Musk's Twitter Deal and Amazon's $13B Bet on NFL

that change? The trial will discuss claus streaming platforms going all out for sports broadcast rights, a conversation with Amazon's global sports video vice president on its big ticket deal for Thursday Night football, and Morley some making bets on the blockchain and n f E t startup backed by Serena Williams just got a big deal with the NBA. We're going to talk to a top execut at so rare later this hour. All of that in a moment, but first, let's talk a little bit more about Twitter.

Musk now Twitter rejecting that latest effort to cancel the deal yet again, saying it's quote invalid and wrongful. His third attempt to walk away from this deal and third times not the charm that whistleblower former Twitter employee Peter zat co A K A. Mudge, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Here discuss s Bloomberg's Jeff Feely in Wilmington, Delaware, and Alex Barnka in San Francisco. So, Alex, first of all, what are we expecting to hear from Peter zat COO

on Capitol Hill tomorrow? Yeah, so I think that that the hearing tomorrow will probably follow two lanes of conversation. There'll be questions around the data privacy concerns, around the bots and fake at counts that Zacho has alleged that the company either ignored or didn't disclose. But I also expect the Senate Judiciary Committee to focus on some more

of the data privacy issues that legislators care about. Um that might be a little less relevant to the acquisition, but increasingly relevant as d C has been able to push through antitrust legislation but has not gotten a lot of traction on data privacy, So they might take this opportunity to lean into some of those themes as well. Now, Jeff Elon Musk is trying to use new information that Twitter signed a seven million dollar separation agreement with Peter

zach Co back in June. Must trying to use that as a reason to cancel the deal. You know what exactly is he trying to say here, Well, he's basically saying that that payment constituted something outside the ordinary course of business. When you have these buyout agreements going on, one of the provisions it's often in there says that the seller has to continue to run the business in

the ordinary course. Mr musk contention is this seven million dollar severance payment was somehow tied to silencing Mr Zacho so that he would not bring forth his his complaints publicly, so that that, he claims, is another reason that there's been a material adverse event and he should be able to cancel the deal. It don't sound like a lot of money, seven million dollars to get this guy to go away, Alex and then he ends up, you know, blowing the whistle. Anyway, Can you tell us a little

bit more about what happened here between Zacho and Twitter? Yeah, Emily, the sticker shark that you're having might be some of the reason why Musk feels like he can lean into this as an argument that um, this type of settlement should have been brought to his camp and his outside the regular course of business. So this was a guy who was an executive on the security side, was brought in um number of years back and oversaw a lot of the important kind of security pieces and the teams

that worked on those things internally at Twitter. So um, he is a person who you know, claims that he has kind of insider knowledge on this. The company says, well, look, you could have actually made some changes on these things. So there's an interesting um kind of back and forth here, Emily, I will point out, Um, it has been reported that in that settlement agreement he was still allowed to blow the whistle um to to govern to the government if

there were any issues. So um, seven million dollars definitely sticker shock um definitely Uh that kind of third strike that Ellen is claiming allows him to get out of the deal. Um, but did leave that door open for us to hear from Peter Zacho tomorrow morning. Now Jeff has to judge weigh in on this latest request from Musk and this latest information about the separation agreement, and if not, what are we going to hear from her? Well, the judge has allowed Mr Musk to amend his counterclaims

in the case to add the whistleblowers allegations. I want to point out that the seven million dollar payment may be contractual. We do not know if this was per a severance agreement with Mr Zach Coo, so I wouldn't automatically recoil at the seven million dollar number. We still need to find out what that's all about. I doubt we're gonna learn that tomorrow either. So how are you expecting this testimony from Zach Coo tomorrow to be folded into the case that, of course was building up to

this child coming up in mid October. Jeff his his testimony tomorrow about the national security stuff and potential spies within Twitter's employee uh group are the things that the senators are gonna be focusing on. The folks that that we're concerned about is going to be his his allegation that he raised the question of at how many spam and robot accounts were embedded within the customer base and the Twitter his colleagues lack of interest in finding that out.

That's the key question in the trial coming up, because that's where Mr Musk has put all his chips. In terms of defense arguments, well, clearly both parties are gonna be watching this, this testimony with bated breath, Uh, Alex any word from Twitter about the latest salvo or how any of this potentially changes their plans. So they basically came out and said, look, we don't buy the argument

that the separation agreement um is a viable excuse. UM. I know that the Twitter camp will also be watching this very closely as well a lot of the shareholders who are potentially making their voices heard in the shareholder

vote tomorrow. UM. I would think if things go really far down the line of privacy concerns, if there's a lot of kind of intra us in the data security piece that are unrelated to the acquisition, that would just be another thing to add to the list of Twitter CEO is kind of big ticket items to care about. Twitter has not been brought into d C as often

as a lot of the larger social media appears. UM. So I think, uh, internally, you could argue there's a lot of distractions going on at the company right now, and if they do get some traction UM. In terms of legislators arguments that data privacy should be more important than Emily. I would add that to the list of kind of some of these ancillary concerns that are outside of just operating the business. All right, Alex Brenka Jeff Phey, continuing to cover this evolving legal drama for us. Thank

you both for joining us. Meantime, a story that we continue to watch. Intel is scaling back expectations for its mobile i i p O. According to Bloomberg sources, the move could delay the share sale until next year if market conditions don't improve. Intel expects the i p about to value the self driving tech business as much as thirty billion dollars. Warders and others reported earlier potential valuations

of more than fifty billion dollars. All right, coming up, how Amazon and other streaming giants are disrupting one of the bastions of traditional television, that is sports broadcasting. Right to top, Amazon executive with us next. This is Bloomberg. It is a historic week for sports broadcasting. This Thursday, Amazon Prime Video kicks off in eleven year thirteen billion dollar deal. This is the first time a streaming service has had exclusive rights to NFL games in the United States,

and a big challenge to major networks. Amazon told advertisers it expects an average audience of twelve point six million viewers per game. This according to The Wall Street Journal. Vice President of Amazon Global Sports Video Marie john A. Hue is the architect of Amazon's Lives Force ambitions, and she joins us now to discuss So a huge week Marie for Amazon. Uh and for the first time, fans are gonna have to log onto Amazon Prime Video to see this big game on Thursday nights. Does this seem

like a turning point to you in sports broadcasting? Absolutely? I mean, I look, honestly, I think this will be as big as when the NFL went to cable back in nine seven. You know, we know how NFL games legitimized and grew the cable cable business, and we think the same thing can happen for streaming. So you lead negotiations for this thirteen billion dollar, eleven year deal. It

is a massive deal. How did you convince the NFL that Amazon was the place to be, right, Well, you know, the NFL cares important, cares a lot about scale and reach, and we've got that. We've got that better than any better than any other's dreaming service. They also care about production, and they knew we we showed in Europe and we also showed by our work in the US that we can produce the best broadcast for fans. It's incredibly important to them and one of the most exciting things for

me is they care about innovation. You know, the the NFL has been able to stay top of mind for sports fans for decades because they innovate and they move forward and they have that confidence and that that's the biggest That was one of the biggest tenants in our deal with the NFL. We agreed to push each other and to continue to push each other on innovating on behalf of sports fans, and it's something that's personally really exciting and and something that really excites the team. What

are your goals with audience numbers? I understand we've got this Wall Street Journal number that you're expecting twelve point six million viewers. Is that correct? Um? I also understand the typical viewership is more like sixteen and a half million. Are you hoping or thinking that you can get there or bigger? Right? Well, you know, our number one focus is delivering the absolute best broadcast for fans and the trends are in our favor. Everyone knows that more and

more fans, particularly sports fans, are moving to streaming. Thinks this won't happen overnight. This is an eleven year deal, but we feel really strongly that if you start with fans, you serve the fans, they will come. And so we're excited. We we had our preseason game two weeks ago and the reaction from fans was just fabulous, and we're really excited to get on the field this Thursday. Thursday, the Chargers taken on the Kansas City Chiefs. UM. Talk to

us then about how this benefits Amazon more broadly. You know what what's gonna be your measure of success. Is it driving audience numbers? Is it driving more Prime memberships? Is it getting more customers to buy more Amazon products? Yeah? Absolutely, So I hate to sound repetitive, but at Amazon, we start with customers. I call them sports fans, and so number one, we think we serve sports fans better. We

can serve customers better. But if we wouldn't be in this, if we didn't think we could improve the experience and make it better for fans. But absolutely, as you said, Emily, they're great business opportunities here. Number one, we're Prime. Prime Video is a membership service, so we can attract more members to Prime. There are plenty of people who have Prime who maybe have don't even haven't streamed video on

Prime Video. And then there are other folks who come in for Thursday night football and find things like Lord of the Rings. So we think, particularly in the Prime membership opportunity is huge. We think that opportunity is huge for us. And you know, we haven't even talked about advertising. You know, advertising, This is a game change for advertising for at Amazon. We have a very strong business already, but you can't beat this is the most premium video

advertising inventory out there. So it's a huge game changer for us in terms of advertising. So how do you plan to leverage targeted advertising and do some things differently that maybe a traditional network wouldn't be able to do given all of the data and other ways you have to reach your customers? Right, Well, I would start with you know, we've done a deal with Nielsen, so we we actually are the first streamer to do a deal

with Nielsen, so we'll have ratings every week. So we think that's really important because that is what advertisers and the industry follows or Nielsen ratings. On top of that, as you say, we have first party data, and we'll use that data not only to measure our fans and to and and to serve to serve them better, but also to serve advertisers better. We can actually use that first party data to make the advertising more relevant, more targeted,

more directed. So it's an incredible opportunity. Now talk to us about the experience. Is there gonna be a pregame show, a halftime show, sideline reporters. How is this going to be different than a traditional network at spirit? Right? So, so first of all, we start, we start with the basics. We have the best broadcast. We think we will have the best game broadcast in the business. I mean, well, I've been in sports twenty years and you always have

to remember it starts and ends with the game. So we've got iconic broadcasters like Al Michael's and Kirk curb Street. We've got Kayleie hard Tongue on the sidelines. This will be the absolute broadcast. We've got more cameras than anybody. So when you turn on your big screen television or whatever device, were on every piece of glass. Whatever you watch the game, you can sit back and relax and

enjoy that huge, big screen experience. But on top of that, as you mentioned, Emily, we're we're no t T service, so we're not satisfied with that. The bar for us is really high. We want to innovate, so we're going to offer all sorts of innovation and custom customized experience

for fans. Will have alternate feeds. You can watch the game, you can sit down and watch with your family and watch the dudes Dude perfect, or you can go, you can um and you can explore our x ray experience, which is actually without ever leaving the game, you can see all sorts of data and statistics and replays. The point of Extray is actually to put the tools that normally have to wait for a producer or director to say, oh let me see that replay, let me show you

some extra stats. We're going to put that in the hands of fans. And then, of course we have all the content around the game, so we have pregame, post game, we'll have a great late night show, and we've got the best the best talent in the business there. We've got Charissa Thompson we've got Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez. We've got two guys right off the field, Richard Sherman and Ryan Fitzpatrick. They're going to be amazing the conversation

these guys have. They were on the field with these guys just last year, so they'll take fans literally inside the thinking of the players on the field. And we've got a great surrounding cast. And then we've got we're also going to offer the game and the programming on Twitch. Remember we have Twitch, which is an incredibly young, incredibly young, um interactive audience, and you know, Twitch is all about watching with your community, So we're excited we're going to

expand the communal nature of sports through Twitch. And then on top of it, we've got some shows during the rest of the week, so we are going to surround fans all week. And as you can tell from my excitement, we're we're just thrilled to get going. You know, I assume you've got some contingency plans, you know, are you sure all cable fans are gonna be able to find the game? Are you planning for any kind of onboarding

issues or an on slot of onboarding issues? Potentially absolutely, So we were on every piece of glass, as I mentioned, and if you come to any Amazon service, you're not going to be able to miss this game, and it'll be seamless and it will be easy. But also we've got great third party marketing to to also help you. But of course we're prepared. We've done this in Europe, we've done this in other places in the US. We actually have all sorts of online tools, and we're old school.

We also have phone numbers you can call, and we actually put extra people on hand because we know that it's incredibly frustrating when you call the sometimes when you call those services and you don't get an answer. We will have literally thousands of people ready to take those phone calls if needed. So we're incredibly excited. We've been preparing for this for years. This is really hard work and it's really complicated, and we've been building at it,

building towards it for years. We think we're the company and the best, with no other companies in position to serve a game like this to a concurrent, concurrent audience like we're going to experience this season. So the big question, of course, then is what next is Amazon planning to bid on any of the remaining college sports rights or

the NBA. What else do you have coming? Well, obviously I can't talk about specifics, but what I can tell you, Emily is we approach everything from the sports fan perspective. So the first thing we do is we say, how do fans consume this content? Is there a way we can do better? Is there a way we can serve those fans better? And of course then what can we do differently and does it make sense for us? So there's literally I can't really think of any sports rights

we don't look at. I mean, we're in business with the NFL, We're in business with the Yankees. You know, we provide local games exclusively in New York. So we're excited. The partners who are willing to come with us are the ones who are forward focused, fan focus and really want to go as you know, the old Wayne Gretzky want to go where the puck is going, not where it's been. So last quick question, I know you used to work at ESPN. Amazon has a huge content budget.

I wonder if you're also thinking about making new sports content. You know, I believe you were involved in the thirty for thirties series, um you know, and and maybe original sports documentaries and other ways that you can build out Amazon as a big player in where you go to see things about sports. Absolutely, so we've already started that. Emily. We've got a series All or Nothing that we've done

in the US and Europe. We've got great, great success with that, and actually five months ago we started a separate sports group in my group. We're hiring or staffing up if anybody in a young filmmakers out there want to come work with us. So we're excited. We think when you have those that additional content, not only is it valuable on its own, we have a high bar we wanted to be excellent content, but it also engages fans more with the athletes and the teams that then

we show on live events. It's a really great um ecosystem to get going. And we we we found that in Europe when we have are all or nothings on the Premier league teams, we notice that those fans understand and appreciate those players and those teams even more when they understand what they've gone through and seen behind this and and seen behind the scenes. All right, Uh, Marie Donnie, who I believe I got You've got to catch a flight to Kansas City. UM, so thank you so much

for joining us. Amazon Global Sports Video Vice President and excited to see how it all shakes out. On Thursday, Early indicators suggest Apple's iPhone fourteen pre orders are stronger than expected. Pre order data showing that the iPhone fourteen Pro Max is the best selling model, and orders for the iPhone fourteen or tracking slightly ahead of the iPhone thirteen. Web Bush saying it's seeing strong demand trends and estimates two forty million of the one billion total I phone

users haven't upgraded their phones in nearly four years. Apple shares popping on the news the most since coming up. Micron breaking ground on a new fab in Idaho. CEO San j me Rotra with us next. Welcome back to

Bloomberg Technology. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. Trevor Milton, the founder and former executive chair of Nicola, went on trial starting this week, charged with Lyne about the company's products to mislead investors and prop at the stock Let's get back to New York and Bloomberg's at Ludlow, who

was in court today for the first stages. Ed what happened? Yes, So Trevor Milton faces two counts of securities fraud, two counts of y fraud, and you're right, m that prosecutors have to prove that a Trevor Milton lied about the company's technology and its products, and that in so doing he misled investors and also therefore the investors made the choice to invest in his company, Nicola, based on the information.

He arrived Monday morning Southern Districts of New York here in Manhattan for the trial, which was supposed to take place in July, but Judge Egardo Ramos granted the delay until September twelve, Monday, so that they could take on that fourth count of wire fraud. It's a five week trial, so we started Monday with jury selection. Tuesday, we expect opening arguments, with the prosecution having around three weeks present their evidence, and then the defense will come in and

the burn of proof is on the prosecution here. This trial could run for around five weeks through the end of October, and as they say, the focus for the prosecution is convincing the jury that a Trevor Milton lied, misled investors. About the company's progress, it's technology, what it had actually achieved, but also the investors, retail investors in particular were moved or motivated to invest in the stock

for that reason. You remember it. It's Pete. This was the poster child back wave of ev companies went public, virus back, and at one point it had a market cap rating them forward, things are very different now and all right, Ad Ludlow, thank you. Will continue to wait for your updates as the child progresses. Meantime, Micron just broke ground on a new memory manufacturing fab in Boise, Idaho, the first of its kind in the US in twenty years.

The chip maker plans to invest roughly fifteen billion dollars on the plan over the next several years, making it the largest private investment ever made in the state. I caught up with Micron CEO Sandre ma Rotra in an exclusive interview earlier. Take a listen to what he had to say. We have been are research and development technology leader from Boise for decades and now being able to

combine it with leading edge memory manufacturing technology. This will just accelerate time to market of new technologies, new solutions for the benefit of the customers as well as of course driving US leadership and semiconductor technology. So this is a big day. This is a big announcement. And this is enabled by Chips Act, which was just signed by President by it in a month ago, because that is really important in terms of leveling the playing field. So

this is very exciting. It will bring seventeen thou jobs here in Idaho over the course of the rest of the decade. We will be starting production sometime in TWI of course, construction to start some time in twenty twenty three, and this will be transformative and we'll be bringing on production of course in line with the industry's demand. Now Micron of course already has many plants across Asia. How does this impact operations globally? Does this mean you'll always

consider building in the US? First, of course, we have, as you noted, well diversified footprint across Asia for our manufacturing. And again chip SACKED now enables the leveling the playing field whereby now the production can become cost effective with the support of grants from Chips and investment tax credits. So of course we will continue to invest in our plans in Asia as well. But when we look at

the demand for memory. By twenty thirty timeframe, semiconductor memory demand is expected to double in terms of revenue opportunity. That requires new way for capacity. That's why we started this plant here, announced this plant here, and actually had the ceremony that launches the construction for this plant. Uh. And this will basically enable us. This will basically enable us to meet the growing demand for the era for semi conductive memory technology. Of course, we'll keep investing in

technology transitions in our overseas plans as well. Is the money that's been set aside by the US government enough others have called it a start. That's right, it's a good start. And the support in terms of CHIPS grants as well as investment tax credits will help US level the playing field with foreign governments which have been supporting investments in semiconductors in their countries for a very long time.

Of course, companies like Micron will continue to invest from their operating cash flow as well as from the balance sheet, and of course big part of the investments will come from Micron, but the CHIPS grants are absolutely essential. Without chips, we would not have been able to make this investment. This announcement today, Do you have any concern and that it's governments and not market forces setting the agenda for what is needed and that that could down the line

create excess capacity. It is extremely important as and as I noted earlier, that we will be bringing on production in the future in line with the industry demand projections, the end market demand projections, and of course each of the companies that is bringing their own semiconductor production up will be managing, should be managing, and I can speak for Micron, we will of course be managing with discipline our supply growth, keeping an eye on demand growth and

keeping them balanced to the best of our abilities. Now, you and Micron warned about slowing demand about a month ago, which triggered a broader concern about a slump across the chip industry overall, What can you tell us about demand as you see it now? Is it indeed slowing down? And if so, how much this is for the memory industry,

for the semi conductive memory industry. This is a challenging environment primarily driven by inventory adjustments that our customers across various end markets are making, and that's really impacting the industry demand and supply balance. Of course, we have taken actions in this regard in terms of adjusting our supply growth plans for the future. But you know um Emily very well that in semiconductors actions taken it takes a

while before the results are achieved. So it will take us few quarters before I believe industry demand and supply and balance will be restored. But what's important here is what we're announcing today is about the long term future. The demand drivers for long terms AI five G, autonomous

and of course across data center, industrial automotive. Those demand drivers in terms of consumption of memory requirements for the long term or intact and that's why to meet that growing demand requirement of the future, investments need to be made now because there's a long lead time to build these fabs and the production will only start in the second half of this decade and it will of course be managed in line with the demand projections for the future.

So clearly a huge step for Micron breaking ground on this fab today. I'm curious what you think this means for the broader industry though, if demand is slowing or you know, at least for a few quarters, as you say, how long do you think we could be in a cycle of oversupply, you know, not just where Micron is concerned, but across the broader chip industry. So look in mentory adjustments take a while to work through the system, and I can tell you that memory industry tends to be cyclical.

But what's important is that the health of the memory industry is really ultimately driven by long term demand trends. And I think that's important that as near near term perturbations take place due to factors such as inventory adjustments, actions are taken fast to bring demand and supply in balance. But of course it takes a while, it takes a few quarters for their demand supply to get im balance. But important thing is that actions that are taken fast.

We are being responsive in that regard, but we are also managing for the long haul, the lo the long haul in terms of the growing demand needing more investments in order to meet the requirements of our customers. As we look ahead to the second half of this decade, there's of course been a lot of talk about the competition between the US and China on this front. Just how big is China in the memory market in particular, and is it's something that the US government should be

concerned about. So there are Chinese companies with the support of the Chinese government, you know, that have been making certain progress with respect to the memory and of course you know these are taken into account when we look at overall industry supply and the industry supply growth, expectations of the future, and what we are here doing at Micron is continuing to stay ahead in terms of the

technology capability. Of course, we always want a level playing field and of course respect for intellectual property, but we have to continue to drive our own technology roadmap. Today Emily Micron is a leader global leader in semiconductor deram as well as nand technology. And this is where right from here in Boise the teams that have produced tremendous amount of innovation that in the future we'll be able to combine with bringing into manufacturing right here as well.

These are all chips ACKed enabled activities that actually ultimately help secure the national security of the U S as well by having manufacturing of critical um infrastructure needs chips being made here in the future in the semi inducted industry, M MICR and CEO Sandrea. There we still have some work to do I know security being a big, big part of that, and you're seeing some of the cybersecurity UM investment investing going way up. But um in the grand scheme and you look at the thesis of the

blockchain and the teas the house should work. UM, it definitely gives athlete opportunity to go directly to this fan base, that gives the fan, uh you know, insights. That's a lot different and it's essentially cutting out the middle man. That was NBA champion and investor andre Iguadala speaking about the intersection of sports and n f t S. Let's dive deeper into this conversation in our Crypto report. Now with fantasy sports and blockchain Cup so Rare, which is

backed by, among others, tennis great Serena Williams. The company has already inked partnerships with Major League Soccer in Major League Baseball and is now adding the NBA with the first free to play fantasy game based on digital cards. So we're CEO O Ryan Spoon joins us now for more on this deal. So talk to us Ryan about how this partnership with the NBA came together. First, Thanks for having me. Um it came together. It's it's just a very natural evolution. You heard Andre talk there about

the importance of the opportunities that blockchain enables. We all know I spent years at ESPN on the digital side, um, how important and fun uh And how fast growing fantasy is. We know that on the collectible side, and so when you tie fantasy and collectibles with the blockchain on a global scale, the NBA is a perfect perfect product and partner. Uh And it's our third launch. As you mentioned, we have a big global soccer, global football game and community

that's been very successful. A couple of months ago we announced and then launched our MLB partnership and so were MLB. And we're super excited to be doing this with the NBA right up around the U the upcoming season launch. This puts you in competition with NBA. Top shot, how do your platform stuck up? So we are very specifically focused on n f T based games. Uh So, players

collect their cards you come in uh and everyone. Once you register, you get a free set of cards, and with those cards you play the game, and the game you're managing the cards. Uh So like a fantasy draft, but instead of ESPN, who I know and love and spent time this weekend doing my my fantasy drafts. Here, the player has the agency to pick and manage his or her roster. As you do that, you end up

collecting cards as rewards. That's very different. I've admiration for Top Shot, I've admiration uh, and I'm a user of a lot of other platforms. But in our space, the fantasy based games, we are the leader, and these relationships are also um. You know, this is the lane that we are exclusively focused on, and we think we have demonstrated real leadership in now you've launched soccer and baseball n f T projects previously, No surprise, Aaron Judge and

showhir Tani are the most used cards. What kind of traction have you seen so soccer. Soccer has obviously a larger runway. It is very uh successful, It's very large community behind it. Obviously it's a global game. Uh. The user based on our side is global. The traction is global, and when I say geographically diverse, it really is from all segments of the world. We closed last year, still believe we're in early days. We closed last year doing

three million in card sales on the platform. We exceeded that in the first two quarters of the year, and now you begin to UH to introduce MLB. We did that end of July. The traction there has been really positive and encouraging. UM also a global footprint, which we think is important. Baseball is a really excellent product here, UM and sport because of the stats based nature, the movement,

the surprise and NBA is going to be fantastic. We all know UM how important the stars are and the players and for what it's you know, it's worth noting our deal on the NBA side is with both the NBA and the n B a p A UM, so these are licensed UH, player driven cards UM. And I also think it's worth noting that MLB's biggest day on the platform was when we announced NBA last week, and so that's a really important example of how we think all these sports can fit together, how the global nature

of these games hopefully works together. UH. In this concept of being able to collect a j Hoannice card or a Mike Trout or a killing and Bope and do that across the entire platform, that's a really big exciting idea. All right, good stuff. Bryan Spoon, CEO so rare. Well, andre iguadala is excited about it. That, um, you should get some folks excited. Thanks Ryan so much. Blue Origin aboarded a launch of its suborbital New Shepherd rocket moments

after takeoff. This happened in West Texas, and it is the first major failure for Jeff Bezos company in several years Bloomberg. Lauren Grash joins US now from Austin with more details. So, Lauren, what happened, Well, we actually don't have a lot of detail is at the moment. Basically all we know is what we saw on the live stream of the the launch today. This was a pretty regular routine launched for Blue Origin. They were launching research payloads,

many of which were funded by NASA. No people were on board, thankfully, but it was meant to be a pretty regular launch for them, sending these payloads to space and back. And then sometime a little after a minute into the launch, something seems to go wrong with the engine and it triggered the aboard escape system for the capsule. How significant is a failure like this in what would

have been a pretty routine launch. I think Blue Origine got really lucky today because there was no people on board. I they have a pretty good track record when it comes to their their flights. They only really suff suffered one partial failure really early in their testing regime. So this is the first time pretty much all of New Shepherd's history that they've had a major failure like this. So I think it's it's probably going to be a while before we see New Shepherd fly again. So what

is next here? Um, you know, when something like this happens, a significant failure like this, do you go back to the drawing board? You know, can years pass potentially as we've seen with NASA before, someone else before they try to attempt this once again. Yeah, it really depends on the source of the failure. The f A already said

today that they're going to be looking into this. Uh. Fortunately no one was hurt today and the booster that you saw break away from that capsule, uh fell into a hazard a designated hazard zone, so ultimately everyone is safe. But yes, the f A said they will look into it and New Shepherd won't fly again until they get to the root of the problem. And it really, like I said, it depends on what the source of the

issue is. You know, with these commercial companies. They can be a little a bit more nimble when it comes to return to flight. We've seen SpaceX return of flight pretty quickly after um some anomalies in the past, and so maybe it could be similar from Blue Origin. We just can't say for sure because we really don't know what what cost it. Can you put this into the context of Blue Origins broader ambitions of course, you know, I was there the day Jeff Bezos went into space.

They have sent other folks up there, celebrities, Uh up up there, you know, talk to us about how this fits into the broader end, longer term plans. You know. Of course he's talked about this space colony and more. Well, I think it might be tad worrying for folks who might have a ticket to fly with Blue Origin. You know, this this was a rocket specifically geared toward launching payloads, but it is essentially the same rocket that they used

to send people to the edge of space and back. However, some comfort can be had and the fact that it kind of worked asn't tended this an in flight aboard system. Basically what you saw is as soon as the system detected there was a problem with the rocket motors fired on the bottom of the capsule and immediately separated the capsule from the rocket, and that landed safely in the desert. So presumably if there had been people on board, they would have been just fine and would have landed safely.

Can't say for sure, and thankfully there weren't any people on board. Um, but the system did seem to work as designed, so there is some comfort in that. But you know, I might, I'm if I had a ticket, I might, yeah, be a little nervous in the future. All right, point taco and Bloomery. Lauren Grass, who covers face for us, thank you so much for that update. And that does it. For the edition of Bloomberg Technology Tuesday, Melinda Gates will be joining us to talk about her

foundation's efforts to fight poverty and gender gaps. And don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcast, I'm only check in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg. He pip pip a big people. He beating a bit and hept a whip. He give out big who beat a pick a good people out whip which a people be peaking a which people out? Which people