What the Companies Say they are doing about it. And peering into palantir. Our exclusive conversation with the ceo of one of techs most secretive companies. Alex karp tells us why protesters wont stop them from doing business with the Trump Administration. But first, the u. S. Announced they will extend a limited set of exemptions that have protected Rural Networks and other customers from doing business with huawei. This comes as the trade war rages on with the u. S. One tech ceo is taking his concerns about the possible tax straight to the top, apples tim cook, a move that has impressed President Trump. Pres. Trump he is the one that calls me. Thats why hes a great executive. He calls me and others dont. Others go out and hire very expensive consultants, and tim cook calls donald trump directly. I would take your calls, but the only one who calls me is tim cook. Whenever there is a problem, he will call. Emily we spoke to an investor across the tech sector. I think this president wants u. S. Companies to succeed, so i think at the end of the day, this is part of negotiations and just that. It will end in lower tariffs overall. That said, apple has so many interesting things going for it. Apple tv, we are learning more about that. Apple pay, but they are doing in health care. I think they are also changing the subject a bit. Emily as you consider where to put your money, are tariffs being factored into your considerations of apple in particular . Some have said tariffs will never hit apple. But is this something you are thinking about . We think about taxes, which is what a tariff is. Taxes provide incentives or disincentives. Not having a tax is better than having a tax, but we think the Services Platform that apple is building is going to overcome a lot of this and maybe even speed those services along. Emily lets talk about services. Weve got new details about apple tv plus this week. We were expecting it to be unveiled in november. There are new trailers out for some of the shows. And yet, of course, netflix is the gorilla in the room. Disney is coming out with a Service Starting at seven dollars a month, fairly cheap. We dont know for sure what apple will be priced at yet. But how optimistic are you about apple tv plus . Cathie having learned they are pouring 6 billion into the content, which is netflix circa, i think, probably 2016. Emily netflix is closer to 14 billion now. Cathie yes, yes. I think they have a good shot. Some of the shows, i know the morning show with jennifer aniston, they are paying a lot for that. Each episode costing more than game of thrones. They are paying a lot. Content providers are the big winners here. But i do think this is going to be not just a one horse race. I think people will take several services. It is problematic, though, for cable and traditional broadcast tv. Emily how much are you thinking about the antitrust issues . The doj opening an antitrust investigation into big tech in general. The ftc looking at facebook. The state looking at big tech. There could be more. Cathie we do think about that. We have pulled back on many of the names, partly because of this issue. We think it will be litigated for years and years. It took a long time to break the mom bells into the baby bells. That ended up working out ok for investors. Its not always a bad thing, but 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 still potentially good for investors. Cathie not necessarily. Sometimes companies will go through the process, like microsoft did, and nothing happened. Its just a distraction. I would much prefer full attention on their businesses and not on these legal considerations. But the breakup of mall bell was not a bad thing. I am not saying i would like to see this, but i just dont know. Sometimes, theres a solution, meaning a breakup like that. Sometimes its just never resolved. Emily given the antitrust issues, the geopolitical uncertainty, the economic uncertainty, the volatility of the markets, where are you putting your money across tech . Cathie we are invested in five platforms heavily. They are all focused on exponential growth, which should overcome everything we are talking about here if we are right. That is because the cost of these technologies are falling so quickly. When we talk about sequencing, alumina, crispr gene editing, these therapeutics, stocks are not priced for the exponential growth. We believe they are going to deliver during the next five to 10 years. Same thing with tesla, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles. We think electric vehicles are going to go from 1. 5 Million Units globally last year sold to 26 million in five years. That is almost twentyfold growth. No one is expecting that. Autonomous taxi networks, nobody thinks thats going to happen. So we are investing in opportunities that we believe are not discounted in the marketplace at all. In the case of gene editing, shall we say, those three companies together, we are talking about curing disease here, are valued at only 5 billion . Apple closer to 1 trillion . These are lifesaving companies. We are not worried about tariffs in terms of our largest holdings. Emily that was cathie wood, ceo 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. And if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio and in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Emily twitter revealed it has found and deleted thousands of attacks used by the government to undermine the protest and calls for clinical change. Facebook followed suit, saying it acted on a tip from twitter. Twitter says it will no longer accept advertising from statebacked media worldwide. Thee to the title China Digital economy fellow at new america, and the president of the Global Situation room to set up the first task force to counter russian disinformation, and bloomberg techs sarah frier. Sarah they are finding these coordinated disinformation efforts that are trying to discredit the protesters, calling them violent, saying what they are doing is maybe backed by western resources, just trying to cause tension within the group, which is 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 experience with International 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 of us watching this space felt like china would hold back on some of those capabilities, let russia take the heat, but clearly, they feel threatened. Five Facebook Accounts they have not yet even begun to scratch the surface of where 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. They 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 Perception of what 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 on television the cgtv. Yet, there is, behind all that, a wellarticulated 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 the 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. Emily regulars are looking into facebooks Digital Currency libra, a currency that has not even launched yet. According to a document, the European Commission is investigating potential anticompetitive behavior amidst concerns facebooks crypto ambitions would unfairly shut up rivals. Sarah frier joined us again with a venture partner to discuss. Sarah they are very concerned that, 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. To raise theired hand and say this is our problem too. 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 going on behind the scenes. It is interesting from three angles. I think the first angle, from facebooks point of view, it shows the extent moving into payments is something they have talked about for a long time. This is a very ambitious move and signals where they want to go. The second thing is that it shows that alternative currencies have come to stay. This is no longer something for the future. Facebook has planted a flag and is being the leading market. But they are not going in alone. Not only do they have to deal with the concerns of governments, but they have to deal with those governments own Central Banks. They 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. That has been very successful. 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. Youve got already the doj investigating big tech for antitrust. You have the fcc investigating facebook over antitrust. You have state attorneys general looking into big tech as well, and facebook decides to unveil libra. Do you think they made a major miscalculation in trying to do 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 i also think with whats going on in the privacy world, frankly, some of the big manufacturers and browsers have done is to control the ability of people to bid on ads. They have to. What we are seeing is a shift from the tradition over the last 10 years of selling access to people for advertisers. And if they dont move into this area, the Revenue Streams 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 actually worried about given libra doesnt even exist . Sarah they are worried about facebook being this massive global power. We have seen that if you have a product that 2. 7 billion people news, thats a tremendous amount of influence over what they read and how they interact. We have seen scrutiny from all angles, and we are going to continue to because facebook is still growing. There are not a dying brand or dying company by any stretch. Now that regular readers regulators understand that power, it is going to come down on them on the privacy, the election angle, the propaganda angle. Everything they do is going to be subject to investigations, scrutiny. And extra firm islastair, your invested in 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. The obvious place that that starts is in foreign currency. We have already had Companies Come out and make it easier to shift money from one country to the other. 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 create their own versions, using technologies from people like token x, and then you get the Central Banks themselves worry about it. All this is pointing to a future where currencies will be much more fragmented and the way we move money will change. 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. Change is happening at multiple levels. Emily that was sarah frier and Alistair Mitchell of eqt ventures. How this company is going headtohead with walmart in the emerging retail 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. It battles walmart for one of the Fastest Growing retail markets. Walmart spent 60 billion last year on acquiring indian online retailer flipcart. In comparison, jeff has pledged 5. 5 billion on 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. 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 will hold 15,000. Is it mostly existing workers . Are they going to be adding new people . Brad probably both. I think they are going to be 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 chains, so india can be the kind of lab for the rest of amazon, and they also need to hire workers there 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. Flipkart, the Company Walmart acquired for 16 billion last had a head start. There was some kind of internal chaos. Walmart came and bought them. The founders have left. Flipkart is doing pretty well. Amazon prime is taking off. They dont release numbers, but they say membership is doubling. Look, they are probably both doing well because this is a rapidly expanding market. It is a country of 1. 3 billion people, rising middle class, Internet Penetration going up, so it is kind of a rising tide lifting all boats. Emily walmart offering a service with free streaming. 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, just, i believe, in flipkarts 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 in those smaller cities, and video