Micron Plans $200 Billion US Chip Spend, Chime IPO
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Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Lovelow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Micron boosts its commitment to invest in new memory chip capacity and R&D in the USA. Plus, we stay across the evolving story of the Boeing Dreamliner crash in India that leaves over 200 dead.

And fintech firm Chime prices its IPO above its targeted range to raise $864 million. But first, we check in on these markets. And look, there is cautious trading as we digest yet another point showing that inflationary pressure is not as high as expected. PPI numbers come in. Can the Fed raise not once, well, cut not once, but twice this year for 2025? That's what the market price is in. The bond market pushes forward and so too do stocks drop.

three tenths of a cent on the Nasdaq. Some big players in the chip space on the higher side like NVIDIA, but you're digging into a key chip company, Ed. Yep, that's right, Caroline. I'm looking at Micron, America's biggest memory chip maker, boosting a commitment to invest in new capacity and R&D in the USA. The company is investing an additional $30 billion beyond previous plans for a new memory chip plant at its home, Boise, Idaho, to modernize its Virginia facilities and build a mega fab.

in New York. It's now committing $200 billion total to U.S. manufacturing and research projects. The previous pledge, $125 billion. Here's the Bloomberg Intelligence react. Micron's large-scale U.S. investments will likely span over several decades, given the company's focus on cash generation and potential investor concerns over excess capital spending. This strategically aligns with the Trump administration. Jake Silverman, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst on that research.

joins us now. Jake, net new investment $30 billion. What is your reaction to this morning's news?

Yeah, I mean, we think this is pretty much just a continuation of the strategy to bring domestic spending and drive capacity within the United States. So this is just a continuation of that R&D CapEx as well. Let's just talk about the R&D side of it because they're promising 90,000 jobs, whether that's indirect or direct. But where does the R&D need to go? Because we know they're focusing in particular on high bandwidth memory, but that seems to be more on the manufacturing side.

Yeah, well, look, I mean, there's continual R&D both in terms of traditional memory for both DRAM and NAND, but there's continual R&D both for high bandwidth memory as well. I mean, we've seen the stack sizes increase from 8 to 12. HBM4 is expected to come out next year. The standards have already been announced. And beyond that, we'll expect to continue to see HBM4E, potentially HBM5, and so on.

Let's go back to basics real quick, Jake. High bandwidth memory is just stacked DRAM for every high performance GPU or AI accelerator card. There's a corresponding eight or 16 high bandwidth chips in that server tray. Why is Micron an important player in this space? Yeah, well, so right now, HBM is actually there. There is supply constraints.

SK Hynix is the leader. They are still struggling to meet the demand for NVIDIA's GPUs as well as hyperscaler ASICs. And so, Micron has also stepped up to the plate and is offering their solutions as well. And they're starting to gain share. Samsung has had their own issues. And so,

Without really Samsung to plug some of those gaps, Micron is an important supplier of HBM. All of our stories today really signal that there is still a lack of supply when it comes to the generative AI trade, rather than there being any questioning of demand, Jake. But I wonder where the money is ultimately coming from. Yes, they've put this glorious $200 billion figure out. Only $30 billion seems to be new, but they've got to pay for it, right?

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

they still need to invest in capacity. So in order to increase that capacity, they're going to have to spend money. And if they want to do that in the United States, they'll commit some of that capital here. Jake, great analysis. Bloomberg Intelligence, Jake Silverman there. Let's bring you the investor analysis now. Nancy Tengler, Laffer Tengler, investment CEO and CIO. All of this, Oracle's numbers, which we'll get into later in the show, the fact that we're seeing a commitment in terms of money and investment coming from Micron, it all signals supply is needed. They can't build it fast enough.

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

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

Nancy, this is the promote side of the White House's promote and protect policy when it comes to the American technology stack. It was really interesting earlier today in London, Rene Haas, the arm CEO, weighed in on this protect portion. Just listen to what he had to say.

If you narrow access to technology and you force other ecosystems to grow up, it's not good. It makes the pie smaller, if you will. And frankly, it's not very good for consumers.

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

Yeah, I share the concern that the administration is trying to apply a kind of industrial policy or protectionism to the distribution of this technology. I think in some regards, Ed, it's prudent, but generally speaking, the U.S. has innovated around every problem for decades and decades. So I would rather see competition allow the ecosystem to grow and then find ways to limit competition

the Chinese impact. And so I'm more in agreement with, yes, with that policy of promote and protect. I think that's what you said, but certainly the protect part. Oracle's obligations, its backlog, it's kind of astonishing, actually. The story's really changed for that company. Just give me a bit more on the thesis. I was really interested in how you're positioning with Oracle, but also, like, did something change last night? Like, did they jump to a different level?

They did, for sure. I think they've disappointed the last two quarters. I've owned the stock for 40 years, if you can imagine. I think my average cost is $2. I know. But again, it's always been a better company when Larry Ellison is engaged. I don't know if you heard the recent, he's writing code. Now, he is in his 80s, but if money can buy longevity, I think this is the guy that can do it. And so I think what you're seeing is that the focus that they've had

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

of the business. So, because that is a problem. I mean, we should be applying AI not just to pharmaceutical development, but care. And so I think there's a lot of moving parts that are now coming together, coming to fruition, and you're seeing it in the backlog, you're seeing it in their enthusiasm. And that to me is, you know, reason to continue to hold the stock. Plus the dividend growth is like 10 to 12% annually. So you're getting paid to enjoy the rides.

Larry, though, really speaking to the fact that there's still supply constraint. I want to go back to supply constraints and to do with China. At the moment, we are so focused on rare earths at the moment, the minerals, the metals and the fact that they come from China. I just want to pivot to Tesla. And really, this affects the humanoid robot side of the equation. It also affects EVs broadly. How much are you focusing on Tesla and the fact that we're starting to make inroads in the China-U.S. relationship a bit?

Yeah, I think that's provided a release valve on the stock. You know, the last time I was on with you, we had the high school girlfriend spat. I don't know what you call it, bromance spat between the president and between Elon. And the stock has come back from that. One of the times when I was at one of the factories, you know, they talked about

the need not to be vertically integrated. And I think that has changed somewhat. So I do think that, you know, we do need to get this resolved. We do need to open up regulations. You know, there was a cobalt plant that was 10 years in the regulatory nightmare of trying to come to fruition. And then they finally just walked away from it, not Tesla, but the company that was trying to do it. So we've got to be better at also harvesting opportunities

are rare earths. And so I do think it is good news at the margin. But everything about Tesla right now is robo taxi. So I think that's investors are paying attention to Nancy. Two weeks ago, I reported that Tesla was targeting internally June 12th to launch robo taxi in Austin. Then Elon Musk posted an exit would be June 22nd. But they have in the interim ramped up driverless testing in Austin.

It was just a date, but it moved the needle for many people. Why is that date so significant as somebody that backs the RoboTaxi thesis? Yeah, because you wonder if there's something behind the scenes that's going on. You know, there was a recent video of the 2023 accident. It just gives people time to think about it and consider other options. But

As you point out, and you've been right on this, Ed, all the way through. If you, if you point it, as you point out that the cars have been driving, you know, I live in Phoenix half the year. The Waymos are everywhere. It's, it's commonplace to us. It's not scary. So I think, I think if any company can do it, it's this company. And if you look at Tesla on a cost per mile, their costs are like 30 to 40% below Waymo. So once they get out there and we start to see the compounding, uh,

I think that's going to be the driver of revenue growth. And I may not be in Cathie Wood's $958 billion a year camp, but I do think the $98 billion in revenues that you're seeing mostly driven by EV sales is going to shift. And we're going to see significant growth in ride hailing from robo-taxi.

I just want a quick question on IP. It's an interesting story coming from Dana Hull today that Tesla is actually suing a former engineer regarding Optimus in particular. How much does Optimus factor into the future? How much do we want to ensure that that IP remains safely within Tesla's hands? Yeah, Caroline, I think it's one of the...

I think it's one of the most significant elements of Tesla. They are planning to have thousands of Optimus robots on their own factory floors. If you believe that the BLS numbers that we have 450,000 manufacturing jobs that have gone unfilled, robots are the solution. So we need to protect that IP and they need to be focused on producing robots. You know, Elon has famously said the robots will make the robots. That that's

That would be fantastic. And that's really what we need to see, because if we're moving manufacturing back to the U.S., we need to have the ability to fill those jobs if we're not going to fill them with people. Nancy Tangler, Laffer Tangler Investment CEO and CIO. Thank you very much. Coming up, Boeing's Dreamliner aircraft was involved in the worst commercial airline crash since 2014. We have the details next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

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Chime. It is set to make its trading debut after raising over $864 million in its IPO. Shares indicated to jump when they open. CEO Chris Britt joins us now for more. How do you feel, Chris? We could see a 66% pop in the shares. Wow. I feel great. Today is such a momentous day for all of us here at Chime. We're so grateful to our members who rely on us for their everyday banking. And I'm just incredibly grateful for this team around me that has built this

a business that we really see as ushering in a new era for banking and one that's aligned with the best interests of everyday members. Chris, we made a lot on the show over the years of the kind of the down rounds, the valuation of where you went public, the timing of it. Could you just reflect on that a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, look, we don't focus on short-term fluctuation of the stock, even if it goes up today. I'm sure there's going to be other days that won't be as great. So we remain focused on the long term, and that is being a company that's member-obsessed and focused on solving the most important needs of everyday consumers that we serve. So I think today's going to be a pretty exciting day. You've got 8 million-plus of those consumers, Chris.

How do you increase your own revenue in the scale of the business? Is it more products serving them? Is it more people coming in? Yeah, we see multiple ways to grow. First of all, in Q1, we grew our active member base by over 23%. So that's increasing year over year. And at the same time, we continue to look for opportunities to offer new products that drive product attach.

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

Chris, we love to read the risk factors section of the prospectus. I do it all the time. How real are those risk factors for you, specifically on interchange fees and how you're thinking about it? Oh, we, you know, I guess, you know, I'm sure there's lots of risks that the attorneys put into the prospectus. We get questions about interchange all the time. We really like this model of prospectus.

of relying primarily on payments driven revenue. That's about 72% of our revenue comes from payments. And what we like about it is it's aligned with the best interests of our members. We have to earn our position as the top of wallet card every day and we do it to the tune of about

Our average customer does about 54 transactions a month, so they're incredibly engaged. And when you couple that with a digital-first, low-cost structure, that allows us to develop very healthy, profitable relationships with this interchange-driven business model. The reality is that our model has allowed us to offer fee-free banking to millions of consumers who otherwise would be paying hundreds of dollars a year to have a bank account.

You're able to be cheaper because of AI. I'm interested quickly though, regulatory risks that those interchange fees go smaller, particularly if you become bigger. Well, you know, we have a balanced set of revenue in the payments area. We have a debit card payments volume. We also have a secured credit card that's actually growing at a faster clip than debit. So we think we're very well balanced and given the love and engagement we have, there's no shortage of opportunities for us to offer new products and services over time.

All right. Chris Britt, Chime CEO. We're waiting for the start of trade, but indicating a big jump at the open. Thank you very much for joining us on Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York. And I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is what we're watching in the markets. Earlier in the show, we brought you details of the Air India crash, a Boeing 787 that has crashed in India. It was bound for London and 200 people are isolated.

either assumed dead, missing. It was a fatal crash, the worst in many years. As we explained earlier in the program, there's a lot that we do not know about that incident. It is clearly having an impact on Boeing's stock, but when we get more details, we'll bring them to you. In the technology sector, Oracle and Oracle's earnings are really what's a driver in this market right now. The projection is top line growth of 70, 70% within this fiscal year, but the

backlog of business obligations, performance obligations is about 138 billion. You have names like XAI as a customer. They're involved in the Stargate project with OpenAI. Stock's up 14%. It's touched a fresh record high. And it's really what's driving at least the very technology-focused indexes in the here and now. Let's get more on those results and bring in Bloomberg's Brody Ford. And Brody, you've had a really interesting time of late covering this company. But

The numbers were really big, particularly after two quarters prior to this, where investors were left really disappointed.

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

Of course, most of that is still looking out. I mean, you know, you listen to executives on the call and they say, open AI Stargate. We're still forming it. We're still getting our hands around it. But it's pretty clear that demand is coming in. Boy, didn't Larry Ellison articulate that? He said they've got one particular order that basically says, I want all of it, all of the capacity you bring, whether it's in Europe, whether it's in Asia, I want to take it. But therefore, what are the supply chain headaches, the bottlenecks that they now confront?

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

Brodie Ford, as always, we thank you on all things Oracle. Now let's turn back to Chime Financial. It's the company that's set to make its IPO debut, pricing well above the marketed range already and we're waiting for trading. Remember, they raised $864 million. Just heard from the CEO, Chris Britt. We're now joined by one of the key backers, Sean Carlin, Menlo Venture Partner, who joins us now.

How did you see the effectiveness of QIIME when you first were given a potential pitch on the dot, you were early in, what drew you to it? There's a lot to love. You know, we always look for companies that have incredible missions and in the case of QIIME, right, like,

uniting everyday people to unlock financial progress. Instead of penalizing people with your bank, do them a favor. I heard one of the people say, time only gets paid when you swipe and not when you stumble. A mission like that that just helps everybody is fantastic to back.

but you also need an incredible team. I mean, you talked to Chris earlier today, just what a great leader, team builder, visionary, his co-founder Ryan King, exceptional technologist, and they've just built great

executive management team across the board. And then of course you need a good business model. And I saw some questions earlier on the interchange and otherwise, but you kind of see like, okay, we'll just keep stacking these people every year. New people show up, they connect their direct deposit account. So they're very sticky customers. Chime has got tons of features that are just friendly for them. So they stay and they love it. It's the most beloved bank in the US right now. So

There's a lot to love. There's a lot to love, perhaps too loved back in 2021. A lot of companies were too loved. They got given too high evaluations and then it's been difficult selling and pricing an IPO into that. How's it feel when you're going to see the stock potentially wallop up almost two thirds, but it is still a down round?

I blame the financial markets, not the companies in that particular case. Would you blame the VCs, the people who are pricing to that financial market? You just have to play the game as it's played. Our job is to invest limited partner capital. We try to pace it over time so we don't buy everything at the peak. But you just never know when peaks and troughs are going to happen. What you can do is make sure you're investing in just really great companies.

And you keep an eye on the prize. I've been on the board for seven years now. Menlo has been invested. China's been around for 13 years. They're just, they're the second inning of the baseball game right now getting started. So there's still plenty to do. - Sean, it's great to have you on the show. I asked what happens next, right? You just outlined the history. Do you hold the public shares or is this just a really celebratory liquidity event for the firm and for its LPs?

Yeah, we're just so grateful to, you know, have been welcomed to be part of this mission and to see this team act and, you know, try to help in little ways that we can, but they're doing all the hard work.

But I think it's a really happy occasion, of course, for ourselves. And we're investing pension funds and other funds like that. And everybody gets to celebrate when a great company does something fantastic in the world, and especially a company like Chime that has so many happy customers.

So, you know, the rest is all noise and we'll make decisions as they go. But, you know, eventually we need to get those shares out to our unlimited partners, but not going to speculate on when that might be. Sean, are you surprised or supportive of the timing of this listing? I was very supportive, I think.

you know, in some ways people are like, "Oh, the IPO market's open," or "The IPO market's closed." If you're an exceptional company and, you know, you look at Chime's numbers, they did $500 million plus in Q1, you know, became profitable, 8.6 million members, right? Like, this is just a... It's just a strong company and it's being run well and there's plenty more work to do. And so, yeah, you just go along for the ride. What's interesting now is

The market is pretty toppy once again. That's perhaps what's driving the timing of the IPO. We've got the NASDAQ not quite at record highs, but certainly the S&P 500 is very close to it.

How are things getting priced now? Are you seeing discipline amongst your community when you're looking for the next Chime, the next success? Yeah, that's a great question. It really depends on the sector. So if, you know, Chime isn't necessarily an AI company, so that's a normal company that's doing great stuff, but those are being priced, I'd say, rationally.

The AI companies right now are, there's kind of a fever feeding frenzy. We've been very active in that sector, you know, companies like Anthropic and many others. And so those tend to be like, you know, unlike in public markets where everybody's buying and selling, in private markets, you really just need one lead investor to price it. So there's a little bit of, okay, you know, I want to win, you want to win, and people bid it up.

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

Boy, it's never just one thing, but I know we're on air, so I need to keep it shorter than all the reasons why I can tell you they were successful. But above all, I think of customer obsession as the Amazon term, but Chime really embodies that. They've always spent time with their customers figuring out what are their actual needs, not perceived needs, and always have been launching feature after feature, which I

serves those interests, right? So they serve everyday Americans that make under 100K, like, you know, you need liquidity. You got to have access to your paycheck earlier, or it's helpful to have access to your paycheck earlier. It's nice to get paid two days early. It's nice to not get fees when you get overdraft. So just by just continuing to listen to that very closely, not, you know, getting worried about other things aside from making happy customers is what builds great companies. Sean Carlin of Menlo Ventures. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

As Warner Brothers Discovery announces plans to split the company in two, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters says streaming and on-demand services are dominating the media landscape. And WBD's decision signals a next stage of that market. He sat down with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwaite at the Founders Forum Global Conference.

Everything is moving to streaming, everything is moving to on-demand. It's very clear that consumers want that. Then they have to rationalize their business for that reality, and we're definitely seeing the results of that. And I think these are inevitable long-predicted, long-forecasted changes. So there's going to be a period of shakeout and transition associated with that. I'd say I feel we were lucky, I would say, in the fact that we came into this new ecosystem

starting with the new model so we don't actually have some of the complexities or difficulties of having to navigate through the transition because we've got a legacy business model. So that just makes it a little bit easier for us.

Do you expect to see mergers between these legacy players? I think that there's an inevitable logic to that. And then you get to, you know, every merger is a unique opportunity and sometimes it presents interesting complexities. There's regulatory complexities that often...

are the case and then there's you know the two companies have got to decide it makes sense you know for them to go do it and there's lots of you know I should note that the track record around doing these large media mergers is maybe not amazing there's some good examples out there but there's some not necessarily great ones and so you know I think you know folks want to think long and hard about whether or not they're in a position to do it well so Netflix would

likely not to be a player in buying some of these things? You know, I think we have an obligation to explore all of the opportunities that are in front of us, so it's our responsibility. And then reject them. It's our responsibility to do good due diligence, but then also to have a cold, you know, hard, disciplined look at, you know, do we think we could do this well? And I would just say, like, our track record is we're builders, we're not buyers. John Micklethwaite, alongside the Netflix co-CEO, Greg Peters. ♪

♪

Nominal, a startup whose software tests hardware for space, energy, and defense companies, has raised a $75 million Series B funding round just a year after emerging from stealth. Its programs analyze machines' data, find anomalies, and ensure hardware is mission-ready. Nominal CEO Cameron McCord joins us in the studio. It's so interesting because Sequoia led this round, but you also have Founders Fund, Lux, General Catalyst, all firms that are looking at the national security, national interest issues

portion of hardware, right? And we kind of joked off camera, but when I read about Nominal, I thought immediately about like Mission Impossible 7, the submarine, the AI breaking free of the hardware. The point is that you need to raise these funds to do what for mission critical pieces of infrastructure?

Yeah, it's great to be here, Ed. Our vision and our mission at Nominal is to redefine the way that hardware is tested. And so we're living in a moment right now where we believe software is colliding with the physical world in a way that we've never seen before.

So these hardware systems are generating more data than they ever have previously at an exponential rate. You mentioned reindustrialization. The top line is sort of massively increasing as we look to build more and more hardware, certainly within the United States and globally.

One big trend we notice is the timeline that hardware is being developed on is massively shrinking. And all of that is an amazing headwind for, excuse me, tailwind for Nominal. We're raising these funds for three main reasons. The first is to continue to serve our larger and larger enterprise customers. We're very lucky to be serving some of the largest hardware developers in the world right now. And we're going to continue that.

The second is we believe to win big in this software for hardware world requires multiple products. And so we are investing in more products to meet customer demand. And we're going to be growing our team aggressively. I didn't mean the submarine reference flippantly. You know, you're a former submarine officer, engineer, engineer.

what prompted you to try and crack this problem? - Yeah, thank you, Ed. I spent the first eight years of my career as a nuclear submarine officer. I've spent more than a year underwater. I have operated with mission critical technology where it counts the most, and I've seen where it works well and frankly where it doesn't.

And the reality is, in today's world, it is very easy to test and deploy modern software. That same luxury does not exist for hardware, and that is our mission. To give a perspective on the national security angle, the largest tester and validator of hardware in the entire world is the Department of Defense. They're one of the largest customers for nominal. For perspective, there's

It's billions of dollars that get spent on testing and evaluating these mission-critical hardware systems. And the Air Force Test Center, an area where Nominal works, employs just within the Air Force over 30,000 people. All of their jobs, both uniform and civilian, is testing hardware.

Cameron, you've not only been a submarine officer, but you've also been a congressional liaison. So what is the relationship? How direct is the relationship between you and members of Congress, but more broadly, the actual agencies and indeed the Department of Defense?

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

modernizing technology. Two big trends come to mind there. Given the sort of national security backdrop of a conflict in Ukraine and rising tension with the People's Republic of China,

We're trying to build and validate hardware systems, weapon systems faster than we ever have before. A decade is something we want to accomplish now in months, which requires testing, testing faster. And then these systems are all autonomous. They're all attributable. They're all software defined. I mean, briefly, the latest headline out of ABC is Israel is mulling military action against Iran. I'm interested, Cameron, on your global presence. Europe's beefing up defense, too.

Absolutely. We already are serving international customers and a big part of this fundraise, and I think Sequoia's excitement is that this is certainly not just a U.S. domestic opportunity. This is a global problem. We're happy and we're excited to be moving more into

the EU, as well as places like Australia and Japan, where they're testing and validating these systems just as much as the US is. Cameron McCord, CEO and co-founder of Nominal. Great to have you on. Thank you. Coming up, cuts to NASA's science budget. Well, they could threaten US space supremacy and be an opening for the private sector. That's next. This is Greenberg Tech. We have an enormous ocean lurking beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's...

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Shares of space and defense tech firm Voyager ended their debut trading day up 82% yesterday after the company raised $383 million in an upsized US IPO. The company's been focusing on expanding, including through a deal with SpaceX. Voyager CEO Dylan Taylor joined Bloomberg yesterday and weighed in on the competition in space.

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

It's perhaps a bit more collaborative than other industries. And really, everyone's rooting for everyone else. And I mean that sincerely because it's important that we get replacements up there prior to the International Space Station being decommissioned. While private space companies are commanding investors' attention, NASA's dominance in space science faces an uncertain future. President Trump's spending agenda calls for reducing the agency's science budget by roughly half.

Rimo Slorengras joins us now. Look, many would say NASA needs to be going for the moonshots, to use a better pun, but they should be going for extraordinary exploration. They perhaps shouldn't be funding, well, testing of, well, certain private companies, engines. They shouldn't be actually beefing up in terms of managers. They'd be stripping layers. But is this going to the moonshots too?

Well, I think that's kind of the question of the moment right now. There's this fundamental tension of what NASA is supposed to be. For years, for decades, the agency has really been at the forefront of technology innovation, developing the hardware that we launch and then send to space, even deep space.

and now as the private sector has taken on more of those capabilities, NASA has started to transition more into something of an incubator for the commercial space industry. But one thing that it always kind of stood at the vanguard of was science. And so with these drastic cuts being proposed to the science budget,

really begs the question of what is NASA's role then? Is it supposed to be opening up the commercial sector to more opportunity, or does it still need to go for those moonshots even if people aren't involved, as you mentioned? The case study is the Perseverance rover on Mars. We put it there, and for four years it's collected data and samples. Under these proposed cuts, we may not now have a mission to get that sample back.

Right. So what the president's budget proposes is that eventually we would go get those samples because we're going to invest in new human missions to Mars. But, you know, that takes quite some time. Anytime you put a human on a vehicle, the development becomes much more intense, stretches longer.

uh, also risks delays. And before we had discussed, you know, putting people on Mars, the idea was that we would actually send robotic spacecraft to go pick up those samples and bring them back to earth. Now that was also turning into a very, uh,

intense and complicated process. Launching off of Mars is just going to be one of the most complicated and technological feats of our generation, of humanity's entire existence. But of course, the people involved is going to make that even more complex. Bloomberg's Lauren Grush. Thank you very much. Now that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Don't forget to check out the podcast. This is Bloomberg.

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