October 2, 2025 • 43 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
After years getting shunned by major banks, Donald Trump’s money has found another place to call home: Citigroup Inc.
The president’s son, Eric Trump, signed up as a client of the third-largest US lender and established a trust there that holds some of his father’s money, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named discussing the confidential arrangements.
The relationship started after Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser reached out to congratulate President Trump on his election win in November. The new trust is a sensitive topic inside the bank, which weighed how to limit access to information beyond key staff — such as wealth management chief Andy Sieg, who led talks with Eric Trump, and Kent Lucken, a Citigroup banker handling the relationship, some of the people said.
The unwillingness of many banks to safeguard Donald Trump’s wealth has irritated the president, who publicly lashed out this year at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., claiming they refused his money. Both firms have said they don’t deny business on ideological grounds.
Traditional financial institutions “did everything they could to try and cancel us,” Eric Trump said in a Bloomberg Television interview last month. The president told CNBC he “ended up going to small banks all over the place.” A Citigroup spokesperson declined to comment. There was no response to a request for comment from the Trump Organization, the family’s real estate business where Eric Trump is a top executive.
Today's show features:
- Bloomberg News Banking Reporter Todd Gillespie on Trump’s Wealth, Once Spurned by Banks, Gets New Home at Citi
- Scott Wisniewski, President of AST SpaceMobile, on the market for cellular broadband in space and competing with Starlink
- Bloomberg News Managing Editor, Media & Entertainment, Lucas Shaw on the Bloomberg Businessweek cover story profiling Mr. Beast
- Drive to the Close with Adrianne Yamaki, Founder and Managing Partner of Strategic Wealth Capital
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 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
(00:23):
news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast
with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, big banks are kicking off earning season the week
after next, and one thing that may come up on
earnings calls analysts wondering if the financials are working with
the sprawling Trump family empire. After all, the President and
his family have been outspoken about how they say they
have been treated in recent years by US banking giants.
Here's President trumpet Davos in January speaking to a panel
that included Bank of America CEO Brian moynihan.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because
many conservators complain to the banks are not allowing them
to do business.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Within the bank.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And that included a place called Bank of America, You
and Jamie and everybody. I hope you're going to open
your banks to conservatives because what you're doing is wrong.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
They did everything they could to try and cancel us.
They did everything they could. I'm talking about traditional finance
to put us out of business. I got dozens of letters,
and I'm talking about the biggest banks anywhere in the
world again, Bank of America, right Capital One, JP Morgan
where for no reason other than the fact that my
father wore a red hat that said make America great again.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
Well there you have it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That was Eric Trump speaking with us just two weeks ago.
And President Trump and Davos in January, just days after
his second term started. The big banks maybe changing their tune,
as Todd Gillespie and Annie Massa were first to report
President Trump's money has found a new home at City
after being shunned by major banks. Dodd Lesbie is a
Bloomberg News banking reporter. He joins us here on the
(01:52):
Bloomberg Interactive for Brokers Studio.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
What did you find?
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Yeah, thanks, Tim.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
I mean, one of the really interesting things that has
come out of our reporting is that a new banking
relationship has essentially appeared between the Trump family and City Group.
You know. As President Trump, as we've just heard, you know,
has said many times he has had issues in the past,
particularly after business dealings after criminal convictions, you know, after
(02:17):
reputational issues that followed the January sixth riots, where big
banks on Wall Street and across the globe have refused
to do business with him and his family. Our reporting
has shown today that actually City Group has now established
a new banking relationship with Eric Trump since the election.
We know Jane Fraser reached out to congratulate Trump like
many Corporate America CEOs did right after the November election,
(02:41):
and since then, Eric Trump has signed up as a
client of City Group and has established a trust that
contains some of his father's money. We understand, and obviously
you know that you know, any bank right now would
want to be coverting top billionaires, you know in the US.
And obviously the Trump family wealth has seriously grown since
(03:03):
the since the last campaign, thanks to all of these
crypto ventures and associated business dealings in the Trump family.
So it's certainly a new emergence, maybe a tide is turning,
or an evolution of the mines, maybe in the banking
sector in the US.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
You know what's interesting too, Todd, As I think about
the first Trump White House, there were a lot of
executives there were business roundtables from different industries, and we
saw a lot of executives and I think most of
the big financial types were there. You don't see that
as much this time around, but you do see select individuals.
We've seen tech CEOs certainly prominent at the inauguration. But
(03:39):
Jane Frazier, the head of City, she actually went on
a recent trip with the President.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
She did.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
Yeah, I mean, she was only one of two US
bank CEOs who attended the state banquet in the UK
during Trump's visit there, you know, including hosted by the King,
King Charles the Third at Windsor Castle. Her and Brian moynihan,
the chief executive Bank of America, were there dre and
sixty old person dinner about ten White House officials. Jane
Fraser did happen to be sitting next to one of those,
(04:05):
according to the seating plan that we obtained, one of
the White House Deputy chiefs of Staff. So you know,
there are signs there that there is a you know,
certainly at least a cordial relationship there, certainly something that's
less aggressive than Trump's lashes out that he's had, you know,
with Bank of America and JP Morgan you.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
Said that Jane Fraser was placed next to Nicholas Luna.
You guys, and you're reporting a White House Deputy chief
of staff according to that seating plan. Luna is married
to the former assistant of President Trump's son in law,
Jared Kushner, whose family has also done business with City Group.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
I mean, will bear in mind you City Group is
the third largest lender in the years, So we can't
necessarily draw all these lines and suggest that there's you know,
introductions and yaddiadiada all the time. But certainly, yeah, I
mean there are you know, there are. City Group has
has had its fingers and lots of pies over the
City Bank, you know, before the big merger of City
Group in nineteen ninety eight. City Bank was one of
(04:59):
the largest lenders on some of the Trump deals that
went sour. On the Trump shuttle, you know, expedition that
you know, maybe not expedition but adventure, business adventure that
Trump did trying to turn to to run this airline
that went badly, and some of the business dealings in
newr real estate that went sour as well. Citybank was
(05:19):
one of the largest lenders on some of those deals. Too,
So the bank and its entities have been burned in
the past. It seems like, you know, gradually now obviously
with the stability and wealth that comes with the presidency
and the family. That's sort of you know, back in
the good books. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So there was there was a period of time leading
up to the election, as you mentioned the past history
of the Trump organization in banks, but also there was
after the first election, there was the second election, there
was January sixth, and there were banks that cut ties
with the president following the January sixth attack. What happened
(05:56):
in the in the during the Biden years.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Yeah, well, we know, for instance, you know, banks like
Deutsche Bank, like others, more regional banks in the US
as well that had relationship relationships with the Trump family
basically backtracked, you know, and they said, you know, they
don't they don't want to do business with the Trump family.
Banks rejected their deposits for instance, or particularly Donald Trump's money.
So there was sort of this wilderness period perhaps, you know,
(06:20):
bear in mind this was the time where Trump was
undergoing civil fraud cases, you know, was under you know,
pressure from the New York Attorney General, had financial penalties
that were eventually sort of thrown out by appeals courts.
But you know, obviously there was those Biden years were
not a pleasant time from a legal and risk perspective
for anyone dealing with the Trump family.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
In your reporting, did you uncover any evidence that any
financial institutions did not do business with the organization or
with conservatives as a result of political leanings.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
That's never I don't think anyone has ever concretely as
far as i'm The reason.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I ask is because that's what Eric Trump, yes and yeah,
a little over two weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
I think you can understand that there's some nervousness over
you know, the tensions around certain actors in the way,
and that the you know, maybe dealing with actors who
are maybe a bit more forthright and maybe stoking tensions
for instance, or you might have concerns over uh, you know,
might have concerns over political actors that come into play here.
(07:24):
There are some banks which obviously are more conservative than
others when it comes to this. We know Axoss Bank,
for instance. We've written my colleague Maxabels And has written
extensively about Access Bank, which sort of prides itself as
being a you know, a sort of a lender to
people who are largely you know, less banked, so that
you know there are you know, there are lenders who
(07:45):
will step in at these times too.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
I am curious, to be fair, you know what you've heard,
certainly from City on this as you guys have reported
this out what they're saying.
Speaker 7 (07:56):
Yeah, a City Group of declined to comment for our story. Obviously,
I think, you know, when they're dealing with, you know,
sensitive information regarding clients, I don't think they would necessarily comment.
But City Group orsonner position. Now, you know, they have
a delicate they've you know, every company has a delicate
line to tread here when it comes to relationships with
the administration, and they've got relationships with regulators that they
(08:16):
need to manage to. So that's where they are.
Speaker 8 (08:20):
Is d banking though a problem in general. We talk
about it a lot in terms of those who are
left out of the financial system. But I do wonder,
you know, banks have responsibility for du share responsibilities when
they think about who they want to bank with, right
in terms of clients, you don't want a lot of
loans that sour and so on and so forth, So
(08:41):
you understand that especially if you're a publicly traded entity
and also banking regulation. But is there you know, I
don't know these de banking charges or allegations.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone has really comprehensively
established the strength of that are to the point that
I think, you know, Eric Trump has accused the sector
of I think it is hard to It is hard
to insinuate that there is some kind of widespread caution
purely on the basis of ideology, right you know, you
(09:13):
have banks that maybe, but based on ideology, they then see, well,
you know, the political tensions right now mean x Y
or Z, or the politically exposed people mean X Y
and Z, and then from that level of risk, you
then might want to take some action, but purely on
ideological grounds, it's hard to make that case.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Should note too that in the PCU and Annie wrote,
the White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, quote, the president's
personal assets are in a trust managed by his children
and have nothing to do with his presidential decision making.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
So that's what we heard from the White House.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Todd, congratulations on the story I most read on the
Bloomberg terminal. Todd Gillespie Banking reporter for Bloomberg News. Joining
us here, Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week
Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us Live weekday afternoons from two to five e's. During
that listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Business app, or watch us Live on YouTube.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
Well, if you think of satellites in space, you often
think about Elon, Musk and SpaceX, and yet there are
a few other players.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
In the space, among them AST Space Mobile.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Shares of the company man they are taking off this week,
up about thirty percent in the past two days, hitting
an all time high today, up two hundred and ten
percent year to date. It is a nearly twenty three no,
it's more than twenty three billion dollar market cap. It's
a wireless telecom company deploying satellites in space to be
accessible for smartphones. And just yesterday Barkley's raised the firm's
(10:46):
price target to sixty dollars a share from thirty seven
and keeps an overweight rating on the share stock at
sixty five and change. Delighted to have with us, Scott Wasnowski.
He is president of AST Space Mobile, as we said,
joining us a from Boston. So great to have you
here with us. Scott, You've got to be busy. It
sounds like you're super busy. If I do a search,
(11:06):
there's like various press releases coming out. You're Bluebirds satellites
eight to sixteen. They're in various stages of production. My
understanding is you guys have plan launches every one to
two three months on average this year and into next year.
You're on track to complete forty phased or raised by
early next year and expect forty five to sixty satellites
in orbit by the end of twenty twenty six. Tell
(11:28):
me if I've got it all right, and tell us
about this build out and capabilities and who ultimately is
signing up to use it.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
Well, thank you for having us. You know, our company
is entirely focused on this opportunity of providing wireless access
from space directly to the phone in your pocket. So
to do this, we're vertically integrated. We build our own
satellites as you were just discussing, and we're based in
Texas here in the United States, and we're partnered with
over fifty mobile network operators globally. That's how we go
(11:57):
to market because that's those are the folks who have
of the customers today nearly three billion of them with
the partners that we have, so we're focused on building
this network out. We have about an eight year history
as a company. We have over thirty seven hundred patent
and patent pending claims on developing this new technology. It
sounds far fetched at first, talking to your regular small
(12:19):
phone in your pocket from low earth orbit, but that's
the capability that we have. And this is really important,
i think for everyone because there's six billion phones out
there in the world and as we know, we depend
on connectivities so much and it's very important that that
phone works, whether it's convenience, peace of mind, or emergencies,
and that's what we're focused on.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Starlink has partnered with T Mobile. You have partnered with
AT and T and Verizon. What can you tell customers
about when they can actually expect continuous coverage nationally and
perhaps even globally as a result of this partnership.
Speaker 9 (12:54):
Right, and so we actually have investment from about six
different mobile network operators around the world as well American Tower,
who's the largest tower company in the world. In Google,
and so in the United States, yes, like you said,
we're partnered with AT and T and Barizon, both investors,
and it's very important for us to have that close
relationship because the way we've built the company, our services
(13:17):
built purpose built for the mobile phone in your pocket,
so that it just works. And the key there is
to be deeply integrated with the operator and solve the
operator's problem so they can deliver value to their customers.
So we're organized today around getting service out next year
and we're currently have about five satellites in orbit. We
just announced our plans to deliver number six and seven
(13:39):
to the launch pad and as you said earlier, we're
looking to put up forty five to sixty by the
end of next year. And so this capability is just
very important in the United States but also around the world.
Speaker 8 (13:49):
Well, tell us like who you anticipate or who are
right now your biggest customers. I'm curious about commercial, residential,
and I'm also curious about government.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
Well, that's right, and the important thing about our company
too is you know, space has historically been a bit
of a niche. You know, if you live in a
rural area or if you're on a plane, and you
want connectivity. There are nice little markets there, but this
is about going to the mass market, the six billion
mobile phones in the world, and so that goes for
people who live, work, and travel, go in and out
(14:22):
of coverage, who have greater ability to pay and want
that convenience, as well as people who live perhaps in
rural areas, who don't have good connectivity or are willing
to pay a little bit more a month to have
cellular broadband. Again, this is not a text service. This
is a cellular broadband service that we'll be selling. So
that's our US and really developed economy story. When you
go around the world, there's many countries though, where there's
(14:45):
over two billion people today who don't have good three
G or better service on their phones. That means two
G or nothing, and so market by market, our service
is valuable to the users and the operators who support
those those end users. And then you mentioned US government.
That's been a relatively new ad to our story in
the last two years, but given the defense and space
(15:07):
backdrop in the United States, this is something that's been
front and center for US for the last two years.
And we're already providing services to the US government for morebit.
Speaker 8 (15:16):
So, Scott, you probably know this little company called SpaceX
that is out there, and I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
They did a deal with EchoStar.
Speaker 8 (15:23):
They became the first company to a mass control of
the satellite constellations in outer space, the launch infrastructures to
deliver them there, and the potential for direct connections with
mobile devices on the ground. So there's SpaceX. They're kind
of the big behemoth there, the big player. There's you guys,
there's Amazon dot Com. This's global stock in the race
for ubiquitous covers. How do you plan to compete with starlink,
(15:46):
which already has thousands of satellites in orbit?
Speaker 9 (15:51):
Right, And I think for the layman, it's important to
distinguish between service to a dish that you might put
on your house or on a car or on a plane,
and then the phone in your pocket. Right. We all
have Wi Fi at home, and then we have a
cell phone for when we're on ago. So this is
a market, the cellular market from space that's brand new.
You've seen some players start to enter it, including Apple
(16:12):
and Starlink, but we've been at this for about eight years.
This solution is tailor made, purpose built for this solution.
This is not an add on news service for US.
This is all we do and that's why we've been
able to garner such incredible support from network operators globally
like AT and T and Verizon in the US, Vota
Phone in Europe, racketin Mobile in Japan, Bell Canada who
(16:33):
we just announced cellular broadband testing in from Canada today
with who's also an investor in US. So these are
capabilities that have been developed with the network operator in mind.
We are focused on making their network better so that
they can deliver the value to the customers.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Are you not saying that you're competing with SpaceX and Starlink,
that you're completely different businesses.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Well, we plan to go after the cellular user through
the network operator. They also have a strategy as you said,
that they're pursuing. But this is a market that we
think is big. It's going to be worth tens of
billions of dollars. There's six billion phones out of there
that out in the world to go in and out
of coverage, and all of us know that feeling when
we don't have a signal, it's you're helpless, and so
(17:18):
we think that in all of our over fifty network
operator partners think that this is something that really enhances
the value of the cellular plan that almost all of
us have, certainly in the United States, And so that
is a strategy that's good. That's going to be a
nice robust market, and we expect with our technology to
be the leader in that because we're doing broadband from space.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You mentioned your work with the US government over the
last two years. Can you expand on that a little bit,
What exactly are you doing for the US government?
Speaker 9 (17:44):
Yeah, so it's probably worth taking a step back. You know,
we currently operate the five largest satellites in low Earth
orbit commercially. You know that lower orbit for the layman
is you know, that's what the space station is. It's
much closer to the planet. It's that lag you experience
when you have a geosynchronous satellite. LEO solves all that.
So we have the largest satellites deployed in lowerth orbit.
(18:06):
The one we're shipping to the launch pad in two
weeks is three times the size, over twenty four hundred
square feet. So this is a unique technology that was
developed to talk to the small phone and to do
it well and to navigate cellular air crowded cellular airwaves.
But it also has other applications. So with our US
government business, we see up to ten different use cases,
(18:28):
both communications and non communications that can support the US
government mission for defense. And importantly, one of the ones
we're testing in orbit today and we've been doing it
for over a year, has really strategic and valuable implications,
including potentially for the Golden Domee project.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
You also mentioned the notion that it's not just texting
and being able to make calls. This is broadband delivered
from a satellite to wherever you are in the world.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
That's the idea here.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
What is the experience using the phone in that environment
and how could that be different or similar than using
a five G LTE network? What are the speeds we're
talking here?
Speaker 9 (19:06):
That's right, and so from the beginning, and this again,
this is why we've been partnered with them network operators.
They've been in the room with us, testing and developing
this tech for five plus years. And what means is
we're integrated on the back end. You remember, everyone's got
a vision in their mind of calls in the old
days where someone would be connecting the call and doing this. Well,
that technology still exists in the world. It's just done
with servers and with software, and so we're deeply integrated
(19:29):
on that side of the business so that the phone
just works. And so this is a native cellular broadband experience.
The user doesn't know that there's a difference unless we
want them to. And they can do text calling, native calling,
video streaming, and they can do all these applications and
it feels just like you're using your phone on an
LT in five G network.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So how fast, like, what are we talking megabits per
second here?
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Up and down?
Speaker 9 (19:55):
So we've tested over twenty megabits per second to the
cell in the past couple of years with our satellites
in orbit with the you know, there was mention of
a spectrum deal a moment ago. We did our own
spectrum transaction earlier this year, a very similar type of spectrum,
which is about forty plus megahertz in the United States.
And with forty megahertz we can deliver one hundred and
(20:17):
twenty megabits to the cell on the ground. Now, how
you manage all the network traffic and how do you
go to market is a critical decision we make with
our partners around the world. Including in the United States.
But there's only one way to get broadband capabilities from space,
and that's with a big satellite, and we have the.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Biggest on the connection side of things. We're wondering too
about the experience of being inside and outside. Anyone who's
used like a garment head unit, for example, on a
bike knows that you have to use it outside to
get the cell signal. Can this coverage go inside buildings?
Speaker 9 (20:45):
That's right, we can do one wall in. So some
of the success factors for that are the fact that,
again we have a big satellite, and we also use
low band spectrum. That's part of our partnership with AT
and T and Verizon is combining some low band spectrum
that they have from decades ago. So the low band
spectrum propagation characters are the best, and as you go
into midband, even then it's still pretty good. So we
(21:06):
can do about one wall in, which means a building,
means a car, means a plane.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Ah.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
Okay, that's what we were because I think there were
some folks like kind of messaging what is he talking about? Hey,
you mentioned that you guys have picked up spectrum forty megahertz.
Did do you want to buy any more if some
comes up for auction.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
Well, in the space world, there's two big bands of
spectrum that matter. It's called L and S. We just
purchased long term access to the L band in the
United States and Canada earlier this year, and that gives
us a big chunk of spectrum, the biggest available in
the most valuable wireless market in the world, which is
the US. We also purchased an international filing that allows
(21:47):
us to go around the world and pick up other
pieces of spectrum for space, So we're pretty happy with
our spectrum position now for those two moves. This again
is consistent with our historical strategy of sharing cellular spectrum
with the other operators, but he gives us more lanes
of traffic and the ability to do better services to
more subscribers. So we like our strategy in both of
those two bands.
Speaker 8 (22:07):
That motor all right, We've got to run, so appreciate
this deep dive. I hope you'll come back keep us
abreast of what you guys are working on and how
things are going.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Scott. Thanks, have a great rest of the week and weekend.
Speaker 8 (22:18):
Scott Wasnowski. He's president of AST Space Mobile Joining us here.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming
up after this.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five East during
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Well, if you haven't heard of Beast Industries, maybe you've
heard of the company's namesake founder, mister Beast. No, that's
not the name that he was given at birth.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
No, it was not Jimmy Donaldson.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Jimmy Donaldson. YouTube is the most popular place to watch
videos in the world, and Donaldson is its biggest star.
His main channel as more than four hundred and thirty
million subscribers. It's more than the population of all but
two countries the Empire. Not just YouTube videos that get
hundreds of millions of views, it's Chocolate Snacks, a thriller
being co written with James Patterson, a reality show on Amazon,
(23:15):
and more. Lucas Shaw profiles Mister Beasts for the current
issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. It's the cover story of
the screen Time issue. Lucas is Bloomberg News Managing editor
for Media and entertainment. He's also the author of the
screen Time newsletter. Check out the current issue of the magazine.
You can read it on the Bloomberg terminal and at
bloomberg dot com slash BusinessWeek. Lucas joins us from our
(23:36):
La Bureau Lucas. For the uninitiated, who is mister Beast?
Speaker 6 (23:42):
He is a twenty somethingter YouTube mogul.
Speaker 10 (23:46):
He's a six foot five kid from Greenville, North Carolina,
a community college dropout who has been obsessed with YouTube
since he was twelve years old ten years old. Really
a student of virality who starting five six years ago
(24:06):
to get a lot of attention to his videos and
now has sort of grown to a size and scale
that we've never seen on YouTube for any company, for
any channel, and is also trying to be I think
the first YouTuber to turn that attention and that audiency
has into a kind of a multi pronged media business.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
All right, So Lucas, Tim and I would love to
have four hundred and thirty million subscribers.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
We too would love to be a YouTube star. We're
kind of a YouTube star.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Within our niche I just want to say we are
on YouTube, but I mean, come on, how the heck
did he do this?
Speaker 6 (24:41):
You know, it's often hard to say.
Speaker 10 (24:44):
I've profiled a lot of the most popular YouTube channels
over the years, and I think that their stories tend
to share some commonality, where like they're at a certain
point people start to be interested in what they're doing,
and then the algorithm takes over and they just keep
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, what makes
his videos distinct or unique? Is he sort of he
(25:08):
mashes together a lot of genres that have already been
popular in reality television. So his videos are you know,
they're a little bit survivor. They'll you know, they'll strand
people in a particular situation for a long period of time.
They're a little bit of fear factor in that they're
you know, they're they're chained together, or they like it's
(25:29):
not just you're on a deserted island. It's like you're
on you have to survive in a supermarket for one
hundred days, and like figure out how to survive there,
and you can leave early and get some of the money,
but not all of the money.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
Or when I was.
Speaker 10 (25:41):
Visiting his facilities in North Carolina, they were shooting a
video where they had two x's chained together in a room,
and over the course of thirty days, the chain got
smaller and smaller, so they were closer and closer together,
and there were opportunities for sort of one to take
some money and screw over the other one, but because
they had this emotional history and they's clearly a little
bit of residual feelings, they didn't want to do that.
(26:03):
So it's psychological. It's kind of crazy, and it works
really well with young people. Like the cadence of his
speaking and the videos. They're not, frankly, not something that
I would always want to sit down and watch for
a long period of time, but like boys in particular
twelve to twenty four cannot get enough of it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
He's got a big team as you write, working on this.
As you mentioned, you visited the headquarters the companies worth
five point two billion dollars. I was shocked at that figure,
but I was even more shocked to see that it's
just hemorrhaging money three years in a row. More than
one hundred and ten million dollars lost last year.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
Hell why because they spend so much on their videos,
you know they some of it is just the mistakes
and exuberance of a startup. They construct these very elaborate videos.
The average cost of one of their YouTube videos went
from three hundred thousand in twenty twenty to more than
three mins last year.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
And there's only so even.
Speaker 10 (27:02):
As popular as he is, because the ad rates on
YouTube are pretty low.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
There's only so much.
Speaker 10 (27:07):
You can make from one video for YouTube, which is
one of the reasons he wanted to go make a
show for Amazon, which spent even more than that, and
by the way, he still managed to lose money on it.
And so the process that they're working on now is
trying to bring some of the traditional kind of approaches
to entertainment that help you save money so that their
YouTube videos don't.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Lose as much.
Speaker 10 (27:27):
Right, it used to be like, okay, we want to
involve a Lamborghini, we're going to buy it from our
local dealership and we're going to destroy it and we're
not going to have a wholesale rate with the local
dealership to help us save money because we know we're
going to want more Lambos in the future. Or like
we're going to use a school, we're going to build
it up and tear it down, not thinking well, maybe
a school is a set that you'll use multiple times
(27:48):
in the year, and instead of having to rebuild it
every six months, you just have one. And look, his
offices are his studios now on one hundred acres, so
he's got a lot of land to play with.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
All right, So enter the parent in the room. Tell
us about Jeff Hausenbold.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Who he is.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
He's been brought in, Kenny, fix this or what is
he going to do to fix this and make it profitable?
Speaker 6 (28:11):
Yeah, he's He's a Silicon Valley guy.
Speaker 10 (28:14):
Has has worked at eBay, among other companies in the
Bay Area, was an investor on behalf of soft Bank
for a while, has relationships with companies like Uber and
door Dash and until recently, I mean he would still
say the Bay Area is his place of residence, but
he basically lives on a plane these days.
Speaker 9 (28:33):
You know.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
I think.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
He is bringing in a lot more of professional leadership
and management. There's sort of an executive team at the
corporate level that they didn't have before. To me, the
big question is can he get Jimmy Donaldson mister beast
to trust him.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
To make the changes that need to be made.
Speaker 10 (28:52):
And can they do that without sacrificing whatever the secret
sauce is. My understanding of how that organization typically works
is like they can say all they want about there
being a new CEO and someone else in charge, but
ultimately it's Jimmy's name on the door.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
He owns more than half the company.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
He makes the final say, and so he's got to
get comfortable with some of the new ways of doing
things that can make it a more functional operation. He
told me that he is, but the proof is usually
in the putting it in the practice.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You spent a good bit of time reporting this out.
What is mister Beast like? What is mister Beast's mom like?
Speaker 6 (29:32):
His look?
Speaker 10 (29:33):
His mom is Sue. I spent I'm not going to exaggerate.
I probably spent twenty twenty five minutes with her. She
seemed very nice. She loves her son.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
You know, she feels a little bit like the last
boss in a.
Speaker 10 (29:48):
Video game or the bodyguard who's sort of like looking
after her son's best interests. You know, when mister Beast
had Jeff Hassenbould come and visit, and little did Jeff
know that Jimmy was in a lot of ways sort
of auditioning him.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
For a job.
Speaker 10 (30:03):
After he left, Jimmy asked Jeff to come back and
spend some time with his mom, clearly seeing that as
sort of the last check.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
See, I like this guy. Does my mom like him?
If my mom likes him, we'll hire him.
Speaker 10 (30:12):
You know, I think that Jimmy is probably a pretty
tough boss and a tough person to work for. But
the things that make him demanding and the fact that
he like he does not turn off. He's always working.
But I'm not going to see that firsthand as a reporter.
I'm going to get a little bit of the sanitized version,
but I can hear that from some of the people
who've worked with him over the years.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Well, and she's glad he's not selling knives anymore, right.
Speaker 10 (30:34):
Very glad that he's not selling knives anymore. And look,
she wasn't always a believer in this YouTube thing. She
wanted him to go to college, she wanted him to
take a more traditional path. But obviously, when your son
starts making millions of dollars a year, you're okay with
what he's doing.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Yeah, And for that knives reference, you're just gonna have
to read the story.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I'm just going to say hey, before we let you
go in, before we talk about screen Time next week,
which we are super excited about, just a little bit
on what it takes to be a content creator today.
Does it take a line of chocolates, Does it take snacks?
Does it take writing a novel with a best selling author?
Speaker 10 (31:06):
What does it take? It depends on what you want.
There are plenty of successful podcasters.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
Or YouTube creators who do just that right.
Speaker 10 (31:13):
They're happy that's that is what they want to do.
But mister Beast has ambitions of being an entrepreneur he
looks up to. When I first interviewed him five years ago,
he had a picture of Steve Jobs behind him on
the wall you know you go into. He's very fond
of Elon Musk. These are people that he looks up to,
and so he is now trying to use that audience.
(31:35):
He has to pursue those dreams. You know, I don't know.
It's not like he grew up saying I want to
be a chocolateer. But he has like five, six, seven,
eight different businesses that he's trying to spin up. I
think he's somewhat unique in that regard. But we do
live in an era where a lot of celebrities are
trying to use the influence that they have to build
these other businesses because they it holds the opportunity of
(31:57):
making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars more than
they would just from their regular career.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
All Right, we've got to talk about screen time. This event,
you put it together, you bring together incredible content creators.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
From all walks of life.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
It's next week in Los Angeles, October eighth and ninth,
and you've got some really big names coming.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
That's the goal every year. Yeah, year three.
Speaker 10 (32:22):
I mean, the two I'm probably most interested in are
Jimmy Kimmel, had just given all the news that he's
been in lately, and David Allison because he's sort of
the new mogul in.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Town right now. But very excited to talk to Ryan Coogler,
the director of Sinner.
Speaker 10 (32:34):
Is really one of the most interesting movies released this year.
Excited to hear from music mogul Irving Azof and Robert Kinsel.
My colleagues will be interviewing both current La Mayor Karen
Bass and the person she defeated the most recent election.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Rick Caruso. So we've got a good mix some little
bit of politics.
Speaker 10 (32:51):
We've got TV, we've got music, We've got some filmmakers,
the creators of Nobody Wants This one of my favorite
new shows on Netflix, so it should be a good time.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And Adam Asserri, the head of Instagram Meta platform, somebody
who's been at the company for years. Instagram, of course
has an outsized influence when it comes to your world.
How do you think about the melding of technology and
sort of what we think about as traditional tech or
new tech, and also Los Angeles, Hollywood content creation and
old tech.
Speaker 10 (33:17):
Well, look, I always like to tell my boss, even
though he doesn't like to hear it, that two of
the biggest tech companies are actually media companies.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
Meta and Google make pretty.
Speaker 10 (33:24):
Much or Meta and Alphabet make pretty much all of
their money monetizing attention they and that is the definition
of a media company. Instagram and YouTube are two of
the biggest video platforms in the world.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
We had YouTube CEO.
Speaker 10 (33:36):
Neil Mohen you'r one, and so obviously I'm very excited
to have the head of Instagram here year three. And
I think people sleep on how big video is on
Instagram these days. It's probably now the thing that people
spend most of their time on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Doing Hey, no pressure.
Speaker 8 (33:49):
I just can't wait to see your first question to
Jimmy Kimmel. I'm just going to put that out there.
Great stuff. We cannot wait to be there with you.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Thursday, Wednesday night, next Wednesday night.
Speaker 8 (33:58):
You have to go there for day one and all
day Thursday. Yeah, unbelievable stuff. Lucas, Thank you so much,
b Well, and we'll see you next week. Lucas Shaw,
of course Bloomberg news Managing Editor, Media and Entertainment, the
author of the screen Time newsletter.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
He is also the author.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
Of the cover story of the new issue at Bloomberg
Business Week, So be sure to check it out and
join us. We'll be there broadcasting from one to five
pm Wall Street Time, and if.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You want to go, maybe there are still tickets. Check
it out Bloomberg Live dot com, slash screen Time also
highlights here on Bloomberg TV and Radio and on tvgo
on the terminal. This is Bloomberg. Stay with us. More
from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
All right, TikTok, everybody, just under twenty minutes to go
before we wrap up the trade on this Thursday. You
just heard Alexis and Bill breaking down the major market
averages and where we've been bouncing around a little bit.
And we saw kind of a milli market a little
bit lower earlier in the session, but we are just
up about four points on the S and P five hundred,
(35:17):
Dow Jones Industrial average again.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Of about eighty points, and the.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Nasdaq one hundred outperformer, as we've been saying, on a
percentage basis, up about just shy of four tenths of
a percent, a gain of ninety points. So we'll see
whether or not we get some records. We've been talking
about some record moves here on these major averages after
what's been a year where we've seen the major averages,
especially as of late, hit a lot of all time highs.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, right, Yeah, it's been a little I don't know,
it's kind of it's just strange to me that well,
I guess it's kind of what Jan Vanneck told us
earlier this week that the government shutdown is not really
something that he thinks will have a significant impact on markets. Yeah,
it's not going to affect fiscal policy significantly or monetary policy.
(36:02):
The Fed is working. I think Molly reminded us of
that yesterday.
Speaker 8 (36:06):
So yeah, exactly, And I think if it becomes a
long shutdown and then we start to get into some issues,
let's see what our guest has to say.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
He Ajrini Maki is founder and managing partner of Strategic
Wealth Capital. The firm has about two hundred and thirty
million dollars in assets under management. She works with high
net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. Good to
have you with us this afternoon. We were interested in
talking to you for a lot of reasons. We love
having you join us, but you work with a lot
of folks. Are understanding is who are in technology or
(36:37):
have worked for some of the high flying tech companies,
the high net worth and ultra high networth individuals. We
have a story about open Ai reaching a new valuation
today five hundred billion dollars, topping Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
Are you seeing some.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Of that money come into your firm now that these
employees are allowed to sell shares on the secondary market.
Speaker 11 (37:00):
Seeing actually, so that's one of the firms. There are
also some other firms where our clients are seeing, and
also tech companies IPOs likely coming over the next couple
of quarters. So we're definitely gearing app towards a lot
of text planning, especially with a lot of changes in
the tax bill, and we're just preparing for that. So yes,
(37:21):
I mean that's loosening up a lot of funds for sure.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
How do you plan with these individuals, Let's say the
vast majority of their net worth is tied up in
a private company valuation that is just soared in recent years.
How do you manage that or de risk that capital?
Speaker 11 (37:38):
The first thing, and this is going to sound this
is sort of like a plumber trying to explain kind
of where the pipes go and all of it. So
it's a little technical, but we always start it's like
running a business when you work with a family. The
first thing we start with is what is their burn rate?
What do they need? So for so many of our clients,
it's funny they're saying, my net worth is ten million,
twenty million, how is it? I don't feel like I
have any money. Well often I mean there's stocks locked up,
(38:00):
it's not liquid. But then they also have quite quite
big taxes. I mean our clients are in New York City,
San Francisco on top of it. So the first thing
we do is we determine, Okay, what is it you
need for housing, funding, schools, the basics. We basically back
out and we say this is the amount we cannot
have at risk, this is your burn rate, this is
an emergency amount. In addition, and then we figure out, okay,
(38:23):
this is what we can take extreme risk with, which
is often what they have in lockups after an IPO.
And then in the middle we have very traditional which
are very strong. We have indexes and bond funds. So
it's very much like running a business where it depends
so much on what the clients need and when.
Speaker 8 (38:42):
Are you a lot more busier though this year because
of the number of IPOs, Like the IPO market finally
feeling like it's opened up, So do you have more
clients related to initial public offerings that we've seen this year?
Speaker 11 (38:56):
So we're super busy this year. Well, for a lot
of reasons. One is most of our clients, as you
imagine have very very high incomes. They're in the top
tax brackets state in California, and we've had strong markets.
So even so our clients who have new relatively new
public company stock, but also our clients who work for
(39:18):
Fortune fifty companies and have that's been and the stocks
have been appreciating so much. It's the same exact problem,
which is, I have so much of my liquidity in
one company, what are we going to do about it?
And then the new tax bill, for what it's worth,
opens up a lot of planning opportunities. So it's been
(39:39):
trying to smartly manage that huge risk in a tax
efficient way. It does open up a lot of possibility.
So we're doing a lot of donor advice funds, We're
doing a lot of giving and foundations gifting. So we're
very very busy because as the as those positions get
larger and larger as a percentage of well, we have
(39:59):
to dress it so that.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
You know, it's kind of interesting because you always do
see this.
Speaker 8 (40:03):
You know, we talk about the lock ups, right and
when that's over and insiders and execs can sell shares,
are you also you know we'll see an executive selling
shares and will always be a told it's part of.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
A state planning.
Speaker 8 (40:16):
But is that also a way for a client, you know,
kind of reading between the tea leaves of saying, I
don't want to be just exposed to my company. I
believe in it, I work in it, but I don't
want to be that exposed to it because, as we know,
things can go wrong.
Speaker 11 (40:32):
Such a good question. So I was just in DC
last week where I worked with several board members and
sea levels of a fourteen fifty company. And the hard
part is our clients are often very visible. So just
to your point, it's it's still a really big danger.
I mean, these are families who have kids in college,
kids in private school, they are on other non profit boards.
(40:56):
I mean, they need funding. They're often in very expensive
cities cause that's where the headquarters are. So but they
don't want to shock the markets by selling huge chunks.
So and that's it's very important right for signaling. So
ten B five one plans. For example, a couple of
my clients, I'll have executive lockouts. And then in addition,
(41:18):
when the company is going through a potential acquisition, they
are in a special lockup. So a ten B to five.
One plan, for example, is a plan that is it's
pre planned. The plan that's pre planned, and it allows
executives to sell a certain trunch. There's a specific window
of dates, but it is and it's public, so irrespective
(41:39):
of what the market is doing, irrespective of earnings and
news and et cetera. The clients that we sell and
that works very well because we're peeling off some of
the riskiest stock. We can decide to which tax trunches,
so we do a lot of tax planning underlaying it,
and then it doesn't shock the markets because first of all,
a number of executive do this, and then people can
(42:01):
see ahead of time, and then it's not it's not
a surprise, which is often what does cause concern for analysts.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I remember speaking to you in the wake of the
so called Liberation Dead and you talked a little bit
about the comments you were getting from clients, the calls
you were getting from clients. We only have thirty seconds left,
but what are the calls that you're feeling right now?
How has the tone or the mood shifted thirty seconds,
so thirty seconds.
Speaker 11 (42:26):
One thing I loved was the piece you guys had
a few days ago on consumer spending. In short, the
thing that bothers me or that scares me the most
because markets have still been strong, is inflation. I mean,
it's like a perfect storm of downward pressure on interest rates.
I don't think it's warranted. It's what it is, tariffs
only some of the tariff costs have been built into
goods we're spending, and it's going to be pushed off
(42:48):
next year by these tax refunds. But the point is
in six to twelve months, six nine months, Yeah, all
of the stuff that the three of us are going
to be buying a lot of it's going to cost
more is these things are built into Yeah, that will
slow a lot of the earnings. That's what I'm worried.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
About looking forward to that. Adrian, thank you so much.
Adrian Maki.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
She's found our managing partner, Strategic Wealth Capital, joining us
here at Bloomberg Business Weekdaily there in San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
the iHeartRadio app tune in, and the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(43:37):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 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
(00:23):
news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast
with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, big banks are kicking off earning season the week
after next, and one thing that may come up on
earnings calls analysts wondering if the financials are working with
the sprawling Trump family empire. After all, the President and
his family have been outspoken about how they say they
have been treated in recent years by US banking giants.
Here's President trumpet Davos in January speaking to a panel
that included Bank of America CEO Brian moynihan.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because
many conservators complain to the banks are not allowing them
to do business.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Within the bank.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And that included a place called Bank of America, You
and Jamie and everybody. I hope you're going to open
your banks to conservatives because what you're doing is wrong.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
They did everything they could to try and cancel us.
They did everything they could. I'm talking about traditional finance
to put us out of business. I got dozens of letters,
and I'm talking about the biggest banks anywhere in the
world again, Bank of America, right Capital One, JP Morgan
where for no reason other than the fact that my
father wore a red hat that said make America great again.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
Well there you have it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That was Eric Trump speaking with us just two weeks ago.
And President Trump and Davos in January, just days after
his second term started. The big banks maybe changing their tune,
as Todd Gillespie and Annie Massa were first to report
President Trump's money has found a new home at City
after being shunned by major banks. Dodd Lesbie is a
Bloomberg News banking reporter. He joins us here on the
(01:52):
Bloomberg Interactive for Brokers Studio.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
What did you find?
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Yeah, thanks, Tim.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
I mean, one of the really interesting things that has
come out of our reporting is that a new banking
relationship has essentially appeared between the Trump family and City Group.
You know. As President Trump, as we've just heard, you know,
has said many times he has had issues in the past,
particularly after business dealings after criminal convictions, you know, after
(02:17):
reputational issues that followed the January sixth riots, where big
banks on Wall Street and across the globe have refused
to do business with him and his family. Our reporting
has shown today that actually City Group has now established
a new banking relationship with Eric Trump since the election.
We know Jane Fraser reached out to congratulate Trump like
many Corporate America CEOs did right after the November election,
(02:41):
and since then, Eric Trump has signed up as a
client of City Group and has established a trust that
contains some of his father's money. We understand, and obviously
you know that you know, any bank right now would
want to be coverting top billionaires, you know in the US.
And obviously the Trump family wealth has seriously grown since
(03:03):
the since the last campaign, thanks to all of these
crypto ventures and associated business dealings in the Trump family.
So it's certainly a new emergence, maybe a tide is turning,
or an evolution of the mines, maybe in the banking
sector in the US.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
You know what's interesting too, Todd, As I think about
the first Trump White House, there were a lot of
executives there were business roundtables from different industries, and we
saw a lot of executives and I think most of
the big financial types were there. You don't see that
as much this time around, but you do see select individuals.
We've seen tech CEOs certainly prominent at the inauguration. But
(03:39):
Jane Frazier, the head of City, she actually went on
a recent trip with the President.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
She did.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
Yeah, I mean, she was only one of two US
bank CEOs who attended the state banquet in the UK
during Trump's visit there, you know, including hosted by the King,
King Charles the Third at Windsor Castle. Her and Brian moynihan,
the chief executive Bank of America, were there dre and
sixty old person dinner about ten White House officials. Jane
Fraser did happen to be sitting next to one of those,
(04:05):
according to the seating plan that we obtained, one of
the White House Deputy chiefs of Staff. So you know,
there are signs there that there is a you know,
certainly at least a cordial relationship there, certainly something that's
less aggressive than Trump's lashes out that he's had, you know,
with Bank of America and JP Morgan you.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
Said that Jane Fraser was placed next to Nicholas Luna.
You guys, and you're reporting a White House Deputy chief
of staff according to that seating plan. Luna is married
to the former assistant of President Trump's son in law,
Jared Kushner, whose family has also done business with City Group.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
I mean, will bear in mind you City Group is
the third largest lender in the years, So we can't
necessarily draw all these lines and suggest that there's you know,
introductions and yaddiadiada all the time. But certainly, yeah, I
mean there are you know, there are. City Group has
has had its fingers and lots of pies over the
City Bank, you know, before the big merger of City
Group in nineteen ninety eight. City Bank was one of
(04:59):
the largest lenders on some of the Trump deals that
went sour. On the Trump shuttle, you know, expedition that
you know, maybe not expedition but adventure, business adventure that
Trump did trying to turn to to run this airline
that went badly, and some of the business dealings in
newr real estate that went sour as well. Citybank was
(05:19):
one of the largest lenders on some of those deals. Too,
So the bank and its entities have been burned in
the past. It seems like, you know, gradually now obviously
with the stability and wealth that comes with the presidency
and the family. That's sort of you know, back in
the good books. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So there was there was a period of time leading
up to the election, as you mentioned the past history
of the Trump organization in banks, but also there was
after the first election, there was the second election, there
was January sixth, and there were banks that cut ties
with the president following the January sixth attack. What happened
(05:56):
in the in the during the Biden years.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Yeah, well, we know, for instance, you know, banks like
Deutsche Bank, like others, more regional banks in the US
as well that had relationship relationships with the Trump family
basically backtracked, you know, and they said, you know, they
don't they don't want to do business with the Trump family.
Banks rejected their deposits for instance, or particularly Donald Trump's money.
So there was sort of this wilderness period perhaps, you know,
(06:20):
bear in mind this was the time where Trump was
undergoing civil fraud cases, you know, was under you know,
pressure from the New York Attorney General, had financial penalties
that were eventually sort of thrown out by appeals courts.
But you know, obviously there was those Biden years were
not a pleasant time from a legal and risk perspective
for anyone dealing with the Trump family.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
In your reporting, did you uncover any evidence that any
financial institutions did not do business with the organization or
with conservatives as a result of political leanings.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
That's never I don't think anyone has ever concretely as
far as i'm The reason.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I ask is because that's what Eric Trump, yes and yeah,
a little over two weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
I think you can understand that there's some nervousness over
you know, the tensions around certain actors in the way,
and that the you know, maybe dealing with actors who
are maybe a bit more forthright and maybe stoking tensions
for instance, or you might have concerns over uh, you know,
might have concerns over political actors that come into play here.
(07:24):
There are some banks which obviously are more conservative than
others when it comes to this. We know Axoss Bank,
for instance. We've written my colleague Maxabels And has written
extensively about Access Bank, which sort of prides itself as
being a you know, a sort of a lender to
people who are largely you know, less banked, so that
you know there are you know, there are lenders who
(07:45):
will step in at these times too.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
I am curious, to be fair, you know what you've heard,
certainly from City on this as you guys have reported
this out what they're saying.
Speaker 7 (07:56):
Yeah, a City Group of declined to comment for our story. Obviously,
I think, you know, when they're dealing with, you know,
sensitive information regarding clients, I don't think they would necessarily comment.
But City Group orsonner position. Now, you know, they have
a delicate they've you know, every company has a delicate
line to tread here when it comes to relationships with
the administration, and they've got relationships with regulators that they
(08:16):
need to manage to. So that's where they are.
Speaker 8 (08:20):
Is d banking though a problem in general. We talk
about it a lot in terms of those who are
left out of the financial system. But I do wonder,
you know, banks have responsibility for du share responsibilities when
they think about who they want to bank with, right
in terms of clients, you don't want a lot of
loans that sour and so on and so forth, So
(08:41):
you understand that especially if you're a publicly traded entity
and also banking regulation. But is there you know, I
don't know these de banking charges or allegations.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone has really comprehensively
established the strength of that are to the point that
I think, you know, Eric Trump has accused the sector
of I think it is hard to It is hard
to insinuate that there is some kind of widespread caution
purely on the basis of ideology, right you know, you
(09:13):
have banks that maybe, but based on ideology, they then see, well,
you know, the political tensions right now mean x Y
or Z, or the politically exposed people mean X Y
and Z, and then from that level of risk, you
then might want to take some action, but purely on
ideological grounds, it's hard to make that case.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Should note too that in the PCU and Annie wrote,
the White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, quote, the president's
personal assets are in a trust managed by his children
and have nothing to do with his presidential decision making.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
So that's what we heard from the White House.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Todd, congratulations on the story I most read on the
Bloomberg terminal. Todd Gillespie Banking reporter for Bloomberg News. Joining
us here, Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week
Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us Live weekday afternoons from two to five e's. During
that listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Business app, or watch us Live on YouTube.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
Well, if you think of satellites in space, you often
think about Elon, Musk and SpaceX, and yet there are
a few other players.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
In the space, among them AST Space Mobile.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Shares of the company man they are taking off this week,
up about thirty percent in the past two days, hitting
an all time high today, up two hundred and ten
percent year to date. It is a nearly twenty three no,
it's more than twenty three billion dollar market cap. It's
a wireless telecom company deploying satellites in space to be
accessible for smartphones. And just yesterday Barkley's raised the firm's
(10:46):
price target to sixty dollars a share from thirty seven
and keeps an overweight rating on the share stock at
sixty five and change. Delighted to have with us, Scott Wasnowski.
He is president of AST Space Mobile, as we said,
joining us a from Boston. So great to have you
here with us. Scott, You've got to be busy. It
sounds like you're super busy. If I do a search,
(11:06):
there's like various press releases coming out. You're Bluebirds satellites
eight to sixteen. They're in various stages of production. My
understanding is you guys have plan launches every one to
two three months on average this year and into next year.
You're on track to complete forty phased or raised by
early next year and expect forty five to sixty satellites
in orbit by the end of twenty twenty six. Tell
(11:28):
me if I've got it all right, and tell us
about this build out and capabilities and who ultimately is
signing up to use it.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
Well, thank you for having us. You know, our company
is entirely focused on this opportunity of providing wireless access
from space directly to the phone in your pocket. So
to do this, we're vertically integrated. We build our own
satellites as you were just discussing, and we're based in
Texas here in the United States, and we're partnered with
over fifty mobile network operators globally. That's how we go
(11:57):
to market because that's those are the folks who have
of the customers today nearly three billion of them with
the partners that we have, so we're focused on building
this network out. We have about an eight year history
as a company. We have over thirty seven hundred patent
and patent pending claims on developing this new technology. It
sounds far fetched at first, talking to your regular small
(12:19):
phone in your pocket from low earth orbit, but that's
the capability that we have. And this is really important,
i think for everyone because there's six billion phones out
there in the world and as we know, we depend
on connectivities so much and it's very important that that
phone works, whether it's convenience, peace of mind, or emergencies,
and that's what we're focused on.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Starlink has partnered with T Mobile. You have partnered with
AT and T and Verizon. What can you tell customers
about when they can actually expect continuous coverage nationally and
perhaps even globally as a result of this partnership.
Speaker 9 (12:54):
Right, and so we actually have investment from about six
different mobile network operators around the world as well American Tower,
who's the largest tower company in the world. In Google,
and so in the United States, yes, like you said,
we're partnered with AT and T and Barizon, both investors,
and it's very important for us to have that close
relationship because the way we've built the company, our services
(13:17):
built purpose built for the mobile phone in your pocket,
so that it just works. And the key there is
to be deeply integrated with the operator and solve the
operator's problem so they can deliver value to their customers.
So we're organized today around getting service out next year
and we're currently have about five satellites in orbit. We
just announced our plans to deliver number six and seven
(13:39):
to the launch pad and as you said earlier, we're
looking to put up forty five to sixty by the
end of next year. And so this capability is just
very important in the United States but also around the world.
Speaker 8 (13:49):
Well, tell us like who you anticipate or who are
right now your biggest customers. I'm curious about commercial, residential,
and I'm also curious about government.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
Well, that's right, and the important thing about our company
too is you know, space has historically been a bit
of a niche. You know, if you live in a
rural area or if you're on a plane, and you
want connectivity. There are nice little markets there, but this
is about going to the mass market, the six billion
mobile phones in the world, and so that goes for
people who live, work, and travel, go in and out
(14:22):
of coverage, who have greater ability to pay and want
that convenience, as well as people who live perhaps in
rural areas, who don't have good connectivity or are willing
to pay a little bit more a month to have
cellular broadband. Again, this is not a text service. This
is a cellular broadband service that we'll be selling. So
that's our US and really developed economy story. When you
go around the world, there's many countries though, where there's
(14:45):
over two billion people today who don't have good three
G or better service on their phones. That means two
G or nothing, and so market by market, our service
is valuable to the users and the operators who support
those those end users. And then you mentioned US government.
That's been a relatively new ad to our story in
the last two years, but given the defense and space
(15:07):
backdrop in the United States, this is something that's been
front and center for US for the last two years.
And we're already providing services to the US government for morebit.
Speaker 8 (15:16):
So, Scott, you probably know this little company called SpaceX
that is out there, and I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
They did a deal with EchoStar.
Speaker 8 (15:23):
They became the first company to a mass control of
the satellite constellations in outer space, the launch infrastructures to
deliver them there, and the potential for direct connections with
mobile devices on the ground. So there's SpaceX. They're kind
of the big behemoth there, the big player. There's you guys,
there's Amazon dot Com. This's global stock in the race
for ubiquitous covers. How do you plan to compete with starlink,
(15:46):
which already has thousands of satellites in orbit?
Speaker 9 (15:51):
Right, And I think for the layman, it's important to
distinguish between service to a dish that you might put
on your house or on a car or on a plane,
and then the phone in your pocket. Right. We all
have Wi Fi at home, and then we have a
cell phone for when we're on ago. So this is
a market, the cellular market from space that's brand new.
You've seen some players start to enter it, including Apple
(16:12):
and Starlink, but we've been at this for about eight years.
This solution is tailor made, purpose built for this solution.
This is not an add on news service for US.
This is all we do and that's why we've been
able to garner such incredible support from network operators globally
like AT and T and Verizon in the US, Vota
Phone in Europe, racketin Mobile in Japan, Bell Canada who
(16:33):
we just announced cellular broadband testing in from Canada today
with who's also an investor in US. So these are
capabilities that have been developed with the network operator in mind.
We are focused on making their network better so that
they can deliver the value to the customers.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Are you not saying that you're competing with SpaceX and Starlink,
that you're completely different businesses.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Well, we plan to go after the cellular user through
the network operator. They also have a strategy as you said,
that they're pursuing. But this is a market that we
think is big. It's going to be worth tens of
billions of dollars. There's six billion phones out of there
that out in the world to go in and out
of coverage, and all of us know that feeling when
we don't have a signal, it's you're helpless, and so
(17:18):
we think that in all of our over fifty network
operator partners think that this is something that really enhances
the value of the cellular plan that almost all of
us have, certainly in the United States, And so that
is a strategy that's good. That's going to be a
nice robust market, and we expect with our technology to
be the leader in that because we're doing broadband from space.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You mentioned your work with the US government over the
last two years. Can you expand on that a little bit,
What exactly are you doing for the US government?
Speaker 9 (17:44):
Yeah, so it's probably worth taking a step back. You know,
we currently operate the five largest satellites in low Earth
orbit commercially. You know that lower orbit for the layman
is you know, that's what the space station is. It's
much closer to the planet. It's that lag you experience
when you have a geosynchronous satellite. LEO solves all that.
So we have the largest satellites deployed in lowerth orbit.
(18:06):
The one we're shipping to the launch pad in two
weeks is three times the size, over twenty four hundred
square feet. So this is a unique technology that was
developed to talk to the small phone and to do
it well and to navigate cellular air crowded cellular airwaves.
But it also has other applications. So with our US
government business, we see up to ten different use cases,
(18:28):
both communications and non communications that can support the US
government mission for defense. And importantly, one of the ones
we're testing in orbit today and we've been doing it
for over a year, has really strategic and valuable implications,
including potentially for the Golden Domee project.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
You also mentioned the notion that it's not just texting
and being able to make calls. This is broadband delivered
from a satellite to wherever you are in the world.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
That's the idea here.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
What is the experience using the phone in that environment
and how could that be different or similar than using
a five G LTE network? What are the speeds we're
talking here?
Speaker 9 (19:06):
That's right, and so from the beginning, and this again,
this is why we've been partnered with them network operators.
They've been in the room with us, testing and developing
this tech for five plus years. And what means is
we're integrated on the back end. You remember, everyone's got
a vision in their mind of calls in the old
days where someone would be connecting the call and doing this. Well,
that technology still exists in the world. It's just done
with servers and with software, and so we're deeply integrated
(19:29):
on that side of the business so that the phone
just works. And so this is a native cellular broadband experience.
The user doesn't know that there's a difference unless we
want them to. And they can do text calling, native calling,
video streaming, and they can do all these applications and
it feels just like you're using your phone on an
LT in five G network.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So how fast, like, what are we talking megabits per
second here?
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Up and down?
Speaker 9 (19:55):
So we've tested over twenty megabits per second to the
cell in the past couple of years with our satellites
in orbit with the you know, there was mention of
a spectrum deal a moment ago. We did our own
spectrum transaction earlier this year, a very similar type of spectrum,
which is about forty plus megahertz in the United States.
And with forty megahertz we can deliver one hundred and
(20:17):
twenty megabits to the cell on the ground. Now, how
you manage all the network traffic and how do you
go to market is a critical decision we make with
our partners around the world. Including in the United States.
But there's only one way to get broadband capabilities from space,
and that's with a big satellite, and we have the.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Biggest on the connection side of things. We're wondering too
about the experience of being inside and outside. Anyone who's
used like a garment head unit, for example, on a
bike knows that you have to use it outside to
get the cell signal. Can this coverage go inside buildings?
Speaker 9 (20:45):
That's right, we can do one wall in. So some
of the success factors for that are the fact that,
again we have a big satellite, and we also use
low band spectrum. That's part of our partnership with AT
and T and Verizon is combining some low band spectrum
that they have from decades ago. So the low band
spectrum propagation characters are the best, and as you go
into midband, even then it's still pretty good. So we
(21:06):
can do about one wall in, which means a building,
means a car, means a plane.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Ah.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
Okay, that's what we were because I think there were
some folks like kind of messaging what is he talking about? Hey,
you mentioned that you guys have picked up spectrum forty megahertz.
Did do you want to buy any more if some
comes up for auction.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
Well, in the space world, there's two big bands of
spectrum that matter. It's called L and S. We just
purchased long term access to the L band in the
United States and Canada earlier this year, and that gives
us a big chunk of spectrum, the biggest available in
the most valuable wireless market in the world, which is
the US. We also purchased an international filing that allows
(21:47):
us to go around the world and pick up other
pieces of spectrum for space, So we're pretty happy with
our spectrum position now for those two moves. This again
is consistent with our historical strategy of sharing cellular spectrum
with the other operators, but he gives us more lanes
of traffic and the ability to do better services to
more subscribers. So we like our strategy in both of
those two bands.
Speaker 8 (22:07):
That motor all right, We've got to run, so appreciate
this deep dive. I hope you'll come back keep us
abreast of what you guys are working on and how
things are going.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Scott. Thanks, have a great rest of the week and weekend.
Speaker 8 (22:18):
Scott Wasnowski. He's president of AST Space Mobile Joining us here.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming
up after this.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five East during
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Well, if you haven't heard of Beast Industries, maybe you've
heard of the company's namesake founder, mister Beast. No, that's
not the name that he was given at birth.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
No, it was not Jimmy Donaldson.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Jimmy Donaldson. YouTube is the most popular place to watch
videos in the world, and Donaldson is its biggest star.
His main channel as more than four hundred and thirty
million subscribers. It's more than the population of all but
two countries the Empire. Not just YouTube videos that get
hundreds of millions of views, it's Chocolate Snacks, a thriller
being co written with James Patterson, a reality show on Amazon,
(23:15):
and more. Lucas Shaw profiles Mister Beasts for the current
issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. It's the cover story of
the screen Time issue. Lucas is Bloomberg News Managing editor
for Media and entertainment. He's also the author of the
screen Time newsletter. Check out the current issue of the magazine.
You can read it on the Bloomberg terminal and at
bloomberg dot com slash BusinessWeek. Lucas joins us from our
(23:36):
La Bureau Lucas. For the uninitiated, who is mister Beast?
Speaker 6 (23:42):
He is a twenty somethingter YouTube mogul.
Speaker 10 (23:46):
He's a six foot five kid from Greenville, North Carolina,
a community college dropout who has been obsessed with YouTube
since he was twelve years old ten years old. Really
a student of virality who starting five six years ago
(24:06):
to get a lot of attention to his videos and
now has sort of grown to a size and scale
that we've never seen on YouTube for any company, for
any channel, and is also trying to be I think
the first YouTuber to turn that attention and that audiency
has into a kind of a multi pronged media business.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
All right, So Lucas, Tim and I would love to
have four hundred and thirty million subscribers.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
We too would love to be a YouTube star. We're
kind of a YouTube star.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Within our niche I just want to say we are
on YouTube, but I mean, come on, how the heck
did he do this?
Speaker 6 (24:41):
You know, it's often hard to say.
Speaker 10 (24:44):
I've profiled a lot of the most popular YouTube channels
over the years, and I think that their stories tend
to share some commonality, where like they're at a certain
point people start to be interested in what they're doing,
and then the algorithm takes over and they just keep
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, what makes
his videos distinct or unique? Is he sort of he
(25:08):
mashes together a lot of genres that have already been
popular in reality television. So his videos are you know,
they're a little bit survivor. They'll you know, they'll strand
people in a particular situation for a long period of time.
They're a little bit of fear factor in that they're
you know, they're they're chained together, or they like it's
(25:29):
not just you're on a deserted island. It's like you're
on you have to survive in a supermarket for one
hundred days, and like figure out how to survive there,
and you can leave early and get some of the money,
but not all of the money.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
Or when I was.
Speaker 10 (25:41):
Visiting his facilities in North Carolina, they were shooting a
video where they had two x's chained together in a room,
and over the course of thirty days, the chain got
smaller and smaller, so they were closer and closer together,
and there were opportunities for sort of one to take
some money and screw over the other one, but because
they had this emotional history and they's clearly a little
bit of residual feelings, they didn't want to do that.
(26:03):
So it's psychological. It's kind of crazy, and it works
really well with young people. Like the cadence of his
speaking and the videos. They're not, frankly, not something that
I would always want to sit down and watch for
a long period of time, but like boys in particular
twelve to twenty four cannot get enough of it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
He's got a big team as you write, working on this.
As you mentioned, you visited the headquarters the companies worth
five point two billion dollars. I was shocked at that figure,
but I was even more shocked to see that it's
just hemorrhaging money three years in a row. More than
one hundred and ten million dollars lost last year.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
Hell why because they spend so much on their videos,
you know they some of it is just the mistakes
and exuberance of a startup. They construct these very elaborate videos.
The average cost of one of their YouTube videos went
from three hundred thousand in twenty twenty to more than
three mins last year.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
And there's only so even.
Speaker 10 (27:02):
As popular as he is, because the ad rates on
YouTube are pretty low.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
There's only so much.
Speaker 10 (27:07):
You can make from one video for YouTube, which is
one of the reasons he wanted to go make a
show for Amazon, which spent even more than that, and
by the way, he still managed to lose money on it.
And so the process that they're working on now is
trying to bring some of the traditional kind of approaches
to entertainment that help you save money so that their
YouTube videos don't.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Lose as much.
Speaker 10 (27:27):
Right, it used to be like, okay, we want to
involve a Lamborghini, we're going to buy it from our
local dealership and we're going to destroy it and we're
not going to have a wholesale rate with the local
dealership to help us save money because we know we're
going to want more Lambos in the future. Or like
we're going to use a school, we're going to build
it up and tear it down, not thinking well, maybe
a school is a set that you'll use multiple times
(27:48):
in the year, and instead of having to rebuild it
every six months, you just have one. And look, his
offices are his studios now on one hundred acres, so
he's got a lot of land to play with.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
All right, So enter the parent in the room. Tell
us about Jeff Hausenbold.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Who he is.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
He's been brought in, Kenny, fix this or what is
he going to do to fix this and make it profitable?
Speaker 6 (28:11):
Yeah, he's He's a Silicon Valley guy.
Speaker 10 (28:14):
Has has worked at eBay, among other companies in the
Bay Area, was an investor on behalf of soft Bank
for a while, has relationships with companies like Uber and
door Dash and until recently, I mean he would still
say the Bay Area is his place of residence, but
he basically lives on a plane these days.
Speaker 9 (28:33):
You know.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
I think.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
He is bringing in a lot more of professional leadership
and management. There's sort of an executive team at the
corporate level that they didn't have before. To me, the
big question is can he get Jimmy Donaldson mister beast
to trust him.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
To make the changes that need to be made.
Speaker 10 (28:52):
And can they do that without sacrificing whatever the secret
sauce is. My understanding of how that organization typically works
is like they can say all they want about there
being a new CEO and someone else in charge, but
ultimately it's Jimmy's name on the door.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
He owns more than half the company.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
He makes the final say, and so he's got to
get comfortable with some of the new ways of doing
things that can make it a more functional operation. He
told me that he is, but the proof is usually
in the putting it in the practice.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You spent a good bit of time reporting this out.
What is mister Beast like? What is mister Beast's mom like?
Speaker 6 (29:32):
His look?
Speaker 10 (29:33):
His mom is Sue. I spent I'm not going to exaggerate.
I probably spent twenty twenty five minutes with her. She
seemed very nice. She loves her son.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
You know, she feels a little bit like the last
boss in a.
Speaker 10 (29:48):
Video game or the bodyguard who's sort of like looking
after her son's best interests. You know, when mister Beast
had Jeff Hassenbould come and visit, and little did Jeff
know that Jimmy was in a lot of ways sort
of auditioning him.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
For a job.
Speaker 10 (30:03):
After he left, Jimmy asked Jeff to come back and
spend some time with his mom, clearly seeing that as
sort of the last check.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
See, I like this guy. Does my mom like him?
If my mom likes him, we'll hire him.
Speaker 10 (30:12):
You know, I think that Jimmy is probably a pretty
tough boss and a tough person to work for. But
the things that make him demanding and the fact that
he like he does not turn off. He's always working.
But I'm not going to see that firsthand as a reporter.
I'm going to get a little bit of the sanitized version,
but I can hear that from some of the people
who've worked with him over the years.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Well, and she's glad he's not selling knives anymore, right.
Speaker 10 (30:34):
Very glad that he's not selling knives anymore. And look,
she wasn't always a believer in this YouTube thing. She
wanted him to go to college, she wanted him to
take a more traditional path. But obviously, when your son
starts making millions of dollars a year, you're okay with
what he's doing.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Yeah, And for that knives reference, you're just gonna have
to read the story.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I'm just going to say hey, before we let you
go in, before we talk about screen Time next week,
which we are super excited about, just a little bit
on what it takes to be a content creator today.
Does it take a line of chocolates, Does it take snacks?
Does it take writing a novel with a best selling author?
Speaker 10 (31:06):
What does it take? It depends on what you want.
There are plenty of successful podcasters.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
Or YouTube creators who do just that right.
Speaker 10 (31:13):
They're happy that's that is what they want to do.
But mister Beast has ambitions of being an entrepreneur he
looks up to. When I first interviewed him five years ago,
he had a picture of Steve Jobs behind him on
the wall you know you go into. He's very fond
of Elon Musk. These are people that he looks up to,
and so he is now trying to use that audience.
(31:35):
He has to pursue those dreams. You know, I don't know.
It's not like he grew up saying I want to
be a chocolateer. But he has like five, six, seven,
eight different businesses that he's trying to spin up. I
think he's somewhat unique in that regard. But we do
live in an era where a lot of celebrities are
trying to use the influence that they have to build
these other businesses because they it holds the opportunity of
(31:57):
making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars more than
they would just from their regular career.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
All Right, we've got to talk about screen time. This event,
you put it together, you bring together incredible content creators.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
From all walks of life.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
It's next week in Los Angeles, October eighth and ninth,
and you've got some really big names coming.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
That's the goal every year. Yeah, year three.
Speaker 10 (32:22):
I mean, the two I'm probably most interested in are
Jimmy Kimmel, had just given all the news that he's
been in lately, and David Allison because he's sort of
the new mogul in.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Town right now. But very excited to talk to Ryan Coogler,
the director of Sinner.
Speaker 10 (32:34):
Is really one of the most interesting movies released this year.
Excited to hear from music mogul Irving Azof and Robert Kinsel.
My colleagues will be interviewing both current La Mayor Karen
Bass and the person she defeated the most recent election.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Rick Caruso. So we've got a good mix some little
bit of politics.
Speaker 10 (32:51):
We've got TV, we've got music, We've got some filmmakers,
the creators of Nobody Wants This one of my favorite
new shows on Netflix, so it should be a good time.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And Adam Asserri, the head of Instagram Meta platform, somebody
who's been at the company for years. Instagram, of course
has an outsized influence when it comes to your world.
How do you think about the melding of technology and
sort of what we think about as traditional tech or
new tech, and also Los Angeles, Hollywood content creation and
old tech.
Speaker 10 (33:17):
Well, look, I always like to tell my boss, even
though he doesn't like to hear it, that two of
the biggest tech companies are actually media companies.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
Meta and Google make pretty.
Speaker 10 (33:24):
Much or Meta and Alphabet make pretty much all of
their money monetizing attention they and that is the definition
of a media company. Instagram and YouTube are two of
the biggest video platforms in the world.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
We had YouTube CEO.
Speaker 10 (33:36):
Neil Mohen you'r one, and so obviously I'm very excited
to have the head of Instagram here year three. And
I think people sleep on how big video is on
Instagram these days. It's probably now the thing that people
spend most of their time on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Doing Hey, no pressure.
Speaker 8 (33:49):
I just can't wait to see your first question to
Jimmy Kimmel. I'm just going to put that out there.
Great stuff. We cannot wait to be there with you.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Thursday, Wednesday night, next Wednesday night.
Speaker 8 (33:58):
You have to go there for day one and all
day Thursday. Yeah, unbelievable stuff. Lucas, Thank you so much,
b Well, and we'll see you next week. Lucas Shaw,
of course Bloomberg news Managing Editor, Media and Entertainment, the
author of the screen Time newsletter.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
He is also the author.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
Of the cover story of the new issue at Bloomberg
Business Week, So be sure to check it out and
join us. We'll be there broadcasting from one to five
pm Wall Street Time, and if.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You want to go, maybe there are still tickets. Check
it out Bloomberg Live dot com, slash screen Time also
highlights here on Bloomberg TV and Radio and on tvgo
on the terminal. This is Bloomberg. Stay with us. More
from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
All right, TikTok, everybody, just under twenty minutes to go
before we wrap up the trade on this Thursday. You
just heard Alexis and Bill breaking down the major market
averages and where we've been bouncing around a little bit.
And we saw kind of a milli market a little
bit lower earlier in the session, but we are just
up about four points on the S and P five hundred,
(35:17):
Dow Jones Industrial average again.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Of about eighty points, and the.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Nasdaq one hundred outperformer, as we've been saying, on a
percentage basis, up about just shy of four tenths of
a percent, a gain of ninety points. So we'll see
whether or not we get some records. We've been talking
about some record moves here on these major averages after
what's been a year where we've seen the major averages,
especially as of late, hit a lot of all time highs.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, right, Yeah, it's been a little I don't know,
it's kind of it's just strange to me that well,
I guess it's kind of what Jan Vanneck told us
earlier this week that the government shutdown is not really
something that he thinks will have a significant impact on markets. Yeah,
it's not going to affect fiscal policy significantly or monetary policy.
(36:02):
The Fed is working. I think Molly reminded us of
that yesterday.
Speaker 8 (36:06):
So yeah, exactly, And I think if it becomes a
long shutdown and then we start to get into some issues,
let's see what our guest has to say.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
He Ajrini Maki is founder and managing partner of Strategic
Wealth Capital. The firm has about two hundred and thirty
million dollars in assets under management. She works with high
net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. Good to
have you with us this afternoon. We were interested in
talking to you for a lot of reasons. We love
having you join us, but you work with a lot
of folks. Are understanding is who are in technology or
(36:37):
have worked for some of the high flying tech companies,
the high net worth and ultra high networth individuals. We
have a story about open Ai reaching a new valuation
today five hundred billion dollars, topping Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
Are you seeing some.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Of that money come into your firm now that these
employees are allowed to sell shares on the secondary market.
Speaker 11 (37:00):
Seeing actually, so that's one of the firms. There are
also some other firms where our clients are seeing, and
also tech companies IPOs likely coming over the next couple
of quarters. So we're definitely gearing app towards a lot
of text planning, especially with a lot of changes in
the tax bill, and we're just preparing for that. So yes,
(37:21):
I mean that's loosening up a lot of funds for sure.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
How do you plan with these individuals, Let's say the
vast majority of their net worth is tied up in
a private company valuation that is just soared in recent years.
How do you manage that or de risk that capital?
Speaker 11 (37:38):
The first thing, and this is going to sound this
is sort of like a plumber trying to explain kind
of where the pipes go and all of it. So
it's a little technical, but we always start it's like
running a business when you work with a family. The
first thing we start with is what is their burn rate?
What do they need? So for so many of our clients,
it's funny they're saying, my net worth is ten million,
twenty million, how is it? I don't feel like I
have any money. Well often I mean there's stocks locked up,
(38:00):
it's not liquid. But then they also have quite quite
big taxes. I mean our clients are in New York City,
San Francisco on top of it. So the first thing
we do is we determine, Okay, what is it you
need for housing, funding, schools, the basics. We basically back
out and we say this is the amount we cannot
have at risk, this is your burn rate, this is
an emergency amount. In addition, and then we figure out, okay,
(38:23):
this is what we can take extreme risk with, which
is often what they have in lockups after an IPO.
And then in the middle we have very traditional which
are very strong. We have indexes and bond funds. So
it's very much like running a business where it depends
so much on what the clients need and when.
Speaker 8 (38:42):
Are you a lot more busier though this year because
of the number of IPOs, Like the IPO market finally
feeling like it's opened up, So do you have more
clients related to initial public offerings that we've seen this year?
Speaker 11 (38:56):
So we're super busy this year. Well, for a lot
of reasons. One is most of our clients, as you
imagine have very very high incomes. They're in the top
tax brackets state in California, and we've had strong markets.
So even so our clients who have new relatively new
public company stock, but also our clients who work for
(39:18):
Fortune fifty companies and have that's been and the stocks
have been appreciating so much. It's the same exact problem,
which is, I have so much of my liquidity in
one company, what are we going to do about it?
And then the new tax bill, for what it's worth,
opens up a lot of planning opportunities. So it's been
(39:39):
trying to smartly manage that huge risk in a tax
efficient way. It does open up a lot of possibility.
So we're doing a lot of donor advice funds, We're
doing a lot of giving and foundations gifting. So we're
very very busy because as the as those positions get
larger and larger as a percentage of well, we have
(39:59):
to dress it so that.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
You know, it's kind of interesting because you always do
see this.
Speaker 8 (40:03):
You know, we talk about the lock ups, right and
when that's over and insiders and execs can sell shares,
are you also you know we'll see an executive selling
shares and will always be a told it's part of.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
A state planning.
Speaker 8 (40:16):
But is that also a way for a client, you know,
kind of reading between the tea leaves of saying, I
don't want to be just exposed to my company. I
believe in it, I work in it, but I don't
want to be that exposed to it because, as we know,
things can go wrong.
Speaker 11 (40:32):
Such a good question. So I was just in DC
last week where I worked with several board members and
sea levels of a fourteen fifty company. And the hard
part is our clients are often very visible. So just
to your point, it's it's still a really big danger.
I mean, these are families who have kids in college,
kids in private school, they are on other non profit boards.
(40:56):
I mean, they need funding. They're often in very expensive
cities cause that's where the headquarters are. So but they
don't want to shock the markets by selling huge chunks.
So and that's it's very important right for signaling. So
ten B five one plans. For example, a couple of
my clients, I'll have executive lockouts. And then in addition,
(41:18):
when the company is going through a potential acquisition, they
are in a special lockup. So a ten B to five.
One plan, for example, is a plan that is it's
pre planned. The plan that's pre planned, and it allows
executives to sell a certain trunch. There's a specific window
of dates, but it is and it's public, so irrespective
(41:39):
of what the market is doing, irrespective of earnings and
news and et cetera. The clients that we sell and
that works very well because we're peeling off some of
the riskiest stock. We can decide to which tax trunches,
so we do a lot of tax planning underlaying it,
and then it doesn't shock the markets because first of all,
a number of executive do this, and then people can
(42:01):
see ahead of time, and then it's not it's not
a surprise, which is often what does cause concern for analysts.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I remember speaking to you in the wake of the
so called Liberation Dead and you talked a little bit
about the comments you were getting from clients, the calls
you were getting from clients. We only have thirty seconds left,
but what are the calls that you're feeling right now?
How has the tone or the mood shifted thirty seconds,
so thirty seconds.
Speaker 11 (42:26):
One thing I loved was the piece you guys had
a few days ago on consumer spending. In short, the
thing that bothers me or that scares me the most
because markets have still been strong, is inflation. I mean,
it's like a perfect storm of downward pressure on interest rates.
I don't think it's warranted. It's what it is, tariffs
only some of the tariff costs have been built into
goods we're spending, and it's going to be pushed off
(42:48):
next year by these tax refunds. But the point is
in six to twelve months, six nine months, Yeah, all
of the stuff that the three of us are going
to be buying a lot of it's going to cost
more is these things are built into Yeah, that will
slow a lot of the earnings. That's what I'm worried.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
About looking forward to that. Adrian, thank you so much.
Adrian Maki.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
She's found our managing partner, Strategic Wealth Capital, joining us
here at Bloomberg Business Weekdaily there in San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
the iHeartRadio app tune in, and the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(43:37):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
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