From Marhard where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
I'm Caroline Hyde a Bloomberg's World Headquarters in New York and I met Ludlow in San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology.
Coming up. We'll bring you the latest updates from the Middle East.
That's after Iran launched missiles and roans over the weekend into Israel, the US, and Europe.
They ramp up calls for Israeli restraint.
Full coverage ahead plus shares of Tesla slump amid the company's plans to slash ten percent of its global workforce, prompting senior executives to depart the company.
We had the details and Apple.
It faces its worst liphone slump since Covid as a company faces increased.
Competition in China.
We'll discuss that and so much more throughout this hour, but first we turn our attention to a complex geopolitical and macroeconomic picture that's being painted today.
Now.
The pullerhead really is the fact that Naslak is currently back in the red. We were managing to push higher on stocks but certainly the bond market field or full effect of actually a stronger, more resilient macroeconomic picture in the United States coming from retail sales that were far
faster than had been anticipated. But on the flip side is geopolitics is a concern about, of course, an unprecedented attack coming from Iran to Israel and what that really means in terms of actually dialing up or cooling of some of those geopolitical anxieties, notably oil is on the
lower side that drags the Bloomerg commodity index down. But remember there's actually added sanctions on Russian movement of metals into the LME at the moment, and that's been moving around aluminium and some other.
Key metals to be keeping it on.
So complex going on in the commodity space as well, but let's move it on as we try to really anticipate which way risk assets are going to be going. One that was in full effect because ultimately it was the when you ascasset that was really able to be traded at the time of those initial reports, as many had anticipated an attack coming from Iran into Israel. But we see the volatility that was in display when it came to bitcoin on Saturday afternoon plumbting.
We now recover some of that.
We're still off by more than four percent over the course of a three day trading period ed. We're currently at sixty three nine hundred of thereabouts.
But what are you watching on the micro Tesla? It's a big one. I broke the story this morning that Drew Baglino, who led powertrain and energy at Tesla, one of only four named executive officers, has resigned and left the company. The stock near session lows down three point three percent. We also confirmed Elon Muskers told staff that ten percent of the workforce will be cut in pursuit of cost reduction, productivity, and what he called duplicate rolls.
We'll get all the details later from the Bloomberg team. The other big one is Apple. IDC data showed shipments of about fifty million iPhones in the first quarter, but that's down ten percent year on year.
Now that's third.
Party data, and it's not just an Apple story. With the stockdown eight tens of one percent, it's a story about China's domestic smartphone makers having success growing market share in a really key market. We will speak to bloom those Mark German because it's complicated, but Apple is lower, whether that's cause or not.
Who knows.
A lot going on in the world of technology this morning, but also a lot of news around the world.
Yeah, and let's get back to it, ed, because Iran's attack on Israel is what many are talking of. Israel and its allies intercepted the overwhelming majority of more than three hundred missiles drones fired by Iran. Joining US now from Tel Aviv is Our Israel. You're O chief and senior editor Ethan Rohner, and we thank you for your time.
Ethan.
Well, probably how is it being felt and digested in Israel right now?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, I think that the overall senses of relief because, as you said, of three hundred and fifty projectiles, including one hundred and twenty ballistic missiles that come here in eight or ten minutes from around the vast majority, the overwhelming majority, were stopped before they got here. They were about half a dozen that got through to a military
base in Israel. They didn't do much damage, but they did hit and so there's a kind of a mixed feeling of well, we got them, we don't nobody was killed. But but there's a seven year old girl fighting for a live shrapnel that hit her in the south. But the general senses this could have been much much worse. So we can we Israel can take its time to decide.
What to do next.
But there is a a rubicon that's been crossed. I mean, we we have for the very first time in nearly four decades as Israel taken direct hits from missiles of this kind, and the first time ever in Thish what has been a shadow war between Israel and Iran emerged from the shadows. So we're in a new era, and it's not clear what that means.
Ething late to the program, we're going to talk a little bit about the sort of coalition response. You know, Israel made those interceptions in conjunction with the United States and the United Kingdom. I'd also like to learn a little bit about the kind of operational response on the ground in Israel, what it is happening in the streets, what the government is telling its citizens of where we stand.
So at the moment, in fact, there is a sense of calm. The government issued a statement that they were going to reopen the schools and the sort of day camps that they had closed on Saturday night in anticipation of this attack. So everything is back to normal, I think it's fair to say. And by the way, the Iranians also reopened their airspace, so there is no sense that there's going to be a continuation of this war
in the coming three days. On the other hand, the Israeli cabinet met last night and met again tonight in order to discuss what kind of sponse it needs to have, and those on the far right are urging a very vigorous response, a crushing attack, as they put it. It's
not clear if they're going to have their way. It doesn't seem so, because it does feel that the embrace of the United States, the United Kingdom in France of Israel at this point has been a warm bath for Israelis after many weeks of hostility because of their war in Gaza. At the same time, you see, the Israelis
have two audiences. They worry about these that we just talked about, and then their enemies that it's just Balahamas and Iran, and they fear that any lack of reaction will be perceived as weakness, and so there is a sense that they must react.
The question is when and.
How Bloomberg's even brunna on the ground until they're really grateful for your time on the ground reporting as well, and we have a big audience in this show in Europe and the emir regionable broadly. I point out the easy Jet, one of the airlines is an example, has canceled flights to his through April twenty first, so there's a kind of business impact.
There as well.
Let's go from Israel to Washington, DC and bring in Bloomberg National security reporter Nick Wadhams. Nick I was talking to Ethan about the kind of coalition response that United States was involved. The United Kingdom was involved in part because Iran had given heads up almost on their actions. My understanding is Biden has been in touch with the Israeli government quite frequently. What we know from the US side at this stage.
Well, what we're hearing from the administration is essentially that they want Israel to put the brakes on any sort of response. So we've been told the view from the White House is listen, Israel, take the win. Your air defenses did an extraordinary job deflecting and rebuffing about ninety nine percent of those incoming drones and missiles, and there
is no need for an immediate response. Obviously, as Ethan just said, the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netnya, who is coming very much from the other direction as well. So looking ahead for the next few days, what we're really going to see here is a good reflection on the limits of US leverage over Prime Minister Netnya, who President Biden could not have been more clear about what he wants.
To see next, which is de escalation.
The US does not want to be pulled in deeper into this conflict. They don't want this to turn into even a bigger conflagration, and they want Prime Minister Benjamin Netnyah to hold fire. Whether he listens to that advice is another thing entirely.
For now, rightly or wrongween the market, and that is often what we focus in on here.
A Boomberg has.
Been deeming this to be something that's containable. As of the moment, Nick, where do we have to align our sites now? Is it thinking of the next statement that we do get from Biden. We anticipate a conversation a press conference as soon as twelve o'clock that's right.
So I mean, will really be looking at what the tone is from the president and from other officials in the administration. Are they projecting unity? Is there more sense of those fractures that had emerged in recent weeks with Israel? Do we have a sense that these two governments are diverging in their perspectives on what the outcome will be here? I mean, the attack by Iran could have been so
much worse. I think you're seeing in the market in some ways a sense of relief that Israel repelled those As Ethan mentioned, there had been no deaths and fairly limited destruction. But what happens if Iran decides to respond yet again in response to a potential Israeli retaliation. So there's a lot of fear that there could be an escalatory spiral that gets to a situation that neither side can control.
N it Wardens, thank you for giving us the context and keeping us up to speed.
Let's talk about Tesla.
The ev maker is going to cut ten percent of its workforce after a slowdown in demand, Elon Musk preparing the company for the next phase of growth.
We also reported this.
Morning that two key executives have left Tesla in the last twenty four hours. Drew Baglino, who's been at Tesla for eighteen years and led everything to do with powertrain energy storage, resigned, is what I'm told by a source, and he confirmed that later on in a post. Rowan Betel is basically the public policy chief in many ways the kind of devacta facto voice piece of Tesla on social media. He has also left the company. Let's bring in Bloombog's Global Autoza Craig Trudell.
Craig.
It was a bit of a long night or an early morning, depending on where you were around the world, but let's start with Drew Baglino, one of only four named executive officers at Tesla. I thought this was a surprise, and what sources told me is that he resigned. He wasn't laid off off as part of the ten percent KA What else do you unite?
Yeah, I know less than you, you know, but I do have to sort of speculate about, you know, the extent to which this may be about, you know, a difference of opinion on the direction of the company. This you know, this these this news comes shortly after reports that the company is you know, maybe putting aside its work on a cheaper vehicle and focusing efforts on a robotaxi.
I think Elon Musk, you know, at first called that a report by Reuter's false, and then you know, seem to sort of lend credence to it by scheduling an introduction of a robotaxi months from now, which you know, sort of suggests that you know, he's focused on that, and you know that raises questions about whether whether Baglino thought that's the right move, whether Rohan Patel thinks that's
the right move. After all, he's going to be the person or would have been the person in Washington who would have to sort of justify that to regulators, and whether or not Tesla is really ready to put that forward is a question after years and years of the company talking about having robotaxis, or at least Musk talking about having robotaxis yes, when they haven't.
All of this is sort of trying to be a level of prioritization or anxiety that is among investors at the moment. Many would say, Okay, cutting down on expenses, on costs is something that is necessary in the context of EV sales. More broadly, Craig. What could be therefore be really unnerving the investor.
Base right now when you have SVPs leaving. Is it more the.
Concern about the handing over of power ultimately any sort of fact that Musk currently leads and has done since two thousand and eight.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's this concern about, you know, not knowing what the plan is, right, and this is not just a store that has only surfaced lately.
You know.
We go back to the Walter Isaacson biography months ago, and one of the more compelling bits within that book was this idea that there was real difference at the top of Tesla as to whether or not, you know, they should design this next generation vehicle with or without a steering wheel.
And you had.
Within that book, you know, this really compelling section of you know, executives having to kind of talk Musk out of this idea that they could just you know, design the car without a steering wheel and count on the idea that the technology was ready.
And I think that's something.
That you know, we've seen for for some time, This idea that you know, Musk has has really sort of been out on a limb in terms of how quickly, this company will be able to put self driving cars on the road. And what other executives have said, including you know, engineers that have had to testify in lawsuits related to people losing their lives because they too much
trust into Tesla's driver assistance system. So this is something that's really tricky if you're an executive who has to kind of, you know, square that circle.
Yeah, Craig, quickly, I think let's just re recap the basics. Ten percent of the workforce to be cut. How many people is that?
Where is it?
Yeah, So this is a company that ended last year with over one hundred and forty thousand people. So assuming this is company wide, we know it's a global according to Musk's email to staff, that would be more than fourteen thousand people. We're careful on that because Musk has been a little bit all over the place with his messaging in the past when he's made job cuts.
Craig Trudell, we thank you so much. It's just been a phenomenal amount of reporting coming from both of you, gentlemen, and so thank you very much for setting the context. Meanwhile, coming up, Apple iPhone shipments falling ten percent in the March quarter, making it the worst sales slump since COVID. We're going to bring you the details next. Another key points drag on these benchmin Edward. You're watching on the micro level.
Two little bit of MNA.
Monday, Bloomberg reported that sales forces, according sources, looking at a deal for Informatica, and it's all about data capabilities. The stock down more than five percent on it. The street kind of likes it, but it's a deal. We're waiting on confirmation on Bloomberg said it could be reached this month, so let's stay tuned for that as we go. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Apple, it's facing its worst iPhone slump since COVID as competition in the Chinese market really does heat up now. Third quarter shipments are apparently sliding worse than expected, almost ten percent, as the tech giant delivered fifty point one million phones, falling shy of Anna estemates of fifty one point seven mins. And Bloomberg's Mark Gumman joins us now with the context of who's providing us this data and what it means about Apple versus the other competitors.
Yeah, so itc puts up their quarterly reports on smartphone shipments, and of course these are their analysis based insights into how many units for ships, so they don't know for sure. We'll get a better idea on May second, when Apple announces its earnings report, and then we'll get a better idea from the other phonemakers when they announce their earnings reports.
But IDC is usually on target in terms of a general range or in terms of the overall theme, and the overall theme this time around is a nearly ten percent shipment decline on an annual basis for Apple. It's the most significant decline of any of the phonemakers they track.
It indicates that Samsung is back in the number one global smartphone sales position, and it indicates that sales from some Chinese brands, one called Transition into particular, within over eighty percent year of a year sales increase, are really
taking steam from Apple at this point. So if I were an Apple shareholder, it would be a little bit concerning to see the slump going on right now for the company, and it seems like most of it is China based, so we'll have to wait until May two to know for sure.
However, all right, I believe most Mark, German chief correspondent covering Apple.
Thank you.
Let's keep the conversation going and bringing in Fionas and Kotta now who's senior market analyst at City Index, for her take on Apple, and Mark summed up the IDC data very well. You either put emphasis on the Apple specific data or you put emphasis on the market share data coming from the Chinese handset makers and how they had gains in sales. Where does your mind goes to first, Fiona, do.
You know what?
I think it's a really good idea to actually look at these two bits of data together because if you've got Apple falling and yet global smartphone shipments elsewhere increasing, I think that makes it an even more dramatically difficult position and picture for Apple. I mean, it really does highlight I think the extent of the problems that the Apple is facing, particularly surrounding the iPhone.
And I think I mean, obviously.
China here is a very big story. There is a lot of competition that Apple is facing in China.
But I think there's also another side to this as well.
I just feel that Apple is really behind just as Sara as Innovation is concerned, as Sarah's AI is concerned and all that's also playing out in the share price, which has really had a tough start to twenty twenty.
Four two point seven trillion dollar market cap still but as along with Tesla are two key stories today, these two names in this so called Magnificent seven have been
anything but magnificent. It feels like in the last month or so, certainly beginning of this year, Fiona, can Apple win back yours and other investors' hearts and minds if they are going to be able to show, look, we've got AI within the M four process, that we're going to be able to have it and you know, sometimes they're known to be a little bit slower but getting it right.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, definitely a little bit slower. They feel like they're very slow to the AI party right now, and that's been sort of you know, punished by They've been punished by investors, and that I think, you know, has been part of that sell off that we've seen. I think there is a potential for this to turn around. I don't think this is the end of the line at all for Apple. I think, you know, we could see a good turnaround as long as they get their
AI products really spot on. I think also sort of, you know, the geographical diversification into India is an area that again could be very interesting for Apple as it moves away from China. But at the end of the day, China is a massive in market and it's also a very important market. So it's going to be very interesting to see whether Apple can actually turn this around quickly without any support from really from China.
Yeah, if you last night, Caroline and I regroup with a team and we're like, you know, what's the story going to be Monday? It looked like Apple, we had the geopolitics of what's happening in the Middle East, and then Tesla, and I'm trying to find a commonality between all of them. I think that the commonality is should we be talking more about the health of the global economy right now, particularly for consumer facing technology?
Yes, exactly.
So that's a really really important point here as well. I think the macro backdrop for these stocks is just not ideal right now. You know, if we have a look at where we are speaking as far as macro picture is concerned, it's not smooth sailing at all.
For the consumer.
You know, we've got the prospect of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates high for longer after we've seen those hotter than expected inflation figures last week. But then saying that, we've also seen that the retail sales in the US are holding up. But I think, you know, when you've got financing costs so high in the US, that does obviously impact those that are purchasing cars their ability to be able to get financing or even desire to get financing.
But also when you've got squeeze on households, you know, big expensive items such as the latest iPhones are going to be perhaps items which aren't necessarily top of the list. So you know, I do think the macro backdrop has a lot to play here as well.
If you if a client cause right now, do you say take risks off the table or do you say stay in equities even though they're near records.
Oh, it's a good question, you know. I think there is the potential for things to go higher if we start to see that inflation starts to cool again, if we start to see geographic geopolitical tensions start to calm again, then I think there is a potential there. But you know,
we've got earning season. We're just ramping up earning season now, and I think that's going to be a good distraction for the market to be able to sort of have a look what's actually going on, to see whether the lofty valuations are actually supported by the fundamentals.
Gold and Sachs example, managing to be and talking up AI City Index Senior market analyst Fiuna Sincota.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Karen Hid right here in New York.
Let's get you quick check on these markets, because there is a complicated context to what's going on in the markets right now. Whether it's a macro picture that shows resiliency in a US economy, those retail sales still showing real strength of a US consumer. And then the geopolitical situation we currently find ourselves trying to understand get a grips as to where we push forward with Israel and Iran,
an unprecedented attack coming from Iran on Israel. Over the course of the weekend, NASDAK pushing back into the green. We had been in the red a little bit on the Nasdaq benchmark. More broadly, as some of the anxiety was still there to be seen within the markets. But Apple actually and indeed Tesla key points drags on the Nasdaq one hundred. More broadly, Apple ORF by six ten percent.
We're worried about market share, particularly as competition builds up over in China, and the IDC numbers show that Apple has had its worth quarter in terms of sales since back in the COVID days. Tesla off by two point eight percent. This is down to your reporting ed more broadly on the fact that executives are leaving an indeed ten percent of the workforce looking to be removed as they really try and focus on a market that has been under pressure of late.
That's off by two point eight percent.
But we want to move on to what happened when it comes to risk assets over the course of the weekend.
This is a geo political story that we need to shine a.
Light on in terms of Bitcoin sold off hard on Saturday afternoon. Why it's one of the only risk assets that you were able to trade when you first learned that. Indeed, Iran has lived up to it to what it had been telling certain members of leaders across the world that they would indeed be looking to attack Israel, and we saw it hit some sixty one thousand dollars at one point.
We're off by three point six percent over the last three trading days, and I think that's where we try to dissect there is ongoing volatility in an asset like crypto and bitcoin, But then where are the applications in the here and the now fabian assets here drill down on what he's seeing, is Managing director and global headed Digital Economy over at Moody's Ratings.
You're someone who's been thinking about.
The harving the so called fundamentals of bitcoin, the way in which we can adopt blockchain technology. But when you look at the volatility as it it's still not a store of value but ultimately a risk asset.
How does that make your conversations harder?
Well, it's actually very hard to guess the direction of travel for bitcoin overall, because when you think about it, it's the value of it is not driven by clear economic drivers and like other assets, so trying to predict the value of bitcoin is like trying to predict people's start.
So it can be a lot of things. It could be the macro environment, could be the dro political environment, that could be many other things, And it could be the having that's coming up probably at the end of this week, which affects behaviors in particular people right now bidding up or down, and it creates more volatility, which is to be expected, and it has nothing to do with kind of the long term evolution of the price, but at least as of now you're seeing volatility.
Yeah, many would say, look, if it's meant to be a store of value, if it's meant to be in some way fight against inflation, you would have thought, in a risk averse worrying time and geopolitics, you will be in bitcoin rather than setting off. But then people say, look, this is a risk asset that you could say, show
your anxiety and for the course of the weekend. So when you say that you shouldn't be predicting it on a day to day basis, How then do you ensure that people are thinking about digitization, about real world assets becoming tokenized when people are still fundamentally trying to work out whether they should even be having one or two percent of their wealth in cryptocurrency.
So that's a great question, and those are very different things. So I would say cryptocurrencies per se are essentially very speculative. People are bedding up down, as I said, with probably some upward pressure post having at least you believe that the past is a good proxy for the future. But traditionally, I would say it started with crypto. It started with bitcoin and ether and others, and then what we observed was that financial institutions and institual investors in general were
very cautious traditionally about cryptocurrencies per se. So you started to see like a different segment of the digital finance ecosystem. There was more about using the technology underlying bitcoin and other assets and reusing the technology to repipe financial markets and the global economy to make it potentially better, faster, and more efficient. So crypto was mainly for retail investors, and the rest of digital finance mainly for institual investors.
And that's really what we've been keeping an eye on and what we'll probably reshape financial markets going forward. Now what's interesting is recent the use of convergence in the sense that institutional investors, again that were cautious, would say instinctively it was not even regulation, even though it played
a part of it. This suddenly decided that it was time to get into the crypto sphere as well, in particular with the approval of bitcoin ETFs recently, and so now you're seeing institutional investors in both that kind of took anization space, which has many benefits, and also in the crypto currency space where they were not involved for a long time A Fabian.
I'm fascinated by the credit rating perspective on this. You talk about harving and then you think about the limit on supply long term infinitely of bitcoin, but in moments like the weekend, in geopolitical crisis or risk of sentiment, there's just clear evidence it's a liquid market. So if you are approaching this from a credit rating, the effective what is the conclusion you draw?
All right, So let me clary if at one point here a cryptocurrency enough itself and become in particular, there's no credit risk associated with it. There's no promise associated with the cryptocurrency, so you can't really rate whether the issue of a cryptocurrency will meet its promise and if it doesn't, by how much you gould miss it, which is what credit ratings are intended to do. So there's
no there's no credit risk persuit with the cryptocurrency. The reason we're keeping an eye on them and on Becoming in particular, is because you know that institutions out there, governments, corporations, and others are invested in cryptocurrencies. So we want to keep track of whether it could impact their credit risk because they have that asset in their portfolio, for instance.
And we also want to keep track of things like market contagion risk that could affect one way or the other from the crypto world into traditional finance, or even the other around, from traditional finance into a crypto currency. So it is an asset class that is, you know, that's been very resilient. It has no credit risk per se, but indirectly others could see their credit risk profile affected by the movements in the bitcoin market.
But there is a connection for secondary markets and the underlying technology, which is blockchain. That's something you look at very quickly. Explain your work.
There, correct, So the financial markets are likely being reshaped by technologies that look like bitcoin, that look like that looks technologies that look like blockchain. Sorry, And the reason is that those technologies make processes a lot more efficient. So I'm going to give you an example to illustrate asset organization Caroline mentioned that a minute ago. It's really the process of turning real world assets into a digital stamp on a blockchain PLO. And because it's become a
digital step, it's very easy to manage to trade. And those assets that are being tokenized could be anything from a bond or stock, or real estate or art, and so you transfer all the legal rights, in particular the ownership rights that come with the assets. You push that into that digital token that you can trade and manage efficiently. So it makes it a lot more efficient to manage and trade. In particular, you can settle super quickly, it could be even just a immediate or fraction of a
second to settle payments on that blockchain. You can track and control everything that's happening, So it makes it better from a risk and complainants perspective, and also yes, really creates extra liquidity and new opportunities to find funding and to invest overalls. Think about a building, for instance, You
can be very hard to buy that building alone. But if you can tokenize and cut these talkings into small trunks that many people can invest in suddenly, right, and it makes it as easier to access.
FABI anastic deep analysis Managing director and global headed Digital Economy at Moeting's ratings.
We're grateful with your time.
Coming up on the show, we're going to be joined by Google Clouds lean more on the company's new training initiative in generative AI, cybersecurity and data analytics analytics. That's coming right up. Stay tuned. This is Bluebird Technology. Okay, quick talking tech. There's a lot going on in the news. First start, the BIND Administration plans to award Samsum as much as six point four billion dollars in grants.
To increase chip production in Texas.
This is part of US efforts to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The southern Korean company plans to invest more than forty billion dollars overall. Plus Entry and Horowitz close seven point two billion dollars for its newest set of funds on Friday, According to an Axios report, the firm beat its own fundraising goal of six point nine billion, with that capital
aimed for its growth fund. And open Ai named the former president of aws's Japan to Down Nagasaki to spearhead its push to enterprise clients in the world's fourth largest economy. Open Ai is opening an office in Tokyo, is it releases a custom GPT form model.
Catering to Japanese language users.
Caroline, and let's get two more broadly in AI context right now, because we're all thinking about how to reskill and companies are thinking about how to reskal their own employees. At the moment, it's also been the focus of Oh
Google Cloud, it's been thinking about its own role within this. Today, the company is announcing a new tech training initiative is in partnership with institutions like the US Department at the Treasury, like rax Space as well to prepare the workforce with generative AI skills and much more, a police to welcome only more global Google Cloud Consulting Vice President Lee, I'm really interested in this because you're working with the public sector,
think of the Treasury Department and thinking of educational foundations and institutions as well as private companies.
You're offering this all for free. Are you going to be charging? Where is the reward for you?
Well, for us, we see that we're really in this enterprise AI era and we have the most amazing cloud technologies. But it's beyond the technology. It's also about the people and in my organization, we're responsible for skilling up the workforce and skilling up our customers, and we see this
huge demand for skills and jobs. And if you look at the job data out there, you can see there's many hundreds of thousand, seven hundred thousand open roles for cloud analysts, five hundred thousand roles open for cybersecurity, and the World Economic Forum is quoting a million roles in
AI coming up. So it's a huge, huge opportunity for individuals and we believe launching these programs we are today both and the on ramps to further education and the on remps to employment is our role in the middle of that ecosystem.
Lead just mechanically. How does this work in simple terms? If you're working with a Treasury department.
Yeah, So individuals can go over to Google Cloud Skills Boosts, they can register and take these training programs in data analytics, in cybersecurity, and in generative AI. When they pass those qualifications, they're able to then jump start the first step in the recruiting process for their partners. We've signed up with so far so US Department of Treasury, Jack Henry and
rag Space. They enable them to get through that first round of interviews in a kind of consolidated way and move on through their process beyond that.
Lee, What's really interesting some of the statistics the data showing that the C suite.
Has a lot of anxiety about this.
They're worried about the lack of talent that they can get their hands on and the roles you just articulated that still need to be filled. How much dare I ask does a C suite have the AI skills necessary at the moment?
You think, Yeah, very interesting question. We also run c suite training programs here in Google Cloud, and we've been the takeup of those has been immense in the past six months. We're finding that is really progressing well. Now this initiative is much more about a kind of grassroots next generation of skills as people either coming into the workforce or looking to transfer from their existing roles. So we see a lot of people, you know, early in
their career looking to reskill. These programs are really, really, really, really useful for that. The example I've got in my head is one where you imagine Caroline, you're just exiting the services, You're twenty five years old, you don't quite know what you're really do you know you could if only, hey, you could, you know, you could take these programs, you could move into cybersecurity and these are really really good jobs.
The average, the median salary of a cybersecurity role in the US is one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars. You know, they are the sorts of roles that are game changing for families and their ecosystem.
Lee, I get yours roots explanation, but public sector cloud is such competitive marketplace for you guys, right, Aws and Azure also putting a lot of emphasis on public sector spend does kind of literally grassroots training help you grow some market share there. Jensen one talks all the time about sovereign AI, but I'm yet to see any evidence that, you know, government departments know they've got to get the checkbook out.
Well.
I think what we're seeing is demand across the commercial sector, the public sector, and from individuals for skills. And you know, when I'm recruiting, you know, I'm looking for people that have energy and passion and googling this, but I'm also looking that they have the fundamental skills in AI or data or cybersecurity, whichever the role is. So these programs are really geared for the individual, and then obviously every organization needs to determine what skills they need in their group.
Energy more, passion, lean more, Google Cloud consulting. Vice President appreciate the time of the conversation.
Thank you.
The President was very direct that this was a huge success, that Israel can be proud that it doesn't stand alone and that it has superior military capability. Iran utterly failed in what they were trying to achieve, and that that success alone sends a strong message to Iran and to the region about Israel's place there.
That was US National Security Council Communications Advisor John Kirby, speaking earlier on Bloomberg Television. Were waiting for more remarks from the White House as President Biden holds a bilateral meeting with the Iraq's Prime minister joining us from Washington. Bloomberg's Balance of Power hosts Joe Matthew and Joe, I mean, the messaging from the administration to Israel has been take the win.
What else are we hearing? That's right?
Take the win, and if you do decide to do something, particularly if you want to overreach and attack Iran directly, the US may not.
Be there to support you.
Having seen the US provide concerted support over the weekend, it was quite remarkable, and this does require perspective, and on both sides of things. John Kirby is right, this was an extraordinary success. I'm not sure that all the parties involved. Even though it was capable to block ninety nine percent of the hardware that was thrown up in the air by Iran the other night, not a single UAV managed to infiltrate Israel. Of the thirty Iranian cruise
missiles launched, none of them broke into their airspace. But look, it also requires some perspective on the other side as well. The people of Israel now know that Iran is willing to attack Israel directly, and they do believe in many quarters that that justifies a response. Certainly benjaminett Ya, who is hearing that from the right domestically here, the question is whether the White House can keep Benjaminettania, who in his government, restrained in whatever response it does pursue.
Joe Matthew, we thank you so.
Much, really important ability to break down the story and push it forward for us. Meanwhile, look, we're going to turn on focus to what's actually currently underway in New York because Donald Trump has arrived at the courthouse this morning where his first criminal trial is underway. She's expected to last six to eight weeks. Let's get the latest on the ground with re Meg's Kaylee lines. And it is another first for Trump.
Yeah, this is the first time in US history a former president has been under criminal trial. These proceedings, of course, begin today. He's charged with thirty four felon accounts of falsifying business records related to alleged hush money payments made to foreign star Stormy Daniels ahead of the twenty sixteen election. Trump has pleaded not guilty. He denies all of these allegations, and he right now is sitting upstairs in the fifteenth story courtroom at the defense table as there is a
number of motions that they are dealing with. And actually the judge has denied several motions already, including a motion for a refusal and also the defense's attempts to block entering certain things related to Trump's alleged extra merit to affairs into evidence.
The judge has.
Ruled that the jury will be able to hear a lot of that evidence that said, the jury is not assembled yet. Once they get the role of these motions, that is when jury selection will begin, and they'll try to find twelve jurors and six alternates who can be impartial unbiased in assessing this case, which of course relates not just to a former president but the current presumptive
Republican presidential nominee. So highly consequential what begins today, But this is a process that could last six to eight weeks in total. It could take about two months for this trial to.
Reach a conclusion.
Haiti Nines outside the courthouse in Manhattan. We thank you.
And what's so interesting, Ed is almost as a proxy for that betting on Trump potentially being the nominee and indeed future president again in the United States, has been his own social media company, which you are able to, of course by shares and exposure to. But that social media startup, Trump Media, has been down a lot today.
Yeah.
Part of that I think is partly due to an offering in some markets. But I was listening to the radio and Bloomberg Radio surveillance on the way in, and it's like a proxy. I think you're right that whatever happens in that trial and Kaylee will be on the ground for us. You kind of infer your thinking about President Trump from it in this race.
Yeah, parent are Truth Social, which is Trump Minia and Technology Group filed to register shares we understand, so which of course are including those link to warrants. That's why you're getting a supply side pressure coming on in the share price. But notably, it has been down about what sixty percent from its highs after it did did des back and has been publicly trading as Trump Media and Technology Group.
Meanwhile, though, we've got to go back to.
Some key technology stories, and you're the person behind one of the main ones, Tesla, just bringing us, as you raced in this morning, the ability to report on what's happening with executives leaving.
Yeah, it's hard to know if the downward pressure on the stock is the ten percent layoffs. Actually I'm hearing it's much deeper than ten percent, or Drew Baglino and Rowan Beateel leaving. Think about the intellectual capital that's left Zach kirk Cohn last August, the Chips leadership that left earlier this year.
Musc's taking an X to talk about it.
Caro, you know that It's interesting why did they time it this way, the executives if it wasn't linked to the layoffs. I don't have the answer for that.
And this next phase of growth that everyone keeps harnessing the idea that we are.
In between these new between two weeks.
Yeah, but then are.
We if we were likely to be pulling back from a cheaper model and more focusing on robotaxis.
But what I did here is that whatever the reasons for Baglino's departure, things are actually.
Going very well in planning for that next stage of growth.
I heard forty six eighty, for example, is really ramping nicely. So again, people's reasons are their own, but clearly the market and our readers are paying attention this morning.
There's also, of course, the ongoing ev context. That is not a putty picture right now? That does it for this edition of blueg Technology.
Boy, it was a big one.
Yeah, so much to recap on the podcast. You know where to find it. We're publishing into Apple's Spotify and iHeart. Of course the pod is all also on the Bloomberg platforms.
Day one of what is going to be a big week from New York City and San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology,