In short
The episode covers three threads: (1) a New York Times report that Kevin Warsh is considering cutting the number of Fed interest-rate meetings, a “seismic” break with precedent that could rattle markets by increasing uncertainty about policy timing; Kate Davidson says emergency meetings could still allow rate moves, but communication norms would likely remain hard to restrict. (2) MAG7 earnings and AI spending: Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet are discussed via cloud growth and AI metrics (e.g., AWS growth 37%, Azure 43%, Amazon raising CapEx to $220B), while Apple drops after supply-chain misjudgments and weaker-than-expected September guidance (9.5% down). (3) Ed Zitron’s AI skepticism: he argues hyperscalers’ capex largely funds unprofitable OpenAI/Anthropic, citing UBS/Barclays revenue exposure estimates and OpenAI’s reported cash burn; he also claims Anthropic/OpenAI agents have hacked three organizations by exploiting code weaknesses.
Guests
Kate Davidson (Bloomberg News, U.S. Economic Policy managing editor) and Ed Zitron (Easy Primary Research CEO; Better Offline host).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOFederal Reserve Meeting Changes
0:22 to 1:24
Discussion about Kevin Warsh's proposal to reduce Fed meetings.
“When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track.”
Federal Reserve Meeting Changes
1:28 to 1:51
Discussion about Kevin Warsh's proposal to reduce Fed meetings.
“Whatever your goal, trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match.”
Federal Reserve Meeting Changes
2:44 to 7:18
Discussion about Kevin Warsh's proposal to reduce Fed meetings.
“Kate, this would be a very significant shift for the Federal Reserve.”
Earnings Reports and Market Reactions
7:18 to 10:50
Analysis of recent earnings reports from major companies and their market impacts.
“She's out there in the Bloomberg News DC Bureau.”
Rivian's Market Challenges
10:50 to 14:01
Discussion on Rivian's performance and challenges in the EV market.
“because I had a great conversation with the company CFO.”
Apple's Disappointing Earnings Call
14:01 to 14:31
Discussion of Apple's earnings call and market reactions.
“and the street was looking for 12%, which was already taking into account a very tough environment.”
Ed Zitron Joins the Discussion
16:53 to 17:36
Introduction of Ed Zitron and overview of AI-related topics.
“It is the perfect time to bring back Ed Zitron because we've got a lot to talk about with him.”
Skepticism Towards AI Investments
17:36 to 19:31
Discussion on the sustainability of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Either way, we're always interested in his perspective.”
Challenges of AI Funding
19:31 to 21:48
Exploration of the financial challenges faced by AI companies.
“So this goes back to, I feel like we have companies, the circular financing, the circularity of it all, and kind of creating demand for their products.”
The Issue of Customer Concentration
21:48 to 24:27
Discussion on revenue concentration and implications for AI companies.
“And that's if they get that far, which I don't believe they will.”
Show all 20 chapters
Public Perception of AI and Financial Practices
24:27 to 28:00
Examining public skepticism about AI and financial practices of tech giants.
“which is unsustainable, unprofitable, and also not really finding the ROI and AI.”
Skepticism Around AI Promises
28:00 to 29:19
Discussion on the overstatement of AI capabilities and concerns about sustainability.
“Like, do you think, you know, and to be fair, we really should reach out to everybody.”
Changing Narratives in AI Investment
29:20 to 31:08
Exploration of the evolving conversation around AI investment and ROI.
“And in the past with the tech industry, that's kind of come true, except it stopped really coming true about 10, 11 years ago.”
Elon Musk and SpaceX's Role in AI
31:09 to 32:38
Analyzing Elon Musk's economic impact and the implications of SpaceX's IPO.
“We really should have had it immediately.”
Security Risks of AI Models
32:39 to 34:06
Discussion on the potential security risks associated with AI and its management by companies.
“So should the US be in an arms race with China for AI?”
Concerns Over AI Governance
34:07 to 34:41
Critique of AI companies' practices regarding responsibility and security.
“And on top of it, it's they brute forced a hacking agent.”
Concerns Over AI Governance
35:01 to 35:23
Critique of AI companies' practices regarding responsibility and security.
“proteins, collagen, peptides to your daily routine.”
Citadel's Strategic Moves in Distress
36:28 to 42:00
In-depth analysis of Citadel's playbook in acquiring distressed assets.
“They're back, live across North America.”
Analyzing Market Reactions to Hedge Fund Moves
42:00 to 46:27
Learn about the impact of hedge fund strategies on market stability and returns.
“Because you got in right ahead of this decline.”
Analyzing Market Reactions to Hedge Fund Moves
46:31 to 46:56
Learn about the impact of hedge fund strategies on market stability and returns.
“trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match.”
Transcript
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2:23with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
2:27Ed Ludlow:Coming from The New York Times, the Federal Reserve, or rather Kevin Warsh, is considering reducing the number of regularly scheduled meetings at which the Fed sets interest rates. This from The New York Times. I want to bring in Kate Davidson, managing editor of U.S. Economic Policy. She joins us from Washington, D.C. Kate, this would be a very significant shift for the Federal Reserve. Yeah, this would be, as The Times says, a seismic change. It would certainly be the biggest change that Kevin Warsh has contemplated or undertaken. We've seen some, what seemed at the time, big changes, shortening quite a bit the Fed's post-meeting policy statement.
3:02And he has suggested that he could reduce the number of press conferences that he delivers after Fed decisions. But reducing the number of meetings would be a very large break with precedent. And I think certainly would rattle, could potentially rattle markets and leave them, I suppose, guessing more about what the Fed is going to do next, which we saw this week. They don't really like not knowing where the Fed is heading.
3:27Carol Massar:Yeah. I mean, is this a result of the meeting not going so well or at least the interpretation? I mean, the timing is kind of interesting here, Kate. I mean, I really couldn't speculate. We obviously are asking all of our sources to help us confirm this. According to the report, Kevin Warsh brought it up at the meeting this week, and they reported he suggested this could be a decision that's made before their next gathering in September. That would be surprising, a decision that consequential to be made that quickly. in other areas when Warsh was asked or has been asked about potential changes, he's kind of signaled that he's going to leave a lot of the discussion on these bigger questions up to the five task forces that he's assembled to look at different areas of how the Fed conducts policy.
4:16So I don't know, but it would certainly seem to be a very quick decision if it was made before the next Fed meeting.
4:23Ed Ludlow:Kate, would it make the Fed less nimble to react quickly? Because they can just do emergency rate moves. We've seen that in recent history. They don't have to meet to do this. That's true. Yeah. I mean, I think they would probably argue that it doesn't. Anytime they need to respond to changes in the economy in between their meetings, they can hold emergency meetings and they've done that.
4:45Carol Massar:That's a really good point. I mean, I do remember when we used to get surprise moves. I think about that and it sounded like, oh, remember the days. It wasn't even that long ago.
4:52Ed Ludlow:During COVID, we got it.
4:54Carol Massar:That's true. But I mean, and it really would have an impact on the markets, right? And I do you feel like, I mean, I wonder what's next. Does he limit the Fed members from speaking? Because they speak a lot. Like if you want to limit communication, or is that a useful tool in kind of getting some of the message out or differing points of views? Sure. The communications piece of it, there has been a really big question. We talked to a lot of people because Warsh, of course, had made these comments and floated these ideas even before he was confirmed as the chairman. And, you know, most people seem to agree or believe that you can't really restrict other policymakers from getting out there and speaking.
5:32So I think that, you know, we expect that they will continue to. Now, it seems like there's been a little bit, it's been a little bit quiet lately. That does tend to happen in the summertime. So it's a little early to tell whether there has been any kind of influence. I mean, there could be a little bit of a grace period or deferring a bit for some of them to the new chairman. But I don't think, we would be very surprised if we saw a big change in, as you say, maybe the number of public remarks from other officials. Things change.
5:59Carol Massar:Things change.
6:00Ed Ludlow:Well, it raises the question, too, about communicating, because communication happens a lot of different ways. One of the ways is when Fed speakers are out there and they're allowed to speak and they're all able to say really whatever they want to the press and to give press conferences or to give speeches, rather, do interviews. The other part of it has to do when the Fed chair actually speaks. And that's certainly when everybody tunes in at the same time. So there's no, you know, it's not really, I think people could argue, well, the members of the Fed will still be able to communicate, would still be able to communicate, even if there were fewer press conferences and they met fewer times.
6:41Sure, sure. And if those members wanted to give guidance on where they see the economy headed and where they see interest rates headed, they could certainly do that even if Kevin Warsh couldn't. So it's hard to know what the argument really would be and then to argue, you know, argue the counterpoint when we don't fully know what would be the reasoning behind this. But we'll keep asking and reporting it out ourselves.
7:05Carol Massar:Yeah, sorry. That means some work for you guys this weekend. I'm just going to say we're late tonight. Kate, thank you so much. Really appreciate that you weighing in here and giving us some analysis. Kate Davidson, she's managing editor of US Economic Policy. She's out there in the Bloomberg News DC Bureau.
7:36Ed Ludlow:It's being told through MAG7 earnings, at least this week, when four of the big companies reported. Amazon shares surging after the company reported cloud computing revenue accelerated for a fifth straight quarter. It eased investors' concern that it won't produce a return on huge expenditures to meet the booming demand for AI. And then, Carol, there's Apple.
7:56Carol Massar:Tumbling after component shortages weighed on the company's sales forecast, signaling that industry-wide supply constraints are taking a bigger toll than anticipated. He's been one of the voices guiding us through all of these earnings this week and really last. Ed Ludlow, host of Bloomberg Tech in the Bloomberg San Francisco bureau ed amazon and microsoft were cheered apple and alphabet not so much um is there a clear ai narrative or is it all company specific there was a note that hit my inbox from azuro this morning
8:27Ed Ludlow:that uh had an image at the top of it that said it was a red hat uh that people be familiar with something else but it said make fundamentals great again um and it was trying to kind of apply that. I think we should probably strip out Apple from the hyperscalers, right? Because it's muddled. But why is it that Alphabet was punished and the other two really cheered? It's hard to answer that because one of the things that the street liked about Microsoft was there was stuff beyond the top line growth. So they gave data around Copilot and how well that's doing. Amazon gave us the extra figures of revenue run rate for the AI business and revenue run rate for the chips business.
9:10Ed Ludlow:But Alphabet also gave us stuff like that. They told us about Gemini and tokens per minute. And for one reason or another, you know, it just wasn't enough. But in general, all three of them showed increased commitment to spending. Microsoft said it will protect free cash flow. And they all showed massive cloud growth. And that's the summary. If you just take away whatever the market reaction was in any case. So yeah, the market reaction for each of these on their own, notwithstanding, but the narrative hasn't changed at all since before Alphabet reported last week? Not really. I mean, there's a lot of specifics that are worth discussion.
9:49Ed Ludlow:Amazon raised CapEx by$20 billion for this year, in large part because the cost of building infrastructure is going up, right? So it's gone from$200 billion to$220 billion. But what Andy Jassy said was, that's largely because of higher memory prices. It's not necessarily raising capex because they feel like that would make them move faster on the infrastructure. But the cloud growth is there. You know, AWS growth of 37 % was pretty handsomely above street expectations. Azure's growth of 43 % was near to being in line, but it was like really cheered for one reason or another. Nothing's changed.
10:31Ed Ludlow:Spending go up. cloud growth go up. To put it simply.
10:38Carol Massar:I love that. Qualcomm, I don't know. Should we bring, is there anybody else we need?
10:46Ed Ludlow:We could bring in Rivian. I do want to talk to Rivian. Okay, let's go. Even though it's not one of the mag, because I had a great conversation with the company CFO.
10:53Carol Massar:He did, yeah.
10:54Ed Ludlow:Ed, we'll talk more of the mag seven, but I want to talk to you about Rivian because this is a company you followed since literally before it went public. You understand this industry better than pretty much anybody else. But the fact of the matter is Rivian is facing the same problems that Ford is facing, that General Motors is facing, that Tesla is facing. And that's, well, what is the appetite for EVs in this country? Yeah, I mean, the EV market generally has slowed over a number of years in America. Enthusiasm is gone. Even with the short term of the war in Iran and what that's done for gas prices, you know, it's not really changed trajectory.
11:35Ed Ludlow:Rivian opened higher 2 % and it's now down more than 7 % in the session, but they had a good quarter where basically they've been losing money for a long time. Those losses have narrowed and they launched their mass market product in a really small way at first, the R2, but they're now like have something to show for it in the real world. So, you know, the conversation I had with Claire McDonough, the CFO was very much like, okay, this is it now. To your mind, you're in the bigger leagues. When are you going to start seeing some financial returns on that? And the back half of this year is the answer.
12:08Carol Massar:Right. Every kind of growth company or new company has to grow up at some point, become a teenager and an adult, essentially. Hey, I want to... Sorry. Well, it's true. It's the reality, right? I do want to go back to Apple. We talked about Apple kind of looking smart regarding cash flow and capex spend and yet we have seen the stock under pressure
12:32Ed Ludlow:yeah i mean um gosh you also mentioned qualcomm um in passing a second ago so there's something common there but this is like a really profound reaction in the stock from apple yeah you know it's down nine and a half percent but put a better way it's the biggest drop since the world shut down for COVID in 2020, March 16th, 2020. And the story, put the numbers aside, was that Tim Cook, in his final ever call as CEO of Apple, made an admission that they'd got it wrong in the supply chain. So it's not just that memory chip prices are higher. They said those will continue to be higher into the September quarter.
13:13Ed Ludlow:It's that they basically said they misjudged demand and they placed the wrong volume of orders for lead edge processors with their suppliers. And so in the end, the demand is there for iPhones. They couldn't build enough of them because they got the math wrong on supply of components, which from, yeah. Yeah. Just 10 seconds. I mean, will demand still be there when they raise prices at the next level? Well, you know, Anarag made this point with us, right, that he felt the iPhone cycle for the 17th generation had one good quarter left in it. when you get to September and then suddenly you're in the release of the iPhone 18, that's where the higher memory pricing issue will show up.
13:54Ed Ludlow:So I don't know, really. I can't really answer that. The guide was that revenue growth in the September quarter will be 9 % to 11%, and the street was looking for 12%, which was already taking into account a very tough environment. And so Apple's projection came in below that. There was no sentimentality for the fact that it was Tim Cook's final call. You know, that's not what the market trades on.
14:18Carol Massar:Well, as the guy who oversaw supply chain, right, that's a rough way to go out. He's still there.
14:23Ed Ludlow:He's not out.
14:24Carol Massar:He's not out. But you know what I mean. Ed Ludlow, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yep. Host of Bloomberg Tech out there on the West Coast.
14:31Ed Ludlow:Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
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16:53Ed Ludlow:It is the perfect time to bring back Ed Zitron because we've got a lot to talk about with him. We spent a lot of our first couple of hours today talking about the drama around situational awareness, selling a chunk of its AI-related public equities. Then there's the latest from the Mag7. We did see shares of Meta fall 8 % yesterday after it gave that disappointing quarterly revenue forecast. At the same time, though, Carol, aggressive AI spending plans by Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet gave fresh evidence that demand for chips and related equipment will remain strong and offered relief to a sector that's been battered just in the last few days.
17:27Carol Massar:Can't wait to see what he has to say. Ed Zitron is back with us, CEO of Easy Primary Research, host of the Better Offline podcast. He also writes the Where's Your Ed at newsletter. To say he's an AI skeptic would be putting it likely. Some might say he's an AI hater. Either way, we're always interested in his perspective. He joins us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Where are we in terms of the AI narrative in your view? And what's the reality? Well, I think investors have to ask a question right now. What am I getting into when I invest in Microsoft, Google, and Amazon? So UBS estimates that 27 % of Google Cloud's revenue this year will be OpenAI and Anthropic, increasing to over 48 % next year.
18:06That is a remarkable amount of money. It's going to be over$124 billion next year. Everyone is buying into these stocks because they believe all of that capex is going towards diverse and spread out AI demand, when in fact what it's actually doing is helping create infrastructure for two unprofitable, unsustainable companies.
18:26Ed Ludlow:So the other one would be Anthropic, you argue. So give us more data because you're citing Microsoft. But what about AWS? Well, that was what I was saying. So Barclays actually says that this year, 13 % of AWS revenue will be both OpenAI and Anthropic. And next year will be 18%. AWS, much bigger business than Google Cloud. Now, just to be clear, when I was saying that 27 % this year and 48 % next year for Google Cloud, I meant both Anthropic and OpenAI. Most people don't know that OpenAI is a large customer of Google Cloud. It's not a well-known fact, but this was actually mentioned by UBS's Stephen Jew.
19:03Ed Ludlow:So where would those companies be right now without Anthropic and without OpenAI? Well, I have serious questions about that. So in calendar year 2025, according to my own reporting about OpenAI's numbers, 69 % of the year-over-year growth of Microsoft Intelligent Cloud segment was actually from OpenAI. Without that, it would have only grown 8 % year over year, which is barely beating inflation. And so everyone is being sold what I consider kind of a lie. It's honestly kind of a scandal.
19:31Carol Massar:So this goes back to, I feel like we have companies, the circular financing, the circularity of it all, and kind of creating demand for their products. So when does it start? I asked this earlier with a guest. When does the party end, in your view? yeah so with open ai's ipo i think that could be one of the flashpoints remember this company was meant to go public this year they filed about a month or two ago and now the new york times has reported that they're considering they are delaying until 2027 that's lethal for a number of people but open ai and anthropic need continual flows of capital they do not pay their bills out of existing cash flow so when anything happens to that cash i think that's the first thing kind of domino to fall.
20:17But then again, there's also the overall problem of data centers just not getting built very fast, taking about 12 to 36 months, depending on how small or large a data center is actually being built at. And the problem is, is that everyone believes that AI is coming out of cash flow, that AI is coming out of just this diverse revenue base, when it's really not. It's extremely narrow. The information reported a few months ago that 89 % of the largest AI companies, Well, their revenue comes just from open AI and Anthropic. It's heavily centralized.
20:46Carol Massar:Doesn't it have to be centralized to some extent? This is expensive to do or no, in terms of data center build out and so on and so forth. And what's going to make AI, generative AI, the ability for it to be really, really good is having access to lots of information. So doesn't it have to be, to some extent, Ed, concentrated? Well, when I say concentration, I mean concentration of revenue in these two companies. No, I understand. But to make it good. So doesn't it make sense that those who are exposed the most, it's going to be concentrated to some extent? Well, I mean, when we're talking about, so Sightline Climate said that they saw back in February, about 190 gigawatts worth of data center capacity being built in the next few years.
21:25It was built or under planning. Now, if you work that out with a PUE, so just the efficiency rating of 1.3, you're coming out to 12 million a megawatt, over$1.6 trillion of annual revenue needed to satiate those data centers. Having two customers is not going to do that. Even their most spendy. Anthropoc and OpenAI, well, they can't afford anything. They need venture capital. But they're only going to spend$400 billion a year. And that's if they get that far, which I don't believe they will. How much do we know about their balance sheets, really?
21:54Carol Massar:Really? Well, from personal experience, a great deal about OpenAI is because I reported their audited financials for the Financial Times. Right. And it's a company just burning cash. They lost$20.9 billion in 2025. And things are only getting worse. And what's crazy as well was over$800 million of OpenAI's revenue came from SoftBank for their Cristal Intelligence. And yes, that's really what it's called. Their Cristal Intelligence program, which I can find no evidence of actually anything happening. And SoftBank, a large shareholder of OpenAI with no board seats.
22:28Ed Ludlow:So, go ahead, Carol.
22:30Carol Massar:One more question, though. Like you talk about for Google Cloud, the exposure, right? And you said 48 % next year in terms of these two customers. I have to say that there are smart people running these companies. And normally you would say your exposure to just a handful of customers is not a great thing. Do you say that these companies that aren't doing their due diligence, be it Alphabet or, you know, pick your hyperscaler? I think they did their due diligence in the sense that they said, we are going to create our largest customers and we're going to own large parts of them. And on top of that, we're going to own all of their infrastructure.
23:06Google has a nice, they have a nice thing going here. They buy TPUs from, well, sorry, Broadcom sells TPUs to Google. They are then sold to Anthropic and then rented back to Anthropic through Google. Google gets to double up on revenue. this sounds really good right up until you realize that anthropic and open ai are unsustainable so what they may be and the problem is with saying these are smart people as it immediately makes me think of enron the smartest guys in the room yeah not saying anything like that's happening
23:34Carol Massar:but i'm just saying you have a fiduciary responsibility and you're right you go back to enron or world comic i think the point i'm making is yeah with google they probably thought they would be more customers i imagine with azure and with aws they thought would be more large players. But the problem with Anthropic and OpenAI is they've raised$200,$300 billion of funding, but they've actually raised more because OpenAI and Anthropic got all of their infrastructure built for them by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. They didn't have to pay, I think, in the Sam Altman, Elon Musk trial, one of the Microsoft executives said that they cost$100 billion, so call it like$70,$80 billion of infrastructure.
24:13So the problem is that nobody else can get as big as them. No one else can get that much compute. No one else could afford that compute. and have the chance to do the pre-training runs necessary. Except now China's coming up behind them. And it's unclear how anyone really deals with any of the problems I've been listing for years, which is unsustainable, unprofitable, and also not really finding the ROI and AI.
24:36Ed Ludlow:We're speaking with Ed Zitron, the CEO of Easy Primary Research. He joins us on set in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Ed, play this out for us, because I think a lot of people think, okay, for there to be some sort of ROI on this, one thing has to happen. And like the best case scenario for all this money being spent is that productivity increases, fewer people are needed to do more things. There are some serious implications if that were to come true and to the labor force. And Dario Amadei of Anthropic has talked about this in the past. Maybe he's talking his book. I don't know. The other side of this is, well, if that doesn't come true, then what does it mean for these stocks that have gained so much on hopes that they would be responsible for some of this productivity increase like how does this the shoe drop what happens well the thing is if you think about what amazon google and microsoft have done and met to some extent but they're not selling compute capacity yet is they have gone from being these cash heavy these cash machines they just spill out money low low cash burn high revenue low assets into these bulbous GPU-filled asset mongers who are just full of these semi-built data centers for two customers or three customers at best so that they can do what?
25:54Rent them out so that they can rent their models. And it isn't really clear what the plan is at this point. And the problem is, for me to be right, it doesn't even have to go that badly. OpenAI and Anthropic have to grow so large to be able to make all of this data center capacity good. I mean, Google's, I think the UBS estimate was like$76 billion in 2027 of Google Cloud's revenue will come from Anthropic. How's Anthropic going to afford that? They burn tens of billions of dollars. So it's not just that these companies are unprofitable and unsustainable, but they have to grow so very large to make AI pay off, because otherwise there just isn't demand for compute at scale.
26:34Ed Ludlow:Last time you were on with us, we got a really incredible response, to be honest. And a lot of people who weren't typical viewers or listeners of our show saw what you did and listened to what you did. And it really seemed like there's this, what you're saying is resonating with a lot of people. Like there's a, it was almost like there's this anti-AI fervor that's out there. And I'm just curious why you think that is. So I'm not sure it's, is anti-AI, don't get me wrong, but I think it's also anti-financial shenanigans. I think everyone sees the circular financing. I think they see that Microsoft, Google, and Amazon gets basically all of their AI revenues, either through products they're pushing on their customers or indeed compute spend from Anthropic and OpenAI.
27:17And the average person's existence right now is so expensive, so hard, so difficult. Getting a mortgage as a regular person is so difficult. But if you're standing up a theoretical data center in 36 months full of NVIDIA GPUs, the banks fall over themselves to give you the money. Cool, we've just raised, what, a 9 % bond? I mean, you can raise anything if you have a data center. And I think regular people can see that AI does not deliver what people promise. They can see the opulence of the people at the top of the AI industry. And they can also see that they're being lied to and being deliberately scared on top of all of this egregious circular financing.
27:53Carol Massar:So you think people are actually lying? Like, or do you think people - Who, specifically? I don't know. Like, is it the companies at the hyperscalers, the CEOs, the bankers? Like, do you think, you know, and to be fair, we really should reach out to everybody. But I mean, is that what you're saying? Or do they not really know? I think they're overstating things. I think lying would suggest a certain malice, what have you. I don't want to accuse anyone of. But I believe that they are massively overstating what AI will do. You'll notice that AI people tend to speak in the future tense. They tend not to say, oh, well, today it can.
28:30It's always AI will, AI will. Oh, we're going to get the singularity. Oh, AI will do this and that. That's because when they talk about what's happening today, it's pretty mediocre outside of code. And on top of that, these things are horribly unsustainable and unprofitable. And on top of that, they've got these destructive data centers, these massive eyesores that poison black communities, these massive eyesores that need billions of dollars at a time when it's hard for a regular person to get a dime from the banks. So yeah, I think that there is beyond just the misleading this general sense of unfairness that ai taps into and on top of that If this all goes pear-shaped These people are going to realize that there was an authority crisis happening That so many people got beguiled by hyperscaler promises and what it ultimately is and i'm quoting ed elson of prof g markets here Our media I believe has a cult-like worship of the wealthy that they believe that whatever the wealthy says will come true And in the past with the tech industry, that's kind of come true, except it stopped really coming true about 10, 11 years ago.
29:32And we exited the era of hypergrowth. And that's all AI is. AI is an attempt to restart hypergrowth for hyperscalers who don't have a new Google search, who don't have a new iPhone, and certainly do not have a next Amazon Web Services.
29:46Carol Massar:You know, the narrative and the conversation, though, around AI, I mean, we've been covering it from day one. I can remember the Microsoft and OpenAI investment. Our world changed in terms of every conversation that we've been having. But as of late, easily the last six months, maybe longer, this idea of return on investment, which wasn't there initially. If the companies weren't, their CapEx wasn't growing, they weren't spending, every company wasn't talking AI, you got punished. Now it's getting a little bit more discriminating, if you will, or specific in terms of looking at cases and what are we getting at.
30:18Carol Massar:We had an investment advisors earlier, and she said the same thing. Like, companies are starting to look at what is the cost of tokens? What does it cost to have all these models for our employees? What are you using it for? Really? You know, just do that on your own. So the conversation narrative is changing. Don't you think it will continue to change, and it might be uncomfortable in terms of how it plays out in financial markets? Because as the reality comes, in your view? Yes, I think this conversation is only going to accelerate. OpenAI didn't cut prices because they found some mystical way of making things cheaper.
30:52It makes something 80 % cheaper. They saw the danger from China and they saw the competition from Anthropic and they said, well, we're allowed to burn billions of dollars, so why don't we just cut prices and then make it up in volume for an unprofitable product? I think the ROI conversation is only going to accelerate too, because we should have really had it years ago. We really should have had it immediately. But again, people believe everything the tech industry says, And they just thought, well, they wouldn't say this and be wrong, would they?
31:19Ed Ludlow:Where, in your view, does Elon Musk and SpaceX fit into this conversation? I bring it up because we learned this afternoon that Elon Musk's net worth has fallen to$684 billion, which, yes, is a lot of money. It has erased, though, the IPO gains from SpaceX. And we haven't been with you. Still the world's richest. You've got a rich go on the bluebird. You haven't joined us since SpaceX IPO'd. But there's a data point there for at least in the short term reception to a public company that has pretty significant exposure with AI. Well, I think SpaceX is kind of the proof point you need. We have someone who can sink unlimited capital into this, who can hire anyone, who can theoretically stand up as much capacity as possible, breaking multiple laws at the same time, not getting the permits.
32:08And what did we get for it? We got Grok. And what is Grok? Well, it's a third, fourth, fifth tier LLM that really only some people use by accident when they turn on Twitter. So we have this thing where we've had our third anthropic in open AI. We've seen someone else try it. We've had what should be the proof point that AI is an industry, that we can have many AI labs and, oh, a thousand flowers will bloom. And what we have is manure. We have a company that loses billions of dollars to do what? I don't know. So should the US be in an arms race with China for AI? No, I think that the arms race with China in and of itself is a marketing ploy.
32:48What? Oh, no. What's China going to do? Make a cheaper and better LLM? Uh-oh, it already happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
32:56Ed Ludlow:What about the security risks that these LLMs or some of these agents are exposing? Those from OpenAI and those from Anthropic? Well, I think the biggest risk with OpenAI and Anthropics agents is they don't appear to do basic security practices. They don't appear to take care of how they're using their systems. OpenAI say, I actually question this entire story, that their agent ran autonomously for multiple days burning what sounds like unlimited compute. either this company has run so terribly that they were running up millions of dollars of bills to randomly do stuff and also they don't watch what it's doing software does what it's told to do we don't know the prompt we don't know the training and they're not releasing the model but it doesn't change the fact that these agents reportedly found weaknesses in code that if not exposed or that that could be vulnerable like what i'm saying is if this there there is an idea that if this gets into the wrong hands, then systems could break down, just very briefly.
33:57One thing, it's already in the wrong hands, open air and anthropic. They've shown they do not have the responsibility to make security tools. They should not be making them. They don't know what they're doing. It's blatantly obvious. And on top of it, it's they brute forced a hacking agent. They shoved as much compute power into it as possible. You can also pay hackers to do that. it's illegal. Also, this all sounds illegal. I'm no lawyer. I'm no judge, but I don't know where they're allowed to do this. Yeah, these things are dangerous if they're allowed to be trained on cybersecurity measures and execute against them.
34:28I find the whole thing repugnant because everyone is saying, oh, look at the scary LLM versus looking at the companies that run it.
34:34Carol Massar:We got to run. 20 seconds. Anything that would change your mind and make you say this is real, real quickly. Not really. No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's a lot lot of conversations this week and it was great to get your input. Ed, thank you. Ed Zichman, CEO, Easy Primary Research right here in our studio.
34:53Ed Ludlow:Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
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37:15Ed Ludlow:It's practically an adage on Wall Street by now. You know you're in trouble when Ken Griffin calls. This time the call came for situational awareness. It's a high-flying hedge funder. Well, it is still high-flying, I think it's fair to say.
37:27Carol Massar:It's still got$10 billion it's playing with. I think Hema told us it was the largest hedge fund or one of the largest. The bigger one. It's a big deal.
37:35Ed Ludlow:Suddenly, though, it's come crashing down to earth. It's just the beginning of the latest piece from Bloomberg News hedge fund reporter Hema Parmar. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Why were so few people surprised that Ken Griffin swooped in to pick up the pieces of this? So this is a classic Citadel playbook. You know, it's what he does. It's what Citadel does. They've been doing it for decades, which is to see these distressed companies, these firms, and take the opportunity to either buy assets at a discount, snap up talent at a discount, provide some sort of emergency funding with attractive terms.
38:12He did this with Amaranth. He did this with Melvin Capital, most famously and most recently. He's done this with other hedge funds. And Enron, he snapped up talent within hours of the bankruptcy of that company. So it is not surprising when the news broke that this was Citadel. I think the industry was like, yeah, that makes sense.
38:34Carol Massar:Is it a charitable move? It is not always a charitable move, rarely. The move is financial. It's strategic. It is to snap up things at great prices. Talent, if people are moving, they will take a job, and you don't need to be too competitive. And keep in mind for multi-shred funds, talent is the most expensive part of running a hedge fund. assets, when you can get them at a 10 % discount, which is what this deal was at, then it is a significant move and an opportunistic investment for these guys. Okay.
39:10Ed Ludlow:Dumb question incoming. Is there a way? I mean, obviously there's not, but explain for people who might say, well, why not try to unwind some of these positions on the open market? Mm-hmm. Were they too big and concentrated to do that? They're big, they're concentrated, and as soon as you start selling some of these things, you create a spiral, right? People see that these asset prices are falling, and then the more you sell, the more you're going to be losing. So people like to do these block trades where they find a buyer, they sell it all in one chunk to somebody else, and it spooks the market less.
39:47Still at a discount, for sure, because that buyer has the negotiating power to demand what they seek. So it'll spook the market less. It'll protect your assets more. And you can do it a little bit more quietly. And ideally, before the market opened, which is what took place here.
40:04Carol Massar:Right. Exactly. Right? I mean, I think about this even during the financial crisis. I'm not making a comparison. But when we know that there were problems at different banks or institutions, you wanted the least to get out, especially if you were trying to negotiate a deal because things were rapidly becoming cheaper or not even having a value. You report, it's unclear exactly what equity Citadel purchased, but you do point out that many of the biggest names in situational awareness is public book rallied yesterday. So CoreWeave jumped nearly 22 % that day. Bloom Energy jumped 26%. Again, we can't make any conclusions, right?
40:43Carol Massar:When will we know? Will it be in terms of what Citadel, yeah, and maybe what Citadel picked up? Yeah. Yeah, so they would have taken a bulk, a huge significant chunk of the asset. So you would assume that the fund is profiting on how these shares are doing now. We'll get a better sense of returns early next week as they start to tell their investors numbers, as information starts to flow on how these firms are doing. Citadel has done kind of mediocre so far this year. This month as well, kind of flat, less than 50 basis points. So this sort of deal should really lift the fund's return a significant amount is the expectation.
41:21Ed Ludlow:When a firm like situational awareness has a big drawdown such as this or a large decline in value and has to make block trades to offload some of its assets because of margin calls, what typically happens to the investors who still have money there? Do they say, I'm done? So the investor's reaction will depend on when they got in. If you were an early investor in situational awareness, you probably did okay. You're still up. The fund is up 80 % so far this year. So if you got in in January, you might still be fine. If you're an investor that got in in June, you've gotten the past couple months, you're not doing too well.
42:03Because you got in right ahead of this decline. The stocks have fallen. They've exited these assets or sold it off at a discount. So you're not pleased. So there is going to be a huge spread in the kinds of returns you're seeing for each different type of LP.
42:18Ed Ludlow:Do we know if it was the type of fund that you could just get in and get out of when you wanted to? I don't think we know the liquidity terms of this fund. Because some of the investments are privates, there will likely be a side pocket or some sort of restraint in your ability to get out of the anthropic stakes, for example. Um, that's those chunky private positions are also what's allowing the firm to be the stable because you have this stuff that you can't sell really fast, generally speaking.
42:44Carol Massar:Right. Exactly. You have a great little quote. I guess, did you speak to Cliff Asness? He, uh, he wrote in, um, there was a public comment that he had made back in 2007 where he described what it was like to get the call from Citadel. Would you like to, would you like to read it? Yes. Do you want to read it? I looked up and saw the Valkyries coming and heard the Grim Reaper's scythe knocking on my door. I did my best to run to the light. I'm trying to also, Hema, what's your view on what this means for AI? I mean, interesting that Citadel, like they like a bargain. Yeah. It's going to juice their returns.
43:26Carol Massar:It'll be interesting to see how long they hold on to this. Yes, exactly. These positions they've got to be careful to on the unwind. But in a market where things are swinging a lot, we're trying to understand this AI trade and spend and investment. Is there a takeaway from this? That Citadel was at least interested? Well, Citadel and other multi-trats tend to be, they're supposed to be market neutral. Meaning they have less exposure to the market if it makes big swings up and big swings down. They also trade a lot of assets that do different things in separate little individual teams. And so that structure should protect you from big swings.
44:01Granted, they just bought this huge portfolio. But also keep in mind Citadel's$71 billion. So whatever size they bought, it's still going to be a fraction of total firm assets. When you look at firms and hedge funds that are more concentrated, say long-short equity funds, say tech-focused funds, and you see these big swings, we have seen some funds make and lose a lot of money based on the month. So that's when you see more risk. And again, to this point, situational awareness was highly levered. That's another factor to look at. a lot of the funds don't have as much leverage as we've seen situational awareness.
44:34Ed Ludlow:I keep thinking this could have been so much worse. It could have been if they didn't find a buyer. They were looking at selling both their public stocks and their private books. It sounds like they were looking at selling whatever they could to get out as fast as they could. And that is not a good position for a$45 billion fund to be in. That can really scare the market. It can scare investors. and we saw the tumult yesterday really ripple through until markets calmed once we got a sense of who the buyer was.
45:02Carol Massar:Real quickly, 20 seconds, the fund is still up a lot this year. Citadel? No. Situational? Yeah. Situational is up a lot this year. For the month, it's down a lot. I would judge it based on when the investor got in. If you're a recent investor, you're not too happy. If you're early, you might be fine. Timing is everything, isn't it? Timing is everything. So great to have you here and really helping us through this story. Bloomberg News Hedge Fund reporter, Hema Parmar, joining us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Thank you. Thank you.
45:30Ed Ludlow:This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
46:20Carol Massar:Thank you. work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com.
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From the publisher
The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is considering reducing the frequency of the central bank’s scheduled policy meetings, the New York Times reported Friday. Warsh raised the proposal to change the frequency of meetings at this week’s gathering of the Federal Open Market Committee, the paper added.
On this episode, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec speak with:
- Kate Davidson, Bloomberg News Managing Editor for US Economic Policy
- Ed Ludlow, Bloomberg Tech Host
- Ed Zitron, CEO, EZPR
- Hema Parmar, Bloomberg News Hedge Fund Reporter on The 24-Hour Race to Salvage Situational Awareness’ AI Bets/Who Is Leopold Aschenbrenner and Why Is Wall Street Watching?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
