To undermine hong kong protests. What the company say theyre doing about it. And peering into palantir. Our exclusive conversation with the ceo of text most secretive and exquisite companies. Alex karp tells us why protesters wont stop them from doing business with the Trump Administration. But first, u. S. Announced this week it would extend a limited set of exemptions that protected Rural Networks and other customers from a ban on doing business with chinas huawei. This comes as the trade war wages and with u. S. Tech feeling the heat in anticipation of tariffs. One tech ceo is taking his concerns about possible tax straight to the top, apples tim cook. A move that is apparently impair impressed President Trump. I have with everybody, but he is when you called me. That is why he is a great executive, because he called me and others do not. Others go out and higher extensive consultants. And Tim Cook Donald trump directly. Pretty good. And i would take the call to. But yeley when he calls me is tim cook. He calls me whenever theres a problem. Whenever theres a problem, he will call. Emily we spoke with our Investment Management consulting kathy cook when across the tech sector. I think this president wants u. S. Companies to succeed, so 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 right now, apple tv, were learning more about that. Apple pay, what theyre doing in health care. So i think theyre also changing the subject to bit. So as you consider where to put your money, are tariffs being factored into consideration, of apple in particular. Well tariffs ever hit apple, even others this threat. Is this something youre thinking about . Sure, we think about taxes, which is what a tariff it is. Tariffs provide incentives or disincentives. So not having a taxes better than having attacks. But we do think the Services Platform that apple is building is going to overcome a lot of this, and maybe even speed those services along. Emily so lets talk about services. Their trailers out for apple tv plus and some of the shows, where expecting to see it unveiled in november. Netflix is the gorilla in the room. Disney is come out of the service at 11 per month compared to the competition. We do not know about apples price yet. How optimistic are you about apple tv plus . Having learned that they are pouring 6 billion into the circat, which is netflix 2016,. Netflix to 14 netflix closer billion now. 16 billion. In the morning show with jennifer aniston, there a lot for that, each up so costing more than game of thrones. There a lot, content providers on the big winners here. I do think this is going to be not just a one horse race. I think people will take several services and it is problematic for cable and for traditional broadcast tv. Thinkingw much are you about the antitrust issues, the doj opening it antitrust investigation to big tech in general, the ftc looking at facebook, states looking at big tech, there could be more. Rise. We do think about that. We have pulled back on many of the big names because, partly because of this issue. We do not we think it will be litigated for years and years. Break moblong time to l into the baby bells. That ended up working out ok for investors. So it is not always a bad thing. But the legal hassles, the distractions associated with it, can be problematic for some companies. Emily so youre saying even if big tech is broken up, potentially still good for investors . Not necessarily. Sometimes companys will go to the process, like microsoft did, and nothing happened. It is just a distraction. So i would much prefer full attention on their businesses, and not on these legal considerations. But the breakup of ma bell was not a bad thing. Im not saying i would like to see this. I just do not know. Sometimes there is a solution, meaning a breakup like that. Sometimes just never resolved. So given the antitrust issues, political uncertainty, economic uncertainty, the volatility of the markets, where you put your money across tech . Platforms,n five heavily. Theyre 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. So when we talk about dna sequencing, alumina and crisper gene editing and tell you, crisper therapeutics, these stocks are not priced for the x financial growth we believe that theyre going to deliver during the next five to 10 years. With tesla, autonomous vehicles, elektra veils will first. Electric vehicles first. From one point 5 Million Units to 26 million in five years. That is and was 20 phone growth. No one is asked almost 20 fold growth. Utonomous taxi networks no one believes that is going to happen we are investing in opportunities we believe are not discounted in the marketplace at all, in the case of gene editing, shall we say. Those three company together, we are here about curing disease, are valued at only 5 billion. Apple closer to a trillion dollars. These are lifesaving companies. So 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 attempted to undermine to protest 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 in the radio. Listen on the bloomberg gap. On bloomberg. Com, and in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Emily on monday twitter revealed it has found and deleted thousands of attacks used by the government to undermine the protest and calls for political change. Facebook followed suit, saying it acted on a tip from twitter. Also finding and deleting some fake accounts. Twitter says it will no longer accept advertising from statebacked media worldwide. We took we spoke to sam sacks, China Digital economy brett at new america, and bruen who set up a task force to counter russian disinformation at the white house. And bloomberg techs sarah luber text sarah frier. There 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. Twitter saying overall, these accounts were deliberately and attempting to sow, discord in hong kong, undermining the political 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. Brett obviously, it doesnt , sound like a huge number of accounts, but an image in this Political Landscape 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 . First, 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, for a while let russia take the , heat, but clearly, they feel threatened. And i would say that 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. Samm, 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 is going on, so they are going to where the conversation is taking place, facebook and twitter. Emily brett, 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 very 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 those 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 that was brett bruen of the Global Situation room, sam sacks of new america and luber text sarah frier. Regulators in the European Union bloomberg technologies sarah frier. E. U. Are and the looking into facebooks Digital Currency libra, a concern seat that is not launched. European commission is investigating potential anticompetitive behavior amidst concerns facebooks crypto ambitions would unfairly shut up rivals. Luber technologies 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 an extensive distributive network of partners to help on this. Emily some of those partners have kind of backed away. Sarah or refused to raise their 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. So 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 there ambitions lie beyond in a post privacy world, lunching assets. 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 as we speakthey are coming together to figure out if they outould they be figuring 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 . No come 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, some of the things of their own making. And frankly, some of the big manufacturers and browsers have done is to control the ability of people to bid on ads. And in the post privacy world some of the legislative things that have gone on in europe and now in the u. S. , and california. 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. It is dramatically going to change or some of these big tech players, especially facebook. 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 use, thats a tremendous amount of influence over what they read what they prioritize 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. Thats going to be on libra. Everything they do is going to be subject to investigations, investigations hearings, and extra scrutiny. , emily alastair, your firm is 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. Between places. We have already had Companies Come out and make it easier to shift money from one country to the other. Send money back. Now, with things like libra, makes payments much less frictional. 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 worrying 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. If i can move money from bank to bank without having to go through mastercard or visa card change is happening at multiple , levels. Emily that was sarah frier and Alistair Mitchell of eqt ventures. Amazon is betting big on india. How the Company 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, brad stone, 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 passed laws that 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 people. 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. Either from ola or uber eats. 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 year, had a head start. There was some kind of inte