Micron Plans $200 Billion US Chip Spend, Chime IPO

Bloomberg Tech is a live from coast to coast with Caroline Hide.

In New York and Eva Low in Sent Francisco.

This is Bloomberg Tech coming up.

Micron boosts its commitment to invest in new memory chip capacity and R and D in the USA.

Plus we stay across the evolving story of the Boeing Dreamliner crash in India that leaves over two.

Hundred dead, and fintech firm Chime prices its IPO above its targeted range to raise eight hundred and sixty four million dollars.

First from tech in on these markets.

And look, there is cautious training as we digest yet another point showing that inflationary pressure is not as high as expected.

PPI numbers come in.

Can the Fed raise not once but well cut, not once but twice this year.

For twenty twenty five.

That's what the market price is in the bond market pushes forward and so to TO stocks were up three.

Percent on the NASDAK.

Some big players in the chipspace the high side like in video, but you're digging into a key chip company ed.

YEP, that's right, Caroline, I'm looking at Micron, America's biggest memory chip maker, boosting a commitment to invest in new capacity and R and D in the USA. The company is investing an additional thirty billion dollars beyond previous plans for a new memory chip plant at its home Boise, Idaho, to modernize its Virginia facilities, and build a megafab in New York. It's now committing two hundred billion dollars total two US manufacturing and research projects, the previous pledge one

Yeah, I mean, we think there's a pretty much just a continuation of the strategy to bring domestic spending drive capacity within the United States. So this is just a you know, continuation of that R and D capital's capex as well.

Let's talk about the R and D side a bit, because they're promising ninety thousand jobs, whether that's indirect or direct.

But where does the R and D need to go?

Because we know they're focusing in particular on high bandwidth memory, but that seems to be more on the manufacturing side.

Yeah.

Well, look, I mean there's continual R and D both in terms of traditional memory for both DRAM and NAN, but there's continual R and D both for high bandwidth memory as well. I mean, we've seen the stack sizes increase from eight to twelve. HBM four is expected to come out next year. The standards have already been announced, and beyond that we'll expect to continue to see HBM four E, potentially HBM five and so on.

Let's go back to basics real quick, Jake. High bandwidth memory is just stacked d RAM. For every high performance GPU or AI accelerator card, there's a corresponding eight or sixteen high bandwidth chips in that server tray. Why is Micron an important player in this space?

Yeah?

Well so right now, HBM is actually there is supply constraints. S ke Heinez is the leader. They are still struggling to meet the demand for in videos GPUs as well as hyperscaler A six and so Micron has also stepped up to the plate and is offering their solutions as well, and they're starting to gain share. Samsung has had their own issues and so without really Samsung to plug some of those gaps, Micron is an important supplier of HBM.

All of our stories today really signal that there is still a lack of supply when it comes to the genitive AI trade, rather than there being any questioning of demand, Jake, But I wonder where the money is ultimately coming from.

Yes, they've put.

This glorious two hundred billion dollar figure out, only thirty billion seems to be new, but they've got to pay.

For for it, right Well yeah, Look, I mean that's why we think this is going to take several decades to occur. I mean, they have a solid balance sheet right now. They're focusing on continuing to generate free cash flow, but they're not able to outlay that much cash right now, and so obviously this is going to be a focus over the very long term. But also if you look the continual growth rates and memory, they still need to

Here.

Jake Gray Analysis, Glue Meg Intelligence, Jake Silverman. There, let's bring you the investor analysis now, Nazi Latango Investment CEO and CIO. All of this Oracles numbers, which we'll get into later in the show. The fact that we're seeing a commitment in terms of money and investment coming from Micron, it all signals supplies needed.

They can't build it fast enough.

You're right, Caroline, I mean, and I think we've heard that consistently from the hyperscalers. You know, there was that Meca dinner where Elon Musk and Larry Ellison had dinner with Jensen Wong and just kept saying more chips, Please, more chips. The supply constraint is the problem at the moment. And so you know, Oracle's the largest holding in our ETF TGLR.

It's been a great holding.

It's always a better company when Larry Ellison is involved. But what you heard from him was that they have had the biggest orders and demand is as good as they've seen it. So I think you want. I think you still want to belong this trade. Maybe not forever, but certainly for the near term.

Nancy.

This is the promote side of the White House's promote and protect policy when it comes to the American technology stack.

It was really interesting earlier today in London.

Rene has the arm CEO weighed in on this protect portion.

Just listen to what he had to say.

If you narrow access to technology and you force other ecosystems to grow up, it's not good.

It makes the pie.

Smaller, if you will, and frankly, it's not very good for consumers.

There is an interesting linkage here because on the Oracle call you also had Larry Ellison talking about the potential business of Chinese customers like Timo, for example, promote and protect. As an investor, do you like the balance of that policy right now?

Yeah, I share the concern that the administration is trying to apply a kind of industrial policy or protectionism to the distribution of this technology.

I think in some.

Regards ed it's prudent, But generally speaking, the US has been has innovated around every problem for decades and decades, so I would rather see competition allow the ecosystem to grow and then find ways to limit the Chinese impact. And so I'm more in agreement with yes, with that policy of promote and protect. I think that's what you said, but certainly the protect.

Part Oracle's obligations. It's backlog. It's kind of astonishing. Actually the story's really changed for that company. Just give me a bit more on the thesis. I was really interested in how you're positioning with Oracle, but also like, did something change last night? Did they jump to a different level?

They did, for sure, I think you know they've disappointed the last two quarters. I've owned the stock for forty years, if you can imagine, I think my average cost is two dollars. I know, but again, it's always been a better company when Larry Ellison is engaged. I don't know if you heard the recent he's you know, writing code now.

He is in his eighties.

But if money can buy longevity, I think this is the guy that can do it.

And so I think what you're seeing.

Is that the focus that they've had on cloud and the way that they are involved in the cloud, which allows them to have more flexibility than some of the other providers. Then you've got the Cerner transaction, which I think is really interesting and not talked about very much the whole health care aspect.

Of the business. So because that is a problem, I mean.

We should be applying AI not just to pharmaceutical development, but care and so I think there's a lot of moving parts that are now coming together, coming to fruition, and you're seeing it in the backlog, You're seeing it in their enthusiasm, and that to me is you know, reason to continue to hold the stock. Plus the dividend growth is like ten to twelve percent annually, so you're getting paid to enjoy the ride.

Larry, They're really speaking to the fact that they're still supply constrained. I want to go back to supply constraints and to do with China at the moment, we are.

So focused on rare earths at.

The moment, the minerals, the metals, and the fact that they come from China.

I just want to pivot to Tesla.

And really this affects that humanoid robot side of the equation, also affects EVS broadly. How much are you focusing on Tesla and the fact that we're starting to make inroads in the China US relationship a bit.

Yeah, I think that provided a release valve on the stock.

You know, the last time I was on with you, we had the high school girlfriend's spat, I don't know what you call it, romance spat right between the president and between Elon, and the stock has come back from that.

One of the times when I was at one of.

The factories, you know, they talked about the need not to be vertically integrated, and I think that has changed somewhat.

So I do think that, you know, we do need to get this resolved. We do need to open up regulations.

You know, there was a cobalt plant that was that was ten years in the regulatory nightmare of trying to come to fruition and then they finally just walked.

Away from it. Not Tesla, but the company that was trying to do it.

So we've got to be better at also harvesting our wearers.

And so I do think it is good news at the margin.

But everything about Tesla right now is Robotaxi, So I think that's what investers are paying attention to.

Ninety two weeks ago, I reported that Tesla was targeting internally June twelfth to launch robotaxi. In Austin, then Elon must post it an exit would be June twenty second, but they have in the interim ramped up driverless testing in Austin. It was just a date, but it moved the needle for many people. Why is that date so significant as somebody that backs the robotaxi thesis.

Yeah, because you wonder if there's something behind the scenes that's going on. You know, there was a recent video of the twenty twenty three accident that it just gives people time to think about it and you know, consider other options. But as you point out, and you've been right on this d all the way through, if you point out, as you point out that the cars have been driving, you know, I live in Phoenix, Happy Year. The waymows are everywhere. It's commonplace to us, it's not scary.

To be the driver of revenue growth.

And I may not be in Kathy Woods nine hundred and fifty eight billion dollar a year CAMP.

But I do think, you know.

The ninety eight billion dollars in revenues that you're seeing, mostly driven by EV sales, is going to shift and we're going to see significant growth in right handling from ROBOTAXI I just want a quick.

Question on IP.

It's an interesting story coming from Downah Hall today that Tesla is actually suing a former engineer regarding Optimists in particular, how much does Optimus factor into the future.

How much do we want to ensure.

That that IP remains safely within Tesla's hands.

Yeah, Caroline, I think it's one of the ex robotax that I think is one of the most significant elements of Tesla. They are planning to have thousands of Optimist robots on their.

Own factory floors.

If you believe that the BLS members that we have four hundred and fifty thousand manufacturing jobs that have gone unfilled, robots.

Are the solution.

So we need to protect that IP and they need to be focused on producing robots. You know, Elonis famously said the robots will make the robots that would be fantastic, and that's really what we need to see, because if we're moving manufacturing back to the US, we need to have the ability to fill those jobs if we're not going to film with people.

Nancy Tangler Laffatangler Investments, CEO and CIO, thank you very much. Coming up, Boeing Streamliner Aircraft was involved in the worst commercial airline crash since twenty fourteen.

We have the details names. This is Bloomberg Tech.

Time.

It is set to make its trading debut after raising over eight hundred and sixty four million dollars in its IPO shares indicated to jump when they open.

CEO Chris Britt joins us now for more.

How do you feel, Chris, We could see a sixty six percent pop in the shares.

Wow, I feel great.

Today is such a momentous day for all of us here at CHIME. We're so grateful to our members who rely on us for their everyday banking, and I'm just incredibly grateful for this team around me that has built a business that we really see as ushering in a new era for banking and one that's aligned with the best interests of everyday members.

Chris, we made a lot on the show over the years of the kind of the down round, the valuation of where you went public, the timing of it.

Could you just reflect on that a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, look, we don't focus on short term fluctuation of the stock. Even if it goes up today, I'm sure there's going to be other days that won't be as great. So we remain focused on the long term, and that is being a company that's member obsessed and focused on solving the most important needs of everyday consumers that we serve. So I think today's going to be a pretty exciting day.

You've got eight million plus of those consumers. Chris, How do you increase your own revenue in the scale of the business.

Is it more products serving them? Is it more people coming in?

Yeah? We see multiple ways to grow.

First of all, in Q one, we grew our active member base by over twenty three percent, so that's increasing year over year, and at.

The same time, we continue to look.

For opportunities to offer new products that drive product attach and lead to more primary account engagement. At Chime, two thirds of our members use us as their primary bank account, so they rely on us for their everyday transactions, and we love to know as a technology company, we monetize the relationships really through a payments driven business model, which is very different than the way traditional banks go to market.

Chris, we love to read the risk factors section of the RESPECTUS.

I do it all the time.

How real those risk factors for you, specifically on interchange fees and how you're thinking about it?

Oh, we you know, I guess you know.

I'm sure there's lots of risks that the attorneys put into the prospectus. We get questions about interchange all the time. We really like this model of relying primarily on payments driven revenue. That's about seventy two percent of our revenue comes from payments, and what we like about it is it's aligned with the best interests of our members.

We have to earn our position.

As the top of wallet card every day, and we do it to the tune of about our average customer does about fifty four transactions of months, so they're incredibly engaged. And when you couple that with a digital first, low cost structure that allows us to develop very healthy, profitable relationships with this interchange driven business model.

The reality is that our model.

Has allowed us to offer fee free banking to millions of consumers who otherwise we'd be paying hundreds of dollars a year to have a bank account.

You're able to be cheaper because of AI interesting quickly though regular to risk that those interchange fees go smaller, particularly if you become bigger.

Well, you know, we have a balanced set of a revenue. In the payments area. We have a debit card payments volume. We also have a secured credit card that's actually growing at a faster clip than debit.

So we think we're very well balanced.

And given the love and engagement we have, there's no shortage of opportunities for us to offer new products and services over time.

All right, Chris britt chime CEO. We're waiting for the start of trade, but indicating a big jump at the open. Thank you very much for joining us in Bloomberg Tech.

Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I'm Caroline Hide in New York and I'm.

Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is what we're watching in the markets. Earlier in the show, we brought you details of the Air India crash at Boeing seven eighty seven that has crashed in India. It was bound for London and two hundred pter are either assumed dead missing. It was a fatal crash, the worst in many years. As we explained earlier in the program, there's a lot that we do not know about that incident. It is clearly having an impact on Boeing stock, but when we

For many years if you said Oracle was going to become one of the biggest cloud companies. People would have not so nice words for you. But what's changed with AI is that, you know, their capacity constraints, right, all of the traditional giants, the Amazons and Microsoft and nobody can get these data centers up fast enough. And it really created this opportunity for Oracle and so they found that, particularly for the AI workloads, they've been able to sign

Boy, didn't Larry Ellison articulate that. He said, they've caught one particular order that basically says, I.

Want all of it, all of the capacity you.

Bring, whether it's in europehether it's in an Asia, I want to take it. But therefore, what are the supply chain, the headaches, the bottlenecks that they now confront exactly.

I mean, we all are familiar with the Nvidia chip shortages. We also hear reports of you know, the folks assembling the servers can assemble them fast enough. And so I think the one concern is that you spend all this money putting up these data centers and setting everything up. But does the market for cloud in for us stabilize two years out and now you're sitting on all this, you know, data center capacity that maybe isn't as out of a commodity as it is today.

Bertie Ford, as always, we thank you and all things Oracle. Now let's turn back to Chime Financial. It's the company that's set to make his ip IPO debut, pricing well above the marketed range already and we're waiting for trading. Remember they raised eight hundred and sixty four million dollars. Just heard from the CEO, Chris Britt. We're now joined by one of these key backers, Sean Carolyn Menlo venture

There's a lot to love, you know.

We always look for companies that have incredible missions and in the case of Chime, right like uniting everyday people to unlock financial progress. You know, instead of penalizing people with your bank, you know, do do them a favor, right, So I heard one of the people say, you know, they only get time, only gets paid when you swipe and not when you stumble. And so you know, a mission like that that just helps everybody is fantastic to back.

So it was just a lot to love.

There's a lot to love, perhaps two loved.

Back in twenty twenty one, a lot of companies were two loved, they got given two high evaluations and then it's been difficult selling and pricing and ipo into that.

How does it feel when you're going to.

See the stock potentially wallop up almost two thirds, but it is still a down round.

I blame the financial markets, not the companies in that particular case.

Right, And do you blame the vcs the people who are in pricing.

To that find?

You just have to you know, play the game as it's played, right, Like our job is to invest limited partner capital. We try to pace it over time, you know, so we don't buy everything at the peak, but you just never know when peaks and troughs are going to happen. What you can do is make sure you're investing in just really great companies and you know, you keep an eye on the price. Like we I've been on the board for seven years now, Menlo has been invested.

Chin's went around for thirteen years.

Like they're just you know, they're the second inning of the baseball game right now getting started. So there's still plenty to do.

Sean, it's great to have you on the show. I ask what happens next?

Right?

You know, you just outlined the history.

Do you hold you know, the public shares or is this just a really celebratory liquidity event for the firm and for its LPs.

Yeah, we're just we're so grateful to you know, have been welcome to be part of this mission and to see this team act and you know, try to help in a little ways that we can, but they're doing all the hard work. But I think it's a really happy occasion of course for ourselves. And you know, we're investing pension funds and other funds like that, and you know, everybody gets to celebrate when a great company does something fantastic in the world, and especially a company like Chime

Sean you are surprised, raised or supportive of the timing of this listing.

I was very supportive.

I think you know, in some ways, people like, oh, the IPO market's open or the IPO market's closed. If you're an exceptional company and you know, you look at Chimes numbers.

They did five hundred.

Million dollars plus in Q one, you know, became profitable eight point six million members. Right, Like this is just it's just a strong, a strong company and it's being run well and there's plenty more work to do, and so yeah, you just go along for the raad.

What's interesting now is the market is pretty toppy once again. That's perhaps what's driving the timing of the IPO. We've got Nasmak not quite at record highs, but certainly the SMP five hundred is very close to it.

How are things getting priced now?

Are you seeing discipline amongst your community when you're looking for the next Chime, the next success.

Yeah, that's a great question. It really depends on the sector. So if you know, Chime isn't necessarily AI company, So that's a normal company that's doing great stuff. But those are being priced i'd say rationally. The AI companies right now are there's kind of a fever feeding frenzy.

We've been very.

Active in that sector, you know, companies like Anthropic and many others, and so those tend to be like you know, unlike in public markets where everybody's buying and selling in private markets, you really just need one lead investor to price it.

So it was a little.

Bit of Okay, you know, I want to win, you want to win, and people bid it up.

Sean, there are tons of founders that watch this program, tons of bench capitalists that support them as well. If there was one kind of like case study or thing that you felt Chime did really well that you would appeal to your portfolio companies to emulate, what would it be?

Boy, It's never just one thing.

But I know we're we're on air, so I need to keep a shorter than all the reasons why I can tell you they were successful. But above all, I think of customer obsession is the Amazon term. But you know, Chime really embodies that. They've always spent time with their customers figuring out, you know, what are their actual needs, not perceived needs, and always have been launching future after feature which.

Serves those interests.

Right, So they serve everyday Americans that make under one hundred k, Like, you know, you need liquidity, you got to have access to here your paycheck earlier, or it's helpful to have access to your paycheck early. It's nice to get paid two days early. It's nice to not get fees when you get overdrafts. So just by just continuing to listen to that very closely, not you know, getting worried about other things aside from making happy customers is what builds trade companies.

Sean, Carolyn and Meno Ventures, thank you very much, thanks for having.

As Warner Brothers.

Discovery announces plans to split the company in two. Netflix co CEO Greg Peters says streaming and on demand services are dominating the media landscape and wbd's decision signals a next stage of that market. He sat down with Bloomberg editor in chief John Mickelfwaite at the Founder's Forum Global conference.

Everything is moving the streaming, everything's moved on demand. It's very clear that consumers want that. Then they have to rationalize their business for that reality. And we're definitely seeing, you know, the results of that, And I think these are sort of inevitable, long predicted, long forecast. It changes, So there's going to be a period of you know,

Expect to see mergers between these legacy players.

I think that that's there's an inevitable logic to that. And then you get to you know, every merger is a unique opportunity, and sometimes it presents interesting complexities. There's regulatory complexities that often are the case, and then there's you know, the two companies have got to decide it makes sense, you know, for them to go do it, and there's lots of you know, I should note that the track record around doing these large media mergers is

So Netflix would likely not be a player in buying some of these things.

You know, I think we have an obligation to explore all of the opportunities are in front of us.

So it's hard respons.

Very, fusibly to good due diligence, but then also to have a cold, you know, hard disciplined. Look at you know, do we think we could do this well? And I would just say, look like our track record is we're builders, We're not buyers.

John Michaelswaite alongside the Netflix co CEO Greg Peters.

Nominal, a startup whose software tests hardware for space, energy and defense companies, has raised a seventy five million dollars Series B funding around just a year after emerging from Stealth. It's programs analyze machines, data, find anomalies, and ensure hardware is mission ready. Nominal CEO Camera McCord joins us in

Yeah, it's it's good to be here ed. You know, our vision in our mission enomenal is to redefine the way that hardware is tested. And so, you know, we're living in a moment right now where we believe software is colliding with the physical world in a way that we've never seen before. So these hardware systems are generating more data than they ever have previously at an exponential rate.

I didn't mean the submarine reference flippantly. You know, you were former submarine officer engineer. What prompted you to try and crack this problem?

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I spent the first eight years of my career as a nuclear submarine officer, spent more than a year underwater.

I have operated with.

Mission critical technology where it counts the most, and I've seen where it works well and frankly, where it doesn't. And you know, the reality is, in today's world, it is very easy to test and deploy modern software. That same luxury does not exist for hardware, and that is our mission to give a perspective on the national security angle. You know, the largest tester and validator of hardware in the entire world is the Department of Defense. They're one

Cameron, You've not only been a submarine officer, but you've also been a congressional liaison.

So what is the.

Relationship, How direct is the relationship between you and members of Congress, but more broadly the actual agencies and indeed the Department of Defense.

Yeah, I've been lucky to spend time looking at this software for hardware problem from many different angles over my career. I'm lucky to understand how the legislative branch works, how the Pentagon works, and I think that's really critical to building a company at the intersection of these massive public problems of consequence, It's very helpful to understand, you know, how how Congress, how the Department is thinking about modernizing technology.

I mean, briefly, the latest headline out of a v ABC is Israel is mulling military action against Iran. I'm interested, Cameron on your global presence. Europe's beefing up defense too.

Absolutely, we we already are serving international customers and a big part of this, uh this fundraise, and I think you know Sequoia's excitement is that this is certainly not just a US domestic opportunity.

This is a glible problem.

We're happy and we're excited to be moving more into the EU as well as you know places like Australia and Japan where they're they're testing and validing these systems just as much.

As the US is camera record CEO and co foundalh Nomenal. Great to have you on. Thank you.

Coming up, cuts to NASA's science budget, well, they could threaten US space sed premises and be an opening for the private sector.

That's next. As a Bloomberg Tech.

Working US love Junior.

Shares of space and defense tech firm Voyager ended their debut trading day up eighty two percent yesterday after the company raised three hundred and eighty three million dollars in an upsized us IPO.

The company has been focusing.

On expanding, including through a deal with SpaceX. Voyager CEO Dylan Taylor joined bloom yesterday and weighed in on the competition in space.

SpaceX is a crucial player in the industry. You know, we do business with them regularly. We have a launch contract signed with them. So SpaceX is really important, But there are other players in the industry that are also doing great things. The industry is a bit unique in the sense that we all are looking to collaborate and cooperate. Space is very difficult and these infrastructure projects are very challenging, and so it's perhaps a more a bit more collaborative

While private space companies are commanding investors attention, NASA's dominance in space science and face is an uncertain future President Trump's spending agenda, and it calls for reducing the agency's science budget by roughly half.

Ramo's Lauren Grush joins.

US now, look, many would say NASA needs to be going for the moonshots to use a better pun but they.

Should be going for extraordinary exploration.

They perhaps shouldn't be funding well testing of well certain private companies engines. They shouldn't be actually beefing up in terms of managers, they be stripping layers.

But is this going to the mown Schultz too well?

I think there that's kind of the question of the moment right now, there's this fundamental tension of.

What NASA is supposed to be.

You know, for years, for decades, the agency has really been at the forefront of you know, technology innovation, developing the hardware that we launch and then send to to space, even deep space. And now as this as the private sector has taken on more of those capabilities, you know, NASA has started to transition more into something of an incubator.

For the commercial space industry.

But one thing that it always kind of stood at the vanguard of was science. And so with these drastic cuts being proposed to the science budget, it really begs the question of what is NASA's role then, Is it supposed to be opening up the commercial sector to more opportunity, or does it still need to go for those moonshots, even if people aren't involved.

As you mentioned, the case study is the Perseverance rover on Mars. We put it there and for four years it's collected data and samples. Under these proposed cuts, we may not now have a mission to get that sample back.

Right, So what.

The President's budget proposes is that eventually we would go get those samples because we're going to invest in new human missions to Mars. But you know that takes quite some time. Anytime you put a human on a vehicle, the development becomes much more intense, stretches longer, also risks delays. And before we had just discussed, you know, putting people on Mars, the idea is that we would actually send robotic spacecraft to go pick up those samples and bring them back to Earth.

Now that was.

Also running into a very intense and complicated process. Launching off of Mars is just going to be one of the most complicated and technological feats of our generation of humanities in an entire existence. But of course what people involved is going to make that even more complex.

Bloombergs Laar, and Grush, thank you very much. Now that does it to this edition of Bloomberg Tech.

Don't forget to check out the podcast This Is Bloomberg