June 19, 2025 • 38 mins
On this special holiday edition of Bloomberg Daybreak US edition, host Nathan Hager speaks with:
- Simone Foxman about how companies are delaying Impact Reports with DEI under attack.
- Jen Rie details the state of tech antitrust cases as we hit the halfway point of 2025
- Chris Rovzar and Nikki Ekstein take us through Bloomberg Pursuits annual guide to summer
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Thank you so much for joining us on this special
edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets are closed for the
Juneteenth Holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Coming up this hour. We'll
update you on the latest anti trust battles facing big tech.
We'll speak with Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Reed.
And if you're looking for a travel deal this summer,
we'll look at some under the radar trip ideas with
(00:25):
Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits. But first,
one of the big goals of the Trump administration during
the first six months of its second term has been
to change diversity, equity and inclusion programs not just in government,
but in business and at universities across the country. For
an update, we bring in Simone Foxman, who covers race, equity,
(00:47):
gender and class for Bloomberg News. And Simone really appreciates
you coming on with us on this holiday edition because
it really seemed like a good time to do this.
Not only are we a few years out, you know,
from the race reckoning that really seemed to kickstart DEI
and arguably this official Juneteenth Holiday. Now it seems like
we're in a much different moment in corporate America, don't
(01:11):
you agree?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Absolutely. I mean, we've really seen a whip saw in
public opinion and internal corporate opinion in exactly the way
that they kind of address issues of race, gender, identity,
and beyond. And you know, a lot of that has
been spearheaded by the Trump administration, but not all. And
(01:34):
we can talk about, well, you know, what companies were
doing already.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, let's do that, because it would be important to
you know, just get an idea of what companies were
doing even before these executive orders aimed at dialing DEI
back were taking place. What was the trajectory for DEI.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, let's rewind even a little bit further than that.
I mean, diversity, equity and inclusion policies are essentially only
the product of, you know, diversity policies that were spearheaded
in the nineteen eighties. So you've seen a lot of
the programs, whether for small businesses, whether internally at companies,
be around for a really long time. Part of this
(02:15):
was actually set off by a kind of conservative think
tank that had talked about how so much of the
new population of younger workers would be diverse, you know,
not white men, frankly, and it really you know, convinced
executives that you know, you needed to kind of plan
(02:36):
for workforces that were more diverse. So DEI policies or
what ultimately you know, fell under that Moniker have been
around a long time. Obviously, they were really ramped up
after the murder of George Floyd in twenty twenty, and
the language that corporate executives used around that time was
(02:56):
frankly quite charged. You had, you know, uber we're talking
about trying to be an anti racist company. You had
you know, employees, employers really promising large transformative steps to
change the makeup of their workforce, including things that looked
like trying to increase the number of say black managers
(03:19):
or women of a certain executives of a certain level
by you know, fifty percent in the next three years.
Really putting kind of specific numbers on things in a
way that they hadn't done before. What really kind of
marked I mean, there was obviously kind of you know
pushback to some of this almost immediately. We saw Trump
(03:43):
in his late in his first term try and pass
an executive order against or try and institute in executive
order against you know, unconscious bias trainings that ultimately went nowhere.
But what really kind of fomented this reversal, especially within companies,
was the student dents for Fair Admissions decision around Harvard
(04:03):
and affirmative action, and it forced a lot of companies,
even though they weren't the subject of that, to look
again at their internal policies and make sure that they
weren't going to be in the way of what Trump's
executive orders were doing. So that kind of brings us
up to where we were maybe last year, and then
we can talk about kind of what's changed this year.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so let's talk about that. I mean, are these
benchmarks still in effect now that we have executive orders
that are you know, targeting DEI in the federal government, certainly,
but you know, by a virtue of that on Corporate
America as well, particularly a lot of these companies that
do business with the federal government.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, Corporate America was already looking at some of its
policies and trying to make sure that the legal rationale
that you know, led to the students for Fair Admission
decision that overturned affirmative action wouldn't be applied to them
in ways that we're damaging. So we saw a lot
of you know, employee resource groups for exams, sample make
sure that they were open to everyone. Scholarships you know,
(05:04):
kind of welcome everyone, you know, even though they were intended,
for example, to raise black students into you know, engineering
or something like that. Now they had to be open
at least to all races. What you've seen since January
twentieth is frankly another reassessment, because what Trump's executive orders
(05:25):
have said is not just that they want to eliminate
ate what they call illegal DEI within the federal government,
but they're also really encouraging federal contractors to eliminate and
private companies beyond federal contractors to eliminate to DEI. Now,
the problem for companies is they don't do a great
(05:46):
job of defining exactly what that means and what is
different this time around. We've had some inklings here and there.
Largely this falls along the things that the companies already
thought kind of fell into these gray areas, those targets
I mentioned earlier. Some lawyers see them as too close
to quotas, which are already illegal. You're not supposed to
(06:09):
be able to hire anyone on the basis of protected
characteristics like race or gender. So you've seen companies kind
of even that we're the more aspirational goals with less
firm targets, they've kind of rolled some of them back,
just kind of avoid things. But frankly, the corporate world
has been very scared not only that the federal the
(06:31):
government is going to come after them, but also that
they might end up on some lists somewhere of companies
that are woke that follow this illegal DEI and therefore
that that's going to prompt you know, consternation among their
consumers and ultimately affect their business.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
We're speaking with Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman, who covers
a quality for Bloomberg News. You mentioned illegal DEI as
a phrase in these executive orders. Is there a chest
in the corporate world about what illegal DEI actually means?
Has that been defined clearly?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
No, And that's really the issue for them, you know,
certain things Again, as I mentioned, you're not supposed to
be able to hire people with a view towards their
race or gender identity and beyond, uh, the you know,
critics of DEI will say that that is essentially what
(07:27):
was happening over the last couple of years, whether explicit
or not. But many companies say, you know, a lot
of these programs that we had that fell under this
dei moniker whatever they fall under. Now you know, we're
not you know, saying we should hire someone because of
their race, but that we should do a better job
(07:50):
of expanding the pot recruiting, drawing from, you know, communities
that we haven't necessarily seen a lot of representation from,
and assessing our internal policies to make sure that we
are inclusive of everybody. So a lot of you know,
whether it's sort of trainings about inclusivity, whether it's things
(08:14):
like scholarship programs, whether it's turning up at large recruiting
events that especially draw out people from underrepresented communities. There's
a lot of those things that still frankly exist within
companies that companies have decided, well, this is important enough
to us that we it's important for us to maintain
(08:36):
these programs. We don't think they violate the law. We
think that, you know, whatever the administration is saying, you know,
this is not illegal, and it's important to us, and
therefore we're going to continue to do them. And I
frankly found in my reporting that this is true even
at companies that said publicly that they were dialing back
(08:57):
on DEI to some extent, you know, whether that's Walmart
or any number of companies really across the board that
kind of made these enormous announcements that were treated with
great fan for are frankly still talking about things. For example, Walmart,
until my story came out in mid May, had you know, diversity,
(09:20):
equity and inclusion and the importance of it on its
job postings. So not all of this has frankly gone away.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Well, Walmart certainly is one of the highest profile companies
in the world, and if you know companies like that
are keeping some of these programs on the books, how
are they sort of striking that balance When you said
earlier that a lot of these companies don't want to
be on the administration's radar. They want to keep a
lot of this stuff on the down low.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So they've gone in tweaked programs anything that was in
a illegal gray area, you know, put that potentially looked
a little bit too much like quotas. They've they've kind
of pulled pulled back anything that didn't and welcome everyone.
They've pulled back anything that had that's not you know,
very political. They kind of pulled back. But you know,
(10:07):
the Walmart example is telling. Even though they made a
change in the way in their supplier diversity program now
called supplier Inclusion program. So the branding is part of
this here, they still have the landing pages on the
company website about lgbt QIA plus founded brands, about Hispanic
(10:29):
black women owned brands, you know, really a nod to
the fact that consumers, some consumers are interested in seeing
who's behind the brands. You know, Lows, despite making an
announcement and talking about how it was rolling back elements
of its program, really sought to reassure investors that these
(10:50):
changes were not sweeping. So you've seen really little tweaks
around the edges and little little or Mendelssohn is a
law firm that kind of asks corporate executives about their opinions.
In a survey they conducted in late February to mid March,
they asked corporate executives, I think it was over three
(11:11):
hundred to what extent is your organization considering new or
further rollbacks of your inclusion equity and diversity programs. Forty
five percent said not at all, thirty two percent said
to a small extent, So seventy seven percent here not
making any major changes despite some of the new guidance
(11:31):
from the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Do you think we would have seen changes around the
margins for these programs even without President Trump's executive orders, because,
as we mentioned, there had been some backlash from DEI
even before President Trump returned for a second term.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, partly because the court seemed like it was moving
in this direction, and partly because there has been a
backlash to being overly politicized about many issues. You know,
companies were willing to make somewhat political statements frankly a
couple of years ago. They're not willing to do that
(12:10):
in the same way anymore. They've tried to move away
from that. There was already a push towards we're going
to really emphasize inclusion. We're going to minimize things that
you know, the first two letters of the acronym diversity
and equity. You know, diversity. Sure, we still believe in
that equity. Maybe people are confused. There was already that
(12:31):
push that has not necessarily changed, and maybe that's why
We're not seeing these massive moves on the part of
company is to really, you know, further tweak from here.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Really appreciate this. Simone, thanks again for coming on with
us on this juneteenth edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. That is
Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman covering equality for Bloomberg News.
And up next on this special edition of Daybreak, we'll
take a look at big tech still in the crosshairs
of anti trust lawsuits. We'll get an update on that
(13:02):
from Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree. It's twenty
minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg.
Welcome back to this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. I'm
Nathan Hager. US markets are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. Now,
(13:23):
the thinking among many on Wall Street is that antitrust
cases against big tech might ease up with the change
from the Biden to the Trump administration. Have they for
some answers? Let's turn to Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst
Jennifer Ree. Jen kind of looks like your litigation plate's
still pretty full. Is that the case? Is that a surprise?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It is very full? And I'll tell you, I don't
think it's a surprise, oh you know. And the reason
I don't think it's a surprise is because people forget
that all of these investigations of the big tech platforms
that culminated in lawsuits, and in fact, two of the
lawsuits started during Trump's first administration, and they were pursued
aggressively by the Biden administration, which picked up the mantle
(14:06):
from Trump and kept going with them. And you know,
these cases now several of them have proceeded to trial,
but they were started under Trump. And there's just this feeling,
I think by Trump and most of the people that
he's put in place at the FTC and DJ that
these companies like Meta and Google and Apple are left
leaning companies that have you know, censored conservative content and
(14:28):
made it difficult for Trump to win the second time
he ran against Joe Biden. And really they're just not
going to give them any breaks, despite the fact that
executives from these companies have freely tried to curry favor
with the president.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So it's a different focus in the sense that it
might be more around the content that these companies are
putting out there as opposed to more of the anti
competitive nature that we saw during the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, yes and no, it's about the content. But I
think what they're doing is putting content into the antitrust
framework by saying that the lack of competition and the
fact that the company's monopolized markets allow them then to
control the message, that if there were more alternatives and
more competition, they wouldn't have that ability to control the message.
So they sort of put it all together right into
(15:12):
one bucket.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So does that mean that as some of these cases
go forward against some of the biggest names in the
mag seven, that we could see breakups of these companies.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So I think it's unlikely. Now you have two cases
where the dj is really aggressively seeking breakup. They're both
against Google, by the way. One is about its monopoly
maintenance of Search, and the other one is about monopoly
maintenance of its ad tech products. And in those cases,
what they're asking the judges to do is to force
Google in the search case to divest Chrome and in
(15:45):
the ad tech case, to divest a product they bought
a long time ago called double Click. These are products
we don't really know about as consumers. They're used by
digital publishers and advertisers to get together and sell and
buy advertising space online. And Google has all these products
and of shuffles the publishers and advertisers through all their
products to the exclusion of others so that they can
take the fees all along the way. I'll tell you
(16:07):
that in both cases, by the way, liability has already
been found against Google, they have acted illegally to maintain
monopolies in all of these markets. That has already been determined.
What the judge is now they're two different judges are
trying to do is determine what the remedies should be
to fix this problem. It's not really punishment in the
anti trust world, but more let's open up the markets
(16:28):
to other competitors and stop this illegal conduct. I don't
think in either case the company is going to be
forced to sell off a company sell off a piece
of itself. So starting with Google Search, that's the one
where the DJ is asking them to be forced to
sell Chrome. In my mind, if you look at the
liability decision, that punishment i'll call it punishment, even though
(16:48):
it's not really punishment, doesn't really fit the crime, right.
I think it's overkill, because what they've been found to
do that's illegal is enter these agreements with companies like Apple, Verizon,
T Mobilemsung that makes their Android phones to place Google
Search as the default search engine at Internet access points,
or to place it, let's say, on a phone to
(17:09):
front and center to the exclusion of other search engines,
and that harmed other engines like Bing and like Duck
Duck Go because they simply weren't able to get exposure.
They weren't able to get the search volume they needed
to improve. And I think you can fix that without
having to sell Chrome. You know, there are other ways
that can be fixed. So my guess is these remedies,
which are going to come out in August, by the way,
(17:30):
are going to be a mixture of telling them, hey,
you can't have these agreements anymore. You can't pay Apple
to put Google Search behind Safari, which, by the way, Nathan,
they were paying twenty billion a year for that. Yeah, yeah,
a lot of money. So it's going to hurt Apple too,
and maybe sharing some of the search data you've collected
over the years with all of these searches, and also
possibly choice screens and Chrome. A person buys a new
(17:53):
phone they open Chrome the first time, they have a
choice of what they want to use as their default
search engine, and possibly some data sharing, because the data
sharing would fix this deprivation of scale and data that
allegedly these other search engines needed to get better, share
some of that data, give them a chance to try
to get better and to compete more vigorously against Google Search.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So even some of those smaller remedies could be a
pretty big hit to Google's not just bottom line but
their overall business practices, couldn't.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
They absolutely, absolutely, they have fought hard against some of
these data remedies, and even the default remedies now they
modeled internally. This came out and trial that if they
lost the default search position it could be up to
thirty two billion in revenue lost a year, which, I'll
be honest really surprised me because I thought that was
awfully high, given that most people really like Google Search,
(18:44):
and you might be inclined to put it back as
the default if it isn't the default to start. But
nonetheless this could really hurt, and the data sharing could
hurt too. But the whole point is to reduce their
market share a little bit and give more market share
or allow some of these other competitors to try to
gain market share.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well. On top of the Google multiple antitrust cases, we've had,
this case against meta platforms wrap up in just the
last couple of weeks as well. This is a big
one where they're talking potentially about spinning off Instagram and WhatsApp.
Could it go that far?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You know, I really don't think so. You know, as
I said, Google lost on liability on those two trials,
I don't even think med is going to lose on
liability on this one.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
You know, And I'll tell you it's really because it's very,
very hard to prove that there was consumer harm. You know,
they may have had a bad intent when they bought
Instagram and WhatsApp. The intent may have been, let's buy
these companies rather than competing with them, which is technically illegal.
But they put a lot of money in. Both of
the companies were sort of struggling at the time that
(19:45):
they were acquired by Facebook. They put a lot of
innovation in. They built the products into something that was
really desirable to consumers, which may not have happened if
they hadn't done that. And it's hard to prove that
had they not bought these we call it a butt
four world, that they would be the products they are
today and that consumers would be better off. And really
that's what had to be proven here by the FTC,
(20:07):
and I'm not so sure that they were able to
do that. So I think at the end of the day,
they're just going to lose on liability and then this
will be done because if they lose, FTC loses on liability,
there will be no remedy.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Hearing interesting, So is this a case where the FTC
might have gotten itself boxed in with meta platforms just
from approving the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp all those
years ago.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Absolutely, I think it was regret buyers for remorse there.
You know, they approved both of those acquisitions. WhatsApp. I
think they didn't even investigate the Instagram one. They did
investigate for six months or so, they allowed both of them,
They cleared both of them, as did by the way,
the UK and EU, which looked thoroughly also at these acquisitions.
And I do think that they regret having done that
(20:48):
and they're trying to fix that now.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, so could meta platforms be sort of watching its back?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Though?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
When it comes to future acquisitions, given that it has
had to go through this process over the last couple
of months.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
You know, absolutely, And that's one of the issues that
they raise with respect to a suit like this. They say, look,
you approved these deals years ago in twenty twelve and fourteen.
How is a company supposed to buy any company and
have assurance going forward that ten years later or five
years later, the FDC or DOJ won't come back and say, hey,
those we're illegal acquisitions even though we clear them back
(21:21):
when you know you gave us notice. And I think
it does put companies in a difficult position. And I
suspect that Facebook is probably sitting back still watching what's
going to happen in merger enforcement with the Trump administration
to understand whether they could get a big deal through
or not.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Now, outside the Federal Trade Commissions purview, the Justice Department
is joining with states in going after Apple. What set
issue there?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
This is an unusual case because this is about Apple
sort of blocking or refusing interoperability or refusing certain apps
to be on the mobile iOS that would allow people
to get out of the iOS system, in other words,
to keep them dependent on the iPhone or their other hardware,
such as the Apple Watch. So the idea is that
(22:14):
it reduces the competition or the ability for somebody to
switch and to buy an Android, because let's say you
get the Apple Watch, now you're dependent on the iOS
because it works with the iOS and doesn't really work
that well with Android, or the texting doesn't really work
very well, or for instance, they don't allow game streaming
apps to be sold through their app store because it
(22:35):
could allow less sophisticated technology. Somebody who streams a game
can buy less sophisticated technology than an Apple iPhone to
play that game. And so it's about all of this
action to try to keep people within iOS, buying all
of their hardware, and keeping them in their system. And
this one's really slow. There's no trial date set yet.
(22:56):
We're waiting on a motion to dismiss that Apple filed.
I don't think they'll win that, Nathan, But that's not
a big deal. They're very hard to win. It's just
sort of a first chance to dismiss the complaint and
rather than getting into discovery. So I think this is
going to be a really slow case. And you know,
my feeling about it is that I don't think it's
necessarily a slam dunk in anyway for the DOJ. We're
(23:16):
going to have to wait to see how the evidence
shakes out here. But I think Apple has a lot
of good defenses about safety and security and protecting its users,
providing its users with the best products, seamless activity, you know,
with whatever they're doing on the phone, and these can
be good defenses in an anti trust suit.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
And we know that we're in a pretty long wait
and see mode as well when it comes to the
FTC's case against Amazon. Remind us what's going on there,
what's an issue that.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Has been so slow? And they just push back the
trial date yet again into twenty twenty seven from twenty
twenty six. So this is about Amazon requiring sellers on
its platform to provide the lowest prices they provide anywhere
on Amazon. Now that sounds good, that should be good
for cons But the allegation there is that it's more
expensive for these sellers to sell an Amazon than their
(24:04):
own platform or maybe atsy or some other platform or
they could sell their products, and it causes those prices
to go up rather than all of the prices to
come down. So it has this price inflating effect, kind
of like a most favored nation clause. They think that
this is illegal. They also say that if sellers want
to have really nice positioning when somebody's searching for a product,
(24:26):
or they want to be in what they call the
prime box, that they have to use Amazon's fulfillment services
as well. That also causes a price increase because they're expensive.
You know, this is another one where I think we
have to see where the evidence shakes out. On the
fulfillment side. I think Amazon can make again a decent
pro competitive argument that you know, we want to make
(24:47):
sure when we promise our buyers that they're going to
get a product within two days or one day or today,
that they actually do. So we want control over the
fulfillment services because we want to make sure that we're
good to our word. You know, they might have a
good defense there on the most favored nation issue. I
think it looks like so far that this could actually
(25:07):
cause some price raising effects outside of the platform, but
I kind of see it as well not really a
big deal because the answer to that if they're found
libel is you just have to stop doing this, And
what that could mean is that you might be able
to find a product lower priced outside of Amazon, and
I think that would be fine. And I'm not even sure, Nathan,
that that would really hurt Amazon's revenue or bottom line
(25:28):
in any kind of substantial way.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
No, we just went through four of the mag seven
when it comes to anti trust scrutiny, it sounds as
though big tech is still a big priority for this government.
Thank you for this, Jen really appreciate it. That is
Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree and 'p. Next,
we'll look at some under the radar travel bargains this
summer with Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits.
(25:53):
It's thirty seven minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager,
and this is Bloomberg. Thank you so much for joining
us on this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets
are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager, and
we're just about a day away from the official start
of summer, so we thought now might be a decent
(26:15):
time to look at how travels looking, with many of
us maybe thinking about getting ready for those summer vacations.
And who better to check in with on that than
our friends at Bloomberg Pursuits, Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser
here to guide us through summer travel. Thanks so much
to both of you for being with us, and I
(26:35):
think we're coming off a pretty strong start to unofficial
travel season right with the Memorial Day weekend behind us.
Is that a good indicator of whether things could be
crowded as we embark? Who'd like to tackle that question?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
You know?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Demand is that an all time high? I think going
into twenty twenty five, people have been very bullish on travel.
People want to get away, People are movedtionally exhausted, mentally
exhausted from the news cycle. This is a time where
people are still kind of lingering over that pandemic induced
desire to get out and explore the world and not
let a single PTO DA go wasted. So all that
(27:15):
energy is still riding super high and we're seeing super
sized demand. What we are seeing a little bit is
people being more value conscious, people looking at the global
economic uncertainty and saying, maybe I should splurge just a
smidge less, find a couple of ways to go closer
to home, more vacations but smaller radius. Shall we say,
from whatever your origin point is, maybe more long weekend
(27:37):
trips rather than two week forays somewhere very far away.
So definitely high demand.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, absolutely so, Chris, Where are you seeing that people
could get some of that bang for their buck in
terms of certain destinations they might be thinking about.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Well, one of the things that we've noticed for this
year in the past couple of years actually is that
the Caribbean is no longer a place where travel softens
in the summer. People are going for a hot Caribbean
summer because prices are a little bit more on the
reasonable side, and resorts are great to be at. The
weather actually because of climate change, the weather actually there
(28:15):
is actually kind of more temperate than it is in
a lot of other places that you might want to go,
especially southern Europe. So we're seeing a lot of people
going there, and especially Canadians.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Canadians don't want to go to the US this year.
They're really tired of the fifty first state rhetoric that's
come from our administration lately, and they're really turning to
the Caribbean as an alternative. There's a lot of airlines
are meeting that demand with direct routes to places like
Bermuda is particularly popular with Canadians this year. But even
Americans who are saying, like, I don't know if I
(28:45):
shian splurge on that trip to Paris or to whatever,
are looking at options a little bit again closer to home,
and they're saying, I don't need to spend five thousand
dollars a night for the last remaining hotel room on
the Amalfi coast, which is this is like a real thing.
The prices are that intense in some of these very
tony established destinations, and they're saying, I can spend a
(29:07):
tenth as much and stay at a great resort in Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Why not do that? Now that's interesting because you know,
when you think about the idea of staying close to home,
you're talking about the climate out there, not just in
terms of the weather, but in terms of the politics.
Does that mean that, you know, some of those out
of the way destinations that maybe some Americans might have
thought about maybe one or two years ago, are starting
(29:32):
to look a little less welcoming now.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
When you say out of the way destinations are you
thinking about in Europe?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:38):
But yeah, well, you know, I think that it's less,
the destinations in Europe are not extending their open arms.
They places in Europe want the American dollar more than
anything else. We are famously the highest spending travelers in
the world, So hotels and restaurants and businesses in Europe
want nothing more than Americans to come spend those, you know,
(29:59):
higher sums than anyone else. What Americans are a little
bit worried about, anecdotally from what we've heard, is not
receiving as warm of a welcome in terms of how
our political standing looks abroad. And so while our dollars
might be welcome, there might be some you know, some
emotional stuff almost that gets in the way.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Also when it comes to a warm welcome. We should
say some of the things we've been writing about for
this summer are cool cations, literally going places where it
is noted as hot.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
So one of the places we recommend going is Greenland.
It's such an amazing place to visit, and there's so
many things to do, and there's increasing air access it's
actually easier to get there, and there's more hotels and
more sort of glamping resorts. So that's a place to
be great to explore. Sweden also is one of our
places that we find a lot of people are going to.
(30:47):
Rotterdam has a great new museum, the Phenix Museum about migration.
So we have a lot of recommendations that pursuits about
places to go where it's less explored and it's also
less hot.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Does less explored also mean less excessive?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It sure does.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
I'm sure you've never I'm assuming here. I'm sure you've
never heard of a place called Skane, Sweden.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Kids.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Yeah, well, imagine imagine that you could go to a
beautiful countryside destination in Sweden. Incidentally, it's about like thirty
minutes outside of Copenhagen, or ninety minutes i should say,
but very close to a major city. And yet you've
got these rambling estates almost like what you would find
(31:30):
in the British countryside, except it's a little bit more
hig you know that cozy word that they use hig
and and you've got these beautiful palacial estates that have
been turned into five star hotels. You have some of
the best chefs in Scandinavia are setting up restaurants in
this region. And it's it's easy to access, you know,
(31:51):
major commercial flights in and out of Copenhagen, no problem.
And what you're paying for a night at an estate
like that two hundred and twenty five dollars at a
polace called mary Hill Estate. Just to throw out one
great example.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
That's fantastic. And you know, another piece of writing that
is really interesting that your team has come up with
is it's not just getting a bang out of your
book or a new experience. That might be a good
reason to do one of these less predictable vacations. Perhaps
it could actually be good for your brain. Chris.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Yes, taking an unpredictable or even scary vacation is actually
really good for your brain, and it releases more dopamine
than a normal good vacation. Something that someone told when
Expert Tolds, which I thought was really interesting, is that
what really releases dopamine on a vacation, which is the
neurochemical that makes you happy and feel relaxed and having fun,
(32:47):
is not when a vacation is good. It's that it's
when it's better than expected, you know, which is a
different thing. So we have a great essay by one
of our travel writers, Jen Murphy and Bloomberg Weekend about
how if you go to a place that feels like
a little bit on edge for you. Maybe you're hiking
in the wilderness and it's like a challenge, or you're
going to a new area you've never been, or you
(33:08):
don't know a lot about. Those vacations are actually extremely
valuable to waking up your brain and waking up your senses.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We're speaking with Niki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg
Pursuits getting ready for summer travel. Now, if money is
no object, Chris, what's your favorite destination that you're thinking
about right now if you've just got money to burn.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
That's a great question. I have a lot of things
on my list because I have a small child, and
there's a lot of places I feel like I can't go.
But a place I've never been and I'm dying to
go is Japan. And we have an incredible writer, Brandon Presser,
who does all of our city guides, very very in
depth city guides called two Night Minimum, and he recently
wrote a story for us because he just did a
(33:53):
city guide to Kyoto that was like, you know what
you're doing Japan wrong. If you're going to Kyoto, you
might you worried about crowds, but Actually, there's a lot
of really great places in Kyoto to explore. If you're
just sort of going between Kyoto and Tokyo. There, it's
all these other places that you can go to, and
you know, these cities are not that easy to penetrate.
So if you're not hiring a guide that has local
(34:14):
connections and people who can kind of get you into
restaurants that seem like there are no reservation or get
you into back alleyways that have interesting shops, you kind
of need to go with somebody who knows what they're
doing and who knows people.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, you would think so. I mean, you just got
to think about, you know, the difficulties of the language
in a place like Japan. And you've also been writing
about why this maybe could be the year that if
you're thinking about that excursion to the Egyptian Pyramids, that
this really could be the year to do it. Nikki.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Oh, yeah, So we actually put Egypt on our where
to Go in twenty twenty five list if you haven't
seen that, that's kind of a master list that we
publish every single year at the beginning of the year,
offering up vacation ideas that are going to feel particularly
timely in the year to come, and Egypt was really
at at the top of our priority list well before
the year started. And now we have the fortuitous timing
(35:07):
that the Pyramids of Giza are basically reopening after a
thirty million dollar renovation to all the infrastructure around the sites.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Not the pyramids.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yes, as we say, the pyramids.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Themselves cannot.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
They haven't been turned into shiny glass skyscrapers. Not to worry,
but the experience of visiting the Pyramids was previously a
challenging one in many ways. There were hawkers and sometimes
scam artists that would set up around the Pyramids. The
infrastructure was lacking compared to the grandeur of the site itself,
and Egypt has partnered with a local billionaire to infuse
(35:42):
a lot of capital, a lot of more kind of
organizational and logistical prowess into making it a site that's
worthy of its history and its role in world history.
So it is definitely a very very good time to
consider putting that on your list. Plus, the reopening of
the Pyramids coincides with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum,
which is a very long awaited institution filled with I
(36:04):
mean tens of thousands of objects spanning you know, the
entirety of time.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
So Egypt is it's the best trip I've ever taken
in my life. If it's possibly on your list to anyone,
I really recommend going. It's totally unbelievable and these improvements
will be very, very cool. The old Grand Egyptian Museum
was like from the mixed up files of Missus Basil E.
Frank Weiler, like it was very disorganized and dusty and
incredible because it had like has King Tut's tomb in there.
(36:34):
And now it's in this incredible new, gleaming, giant, new
facility that's well organized and just really wild.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
And I have to say, like Cairo has always been
a jumping off point for the rest of Egypt, and
Cairo itself has never been kind of the highlight of
the trip, so this really does change a lot of that.
But you should still buy yourself as much time as
possible to be in Egypt because taking one of those
phenomenal masted ships down the Nile, and now they can
actually set port in like all of these beautiful ancient
(37:03):
cities where there are five star hotels that have popped
up in recent years. I mean, the facilities are just
absolutely somptuous. This is truly living like a king.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
It's not crazy expensive.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, it's a great idea, even not even for just
this summer, for maybe summers to come as well. But finally,
if people are still thinking about staying a little bit
close to home, this could be the year for the
great American resort.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Okay, this is a particular passion of mine, of us.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
We've been talking about this for years.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
I've been watching, I've been wondering for a long time.
You know why when we think about resorts, we think
about traveling abroad as Americans oftentimes when really in the
US we have this incredibly rich history of resorts. And
as we kind of notice that more and more of
these old American five star properties are getting these incredible
(37:51):
glow ups, I mean, investments of nearly half a billion
dollars in some cases, it really put pushed us down
a path of exploring the legacy of the American resort.
And we've learned in the process that the concept of
the resort, the concept of the luxury resort, is an
American creation, which I had no idea.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
This was a surprise. You think of like European Grand
resorts on the Grand Tour as like, kind of who
invented that tradition of a giant hotel in a beautiful
place where everything is at your fingertips at that resort?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, quite a far cry from the route sixty six
motels the night. Yes, thank you for this. Really great
to have this conversation thinking about the kickoff of summer
travel our thanks to Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of
Bloomberg Pursuits. We'd also like to thank Bloomberg Intelligences Jennifer
Ree and Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman. Of course, thank
(38:42):
you to you as well for joining us on this
Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Stay with us. Top stories
in global business headlines are coming up right now.
Thank you so much for joining us on this special
edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets are closed for the
Juneteenth Holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Coming up this hour. We'll
update you on the latest anti trust battles facing big tech.
We'll speak with Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Reed.
And if you're looking for a travel deal this summer,
we'll look at some under the radar trip ideas with
(00:25):
Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits. But first,
one of the big goals of the Trump administration during
the first six months of its second term has been
to change diversity, equity and inclusion programs not just in government,
but in business and at universities across the country. For
an update, we bring in Simone Foxman, who covers race, equity,
(00:47):
gender and class for Bloomberg News. And Simone really appreciates
you coming on with us on this holiday edition because
it really seemed like a good time to do this.
Not only are we a few years out, you know,
from the race reckoning that really seemed to kickstart DEI
and arguably this official Juneteenth Holiday. Now it seems like
we're in a much different moment in corporate America, don't
(01:11):
you agree?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Absolutely. I mean, we've really seen a whip saw in
public opinion and internal corporate opinion in exactly the way
that they kind of address issues of race, gender, identity,
and beyond. And you know, a lot of that has
been spearheaded by the Trump administration, but not all. And
(01:34):
we can talk about, well, you know, what companies were
doing already.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, let's do that, because it would be important to
you know, just get an idea of what companies were
doing even before these executive orders aimed at dialing DEI
back were taking place. What was the trajectory for DEI.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, let's rewind even a little bit further than that.
I mean, diversity, equity and inclusion policies are essentially only
the product of, you know, diversity policies that were spearheaded
in the nineteen eighties. So you've seen a lot of
the programs, whether for small businesses, whether internally at companies,
be around for a really long time. Part of this
(02:15):
was actually set off by a kind of conservative think
tank that had talked about how so much of the
new population of younger workers would be diverse, you know,
not white men, frankly, and it really you know, convinced
executives that you know, you needed to kind of plan
(02:36):
for workforces that were more diverse. So DEI policies or
what ultimately you know, fell under that Moniker have been
around a long time. Obviously, they were really ramped up
after the murder of George Floyd in twenty twenty, and
the language that corporate executives used around that time was
(02:56):
frankly quite charged. You had, you know, uber we're talking
about trying to be an anti racist company. You had
you know, employees, employers really promising large transformative steps to
change the makeup of their workforce, including things that looked
like trying to increase the number of say black managers
(03:19):
or women of a certain executives of a certain level
by you know, fifty percent in the next three years.
Really putting kind of specific numbers on things in a
way that they hadn't done before. What really kind of
marked I mean, there was obviously kind of you know
pushback to some of this almost immediately. We saw Trump
(03:43):
in his late in his first term try and pass
an executive order against or try and institute in executive
order against you know, unconscious bias trainings that ultimately went nowhere.
But what really kind of fomented this reversal, especially within companies,
was the student dents for Fair Admissions decision around Harvard
(04:03):
and affirmative action, and it forced a lot of companies,
even though they weren't the subject of that, to look
again at their internal policies and make sure that they
weren't going to be in the way of what Trump's
executive orders were doing. So that kind of brings us
up to where we were maybe last year, and then
we can talk about kind of what's changed this year.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so let's talk about that. I mean, are these
benchmarks still in effect now that we have executive orders
that are you know, targeting DEI in the federal government, certainly,
but you know, by a virtue of that on Corporate
America as well, particularly a lot of these companies that
do business with the federal government.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, Corporate America was already looking at some of its
policies and trying to make sure that the legal rationale
that you know, led to the students for Fair Admission
decision that overturned affirmative action wouldn't be applied to them
in ways that we're damaging. So we saw a lot
of you know, employee resource groups for exams, sample make
sure that they were open to everyone. Scholarships you know,
(05:04):
kind of welcome everyone, you know, even though they were intended,
for example, to raise black students into you know, engineering
or something like that. Now they had to be open
at least to all races. What you've seen since January
twentieth is frankly another reassessment, because what Trump's executive orders
(05:25):
have said is not just that they want to eliminate
ate what they call illegal DEI within the federal government,
but they're also really encouraging federal contractors to eliminate and
private companies beyond federal contractors to eliminate to DEI. Now,
the problem for companies is they don't do a great
(05:46):
job of defining exactly what that means and what is
different this time around. We've had some inklings here and there.
Largely this falls along the things that the companies already
thought kind of fell into these gray areas, those targets
I mentioned earlier. Some lawyers see them as too close
to quotas, which are already illegal. You're not supposed to
(06:09):
be able to hire anyone on the basis of protected
characteristics like race or gender. So you've seen companies kind
of even that we're the more aspirational goals with less
firm targets, they've kind of rolled some of them back,
just kind of avoid things. But frankly, the corporate world
has been very scared not only that the federal the
(06:31):
government is going to come after them, but also that
they might end up on some lists somewhere of companies
that are woke that follow this illegal DEI and therefore
that that's going to prompt you know, consternation among their
consumers and ultimately affect their business.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
We're speaking with Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman, who covers
a quality for Bloomberg News. You mentioned illegal DEI as
a phrase in these executive orders. Is there a chest
in the corporate world about what illegal DEI actually means?
Has that been defined clearly?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
No, And that's really the issue for them, you know,
certain things Again, as I mentioned, you're not supposed to
be able to hire people with a view towards their
race or gender identity and beyond, uh, the you know,
critics of DEI will say that that is essentially what
(07:27):
was happening over the last couple of years, whether explicit
or not. But many companies say, you know, a lot
of these programs that we had that fell under this
dei moniker whatever they fall under. Now you know, we're
not you know, saying we should hire someone because of
their race, but that we should do a better job
(07:50):
of expanding the pot recruiting, drawing from, you know, communities
that we haven't necessarily seen a lot of representation from,
and assessing our internal policies to make sure that we
are inclusive of everybody. So a lot of you know,
whether it's sort of trainings about inclusivity, whether it's things
(08:14):
like scholarship programs, whether it's turning up at large recruiting
events that especially draw out people from underrepresented communities. There's
a lot of those things that still frankly exist within
companies that companies have decided, well, this is important enough
to us that we it's important for us to maintain
(08:36):
these programs. We don't think they violate the law. We
think that, you know, whatever the administration is saying, you know,
this is not illegal, and it's important to us, and
therefore we're going to continue to do them. And I
frankly found in my reporting that this is true even
at companies that said publicly that they were dialing back
(08:57):
on DEI to some extent, you know, whether that's Walmart
or any number of companies really across the board that
kind of made these enormous announcements that were treated with
great fan for are frankly still talking about things. For example, Walmart,
until my story came out in mid May, had you know, diversity,
(09:20):
equity and inclusion and the importance of it on its
job postings. So not all of this has frankly gone away.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Well, Walmart certainly is one of the highest profile companies
in the world, and if you know companies like that
are keeping some of these programs on the books, how
are they sort of striking that balance When you said
earlier that a lot of these companies don't want to
be on the administration's radar. They want to keep a
lot of this stuff on the down low.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So they've gone in tweaked programs anything that was in
a illegal gray area, you know, put that potentially looked
a little bit too much like quotas. They've they've kind
of pulled pulled back anything that didn't and welcome everyone.
They've pulled back anything that had that's not you know,
very political. They kind of pulled back. But you know,
(10:07):
the Walmart example is telling. Even though they made a
change in the way in their supplier diversity program now
called supplier Inclusion program. So the branding is part of
this here, they still have the landing pages on the
company website about lgbt QIA plus founded brands, about Hispanic
(10:29):
black women owned brands, you know, really a nod to
the fact that consumers, some consumers are interested in seeing
who's behind the brands. You know, Lows, despite making an
announcement and talking about how it was rolling back elements
of its program, really sought to reassure investors that these
(10:50):
changes were not sweeping. So you've seen really little tweaks
around the edges and little little or Mendelssohn is a
law firm that kind of asks corporate executives about their opinions.
In a survey they conducted in late February to mid March,
they asked corporate executives, I think it was over three
(11:11):
hundred to what extent is your organization considering new or
further rollbacks of your inclusion equity and diversity programs. Forty
five percent said not at all, thirty two percent said
to a small extent, So seventy seven percent here not
making any major changes despite some of the new guidance
(11:31):
from the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Do you think we would have seen changes around the
margins for these programs even without President Trump's executive orders, because,
as we mentioned, there had been some backlash from DEI
even before President Trump returned for a second term.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, partly because the court seemed like it was moving
in this direction, and partly because there has been a
backlash to being overly politicized about many issues. You know,
companies were willing to make somewhat political statements frankly a
couple of years ago. They're not willing to do that
(12:10):
in the same way anymore. They've tried to move away
from that. There was already a push towards we're going
to really emphasize inclusion. We're going to minimize things that
you know, the first two letters of the acronym diversity
and equity. You know, diversity. Sure, we still believe in
that equity. Maybe people are confused. There was already that
(12:31):
push that has not necessarily changed, and maybe that's why
We're not seeing these massive moves on the part of
company is to really, you know, further tweak from here.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Really appreciate this. Simone, thanks again for coming on with
us on this juneteenth edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. That is
Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman covering equality for Bloomberg News.
And up next on this special edition of Daybreak, we'll
take a look at big tech still in the crosshairs
of anti trust lawsuits. We'll get an update on that
(13:02):
from Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree. It's twenty
minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg.
Welcome back to this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. I'm
Nathan Hager. US markets are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. Now,
(13:23):
the thinking among many on Wall Street is that antitrust
cases against big tech might ease up with the change
from the Biden to the Trump administration. Have they for
some answers? Let's turn to Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst
Jennifer Ree. Jen kind of looks like your litigation plate's
still pretty full. Is that the case? Is that a surprise?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It is very full? And I'll tell you, I don't
think it's a surprise, oh you know. And the reason
I don't think it's a surprise is because people forget
that all of these investigations of the big tech platforms
that culminated in lawsuits, and in fact, two of the
lawsuits started during Trump's first administration, and they were pursued
aggressively by the Biden administration, which picked up the mantle
(14:06):
from Trump and kept going with them. And you know,
these cases now several of them have proceeded to trial,
but they were started under Trump. And there's just this feeling,
I think by Trump and most of the people that
he's put in place at the FTC and DJ that
these companies like Meta and Google and Apple are left
leaning companies that have you know, censored conservative content and
(14:28):
made it difficult for Trump to win the second time
he ran against Joe Biden. And really they're just not
going to give them any breaks, despite the fact that
executives from these companies have freely tried to curry favor
with the president.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So it's a different focus in the sense that it
might be more around the content that these companies are
putting out there as opposed to more of the anti
competitive nature that we saw during the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, yes and no, it's about the content. But I
think what they're doing is putting content into the antitrust
framework by saying that the lack of competition and the
fact that the company's monopolized markets allow them then to
control the message, that if there were more alternatives and
more competition, they wouldn't have that ability to control the message.
So they sort of put it all together right into
(15:12):
one bucket.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So does that mean that as some of these cases
go forward against some of the biggest names in the
mag seven, that we could see breakups of these companies.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So I think it's unlikely. Now you have two cases
where the dj is really aggressively seeking breakup. They're both
against Google, by the way. One is about its monopoly
maintenance of Search, and the other one is about monopoly
maintenance of its ad tech products. And in those cases,
what they're asking the judges to do is to force
Google in the search case to divest Chrome and in
(15:45):
the ad tech case, to divest a product they bought
a long time ago called double Click. These are products
we don't really know about as consumers. They're used by
digital publishers and advertisers to get together and sell and
buy advertising space online. And Google has all these products
and of shuffles the publishers and advertisers through all their
products to the exclusion of others so that they can
take the fees all along the way. I'll tell you
(16:07):
that in both cases, by the way, liability has already
been found against Google, they have acted illegally to maintain
monopolies in all of these markets. That has already been determined.
What the judge is now they're two different judges are
trying to do is determine what the remedies should be
to fix this problem. It's not really punishment in the
anti trust world, but more let's open up the markets
(16:28):
to other competitors and stop this illegal conduct. I don't
think in either case the company is going to be
forced to sell off a company sell off a piece
of itself. So starting with Google Search, that's the one
where the DJ is asking them to be forced to
sell Chrome. In my mind, if you look at the
liability decision, that punishment i'll call it punishment, even though
(16:48):
it's not really punishment, doesn't really fit the crime, right.
I think it's overkill, because what they've been found to
do that's illegal is enter these agreements with companies like Apple, Verizon,
T Mobilemsung that makes their Android phones to place Google
Search as the default search engine at Internet access points,
or to place it, let's say, on a phone to
(17:09):
front and center to the exclusion of other search engines,
and that harmed other engines like Bing and like Duck
Duck Go because they simply weren't able to get exposure.
They weren't able to get the search volume they needed
to improve. And I think you can fix that without
having to sell Chrome. You know, there are other ways
that can be fixed. So my guess is these remedies,
which are going to come out in August, by the way,
(17:30):
are going to be a mixture of telling them, hey,
you can't have these agreements anymore. You can't pay Apple
to put Google Search behind Safari, which, by the way, Nathan,
they were paying twenty billion a year for that. Yeah, yeah,
a lot of money. So it's going to hurt Apple too,
and maybe sharing some of the search data you've collected
over the years with all of these searches, and also
possibly choice screens and Chrome. A person buys a new
(17:53):
phone they open Chrome the first time, they have a
choice of what they want to use as their default
search engine, and possibly some data sharing, because the data
sharing would fix this deprivation of scale and data that
allegedly these other search engines needed to get better, share
some of that data, give them a chance to try
to get better and to compete more vigorously against Google Search.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So even some of those smaller remedies could be a
pretty big hit to Google's not just bottom line but
their overall business practices, couldn't.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
They absolutely, absolutely, they have fought hard against some of
these data remedies, and even the default remedies now they
modeled internally. This came out and trial that if they
lost the default search position it could be up to
thirty two billion in revenue lost a year, which, I'll
be honest really surprised me because I thought that was
awfully high, given that most people really like Google Search,
(18:44):
and you might be inclined to put it back as
the default if it isn't the default to start. But
nonetheless this could really hurt, and the data sharing could
hurt too. But the whole point is to reduce their
market share a little bit and give more market share
or allow some of these other competitors to try to
gain market share.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well. On top of the Google multiple antitrust cases, we've had,
this case against meta platforms wrap up in just the
last couple of weeks as well. This is a big
one where they're talking potentially about spinning off Instagram and WhatsApp.
Could it go that far?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You know, I really don't think so. You know, as
I said, Google lost on liability on those two trials,
I don't even think med is going to lose on
liability on this one.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
You know, And I'll tell you it's really because it's very,
very hard to prove that there was consumer harm. You know,
they may have had a bad intent when they bought
Instagram and WhatsApp. The intent may have been, let's buy
these companies rather than competing with them, which is technically illegal.
But they put a lot of money in. Both of
the companies were sort of struggling at the time that
(19:45):
they were acquired by Facebook. They put a lot of
innovation in. They built the products into something that was
really desirable to consumers, which may not have happened if
they hadn't done that. And it's hard to prove that
had they not bought these we call it a butt
four world, that they would be the products they are
today and that consumers would be better off. And really
that's what had to be proven here by the FTC,
(20:07):
and I'm not so sure that they were able to
do that. So I think at the end of the day,
they're just going to lose on liability and then this
will be done because if they lose, FTC loses on liability,
there will be no remedy.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Hearing interesting, So is this a case where the FTC
might have gotten itself boxed in with meta platforms just
from approving the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp all those
years ago.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Absolutely, I think it was regret buyers for remorse there.
You know, they approved both of those acquisitions. WhatsApp. I
think they didn't even investigate the Instagram one. They did
investigate for six months or so, they allowed both of them,
They cleared both of them, as did by the way,
the UK and EU, which looked thoroughly also at these acquisitions.
And I do think that they regret having done that
(20:48):
and they're trying to fix that now.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, so could meta platforms be sort of watching its back?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Though?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
When it comes to future acquisitions, given that it has
had to go through this process over the last couple
of months.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
You know, absolutely, And that's one of the issues that
they raise with respect to a suit like this. They say, look,
you approved these deals years ago in twenty twelve and fourteen.
How is a company supposed to buy any company and
have assurance going forward that ten years later or five
years later, the FDC or DOJ won't come back and say, hey,
those we're illegal acquisitions even though we clear them back
(21:21):
when you know you gave us notice. And I think
it does put companies in a difficult position. And I
suspect that Facebook is probably sitting back still watching what's
going to happen in merger enforcement with the Trump administration
to understand whether they could get a big deal through
or not.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Now, outside the Federal Trade Commissions purview, the Justice Department
is joining with states in going after Apple. What set
issue there?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
This is an unusual case because this is about Apple
sort of blocking or refusing interoperability or refusing certain apps
to be on the mobile iOS that would allow people
to get out of the iOS system, in other words,
to keep them dependent on the iPhone or their other hardware,
such as the Apple Watch. So the idea is that
(22:14):
it reduces the competition or the ability for somebody to
switch and to buy an Android, because let's say you
get the Apple Watch, now you're dependent on the iOS
because it works with the iOS and doesn't really work
that well with Android, or the texting doesn't really work
very well, or for instance, they don't allow game streaming
apps to be sold through their app store because it
(22:35):
could allow less sophisticated technology. Somebody who streams a game
can buy less sophisticated technology than an Apple iPhone to
play that game. And so it's about all of this
action to try to keep people within iOS, buying all
of their hardware, and keeping them in their system. And
this one's really slow. There's no trial date set yet.
(22:56):
We're waiting on a motion to dismiss that Apple filed.
I don't think they'll win that, Nathan, But that's not
a big deal. They're very hard to win. It's just
sort of a first chance to dismiss the complaint and
rather than getting into discovery. So I think this is
going to be a really slow case. And you know,
my feeling about it is that I don't think it's
necessarily a slam dunk in anyway for the DOJ. We're
(23:16):
going to have to wait to see how the evidence
shakes out here. But I think Apple has a lot
of good defenses about safety and security and protecting its users,
providing its users with the best products, seamless activity, you know,
with whatever they're doing on the phone, and these can
be good defenses in an anti trust suit.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
And we know that we're in a pretty long wait
and see mode as well when it comes to the
FTC's case against Amazon. Remind us what's going on there,
what's an issue that.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Has been so slow? And they just push back the
trial date yet again into twenty twenty seven from twenty
twenty six. So this is about Amazon requiring sellers on
its platform to provide the lowest prices they provide anywhere
on Amazon. Now that sounds good, that should be good
for cons But the allegation there is that it's more
expensive for these sellers to sell an Amazon than their
(24:04):
own platform or maybe atsy or some other platform or
they could sell their products, and it causes those prices
to go up rather than all of the prices to
come down. So it has this price inflating effect, kind
of like a most favored nation clause. They think that
this is illegal. They also say that if sellers want
to have really nice positioning when somebody's searching for a product,
(24:26):
or they want to be in what they call the
prime box, that they have to use Amazon's fulfillment services
as well. That also causes a price increase because they're expensive.
You know, this is another one where I think we
have to see where the evidence shakes out. On the
fulfillment side. I think Amazon can make again a decent
pro competitive argument that you know, we want to make
(24:47):
sure when we promise our buyers that they're going to
get a product within two days or one day or today,
that they actually do. So we want control over the
fulfillment services because we want to make sure that we're
good to our word. You know, they might have a
good defense there on the most favored nation issue. I
think it looks like so far that this could actually
(25:07):
cause some price raising effects outside of the platform, but
I kind of see it as well not really a
big deal because the answer to that if they're found
libel is you just have to stop doing this, And
what that could mean is that you might be able
to find a product lower priced outside of Amazon, and
I think that would be fine. And I'm not even sure, Nathan,
that that would really hurt Amazon's revenue or bottom line
(25:28):
in any kind of substantial way.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
No, we just went through four of the mag seven
when it comes to anti trust scrutiny, it sounds as
though big tech is still a big priority for this government.
Thank you for this, Jen really appreciate it. That is
Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree and 'p. Next,
we'll look at some under the radar travel bargains this
summer with Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits.
(25:53):
It's thirty seven minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager,
and this is Bloomberg. Thank you so much for joining
us on this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets
are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager, and
we're just about a day away from the official start
of summer, so we thought now might be a decent
(26:15):
time to look at how travels looking, with many of
us maybe thinking about getting ready for those summer vacations.
And who better to check in with on that than
our friends at Bloomberg Pursuits, Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser
here to guide us through summer travel. Thanks so much
to both of you for being with us, and I
(26:35):
think we're coming off a pretty strong start to unofficial
travel season right with the Memorial Day weekend behind us.
Is that a good indicator of whether things could be
crowded as we embark? Who'd like to tackle that question?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
You know?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Demand is that an all time high? I think going
into twenty twenty five, people have been very bullish on travel.
People want to get away, People are movedtionally exhausted, mentally
exhausted from the news cycle. This is a time where
people are still kind of lingering over that pandemic induced
desire to get out and explore the world and not
let a single PTO DA go wasted. So all that
(27:15):
energy is still riding super high and we're seeing super
sized demand. What we are seeing a little bit is
people being more value conscious, people looking at the global
economic uncertainty and saying, maybe I should splurge just a
smidge less, find a couple of ways to go closer
to home, more vacations but smaller radius. Shall we say,
from whatever your origin point is, maybe more long weekend
(27:37):
trips rather than two week forays somewhere very far away.
So definitely high demand.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, absolutely so, Chris, Where are you seeing that people
could get some of that bang for their buck in
terms of certain destinations they might be thinking about.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Well, one of the things that we've noticed for this
year in the past couple of years actually is that
the Caribbean is no longer a place where travel softens
in the summer. People are going for a hot Caribbean
summer because prices are a little bit more on the
reasonable side, and resorts are great to be at. The
weather actually because of climate change, the weather actually there
(28:15):
is actually kind of more temperate than it is in
a lot of other places that you might want to go,
especially southern Europe. So we're seeing a lot of people
going there, and especially Canadians.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Canadians don't want to go to the US this year.
They're really tired of the fifty first state rhetoric that's
come from our administration lately, and they're really turning to
the Caribbean as an alternative. There's a lot of airlines
are meeting that demand with direct routes to places like
Bermuda is particularly popular with Canadians this year. But even
Americans who are saying, like, I don't know if I
(28:45):
shian splurge on that trip to Paris or to whatever,
are looking at options a little bit again closer to home,
and they're saying, I don't need to spend five thousand
dollars a night for the last remaining hotel room on
the Amalfi coast, which is this is like a real thing.
The prices are that intense in some of these very
tony established destinations, and they're saying, I can spend a
(29:07):
tenth as much and stay at a great resort in Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Why not do that? Now that's interesting because you know,
when you think about the idea of staying close to home,
you're talking about the climate out there, not just in
terms of the weather, but in terms of the politics.
Does that mean that, you know, some of those out
of the way destinations that maybe some Americans might have
thought about maybe one or two years ago, are starting
(29:32):
to look a little less welcoming now.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
When you say out of the way destinations are you
thinking about in Europe?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:38):
But yeah, well, you know, I think that it's less,
the destinations in Europe are not extending their open arms.
They places in Europe want the American dollar more than
anything else. We are famously the highest spending travelers in
the world, So hotels and restaurants and businesses in Europe
want nothing more than Americans to come spend those, you know,
(29:59):
higher sums than anyone else. What Americans are a little
bit worried about, anecdotally from what we've heard, is not
receiving as warm of a welcome in terms of how
our political standing looks abroad. And so while our dollars
might be welcome, there might be some you know, some
emotional stuff almost that gets in the way.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Also when it comes to a warm welcome. We should
say some of the things we've been writing about for
this summer are cool cations, literally going places where it
is noted as hot.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
So one of the places we recommend going is Greenland.
It's such an amazing place to visit, and there's so
many things to do, and there's increasing air access it's
actually easier to get there, and there's more hotels and
more sort of glamping resorts. So that's a place to
be great to explore. Sweden also is one of our
places that we find a lot of people are going to.
(30:47):
Rotterdam has a great new museum, the Phenix Museum about migration.
So we have a lot of recommendations that pursuits about
places to go where it's less explored and it's also
less hot.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Does less explored also mean less excessive?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It sure does.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
I'm sure you've never I'm assuming here. I'm sure you've
never heard of a place called Skane, Sweden.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Kids.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Yeah, well, imagine imagine that you could go to a
beautiful countryside destination in Sweden. Incidentally, it's about like thirty
minutes outside of Copenhagen, or ninety minutes i should say,
but very close to a major city. And yet you've
got these rambling estates almost like what you would find
(31:30):
in the British countryside, except it's a little bit more
hig you know that cozy word that they use hig
and and you've got these beautiful palacial estates that have
been turned into five star hotels. You have some of
the best chefs in Scandinavia are setting up restaurants in
this region. And it's it's easy to access, you know,
(31:51):
major commercial flights in and out of Copenhagen, no problem.
And what you're paying for a night at an estate
like that two hundred and twenty five dollars at a
polace called mary Hill Estate. Just to throw out one
great example.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
That's fantastic. And you know, another piece of writing that
is really interesting that your team has come up with
is it's not just getting a bang out of your
book or a new experience. That might be a good
reason to do one of these less predictable vacations. Perhaps
it could actually be good for your brain. Chris.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Yes, taking an unpredictable or even scary vacation is actually
really good for your brain, and it releases more dopamine
than a normal good vacation. Something that someone told when
Expert Tolds, which I thought was really interesting, is that
what really releases dopamine on a vacation, which is the
neurochemical that makes you happy and feel relaxed and having fun,
(32:47):
is not when a vacation is good. It's that it's
when it's better than expected, you know, which is a
different thing. So we have a great essay by one
of our travel writers, Jen Murphy and Bloomberg Weekend about
how if you go to a place that feels like
a little bit on edge for you. Maybe you're hiking
in the wilderness and it's like a challenge, or you're
going to a new area you've never been, or you
(33:08):
don't know a lot about. Those vacations are actually extremely
valuable to waking up your brain and waking up your senses.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We're speaking with Niki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg
Pursuits getting ready for summer travel. Now, if money is
no object, Chris, what's your favorite destination that you're thinking
about right now if you've just got money to burn.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
That's a great question. I have a lot of things
on my list because I have a small child, and
there's a lot of places I feel like I can't go.
But a place I've never been and I'm dying to
go is Japan. And we have an incredible writer, Brandon Presser,
who does all of our city guides, very very in
depth city guides called two Night Minimum, and he recently
wrote a story for us because he just did a
(33:53):
city guide to Kyoto that was like, you know what
you're doing Japan wrong. If you're going to Kyoto, you
might you worried about crowds, but Actually, there's a lot
of really great places in Kyoto to explore. If you're
just sort of going between Kyoto and Tokyo. There, it's
all these other places that you can go to, and
you know, these cities are not that easy to penetrate.
So if you're not hiring a guide that has local
(34:14):
connections and people who can kind of get you into
restaurants that seem like there are no reservation or get
you into back alleyways that have interesting shops, you kind
of need to go with somebody who knows what they're
doing and who knows people.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, you would think so. I mean, you just got
to think about, you know, the difficulties of the language
in a place like Japan. And you've also been writing
about why this maybe could be the year that if
you're thinking about that excursion to the Egyptian Pyramids, that
this really could be the year to do it. Nikki.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Oh, yeah, So we actually put Egypt on our where
to Go in twenty twenty five list if you haven't
seen that, that's kind of a master list that we
publish every single year at the beginning of the year,
offering up vacation ideas that are going to feel particularly
timely in the year to come, and Egypt was really
at at the top of our priority list well before
the year started. And now we have the fortuitous timing
(35:07):
that the Pyramids of Giza are basically reopening after a
thirty million dollar renovation to all the infrastructure around the sites.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Not the pyramids.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yes, as we say, the pyramids.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Themselves cannot.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
They haven't been turned into shiny glass skyscrapers. Not to worry,
but the experience of visiting the Pyramids was previously a
challenging one in many ways. There were hawkers and sometimes
scam artists that would set up around the Pyramids. The
infrastructure was lacking compared to the grandeur of the site itself,
and Egypt has partnered with a local billionaire to infuse
(35:42):
a lot of capital, a lot of more kind of
organizational and logistical prowess into making it a site that's
worthy of its history and its role in world history.
So it is definitely a very very good time to
consider putting that on your list. Plus, the reopening of
the Pyramids coincides with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum,
which is a very long awaited institution filled with I
(36:04):
mean tens of thousands of objects spanning you know, the
entirety of time.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
So Egypt is it's the best trip I've ever taken
in my life. If it's possibly on your list to anyone,
I really recommend going. It's totally unbelievable and these improvements
will be very, very cool. The old Grand Egyptian Museum
was like from the mixed up files of Missus Basil E.
Frank Weiler, like it was very disorganized and dusty and
incredible because it had like has King Tut's tomb in there.
(36:34):
And now it's in this incredible new, gleaming, giant, new
facility that's well organized and just really wild.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
And I have to say, like Cairo has always been
a jumping off point for the rest of Egypt, and
Cairo itself has never been kind of the highlight of
the trip, so this really does change a lot of that.
But you should still buy yourself as much time as
possible to be in Egypt because taking one of those
phenomenal masted ships down the Nile, and now they can
actually set port in like all of these beautiful ancient
(37:03):
cities where there are five star hotels that have popped
up in recent years. I mean, the facilities are just
absolutely somptuous. This is truly living like a king.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
It's not crazy expensive.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, it's a great idea, even not even for just
this summer, for maybe summers to come as well. But finally,
if people are still thinking about staying a little bit
close to home, this could be the year for the
great American resort.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Okay, this is a particular passion of mine, of us.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
We've been talking about this for years.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
I've been watching, I've been wondering for a long time.
You know why when we think about resorts, we think
about traveling abroad as Americans oftentimes when really in the
US we have this incredibly rich history of resorts. And
as we kind of notice that more and more of
these old American five star properties are getting these incredible
(37:51):
glow ups, I mean, investments of nearly half a billion
dollars in some cases, it really put pushed us down
a path of exploring the legacy of the American resort.
And we've learned in the process that the concept of
the resort, the concept of the luxury resort, is an
American creation, which I had no idea.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
This was a surprise. You think of like European Grand
resorts on the Grand Tour as like, kind of who
invented that tradition of a giant hotel in a beautiful
place where everything is at your fingertips at that resort?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, quite a far cry from the route sixty six
motels the night. Yes, thank you for this. Really great
to have this conversation thinking about the kickoff of summer
travel our thanks to Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of
Bloomberg Pursuits. We'd also like to thank Bloomberg Intelligences Jennifer
Ree and Bloomberg News reporter Simone Foxman. Of course, thank
(38:42):
you to you as well for joining us on this
Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Stay with us. Top stories
in global business headlines are coming up right now.
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