September 10, 2025 • 28 mins
Watch Bloomberg Businessweek Daily every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Larry Ellison has become the world’s richest person for the first time, ending Elon Musk’s nearly year-long reign in the top spot.
Ellison’s fortune soared $101 billion as of 10:10 a.m. in New York after Oracle Corp. reported quarterly results that surpassed expectations and said there’s more growth to come.
The increase lifted his total fortune to $393 billion, ahead of Musk who sits at $385 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s the biggest one-day increase ever recorded by the index.
Musk became the world’s richest person for the first time in 2021 before losing the title to Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault. He reclaimed it last year and had held it for just over 300 days.
Ellison, 81, who co-founded Oracle and is now chairman and chief technology officer, has the bulk of his net worth tied up in the database software company.
Oracle’s shares, which had already gained 45% this year through Tuesday’s close, soared 41% Wednesday after the company posted a major increase in bookings and gave an aggressive outlook for its cloud infrastructure business. It’s the company’s largest single-day surge ever.
Today's show features:
- Bloomberg News Wealth Americas Team Leader Kristine Owram on Larry Ellison surpassing Elon Musk as the world’s richest man
- Bloomberg TV and Radio International Economics & Policy Correspondent Mike McKee on the US Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General initiating a review at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Senate Banking Committee backing Stephen Miran for a Federal Reserve Governor post
- Elizabeth Renter, Senior Economist at NerdWallet, on the economic outlook and the health of the US consumer
- Fred Thiel, Chairman and CEO of MARA Holdings on the regulatory outlook for Bitcoin and the company’s recent progress with Bitcoin mining
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine
that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies,
and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business finance
and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week
Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Elon us no longer the world's richest person. He's been
bumped by Oracles Larry Ellison. That's after the company's reported
quarterly results. And now we're hearing this news. So Christine
orm Wealth, America's team leader for Bloomberg News, thank you
for joining us. So you're sitting here listening to us
talk about this.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
And then we had earning.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So how much did the Ellison's fortune shore after that?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, so this has been quite the day for Oracles.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Caroline was just saying, so Ellison earlier today when the
stock visits, he could spared some of those games. Now,
but he was up more than one hundred billion dollars
and that was the increase to his fortune, not his
total fortune. That got him close to four hundred billion
dollars at one point he was at about three hundred
and ninety four billion dollars, putting him in first place
on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time, also
(01:17):
putting him ahead of Elon Musk for the first time.
So this is very notable. Musk has been in first
place for almost a year, and of course we had
the news last week of Musk getting his one trillion
dollar pay package, So this may be a short lived
first place for Ellison. Musk stands to make a lot
of money over the coming years that could potentially make
(01:38):
him the first trillionaire. But for now, Larry Ellison is
in first place.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
And looking at Tesla's stock being down over ten percent
this year, and obviously there's different dynamics where we've seen
it pop and then pulled back. But how does that
fit in when it comes to Ellison versus what's going
on with you were just talking about with Elon Musk
versus also Jeff Bezos obviously the poster child in kim'sday on.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Yeah, No, it's a very good question because I think
what you're seeing here is the divergence between the companies
that are exposed to AIS. Caroline was just saying and
those that are struggling a little bit in that space.
And of course Musk has made a big deal about
all of the inroads that Tesla is making an AI
and how he wants that to be kind of like
one of the main drivers of the company going forward.
But so far the market doesn't really seem to be
(02:22):
buying that. So Tesla hasn't been performing super well. And
of course there have been a lot of other issues
there around his political involvement and other things too that
have weighed on the stock. But despite that fact, Musk
had clung tenaciously to the number one spot for quite
a while, just largely actually not because of Tesla, because
of all of his other ventures SpaceX, super Valuable Company,
(02:44):
xai X formerly Twitter, all bolster his fortune. But it
seems like as of right now that isn't enough. But again,
with that massive pay package that the board has promised him,
if that passes muster, that could change very quickly.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Before you go, quick question, so can you break down
that battle back and forth for that top So, I
mean not just Besos, but other you know folks have
been up at that hub.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Fin Yeah, actually, so Ellison just surpassed Mark Zuckerberg in July,
so only a couple of months ago to move into
second place. Zuckerberg has fallen a little bit with Meta.
Bezos and Zuckerberg have kind of been jockeying back and forth.
But I think what this reflects because I, you know,
earlier this year, I think Ellison was in fourth or
maybe even fifth place, and how quickly he's climbed the
(03:31):
ranks just reflects how how much Oracle has been able
to sort of glom onto that AI narrative, how successful
it's been in selling that narrative to shareholders, and we're
seeing that in the thirty five percent share drum today.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Right, Christine always greed having you with us. Christine Orum
obviously Bloomberg News Wealth America's team leader. Join us here
in the Bloomberg Business Week Studio on Larry Ellison surpassing
Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
If you are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast,
catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm
Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with
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Speaker 3 (04:18):
This is a day after the BLS. They published a
preliminary revision to annual payrolls data. Now we're getting word
that the Labor Inspector General initiating a review of challenges
at the BLS. On top of that, we have another
legal move in the President's question remove FED Governor Lisa Cook.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
A lot going on.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
We want to bring in Michael McKee's international economics and
policy correspondent for Bloomberg TV and Radio. So I want
to start with Lisa Cook because there's been so much
back and forth.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's hard to keep up with Michael McKee.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So does this latest move, Does it remove Cook from
her position before a FED decision in a week from
today or what is it?
Speaker 6 (04:56):
Though?
Speaker 7 (04:56):
It keeps her in that position, the position in the position,
but what the administration has filed a notice of appeal
this afternoon, so they're going to go to the Circuit
Court of Appeals in DC. We don't know the speed
with which they are going to file their documents and
ask for a hearing, but if they move very quickly,
(05:17):
they could, in theory if the court degrees, block her
before we get to that meeting. But it's getting very
tight for something like that, So I suspect she'll probably
be there walk us.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Through any sort of precedent when it comes to something
like this with a federal Reserve governor. But then also,
is there just cause there when it comes to the president.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Well, it's funny because you mentioned those two things. This
is the point that the judge made is that nobody
has ever tried to fire someone at the FED for cause,
and so she had to decide what cause means and
whether or not the president's accusations rise to cause. And basically,
she said that the historical record show is that cause
(06:01):
basically relates to things that happen in your job while
you're doing it, and that if she did something that
she shouldn't have done before she came to office, and
that was years ago and people knew about it, then
it wouldn't rise to cause. And that's one of the
reasons that she said that the cook could stay in
(06:23):
her office for now.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So what does it mean for time wise? I mean
we're today a week away from a fit decision.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
What does this mean, Well, the administration's going to have
to move fast to get file and they will have
to get a three judge panel that would hear it quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Enough, and they'd have to make the case that.
Speaker 7 (06:42):
There would be some sort of harm to the government
if she were allowed to vote at this meeting, because
they can make the case that there's harm to the
government if she remains on the job. Without a determined
time frame, they could, you know, let could play out
over a week or so, and we've seen that with
(07:02):
other people that the President has tried to fire. But
to get her out before the meeting would take a
lot because it doesn't seem to rise to the necessity
of having judges work through the weekend.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Is there an indication about a timetable when you're talking
about over the next week or so? How long could
this possibly drag out?
Speaker 7 (07:21):
Oh, it's going to drag out for quite some time
because whatever happens in the Appeals Court, it will probably
go to the Supreme Court. And because this is a
unique case, nobody has ever tried to fire somebody for
cause and the definition of cause, etc. So the Supreme
Court is starting to back up with the Trump problem cases.
(07:42):
They just took on the tariff case on an expedited basis,
so they will have to have a hearing for that
in November and then try to make a decision maybe
by the first of the year if it goes to
the Supreme Court. And in this case, it doesn't seem
to be the kind of thing that's going to set
the world a fire, So we could go on the
regular docket and then we don't get a.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Decision untill next June.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
So then the question becomes does she stay on the
FED until that time? And that'll depend both on the
Appeals Court, and then the Supreme Court could also issue
a stay and kick her out, as they did with
other people that Trump tied to fire tried to fire.
But again, this is an unusual case because the Supreme
Court's given them something of a carve out.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Now, if we can we get into the Labor Inspector
General and this report that they're apparently doing review of
the challenges at the BLS, what are these challengesting?
Speaker 7 (08:35):
Interesting language that they used, because one is tempted to
read it after everything that the administration has done, is
we're going to look at ways to find that you
guys did something wrong and get rid of you.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
But it could be that, let me put it this way.
Speaker 7 (08:51):
I have said that if you were a normal administration,
what you would say is there seemed to be issues
with getting the data as accurate as it can be
because you're short of money and short of personnel. So
let's sit down and figure out how we can address
those challenges, which is not what they did, but one
(09:11):
could read the Inspector General is stepping in and saying, well,
maybe I'll prepare a report that says you can't do
all this with the resources that you've been given. I
suspect though, that it is probably an effort to because
Trump had fired all the Inspectors General and appointed new ones,
is an effort to find out something that they are
doing wrong and make a case for further dismissals, which
(09:34):
would only put them farther behind the eight ball. Now,
this is not the kind of thing that's going to
get a lot of attention right away, and it may
take some time, and so it's not an imminent threat
to the BLS, but it is another cloud on the horizon.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
So how does Stephen Moran ultimately fit into all of this?
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Well, he fits into it because we are reporting stun
people familiar that he will get a vote on the
floor on Monday. It's not easy, given the Senate rules,
to do something that fast but the President said do it,
so they are going to do it, and then he
can walk in the next day, and you know, somewhere
in between the vote and the time the meeting starts,
(10:18):
somebody will swear him in and he'll participate in the meeting.
It'll be an unusual situation. He would have had no
preparation other than what he can do it the CEA,
but he wouldn't have access to the FED staff or
anything to prepare for the meeting. So other than advocating
for maybe a fifty basis point cut, if we assume
the Fed's going to do twenty five, it's hard to
(10:40):
see how much he would contribute. But there's a good
chance that he will be there, and Lisa Cook will
probably be there.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Then what's a chance that he would be nominated for
a full term that hasn't.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Been well, that's an open question.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
The President has sort of left that open in whether
it's a tryout for the job or whether he's just
keeping the seat warm so he could appoint someone else
to be chairman if another seat doesn't open up, if
Cook isn't gone, or if Jay Powell decides to stay on,
then whoever he wants as chairman, unless it's somebody who's
already on the board, he would have to have an
(11:15):
open seat, so then Steve Myron would go back to
the CEA.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
It seems all right.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Michael McKee. Always a pleasure when you're joining us on
Bloomberg Television and Radio, International Economics and Policy correspondent at
Bloomberg Television and Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 4 (11:48):
Lisa, we were talking about earlier. There's so much to discuss.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
When you were talking about the economic front and thinking
about when the Labor Inspector General initiating a review of
those BLS challenges. Obviously, producer prices coming in at the
lowest level since April ahead of that CPI data. So
many different places to start, But let's bring in our
next guest who can break this down for us and
give us more of her purview. Elizabeth Retner, senior economists
(12:12):
at Nerd Wallet, joining us from Durham, North Carolina. Elizabeth,
it's great having you with us. I'll start off first
when it comes to those BLS revisions yesterday, and then
of course on top of the latest news today that
the Labor Inspector General is initiating that review of that,
walk us through kind of how do you view this
from your purview as an economist and what does this
(12:33):
ultimately mean and how long could this take?
Speaker 8 (12:36):
Hey, well, thanks for having me. First of all, I'm
excited to be here and chat with you guys. So
you know, I think I reiterate this a lot to folks,
as we can't think of revisions as corrections. Revisions are
part of the statistical process. Various revisions happen throughout the year.
They happen monthly to the jobs report. As you know,
they've been making headlines over the past few months as well.
So this preliminary benchmarking estimate that came out yesterday, the
(13:00):
revisions were large.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
We anticipated that and there's several reasons for that.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Primarily, low response rates to the BLS is one contributing factor.
Another contributing factor, though, is we often see large revisions
when the economy is in transition. So if it is
changing direction, if it's growing rapidly, or if it's decelerating.
A lot of times, when you take sample based data,
which is the Jobs report, and you level it up
(13:25):
or you try to make inferences about the entire population,
that gets a little more tricky when the economy is changing.
And so I think that is one of the big
reasons for the big revisions here. You know, it doesn't
hurt to look at the data, to look at the
integrity of the data. The BLS does need help in
the way that they are severely underfunded and they're part
of a hiring freeze, and so I think looking at
(13:47):
the data is good.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I have faith in the data.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
But these large revisions were significant, and it's important to
pay attention to them and what they mean.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
So when it comes to the data, Elizabeth, I mean,
what holds more weight? Is it in inflation data or
is it jobs data?
Speaker 8 (14:03):
That's a great question, and that's why you know the
FED has a dual mandate where they have to balance
these risks. It's both right, and that's what we're seeing
with FED decisions right now. Is there a challenging place
where inflation isn't at their two percent target, but the
labor market is clearly weakening. You know, we'll I'll be
listening next week to how they handle these risks. I
do think a rate cut is probably likely. I think
(14:24):
this is where they sort of turn their attention to
the labor market as being the greater two of those
risks at this time. But you know, it's why it's
a constant balancing act. They're both very important data sources
and they tell us a lot about the health of
the economy overall.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Of course, as you know, Elizabeth, the fierce debate as
always when it comes to different cutting cycles like this
and resuming after they started a year ago a last
September with rate cuts. As far as how aggressive do
you think the FED will be with cuts when you
have swaps pricing in close to one hundred and fifty
bases points over the next year. Will it be that
(15:00):
aggressive or will inflation day to prevent that from happening.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
You know, that's a great question.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
I tend to think it's not going to be aggressive
unless the labor market we can significantly and dramatically. Right now,
we're seeing cooling that probably needs to be addressed. But
I don't anticipate you know, like a fifty basis point
cut next week, like some people are anticipating. I think
they'll play it a little more conservatively, but we kind
(15:28):
of have to wait and see.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
You know, we've never it's hard.
Speaker 8 (15:30):
To say what's going to happen with inflation right now
because we've never seen tariffs like this. We don't know
what's going to happen, and so it's tempting to say
tariff should just be a one time price bump, but
these are very broad and they're impacting all different levels
of the economy at different timing and at different magnitude.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Some of it's still tied up in the court. So
there's just a lot.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
Of unknowns right now that I think we're just going
to have to wait and watch play out.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And all that said, what does that mean for the consumer?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
How is that consumer?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Great question?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (15:58):
Yeah, So overall, general consumer sentiment about the economy is
really souring. We've seen it in the University of Michigan,
the Conference Board, those are kind of the gold standards
of consumer economic sentiment. This week, though, we got the
survey of consumer expectations from the New York Fed and
it showed that inflation expectations are slightly up. Households are
more likely to say their financial situation is worsening than improving,
(16:20):
and many people the sort of the big takeaway from
the New York Fed data was the outlook about the
labor market. People put the probability of finding a new
job if they lost their current job at the lowest ever.
It was something like forty nine percent if I remember correctly.
So people have a lot of uncertainty right now. Just
last week we found that sixty four percent of Americans
believe the US economy will enter a recession in the
(16:42):
next twelve months, and that's up slightly from when we
asked one month ago. So I think all of this nervousness,
taken collectively, could lack or could indicate a lack of
resilience should the economy falter. And by falter, I don't
necessarily just mean a recession. Of course that would be faltering,
but also price increases. Right if inflation searches again, I
don't think households are in the same place they were
(17:03):
a couple of years ago to be able to deal
with the sort of stressors.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
What do you think this all means when it comes
to corporate margins because I know not only just larger
companies that you follow, but smaller ones too. What are
you seeing there and how are those consumer oriented ones
feeling it? Maybe more so when it comes to passing
on costs to Americans and shutther shoppers.
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Yeah, so I think you know the PPI to CPI
ratio has been a little volatile recently.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Margins have been volatile in the data.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
We know that companies have been reluctant to pass along
price increases to consumers because they know consumers are price sensitive.
Right now, I think you know, in my work at Nerdwallet,
I paid particular attention to consumers. That doesn't just mean
consumers you know, in the store consuming things, but I
think about employees and I think about small business owners.
(17:52):
When I look at the PPI, for instance, it's important
not just to look at the headline figures because they're
volatile from month to month, but to remember beneath those
headline figure there are thousands of large and small companies
working with very different numbers, very different customers and decisions
to make. And generally speaking, these smaller businesses are going
to be more vulnerable to squeezing margins they're going to
be less able to hold that line right to eat
(18:14):
the tariffs. They might not have the luxury of waiting
and seeing where things end up in the courts, and
so I think we're more likely to see these small
businesses get uncomfortable, maybe cut hours, cut employees, and pass
those prices along.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Elizabeth, there's so much tariff trade news lately, sometimes it's
hard to keep up.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
The headlines just keep popping up.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
What's your take though on the market reaction to all
the news surrounding it.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
Yeah, Well, I just think overall across the economy, whether
we're talking about consumers, whether we're talking about markets, there's
just a lot of uncertainty. And I know we're all
tired of hearing that word, but it doesn't seem to
be getting any clearer. And I think we're all making
our best guesses, our best judgments. You know, consumers haven't
really pulled back dramatically on spending, Yeah, but I do
(19:01):
since that's coming. You know, debt levels are higher now
than they have been over the past four years, and
so I sense that we're just in a different place
right now.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
And yeah, we're all trying to sort out what comes next.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Well as far as my last question to you, Elizabeth,
what do you think comes next? Ultimately?
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Ah, that's a great question.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (19:23):
One of the things I'm watching right now in the
labor market is sort of how people are feeling about
their prospects. I just mentioned the survey of Consumer Expectations
and what that said about people feeling comfortable leaving their job.
But how does that translate to the economy overall? We
know hiring is down, openings are down, The economy isn't
adding jobs, and the jobs that are being added are
(19:45):
highly concentrated in certain industries, and I just I'm concerned
about what that means for individual households and their ability
to sort of improve their quality of life and their
standard of a living. If you can't upgrade your job
to one that suit your lifestyle, that are one that
covers your bills better, you know, the consumer sentiment is
not going to improve.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
All right, Elizabeth Ronstern, thank you so much as senior
economist at Nerd Wallet, talking about the markets and so
much more.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
If you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast, catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Jess Minted and Lisa Mateo here in the Bloomberg Business
Week Studio at continuing what we're talking about, especially when
it comes to the regulatory outlook Lisa, when it comes
to bitcoin and the recent progress with a particular company,
so Maraa Holdings. So we had Fred Thiel, chairman and
chief executive officer of Maraa Holdings, who's going to be
breaking down kind of the latest here, especially in the
(20:55):
midst of the Trump administration being more pro crypto and
he is joining us us from London. Fred, thanks so
much for being here. Always a pleasure speaking with you.
For our listeners who haven't heard about your company, talk
to us more about specifically more in what it is
that you'll do and how it relates to the crypto space.
Speaker 9 (21:14):
Sure so, we are one of the largest bitcoin miners
in the world. We operate sixteen data centers across four continents,
across a variety of energy sources and sizes and scales.
We are one of the most advanced in the use
of liquid immersion technology, which is a cooling technology that
doesn't use water that keeps our miners cool. And we
(21:39):
are also the second largest public holder of bitcoin in
the world today with over fifty thousand bitcoin in our
balance sheet. So you can consider us as a kind
of company that takes stranded energy and converts it into
value by converting into bitcoin.
Speaker 10 (21:57):
We also own and operate our own wind farm.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
We mitigate methane gas in oil fields by burning the
flare gas and generating electricity from it. And in Finland,
for example, we heat eighty thousand homes with the heat
from our data centers. So we're very environmentally focused and
have a sustainability focus, and that over fifty percent of
our energy is from renewable sources.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So speaking of energy, right, I guess i'll go there
since you mentioned it. It's an energy intensive process, right,
So how is it different from the energy used to
power let's say data centers for AI. What does that
mean for you know, the industry as far as that's
concerned AI, you know, versus bitcoin and the amount of
energy that it takes.
Speaker 9 (22:43):
So the primary difference between the two, we're both we're
called high intensity compute meaning compute that uses a lot
of energy. The differences between bitcoin mining and AI is
that AI data centers need to have have high availability.
They need to operate at ninety nine point nine nine
(23:03):
nine percent up time, which means that they have to
constantly be consuming energy and they have to have a
constant amount of energy allocated to them. Bitcoin minors are
a flexible load. What that means is that we can
move our demand, if you would, of energy up and
down in relation to the amount of energy.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
The utility has available.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
So we essentially use stranded energy or every electron that
can't be sold to other places. Basically, so if you
think about what we do in the world of renewables,
for example, with wind farms and solar is a lot
of times these wind farms can't sell one hundred percent
of the energy they produce because there are problems around congestion.
(23:48):
What do I mean by that, Well, demand for electricity
is not constant, meaning it's not x number of watts
twenty four hours a day. It varies depending on the
time of day, temperature outside, or people heating their homes
are they not are they doing laundry? You think of
all the different things that use electricity for do they
(24:09):
have evs have they lugged them into charge at night?
And so the demand for electricity varies a lot during
the day. The problem is when you add a lot
of wind and solar energy to grids, those power sources
generate electricity at specific times of day only. The wind
typically only blows during certain numbers, primarily afternoon or early evening,
(24:31):
and the sun basically shines from nine am to three
pm from a solar energy perspective, and so if you
don't have high energy demand during those times, those energy
sources don't contribute a lot to their grid. And the
grid is running it's traditional it may be nuclear, maybe
other forms of natural gas, things like that, that it
runs as baseload, and so a lot of times this
(24:53):
renewable energy is wasted, it's not used, and so we
can come into these renewable energy sites consume all the
electrons they can't sell into the grid, which helps them
become more profitable, which allows them to compete by lowering
their price of electricity to the grid and to consumers,
which has a benefit to consumers, and it also means
(25:14):
these projects pay off faster. So we're actually a huge
financial windfall for these guys.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
And for those just joining us. We're with Fred Teel,
chairman and chief executive officer of Mara Holdings, talking to
us about bitcoin mining here, and of course you were
just talking about the energy aspect of it. What is
it like competing for AI power specifically because big tech
does have a lot more money to spend on electricity,
(25:40):
So how does that end up affecting and changing your strategy?
Speaker 9 (25:45):
So there are some other subtle differences because the fact
we can use flexible we're a flexible load and so
we can change our demand depending upon availability. We can
put our system in places where AI companies can't because
they need constant load to operate their data centers. Another
(26:07):
thing that AI data centers need is access to high
speed fiber connectivity because they obviously need to be able
to share data with their customers. Bitcoin miners don't need
that high speed connectivity. And so again we can locate
in places where AI companies can't. So while there is
a large overlap in the potential sites that we could
(26:28):
both use, in reality we tend to go places where
they can't, and they tend to go places where the
electricity is too expensive for us because what's the most
important for AI companies is low latency, network speed meaning
fast network connections, and also constant availability of electricity. And
because we don't need those things, we tend to go
(26:51):
after lower cost sources of energy.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Before you go, I'm going to squeeze one more in
because we have about a minute or so left with you.
There's been a lot of regulatory changes when it comes
to bitcoin, So describe how bitcoin looks differently under this
new administration and what does it mean for the sector
moving forward.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
Sure, so the big kind of watershed event was in
January of last year when the first bitcoin ETFs really
were approved and you saw this large amount of capital
flow into the ETFs. The Biden administration had really been
focused on trying to restrict bitcoin and crypto in general.
(27:34):
The challenge for the Biden administration was that bitcoin had
already been deemed a commodity and therefore wasn't governed by
the SEC, but rather by the CFTC. That being said,
the FDI, C, the OCC and the other regulators were
effectively keeping any crypto related companies from having access to
the banking system and other things. Under the Trump administration,
(27:56):
all of those regulatory iory notices to banks regarding working
with crypto companies were essentially torn up and repealed or reversed.
Speaker 10 (28:07):
The SEC changed its position. You're now seeing.
Speaker 9 (28:13):
Institutions building all sorts of institutional products for bitcoin.
Speaker 10 (28:17):
So it's a very different world today.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
You can say that again. This is Fred Deel.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
We're talking with chairman and CEO of Mara.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
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(28:44):
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine
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Speaker 3 (00:31):
Elon us no longer the world's richest person. He's been
bumped by Oracles Larry Ellison. That's after the company's reported
quarterly results. And now we're hearing this news. So Christine
orm Wealth, America's team leader for Bloomberg News, thank you
for joining us. So you're sitting here listening to us
talk about this.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
And then we had earning.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So how much did the Ellison's fortune shore after that?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, so this has been quite the day for Oracles.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Caroline was just saying, so Ellison earlier today when the
stock visits, he could spared some of those games. Now,
but he was up more than one hundred billion dollars
and that was the increase to his fortune, not his
total fortune. That got him close to four hundred billion
dollars at one point he was at about three hundred
and ninety four billion dollars, putting him in first place
on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time, also
(01:17):
putting him ahead of Elon Musk for the first time.
So this is very notable. Musk has been in first
place for almost a year, and of course we had
the news last week of Musk getting his one trillion
dollar pay package, So this may be a short lived
first place for Ellison. Musk stands to make a lot
of money over the coming years that could potentially make
(01:38):
him the first trillionaire. But for now, Larry Ellison is
in first place.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
And looking at Tesla's stock being down over ten percent
this year, and obviously there's different dynamics where we've seen
it pop and then pulled back. But how does that
fit in when it comes to Ellison versus what's going
on with you were just talking about with Elon Musk
versus also Jeff Bezos obviously the poster child in kim'sday on.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Yeah, No, it's a very good question because I think
what you're seeing here is the divergence between the companies
that are exposed to AIS. Caroline was just saying and
those that are struggling a little bit in that space.
And of course Musk has made a big deal about
all of the inroads that Tesla is making an AI
and how he wants that to be kind of like
one of the main drivers of the company going forward.
But so far the market doesn't really seem to be
(02:22):
buying that. So Tesla hasn't been performing super well. And
of course there have been a lot of other issues
there around his political involvement and other things too that
have weighed on the stock. But despite that fact, Musk
had clung tenaciously to the number one spot for quite
a while, just largely actually not because of Tesla, because
of all of his other ventures SpaceX, super Valuable Company,
(02:44):
xai X formerly Twitter, all bolster his fortune. But it
seems like as of right now that isn't enough. But again,
with that massive pay package that the board has promised him,
if that passes muster, that could change very quickly.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Before you go, quick question, so can you break down
that battle back and forth for that top So, I
mean not just Besos, but other you know folks have
been up at that hub.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Fin Yeah, actually, so Ellison just surpassed Mark Zuckerberg in July,
so only a couple of months ago to move into
second place. Zuckerberg has fallen a little bit with Meta.
Bezos and Zuckerberg have kind of been jockeying back and forth.
But I think what this reflects because I, you know,
earlier this year, I think Ellison was in fourth or
maybe even fifth place, and how quickly he's climbed the
(03:31):
ranks just reflects how how much Oracle has been able
to sort of glom onto that AI narrative, how successful
it's been in selling that narrative to shareholders, and we're
seeing that in the thirty five percent share drum today.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Right, Christine always greed having you with us. Christine Orum
obviously Bloomberg News Wealth America's team leader. Join us here
in the Bloomberg Business Week Studio on Larry Ellison surpassing
Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
If you are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast,
catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm
Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with
the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
This is a day after the BLS. They published a
preliminary revision to annual payrolls data. Now we're getting word
that the Labor Inspector General initiating a review of challenges
at the BLS. On top of that, we have another
legal move in the President's question remove FED Governor Lisa Cook.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
A lot going on.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
We want to bring in Michael McKee's international economics and
policy correspondent for Bloomberg TV and Radio. So I want
to start with Lisa Cook because there's been so much
back and forth.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's hard to keep up with Michael McKee.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So does this latest move, Does it remove Cook from
her position before a FED decision in a week from
today or what is it?
Speaker 6 (04:56):
Though?
Speaker 7 (04:56):
It keeps her in that position, the position in the position,
but what the administration has filed a notice of appeal
this afternoon, so they're going to go to the Circuit
Court of Appeals in DC. We don't know the speed
with which they are going to file their documents and
ask for a hearing, but if they move very quickly,
(05:17):
they could, in theory if the court degrees, block her
before we get to that meeting. But it's getting very
tight for something like that, So I suspect she'll probably
be there walk us.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Through any sort of precedent when it comes to something
like this with a federal Reserve governor. But then also,
is there just cause there when it comes to the president.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Well, it's funny because you mentioned those two things. This
is the point that the judge made is that nobody
has ever tried to fire someone at the FED for cause,
and so she had to decide what cause means and
whether or not the president's accusations rise to cause. And basically,
she said that the historical record show is that cause
(06:01):
basically relates to things that happen in your job while
you're doing it, and that if she did something that
she shouldn't have done before she came to office, and
that was years ago and people knew about it, then
it wouldn't rise to cause. And that's one of the
reasons that she said that the cook could stay in
(06:23):
her office for now.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So what does it mean for time wise? I mean
we're today a week away from a fit decision.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
What does this mean, Well, the administration's going to have
to move fast to get file and they will have
to get a three judge panel that would hear it quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Enough, and they'd have to make the case that.
Speaker 7 (06:42):
There would be some sort of harm to the government
if she were allowed to vote at this meeting, because
they can make the case that there's harm to the
government if she remains on the job. Without a determined
time frame, they could, you know, let could play out
over a week or so, and we've seen that with
(07:02):
other people that the President has tried to fire. But
to get her out before the meeting would take a
lot because it doesn't seem to rise to the necessity
of having judges work through the weekend.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Is there an indication about a timetable when you're talking
about over the next week or so? How long could
this possibly drag out?
Speaker 7 (07:21):
Oh, it's going to drag out for quite some time
because whatever happens in the Appeals Court, it will probably
go to the Supreme Court. And because this is a
unique case, nobody has ever tried to fire somebody for
cause and the definition of cause, etc. So the Supreme
Court is starting to back up with the Trump problem cases.
(07:42):
They just took on the tariff case on an expedited basis,
so they will have to have a hearing for that
in November and then try to make a decision maybe
by the first of the year if it goes to
the Supreme Court. And in this case, it doesn't seem
to be the kind of thing that's going to set
the world a fire, So we could go on the
regular docket and then we don't get a.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Decision untill next June.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
So then the question becomes does she stay on the
FED until that time? And that'll depend both on the
Appeals Court, and then the Supreme Court could also issue
a stay and kick her out, as they did with
other people that Trump tied to fire tried to fire.
But again, this is an unusual case because the Supreme
Court's given them something of a carve out.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Now, if we can we get into the Labor Inspector
General and this report that they're apparently doing review of
the challenges at the BLS, what are these challengesting?
Speaker 7 (08:35):
Interesting language that they used, because one is tempted to
read it after everything that the administration has done, is
we're going to look at ways to find that you
guys did something wrong and get rid of you.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
But it could be that, let me put it this way.
Speaker 7 (08:51):
I have said that if you were a normal administration,
what you would say is there seemed to be issues
with getting the data as accurate as it can be
because you're short of money and short of personnel. So
let's sit down and figure out how we can address
those challenges, which is not what they did, but one
(09:11):
could read the Inspector General is stepping in and saying, well,
maybe I'll prepare a report that says you can't do
all this with the resources that you've been given. I
suspect though, that it is probably an effort to because
Trump had fired all the Inspectors General and appointed new ones,
is an effort to find out something that they are
doing wrong and make a case for further dismissals, which
(09:34):
would only put them farther behind the eight ball. Now,
this is not the kind of thing that's going to
get a lot of attention right away, and it may
take some time, and so it's not an imminent threat
to the BLS, but it is another cloud on the horizon.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
So how does Stephen Moran ultimately fit into all of this?
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Well, he fits into it because we are reporting stun
people familiar that he will get a vote on the
floor on Monday. It's not easy, given the Senate rules,
to do something that fast but the President said do it,
so they are going to do it, and then he
can walk in the next day, and you know, somewhere
in between the vote and the time the meeting starts,
(10:18):
somebody will swear him in and he'll participate in the meeting.
It'll be an unusual situation. He would have had no
preparation other than what he can do it the CEA,
but he wouldn't have access to the FED staff or
anything to prepare for the meeting. So other than advocating
for maybe a fifty basis point cut, if we assume
the Fed's going to do twenty five, it's hard to
(10:40):
see how much he would contribute. But there's a good
chance that he will be there, and Lisa Cook will
probably be there.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Then what's a chance that he would be nominated for
a full term that hasn't.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Been well, that's an open question.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
The President has sort of left that open in whether
it's a tryout for the job or whether he's just
keeping the seat warm so he could appoint someone else
to be chairman if another seat doesn't open up, if
Cook isn't gone, or if Jay Powell decides to stay on,
then whoever he wants as chairman, unless it's somebody who's
already on the board, he would have to have an
(11:15):
open seat, so then Steve Myron would go back to
the CEA.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
It seems all right.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Michael McKee. Always a pleasure when you're joining us on
Bloomberg Television and Radio, International Economics and Policy correspondent at
Bloomberg Television and Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car
Play and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Lisa, we were talking about earlier. There's so much to discuss.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
When you were talking about the economic front and thinking
about when the Labor Inspector General initiating a review of
those BLS challenges. Obviously, producer prices coming in at the
lowest level since April ahead of that CPI data. So
many different places to start, But let's bring in our
next guest who can break this down for us and
give us more of her purview. Elizabeth Retner, senior economists
(12:12):
at Nerd Wallet, joining us from Durham, North Carolina. Elizabeth,
it's great having you with us. I'll start off first
when it comes to those BLS revisions yesterday, and then
of course on top of the latest news today that
the Labor Inspector General is initiating that review of that,
walk us through kind of how do you view this
from your purview as an economist and what does this
(12:33):
ultimately mean and how long could this take?
Speaker 8 (12:36):
Hey, well, thanks for having me. First of all, I'm
excited to be here and chat with you guys. So
you know, I think I reiterate this a lot to folks,
as we can't think of revisions as corrections. Revisions are
part of the statistical process. Various revisions happen throughout the year.
They happen monthly to the jobs report. As you know,
they've been making headlines over the past few months as well.
So this preliminary benchmarking estimate that came out yesterday, the
(13:00):
revisions were large.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
We anticipated that and there's several reasons for that.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Primarily, low response rates to the BLS is one contributing factor.
Another contributing factor, though, is we often see large revisions
when the economy is in transition. So if it is
changing direction, if it's growing rapidly, or if it's decelerating.
A lot of times, when you take sample based data,
which is the Jobs report, and you level it up
(13:25):
or you try to make inferences about the entire population,
that gets a little more tricky when the economy is changing.
And so I think that is one of the big
reasons for the big revisions here. You know, it doesn't
hurt to look at the data, to look at the
integrity of the data. The BLS does need help in
the way that they are severely underfunded and they're part
of a hiring freeze, and so I think looking at
(13:47):
the data is good.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I have faith in the data.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
But these large revisions were significant, and it's important to
pay attention to them and what they mean.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
So when it comes to the data, Elizabeth, I mean,
what holds more weight? Is it in inflation data or
is it jobs data?
Speaker 8 (14:03):
That's a great question, and that's why you know the
FED has a dual mandate where they have to balance
these risks. It's both right, and that's what we're seeing
with FED decisions right now. Is there a challenging place
where inflation isn't at their two percent target, but the
labor market is clearly weakening. You know, we'll I'll be
listening next week to how they handle these risks. I
do think a rate cut is probably likely. I think
(14:24):
this is where they sort of turn their attention to
the labor market as being the greater two of those
risks at this time. But you know, it's why it's
a constant balancing act. They're both very important data sources
and they tell us a lot about the health of
the economy overall.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Of course, as you know, Elizabeth, the fierce debate as
always when it comes to different cutting cycles like this
and resuming after they started a year ago a last
September with rate cuts. As far as how aggressive do
you think the FED will be with cuts when you
have swaps pricing in close to one hundred and fifty
bases points over the next year. Will it be that
(15:00):
aggressive or will inflation day to prevent that from happening.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
You know, that's a great question.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
I tend to think it's not going to be aggressive
unless the labor market we can significantly and dramatically. Right now,
we're seeing cooling that probably needs to be addressed. But
I don't anticipate you know, like a fifty basis point
cut next week, like some people are anticipating. I think
they'll play it a little more conservatively, but we kind
(15:28):
of have to wait and see.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
You know, we've never it's hard.
Speaker 8 (15:30):
To say what's going to happen with inflation right now
because we've never seen tariffs like this. We don't know
what's going to happen, and so it's tempting to say
tariff should just be a one time price bump, but
these are very broad and they're impacting all different levels
of the economy at different timing and at different magnitude.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Some of it's still tied up in the court. So
there's just a lot.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
Of unknowns right now that I think we're just going
to have to wait and watch play out.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And all that said, what does that mean for the consumer?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
How is that consumer?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Great question?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (15:58):
Yeah, So overall, general consumer sentiment about the economy is
really souring. We've seen it in the University of Michigan,
the Conference Board, those are kind of the gold standards
of consumer economic sentiment. This week, though, we got the
survey of consumer expectations from the New York Fed and
it showed that inflation expectations are slightly up. Households are
more likely to say their financial situation is worsening than improving,
(16:20):
and many people the sort of the big takeaway from
the New York Fed data was the outlook about the
labor market. People put the probability of finding a new
job if they lost their current job at the lowest ever.
It was something like forty nine percent if I remember correctly.
So people have a lot of uncertainty right now. Just
last week we found that sixty four percent of Americans
believe the US economy will enter a recession in the
(16:42):
next twelve months, and that's up slightly from when we
asked one month ago. So I think all of this nervousness,
taken collectively, could lack or could indicate a lack of
resilience should the economy falter. And by falter, I don't
necessarily just mean a recession. Of course that would be faltering,
but also price increases. Right if inflation searches again, I
don't think households are in the same place they were
(17:03):
a couple of years ago to be able to deal
with the sort of stressors.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
What do you think this all means when it comes
to corporate margins because I know not only just larger
companies that you follow, but smaller ones too. What are
you seeing there and how are those consumer oriented ones
feeling it? Maybe more so when it comes to passing
on costs to Americans and shutther shoppers.
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Yeah, so I think you know the PPI to CPI
ratio has been a little volatile recently.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Margins have been volatile in the data.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
We know that companies have been reluctant to pass along
price increases to consumers because they know consumers are price sensitive.
Right now, I think you know, in my work at Nerdwallet,
I paid particular attention to consumers. That doesn't just mean
consumers you know, in the store consuming things, but I
think about employees and I think about small business owners.
(17:52):
When I look at the PPI, for instance, it's important
not just to look at the headline figures because they're
volatile from month to month, but to remember beneath those
headline figure there are thousands of large and small companies
working with very different numbers, very different customers and decisions
to make. And generally speaking, these smaller businesses are going
to be more vulnerable to squeezing margins they're going to
be less able to hold that line right to eat
(18:14):
the tariffs. They might not have the luxury of waiting
and seeing where things end up in the courts, and
so I think we're more likely to see these small
businesses get uncomfortable, maybe cut hours, cut employees, and pass
those prices along.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Elizabeth, there's so much tariff trade news lately, sometimes it's
hard to keep up.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
The headlines just keep popping up.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
What's your take though on the market reaction to all
the news surrounding it.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
Yeah, Well, I just think overall across the economy, whether
we're talking about consumers, whether we're talking about markets, there's
just a lot of uncertainty. And I know we're all
tired of hearing that word, but it doesn't seem to
be getting any clearer. And I think we're all making
our best guesses, our best judgments. You know, consumers haven't
really pulled back dramatically on spending, Yeah, but I do
(19:01):
since that's coming. You know, debt levels are higher now
than they have been over the past four years, and
so I sense that we're just in a different place
right now.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
And yeah, we're all trying to sort out what comes next.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Well as far as my last question to you, Elizabeth,
what do you think comes next? Ultimately?
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Ah, that's a great question.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (19:23):
One of the things I'm watching right now in the
labor market is sort of how people are feeling about
their prospects. I just mentioned the survey of Consumer Expectations
and what that said about people feeling comfortable leaving their job.
But how does that translate to the economy overall? We
know hiring is down, openings are down, The economy isn't
adding jobs, and the jobs that are being added are
(19:45):
highly concentrated in certain industries, and I just I'm concerned
about what that means for individual households and their ability
to sort of improve their quality of life and their
standard of a living. If you can't upgrade your job
to one that suit your lifestyle, that are one that
covers your bills better, you know, the consumer sentiment is
not going to improve.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
All right, Elizabeth Ronstern, thank you so much as senior
economist at Nerd Wallet, talking about the markets and so
much more.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
If you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast, catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Jess Minted and Lisa Mateo here in the Bloomberg Business
Week Studio at continuing what we're talking about, especially when
it comes to the regulatory outlook Lisa, when it comes
to bitcoin and the recent progress with a particular company,
so Maraa Holdings. So we had Fred Thiel, chairman and
chief executive officer of Maraa Holdings, who's going to be
breaking down kind of the latest here, especially in the
(20:55):
midst of the Trump administration being more pro crypto and
he is joining us us from London. Fred, thanks so
much for being here. Always a pleasure speaking with you.
For our listeners who haven't heard about your company, talk
to us more about specifically more in what it is
that you'll do and how it relates to the crypto space.
Speaker 9 (21:14):
Sure so, we are one of the largest bitcoin miners
in the world. We operate sixteen data centers across four continents,
across a variety of energy sources and sizes and scales.
We are one of the most advanced in the use
of liquid immersion technology, which is a cooling technology that
doesn't use water that keeps our miners cool. And we
(21:39):
are also the second largest public holder of bitcoin in
the world today with over fifty thousand bitcoin in our
balance sheet. So you can consider us as a kind
of company that takes stranded energy and converts it into
value by converting into bitcoin.
Speaker 10 (21:57):
We also own and operate our own wind farm.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
We mitigate methane gas in oil fields by burning the
flare gas and generating electricity from it. And in Finland,
for example, we heat eighty thousand homes with the heat
from our data centers. So we're very environmentally focused and
have a sustainability focus, and that over fifty percent of
our energy is from renewable sources.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So speaking of energy, right, I guess i'll go there
since you mentioned it. It's an energy intensive process, right,
So how is it different from the energy used to
power let's say data centers for AI. What does that
mean for you know, the industry as far as that's
concerned AI, you know, versus bitcoin and the amount of
energy that it takes.
Speaker 9 (22:43):
So the primary difference between the two, we're both we're
called high intensity compute meaning compute that uses a lot
of energy. The differences between bitcoin mining and AI is
that AI data centers need to have have high availability.
They need to operate at ninety nine point nine nine
(23:03):
nine percent up time, which means that they have to
constantly be consuming energy and they have to have a
constant amount of energy allocated to them. Bitcoin minors are
a flexible load. What that means is that we can
move our demand, if you would, of energy up and
down in relation to the amount of energy.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
The utility has available.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
So we essentially use stranded energy or every electron that
can't be sold to other places. Basically, so if you
think about what we do in the world of renewables,
for example, with wind farms and solar is a lot
of times these wind farms can't sell one hundred percent
of the energy they produce because there are problems around congestion.
(23:48):
What do I mean by that, Well, demand for electricity
is not constant, meaning it's not x number of watts
twenty four hours a day. It varies depending on the
time of day, temperature outside, or people heating their homes
are they not are they doing laundry? You think of
all the different things that use electricity for do they
(24:09):
have evs have they lugged them into charge at night?
And so the demand for electricity varies a lot during
the day. The problem is when you add a lot
of wind and solar energy to grids, those power sources
generate electricity at specific times of day only. The wind
typically only blows during certain numbers, primarily afternoon or early evening,
(24:31):
and the sun basically shines from nine am to three
pm from a solar energy perspective, and so if you
don't have high energy demand during those times, those energy
sources don't contribute a lot to their grid. And the
grid is running it's traditional it may be nuclear, maybe
other forms of natural gas, things like that, that it
runs as baseload, and so a lot of times this
(24:53):
renewable energy is wasted, it's not used, and so we
can come into these renewable energy sites consume all the
electrons they can't sell into the grid, which helps them
become more profitable, which allows them to compete by lowering
their price of electricity to the grid and to consumers,
which has a benefit to consumers, and it also means
(25:14):
these projects pay off faster. So we're actually a huge
financial windfall for these guys.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
And for those just joining us. We're with Fred Teel,
chairman and chief executive officer of Mara Holdings, talking to
us about bitcoin mining here, and of course you were
just talking about the energy aspect of it. What is
it like competing for AI power specifically because big tech
does have a lot more money to spend on electricity,
(25:40):
So how does that end up affecting and changing your strategy?
Speaker 9 (25:45):
So there are some other subtle differences because the fact
we can use flexible we're a flexible load and so
we can change our demand depending upon availability. We can
put our system in places where AI companies can't because
they need constant load to operate their data centers. Another
(26:07):
thing that AI data centers need is access to high
speed fiber connectivity because they obviously need to be able
to share data with their customers. Bitcoin miners don't need
that high speed connectivity. And so again we can locate
in places where AI companies can't. So while there is
a large overlap in the potential sites that we could
(26:28):
both use, in reality we tend to go places where
they can't, and they tend to go places where the
electricity is too expensive for us because what's the most
important for AI companies is low latency, network speed meaning
fast network connections, and also constant availability of electricity. And
because we don't need those things, we tend to go
(26:51):
after lower cost sources of energy.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Before you go, I'm going to squeeze one more in
because we have about a minute or so left with you.
There's been a lot of regulatory changes when it comes
to bitcoin, So describe how bitcoin looks differently under this
new administration and what does it mean for the sector
moving forward.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
Sure, so the big kind of watershed event was in
January of last year when the first bitcoin ETFs really
were approved and you saw this large amount of capital
flow into the ETFs. The Biden administration had really been
focused on trying to restrict bitcoin and crypto in general.
(27:34):
The challenge for the Biden administration was that bitcoin had
already been deemed a commodity and therefore wasn't governed by
the SEC, but rather by the CFTC. That being said,
the FDI, C, the OCC and the other regulators were
effectively keeping any crypto related companies from having access to
the banking system and other things. Under the Trump administration,
(27:56):
all of those regulatory iory notices to banks regarding working
with crypto companies were essentially torn up and repealed or reversed.
Speaker 10 (28:07):
The SEC changed its position. You're now seeing.
Speaker 9 (28:13):
Institutions building all sorts of institutional products for bitcoin.
Speaker 10 (28:17):
So it's a very different world today.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
You can say that again. This is Fred Deel.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
We're talking with chairman and CEO of Mara.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(28:44):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
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Carol Massar
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