Undermine hong kong protests. But the company says they are doing about it. Our conversation with a. C. L. , one of text most controversial companies. Alex tells us why protesters will not stop them from doing business with the Trump Administration. At first, the u. S. Announced it would extend in mind that detected Rural Networks from doing business. This comes as the trade war rages on. Is taking concerns about possible tax straight to the top. A move that has impressed President Trump. Pres. Trump he is the one that calls me. That is why he is a great executive. He calls me. Out and hire expensive consultants. Tim cook calls donald trump directly. Pretty good. I would take their call. The only one that calls me is tim cook. Whenever there is a problem, he will call. Whoe spoke to kathy would invests across the tech sector. Wantshink this president u. S. Companies to succeed. I think at the end of the day, this is part of negotiations and just that. It will end in lower tariffs overall. Manysaid, apple has so interesting things going for it right now. Apple tv, we are learning about that. I think they are changing the subject of it. Emily as you consider where to put your money, are tariffs put into consideration . Is it something you are thinking about . We think about taxes, which is what a tariff is. Taxes provide incentives or disincentives. Not having a taxes better than having a tax. We think that Services Platform that apple is building is going to overcome a lot of this and maybe even speed those services along. We have details about apple tv plus. We are expecting it to be unveiled in november. There are new trailers out for some of the shows. The gorilla in the room. Disney how optimistic are you about apple tv . That they arened pouring 6 billion into content, which is netflix circa toy 16. 2016. Emily netflix posted 14 billion. I think they have a good shot. The morning show with jennifer aniston, they are paying a lot for that. Episode costing more than game of thrones. Content providers are big winners here. Notink this is going to be just a one horse race. I think people will take several services. It is problematic for cable and traditional broadcast tv. Emily how much are you thinking about the antitrust issues, the doj opening an antitrust into tech in general. The fcc working at facebook, states looking at tax, there could be more. We think about that. We have pulled back on many of the names or we had, partly because of this issue. We think it will be litigated for years and years. It took all long time to break the mall bell into the baby bells. Working out ok for investors. It is not always a bad thing. The legal hassles, the distractions associated with it can be problematic for some companies. Emily you are saying that even if big tech is broken up, it is good for investors. Not necessarily. Companies will go through the process like microsoft did and nothing happened. It was just a distraction. Would much prefer full intention on their businesses and not on these full attention on their businesses and not on these legal. I just dont know. Sometimes, there is solution, meaning a breakup like that. Sometimes, it is never resolved. Emily emily given the antitrust issues, the Geopolitical Uncertainty and the economic uncertainty, the volatility of the markets, where are you putting your money across tech . We are invested in five platforms, heavily. They are all focused on exponential growth, which should overcome everything we are talking about if we are right. That is because the costs of these technologies are falling so quickly. When we talk about dna i andncing, illumin crisper therapeutic, these stocks are not priced for the x financial growth. We believe they are going to deliver during the next five to 10 years. Same thing with tesla, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles first. We think electric vehicles are going to go for 1. 5 Million Units from 1. 5 Million Units globally sold last year to 26 Million Units. No one is expecting that. Autonomous taxi networks, no one believes that is going to happen. We are investing in opportunities that we believe are not discounted in the marketplace at all, in the case of gene editing. Together,e companies are only valued at 5 billion. Apple is close to a trillion dollars. These are life saving companies. We are not worried about tariffs in terms of our largest holdings. Would, ceo was kathy of ark investment management. Coming up, the Chinese Government has attempted to undermine protests in hong kong by backing fake accounts on twitter and facebook. How social Media Companies are cracking down next. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, listen on the Bloomberg App and on sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Twitter found or deleted thousands of attacks used by the government to undermine the protest and calls for clinical change. Facebook follow suit, saying it acted on a tip from twitter. Twitter says it will no longer accept advertising from statebacked media worldwide. We spoke to a Digital Economy fellow at new america and the president of the Global Situation room except the first who set up the first task force to counter russian disinformation and Bloomberg Tax sarah frier techs sarah frier. They are finding these coordinated disinformation efforts that are trying to discredit the protesters, calling the violent, saying what they are doing is maybe backed by western resources, just trying to cause tension within the group. Which is a similar to the tactics we have seen from russia in the u. S. Emily twitter says it kicked off 936 accounts. Facebook, five fake accounts, seven pages, three groups. We have statements from both companies. They said, overall, these accounts were deliberately and specifically attempting to so political discord in hong kong. Undermining the position of the protest movement on the ground. Facebook saying, although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese Government. Twitter said the same. Obviously, it doesnt sound like a huge number of accounts. But an image can go a long way and have an impact on the world. What is your reaction to this given the work you did with russia and your reaction to media crises . China has been building over the last several years capabilities to influence domestic, regional conversations around sensitive topics. What has happened over the last several days based on the information facebook and twitter uncovered, they have chosen to weaponize those capabilities. Many felt china would hold back on some of those capabilities, let russia take the heat, but clearly, they feel threatened. They have not yet even begun to scratch the Surface Software china supporters that are backed by china are trying to influence these debates. Emily you are looking at some of these posts that they are saying were backed by the Chinese Government. It is not necessarily surprising given the army of internet mediators behind the scenes in china that we have reported on for many years, but there is some irony that facebook and twitter are blocked in Mainland China but are not blocked in hong kong. What is your take . This is classic Chinese State propaganda machinery. The Chinese Government knows that they need to influence the International Perspective of what is going on. So they are going to where the conversation is taking place, facebook and twitter. Emily given the power that you are indicating the Chinese Government has, and the levers that they could pull, what are the longerterm dangers of this or longerterm threats of this, given that the u. S. Is going into another president ial election . Brett quite significant. As i said, the expectation many of us had was that china was going to wait and continue to develop and test some of these capabilities. Many of them are out in public. We see on the street corners the china daily paper. We also have come on television, the state tv. Yet, there is, behind all that, a well articulated strategy and one that china has chosen in this instance to activate. What concerns me is, if it is activated not only on hong kong, perhaps on other issues. South china sea, taiwan, let alone global issues, it would be devastating. China has capabilities that far surpass that of russia. They are able to combine not only this information capability but influence capabilities with the aid they give, with their trade and economic portfolio, paired with information operations, would be much more devastating both to markets as well as political conversations should they choose to go down that path. Brett. That was of the Global Situation room, sam of new america, and sarah frier. Regulars are looking into facebooks Digital Currency libra, a currency that has not launched yet. According to a document, the European Commission is investigating potential anticompetitive behavior amidst concerns the ambitions would unfairly shut up rivals. Sarah frier join us again with a guest to discussed. They are very concerned that cannot reasonably so, that if the Company Controls this currency that could rival the u. S. Dollar, that is way too much power to have. What facebook has said, this is not just our project. This is the project of all of our partners, there is a dense, distributed network. Emily some of those partners have kind of backed away. Or refused to raise their hand. They could come out there and say yes, we stand behind facebook, but facebook gets all the recognition for being innovative and creating this. There is a little bit of tension behind the scenes. It is interesting from three angles. I think the first angle from facebooks point of view, in a productivity world, it shows this is a very ambitious move and signals where they want to go. The second thing is that it shows that stable coin alternative currencies are here to stay. This is no longer something for the future. Facebook has planted a flag and been the leader. But they are not going in alone. Not only do they have to deal with the concerns of governments, but also their own Central Banks. Who are coming together to figure out if they should be trading their own alternative currency. Then they are going up against Technology Companies coming up with their own version. We have invested in one called token x. It is going to be a very crowded world despite the size of facebooks user community. Emily lets take a look at the bigger picture. You already have the doj investigating big tech for antitrust. You have state attorneys general looking into big tech as well, and facebook decides to unveil libra. Do you think they made a miscalculation in doing this now . I think they have to do it. If they didnt do it now, somebody else would do it. I think the scale of their ambition is very high. They cannot control some of those timings, but with whats going on in the privacy world, frankly, some of the big manufacturers and browsers have done is to control the ability to bid on ads, they have to. What we are seeing is a shift from the tradition over the last 10 years is access to people. And if they dont move into this area, the revenue stream they have relied on will go away. Emily when the eu says they are concerned about anticompetitive behavior in regards to cryptocurrency, what are they really worried about since it doesnt even exist . They are worried about facebook being this massive global power. We have seen that if you have a product, 2. 7 billion people use Facebook Properties about thats a tremendous amount of influence over what they read and how they interact. And they have seen scrutiny from all angles and we are going to continue to because facebook is still growing. There are not a dying brand are or dying company by any stretch. Now that regulators expand the power, understand that power, it is going to come down on them on the privacy, the election angle, the propaganda angle. Everything they do will be subject to investigations, hearings and extra scrutiny. Emily alternatives to libra, explain what the competition is . The competition comes from multiple angles, but they are saying in a world where traditional currencies go away or become less popular, we want alternatives to the way we transfer money. That starts with foreign currencies. Now, with things like libra, already having Companies Come out and make it easier to ship. That is something where the countries get very concerned because you manage your own currency. It is a stable coin. Then you have banks coming out to make their own version and using technologies from people x and then you have the Central Banks themselves worry about it. All this is pointing to a future where currencies will be much more fragmented. That is not just things like libra but also things like open banking in europe. Which has been a huge change. It is the Credit Card Companies who are petrified with what that will do if i can just move money bank to bank. It is change happening at multiple levels. Emily that was sarah frier and alastair of eq t ventures. Amazon is betting big on india. How this company is going headtohead with walmart in the emerging Retail Market heard this is bloomberg market. This is bloomberg. Emily amazon is doubling down on india. The ecommerce giant has opened its largest campus in the south indian city of hyderabad. Walmart spent 60 billion last year on acquiring an indian online retailer. In comparison, jeff has pledged 5. 5 billion was operations in toward operations in the country. Our Senior Editor of Global Technology joined us to discuss. Amazon has over 60,000 employees there, a third are in hyderabad. So already a big presence in housing them altogether is probably a smart move. The bigger thing is why they are making such a big deal about this, it is one office building. Theyve been trying to grow inside india in an unfavorable Regulatory Environment for five years. Last december, the Modi Government made it difficult for them to run their conventional retail website in india last year. They have to behave more like a marketplace for other sellers, so, you know, putting a big stake in the ground, some shovels in the ground literally, helping with modis economic development. Saying we are hiring people in india is probably a smart political move. Emily the Biggest Office for amazon in seattle holds 5000. This office will hold 15,000. Is it mostly existing workers . Brad i think they are growing in india quite fast, not just engineers that service other parts of india, but trying to grow that ecommerce business. My colleague in india has reported that amazon is looking at potentially acquiring a food delivery business. Theyve been looking at making investments in lots of brick and mortar Grocery Store chains, so india can be the kind of lab for the rest of amazon, and they also need to hire workers to help them grow in the country. Emily how is amazon taking on walmart in india . Who is winning . Thats a good question. Last i saw, they were neck and neck. Flip cart, the Company Walmart acquired last year had a head start. There was some kind of internal chaos. Walmart came and bought them. The founders have left. Flip cards is doing pretty well, but amazon prime is taking off. They dont release numbers, but they say prime membership is doubling. Look, they are probably both doing well because this is a rapidly expanding market. A country of 1. 3 Million People 1. 3 billion people, rising middle class, Internet Penetration going up, so its a case of a rising tide lifting all boats. Emily walmart offering a service with free streaming and bollywood in india is huge. Talk about that strategy. Brad amazon has shown that prime video brings people into the amazon ecosystem and gets them ordering. Walmart cannot necessarily do that in the u. S. Where you have so many players spending a lot of money, but the india streaming market is a little less developed. They are taking a different approach. It is free in the mobile app. Youve got to go discover it in a dropdown menu, but flipkart thinks this is a good way to cement loyalty of its users. And, particularly, those second and third tier cities or maybe the wealthier urban customer already has a prime or netflix subscription, walmart is finding ways to expand and video is a way to bring them into the flipkart ecosystem. Emily we have been talking a lot about the trade dispute and the threat to big tech companies. Amazon does not have huge exposure to china, but the last few weeks, weve seen walmart and target report strong results, weve seen alibaba report strong results. I wonder if there is something about ecommerce that is more immune to geopolitical uncertainties that we are facing now and that other Companies Might be brad i would say amazon does have some exposure. You know they dont have a big business, china is kind of the breadbasket for amazon. So many of those sellers on amazon sell from china. They are in shenzhen, in the factories, making products for sale and some of those companies will get hit by the tariffs as they are put in place by the Trump Administration. India, you would think, might be a recipient of some of the capital that is leaving china, but the political environment has been unstable. I mentioned the ecommerce rules went into effect last