Has opened hearings that could lead to the impeachment of the irs leader. They will look at targeting of conservative groups. Latimer putin is promising that russia will take steps to retain strategic parity. Rizals new finance minister brazils new finance minister promises to reform the countrys pension system. Brazil is in its worst recession since the 1930s. Im mark crumpton. Bloomberg west is next. Brad im brad stone and for emily chang. This is bloomberg west. Coming up, apple drops a billion dollar, investing in one of ubers rivals. What this means for apples Current Mission and its relationship with the Chinese Government. And hypersonic pods a step closer to becoming reality . We have the details. Tesla shifts reduction into production into ludicrous mode as ceo elon musk promises to deliver half a million cars by 2018. Can he get there . We will discuss. But first to our lead apple dropping 1 billion on ubers rival in china and its a big deal for several reasons. This is one of apples biggest deals ever, second only to its acquisition of beats in 2014. It also came in just teed of it also came in 22 days. The president of the company met tim cook only about a month ago. And it could be a public show of goodwill to the Chinese Government. Later, we will dig into what edge this gives didi in its battle with uber. Brian white defended his buy rating on apple on surveillance this morning. Guest it allows apple pay to spread through china. It builds up goodwill with the Chinese Government and its an interesting area and theres a lot of discussion of apple on this course. Apple involved in baton of the scars. Involved in autonimous cars. Brad joining us, an early investor in didi and bloomberg reporter alex webb, who covers apple. This is an unusual deal for apple. What did they do it . In china, apple has lagged behind the public support and building that the Chinese Government expects that companies from outside coming in should be a part of. Achieving this is a positive for apple. Its very, very visionary. Brad some people are interpreting this as a show of goodwill. Why does apple need to show goodwill toward the Chinese Government . Hans its a very big market. Whether it is the taiwanese, hong kong, earlier now with the americans and europeans, this is a strategy the Chinese Government has adopted. Brad apple is not doing poorly in china. 59 billion dollars in sales last year in china. Really better than any other American Technology company and there is a history of failure there. The iphone sales are down in china. You mentioned services being closed down there. What is the state of the what do in china and you think tim cook is thinking there . Apple has enjoyed stratospheric growth in china. It has hit a hurdle. Growth has slowed. This is clearly a play on one level at least to build the Services Revenue in this country, if they can push apple pay. We dont know the details. If they can push apple pay, and can help drive the growth. Brad what are we likely to see . Apple Services Like apple pay. What else being pushed out to didi users . Hans you campaign for products,. You can pay for our ducks you can pay for Services Utility bills, and we pay or we have alipay. With didi, there are millions and millions of ride today. That the payments and apple is part of that. For apple pay to be more popular in china, it means and at where people will want to use a payment solution. This is one way of doing that and its definitely worth monitoring. Brad there are other bigname investors. Hans having apple featured more prominently makes a huge difference. We will have to see how the market will evolve. And also with cars, right . You need somebody who is a lot of cars or works on a lot of cars. Didi is the next guy you should be thinking about. Brad uber and google, there are problems in the relationship, but i get your point. Alex, this is a small amount of the cash apple has on hand. Does this mean you will have more nights and mornings like the one you had covering this . Alex for the sake of my peace of mind, i hope not. A person i was talking to earlier joked is a pretty good way to hold your money offshore. There are so many ways that this can be appreciated. To the skepticism of some analysts there is access to didi, also a huge upside for them. It makes sense and thats a small bet. Brad how did the market react . Alex ambivalent. Like you said, a billion is nothing compared to what they actually have in the bank. A but it is a valuable chunk of cash. Brad we will talk more about what this means for didi, but didi has raised a tremendous amount of money. We are talking about just 3 billion just this year. Talk a little bit, hans, about what difference this makes to didi. Hans uber is making a huge push in china. Did understands that. Travis is trying to do stuff brad who is travis . Ubers ceo. Hans thats right. Its touching different aspects. Youve been to china. You know how congested traffic is. Whenever anyone shops like American Consumers with the car, its extremely unbearable in china. So some kind of ride sharing scheme is needed. Didi is needed. But you will be fighting against uber. You need allies and support. At some point, i still feel the best solution is what alibaba and yahoo did years ago, what jerry yang came up with. Im expecting Something Like that. It could come in the future. We will see. Brad ok, alex webb, thank you. Hans is staying with us. Another revolving door intact. Tech. Nba legend Magic Johnson is stepping down from the board of square less than a year after joining. Magic wants to focus on his new project jlc loop capital partners. The fund has raised a quarter of a billion dollars this year. Johnson is being replaced with the former transportation secretary to the united kingdom. Up next, the billiondollar blow to uber. We will focus on what china from number one right handling service gains from the deal with apple. And another of elon musks projects the future for electric cars. The hurdles that tesla must overcome. Brad continuing with our top story, apples billiondollar investment in didi chuxing. Didi was already a powerhouse in the ride hailing industry. The company says it owns 99 of the market for hailing cabs. Existing backers include chinas against internet companies. Perhaps its biggest competitive advantage against uber, a fourway partnership with other car sharing services, all of whom helped the company fend off its biggest rival, uber. Last month, emily chang asked didis president about comparing with uber. Guest i would rather focus on ourselves rather than her. Rather than looking at others. I think the industry is in an infancy stage. For us, it is more focusing on what we have to achieve brad . Achieve. Brad here to discuss, hans and tim higgins in washington. Thank you for joining us. Uber wants to get into 100 chinese cities this year. Didi is in 400. Does didi have a shot in china . Hans i am biased because i am invested in didi. What er has uber has done in china is impressive. Uber has to fight like a Chinese Company would. Its impressive. That having been said, didi has been around longer, knows china better, and has more coverage in cities with quite better service. It will be interesting to see what uber does after a few more years. Brad when we look back at this story, will china be its waterloo . Hans i like what jerry yang did when he was a yahoo when he did the deal with alibaba, joining the forces of two companies to do better in china. Is it possible for uber no. The possibility exists. Brad a uberdidi peace treaty and china, youre predicting . Hans there is uber eats, and what do you do . Beyond just people. Allou want to battle on fronts . Look at the dominant players in key countries. But thats really up to travis, the ceo of uber, to see what he wants to do. Brad tim, in washington, so many chess moves on the chess board right now. With an eye to the future of Autonomous Cars do you think apples investment in didi is related to apples plans to develop an apple car . Tim its definitely one of those relationships like it out down the road. When we talk about the future of cars and ride handling programs, it is seen as a way this Technology Goes more mainstream. We see gm getting into lyft earlier this year. You saw uber developing its own Autonomous Car abilities. The idea it can make it go mainstream and that is an expensive oneoff item in the corner that does not get traction. Brad hans, you mentioned the state of traffic in china earlier, something out of an apocalyptic movie sometimes. What are the possibilities for Autonomous Vehicles on chinese roads . Do you think didi and apple had that in mind . Hans you cannot drive two days out of seven days. The Traffic Congestion problem is getting bigger and bigger. So car sharing has to be part of that. Will this be part of that . I think so. We will probably see adoption in the u. S. First. But i think there is the motivation china to coordinate the cars out there. Brad they talked about Autonomous Cars and that technology is captivated the chinese market, but the chinese Auto Industry is so young. What is the possibility for a Chinese Car Company to lead in this area . Tim you bring up an interesting point with congestion. If you look at the size of the market there, automakers have been selling more and more. You look at the most recent figures. 80 cars for every 1000 old. Its a must 100 per thousand people. Its still really juvenile there. The idea that the market can be changed, that you bring the latter of consumerism, as you see in the states. Consumers might be interested in having personalized transportation through an atomic through an Autonomous Car rather than i need to buy a car because that is the thing Autonomous Car rather than i need to buy a car because that is the thing to do there. Brad tim, gm made a big investment with the Ridesharing Company lyft. How do you think that they were looking at this deal today . Tim maybe they felt like they got a deal in lyft, i dont know. Gm is a big deal in china. Its a big market. A big market for its fuutre. Future. You would like to see them do this there. They rolled out there early autonomous project called nv several years ago at the world expo in shanghai. It attracted a lot of people there, a lot of excitement. A lot of excitement they had not gotten in the states with this kind of program. Brad hans, quick last question for you are we going to see a didi ipo . Hans they are focusing on what they can do in china. The global lines between lyft and didi in china and also in india that would be interesting. This has gone global. Penetration has gone global. It will be very interesting for the next five years to watch more developments like this happen. Brad ok, i look forward to continuing the conversation. Tim higgins and hans thank you. Why a manager from argentina is why the u. S. Ambassador to argentina is visiting Companies Like tesla. He visits us next. Brad turning now to investments in south america. The u. S. Ambassador to argentina is wrapping up a weeklong visit to the west coast. Its all in an effort to expand tech partnerships between american and argentine firms. The ambassador to argentina joins us now. Tell us about this trip. What is the mission . Guest i have been thinking about this for a year because i am from southern california. The idea was to focus on innovation, technology, and renewable energy, especially energy. What is happening in los angeles on the whole state is amazing. Right now argentina gets 1 , more or less, from their energy from wind and solar, and we are nearly 50 in the next four years from wind and solar. We can bring a high delegation of Corporate Leaders to develop these partnerships and linkages. Brad tell me more who was with you on this trip. Ambassador mahet we had a real mex. We had a woman who was the president of a subsidiary. All kinds of industries. Agriculture, technology, and it was a really broad section. And for the first time ever, the argentine government is attracting the private sector into government. The chairman of shell. There were many leaders who came from the private sector. They are embracing the idea that argentina should focus on not just business, but technology and disruptive technology. Brad, my understanding is that it has been characterized by great turbulence. Is that over . Ambassador mamet sure. Many companies have been doing business there for a while. Many have been there for 100 years. This new government though, it was really an upset election. Not just on the city level. We have these relationships with all of these partners. Part of it is generational, i think, and part of it is a real desire to even out that curve and embrace technology. Technology in general has not kicked into the economy just yet. But its about to. Brad where is argentina right now in upgrading its infrastructure . Ambassador mamet they can raise money to do infrastructure projects. Roads, Water Treatment plants. You had this week push this big push. Its a big deal. Phone calls to drop. But you have government officials at all levels understanding they have to quickly get were california is right now. Brad argentina is surrounded by countries who are growing more quickly. What is argentinas pitch visavis its neighbors . Ambassador mamet i talked to companies that are extremely concerned about brazil, for example. If you look at emerging markets around the world, the biggest returns are coming from argentina with a government that is trying to create a transparent, stable, longterm, Good Environment to invest. We are seeing companies all the time coming down to get the lay of the land and sea a good place to do business areas like i said, there are over 500 companies there. Brad ok, thank you for your time. We are looking forward to the results all of your tour. Coming up, elon musk looking to rocket passengers from San Francisco to l. A. In less than an hour. It may be one step closer to reality. That is coming up next. [ soft music ] e. T. Phone home. When you find something you love, you can never get enough of it. Change the way you experience tv with xfinity x1. Shoah, ha ha. Ew artist. Show me top male artist. My whole belieber fan group. Its not a competition, but if it was i won. Xfinity x1 lets you access the greatest library of Billboard Music awards moments, simply by using your voice. The Billboard Music awards, live sunday may 22nd, 8 5 pacific, only on abc. Mark im mark crumpton. Youre watching bloomberg west. Lets check your first word news. It says that home in equity prices could drop sharply. Were not doing it out of politics. This is not the job of the imf. We are doing it because it is a significant bounce, and its not just a domestic issue. Its a bigger issue for many of you. But its an international issue. Mark britains socalled brexit referendum is june 23. It is likely to feel a cold chill from the rest of europe if it leaves. That is according to the irish Prime Minister. If the british electorate were two to decide to leave the european union, we would stand up for britain at a european level, but i could not determine the outlook of the response from the other 26 countries that had arrangements at britain, what they would be at that stage. Mark Prime Minister kenny says that ireland has reached out to its citizens living in the uks in the u. K. So they know what the consequences of a brexit would be. Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau traveled to afford Fort Mcmurray to assess the damage from the wildfire. More than 88,000 people were evacuated. Donald trump picked up what could turn out to be a lucrative endorsement. Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson says he is backing trump. He writes, the alternative to trump being elected is frightening. In 2012, adelson and his wife contributed 93 million to super pacs supporting republican candidates. The white house talks to the leaders of five nordic countries. The agenda included environmental and economic and refugee issues. President obama they are extraordinary countries, and most importantly for our areoses here today, they extraordinary friends. Mark the heads of denmark, finland, iceland, norway, and sweden are being celebrated at a stat dinner. A new jersey woman and her children claimed a 429. 6 million powerball jackpot, choosing a lump sum over an annuity so the payout is 284 million before taxes. I am mark crumpton, reporting from new york. This week, the hyperloop, elon musks future idea of rocketing city to city in supersonic pods, may have come closer to reality. They are two main groups, Hyperloop One which tested a new propulsion system in a public demonstration that saw a sled accelerate to 116 miles an hour in 1. 16 seconds, and there is hyperloop transportation technologies, a crowd sourced project that said it licensed a levitation system from Lawrence Livermore national lab. Here to tell us more, dirk ahlborn. And dana hall who covers everything elon musk. Thank you both for joining us. Dirk, lets talk a little about what we saw this week. Mainly from the competition. Did Hyperloop One raise the bar this week . What did they show . Dirk i think they did a really great event. The system they showed is a propulsion technology, which is fairly common, but still a great step for the overall hyperloop community. A big part of it is creating awareness. Definitely great. Brad talk a little bit about your announcement this week.