Tesla Emerging as Tariff Winner, Crypto Welcomes Paul Aktin for SEC Chair
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Live from New York, I'm Caroline Hyde and this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, tariff winners and losers in the EV industry as President Trump signs a 25% tariff on auto imports. Plus, CoreWeave tests the IPO and AI appetite. The plans to cut the size of its US listing, sources tell Bloomberg. While OpenAI shows continued AI optimism, finalizing a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, the largest of all time. But first...

We check in on markets which are being whipsawed at the moment. We started in the red. We're now managing to push into the green on the NASDAQ 100. We're led higher by names that I'll reveal in a moment. But on the downside is AMD, for example, once again being called out for its lack of competitive edge versus an NVIDIA. You've got PDD on the downside from a points perspective. But Moon Music trying to digest the ongoing tariff narrative coming from the White House, what it means for the auto sector. We dive into that now because on a points perspective, the biggest drag higher is...

Tesla, we're up by six, call it 7% now. This is, of course, it makes an awful lot of the components and its cars right here in the United States. Yes, it has exposure to Mexico, but less than competitors. We saw, we also see Rivian up by 6.3%. Again, focused on how perhaps

EVs can manage to be owning their own supply chain in this moment, unlike the likes of Ford, up by 2.5%, unlike the likes of GM, up by 6.8%, where they are significantly exposed to supply chains coming from Mexico and indeed from Canada. Let's tie this all together with a tech perspective. Mike Sheppard joins us for more. And it is so interesting in the haves and the have-nots right now, Mike. Just tell us the update on what is going to be coming from the White House come April.

Well, Donald Trump previewed some of that yesterday as he unfurled those auto tariffs that we were just talking about and their various impacts. And what we can expect on April 2nd, what the president is calling Liberation Day, is what he calls a round of reciprocal tariffs. And this is to try to even out the trading relationships, in his view, with partners around the world. And these include countries that in the U.S. position

put American exporters and products at a disadvantage when they are exported abroad. And he is trying to level the playing field in his view by imposing tariffs against those trading partners. And some of the biggest targets that we're going to see are going to be the European Union and then other countries where there is some sort of imbalance. And for tech, one area of concern could, of course, be Taiwan. It's a key trading partner.

but it also has a huge trade surplus with respect to the US. It also happens to be a major source of the semiconductors that Nvidia and AMD designed but have produced by TSMC there. So this is something the tech industry is going to be watching very closely. And I will add, on semiconductors, Trump has also promised

possibly, but he hasn't guaranteed levies on imports of chips as well, possibly coming April 2nd. But again, we are uncertain about that. The autos tariffs were supposed to come April 2nd. He moved them up by several days. So really, we're in a wait and see mode there. Mike, I love how you broaden us out across all the industries that we look to potentially be impacted in the future. For RightRoot,

here right now, let's go back to autos. It's interesting that Tesla is being seen by the market as someone that has a protection from this sort of a tariff levy. But Elon Musk himself posting that they are exposed, just not to the tune of a GM or a Ford.

Well, that's right. And they do have some insulation from it, mainly for two reasons. One, you indicated at the top in talking about the market impact. They make all of their U.S. sold vehicles in California and in Texas. They really have no exposure when it comes to finished cars,

and vehicles being brought into the United States. And even on the component side, in most of their vehicles, they have at least 60% or up to 75%, depending on the model, of components that are made here in the U.S. So they do have some insulation there, and that offers them some protection from the worst of it, compared to, say, rivals like Hyundai or GM even.

Mike, great roundup. Thank you so much. Bloomberg's Mike Shepherd. Let's continue the conversation with Andrew Rogers, Senior Vice President at Boundary Stone Partners. It's a government affairs consulting firm focused on clean energy. Andrew, you've got over 20 years of expertise in transportation and infrastructure and implementation of policy here. How much of an upending is this to the business models of EVs and indeed automakers broadly? Yeah, I mean, I don't think the effect can be understated here.

The auto industry, much like the road and bridge building industry, relies on predictability, certainty, reliability. There's a reason that we fund roads and bridges on five-year cycles, because these are large projects that take a lot of predictability and investment over time. With the tariffs that were announced yesterday, you can just look across the automotive sector and already see the ripple effect that it is having with sales, stock prices plunging across multiple sectors, including hitting the tier one suppliers.

Now, I'll say that the underlying goal of these tariffs is quite laudable to reshore domestic supply chains to build up manufacturing in the United States. And there's a lot of policies that President Trump put in place in his first term that continued through the Biden administration.

Now that having been said, the practical reality is somewhat different. Automakers have relied on global supply chains for decades. And the days of a Model T soup to nuts rolling off an assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan are long gone and they're not coming back. And so really automakers are faced with three tough choices right now. Either absorb these costs.

pass them on to the consumers or begin a years-long, heavily investment-reliant process of reshoring these automaker supply chains. And do they have the confidence to take the third option, to recommit and to spend that sort of money when terms are but four years?

I think the word of the day is uncertainty. And the fact is that there was a reason that the EV sector saw nearly $300 billion of investment in just the last couple of years. They were getting clear signals from Washington through the bipartisan infrastructure law, through the Inflation Reduction Act, through the CHIPS Act. And 70% of that $300 billion investment is already specifically allocated to facilities that are coming online,

When you have what seems to be somewhat more reactionary and less targeted tariffs and other trade policies coming online, it's much more difficult to have that confidence to begin reshoring supply chains for fears of a whipsaw in a different direction in a couple of years.

It's interesting that, of course, the market is understanding and trading on the idea that Tesla is more insulated, that Rivian is more insulated. But many had put research out there that ultimately the price, the average price of a car is going to go up

$5,000 to $8,000. But for an EV, it's going to go up $12,000. And I'm interested as to how the supply chains, particularly with electric vehicles, are being an issue here, considering it's so dependent for magnets, for rare earths and minerals from abroad. Two points there. So the first, I would just maybe put Tesla in a slightly different category. I think its stock is long traded on...

prices may be untethered from fundamentals. So we'll put that in a slightly different space. But I think the broader point on the EV industry, it is in many ways different than your traditional internal combustion engine manufacturers. And so the Rivians and the Teslas of the world do have a leg up on the legacy automakers who are developing these supply chains online. And that investment I just spoke to, the $300 billion plus in the last couple of years,

That was the legacy automakers beginning that work. And so, yes, I think that that investment will continue. But if you're talking about raising costs because of tariffs, which can reduce demand, ultimately leave more cars on the lots, that can impact jobs, that can cause contraction in the industry, and that can ultimately diminish demand, which sends the absolute wrong signal at a time when those industries are looking to invest.

Andrew, you've been the Deputy Federal Highway Administrator. You've worked within government. You've been Chief Counsel on Federal Highways. You've got such a wealth of experience here. I'm sure you're fielding plenty of calls when you get off air. What is the number one question that you're being taken right now from the industry?

Is this real? Is this actually going to happen? Is this the new reality? And I think the answer is that, look, if you take the president at face value, and I'm doing that more and more in the second administration, I think we need to look at the long-term and short-term effects of these policies and plan for what is being stated publicly to take root in some way, shape, or form.

But I think the book is still being written on exactly what form that looks like. Andrew Rogers, trying to help us navigate this uncertainty. Boundary Stone Partners, we appreciate it. Now, the Trump administration has also just cut $20 million in funding for the agency responsible for chip export controls. That's about 10% of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security budget.

Democratic senators, well, they've criticized the move, warning it could undermine U.S. efforts to stay ahead of China in the AI race and compromise national security. Coming up, Corweave is said to plan a reduction in its IPO size. More on that next. This is Blue Meg Technology.

The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real. The road to innovation can get a little tricky. You need the right tools to move fast, but you also need a community to help you go further. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you move at lightning speed, like GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and a ton of AI resources to keep you on the cutting edge.

But here's the best part. You can build with confidence, knowing that Microsoft security and compliance are already taken care of. No more worrying about vulnerabilities or threats while you focus on your craft.

And with Azure AI Foundry, you can build your way. The future is yours to build, no strings attached. From ready-to-code tools to full flexibility, it's all in one place. The future's in your hands. So learn more at developer.microsoft.com.

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CoreWeave. It intends to cut the size of its IPO to around $1.5 billion raised. That's according to sources. Now, the cloud computing provider will instead offer investors about 37.5 million shares at a $40 price point. That's down from initial plans of 49 million shares at $47 to $55 each. For more, Bloomberg's Ryan Gould joins us for more.

Look, it is about a month ago that we were talking about a $4 billion raise in new money for Corweave. And now we're more than half that.

Yeah, I mean, Caroline, I think I would say at the outset that this is still a very fluid situation. You know, Corweave is not meant to start trading until tomorrow, so anything can still happen. But certainly the sources that we were talking to this morning are saying that, you know, the company was considering looking at cutting the raise down to $1.5 billion. That would take the fully diluted valuation back to somewhere similar to its last public share.

that was reported. So that would be around $23 billion on a fully diluted basis. That is quite the cut when you think about what we were talking about maybe a month or so ago and when there was some more exuberance in the market around this kind of trait, like this is AI.

This was data centers. These are kinds of all the tailwinds that you'd be thinking about positively coming into an IPO that is meant to be one of the biggest of the year. It's interesting that they sort of can't stop this IPO train at a moment where NVIDIA is down 25% from its highs. We've seen market valuations wiped out from Microsoft more than 10%. And ultimately, the NASDAQ 100 is in correction territory. No wonder it's going to struggle at this moment with the...

will they ever think about changing direction? Because this just seems to be the wrong time. Yeah, I think, you know, based on what we understand as of right now, and again, I just do want to preface and emphasize that it is still fluid. But as of right now, we are not under the impression that they're going to pull this thing. So I think Corway will trade at some point and we'll be watching tomorrow, obviously, to see where it exactly trades and opens at.

But as of right now, I think one of the other big things that they've obviously looked towards this morning is that Nvidia, who is obviously already a big customer relationship of CoreWeave, is gonna come in with quite a significant anchor order. That anchor order's gonna be worth around $250 million.

at $40 a share. And that's what we're reporting, that's what some others have reported, and I think that just gives you some kind of indication as to exactly some of the momentum that is required to get a trade like this over the line in this market. But it speaks to NVIDIA's perhaps own anxiety that this just feeds into some of the negative headlines, the AI bubble anxiety that's been brewing. We've had Joe Tsai over at Alibaba warn about it. You've even had TD Cowan continuing to

tell us that Microsoft is pulling back on data center demand. Well, they're a key customer of CoreWeave, right? Yeah, I mean, 77% of the revenue was, of CoreWeave, lost to two customers, one of which, the main one, was Microsoft. So, you know, in a week when TD Cowan is coming out and saying stuff like that, I think, you know, if you're CoreWeave, that's probably not very helpful to you. But again, you know, investors are going to take a view

And there's going to be value. They're going to be constructive on value at certain points. And I think this indication this morning that we've had that they're potentially considering a downsize at 40 a share, I think, you know, there's clearly strength. And so I'm sure that they're going to feel like they can come out and get this over the line in some shape or form. JP Morgan, Goldman, having to earn their money on this one, it seems. Ryan Gould, thanks so much. Now, sticking with going public, look,

Social platform Discord also said to be working with the likes of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan on a potential IPO. So according to sources, the company could seek a listing as soon as this year. Discord's popularity, of course, soared during pandemic times, and the company even rejected a $12 billion takeover from Microsoft.

back in 2021. Meanwhile, Flexport also saying it's still aiming to go public despite missing its profitability target in 2024. It's all according to the Wall Street Journal. Like Discord, the tech-focused freight company saw strong demand during the pandemic, said it extended its timeline to reach profitability. Let's get another check on AI optimism right now because OpenAI is set to be close to finalizing a whopping $40 billion funding round by SoftBank. It's all according to sources. The deal would set

potentially the value of the company of 300 billion, almost double its valuation back in October. For more, Bloomberg's Kate Clark helps break it down. It's so interesting that an IPO we're all worrying about on the private market, SoftBank and others just really committing to open AI at this time. Yes, there is still a lot of craziness happening on the private markets when it comes to AI. Still a lot of optimism.

And the optimism being inflated in many ways by the latest release coming from OpenAI. We are so fixated about that image generator, proving that they can be accessible for business cases, personal cases, and we've seen that their revenues have been on the up and up.

Exactly. They're expected to triple revenue this year, and they have some wild and perhaps outlandish projections for the coming years. But this is exactly why investors are still very, very, very optimistic and excited about funding the company, despite the fact that it has massive, massive expenses, including talent, data centers, of course, and the very, very expensive AI chips. What's interesting is the crossover of investor base here. Like, Magnetar is...

we understand, committing more to open AI. It's also an investor in CoreWeave. But for this one, it's all about SoftBank. What, they're going to commit basically $30 billion of the $40 billion? Yes, exactly. So SoftBank is the major player here. They are funding a very large portion of this round. But as you said, there are also very many hedge funds that are participating. There are venture capital funds, including Altimeter and CodeTwo, which are crossover funds, but they are expected to participate. And then

you have probably sovereign wealth funds from all over the world that have already funded OpenAI and that are expected to continue funding OpenAI.

Give us the ultimate view that this is a company that continues to expand and continues to weather what is public market anxiety. They're not thinking that this company is going to go public in the near future. No, I think there's a lot of questions about that, but they do expect that this is the next trillion dollar company. This is the next Google. This is the next Meta. That is the bet that these investors are making. And a soft bank, the bet is also to become one of the most influential players in global markets.

artificial general intelligence in the race toward AGI. SoftBank wants to have that front row seat. And we've seen them make acquisitions with Ampere and of course they're also making moves. They're making moves. Masa is always making moves. Kate Clark, we so appreciate having her on.

Technology provider Luminar is expanding its partnerships beyond car makers. The developer of LiDAR hardware and software has a new deal with construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. Luminar's CEO, Austin Russell, joins us. Your shares pushing higher on the news, Austin. And why make this move into industrial?

Yeah, so excited to be here and thanks for having me as part of this. I think it makes total sense as a market. We're coming hot off the heels of a couple of major automotive launches with Volvo now getting the product into production for the technology for these LiDAR systems and AI-related systems going into the market. And we can leverage that towards these industrial automation markets. I mean, it's what, on the order of industrial automation, on the order of a $200 billion a year industry today.

And this is a big foray into it for us. So being able to have Caterpillar as the leading provider and manufacturer of industrial equipment more broadly, selecting Luminar to partner with to make this happen as part of their next generation platform is something that just makes total sense as we expand beyond the auto market. But again, leveraging those same capabilities, technology, and products as what we've been making.

for the automotive market. And, you know, there's a huge amount of value to be created. Now they're going to the cat off-highway trucks, for example. But this doesn't in any way speak to a lack of commitment in the AV space. You still push ahead as hard as ever there. Oh, absolutely. I mean, just this year alone, we're going to be seeing

what, 200%, 300% growth in the automotive space for what it relates to our LiDAR production and shipments globally to these different automakers. So that's something that we're really excited about and pushing full speed ahead on to get those economies of scale and get that ramped up. But in parallel, it makes total sense to be able to capitalize on markets like this as auto continues to be able to ramp up.

in order to be able to, I would say, have that same mission around safety and autonomy in a very high-value-add way. And, of course, the ASPs and sales price that we're able to get in the industrial markets is actually a multiple for the same products and capabilities as what it is in the auto market. So it just makes sense.

And is that the average selling price? Is that because of a lack of competition? We just think at the moment, the anxiety around your company, your stock has been Chinese competition in particular. And when it comes to, for example, reporting that Mercedes is going with a Chinese competitor, are those sorts of narratives true?

Well, first of all, I think taking a step back a little bit, you can give China certainly credit for a lot of early adoption when it comes to, you know, the Chinese market and LIDAR market where you now have, you know, what, on the order of a million vehicles being shipped, you know, with LIDAR and local providers. When it comes to a global standard and the capabilities and technology, Luminar is really second to none. And I think you pointed out maybe there was some confusion or misreporting

earlier on some speculation when it comes to you know chinese for some of the rest of the world uh luminar's partnerships with the global automakers is not only strong but we're in the leading position when it comes to global automakers more broadly and i think that's something that uh we're going to continue to capitalize on for the broader western world which represents about 90 of the volume and and maybe even more of the value of the global uh

And I think even with, for example, in Mercedes in particular, I mean, things have been continuing to move full speed ahead, you know, since the original partnership that we've had with them and actually even just signed up officially to be able to use Halo as kind of that next generation product that we kind of alluded to at earnings. So this is something that we're moving full speed ahead on. And by the way, the Halo is the next generation technology beyond Mercedes.

of what we're doing today and that further allows us to standardize the product across these markets and industries. - So you have the Mercedes-Benz business when reporting was that HSAI had it. I'm interested that tariffs, you talked about production, how you're gonna be scaling to more than 200% in terms of the amount of LIDL you're gonna be producing, but you produce over in Mexico as well. How is the current administration gonna be affecting that?

Yeah, so I mean, there's a lot of different kinds of tariff considerations more broadly. And I would say in terms of all the different dynamics going on, yeah, Mexico is certainly one of those that's obviously a hot button topic. We have a portion of our content value that comes from Mexico currently that ships into the U.S. for the production, you know, in particular of the Volvo vehicles that are being produced in South Carolina.

So, what we're working through as part of our global supply chain, which Luminar is uniquely set up between Mexico, Thailand, and also with a Taiwanese company, TPK, we actually have the ability to be able to shift around between our different partners at a global scale that whichever way the trade winds blow, we're

we're able to have a truly global presence there. So that's something that's going to be as part of an evolving production plan over the coming, call it next few weeks, to make sure that's in place. The only other thing I'll say is that when it comes to the tariffs for

The vehicles themselves, we know that there's obviously new tariffs that are introduced today. But when it comes down to it, you know, the vast majority of all the production that we have is going to U.S. vehicles now. So that's not really affected by this. Austin Russell of Luminar CEO. Great to have your time. We thank you. This is Blue Bay Technology.

Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York. A quick check on these pretty volatile markets today. We've whipped between losses, then gains. We remain up about a tenth of a percent on the Nasdaq 100. So try to digest what the latest tariff news coming from the White House really means for the auto sector, but how it spills into other sectors.

as well as we of course anticipate the beginning of April and more of those retaliatory tariffs to come on board. We move on and have a little look at what's happening on the individual names because from a points perspective, Apple to the higher side. On the downside is a lot of the chip names. You're seeing Broadcom on the downside, Nvidia off by a quarter of a percent, AMD off by 3.4%. We're really seeing some anxiety built in about what the auto sector,

means for the semiconductor sector and what sort of tariffs we can see there. But also AMD getting a note out from Jefferies saying, once again, it is not managing to compete against Nvidia. We're off by 3%. GameStop off by 14%, having its worst day since September of last year. This is announced it's going to be selling convertible notes due by Bitcoin. Yesterday, that news that they're looking to put it on their balance sheet was a higher side push. But today it's a drag as we see the likes of Wedbush saying this is going to fall flat as an offering. And

even though potentially you can't always bet against the retail investor. But let's just get more broader perspective on these markets, how on earth you trade them, let alone invest for the longer term. We're joined by Mike Reynolds. He's the Vice President of Investment Strategy over at Glenmede. And boy, you have to be able to take a long-term perspective right now. Are you seeing investors willing to get into this market when there's such noise coming from the administration?

There's just been considerable uncertainty around trade policy, not just the actual details of the policy itself, but just the fact that it could go in any direction at any point in time. So in a market like this, we're watching sentiment indicators really closely to get a sign of whether we've seen true capitulation moments where we see indiscriminate selling,

which we have found are often really great opportunities to step in on a contrarian basis. And we've seen a little bit of this, just not in a grand scale. Some of the investor surveys are telling you that investors are getting really bearish, which is a good contrarian indicator. You almost want to get bullish when everyone else is bearish.

But other than that, we're not really seeing that washout moment that really makes a lot of sense to materially leg into this market. But we are recommending to our investors that they actively rebalance an environment like this, especially if you came to the year with a relatively balanced portfolio. Yeah. Things may just look out of whack a little bit. So it's good.

opportunity to get back to your policy weights. - Where do those rebalancing flows direct you? Are people likely to go back more into tech or actually cut off more?

Yeah, and it's really been tech that's borne the brunt of this downdraft. So if you had a diversified portfolio with tech in your portfolio, that's probably some of the things that are down the most overall. We were looking at valuations on the growth side, which is very tech heavy, was at the 94th percentile to start the year, now at the 75th percentile, which is a huge drop.

differential and we really aren't seeing much of the market beyond the growth side correcting as much as that. So certainly you know I think investors are taking another look at the tech side where things perhaps were looking again very expensive not too long ago but perhaps there's opportunities now amid this downdraft.

Are they going to enter in slowly and resolutely? Or is there another catalyst from a fundamental basis for a certain company that will suddenly make you willing to make the trade? Or is there a certain catalyst or number that you're looking from an economic perspective that will get people back in? It was weird. Monday just went so to the higher side and many trying to wonder why that happened.

Yeah, investors have to be careful to catch a falling knife here. If you look back in the tech bubble, if you got too excited about tech stocks at a 15% drawdown, you really would have gotten your face ripped off as further declines would have really been painful.

We think it's really important to, again, monitor the sentiment side, but also we think actually trade uncertainty does sort of indirectly have an impact for tech. In particular, a lot of our tariffs have focused on the cash cow of countries abroad, like auto so far.

And if they retaliate, maybe they go after our cash cow, which is the tech side. So until we get a little bit more clarity on tariffs, it's hard to get really excited about legging into tech to a material degree. But everyone's penciling in April 2nd as sort of tea day or tariff day as a time where we make it a little bit more clarity on where things go. Mike, we get fundamental clarity from companies in the next set of earnings season. And I'm hearing from many a

sell side note coming out at the moment that as you're going to see CEOs lean into that anxiety, they're just going to downgrade all our expectations, really try and make sure that people have recalibrated where company growth is going to go just so they can lock in some of this anxiety. Are we going to have a horrible set of earnings coming?

We're not expecting to see a material effect just yet from tariffs or this uncertainty when it comes to earnings, but you could see a lot of guidance around that, particularly uncertainty in and of itself can be an economic headwind if CEOs are perhaps just going to pull back on CapEx or hiring plans because they just don't know the rules of the game.

That's certainly a headwind. And you may start to see CEOs talk through that a little bit on their earnings calls and how they're seeing that play out. But it's probably a little too early to see sort of direct impacts on earnings themselves in Q2 or Q1 earnings in particular that we'll get over the next, call it, month or so. But watching those transit really closely for how they're guiding the rest of the year, which could be really illuminating.

Mike, I was just bringing up GameStop when it came to convertible notes, but it takes me to basically the waterfall effect of assets that you can own around this. We obviously lean into equities as they're a quicker tell often on a company, but when you're managing $47 billion, I'm sure you're completely cross-asset. How many are you looking to, say, get into the corporate debt side of these tech companies rather than, say, just the equity side?

Yeah, we take a diversified approach when it comes to bonds and we try to avoid some of the sort of financial engineering stuff that happens on the bleeding edge of financial markets. And some of this stuff out of GameStop kind of feels like that. But, you know, when you're building a ballast in your portfolio, you typically want a

good, healthy size of treasuries in that portfolio, but you can get that incremental return by getting corporate credit and being smart about it, not overextending too much on your risk within your bond portfolio. But sometimes plain vanilla ends up being sort of the best thing to get that good diversification in your portfolio and take most of your risk on the equity side.

Mike Reynolds, it's great to catch up with you. Thank you, Glenn Mead, Vice President of Investment Strategy. We wish you well. Meanwhile, turning to a breakthrough in quantum computing. In a world first, J.P. Morgan said that it's generated truly random numbers using the technology. So-called random number generators could have applications for trading, for security, for cryptocurrency. Now, J.P. Morgan, which has been making a push into the field for the last six years, you

used a quantum computer built by Honeywell's Quentinium, according to the paper published in the journal Nature. Coming up, more on crypto. The markets there are set to gain regulatory clarity under the new Trump administration. We speak with August CEO, Aya Kantorovich. That's next. This is Bloomberg Technology.

The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real. The road to innovation can get a little tricky. You need the right tools to move fast, but you also need a community to help you go further. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you move at lightning speed, like GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and a ton of AI resources to keep you on the cutting edge.

But here's the best part. You can build with confidence, knowing that Microsoft security and compliance are already taken care of. No more worrying about vulnerabilities or threats while you focus on your craft.

And with Azure AI Foundry, you can build your way. The future is yours to build, no strings attached. From ready-to-code tools to full flexibility, it's all in one place. The future's in your hands. So learn more at developer.microsoft.com slash AI.

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You'll love the presentations you can easily design with Canva. Your clients and coworkers will too. Love your work with Canva presentations at canva.com. President Trump's SEC pick, Paul Atkins, you can see him here now, says he hopes to create a rational crypto regulation. He's actually undergoing his nomination hearing as we speak, and you can go to LiveGo if you want to see all of this.

But Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, well, she warns that his past actions could be an indicator of a looser regulatory environment. She sat down with Bloomberg's David Aguirre to take a listen. I think this is entirely in keeping with what Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to see us do, and that is loosen regulations, loosen regulations, loosen regulations.

That is what Paul Atkins did. He also said repeatedly that no, regulations just get in the way. Everybody needs to do whatever they want, those big Wall Street giants. We saw the crash in 2008. And here's what happens next. After the crash, he has the chance to have a little 20/20 hindsight.

He has 20-0 hindsight. He looks back and says, nope, no problem with having let those giant Wall Street banks run wild. And the fact that the American taxpayer had to bail them out, not a problem. That's my concern. If someone has demonstrated such poor judgment, you've got to be really worried about putting them in a job where

where the failure to have good judgment could be like it was back then. Remember, 10 million families lost their homes. Millions more people lost their jobs. We watched Wall Street do a real tank then. And here's the thing about Paul Atkins. We have both his demonstrated experience, but also look at his experience overall. So his time in government is a real problem.

But now he's someone who has built a very lucrative business with Potomac Partners. He charges evidently upwards of $1,200 an hour to give advice. And he says, well, I'm going to divest this interest. But he doesn't want to tell us who he's divesting to, who's buying it.

And for what purposes? And what are the long-term plans? Because here's the deal: SEC chairmanship doesn't last forever, right? Two years, four years, maybe longer. My concern is, and so what happens on the other end? Does he just come right back out and instead of charging $1,200 an hour, it's now $2,400 an hour? But it's who do you work for and why that matters.

is it has an effect on the time you sit as chairman of the SEC. Senator Elizabeth Warren speaking with our own David Gurra there. Let's just get more context to the crypto regulatory environment. What it looks like under the new Trump administration, we're joined now by August co-CEO and co-founder, Iyar Kantorovich. August provides a platform to manage and trade digital assets securely.

the looser perspective, too loose or actually are you thinking we will get a balance here that helps serve your growth but also serve security and the protection of consumers?

Yeah, I think very commonly people misunderstand where Paul Atkins is coming from, assuming that we're going to go from the Gary Gensler regulation by enforcement to all of a sudden no regulation at all. And Paul Atkins is very, very strict about no market manipulation and no fraud. So we're going to see KYC, KYB. We're going to see AML requirements.

And that's going to be broadly across the crypto industry. And then also clear regulation. And I think if you look at what Senator Warren's saying, before we saw all of the American companies get pushed offshore, whereas now we're seeing an opportunity to onshore these companies, make them founded in the United States. And that's a really big shift and a big difference. And you can do that somewhere in the middle.

So when she was trying to speak to, I suppose, also the way in which he's managed to make it clear that he has no skin in the game, he has no exposure, he's selling off his assets. Are those in a position of power over in the administration and in the various agencies doing enough of that, signaling enough of that, that there is transparency when it comes to crypto holdings and they're not sort of managing to benefit themselves?

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, you know, the same question was asked about David Sachs as well when he divested, I think it was roughly $200 million worth. And he did so at a loss. And, you know, I think it's really important to your point. One, he, you know, disclosed exactly what the positions are. So Atkins has two equity positions in Securitize and Anchorage. He has one position in a hedge fund called Off-Chain Capital.

And he said he divested those, so, you know, if he gets approved on Thursday this week. And so I think we are getting the transparency we need, but the bigger question here is do we want, you know, professional regulators who haven't been in this space, haven't had that dialogue running the regulation for us, or do we want people who have actually been in the trenches, who have had those conversations and dealt with those problems directly to be running and making those decisions on our behalf?

Okay. Therefore, what you want is someone in the job who understands the asset class and then makes appropriate regulatory changes, appropriate. Are you getting the transparency you need there as well? We're already seeing focus on, well, stable coins, it feels like, and unwinding some of the latest things done by the Biden administration. Absolutely. So to your point, you know, the IRS broker-dealer rule was just, you know, voted by the Senate that passed yesterday.

And so it's going to President Trump that's going to unwind, as you mentioned, the need for decentralized exchanges to file a 1099 for every user on the platform. It was very much not applicable to the way permissionless platforms exist today. So it's great to see that happening. And from what we've heard with colleagues who are in D.C. every single day is that

Every day, action is being happened around, you know, we have FIT21, which is currently going through Congress. That has a stablecoin regulatory oversight and guidelines. We have Wyoming that just announced this week that they're going to launch a stablecoin. And a bank in Wyoming. 100%. So we're seeing a lot more progress in the last, you know, call four months than we've seen in the last four years combined. And so it's very exciting for any American company or anyone who's sitting in America building their company as well today.

We've actually just got some more steer coming from Paul Atkins as he undergoes his oversight over at the Senate. Let's just take a listen into what he's just been saying.

Unclear, overly politicized, complicated and burdensome regulations are stifling capital formation, while American investors are flooded with disclosures that do the opposite of helping them understand the true risks of an investment. It is time to reset priorities and return common sense to the SEC. Return to common sense at the Senate nomination hearing coming from Paul Atkins.

What next for the common sense? You've already said what's already underway when it comes to stablecoins. What are you lacking in your part of the business to get more institutional investors active in the crypto space? Yeah, so if you think about it, there are a couple buckets. The first is the United States, without a doubt, has been losing in the geographic regulatory space. So we have in Europe, MICA. We have in Singapore, MAS. And in the US, we don't have anything. And so, you know, it's not just about

on-shoring American companies that went offshore, but it's also how do we compete so that we can actually get companies from Europe who are under the MICA registration to come to the United States as well and build here in the United States. The other thing too is, you know, how do we treat clients? How do we structure our entities? A large part that hasn't been discussed for token companies specifically is all token foundations are typically under

BVIs or the Caymans. And a big discussion is how do we bring that to the US? How do we create launch foundations, token foundations in the United States with clear guidelines? And why would we want token foundations launching in the United States? Just reiterate the positive nature of this for investors or entrepreneurs who are watching this.

We're looking for transparency. We want to see exactly how these companies operate. We want to be able to go through tax filings if we need to and audit them as well. So it gives you the transparency everyone's asking for, but to do that, you have to onshore the company first.

And in order to do that, you need the clear regulation. So I think we're definitely seeing a path forward with Atkins. It's going to be really exciting to make New York, the United States, the crypto capital. We are for finance. It should be for crypto. And it's one step in that direction. I can't wait for it. Always so great to have you on the show. Thank you, August, co-CEO there.

Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok's owner ByteDance, he's become the China's wealthiest person for the first time. He topped the list on Wednesday, surpassing Tencent's co-founder, among others, with a $57.5 billion fortune. Zhang's wealth jumped by more than $10 billion after Bloomberg analyzed the valuations of investors like BlackRock, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and the company's plans to buy back employee stock at a valuation of $312 billion.

Now, all of this comes, of course, as the fate of TikTok in the United States remains still very unclear. But President Trump said he would consider lowering tariff rates imposed on China to secure Beijing's support for the sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to an American company. Bloomberg's Stephanie Lai joins us for more. So he's actually using TikTok in the broader tit-for-tat debate when it comes to trade.

It is certainly an interesting time. You know, we're looking at next week being a very big week for tariffs and TikTok. April 2nd is the day in which Donald Trump has said that he's going to place most of his reciprocal tariffs. And of course, the deadline to find a deal to sell TikTok is on April 5th before it faces a shutdown. And so one of the things that Trump has floated, as you noted, is a potential reprive for China if they are to agree to a deal. And some of the complications behind this include the fact that

The Chinese government and ByteDance are pushing to keep the algorithm within Chinese hands, but that is something that many lawmakers are saying would not comply with the U.S. law. And so it seems like they're sort of at an impasse in what Trump had floated just yesterday seems to be one of the ways in which he's trying to work around that.

And yet the algorithm in Chinese hands does seem to be one of the potential deals being debated by the White House. It looks as though there's this ongoing narrative that Oracle founder Larry Ellison, maybe he could be persuaded to take a little piece of TikTok, the U.S. entity, and remain a security guard on it ultimately, but also allow the algorithm to stay in China.

Certainly. And that is one of the deals that has been floated. We've been told that from sources familiar that there is a deal that has been proposed that would allow Oracle to have a minority stake and to continue storing the U.S. data as it already has. And also the other aspect of that deal is to allow China to keep the algorithm. And now this is something that has caused some pushback among Republican lawmakers who say that that doesn't comply with the law.

And so it's not actually clear where this deal lands and whether or not the administration would be okay taking this deal at its face or going to China and asking to negotiate with what we've been currently shown. As we know, there are other public bidders out there. One of them is Frank McCourt.

Junior and Alexis Ohanian and we know that their bid doesn't involve the algorithm and they want to have a whole new focus on social media here in the United States. But the value in many ways is in the algorithm, but also the value is to be determined in some ways by ByteDance itself, but also the Chinese government. Have we got any indication of whether they're willing to go through with some sort of deal?

What sources have told us so far is that China wants to keep the algorithm and stop. Essentially, that it would be a non-starter to...

facilitate a deal that does not include the algorithm remaining in their hands. Now that seems to be a problem given the letter of the law. And so Trump's proposal to lessen the tariffs on China seems to be one of the ways in which he's trying to get everyone to the table and say, "Hey, you know, we have to make a deal and, you know, we need to work past the sticking point in the negotiation."

A story that's going to continue to evolve over the next week. Bloomberg's Stephanie Lai, thanks so much for breaking it down for us. Now that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. You do not want to forget about our podcast, provided on the terminal, as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. This is Bloomberg Technology.

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