September 15, 2025 • 18 mins
Watch Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Scarlet Fu and Isabelle Lee
- Mandeep Singh, Bloomberg Intelligence Global Head of Technology Research discusses China ruling that Nvidia violated anti-monopoly laws with a 2020 deal, increasing pressure on Washington during trade negotiations.
-Matthew Schettenhelm, Bloomberg Intelligence Media Litigation Analyst, discusses President Trump's comments signaling a deal was reached with China on TikTok, giving at least some reason to believe the popular video-sharing app's extended US legal limbo will end.
-Craig Trudell, Bloomberg Global Autos Editor, discusses Elon Musk buying about $1 billion worth of shares, sending the carmaker’s stock soaring into positive territory for the year.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
Eastern 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 2 (00:24):
Up next, Carlo, we have this big news today. I
feel like I was preparing for the show and then
suddenly crossing the vire is China targets Nvidia over a
two hunt over a twenty twenty deal, and with us
to explain all of that is Bloomberg Intelligence, Globalhead of
Technology Research, Mandy Singh. So, Mandy Mason, what we know
so far? How serious are the alleged conditions that Invidio
may have breached this Melanox acquisition and is this noise
(00:46):
or should this be something that we should take seriously?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, I mean typically what we have seen in cases
like this when a regulator investigates, you know, an acquisition
that was done in the past, is there could be
a fine. There could be a hefty fine given you know,
the size of the acquisition. Although we don't know what
the you know, the investigation was all about, so they
(01:10):
are very little details on what are transpired, but my
sense is this is the timing is influenced by you know,
the trade negotiations and what's going on with the US. Look,
at the end of the day, China knows that Nvidia
has some of its largest potential customers in China, and
(01:32):
they would prefer those customers to get off of Nvidia dependency.
I mean, that's the one thing that it's very obvious
from the Chinese government. They don't want their largest customers
of large anguid models to be relying on Invidia chips.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Right, It's a national security issue for them. China had
approved the in Vidia purchase of Melanox, a seven billion
dollar deal, on the condition that Nvidia not discriminate against
China these companies.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
That's that wording is very vague. How do you interpret that?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, so, I mean, look at you know, how many
architectures have been released by Nvidia since then, and so
from that standpoint, the fact that you know, in the
prior administration and Vidia was barred from selling their latest
chips to the customers in China is just an illustration that. Yeah,
(02:24):
I mean, all the other customers had you know, the
latest and video chips accessible that wasn't the case with
the Chinese customers. So there could be a lot of
things that could be in play here in terms of
the exact conduct that they found, you know, was not proper.
(02:44):
But to my mind, it is just a negotiation lever
that the Chinese government is pulling here. And look that
in terms of the size of the market we know
NVIDIAs said it's a fifty billion dollars addressable market for
GPUs in China and it's expected to grow at a
fifty percent plus cager. So it is a pretty big
(03:05):
opportunity for a company like Nvidia and for other chip
providers here in the US. And from that standpoint, you know,
they could see the stakes up pretty high for companies
that want to do business in China.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The stock opened lower today, it's down by one and
a half percent. How do you see this affecting investors
sentiment around in Nvidia? Like, what are potential downside the
risk to the stock? You alluded it. It could be
just noise and the timing is curious, but still investors
must be a little bit rattled at the very least.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
So what Nvidia has started doing is they've started embedding
that in the guide. They said, if they were allowed
to sell H twenties to China in three Q it
could add another two to five billion dollars for the quarter.
So that's how they guide going forward because of all
the uncertainty. And remember the US government maybe getting a
fifteen percent cut of those Nvidia or black Belt sales
(03:57):
in China, so that's where the administration is negotiating. They
want a cut of the chip sales. So I think
everyone is involved, which is very surprising. You know, you
would think it's you know, a company that is doing business,
but in this case, there's a big geopolitical dimension to
the entire thing that's going on here.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, so it makes it extra complicated. At the same time,
or maybe separately, I'm not sure which one it is,
China has opened an anti dumping investigation into some US
made analog chips. So the companies affected here would be
Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Broadcom, and on Semi. What can
you tell us about this?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, so again, I think when it comes to the
analog side, the drivers are very different. Like we are
supply constrained on the GPU accelerator side. On the analog side,
the auto chip market has been pretty lackluster when you
compare that to the overall chip complex, and so from
that perspective, everyone is trying to find a lever to
(04:59):
boost their sales given the lackluster demand. And I don't
think there was any anti dumping, but that's where the
negotiation aspect comes into play. That okay TI is another
company that does business in China. What have they been
up to? Is there anything in the conduct that they
could point to? And so do my mind, you know,
it's probably a reflection of that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Maybe very briefly, what lessons should other US and foreign
semiconductor companies take from this experience in terms of risk
to China regulatory backlash or conditional approval being revisited after
a deal.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That doing business in China is getting harder and harder.
I mean, if you're a company that relied, like look
at Synopsis, the stock top thirty percent partly was because
of Intel pairing back on the license consumption, but also
in China. They couldn't sign long term agreements in China,
and they have a pretty sizable customer base in China.
(05:55):
So that's just another illustration of the risk with China sales.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
The goalpost are constantly moving for companies operating in China,
and you could argue for companies operating in the US
as well.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
All right, man, Deep Sink, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Bloomberg Intelligence, Global head of Technology Research, joining us here
and again we are looking at shares of Nvidia isabel
lower today because Beijing unexpectedly ruled that the company violated
anti monopoly laws.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
With its twenty twenty acquisition of Melanox. Stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cockplay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Let's move on now to the headline we got this
morning that this TikTok deal has been secured, or at
least a framework deal has been reached, according to Scott Besson,
our Treasury Secretary. President Trump says he will now speak
with Chinese President Shi Jinping on Friday to complete the deal.
Let's bring Matthew Shettenhelm. He has Bloomberg Intelligence media litigation
analysts from Washington, DC. Matt, where does this leave TikTok's
(07:07):
legal status.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Well, Scarlett, it looks like we may finally be seeing
some movement here. This has been an extended legal limbo,
as President Trump has extended this law three times, even
though it's not really clear that that's what Congress envisioned.
He's been able to adopt these extensions in January, in April,
(07:33):
and in June. And that extension set to expire on
Wednesday of this week. And as you said, it sounds
like there may be at least the shape of a
deal coming into place to maybe be finalized after those
talks on Friday. So it looks like there probably will
be another extension since since the law is set to
take effect on Wednesday, and we might not be done then.
(07:55):
But this at least seems like progress.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So it is progress indeed, and I feel like there
has and one extension after the other. What outcome are
we hoping to expect on Friday when President Donald Trump
will speak with Chinese leaders? She didn't ping it's a
share of American company or like, tell us what you're
looking at.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
Well, it's really hard to know exactly what you know.
The law contemplates a divestiture, so that the company that
runs the US operations would not be controlled by byte Dance,
and so what the way you read the law, it
contemplates that there would be a divestiture likely to a
(08:35):
US entity, probably where byte Dance owns less than twenty
percent of that company, and that there would be no
cooperation between those two companies they would be formerly affiliated
under the law. I think the really interesting thing to
watch is how much is this deal going to stick
to the terms of the law. You could make a
(08:57):
pretty strong argument that that president hasn't exactly adhered to
the law so far, and he hasn't gotten any pushback.
So it's not clear how much any deal will need
to stick to the law or not right.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Right right now, that's an important point, and you know
it could not stick to law, But it doesn't matter
if everyone's okay with it, Matthew In terms of companies
affected by some kind of framework deal reached, for which
companies is this good news?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Well?
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Sure? I mean so Apple and Google have been hosting
TikTok in their app store at enormous legal risk with
this law in place, in theory that they are potentially
exposed to liability of five thousand dollars per TikTok user,
and you do that math and it's absurd, and so
no one wants to operate with that cloud hanging over
(09:46):
your head. So in that sense, you know, some clarity
in the law here is good for those companies. I'm
not sure it's so good for TikTok's competitors like Meta,
that had the opportunity to have one of their top
competitors in the US knocked out of the market, and
it looks like that is going away. So looks like
(10:07):
TikTok will remain a fierce competitor in the United States,
and so Meta won't be able to use this law
to its advantage.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
We also have a story published less than thirty minutes ago.
It's about Treasury Secretary Scott bess and saying that the
threat of allowing TikTok to go dark in the US
was what ultimately sealed a framework deal. Can you talk
to us more about how this strong arm negotiations may
shape future negotiations between foreign companies in the US, and
at least for this one specifically, in isolation, it looks successful.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
It does look like this may have worked. This is
not the way that these things typically work. But here
Congress really gave President Trump a lot of leverage by
passing this law. I think there it was questionable whether
President Trump was using that level bridge by letting TikTok
(11:01):
continue to operate. You could make the case that he
could have made a stronger or leverage if you hadn't.
But it seems to be working.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Matthew, always a pleasure, Matthew Schuttenhelm, Bloomberg Intelligence media litigation
analysts from Washington TC on TikTok's legal status now that
there has been a framework deal.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Reached on TikTok, according to Scott Besant, stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern 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 2 (11:43):
Now, we're going to talk all about Tesla and Elon
Musk buying one billion dollars worth of Tesla shares. Were
joined by Craig Trudell. He's the Bloomberg Global Autos editor,
joining us from London. So Ed, Craig, what can you
tell us about Elon Musk purchasing one billion worth of
Tesla shares? What signal do you think he's trying to
send markets and shareholders with this move?
Speaker 7 (12:04):
I think I think it's pretty clear. There was an
all out push on Friday, with Robin Denholm, the chair
of the company, speaking with at Bloomberg Television, speaking with
you know, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
all sorts of major news organizations about the merits of
this pay package that the board is proposing. There's going
to be a big shareholder vote in November on handing,
(12:26):
you know, Musk, this this potentially up to one trillion
dollars worth of stock. There's a lot of caveats all
that that Musk would have to sort of, you know,
pull a rabbit out of the hat again after you know,
doing so after a twenty eighteen pay package where the
board laid out out all these really ambitious you know,
(12:48):
market value and performance milestones. Musk, you know, at that
time it was kind of perceived as this moonshot pay package.
He proceeded to knock them all out, and they're now
calling this next paypackage a mark Dot pay package. So,
you know, I think there's this This is all sort
of part of a piece, right of trying to get
(13:09):
investors to sort of you know, focus on you know,
far out there targets objectives from us that would make
shareholders a whole lot of money. And it comes amid
you know, real signs of stress for the core here
and now business for Tesla where their sales have just
really struggled this year and there haven't really been signs
(13:30):
of of sort of meaningful change in that trend even
into this quarter.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Right, so this will properly motivate him. I'm so glad
you brought up the twenty eighteen pay package and some
of the moonshot milestones that laid out for Elon Musk.
What was the most I don't want to use the
word outrageous, but the most ambitious of those milestones? And
did he surpass each and every one of them?
Speaker 7 (13:51):
Yeah? I mean in terms of the milestones there, I
mean just even the market cap figures I think, you know,
when they were laid out, you know, it was it
was just sort of unfathomable that you know, a car
company could be you know, a trillion dollar company, and
you know, give give the guy credit. He went out
there and and made it happen. You know, I think
(14:12):
Tesla now is trying to sort of, you know, incentivize
him to you know, turn Tesla into a company that
has many multiples of even Navidia, the most valuable company
in the world in the here and now. And yet
you know, the sort of path to getting there is
really uncertain because you know, you've you've heard Musk make
(14:34):
these pitches about robotaxis and about humanoid robots. But you know,
he's starting essentially from zero from a humanoid robot perspective
and from a ROBOTAXI perspective. He's got you know, a
very very small number of cars on the roads in Austin,
Texas that still have people you know, in the in
the front row minding those cars and in certain cases
(14:56):
actually still behind the wheel. So you know, he is
a long long way from accomplishing some of these new
objectives that the board has set form.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
This must buying shares personally, is governance concerns or could
it even actually reinforce skepticism about how closely Tesla's board
is aligned with his self interest, his being Musk.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
You know, I think just generally whenever a CEO or
an insider of a company is buying shares. That's taken
as a good thing and not necessarily you know, something
to look at skins at from a corporate governance perspective.
It does, however, I think it's worth sort of you know,
thinking about this billion dollar purchase and context. This is
a guy who's you know, sort of you know, a
(15:40):
billion dollars can be found in his couch cushions, right
he is is the top person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He was very briefly, you know, not from that spot
last week by Larry Ellison. But he's worth about you know,
four hundred and twenty billion dollars at the moment, and
so you know just how meaningful this is. With any
(16:02):
other CEO, you would look at a billion dollar Stoft
purchase and maybe take, you know, take real note of that.
With Musk, is it that you know, huge a show
of confidence? Maybe not in the context of, you know,
just how much wealthy has Craig.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
All of this emphasis on what Elon Musk can do
and what Elon Musk can achieve by a certain period
really raises a key man risk. Here is there succession
plan for Elon Musk if something should happen to him.
I mean, I'm looking at the company management and he's
got seventeen years tenure at Tesla. The person in the
next closest tenure or the next longest tenure is Shaotong
(16:39):
Ju tom Ju at.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Two point four years. He's the senior vice president of APAK.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
Yeah, it's a very good question, and it's something that's
sort of considered actually in this new proxy where you know,
the board sort of lays out this idea of getting
you know, some some buy in from Musk in terms
of how being and assisting on succession. At the same time,
you're hearing Robin Denholm, the chair of the board, you know,
(17:07):
tell Bloomberg TV last week that there aren't any other
people out there like Elon who can actually lead this
company over the next decade or so. And so, you know,
I think they want to kind of have it both ways,
right of we must, you know, incentivize this guy because
he's the only one who can do this, and yet
we do realize we need to sort of assuage these
concerns about succession.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Correct Trudell always a pleasure of Bloomberg Global Autos editor
on Elon Musk buying a billion dollars worth of Tesla's shares.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
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or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Up next, Carlo, we have this big news today. I
feel like I was preparing for the show and then
suddenly crossing the vire is China targets Nvidia over a
two hunt over a twenty twenty deal, and with us
to explain all of that is Bloomberg Intelligence, Globalhead of
Technology Research, Mandy Singh. So, Mandy Mason, what we know
so far? How serious are the alleged conditions that Invidio
may have breached this Melanox acquisition and is this noise
(00:46):
or should this be something that we should take seriously?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, I mean typically what we have seen in cases
like this when a regulator investigates, you know, an acquisition
that was done in the past, is there could be
a fine. There could be a hefty fine given you know,
the size of the acquisition. Although we don't know what
the you know, the investigation was all about, so they
(01:10):
are very little details on what are transpired, but my
sense is this is the timing is influenced by you know,
the trade negotiations and what's going on with the US. Look,
at the end of the day, China knows that Nvidia
has some of its largest potential customers in China, and
(01:32):
they would prefer those customers to get off of Nvidia dependency.
I mean, that's the one thing that it's very obvious
from the Chinese government. They don't want their largest customers
of large anguid models to be relying on Invidia chips.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Right, It's a national security issue for them. China had
approved the in Vidia purchase of Melanox, a seven billion
dollar deal, on the condition that Nvidia not discriminate against
China these companies.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
That's that wording is very vague. How do you interpret that?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, so, I mean, look at you know, how many
architectures have been released by Nvidia since then, and so
from that standpoint, the fact that you know, in the
prior administration and Vidia was barred from selling their latest
chips to the customers in China is just an illustration that. Yeah,
(02:24):
I mean, all the other customers had you know, the
latest and video chips accessible that wasn't the case with
the Chinese customers. So there could be a lot of
things that could be in play here in terms of
the exact conduct that they found, you know, was not proper.
(02:44):
But to my mind, it is just a negotiation lever
that the Chinese government is pulling here. And look that
in terms of the size of the market we know
NVIDIAs said it's a fifty billion dollars addressable market for
GPUs in China and it's expected to grow at a
fifty percent plus cager. So it is a pretty big
(03:05):
opportunity for a company like Nvidia and for other chip
providers here in the US. And from that standpoint, you know,
they could see the stakes up pretty high for companies
that want to do business in China.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The stock opened lower today, it's down by one and
a half percent. How do you see this affecting investors
sentiment around in Nvidia? Like, what are potential downside the
risk to the stock? You alluded it. It could be
just noise and the timing is curious, but still investors
must be a little bit rattled at the very least.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
So what Nvidia has started doing is they've started embedding
that in the guide. They said, if they were allowed
to sell H twenties to China in three Q it
could add another two to five billion dollars for the quarter.
So that's how they guide going forward because of all
the uncertainty. And remember the US government maybe getting a
fifteen percent cut of those Nvidia or black Belt sales
(03:57):
in China, so that's where the administration is negotiating. They
want a cut of the chip sales. So I think
everyone is involved, which is very surprising. You know, you
would think it's you know, a company that is doing business,
but in this case, there's a big geopolitical dimension to
the entire thing that's going on here.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, so it makes it extra complicated. At the same time,
or maybe separately, I'm not sure which one it is,
China has opened an anti dumping investigation into some US
made analog chips. So the companies affected here would be
Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Broadcom, and on Semi. What can
you tell us about this?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, so again, I think when it comes to the
analog side, the drivers are very different. Like we are
supply constrained on the GPU accelerator side. On the analog side,
the auto chip market has been pretty lackluster when you
compare that to the overall chip complex, and so from
that perspective, everyone is trying to find a lever to
(04:59):
boost their sales given the lackluster demand. And I don't
think there was any anti dumping, but that's where the
negotiation aspect comes into play. That okay TI is another
company that does business in China. What have they been
up to? Is there anything in the conduct that they
could point to? And so do my mind, you know,
it's probably a reflection of that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Maybe very briefly, what lessons should other US and foreign
semiconductor companies take from this experience in terms of risk
to China regulatory backlash or conditional approval being revisited after
a deal.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That doing business in China is getting harder and harder.
I mean, if you're a company that relied, like look
at Synopsis, the stock top thirty percent partly was because
of Intel pairing back on the license consumption, but also
in China. They couldn't sign long term agreements in China,
and they have a pretty sizable customer base in China.
(05:55):
So that's just another illustration of the risk with China sales.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
The goalpost are constantly moving for companies operating in China,
and you could argue for companies operating in the US
as well.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
All right, man, Deep Sink, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Bloomberg Intelligence, Global head of Technology Research, joining us here
and again we are looking at shares of Nvidia isabel
lower today because Beijing unexpectedly ruled that the company violated
anti monopoly laws.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
With its twenty twenty acquisition of Melanox. Stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cockplay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Let's move on now to the headline we got this
morning that this TikTok deal has been secured, or at
least a framework deal has been reached, according to Scott Besson,
our Treasury Secretary. President Trump says he will now speak
with Chinese President Shi Jinping on Friday to complete the deal.
Let's bring Matthew Shettenhelm. He has Bloomberg Intelligence media litigation
analysts from Washington, DC. Matt, where does this leave TikTok's
(07:07):
legal status.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Well, Scarlett, it looks like we may finally be seeing
some movement here. This has been an extended legal limbo,
as President Trump has extended this law three times, even
though it's not really clear that that's what Congress envisioned.
He's been able to adopt these extensions in January, in April,
(07:33):
and in June. And that extension set to expire on
Wednesday of this week. And as you said, it sounds
like there may be at least the shape of a
deal coming into place to maybe be finalized after those
talks on Friday. So it looks like there probably will
be another extension since since the law is set to
take effect on Wednesday, and we might not be done then.
(07:55):
But this at least seems like progress.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So it is progress indeed, and I feel like there
has and one extension after the other. What outcome are
we hoping to expect on Friday when President Donald Trump
will speak with Chinese leaders? She didn't ping it's a
share of American company or like, tell us what you're
looking at.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
Well, it's really hard to know exactly what you know.
The law contemplates a divestiture, so that the company that
runs the US operations would not be controlled by byte Dance,
and so what the way you read the law, it
contemplates that there would be a divestiture likely to a
(08:35):
US entity, probably where byte Dance owns less than twenty
percent of that company, and that there would be no
cooperation between those two companies they would be formerly affiliated
under the law. I think the really interesting thing to
watch is how much is this deal going to stick
to the terms of the law. You could make a
(08:57):
pretty strong argument that that president hasn't exactly adhered to
the law so far, and he hasn't gotten any pushback.
So it's not clear how much any deal will need
to stick to the law or not right.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Right right now, that's an important point, and you know
it could not stick to law, But it doesn't matter
if everyone's okay with it, Matthew In terms of companies
affected by some kind of framework deal reached, for which
companies is this good news?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Well?
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Sure? I mean so Apple and Google have been hosting
TikTok in their app store at enormous legal risk with
this law in place, in theory that they are potentially
exposed to liability of five thousand dollars per TikTok user,
and you do that math and it's absurd, and so
no one wants to operate with that cloud hanging over
(09:46):
your head. So in that sense, you know, some clarity
in the law here is good for those companies. I'm
not sure it's so good for TikTok's competitors like Meta,
that had the opportunity to have one of their top
competitors in the US knocked out of the market, and
it looks like that is going away. So looks like
(10:07):
TikTok will remain a fierce competitor in the United States,
and so Meta won't be able to use this law
to its advantage.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
We also have a story published less than thirty minutes ago.
It's about Treasury Secretary Scott bess and saying that the
threat of allowing TikTok to go dark in the US
was what ultimately sealed a framework deal. Can you talk
to us more about how this strong arm negotiations may
shape future negotiations between foreign companies in the US, and
at least for this one specifically, in isolation, it looks successful.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
It does look like this may have worked. This is
not the way that these things typically work. But here
Congress really gave President Trump a lot of leverage by
passing this law. I think there it was questionable whether
President Trump was using that level bridge by letting TikTok
(11:01):
continue to operate. You could make the case that he
could have made a stronger or leverage if you hadn't.
But it seems to be working.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Matthew, always a pleasure, Matthew Schuttenhelm, Bloomberg Intelligence media litigation
analysts from Washington TC on TikTok's legal status now that
there has been a framework deal.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Reached on TikTok, according to Scott Besant, stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern 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 2 (11:43):
Now, we're going to talk all about Tesla and Elon
Musk buying one billion dollars worth of Tesla shares. Were
joined by Craig Trudell. He's the Bloomberg Global Autos editor,
joining us from London. So Ed, Craig, what can you
tell us about Elon Musk purchasing one billion worth of
Tesla shares? What signal do you think he's trying to
send markets and shareholders with this move?
Speaker 7 (12:04):
I think I think it's pretty clear. There was an
all out push on Friday, with Robin Denholm, the chair
of the company, speaking with at Bloomberg Television, speaking with
you know, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
all sorts of major news organizations about the merits of
this pay package that the board is proposing. There's going
to be a big shareholder vote in November on handing,
(12:26):
you know, Musk, this this potentially up to one trillion
dollars worth of stock. There's a lot of caveats all
that that Musk would have to sort of, you know,
pull a rabbit out of the hat again after you know,
doing so after a twenty eighteen pay package where the
board laid out out all these really ambitious you know,
(12:48):
market value and performance milestones. Musk, you know, at that
time it was kind of perceived as this moonshot pay package.
He proceeded to knock them all out, and they're now
calling this next paypackage a mark Dot pay package. So,
you know, I think there's this This is all sort
of part of a piece, right of trying to get
(13:09):
investors to sort of you know, focus on you know,
far out there targets objectives from us that would make
shareholders a whole lot of money. And it comes amid
you know, real signs of stress for the core here
and now business for Tesla where their sales have just
really struggled this year and there haven't really been signs
(13:30):
of of sort of meaningful change in that trend even
into this quarter.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Right, so this will properly motivate him. I'm so glad
you brought up the twenty eighteen pay package and some
of the moonshot milestones that laid out for Elon Musk.
What was the most I don't want to use the
word outrageous, but the most ambitious of those milestones? And
did he surpass each and every one of them?
Speaker 7 (13:51):
Yeah? I mean in terms of the milestones there, I
mean just even the market cap figures I think, you know,
when they were laid out, you know, it was it
was just sort of unfathomable that you know, a car
company could be you know, a trillion dollar company, and
you know, give give the guy credit. He went out
there and and made it happen. You know, I think
(14:12):
Tesla now is trying to sort of, you know, incentivize
him to you know, turn Tesla into a company that
has many multiples of even Navidia, the most valuable company
in the world in the here and now. And yet
you know, the sort of path to getting there is
really uncertain because you know, you've you've heard Musk make
(14:34):
these pitches about robotaxis and about humanoid robots. But you know,
he's starting essentially from zero from a humanoid robot perspective
and from a ROBOTAXI perspective. He's got you know, a
very very small number of cars on the roads in Austin,
Texas that still have people you know, in the in
the front row minding those cars and in certain cases
(14:56):
actually still behind the wheel. So you know, he is
a long long way from accomplishing some of these new
objectives that the board has set form.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
This must buying shares personally, is governance concerns or could
it even actually reinforce skepticism about how closely Tesla's board
is aligned with his self interest, his being Musk.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
You know, I think just generally whenever a CEO or
an insider of a company is buying shares. That's taken
as a good thing and not necessarily you know, something
to look at skins at from a corporate governance perspective.
It does, however, I think it's worth sort of you know,
thinking about this billion dollar purchase and context. This is
a guy who's you know, sort of you know, a
(15:40):
billion dollars can be found in his couch cushions, right
he is is the top person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He was very briefly, you know, not from that spot
last week by Larry Ellison. But he's worth about you know,
four hundred and twenty billion dollars at the moment, and
so you know just how meaningful this is. With any
(16:02):
other CEO, you would look at a billion dollar Stoft
purchase and maybe take, you know, take real note of that.
With Musk, is it that you know, huge a show
of confidence? Maybe not in the context of, you know,
just how much wealthy has Craig.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
All of this emphasis on what Elon Musk can do
and what Elon Musk can achieve by a certain period
really raises a key man risk. Here is there succession
plan for Elon Musk if something should happen to him.
I mean, I'm looking at the company management and he's
got seventeen years tenure at Tesla. The person in the
next closest tenure or the next longest tenure is Shaotong
(16:39):
Ju tom Ju at.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Two point four years. He's the senior vice president of APAK.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
Yeah, it's a very good question, and it's something that's
sort of considered actually in this new proxy where you know,
the board sort of lays out this idea of getting
you know, some some buy in from Musk in terms
of how being and assisting on succession. At the same time,
you're hearing Robin Denholm, the chair of the board, you know,
(17:07):
tell Bloomberg TV last week that there aren't any other
people out there like Elon who can actually lead this
company over the next decade or so. And so, you know,
I think they want to kind of have it both ways,
right of we must, you know, incentivize this guy because
he's the only one who can do this, and yet
we do realize we need to sort of assuage these
concerns about succession.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Correct Trudell always a pleasure of Bloomberg Global Autos editor
on Elon Musk buying a billion dollars worth of Tesla's shares.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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