and the cruise ships and the consumer products. So it's it's pretty clearly defined. I think, um, you know, maybe some people would like to see more. You know, the film businesses exists separately, but you know that's the direction it's going now. You know,

theaters are less important than streaming. Chris pal marry and has been a busy twenty four hours for you as well. We thank you so much for bringing us up to speed with the audience and the outs of Disney versus no longer Pelts it would feel like I meanwhile, another

story that we continue to watch. It's been busy in crypto crack and will pay thirty million dollars to settle SEC allegations that it broke US rules with its crypto asset staking products and it will discontinue them in the United States as part of the agreement with the regulator to break it all down. As she always does so well, bloom Berg's Snelly Bassett is here with more And was this ultimately a surprise for you? I don't think it was. However,

it is a really really big deal. We knew that staking was one of the things that the SEC would ultimately look out when they looked at the broader crypto ecosystem, but in all the things that they were looking at, when you think about other forms of tokenization and f t s, the fact that steaking has really made its way up on the list of things a SEC is

looking at is a surprise. Now, the thirty million dollars, it's not a it's not a small sum, but it's not, you know, a sum that would really break the bank here for many of these companies. But it's about future activity. You had this thread yesterday from the CEO of coin

base on Twitter. Are really talking about how staking is such an important innovation for crypto, allowing scalability, increased security, reduced carbon footprints for the industry, and you saw that as a lot of the rationale for the reason of the theory, I'm really moving to the proof of steak model to begin with. So this is a big deal for a theory m it's a big deal for the

exchanges that have been offering staking as a service. Coin Based, by the way, the shares were down more than on the day because of how much they've been moving to these services for clients. In the most recent quarter they had talked about how investing in Staking as a service had been really benefiting them since and when users moved from trading to non trading transactions like staking, it really

helped boost their subscription and services revenues. So let's see what they have to say at the end of the month when they report earnings, because as a public company you see it most directly in results like that for full disclosure of my husband's a senior manager over it coin base, But ultimately with how big a deal is

staking for the ecosystem more generally? And and does this signal that the SEC could get his head around it in a different format and just cracking wasn't there in the right way at the right means or is this sort of dead in the water as many would fear now. Listen the statement from the SEC chair Gary Gansler in this Krakens settlement, if you will, had a very broad statement.

It was whether it's staking as a service, lending or other means, crypto untermediaries and they're offering investment contracts in exchange for investors token need to provide proper disclosures and safeguards required by our securities law. So he's bringing in

the staking business under the securities umbrella. Remember, hester Parse, a commissioner, had also said that she really disputes what happened here today because there should have been better guidelines from the beginning, and by the way that has been the industry kind of exactly set the guidelines first and then let us follow them, rather than finding us for not following guidelines that we have not set. Excuse me if I'm like going outside of your field au pur view,

but I feel like you cover it all. What are the rest of the world thinking about staking? Ultimately? You know, I think if you're an individual investor and you are into crypto and want to be more engaged, it is a kind of difficult calculation here because moving from mining to staking. In theory, staking should have been allowing more people to get in at scale, especially if you work through a service like coin base or crack in or some of these other services that allow staking at scale

for a more wide range of investors. In f t X, well, that's the thing. So we were talking about this in the commercial break and interestingly, according to my sources, f t X in the US as they were considering the businesses when they were still, you know, a proper business before the bankruptcy and before these allegations, they had not offered staking from my knowledge, because they were worried about

the SEC coming down on it. So it's hard to say that the industry didn't know that this was going to be an issue at some point, and now it clearly is. Joan Ai Bassak, we thank you so much. I mean, what have you got some more? Yeah, I'm really looking forward to what's next. Two billion dollar loan commitment from the White House to produce a million evs a year. Redwood Materials CEO and of course one of

Tesla's co founders, JB. Struggle, joins us next for more on that loan, which was the same program, by the way, Carrol, that helped launch Tesla all those year years ago. Look, we've got to get back to lift declines accelerating in after hours towards the thirty percent mark and deeper at some point, headlines crossing from the cool lift cut prices for rides in January to quote remain competitive, They're going to go deep into cock cut costs. Cuts. They're going

to reduce stock based compensation. This does not look good, Caroline, and clearly the share reaction after ours speaks to that. We'll keep tracking more details. This is Bloomberg America's battery supply chains getting a bit of a jump start. Redwood Materials, which was created by Tesla co founder JB. Strawbile, received a two billion dollar lone commitment from the Biden administration to build enough critical battery components to produce a million e vis a year. I'm pleased to say that JB.

Strawble joins us now. JB. We were talking in the preamble about how back in the day Tesla went through down a similar path. But this is a fair chunk of change. More, my colleagues have written so much, including Gabby Coppler, about the supply chain emphasis here in the United States. What are you going to do with two billion dollars? Give me the gritty details of what that

does for Redwood Materials. Well, this, this is a huge word of confidence, I'd say, into the American supply chain and building the supply chain here, expanding the capacity of it here. You know, it is a very capital intensive industry. And you know, even though this is a vast amount, a large sum of money. Um, this is not funding the entire project. You know, we have to match that project with private capital, private equity that that we raise

and invest. And you know, even even with this large of a project, you know, we're still only meeting a relatively small percentage of the overall US demand for battery materials. So it is, uh, is quite phenomenal. How much growth has to happen into the future and how much investment has to happen JB. You alluded to it. So I'll go there, two billion dollars a lot of money. But will you have to raise more funds and how will

you go about doing that? We we have raised a lot of private funding in the past through the history of our company, and uh we'll continue to. Um, you know it. It does make it easier as we see the strong support and these strong indications of support from the federal government. Really for the first time in this sector. I mean this, this is the very first federal funding that we've seieved of any sort, and I believe some of the first federal funding that's that's going into the

battery supply chain at this magnitude. So while we will raise additional private capital and you know, continue doing that in in in turn, um, you know, it'll it'll match with this and enjoying with federal loans as well. Talk to us about the politicization to a certain extent of the federal loans, but ultimately people worry about not just how much due diligence has done in the companies that ultimately get the funding. Previous issues have been in the

prior naughties. But talk to us about China as well. Is there reality to some of the concerns, particularly by the GOP, about that this gives in some way China access to such money. Well, I can definitely say firsthand

that there's extensive diligence that goes into these programs. You know, we've been working on this, this particular loan application for well over a year, almost a year and a half, um, you know, and going through multiple layers of diligence on finance, on technology, on market uh and customer you know fit. So I feel that there's quite a robust process that the Department of Energy and the loan program has rolled out for this, and it's been refined over many years.

As you've you've mentioned, um, you know, even more than ten years ago, the same exact program UH was still in existence and was making loans to companies that targeted specific,

very strategic areas for the country. Yeah, cylinder, of course is kind of the prior concern that some have, But give us the real concerns now in terms of a focus on a supply chain that people want to bring to the United States that you're trying to answer that call of and ultimately whether we can rump up the amount of evs made while cutting out China from the supply chain. Well, I think it's going to be a transition.

And uh, you know, today the vast majority of the mattery supply chain is imported from overseas, and much of that from China. So I think, um, you know, the key is to have is an organized transition and to start investing today in building this capability. But we can't turn it on overnight, even you know, with all of the efforts we're doing and more, this will take you know, several years, many years to to ramp and build that that supply chain and capability here. Um, but this is

a huge economic incentive for the country. There are many, many billions of dollars that would be exported overseas to build the same supply chain. If we don't begin the work now, JB. You tolkeds about many years of planning marks the first we get master Plan part three from your friend and former colleague Elon Masque actually is here current colleague. Is Tesla a customer of Redwood Materials. Well, we we don't have any partnership with Tusla that I

can talk about today. But um, but I would say, you know, Ellen is very much a friend. I'm still rooting work Tesla. Um. I think it's a fabulous company. And you know they've clearly been the leader in this entire movement and really remains so. All right, J V. Strawbol Redwoods material founder and CEO. When Tesla is officially a customer, come back on the show with Caroline and I and talk about how that's gonna work. Okay, fair enough. Now, as the generative AI race heats up, we all talk

about it. The impact on a company share price something to be pretty significant. Take Google for example, parent is course Alphabet It's a hundred million dollars wiped from its market capitalization after unveiling its barred AI technology that fas questions over accuracy. That's far bigger than the two point eight percent drop on the day after Alphabet's earnings missed estimates, So clearly the impact there were seeing remarkable moves and some of the AI link tickers and names that we've

seen C three aig Bear is another one. AI keep a clean eye on these sorts of companies. But let's stick with the overall artificial intelligence theme. Because Trip Actions, as a name you used to know as a business travel software startup, their plans to integrate open a eyes chat chypt capabilities across its online platform, an effort aimed at seizing market share by making expense reports easier to use. That As part of a move, the company is also rebranding.

It's changing its name Navan, joining us now as Aerial Cohen Navan, CEO co founder talk to us about the rebrand, but ultimately talk to us about how important is for B to B, for enterprise companies and software companies to

integrate chat chypt. What lift does it give your business? Yeah, first of all, I'm very happy to be here and share with you a new blend and now you're kind of everything that we do, and it's all kind of designed to support in one side the company and all of the needs of the company policy, safety, saving costs, which is very importantly in the recession, but on the other s, supporting the employees, really making them out of this journey and church AI is actually it was always

an integral part of our solution for seven years and really making sure that the employees can book stuff super super fast, expense things extremely fast. And the recent addition takes it to the next level. UM I can give you some examples of how much it is becoming more and more powerful for our users and for everybody. I promise we get to examples. I really want to know what it's like doing a transaction with the open AI. We talked about them every day. Closed profit business. Everyone

wants to get access to the underlying algorithms. You've had access for a little while. Do they charge you a lot? What's the business relationship? Was this the best deal you've ever done in your career? No? Like now it's a it's a it's actually services business, very very similar to what you get with a WS and and the stuff like that. But we're at the beginning, so we need to see how the inputs and outputs of data will walk. So we still don't know, and I think that they

still don't know. We're learning it together. Okay, so we just write what you offer at the beginning of the segment. Respectfully. You know it's a very business transactional, heavily service. But how has the underlying tech improved your offering? So we always had the chetbot that you can actually ask dead boat to book your trip, your entire trip, if you'd ask that before we integrated open ai. If you want to book a hotel in in New York, you'll ask the book the West Inn and it will ask you

why do you want me to book? Now it will actually know the West Inn and it will ask you in what dates do you want to book it? So context matters a lot, and this is really what this integration gives us. A lot of context ultimately does set you apart from your competitors. How big a modes do you think you can build by educrating chat GPT if

others can license this sort of productivity software and chat board. Yeah, the first mode was actually to move business travel and expense management to be an online process because I'll compere it will basically you're still call an agent, right, and we've moved it to online seven years ago and now we are taking it to the next level by really

riding on the capabilities of online. What's the risk? What happens if your chat box says something that is not true or inaccurate, or causes a customer to do something they didn't want to do. Yeah, we are playing a lot with this and like any technology, it definitely has its limitation. So we actually like anything that you implement, we know its limitations. We know when we need to kick off an agent, a re agent that will actually

intervene and do the right thing. There. Really interesting. Thank you for sharing us the journey and also the rebrand aerial Cohen Navan, CEO and co founder. Now that does it for this edition of bloom Bag Technology, Do not forget to tune in tomorrow. Bloomberg Technology has got a special Twitter Spaces too, So before you get this joyous show and they come and join us at twelve o'clock New York time, it's nine am in your time for Twitter Spaces conversation. Yeah, I'm going to do what I

do every week. We have a special guest and I'm not going to tell you who it is, but I will say, is this person's birthday. They've been on the show this week and they've got a really important story to talk about. Yeah, And there's also so many important stories to get up close and personal with some of our on the ground reporters. So we're going to have the main key stories take away and just the inside track on what these reporters are hearing, seeing, feeling, and

ultimately how they break the stories in. Yeah. And I think what I'm most excited about is it's not just earnings continuing to drive markets. Individual headlines and artificial intelligence such a big part of that, CAAC. And what's important is that this is a two way street. Get to ask your questions directly within the Twitter spaces. Come join us. This is Bloomberg