From Bahart where Innovation, money and power collie in Silicon Valley, Nbon.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
And Caroline Heind and Bloomberg's weldad quarters in New York.
Ed Ludlow is in sun Valley, and this is Bloomberg Technology coming up. The FTC losers its requests are temporarily block Microsoft from closing at sixty nine billion dollar takeover of Activision Blizzard.
But what about the UK? We'll bring in the details. And Hollywood comes to a halt.
Actors join writers in their strike, bringing productions of films to a standstill. Amid the first sultaneous walkout since nineteen sixty, Glass as General to AI takes the world by storm. Governments are scrambling to regulate. We sit downward, DiDia rangers European Commissioner for Justice discuss the steps that EU is taking to rein in or just put god rails on the technology. Now, everyone's a winner right now in the stock market. And look when it comes to legality, none,
everyone's a winner again. The FTC losing its request for a California judge to temporarily block Microsoft from actually closing that sixteen nine billion dollar takeover of Activision Blizzard. That's, of course, while the agency appeals her initial ruling to
greenlight the deal. Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow joins us Now from Sun Valley, you are helping break those scoops, not only about what's happening in the UK, but just bring us up to speed with the fact that look, this date, her eighteenth is hurdling towards us.
It is.
Yeah, there are lots of moving parts. I think the big umbrella point is that sources tell Dina Basley and Ilan and myself that there's a high degree of confidence that this deal will close by or on Tuesday July eighteenth. The development at the last hour is that the UK Antitrust Appeals Court has called a hearing for Monday the seventeenth, where they will hear Microsoft and Activisions appeal against the original u KCMA decision. But remember that all they can
appeal is an issue of procedural impropriety. They can't challenge the decision itself, just how they came to that conclusion. Now, what we reported last night is that what they're offering to the CMA as an appeasement is to sell the rights for cloud based gaming in the UK to a third party, another media or telecoms company. One source suggested private equity could be involved. And what we're hearing from the merger ofs if that's it. If all they have to do is go to the UKCMA and say, well,
we'll sell the rights for cloud in that country. It's a small price to pay to get the deal done.
But to a large extent of course that yeah, they don't want behavioral changes, they want actual sales or real impact. What about what's happening in the US, Because if they do sell off those rights in the UK, well they not have to replicate that elsewhere. And what will the FDC continue to do in terms of its own appeals process.
It's just so strange how all of these different dates and timelines running parallel. So what we're waiting on is the ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether they put a stay on proceedings. Right, this is the appeal the FDC made to the US District Court in San Francisco. The decision made July tenth. But if that stay doesn't come, the deadline in the US is midnight. San Francisco time tonight or three am Eastern time Saturday morning.
So you could have a situation where the deal closes technically here in the United States without any regulatory inhibition or prohibition, and then still have the CMA process going on in parallel beyond that. What I'm hearing here in some valley is no one really gets what the FDC is doing. And I think you've got a great guest coming up.
You can ask for this.
Why are they picking a fight that many think they can't win anyway? And so it's coming down to the wire. But that's why we love this story. Yeah, things that come down to the wire, Caroline, a.
Bit of drama. Ed, You're going to keep the drama flowing from some valley. We thank you very much. Indeed, let's get to that great guest, of course, Marien Olahosen, former Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. She's now chairs the Global Anti Trust and Competition practice at the law firm Banka Bots And it's great to have some time with you. Moyne, and boy, it's complex. Can you just answer that initial perspective from Ed? Why is the FTC
appealing this? Why take these challenges that are very hard to win.
The current leadership of the FTC has decided that they want to try to move any trust law in a different direction than the courts and the agencies have brought the law for many years. Any trust in the US is common lots into a ridd case like case, and they've decided that they want to go in a kind of a starkly different direction. So they keep bringing forward cases with their aggressive theories, but the courts are not
finding them convincing. They're not finding them fencing on the facts and sometimes and I think in the Microsoft that division challenge on the law and certainly on the economics. So I think the leadership feels that they want to try to push the boundaries, but the courts are not just simply not amenable to that. The courts look at what's you know, what's the precedent, what's the case law, what you know are the standards that are ready in place.
Ultimately, they're worried that these sorts of vertical deals can ultimately end up just with companies having far too much control and indeed monopolistic sort of outcomes. Do you have any sympathy for that at all, whether or not we see the law as it stands, being sympathetic to it.
If there is good evidence that a merger, whether it's a horizontal or vertical merger, may substantially lessen competition, they're the strong basis in the law to block those deals. Are to have remedies in those kinds of deals that preserve competition. You know, when I was the chair, we brought some vertical merger challenges and we had settlements in those, but I do think there, you know.
The law certainly prohibits it.
The question is do they actually have the evidence to convince a court that the deal, whether it's horizontal or horizontal or vertical deal, will actually meet that legal standard. And the government bears the burden of persuasion. They have to persuade the court that it would substantially lessen competition, and they just haven't carried that burden.
What about Congress weighing in here more broadly, And some have been saying, look, as it stands, the way in which we interpret the law isn't right, and the way in which we see competition is outdated.
Do you think that that's the case. Do you think we would ever see.
The ways in which we judge the legality of such deals being altered by Congress.
There has been some interest in members of Congress in changing the law, but it just hasn't gotten the support of the broad membership of Congress to do that. Look, anti trust law is not static, as economic learning, as our understanding of markets. As markets themselves change, anti trust law the case does need to change too, and it's generally been done through case by case enforcement and we've
seen those developments. We've seen when I was at the FTC winning cases before the Supreme Court that supported our enforcement efforts. So it's not that the law, the current law is totally static. But to make this sort of big break from showing what's a substantial lessening of competition or departing from the consumer welfare standard, which is really the load store for antitrust, would necessitate new law in Congress, and we just haven't seen the momentum for such a lot of pass now.
No, your expertise is so important to us because you were the acting head of the FTC under the Trump era, But I'm interested in your perspective overseas. What do you make of the UK and the way in which we could see yet well further sales would be fools of Microsoft and Activision in this particular instance. And ultimately would that mean that would have to be done worldwide?
Well, it really depends.
You know, the CMAS the authority is only for impacts in the UK, so that would be very sort of facts specifican market dependent on whether you know some sort of remedy that was limited to the UK would address those concerns. But the CMA is kind of out on a limb at this point right it's the European Commission.
Cleared the DAL.
The US thus far has not a block the deal. It's been approved by regulators around the world, So I think you know they're in a very position and is there some sort of last minute remedy that will you know, assuage their concerns and allow them to approve the deal? I think you do is something that's under intent. I assume is under intense discussion given given the state of play.
In your current role sharing the global antrusts and competition practice at the Little fem Baker Votes, what are you advising clients in this current well environment we currently in.
Do we think that deals have got harder to be done or all?
It's kind of a twofold question. The process of getting your deal done. The approval process is likely to be more onerous and take longer. You may have to produce more documents, you may have to, you know, sort of engage in theories that weren't really strongly supported in the case law. But if the regulator brings them up, you have to talk about them, you have to address them.
But ultimately, what we're finding is if the deal makes sense, if it's pro competitive, our recommendation is you should.
Go forward with it.
The law itself has not changed, and that's I think what we're seeing in these repeated failures of particularly the FTC to win these challenges. So ultimately, for clients.
That's what they need to decide.
Are they willing to kind of go through a process that has been made more onerous, specifically made more onerous, I think to try to deter some mergers even if they can't win in court by saying they're any competitive. But if a merging party is willing to go through that, they have the same chance that they had in the past of winning if there is an appeal, because the courts are sticking to the case law and the you know,
the requirements that were already in place. They're not buying these new theories.
Former acting chair or the f and indeed FTC Commissioner wor own Oldhausen, thank you very much.
Indeed some great expertise there.
Meanwhile, coming up, the court cases keep on coming, and the loss is a federal court decision on a crypto case involving Ripple Labs seen as potentially narrowing the SEC's oversight.
We're on that. Why next as a bloomberg.
Or it was long awaited, the ruling came in the case for the SEC versus Ripple, and it's send crypto Twitter into a frenzy in token prices soaring yesterday. The ruling XLP the token associated with Ripple is a security, but when.
Offered to institution investors, not the general public an emotion.
Anibassek is here to break down what is a nuanced ruling about four.
Different parts of it.
But the takeaway for many is that, look, the SEC perhaps doesn't.
Have so many grounds to stand on here.
Well, importantly, I think is that the individual investors means a purchasing Ripple was deemed not a security through the use of buying them through public exchanges. And so remember when the SEC sued Ripple and its founder is here, they were really suing on the basis of more than one billion dollars worth of sales on about half of that is covered as not a security by this lawsuit, but the other half, the institutional sales part is also worth looking at.
With the retail part.
It is interesting because when you look at all those suits put together by the SEC, there are more than a dozen tokens really listed here by the SEC as alleged securities.
And so when you're.
Talking here about the idea that maybe the SEC doesn't have so many grounds to stand on here, it's of those nineteen or so tokens that we are talking about, are they securities? Aren't they securities? If they're listed on exchanges, are they still securities?
That is the fight that's.
Going to keep on playing out. You saw coinbasi stock yesterday react with twenty five percent jump almost here. That has brought coinbases advance this year to almost two hundred percent, And it is on the grounds that they are fighting also the SEC on this idea that they had listed all these unregistered securities, and so the exchange coinbase in particular was very very quick to move on relisting XRP. And you know in vain what the court head.
Said fascinating and we will continue to see the ramifications. Solanas up a lot today on the finance token as well, whereas perhaps we fade a little bit on Ripple's initial move. Shnale is the busiest woman in the house. Of course, she's just been doing all of the bank kernings and still across as we thank her. And of course just a note that my husband is a senior manager over
at Coinbase. Meanwhile, you want to stick on this storey, You've got to stick with Bloomberg, because you want to hear from the Ripple Lab CEO Brad garling House himself, as well as Pat Toomey, former Senator of Pennsylvania, a member of the Global Advisory Council over at Coinbase. Those two conversations with our own Schcenali coming up in the next hour. Meanwhile, turning to a loss in the tech community, entrepreneur Nick Hungford has died after a battle with terminal
bone cancer. Mister Hungerford co founded the successful investment platform Nutmeg in twenty eleven. The idea was famously rejected forty five times in a row by funders, but the business.
Was went on to strength.
To Strength was bought by JP Morgan in twenty twenty one for reported seven hundred million pounds. Nutmeg said in a statement that mister Hungerford was one of Britain's most successful fintech entrepreneurs. Nick Hungerford was forty three years old. Major League Soccer, I mean, I call it football, but you call it soccer, could be the next US sports league to allow sovereign wealth funds to invest in its teams, with the league's more board members set up to discuss
the topic in a meeting next week in Washington. As all, according to the MLS Commissioner Don Gaba, who sat down with their own ed Ludlow over there in some valley, they discussed this, how the league attracted learn On Messi and their Apple TV ownership take a listen.
Obviously, an enormous amount of money that includes not just what he gets paid, but the uniqueness of our league having a partner in Apple that can share in helping us attract someone like Messi, partnership with Adidas who can come in and be part of that program.
Is that your idea.
It was our The league does all these unique things where we've talked about David Beckham and the uniqueness of that deal. We've got partners in the League office in terms of how we're structured, and a very ambitious owner in the Moss family in Miami, putting together a deal that I think was more attractive to Messi and his family than playing in Saudi Arabia. And we're going over back to Barcelona, where he'd been before.
You mentioned that this was a competition between Saudi Arabia understandings Barcelona are also thought to bring their son home. You won. What was the one biggest factor that brought Messi to the MLS.
You know, America's a rising stock nation and our league is driving a lot of that momentum. And you get a generational player who has an opportunity to not just have a legacy as the best player the goat, if you will, but also be part of driving enormous momentum
for the years leading up to the World Cup. Copa America will be here next summer, The Fiva Club World Cup will be here in twenty five, US Canada, Mexico will the Holts the World Cup in twenty twenty six, and Messi will be the continual part of that narrative. He'd make a lot of money in Saudi Arabia and I'm sure that was attractive to him go back home.
As you said, a favorite rain is a great point though, in that Saudi is so present in professional football soccer. Have you met with the Saudis about investing in the MLS.
No, we haven't ed, but interestingly, years ago when they were forming their league, we did the same with the Kataris. We advise them. You know, MLS has a unique structure. It was an emerging league that had to capture this unique opportunity that Saudis are heavily invested in trying to make their league more successful, more popular. The Saudi folk, the people who live there are very passionate about the game.
The Chinese have tried to do that with the president, try to make football a big part of the unique experience for fans. We'll see how it all plays out. It certainly is an intriguing, disruptive part of what's going on in.
Our broadly open to sovereign money investing at a franchise level or in the league.
We are and beyond the uniqueness of our structure where we have private equity investing in our league. Ari's Capital invested in our Miami team just very recently, but the NHL and the NBA have looked at having sovereign funds and pension funds mls looking at the same thing very timely. News will likely discuss that at our board meeting in Miami. I'm sorry in DC next week at our All Star Game.
I'm an ESS commissioner Don Gama with our own at Badlaine. Now from sports to movies entertainment, Hay. For the first time in six decades, Hollywood writers and actors are on strike at the same time, cataclysm for hundreds of thousands of film and TV workers. Bloomberg Technology executive editor Tom Jazz, I'm so pleased to say, joins me now to really what we sort of saw coming.
It feels dramatic.
We had actors walking out of premieres for the latest movie over in the UK.
Oh yeah, I mean, as you said, the first time in six decades. This is all about how technology is disrupting the way that films and television are produced and distributed. Sixty years ago, it was all about this thing, this new thing called TV, a relatively new thing called TV, and what it meant for the distribution of films that were traditionally shown just in theaters. Now it's all about streaming.
This is a question of our actors writers compensated adequately when their work is streamed on all these new services. Has been this proliferation over the last decade of different ways that you can watch and save and distribute films and television shows and pay structures the actors and writers will tell us have not kept paid.
Yeah, I'm seeing some placards being held as we're currently looking at our screens now, Tom, some of them mentioning AI. You and I talking about AI left right center at the moment. Why are the actors talking about it too?
Yeah?
I mean, is AI going to replace our jobs? We think about it as journalists, right, Will the AI, you know put us out of work? What actors and writers are concerned about is the ways that studios might use artificial intelligence to create create scripts to you know, even the imagery around you know, can somebody's face be put
on a different body? How can we use this technology to reduce the cost of writing, producing, getting these programs out into the public, and is there a way that it's going to kind of make actors' time actors they're what they their their bodies, their faces in some ways obsolete. These are all somewhat hypothetical at this point. There's a lot of skepticism over exactly how far you can rely on artificial intelligence to create this these products. Yeah, but it's a concern.
Tom great speaking with you.
Thank you. Blueberg Technology Executive editor Tom Giles on the drama in La from New York. There's a Bloomberg Technology. Welcome back to Blueberg Technology. I'm Caroen Hid in New York. This week's meta competitor to Twitter. Saw what one hundred million users now on the Threads platform, but is it here to stay?
We're still seeing that enthusiasm continue.
And please to welcome to the show launch and I Push is vice president of corporate Development at Jennysmack, a company focused on that profined content creators. Also your host of the Creator Upload podcast and previously rank creative Partnerships for Facebook. I'm also welcoming megst Alex Birinka, who can perhaps first and foremost give us an update and what it's like on Threads at the moment. There was so much hype and enthusiasm last week.
Are we starting to see that dial back a little bit?
We're seeing maybe a little bit, Caroline, when I first logged on, there was a lot of folks with a lot of curiosity, and maybe those were curiosity sign ups saying what's this all about?
I asked, what's the vibe? Right now?
The vibe seems to be in my thread A lot of memes, not a lot of news, so a distinct difference from what I see on Twitter. But just in the last twenty four hours, we've actually gotten some data from some data analytics firms like censor Tower and similar Web, who are saying that maybe some of that initial curiosity excitement has fallen off. They're saying that traffic has fallen by about twenty percent from last week, that usage time is down to eight to ten minutes from twenty minutes
last week. So that initial bump and curiosity is maybe not leading to at least a month's worth of eccended engagement. Of what we're seeing on threads right.
Now, Well, let's get a take of someone who's helping advise all these creators, Lauren, is the enthusiasm there is it real? Are they wanting to take part in the conversation somewhere other than Twitter?
I mean, I think absolutely. I think that the time. First of all, nobody, when done right, nobody doesn't launch better than Zuck. I mean, it has been glorious this launch, right, the seamlessness nature of it, the Golden ticket. If you search threads in Instagram, a Golden ticket comes up and
then it takes you to the app to download. Everybody I'm talking to and everything I'm seeing is saying like it really is living up to this promise of a more friendly sort of environment, which is what Zuck and Missouri are sort of trying to promise.
Now.
Whether or not they can maintain that, there's so many we've seen that Facebook meta knows how to grow platforms. Do they know how to manage them?
I don't really know, but right now not really seeing a lot of drop off.
Sort of anecdotally, I think it's totally to be expected that you get that initial curiosity in a little bit of like a downturn right after. But like even the numbers Alex just mentioned don't seem, in my opinion, to indicate that this is.
Going anywhere, going away anytime soon.
And Lauren, I am curious as you're talking to creators. Obviously we've seen them navigate to platforms where they can continue to build their business. Being fun is great, being curious is great. But over the long term, creators have this hard mentality They go to where the money is or where the audience is. What are they seeing in
Threads right now? Like what are those kind of draw points, what are the shiny objects that you're either seeing right now or this kind of long term promise of what Meta can do gets them excited about the Threads platform.
Well the long term, you know, as you said, it's where everybody is kind of right now, right like, and I don't think anybody was exc about Twitter. And also you have to remember that, like Threads is being built on the back of both both Facebook and Instagram. We used to always say when I was on Instagram, like we used to get to sort of like, you know, learn from the mistakes of Facebook. Now Threads gets to learn from the mistakes of both Facebook and Instagram, which
is like a pretty solid place to be. Not to mention the incredible you know, ad sales infrastructure that Meta brings along to the table so I think that in just very early conversations, people are confident that there's some sort of monetization that's probably being thought of, and I can't imagine that's not true on the sort of the metaside.
So right now, you know, at the very least, it's about distribution.
And because you can port over your followers and you know who you're following, sorry from Instagram directly, therefore people are going to be following you, you know, faster than they would on a brand new platform. Like creators to your point, are going where the people are, and they're there, so they're very curious. I mean, you've seen mister beast is I think giving away a testla for everybody that follows him. Maybe we'd all have hundreds of millions of
followers ifficative gaveaway teslas. I don't know, but I think they're all there and they're excited right now and.
Talking about what's exciting right now. You have Musk maybe keying into some of this excitement. Just in the last ten minutes. He responded to a tweet on Twitter asking him whether he would actually bring in photos and captions to Twitter, and he said it's definitely a future we should consider. So as we see kind of the continuation of these platforms, maybe lifting some features from each side.
How are creators thinking about differentiation when it comes to the folks who are both on Twitter and are on threads. Are there things that are core to the platform that have them thinking about those two things differently or is there some efficient cross posting going on that's helpful on both sides.
Well, I think, first of all, also just you know, Elon taking advantage of like launching monetization in the last couple days, I think that was actually really smart of him. Do I think that that's like a great idea considering there's no trust in safety on Twitter right now. I mean, I feel like monetization plus no trust in safety is like kind of a disaster waiting to happen, you can imagine in terms of you know, listen, I think that
right now. And of course, Jelly smack my work helps creators. This, you know, having to post on different platforms and different types of content is you know, is a really big sort of you know, burden to creators, and so anything that anybody can do to offset that is always welcome. In terms of cross posting to both platforms, too soon to tell, right, I think what we are seeing though, it's a different kind of you know, creator user on
you know, Threads versus Twitter. Right, like becoming people on Instagram weren't necessarily on Twitter or power Twitter users. So I think it's a little bit too early to tell in terms of like how that content's going to sort of overlap or not. But I definitely feel like creators are on Threads if anything, because it comes from Instagram, it's they. I think by the very nature of that, it seems to be a bit more creator friendly of a platform, at least from perception point of view.
Right now, when are.
You thinking that the appetizing gets turned online.
Well, much sooner than later.
I do think that they if I would hope that they are thinking about their own trust and safety and how to moderate this. Again, learning from the mistakes of the past, I know that they're going to move quicker than they ever have before. I mean, I was at Facebook before monetization was there at all, and that was
just really painful waiting for that to come out. They have so much more infrastructure, so I think within the first year you're if not, you know even sooner, you're going to see some sort of monetization, but I think they need to like first, they have to launch ads first, right, So that's going to happen pretty soon, I imagine.
And by the way, let's talk about brands.
Brands are leaving flocking too threads because they've left Twitter because of the lack of trust and safety. They can't risk their brands being next to really sort of undesirable content. So you've got brands like Netflix, Lift, Wendy's, Spotify, all these brands that are just flocking to threads to build up their platform, and with the brands comes the money.
Monetization soon follows with your analysis of all the places your content creators could be. I mean, we have heard a relative amount from Twitter recently under the new leadership of Linda Yakarino about round safety, trying to ensure that those advertisers get back on board and get comfortable. Are you really still seeing reasons to be as concerned as previous at the moment? And do think that what we're talking about is people leaving in droves or is the reality actually.
That leaving right whether I don't know if they're deactivating, whether or not they're posting or spending as much time there.
Listen, she's there to solve this problem.
But the problem is is like is she really CEO right, like Elon's not sort of backing down on anything, and so time will tell, right, Like she's a pro, she has the relationships with brands, and so you know, I believe her that that is like her number one goal. I don't believe necessarily it's going to.
Happen, Landishneffer of Jelly Smack and our own Alex Birinka. I mean, thank you so much. Great conversation of the social media were still going. Meanwhile, coming up, I'm going to have plenty more regarding actually some of those content concerns. We're going to get it from over an EU. That's next because of Bloomberg Technology. Time now for talking tech.
First up, US shoppers. You spent twelve point seven billion dollars online during Amazon's forty eight hour Prime Day event, up six percent from a year ago, but short of estimates for nine and a half percent growth. According to figures from Adobe, an increasing share of customers are actually
using by now pay later services. Adobe said, look, that's indicating that shoppers are perhaps concerned more about the economy Meanwhile, open ai has lost another board member with the departure of former Texas Representative Will Hurd, who announced at the end of June that he is entering the field for twenty twenty four presidential candidates. Now Herd is the third
director to lead the chatcheeptam makers board this year. Plus well, stability ai co founder has sued the company, claiming he was tricked into selling his state so again, this just one hundred dollars months before the British alter intelligence startup hit a one billion dollar valuation. Now, the co founder said he sold his fifteen percent stake in the company to another co founder, claiming he was led to believe
that the company was essentially worthless. Meanwhile, every in Sunvalley Our own ed la Lowe has been catching up with twenty three and Me CEO and Jetsky to talk about everything from DNAD coding, to the future of health to the human genome. He also asked her about the integration of Lemonade Health after its acquisition in twenty twenty one, and about the synergies between the two companies.
Say here, listen, I have fourteen million people who have twenty three and Me, and if they have questions and they want better information about how to integrate this into their actual health care and stay healthy. We have access now to physicians who are specifically trained on genomic medicine and specifically preventative genomic medicine about how to take that result in your higher risk for chronic kidney disease, a genetic variant, about a medication and you're suffering from depression,
what's the right medication for you? All of that and I now have a clinical team who knows how to do that. And the brilliance of Lemonade is that has a pharmacy so specifically on areas like mental health where people really are struggling and finding the right kind of medication to manage it. I have a clinical team now that understands genomics, They understand pharmacogenomics, the right you know, your your genetic variant and the medication that might be best for you to start on.
As a piece of business, at a basic level, is it making money for twenty three and.
Me, yeah, Lemonade.
Lemonade when we bought it is largely focused on more of the you know, consumer areas like hair loss, a rectile dysfunction. So that's a core business and that is an excise It exists, and it's an exciting business and it's something that we see it tapped into the fact like very you know, very similar with twenty three meters is that there's a consumer component of healthcare. You see this right now with all the GLP ones and weight loss. People want to be more and more in control of
their health. So whether it's about something like a rectile dysfunction and weight loss or hair loss, or it's about you know, how do you actually stay healthier longer. There's a great synergy between those two so that business continues to do well and continue to thrive. And now we're going to be adding on really, you know, fourteen million customers from twenty three meters, how do they get access to the Lemonade services as well as Lemonade clinicians and services.
How are they better integrating genomics and is there anything that you think you could go out and buy or acquire that will further sort of increase the value proposition or just give twenty three and meters customers access to more ways to use the test that they took.
Well, the exciting aspect for me is post pandemic like so many things have come yes out of that, but people are used to tell amedicine and they frankly are more and more used to like, you're on your own on health, Like it's really people struggle at understanding payment, struggle at finding doctor's appointments. So more and more people are on their own. So there's this huge opportunity for twenty three and meters to more and more offer a you know, vertically integrated system of like, how do I
actually really help you. I have the pharmacy, I have a phenomenal team that knows like can ship right away products that you actually want. So how is it that we can really be that leader in keeping you healthy as long as possible?
Twenty three and me CEO, and we're just ski there with our own ed ludlow. So making news on Tesla tapping the ABS market calls asset backed security market for the first time since well they exited.
The world of junk territory.
Remember back in March, Moody's assigned a investment grade rating to Tesla of BAA three, joining the mice of S ANDP that had the triple B. So we see it at more than two percent as they start to tap the debt markets this time and asset fat deal worth about a billion. We understand in pre market from New York and from out there in some that.
This blomebag technology.
The EU in the US this week agreed on a new data privacy framework which will allow businesses to transfer data from the EU to the United States in a secure and compliant way. But look, the new agreement already faces the threat of legal challenges from privacy activists who are again unhappy with the level of protection offered to European citizens. Here to talk about it and more, I'm very pleased to say we're joined by DiDia Rangers, European Commissioner for Justice.
Who helped broker this deal.
And therefore, how confident are you that we're not going to see Meta and some of the other key big tech companies plunged into this sort of legal vacuum.
Again, of course, it's very important to have a legal certainty for all the participants, so the big companies not only in the US and so in Europe, to be sure that it's possible to organize so that the flaw between the European Union and the US and VI And I'm very pleased that now we have had the opportunity to take a decision in fact, considering that the protection is traveling.
With the data.
So we are sure that we have the same kind of protection in the US than in Europe about the access of the intelligence community to the personal data and concerning and sold the possible redress for the European citizens if they have some concern about the access of those agencies to their data. So it was a long, long journey with many negotiations with my counterpart in the US, but at the end we have a very good and
verbist solution. I'm sure to give again a legal certainty to all the participants.
But mister Max Scram's, of course, who's taken down previous versions of this, isn't that happy? Are you concerned that this ends up in the European top called again?
Well, it's quite normal that we have such a kind
of new discussions before the Count of Justice. But I proposed first of all to test the new US system because we will have now due to the executive order signed by the President Biden, we will have now a very specific review call and data protection review call, so a sort of administrative tribunal in the US, and it will be possible free of charge for all the open citizens to have an access to such a tribunal, so by police first to test the US system before to
have such a criticism. But if it's needed to go to the court, we will do that, and of course we will defend the new system, because I'm quite sure that it's a very robust new system, very different in comparison with the privacy shield of the safe our board that we have had before, and it was set so by the data protictional authorities in Europe. They have said
it's very robust, it's a real change. Of course, there are some remarks and we have adapt all decisions to take into account the remarks of the data protection authorities. But now we have a legal certainty, we will have the bit to work with all the companies, and of course, if it's needed, we'll defend our position before the curd of justice.
It's interesting because just last week, of course, we had a new innovative social media offering announced. We had Threads come here in the United States and in countless other countries, but not in the EU because matter feels that the privacy law isn't clear enough for them to be able to unleash Threads because of some of the data sharing between Threads and Instagram. Do you think ultimately you will be able to provide clarity companies that it doesn't stifle innovation for your citizens.
Well, we try to promote innovation, and we have a lot of things to do in Europe to promote innovation in the digital world and certainly about artificial intelligence, the cloud and other kinds of investments. Needed to do more, but we run to do that with a human centric approach. So we want to do that with a real prediction of funamental rights and heal protection of the that's the person and that of the city. And I was very pleased here in California, I'm in San Francisco to see
that we have kind of same approach. There's a sort of a legislation at the state level to protect the personal data and with an indeported authority in charge with that. So maybe one day we'll have the same system at the federal level in the US with a private cy low, but for the moment, it's only at a state level, and so it was needed to organize such an agreement with the US authorities to be sure that it's possible to transfer. But I want to insist on the fact
you mentioned a new actor. Of course, it's very important that all the participants are in full compliance with the GDPR. So the legislation in Europe about that protection. It doesn't change the GDPR. We have just changed the access of the intelligence community and the law enforcem monetorities to the data with a better protection and a better full respect of the two classical principles of necessity and proportionality. If an agency want to take over different kind of personal.
Commissioner, we've only got thirty seconds. But do you think the AI Act will get that balance right between innovation and necessary protections.
But we are working on a risk based approach, and everybody's now that there are some risks with the use of AI. I'm thinking about generative AI. It's very important to give a real transparency. So it's important that the users are knowing that it's possible to take AI as an instrument to organize a division of a new video picture or something like that. But I've seen so different
kind of risk in some sectors. In transportation system, it's very dangerous sometimes to use the new technologies, resolved safety rules and again this morning, I've seen a demonstration before Air Deparliament in California due to erection against autonomouscals. I've tried myself an autonomous car yesterday, but of course we need to put into places of regulation about the use of such a cal.
Didea Rangers so well said, we thank you for spending some time with US European Commissioner for Justice from New York. A supriy bag technology