From Bahart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
And Caroline Heider Bloomberg's World headquarters in New.
York and am Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
We will have full coverage on TikTok throughout this program. The US House it passes are built of forced bike dance to celtictok of face a.
Ban in the US, plus the European Union passes the world's most extensive AI guardrails. Will break down the impact of the AI Act and what it means for the future of artificial intelligence.
Jamarth Palahabertia's Social Capital and fires two partners after a probe citing an undisclosed situation. We'll discuss what could be behind the decision and then involves a much hyped AI startup.
The moment that the House did pass the divest or ban TikTok bill, there was a significant leg higher in both Rumble and Meta, but I put those up because the conversation will now change.
Right.
We're going to discuss whether the divest or ban TikTok bill will have success in the Senate. But we're already saying this is a foregone conclusion, and we're asking, well, who is going to benefit from a TikTok ban in the US or who is going to buy TikTok's US operations? And look at rumble it's gain over the last seven days, much of it in yesterday's session on reports that they're considering a bid or looking at options for TikTok's US operations. There's a lot to discuss, but the big step in
the House has been taken. Now we move to the Senate.
And still much potential pushback from the Senate, and notably a CEO who went there to lobby just those senators yesterday.
Let's get into it with Alex Birinko.
And Alex we understand, according to people familiar that show two was indeed looking to I'll get senators in particular.
He was I think the TikTok team saw this bill potentially flying through the House like it did today, getting that majority vote in just the past few minutes. The next hurdle for them will be the Senate Majority Leader. Chuck Schumer in the Senate has so far not said that he would take up this bill. TikTok also put out a statement today appealing to senators saying, quote, this process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason.
It's a ban.
We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy. So certainly TikTok CEO showed you who was down in DC is going to be spending his time in the Senate hoping that while this is the furthest a anti TikTok bill has gone in the US government, that it ends here.
It's not just that Chuck Schumer has not endorsed the bill, it's that there is a bigger concern here as well. And Bloomberg's reporting this idea that even on the Republican side the aisle, they look at this bill more big picture. Why do we hand these powers to the administration and give them such sort of a blanket power for censorship to make a decision on TikTok. So that's there in
the background. But I think I'm right in saying, Alex TikTok's always said that it's going to mount a legal challenge to the idea that it would have to divest or sell its US operations anyway.
Yeah, you're right. I think it was summed up pretty succinctly to our DC colleagues by Republican Senator Tom Tillis out of North Carolina, who said yesterday that he's worried about the unintended consequences of a bill like this. Now, it's been fascinating to kind of watch the battle with TikTok in DC, because Republicans writ large have been some
of the biggest agitators against TikTok. Some of that did change in the past week when we had Donald Trump himself, when he was the president who put the first executive order forward to ban TikTok, actually come out and say a few days ago, well, maybe we shouldn't do that
because it would give meta too much power. So certainly we have some rangling here over not only over whether or not this bill actually addresses concerns or if national security concerns have actually been made clear to the lawmakers, but also how much power this would give the government. This would give the executive branch in kind of ruling over the private sector.
And I'd point out that in that moment that the House passed the bill, there was a big spike in Meta. It is still lower seven tens of a ascent, but of course TikTok's user base and its platform is highly analogous with Meta's Instagram, short form video vertical. Bloomberg's Alex Brinka has done a masterful job of covering all of that. That is, that spike in Meta shares that I showed you,
but then an immediate pullback. Right. So, sources say that TikTok intends to exhaust all legal challenges before it considers any kind of divestiture from its Chinese parent company Bike Dance. AT's bringing David Glancy, Institute of World Politics, Professor and Strategy and state Craft and Annenberg Chair of International Communication for his point of view, for many, David, this was a foregone conclusion. Divest or be banned. Is it is simple in your mind?
I think from the national security community, it's a pretty simple issue. It is a potential threat to national security because of its reach, the way the software is the potential to influence, but also the close relations It is a Chinese company, and there was a report that came out just on Monday an unclassified report on threats, a threat assessment, and China was prominently featured in that. And China's activities in the last few years have been much
more aggressive. They've been working with adversaries like Russian and Iran more closely, and so I think there's real concerns and from the national security community, it should have been done probably years ago now.
Of course, we know that this has been considered for a long time in terms of the worries of Chinese influence, and TikTok itself showed Chu himself has gone to lengths to say, look, we can alleviate that Project Texas for example, and shuing the Oracle is in some way facilitating the way in which data is read or indeed not transferred to China. How much have you read into well the ability for that to ease any of your concerns.
The fact that it's a Chinese company and still has to abide by Chinese laws, which when push comes to shove, would require data transfers. The other major concern is their algorithm and the ability to potentially push influence messaging that we wouldn't be able to detect in real time. It would be really difficult to detect some of their longer term influence activities if they were to shift their algorithm for morm align purposes. And that's a real concern for the national security community.
David, one hundred and seventy million Americans use TikTok and many of them like it. Are they being represented in this process?
I think the Senate's going to have it say. I think the fact that it's been delayed for a number of years and there hasn't been action, that's a testament that they have been there's been a voice for those folks in the process.
So I think, you know, we.
Have a system of you know, laws and rules and ways to appeal, and there's a lot of different avenues for people to have their voices heard. And I think that's you know, a strength of the US you know, from the national security community at least, you know, this is serve a no brainer that the action should have happened a while ago.
You've worked in the State Department, the Defense Department. If this doesn't go through, what does that mean for China in the US.
I'm actually a little bit concerned if the Chinese government thinks that it can block policy policy action on important issues by appealing to domestic political factions or special interests. Then I think that makes a more dangerous world that may involved in the Chinese to be more aggressive, and it increases the potential for direct US China conflict in the years ahead.
We want to thank you for your time, your expertise, Institute of World Politics, Professor of Strategy in Statecraft and Annenberg Chair of International Communication.
That's David Glancy. We thank you.
Coming up more regulation, this time from the EU. It passes a landmark set of AI rules. I have all the details for you. This has been by technology. The European Union today has passed the world's most extensive rules on artificial intelligence. Now the landmark set of rules could set the tone how AI is actually governed in more broadly the Western world for more.
That's bringing Bloemberg's Jillian.
Deutsch in Brussels, and many would say that some of the lawmakers have never been lobbied as hard as they have been over this particular AI act.
What's the takeaway for companies trying to build.
That's a great question.
So right now it's a big celebratory day here in Brussels. I think last time I was speaking to you, it was after forty almost forty hours of negotiations in mid December. Fast forward three months and now we have the Parliament signing off on this act. And while it's our of celebration, we are getting lots of concerns of course from tech companies.
They've been really studying the law and bells for quite some time about overregulation, concerns that you know, the European continent will be behind because they're regulating much more ahead than their.
US cutter parts.
We also have this concerned question from European tech companies too, and startups to say, hey, we really want to compete with US hyperscalers, and you can't over regulate us. Who overregulate us, we will never have a chance to actually compete.
Okay, I'm Maestrel and I am building large language models and I'm based in Europe. Now that the act is passed, this is done, What is it that I actually actually have to do to comply?
So there are a few things.
I mean, I guess it's good to look at the use approach as a risk based approach. So for the most part, they're actually just regulating the use of the technology. Not the technology itself. So this means that in practice, the ev banning you know, the worst possibmous uses of AI, so AI systems cannot be used to you know, perform emotional recognition in workplaces or schools, cannot be used for social scoring, so giving citizens a score based on their
behavior when it comes to high risk situations. Though these are some of the more tricky ones. This is you know, AI system is being used for migration applications or starting job applications. A lot of these companies, like open AI or Mistral will have to perform a lot more checks in order to prove to regulators that are they're safe. The one exception that a lot of companies like Mistrel were really lobbying hard against were these additional controls to
general purpose or generative AI. And these are not based on the use of AB it's explicitly regulating technology itself. And in the end, what these companies will have to do is perform we're can to prove to regulators, you know, the energy consumption, prove that they are actually complying with copyright laws. And there's a new AI office that was based in Brussels and that the EU is currently setting up.
This will actually kind of operate almost like a police force where they can go to the likes of mister Open Ai, Microsoft whomever and say, hey, we want more data on how you've trained your large language model, and ultimately they can even ban an application if it's performing poorly.
Jenny and Mistral has indeed partnered with Microsoft and one expert saying that EU lawmakers they've got played in this particular situation. How why will this not be a read across to just how the rest of the world adopts AI legislation.
I think it's really interesting because last year we saw lots of these tech companies even pushing for regulation. We had Sam Moltman obviously in Congress as someone knows, pushing for regulation, and so we've had that obviously in Brussels. But while even arguing for regulation, they've also been simultaneously lobbing quite hard against them of the worst or the strictest controls that they've seen in Brussels. Mistral was a really clear cut case of that.
Last year.
They were really effective and getting the French government also. I'll if ALPHAA Germans started up really pushing these governments saying hey, if you will reregulate us, then we will not be able to compete with US companies. Now, fast forward four or five months, they were obviously a partnered with Microsoft, and so that's left a kind of a
bad taste in a lot of lawmaker's mouths. But we also have lots of other companies that are really you know, signing on for voluntary commitments, trying to prove to governments. They're taking this seriously that they're taking as many commitments as possible. But I think I think more and more leaders are starting to wake up to the tech companies may be self serving.
Huh never, Gillian Deutsch b thank you so much.
Ed.
What of your book? Coming up?
The other top tech stories that were watching in Talking Tech? First up, the Pentagon is pulling out of plans to spend as much as two point five billion dollars on a chip grant to Intel. That's according to sources. The move threatens the total amount of federal funding that Intel was expecting to receive and now puts the onus on
the Commerce Department to make up a shortfall. The funding was part of a package that allocated three point five billion dollars to Intel to produce defense and intelligence related semiconductors, plus shares of Singtel climbing the most in almost two years.
This after the Australian Finance Review reported that Singtel was in discussions to sell off carrier Optus to pe firm Brookfield for ten point six billion dollars, Singapore's largest carrier, responding to the report saying there was quote no impending deal to offload Optis for the said sum as reported. And Google is curbing its gen Ai chatbot Gemini, from responding to questions directly to the Indian general elections that's
beginning next month. This follows similar controls it's set up in the US and other countries that are holding elections this year, all in this effort to combat concerns over misinformation and conspiracies. Google meanwhile collaborating with the Election Commission of India to enable easier discovery of vital voting information with Google Search. Social Capital, the venture capital firm that's led by podcasters and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapatia, fired
two of its partners citing an undisclosed quote situation. That's according to a letter it's sent to its investors that was reviewed by Bloomberg. I want to bring in Bloomberg's Mark German, who broke this story, and actually in the last hour, Mark you've updated the story with more information, particularly about Ravi Tanuku, one of the partners terminated, because you've heard from his lawyer tell us the latest.
Yes, So, yesterday morning, Shamath, as you mentioned, former Facebook executive he's on the All In podcast, sent a letter to investors in Social Capital, you know, to say that two of their top partners, uh Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku, they were fired. They hired walk to Lifton, a big time law firm, to review and probe the situation, and after a probe, Shamath terminated both of them on Sunday. This situation in question happened last Tuesday, and in the
letter all he did was call it a situation. So there's been a lot of intrigue within Social Capital, in the investment in venture capital communities about what exactly happened here. There's been all sorts of speculation, but now we've learned this comes down to Groc. It's an AI startup that Social Capital invested in, you know, five six years ago.
In this how to do with the.
Partners being involved in offering a special purpose vehicle related to Grock to some outside investors. This happened after Grock was worth maybe sixty million a few years ago. Now it's valuation topped a billion, so special purpose vehicle related to that and all the money to be earned there. The company only said Social Capital that the two men
violated company policy, but didn't go beyond that. And we've heard from lawyers for both of the men who were terminated saying there is no wrongdoing and once they show their case, the public will know that they've done nothing wrong. And Shamath and Social Capital haven't responded to those responses.
Missus veris firing was unfair and undeserved, so says the spokesman, and the firm's leadership approved and participated in the investment that is now being used as a pretext they say to fire him ultimately, Mark, how unusual is it to get such little information such a step is taken.
How unusual is it to lose such partners from a firm?
Oh, I mean, people are fired from firms all the time, but it is pretty unusual, especially you're showing the tweet from Social Capital what they've done. There by saying employee specific circumstances and saying they have no further comments at this time, not even naming the people in initial tweet. They all they did was create a bunch of intrigue about what exactly happened. If they had come out and said initially when happened, maybe it wouldn't have been such
a significant news cycle. But they handled this poorly from the get go. And it was really a three sentence email from Tremouth to a bunch of outside investment partners that really got this going. And in that email, all he did was call it a situation. He said, if you want more information, give me a call. So lots of intrigue here, So, yes, an unusual situation.
Indeed, so Mark Social excuse me. Social Capital is basically not saying anything, giving any details, But we know this has something to do with AI starts up. Grock, just explain the basics of that.
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of speculation on what exactly that means. Right, this AI startup, their evaluation completely just went through the roof. And I guess there were some concerns from Schamath potentially about that investment and how that investment was handled, and if and how outside investors had been dragged into that. We're still trying to gather
more information on what exactly is happening here. Our hope is that the lawyers for both sides start presenting their cases to the public and perhaps send us more information about what's going on here so we can really understand. But this seems really abrupt, right having this the quot quote situation appear on Tuesday, hiring a law firm on Thursday, having both partners terminated on Sunday, and then this announcement
coming via email on Tuesday within one week. You know, this seems like something that was done very quickly, something that may have been done in a rash manner. But really we're going to need to know more information before we can really determine, you know, who's in the right and who's in the wrong here.
And indeed, we have invited Chamath Padhabat here onto the show and Social Capital to get a little bit more of that information. And I know, Mark, you have got plenty of queries out there with and we thank you so much breaking it all down, Mark German.
Thus far, Social Capital has not responded.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, Ed love Low here in San Francisco.
Karen Hide in New York.
Let's get you a quick check on these markets, because well, maybe a little bit of a soul the news after we take some profit on yesterday's games. Once again, we're off about eight ten percent when you're looking at the key benchmark that is the Nasdaq one hundred, So draw down in particular when it comes to some of the key chip names and video under pressure Micron as well, So keep an eye on those chip stocks.
I'm looking at the US.
Also, perhaps dictating the path of trade for equities is what's happening in the bond market when you see yield just pushing up a little bit on the end of the curve. In particular, we've got a thirty year auction that's coming, and well, there was a bit of lackluster demand yesterday. We could see a bit of pressure bonds yields of course go higher. Quite often we see tech stoks go lower. We're seeing bitcoin still managing to park halve its own path.
We're up more than two percent.
When you're looking at bitcoin, we're up seventy two thousand, seven and sixty one. Move on some of the individual movers when it come to the tech names, and I'm looking, as I say, at the chip stocks. These have been pushing generally on the pressure of the NASDEK. We're off by two.
Point six percent.
Tesra as well, seeing yet another day of losses, off by two point seven percent. This is we see analysts once again going negative on the stock, and I'm showing some particular companies that are outperforming though PDD Chinese names interestingly on the higher side.
No real catalyst for this.
We had some mixed reviews coming from analysts and Monday's trade with well, certain analysts saying like by the stock, Goldman saying no. But we're up another almost five percent on the day, even as we continue to digest US China tensions. And we're going go back to that TikTok story in a moment. But now let's focus in a bit on what's happening with a crypto rally. Please to be welcome, taking client CEO of Edge and Node. It's a software development company behind the graph actually an indexing
and query protocol organizing the world's open blockchain data. And last time I checked, well the crypto related to the graph is seeing about a four billion dollar market capitalization.
Take an tell us about some of the exuberants.
Is it or just natural interest that's coming into the space at the moment, given the ETFs that we saw launched, will it stay?
Is it sticky?
Absolutely?
I do think it is sticky.
Obviously, these markets are sicular, so it won't be a straight shot up. But you know, the total wealth in the world is four hundred and fifty trillion dollars and I think bitcoin will take at least ten percent of that, if not more, over the next decade or two, so a lot of room to grow. I'm looking forward to it. You know, the ETF A lot of this was unexpected.
The volumes that we've seen over one billion dollars yesterday came in inflows in just a day, So I think people are expecting tens of millions and we're averaging hundreds of millions a day.
Just a bitcoin alone, is you run your business and you build out the technology. Does it matter to you if bitcoin is it's seventy two thousand US dollars part tooken or eighty thousand US dollars pertoken.
It doesn't.
I don't really pay attention to your price.
We're here building.
We've been through many bear markets, many ball markets, but it is exciting to see more people getting involved in this ecosystem, and crypto is definitely here. To say, the number of Americans holding crypto is only growing, and so I'm excited to see that continue.
One question we've not asked as much recently is whether the kind of negative overhang around your industry has gone away. You know, we talked about how twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three there was a bit of a black eye, a lot of it stemming from the collapse of FTX and what happened with Sam bankman Free. Now we're focused on the trading activity of bitcoin, the authorization of spot bitcoin ETF. Is this one feel good in your world at the moment?
I would say, you know, I think that it's important
that we learn from the lessons the past. When you look at things like ATTX and the recent implosions or the more recent implosions, a lot of that was when it comes to centralized tech on top of these decentralized ecosystems, and so it's really important that when you're thinking about crypto, especially in a world of an ETF that you're self custodying that crypto, because then you have true ownership over your assets, and it's really difficult to get that without self custudying your assets.
The irony being, of course, with the introduction of ETFs, we're seeing a broader surge of people able to benefit from the gains or indeed just brought a volatility of bitcoin without having to go through the rigmarole of self custodying. Tell us a little bit therefore, about the underlying technology, what you're building, and ultimately whether any of this will
be more than speculation. What is it that the infrastructure that's necessary now to actually be real rails, be real alternative to normal finance.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So it's easy to kind of look at the screen and see these tokens and the trading volume and all of that, but when you look underneath the hood, a lot of these ecosystems, there's an ecosystem underneath, there's a thriving community of builders and individuals that are participating in these protocols. So when it comes to the graph, we're organizing data. We're ensuring that data on the Internet isn't corruptible.
And last quarter alone we saw a nine hundred and fifty million queries, so almost a billion queries, and that's you can think of that like a search. So Web three use Web three usage is at an all time high, and I think that's only going to continue. And when you look at crypto, you want to think about Web three, and you want to think about monetary policy. Bitcoin has very much proven monetary policy and Web three is something that we are currently building to decentralize the Internet.
How global does that end up being?
Where are the investors, the builders, the querias to your sort of Google of Web three coming from?
Great question?
Yeah, so it is global. So there's a community of indexers they're called, which are like nodes, they're almost Google like companies, but they're all individual and they're located all around the world over on many different continents, and so this is very much a global movement and I think it's important that we remember that here in America. And I know London is thinking of an eight etn that is physically bad, and with that, we don't in America.
We don't want London to beat us to it. So I'm looking forward to the ethetfter coming soon.
You fine, Ceo, Oh, I'm sorry, Caroline, entirely my fault ed taking clients co of g and what I was going to say someone that came from the world of sort of traditional finance London, Wall Street and now in the world of web three. Let's get another story. Hive Mind Capital Partners is trying to bank on the latest crypto renaissance by betting on an NFT comeback. The firm is seeking to raise at least fifty million dollars for
a fund dedicated to digital art and blockchain. This after the firm already acquired prized NFTs from the portfolio Starry Night Capital, an NFT fund launched by the graced founders of bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. A lot going on in that world, more stories to come.
Meanwhile, we've got to get back to the top story when it comes to us to policy, to regulation, all things TikTok. We're going to be bringing on a Republican representative. They're from Georgia. Bunny Carter joins us. Next, this is Bloomberg Technology.
This plainly is a conduct law, meaning we're acting because of the demonstrated malign national security threat of TikTok, not because of the content of anybody's speech. And the bill is narrowly tailored, which is key for First Amendment analysis because it simply requires investment. Meaning the millions of Americans that love TikTok. I'm not one of them, but they can continue to use the application, but just in a more secure way.
That was FCC commission a Brendan Cobb before the House passed the bill that could lead to a sale or ban of TikTok in the United States. That's bringing bloombergs Dan Flatley out in DC. The House is expected past the bill. It now goes to the Senate. The summit's a foregone conclusion, but there is still some politicking to do on this in the Senate. Dan, yeah, absolutely.
You know, I'm standing here on the Senate side of the Capitol just having come over from the House where there was a big vote three point fifty two to sixty five in favor of doing this, this devestment or ban measure on TikTok. The question now, of course, is
what happens over here in the Senate. You know, we've gotten a little bit of an inkling over the last hour or so statement from the Intel Committee chairman and vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, Republican, saying they were encouraged by the House vote, they want to see this passed in the Senate, and then a statement from Senate Leader Schumer basically saying we're just we're going to look at it. So he hasn't committed to
anything yet. The question is what's the path forward. There's interest here, but we don't have a clear path yet.
Okay, thus far, at the moment, is there a feeling that this could become a reality.
We already know that. We'll show you.
The CEO of TikTok has been not there already having closed door meetings with senators. But also they're galvanizing. They use a base right now you go on the TikTok app and they're wanting you to get in touch with your lawmakers.
Yeah, certainly a lot of lobbying and advocacy left to be done. I actually met with a couple of TikTok influencers here yesterday at the Capital who were talking to members. You know, what I've heard in the background from advisors and staffers here in the Senate is that let's see what the House does let's see what the House vote looks like. Obviously, we got a big positive signal for the sale or ban from the House today, so that could influence things. You know, there's a receptive audience in
the White House. President Joe Biden has said that he would sign this if Congress passes it. So you sort of have two of the three elements that you would need in order to get this into law. But the Senate does tend to work its own will on these kinds of things and to take its time, so that's still an open question. Obviously, TikTok is focusing its efforts on lobbying on the Senate, where they think that they can slow things down potentially.
We just showed some of what TikTok responded to the outcome of the House vote, and we have a sure we will say it again, but they basically said the process was done in secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason. It's a ban, but on paper it's not a ban. It's a divest or ban bill. Is there any chatter about the process for a third party to come in and buy TikTok's US operations?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you talk to a lot of members who opposed the House bill, and they say, this just came together too fast.
You know, we have concerns. But six months.
First of all, the bill came together to the House floor too fast, and then six months is not enough time to effectuate a sale.
It just takes too long to do something like that.
I've heard chatter about various groups coming forward and maybe potentially being interested, but there's no obvious purchaser for this.
Companies have tried it in the past.
What there was a consortium between Walmart and Oracle and some others a few years ago that tried to buy it. It didn't happen. The company is much more valuable now. The company has said TikTok has said that it's going to fight this in the courts. So even if this were to get through Congress and be signed into law by the President, there's still going to be legal challenges, and whether they could get a sale done in six months is a very much an.
Open question, absolutely impending questions still to be asked. We thank you so much, and let's ask a few more. Please to have someone fresh from voting on the Hill. Republican Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia, and in fact, you're a co sponsor of the bill, and I'm interested therefore with your perspective here with it passing through the House. But former President Trump said saying he actually is sort
of backtracking. Having originally been the first one with an executive order against TikTok, he now thinks if you pull away at TikTok, it makes other rivals more strong. Certainly matter for example, are you still standing by the view that TikTok should be bandle soold?
Well, let's make sure we understand now, we're not talking about banning TikTok.
This is up to TikTok.
This is up to by dance.
They make the decision on whether they wanted to go away or whether they want to divest themselves of the ownership of this. This is two questions here. First of all, this is a question about you know, is it going to be banned? No, they have to divest themselves. That's a question that only they can answer. The second question is us in Congress, that's in the House and in the Senate, and that is this is about national security. Now,
are we going to take national security seriously? The number one responsibility of the federal government is to protect our homeland and protect our citizens. We have to take it seriously, and it is about national security.
Congressman, thank you for your time this morning. Project Texas was the plan whereby the US user data of the TikTok app would be housed in data centers on shore here in the United States owned and operated by Oracle. Were you not convinced of that plan such that you co sponsored this bill? Why did that not work?
No, it doesn't matter where they are based. If it's owned by the Chinese Communist Party, that's the problem, and that's the responsibility of Congress. That's our responsibility to guard against these kind of national security issues. That's why we acted on this. And you know, I would beg to differ with some of my colleagues who are saying, oh,
this was too Russia distitute. Right, We've been talking about this for a long time now, and remember TikTok has been banned on government fund for some time now, so this is not anything new. And again it's this is not a band. We're just saying that Bike Dance, the parent company of TikTok that is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, they must divest themselves with this, and the bill specifically says adversarial countries.
I mean, we're not talking, we're not Congressman. Congressman, I'm sorry to interrupt you. But there is a choice on bike dance and TikTok side as well. It's a divest or ban, and Bloomberg's reported that TikTok will exhaust its legal options to avoid a sale or a divestiture. There is one hundred and seventy million Americans who love using TikTok. What do you think is fair in the case where tichtok just says we're going to dig in here, we will not sell to a third party.
Well, if they're not going to sell to a third party and they're going to continue to be used by the Chinese Communist Party, then I think that we have to step in and we have to say no, you're not going to be allowed here. You know that American apps are not allowed in China. I hope everybody realizes that. And you know that the content of TikTok in China is different than the content of TikTok here in America. You know, we're not just talking about dancing dancing people
or cats or being on TikTok. We're talking about the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to get your data, to actually use biometrics against you, and that's something that we have the responsibility in Congress of guarding against. If we don't do this, then we're being there responsible in Congress.
What's interesting is if indeed Bye Dance is sold, that impacts those that have invested in Byte Dance. The parent of TikTok one is actually well a billionaire JP Megadona, Jeffy Ass being one of them, fifteen billion dollars riding on his investment. Of course, he made his fortune with Suskahanna International Group. How are you talking to some of the people who have a lot of money on the line when it comes to their investment.
In TikTok Again, they know if they don't want to lose their money, and I certainly don't blame I wouldn't want to lose my money either, But a divestre means that they're not going to lose their money. It just means that it's not going to be OneD by the Chinese Communist Party. And when you take the chance of investing in something that is OneD by the Chinese Communist Party. Then those are the chances you're taking.
Have you spoken to Jeffias out of interest?
No, I have not.
All Right, Republican Representative of Georgia, Buddy Carter, we appreciate you joining us. Almost immediately after the outcome of that House vote. Venture capitalist Mark Farrell, a leading contender for San Francisco, Mayer and veiled a pack of proposals that include providing more money to the police and restricting access to public parks as he hosts to boost public safety, revite it out liesing downtown SF, and revamping the city's image.
But we also talked about technology and what he'll do to incentivize the industry. Have a listen.
I'm fortunate to already have support from diverse communities across San Francisco, in every single neighborhood, every single economic makeup of a family, every single business that you could imagine, and career that you can imagine. So I believe my
private sector background matters. And you asked that question before, in particular over the next four years when we have a projected billion and a half dollar budget deficit in the City of San Francisco, having a mayor who has actually read a p and l knows what a balance sheet it looks like, and has been in that sector for over twenty years. Matters to the City of San Francisco.
We cannot afford to have somebody come in and learn on the job, or we can't afford for more years of the same administration where you're simply listening to other people tell you where to put your dollars. We need a mayor who's going to lead on the budget and be strong with hither or her priorities. And that's what I offer San Francisco.
Okay, so let's talk about technology. Technology is a business. As a taxpayer in this city, how are you going to approach the biggest employers, the employees also of a lot of people that live in this city but might commute outwards to Silicon Valley. You will what San.
Francisco will have in me next year as mayor. It's finally a mayor that once again addresses and actively engages with our business community. Technologies have been a big part of it here in San Francisco. Quite frankly, for the past ten plus years, we've been over indexed to the technology sector here in San Francisco and we need to make sure we actively court that industry to come back to the city of San Francisco, because technology companies have
left in droves. But I also believe it's the impetus of the next mayor to diversify a downtown economy once again, focus on hospitality, once again, focus on residential.
My conversation with Mark Farrell Karr, and he was somebody who was interim mayor in twenty eighteen after the death of Ed Lee. He was late to the race, but you look at how quickly he's raising funds to catch up and where the funds are coming from. And that's the technology story for me.
I mean, you've deep doven so to diven You've deep dived so much into areas and pockets of growth in particular rejuvenation that AI in particular is brought at the area Cerebral Valley, for example, your documentary of late. I mean, this is someone who's got to be seeing the opportunities as well as some of the things he still wants to be fixing.
He wants to offer tax incentives to tech companies that make in office mandatory and also the scrap in office cafeteria so they go spend in the local economy, so he recognizes the AI boom that's happening. But I don't know how popular mandatory in office is going to be in this city. It's hard to call.
It's getting a little bit more popular coming from some of the C suite levels though of late. Meanwhile, talking a C suite, we know that one person has been busy, and of course show to the CEO of TikTok has been busy on the hill talking to senators. We understand as we look to potentially a ban or divestment of TikTok from byte Dance being pushed through by the House. It really did sail through that vote earlier today. The
question mark is what happens with the Senate. And we just heard from one key lawmaker there.
Yeah, and his point that really stuck out to me was well, if TikTok chooses not to divest, we'll make them. Yeah, but this was supposed to be a divest all band bill.
And look, this is very deja vus.
This was happening in prior administration, with a prior decision and push to have them divest and or people being lined up then and Oracle was one of them, and the oracle became, well, the data answer. That doesn't seem to be living up to many hopes right now for some of those lawmakers. That does it for this addition of Blueback technology, What a big one we had.
Yeah and in some ways a historic show. Recap everything that was to say on the podcast, ron Apples, Spotify, iHeart, and so many of you are listening to the podcast on a daily basis on the Bloomberg platforms. Thank you so much from San Francisco and New York City. This is Bloomberg Technology.