July 18, 2025 • 35 mins
Watch Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Hosts: Paul Sweeney and Lisa Mateo
On this podcast:
- Mandeep Singh, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Tech Industry Analyst, discusses Nvidia and AMD resuming some AI chip sales to China.
- Michelle Davis, Bloomberg Senior Deals Reporter, discusses the BN story: “Stealth Stake Sales Helped UnitedHealth Beat Wall Street Targets.”
- Woo Jin Ho, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst, discusses a recent pact between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Elliott Investment Management.
- Nicole D'Souza, Bloomberg Intelligence Internet and Software Equity Analyst, discusses research about dating apps and how Gen Z is using them.
-Craig Trudell, Bloomberg Global Autos Editor, discusses how Tesla shareholders will vote on whether to invest in CEO Elon Musk’s AI startup.
- Meredith Annex, BNEF Head of Clean Power, discusses the latest on US Clean Power.
- Isabelle Boemeke, Nuclear Electricity Influencer and Author, discusses the use of nuclear energy.
Bloomberg Intelligence, the research arm of Bloomberg L.P., has more than 400 professionals who provide in-depth analysis on more than 2,000 companies and 135 industries while considering strategic, equity and credit perspectives. BI also provides interactive data from over 500 independent contributors. It is available exclusively for Bloomberg Terminal subscribers.
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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 Intelligence
with Paul Sweeney.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The real app performance has been the US corporate high yield.
These are two big time blue chip companies. One person's
cast is another person's animal spirits breaking market.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Our view is, if the economy is slowing down.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There is the possibility of the debt spirals.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Both putum competing and AI are going to power the future.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
People are just buying everything with tax Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Intelligence with Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio, YouTube and Bloomberg
Originals on Paul.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Sweeney and I'm Lis Matteo filling in on Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
On today's show, we dig inside the big business stories
impacting Wall Street and the global markets. Each and every
week we provide in dept with research and date on
some of the two thousand companies in one hundred and
thirty industries our animals cover worldwide. Today, we'll look at
Bloomberg Intelligence deep dive into aiding apps and how gen
Z is using them.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Plus a look at how Trump administration policies are impacting
the transition to clean power.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
First, we begin with the tech sector.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, this week we heard that tech giants Nvidia and
AMD they plan to resume sales of some AI chips
in China. This came after US government officials told the
companies these shipments would get approved for.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
More at least than I were joined by Mandeep seeing
Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech industry analysts.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
We first asked Mandeep to explain the policies of the
US government as it relates to chips.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
In mid April, the current administration banned the sale of
Nvidia H twenty chips. And remember H twenty is a
deprecated version of the Hopper two hundred chip that Nvidia
sells in the US and other markets. So it's not
the highest hip in terms of performance and power consumption.
(01:54):
But at the same time, what they were able to
do is to sell this deprecated verd and for a
while and then since mid April it was completely banned.
And so what Nvidia did was they took down the
guidance and they pretty much rode off. The inventory of
the EDH twenty chips for their one Q party was
(02:16):
around two point one billion for one queue and then
for two Q they guided for an eight billion dollar
sort of headwind from the lack of sales to the
China region. Now with this new guideline around Nvidia being
able to sell those edged twenty chips, I believe it's
(02:36):
a similar version to what they were selling before. I
think you could pretty much add you know, I would
say up to a twenty five billion dollar run rate
annually in terms of sales to China. So think of
Nvidia sales next year are going to be around two
(02:57):
hundred and fifty billion. That's the current consensus US add
twenty five billion dollars to that because that's how much
they are able to sell to China as of right now.
It could be much higher, but at least a ten
percent lift from being able to sell into China with
these kind of lighter version of their highest end chips.
(03:18):
So I think it's a net positive. Same thing for
AMDMD the market is much smaller for them given their
market share in GPUs, but I would say AMD would
get a similar lift at least ten percent of their
sales expectations.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
So is there a difference between what Nvidia can sell
and what AMD can sell in China? Is it about
the same as far what the white House would say.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
So. AMD also has a deprecated version of their highest
stand chips that they're selling into the US market as well,
just because the administration doesn't want either AMD or Nvidia
to sell their highest and chip that's made on three
nanometers note that has got a search to performance PEC
(04:04):
and so they don't want the latest technology to be
sold into the China region. What they're okay with is
an older version of Nvidia chips that doesn't have the
same level of performance as the current version, and that
they can sell into these Chinese companies, and the administration
is okay with that, all.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Right, man, Deep, I have no idea why the government's
changing its policy, but it's good for these companies negotiations certainly,
so we'll keep it on that. Do we know just
off and why they change the policy.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I mean, it's part of the bigger negotiation. The administration
is focused on building more data centers here in the
US for them for the companies to be able to
do that meta talking about superintelligence and you know all
the capex spen they need some stuff from China as well.
So this is more about you have the rare earth stuff.
(04:56):
We have the chips and it's part of the bigger negotiation.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Our thanks to man deep seeing Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech
industry analyst.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
We recently focused on a Bloomberg story entitled Stealth Steak
Sales Health, United Health beat Wall Street Targets.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
You can find it on the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg
dot com. It discusses how until this year, United Health
Group had managed to pull off an impressive feat more
than sixty consecutive quarters of earnings that beat Wall Street estimates, but.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Now analysts are starting to question how United Health is
arriving at these numbers for more. Atleasta and I were
joined by Michelle Davis, Bloomberg senior deals reporter.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
We first asked Michelle about what she found out when
she looked into United Health's earnings.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
They had kind of a pristine record for more than
sixty quarters. They beat estimates. Analysts love them, and at
the end of last year that got a bit harder
for them to keep up. You know, medical costs arising,
the government's been cracking down on reinforcements and that was
eating into profits. And so what we reported is that
at the end of last year they approached several private
(05:57):
equity firms and asked them if they wanted to buy
stakes off of them of their businesses, and a couple
interesting things happen here. Not only did they quietly do this,
but the deals were structured such that United Health can
be forced to buy the businesses back down the road,
so it's temporary in nature. And United booked the gains
(06:19):
in an interesting place. They booked them as part of
operating earnings, which is or adjusted earnings, which is normally
where you look to see kind of how a business
is doing, you know, excluding one off gains or one
off events like this, And so it was just interesting
to see not only the fact that they stealthily did this,
but where they put them. And without these gains, they
would have missed estimates and profit would have dropped in
(06:40):
the last quarter of last year.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So, as I'm going through this article, this certain quote
stands out for me From an analyst that you spoke to.
He said, if the company is manufacturing earnings by chopping
up their furniture or selling their assets, that's not exactly
a great business model. Okay, so is the risk that
it might be kind of masking this weakness in the operations.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
That's the concern, and to be clear, you know, there's
nothing illegal about what they're doing, per se. You know,
they disclosed that they did this, most people didn't see it.
It was in a footnote in their ten K that
kind of went under the radar, and there are no
details about what exactly they sold. That's what we're trying
to you know, report on here. But yeah, the concern
is it clouds, you know, your ability to see how
(07:19):
the business is actually performing. And we heard from sources
that there's a culture inside United Health of you know,
kind of there being this pressure to do whatever you
can to meet targets every quarter.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It's a huge company, huge player in the managed care business.
What's the underlying concern for investors out there? Do you
think around this company?
Speaker 6 (07:39):
United Health has been dealing with a lot of things.
I mean, even before we knew about this, there was
obviously the tragedy of you know, one of their executives
being murdered last year, and then you know, there was
a Wall Street Journal investigation this year about potential medicare fraud,
which they have denied. They also, in the first courts
(08:00):
reported their first earnings miss in you know, more than
sixty quarters, so that shoe finally dropped. They outed their CEO.
So investors are just concerned about the story here, you know, what,
what is the United Health story? I think that's what
the big concern is.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
So are there any other companies, like maybe other health
companies or something like that where this same story that
you've been talking about kind of plays out?
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Not that we could find it. Seems like United Health
is really, you know, unique in its ability and history
of you know, really carefully managing its reporting every quarter.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Our thanks to Michelle Davis, Bloomberg Senior Deals reporter, we.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Move next to the IT space. This week, we heard
that the IT company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is creating a
new strategy committee and HPA is agreeing to work with
activist investor Elliott Investment Management on ways to help the
software company boost value for more.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Lisa and I were joined by Wujin Hope, Bloomberg Intelligence
senior technology analysts. You're first to ask Wugent about the
new committee HPE is creating.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
It is a handpicked board member by Elliott Management. Keep
in mind, Elliott is an activist investor that has a
ten percent plus shareholding of HPE. I think I believe
they made their position earlier this year, and who they
appointed was Bob Calderoni, who has done similar type of
(09:24):
deals in terms of taking companies private or more importantly
operational streamlining. So any changes, I think Elliott is going
to try through Bob to affect a lot of changes
at HPE.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Which just remind us what HP is today. Number one
and number two, what do they need to fix to
move this thing forward?
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Yeah, hey, Paul, so, HPE is one of the leading
enterprise IT infrastructure vendors. They provide servers, storage, now a
bigger networking presence with the June acquisition, and actually, quite
quite frankly, there's quite a bit to fix from an
operational standpoint. They fumbled the first quarter results by mispricing
(10:12):
their server business and it seems to be reconciled now,
but it flags some of the operational issues. Number one,
Number two, they have made a lot of M and
A that just didn't create the synergies that they had hoped. So,
you know, they did hire the former HPCFO to streamline
(10:32):
the financials, and with the Juniper merger starting underway, I
suspect that you know, the new strategy board, it will
try to find more operational synergies between the two networking businesses.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
WIJ and can you dig more into how it's under
pressure kind of like lagging behind Dell and growing AI.
What kind of pressure is it facing in that market?
Speaker 8 (10:56):
Yeah, so if we think about AI, right, you know,
HPE actually owns Cray, and we think about high performance compute,
they are the market leaders there. They weren't able. HPE
has not been able to transition that Cray business elegantly
(11:16):
to UH the to the AI side of things. So
let me put this into context. I think HPE should
be on track for about three to four billion dollars
in AI sales UH this year, possibly you know four
to five, right, Dell is going to be on track
for about fifteen billion dollars this year, and super Micro
(11:38):
is probably on track for about twenty billion this year.
So you know, they've lagged on the AI front even
though they have some of the leading technologies on high
performance compute. That's an area that you know could be
fixable under the right hands.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
One more here before we let you go, which is
just you mentioned they owned Cray, they owned Juniper. If
i'm Elliott Management, am I thinking about maybe they can
be selling or spinning off some of these businesses to
enhance value.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
Well, you know, Bob Calderoni used to be on the
Juniper board and they actually helped with the operational stitch
lining of Juniper. Right, so I think that you want
to keep Juniper. Okay, there are other aspects of the
networking business that you could probably probably parse away. Right,
(12:25):
the crab business you'd want to keep because AI is
going to be the growth engine and also help you
transition to the enterprise AI our.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Thanks to Wujinell, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Coming up, we'll look at Bloomberg Intelligence to this deep
dive into dating apps.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth
research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred
and thirty industries.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence big. I'm the Terminal, I'm LISMITTEO.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And Paul Sweingy and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Easterned on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm Lisa Matteo filling in on
Bloomberg Intelligence The.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Next move, So the world of online dating.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Bloomberg Intelligence recently did a survey on dating apps and
how gen Z is using them, and the survey found
that gen Z is dating less than most other generations
from are.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
On this Lisa and I were joined by Nicole Desuza,
Bloomberg Intelligence Internet and software equity analysts.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We first asked Nicole to explain her findings.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
We have Bloomberg Intelligence conducted the survey to better understand
how people are navigating dating, how they use dating apps,
and then also how they feel about AI within dating apps.
And so some really interesting findings. First that you know, specifically,
gen Z tends to be single but not dating. Gen
Z's what age again, sixteen to twenty eight, sixteen.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
To twenty al right, so yeah, single, two of my
four into that one, okay, And so they're not using
the apps.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They're not even dating. Single and not dating. So this
is I mean, there's a few reasons. Studies have kind
of shown they do have higher rates of loneliness, but
they are also prioritizing independence. They are also you know,
feeling a reduced stigma around being single. So it could
really change dating patterns generationally.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I can kind of say my son was on a
dating app and then he stopped because he got tired
of it and it just and he's in that gen
Z kind of group and they're not going to pay
for them too. So how does that change for these
different you know, dating apps out there. How do they
have to change their approach?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So right now a lot of what we're seeing from
gen Z is that even though they are dating less,
they are looking for long term relationships. Those that are dating,
they are looking to form meaningful connections. So, you know,
some of the products we've seen from these dating apps
that really introduce AI are more around how to create
a profile, how to make it easier to talk to people,
(15:00):
you know, using AI to generate prompts that might not
necessarily you know, correlate with what gen Z is looking
for in terms of forming a meaningful connection.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I'll tell you Lisa go to the Parker House and
seeing her at New Jersey on a summer Saturday, thousands
and thousands of kids of gen Z type are there
at like four o'clock in the afternoon. They're not on
the beach. They're all made up, dressed to the nines.
I think they're looking to hook to you meet somebody
right now. I've been there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I had to wait.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I mean, I don't know what's going on. How about millennials?
How did they fare?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So millennials are they kind of came of age during
the time of dating apps, so a lot of dating
apps are really created to target dating patterns of millennials.
So millennials have a more favorable relationship with dating apps.
And they also are much more like comfortable with AI
in dating apps versus gen Z, which was surprising to us.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Now what about Okay, people always forget about gen X,
the gen X folks, So what about gen X? And
then you know my mom, you know, single, like she
wants to find out about these apps. I'm telling you,
what about the older generation?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
They're on dating apps, so they're on it. There are Yeah,
there are a lot of gen X and baby boomers
on dating apps, and there are a wide variety of
dating apps to kind of address different age groups, different
you know, things that people are looking for. So they're
they're available.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
How does AI I have to ask the AI questions
Because we had a guest on earlier about it. I
walked out of there thinking AI is going to take
over Wall Street? How about AI and dating apps that
I would think could be helpful to better select somebody
who might be a good match or something.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So we've seen dating app companies roll out a lot
of AI products. I would say, right now, it seems,
at least based on our survey, that they haven't been
that well received. It seems like people don't necessarily need
AI to build a better profile, they don't need AI
to help them engage in conversation. I think where it
has been helpful is user safety, so to weed out
(17:01):
profiles that are fake or you know, potentially sent people
who are sending harmful messages. And that is a common complaint.
But as of right now, it doesn't seem that you know,
at least gen Z and even some millennials are really
really adopting these new AI products.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So, and there are certain a dating apps that are
more popular than others, I mean, which are the hot
ones right now?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
So right now, at least by users, Tinder has by
far the most users that's owned by match Group. And
then Hinge is actually one of the few dating apps
that is continuing to grow users, and that's probably because
Hinge focus is a little bit more on kind of
long term relationships, building meaningful connections. Tinder still has a
reputation of kind of a hookup app.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yes, which one.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, that's how my son was on.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Our thanks to Nicole Desuza, Bloomberg Intelligence, Internet and Software analysts.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
We move next to news from the ev giant Tesla.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
This week, I heard that Tesla's shareholders will vote on
whether to invest in CEO Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup
x Ai. That's according to Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Musk made the statement in response to an account on
x that said the Carmaker must be able to invest
in x Ai to be fair to Tesla retail investors for.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
More at least and I were joined by Craig Trudell,
Bloomberg Global Autos Editor.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
We first asked Craig what kind of message he thinks
Musk's recent statement is sending.
Speaker 7 (18:25):
It's sending that, you know, Elon's Elon's business empire is
becoming all the more intertwined. So this has been, you know,
sort of a case on and off for years. We
can think back to say, you know, the Tesla Solar
City acquisition, you know, and that's going back quite a ways.
(18:45):
But you know, in this case, it would be Tesla,
you know, his most valuable company in investing in in
sort of his up and comer and one where he's
you know, spent an awful lot of time and energy, folks, Gustan. Lately,
as Tesla's electric vehicle sales have been slowing, he's been
really sort of dead set on taking on Open AI
(19:08):
and and sort of standing up a competitor to chat
GPT and as with all the companies in the space,
spending an awful lot of money to try and compete
in that realm.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So where do we stand here in terms of kind
of how investors are viewing their investment in Tesla. Are
they invested in a auto company or are they invested in
an AI company or they invested just an Elon Inc?
How did they think about it these days?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
I mean, I think Musk has has been trying for
for several years now to sell and position Tesla as
much more than just a car company, right and you know,
it's it's definitely in the energy space and and you know,
has a battery business to show for that. And in Ai,
you know, he's he's talked a big game about you know,
(20:00):
developing self driving technology. He's not he's not gotten there yet.
Uh as as we've seen with the company, you know,
starting to offer rides in in Tesla's around Austin, Texas,
uh they still have uh, you know, Tesla employees in
the front passenger seat to sort of take over in
events where you know, the cars have not been able
(20:20):
to handle uh, you know, navigating the streets on their own.
And yet with with uh SpaceX, I think interest interestingly,
you know, for them to have just pumped two billion
into x Ai, I think there's a little bit of
fomo on the part of some in the Tesla shareholder
base where they've seen you know, x AI go from
(20:42):
you know, not all that valuable a startup to suddenly,
you know, an extremely valuable startup and they feel like
they've missed out on some of this appreciation and one
in on that.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
So with all that said, Craig, I mean, does must
support a merger between x AI and Tesla or maybe
x a hind SpaceX You mentioned space X two, He says.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
He does not. And and I think there's been talk
about this for years, right that, you know, and on
and off again there's been you know, questions as to
whether or not Musk is you know, sort of stretched
too thin and doing too much. Would it make more
sense to turn his companies into into one and and
sort of you know, he's sort of the think about
(21:23):
it as sort of the general electric of of the
New age, right, which is kind of fascinating because of
course that didn't work out too well for Ge. And
and yet you know, even some of Musk's own allies
have sort of alluded to, you know, viewing him and
his empire as as sort of you know, modern day
(21:45):
general electric.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
So uh.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
He he did take pains to say on an x
that he does not support a full blown merger of
Tesla and x Ai, but he has you know, signals
on there multiple times now that he would be in
favor of of Tesla putting money in and you know,
that's that's of course, you know, a proposition that could
(22:08):
be helpful if Xai continues to grow its valuation. We
should note, however, that our colleagues have reported just in
the last month or so that Xai has been burning
through about a billion dollars a month. So this is
a company that is really sort of cash hungry and
needy as it's trying to stand up a business, you know,
(22:30):
with all of this capability.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and Craig, it's been I don't know a month
or two since Elon Musk left the US government. Doje
is there any evidence that he is meaningfully engaging with Tesla?
Speaker 7 (22:42):
You know what, I think he's messaging more about, you know,
sort of what Tesla's up to than he was while
he was in Washington. He did also post that, you know,
he was in Tesla's design studio and sort of hyped
up how excited he was about what he saw. But
you know, the company is is, you know, sort of
(23:04):
in this really sort of challenging state from a sales perspective,
and you've you've sort of gotten indications that, well, maybe
he doesn't necessarily fully have his his finger on the
pulse in the sense that he told us just within
the last few months that sales have turned around, you know.
A couple of months later, the company reports that its
vehicle deliveries had fallen thirteen percent in the second quarter.
(23:28):
So either he was you know, not necessarily up to
speed on the state of sales, or perhaps he was
more optimistic that they were able to going to be
able to turn things around then they ultimately were able
to last quarter.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Oh thanks to Craig Trudell and Bloomberg Global Auto's editor.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Coming up a conversation with nuclear electricity influence or an
author Isabelle bo Mecki.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing indes
research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred
and thirty industries.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b I Go, I'm
the Terminal, I'm Lisa Matteo and on paulse Need.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Corplay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm Lisa Matteo. Filly in on
Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Each week we will get research from Bloomberg and EF
previously known as New Energy Finance. They're the team at
Bloomberg that tracks and analyzes the energy transition from commodities
to power, transport, industries, buildings, and agricultural sectors.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
This week, we looked at the recent policies of President
Donald Trump and how they may impact clean power moving forward.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
For more, Lisa and I were joined by Meredith Annex
b n EF, head of Clean Power.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
We first asked Meredith how the Trump administration is impacting
the transition to clean power.
Speaker 9 (24:55):
I don't know if I've called it so much a
new policy as a reversal of the policy that's been
in place for about two years. For the last couple
of years, the big flagship policy for renewable energy in
the United States has been the Inflation Reduction Act. What
the One Big Beautiful Act now has effectively done is
is remove those tax credits on a set schedule. Now,
(25:18):
in the text of the bill, that schedule would be
mid next year. However, with an executive order that came out,
there's a possibility that these tax credits has been very
fundamental for the build up and expansion of renewable energy,
that those might actually become very difficult to find at
the end of this year.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
All since that announcement of the change, what's changed actually
since then, since that announcement.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
Yeah, what we saw was an executive order from the
Trump administration essentially saying that they're going to really look
at how companies claim these tax credits. Now, the details
on that are still pretty opaque. A lot of that's
going to come from IRS guidance that we're expecting to
see in the coming weeks or months. However, there's a
couple of things that could be open to debate. For instance,
(26:05):
the interpretation of what it means to safe harbor these
tax credits, which means proving that you're far enough along
that you would still merit the tax credits once you
become in service. Those definitions could change at the moment.
Usually there's a look at five percent of capex commitment
or some amount of equipment being procured, that sort of
thing as an indicator. If that changes, that could change
(26:28):
which projects are eligible. We could also see differences in
the timelines around how long you can have to become
in service in order to claim the tax credit.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Any sense at this early stage, Meredith, how this will
affect this overall transition to cleaner energy? Is this a
material bump in the timeline?
Speaker 9 (26:50):
Unfortunately? I think it is, and that's hard because renewables
are the fastest technology to deploy in the US right now.
So the segment's been talking a lot about data centers
around the need from power in the United States. That
power is not going to come from nuclear tomorrow. It's
going to come from solar, a project that takes six
months to deploy. What we're finding is that there's sort
(27:11):
of a couple of sectors that are particularly impacted. On
Shore wind, for instance, is affected a lot because it's
quite location sensitive. What the tax credits did was it
allowed more projects to be able to break even at
the same rate of return, even with the change in
the quality of the wind speed that was in that area.
Now you're going to have to be a lot more picky.
(27:32):
Even with solar, especially things like rooftop solar. The tax
credits that are available for homeowners are disappearing by the
end of this year. When you're looking at more utility
scale solar, we think that is more robust, just because
it's so cheap. But there are concerns around what's called
the Foreign Entities of Concern FBOC categorization and how that
(27:53):
will get calculated, how that exposure will get calculated once
IRS guidance comes out. That could be complex because a
lot of solar modules, despite an increase in local manufacturing,
are still imported.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
What changes could the act mean for data centers for
manufacturing sites.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
So as of right now, a data center is much
more likely to be operational. It's connected to the grid.
So at the end of the day, the biggest thing
that the US needs, which wasn't addressed at all in
this budget bill, is more invested in transmission distribution CRAD
networks so that you can actually connect outside of that.
Renewables are the easiest thing to deploy, So if you're
(28:32):
talking about more power demand being on the system, you
need to generate more power. It's one thing to produce
natural gass, another thing to make that into electricity that
a data center can use. That requires a turbine. We're
seeing very long wait times on the supply chain for
new gas turbines for power plants nuclear capacity. Similarly, if
(28:53):
it's not a restart, can take maybe a decade before
it'll be online. If you want something online now, the
vast majority of planned and permittive projects in the US
are wind, solar, and storage.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Our thanks to Meredith adds bn EF head of Clean Power.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Staying in the Energy space, guest host Normal Linda and
I recently spoke with Isabelle Bomecki. Isabelle is a nuclear
electricity influencer and author.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
She's also a former model who is built a following
discussing the role of nuclear energy to fight climate change.
Her upcoming book, rad Future will be released this summer.
The book focuses on nuclear electricity and its effectiveness.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I began the conversation with isabel by asking about some
of the points she's trying to get across to our
audience when it comes to nuclear energy.
Speaker 10 (29:36):
Well, first of all, I think when we talk about
nuclear energy, it's very important to highlight so this is
the most reliable source of clean energy. And so when
we're talking about a transition to clean energy, which is
what we all know are aiming to do, we have
to make sure we remain with the stable grid, and
nuclear really helps with that. We've seen around the world
(29:58):
that places that turn of from nuclear end up with
thirtier and less reliable grids. But there are so many
other benefits. For instance, a nuclear power plant employees up
to one thousand people who have very high being stable jobs,
union jobs. It's the source of energy that uses the
least materials, the least amount of land, and more importantly,
(30:19):
as we're witnessing right now, it's a source of energy
that has bipartisan support. In the United States. The Biding
administration was extremely pro nuclear and so is the Trump administration.
So I think those are all things that we need
to take into consideration when we're talking about a clean
energy future as well.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
So back in twenty nineteen, there was the Aulstragian bush
fire season, and then additionally we had the Amazon rainforest wildfires.
Both of these events really helped to inspire you to
become a part of the solution. When we think about
fighting climate change. How much progress has been made in
that fight against climate change since then?
Speaker 10 (30:55):
Well, some progress, but as always, our energy and you
were talking about this beforehand, our energy demand just keeps
increasing because we keep inventing newer technologies that use a
lot of energy. Right now, you know, ten years ago
it was cryptocurrencies. Right now we're talking about AI and
the huge increasing energy demand, and so I think unfortunately
(31:18):
we just you know that everyone out of way is
to use more and more energy. So while some progress
has been made, our demand has also increased, so we're
still burning a lot of fossil fuels. About eighty percent
of the world's energy is still provided by by fossil fuels.
So we have to keep investing in these technologies, and
this is where nuclear can play a really big role.
(31:39):
It's already the second largest source of clean energy in
the world, just behind hydropower. It is the largest source
of clean energy in the United States, and I think
for you know, over three decades it was completely ignored
for a variety of reasons, and some of them is
the fears around accidents, which we can talk about a
little bit as well. So it's very important that we're
(32:01):
now investing in this technology again so that we can
speed up this transition to clean energy.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Isabelle talk to us about modular plants. We don't have
to go and build these monster plants that we see occasionally.
I know one most recent one was built years ago
in Georgia. Talked just about the smaller modular plants, how
that technology could.
Speaker 10 (32:19):
That be used. So I think we actually do need
to build some of the large plants, because as much
as small modular reactors or these new technologies that people
are very very excited about. Unfortunately, if I'm a utility
or a data center, I cannot go and buy one
of those off the market just yet. None of those
companies have built prototypes, so we're still pretty far from
(32:42):
them being commercially available. In the meantime, we have to
build the existing technologies that we have. But some of
the benefits that the small modular companies claim they will
have is they'll be able to reduce costs, time to build,
and so on. But again, all of this has yet
to be proven, and so I think we cannot put
all of our eggs in that one basket. We have
(33:04):
to invest in technology that we already know works.
Speaker 11 (33:08):
So it's about you have a book called rad Future.
What's that all about?
Speaker 10 (33:11):
So Red Future was inspired really by my own need
to have an accessible book about nuclear electricity. To your point,
In twenty nineteen, I saw the fires in Australia and
the Amazon and that inspired me to do something using
my platform that I had built as a fashion model,
to do something about climate. And at the time I
(33:32):
tried buying books that explained how nuclear worked, and I
couldn't find anything that was accessible. It took me many,
many years of research to get to a point where
I could break down this information about nuclear, the history,
the history of the anti nuclear movement, and the technology
itself into something that was extremely accessible. And so Red
Future was inspired by that, by a need to provide
(33:53):
accessible material. And I think it's such an important topic
that right now is being discussed everywhere, and I think
people should be able to learn about the technology and
answer their questions.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Is it well with the Trump administration to used inse
that nuclear power may get more support, less support, or
no real change.
Speaker 10 (34:13):
No, the Trump administration is extremely supportive of nuclear. He
passed several executive orders mandating the acceleration of nuclear in
the United States to be determined what's going to happen. Also,
in the One Big Beautiful Bill, they basically maintained all
the support, the credits, the credit techs, and the LPO
(34:35):
guarantees for nuclear as well. So the administration is extremely
supportive of nuclear. Hopefully this will play out in the
real world, but it's still to be determined, depending on
some of the nuances of the text credits.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Our thanks to nuclear electricity influencer and author Isabelle bo Mecki.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday,
ten am to noon 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 and
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Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Intelligence
with Paul Sweeney.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The real app performance has been the US corporate high yield.
These are two big time blue chip companies. One person's
cast is another person's animal spirits breaking market.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Our view is, if the economy is slowing down.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There is the possibility of the debt spirals.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Both putum competing and AI are going to power the future.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
People are just buying everything with tax Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Intelligence with Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio, YouTube and Bloomberg
Originals on Paul.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Sweeney and I'm Lis Matteo filling in on Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
On today's show, we dig inside the big business stories
impacting Wall Street and the global markets. Each and every
week we provide in dept with research and date on
some of the two thousand companies in one hundred and
thirty industries our animals cover worldwide. Today, we'll look at
Bloomberg Intelligence deep dive into aiding apps and how gen
Z is using them.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Plus a look at how Trump administration policies are impacting
the transition to clean power.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
First, we begin with the tech sector.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, this week we heard that tech giants Nvidia and
AMD they plan to resume sales of some AI chips
in China. This came after US government officials told the
companies these shipments would get approved for.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
More at least than I were joined by Mandeep seeing
Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech industry analysts.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
We first asked Mandeep to explain the policies of the
US government as it relates to chips.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
In mid April, the current administration banned the sale of
Nvidia H twenty chips. And remember H twenty is a
deprecated version of the Hopper two hundred chip that Nvidia
sells in the US and other markets. So it's not
the highest hip in terms of performance and power consumption.
(01:54):
But at the same time, what they were able to
do is to sell this deprecated verd and for a
while and then since mid April it was completely banned.
And so what Nvidia did was they took down the
guidance and they pretty much rode off. The inventory of
the EDH twenty chips for their one Q party was
(02:16):
around two point one billion for one queue and then
for two Q they guided for an eight billion dollar
sort of headwind from the lack of sales to the
China region. Now with this new guideline around Nvidia being
able to sell those edged twenty chips, I believe it's
(02:36):
a similar version to what they were selling before. I
think you could pretty much add you know, I would
say up to a twenty five billion dollar run rate
annually in terms of sales to China. So think of
Nvidia sales next year are going to be around two
(02:57):
hundred and fifty billion. That's the current consensus US add
twenty five billion dollars to that because that's how much
they are able to sell to China as of right now.
It could be much higher, but at least a ten
percent lift from being able to sell into China with
these kind of lighter version of their highest end chips.
(03:18):
So I think it's a net positive. Same thing for
AMDMD the market is much smaller for them given their
market share in GPUs, but I would say AMD would
get a similar lift at least ten percent of their
sales expectations.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
So is there a difference between what Nvidia can sell
and what AMD can sell in China? Is it about
the same as far what the white House would say.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
So. AMD also has a deprecated version of their highest
stand chips that they're selling into the US market as well,
just because the administration doesn't want either AMD or Nvidia
to sell their highest and chip that's made on three
nanometers note that has got a search to performance PEC
(04:04):
and so they don't want the latest technology to be
sold into the China region. What they're okay with is
an older version of Nvidia chips that doesn't have the
same level of performance as the current version, and that
they can sell into these Chinese companies, and the administration
is okay with that, all.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Right, man, Deep, I have no idea why the government's
changing its policy, but it's good for these companies negotiations certainly,
so we'll keep it on that. Do we know just
off and why they change the policy.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I mean, it's part of the bigger negotiation. The administration
is focused on building more data centers here in the
US for them for the companies to be able to
do that meta talking about superintelligence and you know all
the capex spen they need some stuff from China as well.
So this is more about you have the rare earth stuff.
(04:56):
We have the chips and it's part of the bigger negotiation.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Our thanks to man deep seeing Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech
industry analyst.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
We recently focused on a Bloomberg story entitled Stealth Steak
Sales Health, United Health beat Wall Street Targets.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
You can find it on the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg
dot com. It discusses how until this year, United Health
Group had managed to pull off an impressive feat more
than sixty consecutive quarters of earnings that beat Wall Street estimates, but.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Now analysts are starting to question how United Health is
arriving at these numbers for more. Atleasta and I were
joined by Michelle Davis, Bloomberg senior deals reporter.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
We first asked Michelle about what she found out when
she looked into United Health's earnings.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
They had kind of a pristine record for more than
sixty quarters. They beat estimates. Analysts love them, and at
the end of last year that got a bit harder
for them to keep up. You know, medical costs arising,
the government's been cracking down on reinforcements and that was
eating into profits. And so what we reported is that
at the end of last year they approached several private
(05:57):
equity firms and asked them if they wanted to buy
stakes off of them of their businesses, and a couple
interesting things happen here. Not only did they quietly do this,
but the deals were structured such that United Health can
be forced to buy the businesses back down the road,
so it's temporary in nature. And United booked the gains
(06:19):
in an interesting place. They booked them as part of
operating earnings, which is or adjusted earnings, which is normally
where you look to see kind of how a business
is doing, you know, excluding one off gains or one
off events like this, And so it was just interesting
to see not only the fact that they stealthily did this,
but where they put them. And without these gains, they
would have missed estimates and profit would have dropped in
(06:40):
the last quarter of last year.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So, as I'm going through this article, this certain quote
stands out for me From an analyst that you spoke to.
He said, if the company is manufacturing earnings by chopping
up their furniture or selling their assets, that's not exactly
a great business model. Okay, so is the risk that
it might be kind of masking this weakness in the operations.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
That's the concern, and to be clear, you know, there's
nothing illegal about what they're doing, per se. You know,
they disclosed that they did this, most people didn't see it.
It was in a footnote in their ten K that
kind of went under the radar, and there are no
details about what exactly they sold. That's what we're trying
to you know, report on here. But yeah, the concern
is it clouds, you know, your ability to see how
(07:19):
the business is actually performing. And we heard from sources
that there's a culture inside United Health of you know,
kind of there being this pressure to do whatever you
can to meet targets every quarter.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It's a huge company, huge player in the managed care business.
What's the underlying concern for investors out there? Do you
think around this company?
Speaker 6 (07:39):
United Health has been dealing with a lot of things.
I mean, even before we knew about this, there was
obviously the tragedy of you know, one of their executives
being murdered last year, and then you know, there was
a Wall Street Journal investigation this year about potential medicare fraud,
which they have denied. They also, in the first courts
(08:00):
reported their first earnings miss in you know, more than
sixty quarters, so that shoe finally dropped. They outed their CEO.
So investors are just concerned about the story here, you know, what,
what is the United Health story? I think that's what
the big concern is.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
So are there any other companies, like maybe other health
companies or something like that where this same story that
you've been talking about kind of plays out?
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Not that we could find it. Seems like United Health
is really, you know, unique in its ability and history
of you know, really carefully managing its reporting every quarter.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Our thanks to Michelle Davis, Bloomberg Senior Deals reporter, we.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Move next to the IT space. This week, we heard
that the IT company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is creating a
new strategy committee and HPA is agreeing to work with
activist investor Elliott Investment Management on ways to help the
software company boost value for more.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Lisa and I were joined by Wujin Hope, Bloomberg Intelligence
senior technology analysts. You're first to ask Wugent about the
new committee HPE is creating.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
It is a handpicked board member by Elliott Management. Keep
in mind, Elliott is an activist investor that has a
ten percent plus shareholding of HPE. I think I believe
they made their position earlier this year, and who they
appointed was Bob Calderoni, who has done similar type of
(09:24):
deals in terms of taking companies private or more importantly
operational streamlining. So any changes, I think Elliott is going
to try through Bob to affect a lot of changes
at HPE.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Which just remind us what HP is today. Number one
and number two, what do they need to fix to
move this thing forward?
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Yeah, hey, Paul, so, HPE is one of the leading
enterprise IT infrastructure vendors. They provide servers, storage, now a
bigger networking presence with the June acquisition, and actually, quite
quite frankly, there's quite a bit to fix from an
operational standpoint. They fumbled the first quarter results by mispricing
(10:12):
their server business and it seems to be reconciled now,
but it flags some of the operational issues. Number one,
Number two, they have made a lot of M and
A that just didn't create the synergies that they had hoped. So,
you know, they did hire the former HPCFO to streamline
(10:32):
the financials, and with the Juniper merger starting underway, I
suspect that you know, the new strategy board, it will
try to find more operational synergies between the two networking businesses.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
WIJ and can you dig more into how it's under
pressure kind of like lagging behind Dell and growing AI.
What kind of pressure is it facing in that market?
Speaker 8 (10:56):
Yeah, so if we think about AI, right, you know,
HPE actually owns Cray, and we think about high performance compute,
they are the market leaders there. They weren't able. HPE
has not been able to transition that Cray business elegantly
(11:16):
to UH the to the AI side of things. So
let me put this into context. I think HPE should
be on track for about three to four billion dollars
in AI sales UH this year, possibly you know four
to five, right, Dell is going to be on track
for about fifteen billion dollars this year, and super Micro
(11:38):
is probably on track for about twenty billion this year.
So you know, they've lagged on the AI front even
though they have some of the leading technologies on high
performance compute. That's an area that you know could be
fixable under the right hands.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
One more here before we let you go, which is
just you mentioned they owned Cray, they owned Juniper. If
i'm Elliott Management, am I thinking about maybe they can
be selling or spinning off some of these businesses to
enhance value.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
Well, you know, Bob Calderoni used to be on the
Juniper board and they actually helped with the operational stitch
lining of Juniper. Right, so I think that you want
to keep Juniper. Okay, there are other aspects of the
networking business that you could probably probably parse away. Right,
(12:25):
the crab business you'd want to keep because AI is
going to be the growth engine and also help you
transition to the enterprise AI our.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Thanks to Wujinell, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Coming up, we'll look at Bloomberg Intelligence to this deep
dive into dating apps.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth
research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred
and thirty industries.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence big. I'm the Terminal, I'm LISMITTEO.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And Paul Sweingy and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Easterned on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm Lisa Matteo filling in on
Bloomberg Intelligence The.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Next move, So the world of online dating.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Bloomberg Intelligence recently did a survey on dating apps and
how gen Z is using them, and the survey found
that gen Z is dating less than most other generations
from are.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
On this Lisa and I were joined by Nicole Desuza,
Bloomberg Intelligence Internet and software equity analysts.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We first asked Nicole to explain her findings.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
We have Bloomberg Intelligence conducted the survey to better understand
how people are navigating dating, how they use dating apps,
and then also how they feel about AI within dating apps.
And so some really interesting findings. First that you know, specifically,
gen Z tends to be single but not dating. Gen
Z's what age again, sixteen to twenty eight, sixteen.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
To twenty al right, so yeah, single, two of my
four into that one, okay, And so they're not using
the apps.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They're not even dating. Single and not dating. So this
is I mean, there's a few reasons. Studies have kind
of shown they do have higher rates of loneliness, but
they are also prioritizing independence. They are also you know,
feeling a reduced stigma around being single. So it could
really change dating patterns generationally.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I can kind of say my son was on a
dating app and then he stopped because he got tired
of it and it just and he's in that gen
Z kind of group and they're not going to pay
for them too. So how does that change for these
different you know, dating apps out there. How do they
have to change their approach?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So right now a lot of what we're seeing from
gen Z is that even though they are dating less,
they are looking for long term relationships. Those that are dating,
they are looking to form meaningful connections. So, you know,
some of the products we've seen from these dating apps
that really introduce AI are more around how to create
a profile, how to make it easier to talk to people,
(15:00):
you know, using AI to generate prompts that might not
necessarily you know, correlate with what gen Z is looking
for in terms of forming a meaningful connection.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I'll tell you Lisa go to the Parker House and
seeing her at New Jersey on a summer Saturday, thousands
and thousands of kids of gen Z type are there
at like four o'clock in the afternoon. They're not on
the beach. They're all made up, dressed to the nines.
I think they're looking to hook to you meet somebody
right now. I've been there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I had to wait.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I mean, I don't know what's going on. How about millennials?
How did they fare?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So millennials are they kind of came of age during
the time of dating apps, so a lot of dating
apps are really created to target dating patterns of millennials.
So millennials have a more favorable relationship with dating apps.
And they also are much more like comfortable with AI
in dating apps versus gen Z, which was surprising to us.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Now what about Okay, people always forget about gen X,
the gen X folks, So what about gen X? And
then you know my mom, you know, single, like she
wants to find out about these apps. I'm telling you,
what about the older generation?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
They're on dating apps, so they're on it. There are Yeah,
there are a lot of gen X and baby boomers
on dating apps, and there are a wide variety of
dating apps to kind of address different age groups, different
you know, things that people are looking for. So they're
they're available.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
How does AI I have to ask the AI questions
Because we had a guest on earlier about it. I
walked out of there thinking AI is going to take
over Wall Street? How about AI and dating apps that
I would think could be helpful to better select somebody
who might be a good match or something.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So we've seen dating app companies roll out a lot
of AI products. I would say, right now, it seems,
at least based on our survey, that they haven't been
that well received. It seems like people don't necessarily need
AI to build a better profile, they don't need AI
to help them engage in conversation. I think where it
has been helpful is user safety, so to weed out
(17:01):
profiles that are fake or you know, potentially sent people
who are sending harmful messages. And that is a common complaint.
But as of right now, it doesn't seem that you know,
at least gen Z and even some millennials are really
really adopting these new AI products.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So, and there are certain a dating apps that are
more popular than others, I mean, which are the hot
ones right now?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
So right now, at least by users, Tinder has by
far the most users that's owned by match Group. And
then Hinge is actually one of the few dating apps
that is continuing to grow users, and that's probably because
Hinge focus is a little bit more on kind of
long term relationships, building meaningful connections. Tinder still has a
reputation of kind of a hookup app.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yes, which one.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, that's how my son was on.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Our thanks to Nicole Desuza, Bloomberg Intelligence, Internet and Software analysts.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
We move next to news from the ev giant Tesla.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
This week, I heard that Tesla's shareholders will vote on
whether to invest in CEO Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup
x Ai. That's according to Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Musk made the statement in response to an account on
x that said the Carmaker must be able to invest
in x Ai to be fair to Tesla retail investors for.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
More at least and I were joined by Craig Trudell,
Bloomberg Global Autos Editor.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
We first asked Craig what kind of message he thinks
Musk's recent statement is sending.
Speaker 7 (18:25):
It's sending that, you know, Elon's Elon's business empire is
becoming all the more intertwined. So this has been, you know,
sort of a case on and off for years. We
can think back to say, you know, the Tesla Solar
City acquisition, you know, and that's going back quite a ways.
(18:45):
But you know, in this case, it would be Tesla,
you know, his most valuable company in investing in in
sort of his up and comer and one where he's
you know, spent an awful lot of time and energy, folks, Gustan. Lately,
as Tesla's electric vehicle sales have been slowing, he's been
really sort of dead set on taking on Open AI
(19:08):
and and sort of standing up a competitor to chat
GPT and as with all the companies in the space,
spending an awful lot of money to try and compete
in that realm.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So where do we stand here in terms of kind
of how investors are viewing their investment in Tesla. Are
they invested in a auto company or are they invested in
an AI company or they invested just an Elon Inc?
How did they think about it these days?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
I mean, I think Musk has has been trying for
for several years now to sell and position Tesla as
much more than just a car company, right and you know,
it's it's definitely in the energy space and and you know,
has a battery business to show for that. And in Ai,
you know, he's he's talked a big game about you know,
(20:00):
developing self driving technology. He's not he's not gotten there yet.
Uh as as we've seen with the company, you know,
starting to offer rides in in Tesla's around Austin, Texas,
uh they still have uh, you know, Tesla employees in
the front passenger seat to sort of take over in
events where you know, the cars have not been able
(20:20):
to handle uh, you know, navigating the streets on their own.
And yet with with uh SpaceX, I think interest interestingly,
you know, for them to have just pumped two billion
into x Ai, I think there's a little bit of
fomo on the part of some in the Tesla shareholder
base where they've seen you know, x AI go from
(20:42):
you know, not all that valuable a startup to suddenly,
you know, an extremely valuable startup and they feel like
they've missed out on some of this appreciation and one
in on that.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
So with all that said, Craig, I mean, does must
support a merger between x AI and Tesla or maybe
x a hind SpaceX You mentioned space X two, He says.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
He does not. And and I think there's been talk
about this for years, right that, you know, and on
and off again there's been you know, questions as to
whether or not Musk is you know, sort of stretched
too thin and doing too much. Would it make more
sense to turn his companies into into one and and
sort of you know, he's sort of the think about
(21:23):
it as sort of the general electric of of the
New age, right, which is kind of fascinating because of
course that didn't work out too well for Ge. And
and yet you know, even some of Musk's own allies
have sort of alluded to, you know, viewing him and
his empire as as sort of you know, modern day
(21:45):
general electric.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
So uh.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
He he did take pains to say on an x
that he does not support a full blown merger of
Tesla and x Ai, but he has you know, signals
on there multiple times now that he would be in
favor of of Tesla putting money in and you know,
that's that's of course, you know, a proposition that could
(22:08):
be helpful if Xai continues to grow its valuation. We
should note, however, that our colleagues have reported just in
the last month or so that Xai has been burning
through about a billion dollars a month. So this is
a company that is really sort of cash hungry and
needy as it's trying to stand up a business, you know,
(22:30):
with all of this capability.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and Craig, it's been I don't know a month
or two since Elon Musk left the US government. Doje
is there any evidence that he is meaningfully engaging with Tesla?
Speaker 7 (22:42):
You know what, I think he's messaging more about, you know,
sort of what Tesla's up to than he was while
he was in Washington. He did also post that, you know,
he was in Tesla's design studio and sort of hyped
up how excited he was about what he saw. But
you know, the company is is, you know, sort of
(23:04):
in this really sort of challenging state from a sales perspective,
and you've you've sort of gotten indications that, well, maybe
he doesn't necessarily fully have his his finger on the
pulse in the sense that he told us just within
the last few months that sales have turned around, you know.
A couple of months later, the company reports that its
vehicle deliveries had fallen thirteen percent in the second quarter.
(23:28):
So either he was you know, not necessarily up to
speed on the state of sales, or perhaps he was
more optimistic that they were able to going to be
able to turn things around then they ultimately were able
to last quarter.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Oh thanks to Craig Trudell and Bloomberg Global Auto's editor.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Coming up a conversation with nuclear electricity influence or an
author Isabelle bo Mecki.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing indes
research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred
and thirty industries.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b I Go, I'm
the Terminal, I'm Lisa Matteo and on paulse Need.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Corplay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm Lisa Matteo. Filly in on
Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Each week we will get research from Bloomberg and EF
previously known as New Energy Finance. They're the team at
Bloomberg that tracks and analyzes the energy transition from commodities
to power, transport, industries, buildings, and agricultural sectors.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
This week, we looked at the recent policies of President
Donald Trump and how they may impact clean power moving forward.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
For more, Lisa and I were joined by Meredith Annex
b n EF, head of Clean Power.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
We first asked Meredith how the Trump administration is impacting
the transition to clean power.
Speaker 9 (24:55):
I don't know if I've called it so much a
new policy as a reversal of the policy that's been
in place for about two years. For the last couple
of years, the big flagship policy for renewable energy in
the United States has been the Inflation Reduction Act. What
the One Big Beautiful Act now has effectively done is
is remove those tax credits on a set schedule. Now,
(25:18):
in the text of the bill, that schedule would be
mid next year. However, with an executive order that came out,
there's a possibility that these tax credits has been very
fundamental for the build up and expansion of renewable energy,
that those might actually become very difficult to find at
the end of this year.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
All since that announcement of the change, what's changed actually
since then, since that announcement.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
Yeah, what we saw was an executive order from the
Trump administration essentially saying that they're going to really look
at how companies claim these tax credits. Now, the details
on that are still pretty opaque. A lot of that's
going to come from IRS guidance that we're expecting to
see in the coming weeks or months. However, there's a
couple of things that could be open to debate. For instance,
(26:05):
the interpretation of what it means to safe harbor these
tax credits, which means proving that you're far enough along
that you would still merit the tax credits once you
become in service. Those definitions could change at the moment.
Usually there's a look at five percent of capex commitment
or some amount of equipment being procured, that sort of
thing as an indicator. If that changes, that could change
(26:28):
which projects are eligible. We could also see differences in
the timelines around how long you can have to become
in service in order to claim the tax credit.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Any sense at this early stage, Meredith, how this will
affect this overall transition to cleaner energy? Is this a
material bump in the timeline?
Speaker 9 (26:50):
Unfortunately? I think it is, and that's hard because renewables
are the fastest technology to deploy in the US right now.
So the segment's been talking a lot about data centers
around the need from power in the United States. That
power is not going to come from nuclear tomorrow. It's
going to come from solar, a project that takes six
months to deploy. What we're finding is that there's sort
(27:11):
of a couple of sectors that are particularly impacted. On
Shore wind, for instance, is affected a lot because it's
quite location sensitive. What the tax credits did was it
allowed more projects to be able to break even at
the same rate of return, even with the change in
the quality of the wind speed that was in that area.
Now you're going to have to be a lot more picky.
(27:32):
Even with solar, especially things like rooftop solar. The tax
credits that are available for homeowners are disappearing by the
end of this year. When you're looking at more utility
scale solar, we think that is more robust, just because
it's so cheap. But there are concerns around what's called
the Foreign Entities of Concern FBOC categorization and how that
(27:53):
will get calculated, how that exposure will get calculated once
IRS guidance comes out. That could be complex because a
lot of solar modules, despite an increase in local manufacturing,
are still imported.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
What changes could the act mean for data centers for
manufacturing sites.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
So as of right now, a data center is much
more likely to be operational. It's connected to the grid.
So at the end of the day, the biggest thing
that the US needs, which wasn't addressed at all in
this budget bill, is more invested in transmission distribution CRAD
networks so that you can actually connect outside of that.
Renewables are the easiest thing to deploy, So if you're
(28:32):
talking about more power demand being on the system, you
need to generate more power. It's one thing to produce
natural gass, another thing to make that into electricity that
a data center can use. That requires a turbine. We're
seeing very long wait times on the supply chain for
new gas turbines for power plants nuclear capacity. Similarly, if
(28:53):
it's not a restart, can take maybe a decade before
it'll be online. If you want something online now, the
vast majority of planned and permittive projects in the US
are wind, solar, and storage.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Our thanks to Meredith adds bn EF head of Clean Power.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Staying in the Energy space, guest host Normal Linda and
I recently spoke with Isabelle Bomecki. Isabelle is a nuclear
electricity influencer and author.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
She's also a former model who is built a following
discussing the role of nuclear energy to fight climate change.
Her upcoming book, rad Future will be released this summer.
The book focuses on nuclear electricity and its effectiveness.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I began the conversation with isabel by asking about some
of the points she's trying to get across to our
audience when it comes to nuclear energy.
Speaker 10 (29:36):
Well, first of all, I think when we talk about
nuclear energy, it's very important to highlight so this is
the most reliable source of clean energy. And so when
we're talking about a transition to clean energy, which is
what we all know are aiming to do, we have
to make sure we remain with the stable grid, and
nuclear really helps with that. We've seen around the world
(29:58):
that places that turn of from nuclear end up with
thirtier and less reliable grids. But there are so many
other benefits. For instance, a nuclear power plant employees up
to one thousand people who have very high being stable jobs,
union jobs. It's the source of energy that uses the
least materials, the least amount of land, and more importantly,
(30:19):
as we're witnessing right now, it's a source of energy
that has bipartisan support. In the United States. The Biding
administration was extremely pro nuclear and so is the Trump administration.
So I think those are all things that we need
to take into consideration when we're talking about a clean
energy future as well.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
So back in twenty nineteen, there was the Aulstragian bush
fire season, and then additionally we had the Amazon rainforest wildfires.
Both of these events really helped to inspire you to
become a part of the solution. When we think about
fighting climate change. How much progress has been made in
that fight against climate change since then?
Speaker 10 (30:55):
Well, some progress, but as always, our energy and you
were talking about this beforehand, our energy demand just keeps
increasing because we keep inventing newer technologies that use a
lot of energy. Right now, you know, ten years ago
it was cryptocurrencies. Right now we're talking about AI and
the huge increasing energy demand, and so I think unfortunately
(31:18):
we just you know that everyone out of way is
to use more and more energy. So while some progress
has been made, our demand has also increased, so we're
still burning a lot of fossil fuels. About eighty percent
of the world's energy is still provided by by fossil fuels.
So we have to keep investing in these technologies, and
this is where nuclear can play a really big role.
(31:39):
It's already the second largest source of clean energy in
the world, just behind hydropower. It is the largest source
of clean energy in the United States, and I think
for you know, over three decades it was completely ignored
for a variety of reasons, and some of them is
the fears around accidents, which we can talk about a
little bit as well. So it's very important that we're
(32:01):
now investing in this technology again so that we can
speed up this transition to clean energy.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Isabelle talk to us about modular plants. We don't have
to go and build these monster plants that we see occasionally.
I know one most recent one was built years ago
in Georgia. Talked just about the smaller modular plants, how
that technology could.
Speaker 10 (32:19):
That be used. So I think we actually do need
to build some of the large plants, because as much
as small modular reactors or these new technologies that people
are very very excited about. Unfortunately, if I'm a utility
or a data center, I cannot go and buy one
of those off the market just yet. None of those
companies have built prototypes, so we're still pretty far from
(32:42):
them being commercially available. In the meantime, we have to
build the existing technologies that we have. But some of
the benefits that the small modular companies claim they will
have is they'll be able to reduce costs, time to build,
and so on. But again, all of this has yet
to be proven, and so I think we cannot put
all of our eggs in that one basket. We have
(33:04):
to invest in technology that we already know works.
Speaker 11 (33:08):
So it's about you have a book called rad Future.
What's that all about?
Speaker 10 (33:11):
So Red Future was inspired really by my own need
to have an accessible book about nuclear electricity. To your point,
In twenty nineteen, I saw the fires in Australia and
the Amazon and that inspired me to do something using
my platform that I had built as a fashion model,
to do something about climate. And at the time I
(33:32):
tried buying books that explained how nuclear worked, and I
couldn't find anything that was accessible. It took me many,
many years of research to get to a point where
I could break down this information about nuclear, the history,
the history of the anti nuclear movement, and the technology
itself into something that was extremely accessible. And so Red
Future was inspired by that, by a need to provide
(33:53):
accessible material. And I think it's such an important topic
that right now is being discussed everywhere, and I think
people should be able to learn about the technology and
answer their questions.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Is it well with the Trump administration to used inse
that nuclear power may get more support, less support, or
no real change.
Speaker 10 (34:13):
No, the Trump administration is extremely supportive of nuclear. He
passed several executive orders mandating the acceleration of nuclear in
the United States to be determined what's going to happen. Also,
in the One Big Beautiful Bill, they basically maintained all
the support, the credits, the credit techs, and the LPO
(34:35):
guarantees for nuclear as well. So the administration is extremely
supportive of nuclear. Hopefully this will play out in the
real world, but it's still to be determined, depending on
some of the nuances of the text credits.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Our thanks to nuclear electricity influencer and author Isabelle bo Mecki.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast available on Apple, Spotify,
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ten am to noon 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 and
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