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President Trump moves to have tech companies pay for surging energy prices following the rise of AI data centers plus AI coding startup RECLT could hit evaluation of nine billion dollars in a new round of funding.

We have the details, and we'll be joined by the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission for a conversation on antitrust, consumer protection, and AI regulation that is later this hour.

Our top story to Trump administration and governors from Northeastern states are taking an unprecedented step to get tech companies to pay for surging energy price is as data centers gobble up more electricity, the administration will direct the country's largest grid operator, PJAM Interconnection to hold an emergency power auction.

That's according to a White House official.

Those companies will be able to bid on fifteen year contracts for new electricity generation, which could support potentially fifteen billion dollars worth of new power plants.

To fuel the AI boom.

Also, according to the official Bloomberg, Senior Tech editor Mike Shepherd joins us, Now, what do we need to know here, shep, I mean, this is very much in the consciousness of this administration, but also at the forefront of what the hyperscalers are thinking about too.

Bill really is in a lot of ways, while the administration is trying to find a way to make the tech companies pay for some of this new power that they would need to sustain and keep the AI boom going, they are also giving the tech industry, in large part, especially the biggest companies the hyperscalers, what they've wanted.

They are willing to pay for some of their extra power generation, but they need somehow the wherewithal from the grid operators themselves to add that infrastructure.

So this would provide some stability in the funding, and it would also provide a slug of money for the grid operator in this case PGM Interconnection, to start laying the groundwork for some of that infrastructure.

Now, what's interesting about this is PGM actually runs these kinds of so called emergency auctions on a somewhat regular basis, and they almost have one in the pipeline for this very need for the question of data centers, but they usually go on twelve month intervals, not fifteen year intervals, so this really would provide pricing stability for those buyers.

Now, one other question, though ed, is how the grid operators will proceed with this, and PGM was not invited to the White House event.

We are expecting an announcement shortly from Interior Secretary Doug Bergham and Energy Secretary Chris Right, and it's unclear exactly how enthusiastically they will be embracing this.

The other big news overnight, the United States and Taiwan have reached a deal to lower tariffs on some goods but critically cooperate and co invest in semiconductor capacity.

What do we need to know, they might.

Well, what's really key in this deal is that not only are we seeing the tariff rate on goods from Taiwan dropped to fifteen percent from the current twenty percent, just as importantly, we are seeing the outlines of a more, much more significant investment in American semiconductor of manufacturing.

And the announcement from the White House didn't name any names in terms of companies, but you and I our heads are going to go right to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

They are the top maker of AI chips and they are really the leading edge of vanguard of tai chip production in Taiwan.

And under this deal, we have been told by sources, TSMC would commit to building for additional semiconductor manufacturing plants here in Arizona are through the twenty thirties.

And that's on top of six plants that they have already planned to build in two advanced packaging pros.

So we're looking for additional investment and the total added investment would be as much as one hundred billion dollars, and that is what we're hearing from Comerace Secretary Howard Lutnek.

TSMC's US sisters shares hitting record highs on track for their best week since June, and it has a lot of momentum to do with their earnings print as well.

But of course cooperation with the US members.

Mike Sheppard, thank you very much.

Both of those stories that that might just outlined are playing out in markets.

Let's start with the energy auction piece.

First, Utilities probably the second biggest decliner as a group within the s and P five hundred SMP Utilities Index down seven ten percent, and within that you see single names like Constellation, like Vistra with very market almost double digit declines in the session.

The big story on semiconductors still is the bottleneck that is memory.

But the bottleneck in memory drives up the main players.

Micron again another name in equity markets.

So this pushing record highs.

It is on track for its eighth straight week of gains, eight straight weekly gain.

That's his best run since twenty sixteen.

Price is a high.

Supply is tight, and that's good when you're one of the main players.

Let's talk more about markets.

Martin Norton, mpower chief investment strategist joins us now, and I want to start with the memory bottleneck.

It seems to me to be severe justin in the control room.

Let's get that chart ready on DDR four, because as we enter the new year, this has become a great story for all parts of the data center supply chain.

How are you looking into that, Marta.

Well, I think it seems like as we're entering twenty twenty six, we're reaching that phase that we had anticipated within the AI life cycle, and that's the bottleneck phase where the building and the demand and the supply are exponential moving higher, and that's putting us at a point where we're facing constraints and running headlong into them every which way we turn.

And I think the memory element is a big one, not just because it relates to the AI trade, but because it has ramifications outside of AI.

So I think that's something that we're going to need to watch in earning season to get a sense for what that looks like, not just for the AI trade, but for some of these other areas like PC's and get a sense for how folks are navigating that.

There are many still grappling with the demand supply supply demand equation.

Three things have happened.

We went through memory.

PGM actually downgraded and cut its peak time demand forecasts because a lot of the data centers aren't actually being built right.

There are issues with construction and actually securing electricity supply, and then there's the actions of this administration.

Is that any of that giving you kind of paused for thought on how intact cycle.

Is well, I guess, just taking say the downgrade of energy there, I think one consideration is that timelines have always been in flux.

When you look at what it takes to build a data center, the permitting that goes along with it, the construction, all the different elements.

It's a multi year proposition, and so it's no surprise that it's hard to really understand when exactly the data center is coming online.

So I think, you know, the progression creates clarity.

I don't know if that's a change to the AI narrative.

And then of course you have President Trump and the affordability issues running headlong into the AI trade, so another factor to consider.

But I guess what we'll be looking for in earning season is does the boondazzel continue?

Yes, we have all these factors that I think create moments of doubt for investors over the course of twenty twenty six, But are we seeing the boondazzel continue?

Can we take comfort from the idea like we did with with Taiwan Semi, that Capex continues, that revenues continue, And that's what I think is really the focus as we as we move into Q four earning season.

Let's go back to our top story, Bloomberg reporting that the White House, in association with governors from the northeast wants to force an auction for the data center operators.

We talk about the heavy hand of the White House or Washington, but how heavy is that hand?

To your mind, Well, it's.

We're still I think somewhat I mean, broadly speaking around the affordability issues and a trial balloon phase right where different ideas are suggested and we see how the market anticipates and how we actually implement this those ideas.

This one seems a little bit more fully baked, simply because it's coming not just from truth Social but from the administration officials more broadly, and it's you know, to Bloomberg's reporting, it's not just focused on the affordability issue, but really directed at the heart of the need of AI, which is bringing energy online.

So it seems as though it's serving multiple per P says.

What will be interesting to see is how the AI providers respond to this.

Is this considered a good news, does it bring on and leieve some constraint for them, or is there frustration on what it could mean for their margins?

And I think that's something we're going to need.

To watch your margins.

We'll find out about, as you said, during earnings, which start in earnest next week, can we discuss that a bit more marked to finish.

You know, where are you looking within the earnings window?

What kind of data points are going to drive your thesis for this coming year in the tech sector.

Well, we're in an AI moment of doubt as we speak.

I mean, really since Oxtober twenty ninth, we've seen this kind of malaise hit AI names as folks start to worry about some of the very issues we're discussing, and also including things like circular financing and all the big spending that we're seeing.

And so I think at a very high level, we're still going to look for those things around revenue, for those things around cafex, to just get a sense for whether the company's confidence remains and whether they're continuing to improve their collection of rents from this space.

I also think we're going to want to look more broadly at the overall market and get a sense where are we seeing AI implementation?

And I think that can mean looking at what folks are spending on clouds, costs, looking at what they're spending on software.

Are we beginning to see more than just general purpose implementation?

I think that's something that we're going to need to watch as well.

So I think in this earning season it's really casting a wide net and as always listening to guidance and how companies are planning to navigate the challenges that they're facing.

Martin Awson, Empire, thank you very much.

Now coming up, AI coding startup Replic could be reaching evaluation of nine billion dollars.

We have more in the reporting.

Next, this is Bloomberg Tech.

Open Ai and Microsoft fail to avoid a try over.

Elon Musk claims that open ai betrayed its founding mission as a public charity when it took billions in funding from the software giants and made plans to operate as a for profit business.

The case was ordered to proceed to a jury trial in late April.

Another top story AI coding startup replet It's nearing a deal for a new round of funding that would roughly triple its valuation to nine billion dollars.

That's according to sources.

Let's get the details with bloomberg'sventure capital reporter Natasha Mascaraine is part of the team that broke the story.

Let's start with the round.

What do we know about the size, Who's participating and the emphasis on that big jump in valuation totally.

So the last time we reported that replat was raising it was only four months ago in September, at a three billion valuation.

Now we're hearing that it's at a nine billion valuation, gone to raise four hundred million from an existing investor, led round Georgian, and we're not surprised.

Back to back fundraising is more common than not an AI startup to these, and Replet as a coding company is no exception.

It is more common than not, and so is a discussion around vibe coding and the different coding platforms that are out there.

I guess the best place to go next is is why there's an attraction to replt and why it's different from the others.

Yeah.

When I think about coding startups, I think about two buckets.

I think about the ones that are focusing on selling to enterprises, the big corporations.

I think that's cursor and anthropic.

Then there's a second bucket, and that's where I really place Replet.

It's focusing on getting the non developer to use vibe coding at their organization, and it's a big theme I'm hearing as I asked CEOs what they're thinking about for twenty twenty six.

They want you to prototype and not be living in your docs and decks too much.

So when I think about investor interest in Replet, it's really a bet on getting the non technical coders start shipping apps and trying it themselves.

The Attasha Mascarinus making the Bloomberg Tech debut starting twenty twenty six strong, what do we expect?

What is the Replet round signal for the fundraising environment for AI?

My hunch is that you're going to be pretty busy.

It's going to be a very busy year.

You know.

When I think about what used to be the standard in Silicon Valley, I used to think you need an outside investor to value each new round, to give you sort of a new mark in Silicon Valley of being deserving of that valuation.

For me, now that's a retired concept.

Seeing Georgian come in and back an existing investment at that higher evaluation is considered them making a smart and savvy move with asymmetric information.

So I expect to see a lot more existing investors marking up their stakes, looking to double down on their big bets and get bigger chunks of those startups, because we definitely know they're going to be raising more and maybe diluting that ownership as time goes on.

Bloomberg's and Tash Mascarinus thank you.

Another story in the world of private markets, German investor Digital Transformation Capital Partners is gearing up to raise what would be Europe's largest ever venture capital fund focused on defense startups, with the target of about five hundred and eighty million US dollars.

Tech reporter Christina Kuriosoglu has been following the story.

Joins us now from Berlin.

Tell me about the fund, you know, the size is the headline, but the players and what they hope to do with the money raised.

Yeah.

So TDCP is a firm that's Hamburg based and they will be looking at supply chains, materials, robotics and all kinds of things that are concerned with the defense infrastructure in Europe.

And you know, the process here, it's been pretty slow.

Russia's full scale invasion into Ukraine happened nearly four years ago, and just now we slowly see more and more funds being raised across Europe that are looking at at the tech Even though that conflict has shown how important drones become and what kind of like modern warfare.

Questions have come.

Up that there are companies and telling out there, but in your reporting, do you get a sense for why it's been so slow if the techs there in the capital is finally there as well, Yes.

So a couple of reasons, of course.

So what we've been hearing from our sources is that, for example, DTCPS funds now is being anchored by Porsche, the family holding, and by Deutsche Telecom and this marks a massive shift in mentality that these companies are now investing in a fund that potentially will back weapons systems.

So private companies put a lot of restrictions on themselves when it came to weapon investments, and also public funds were very slow to adjust.

And at the same time, you know, it's not just the companies, it's also a market question in terms of if you're looking to develop weapons and military then you need a founder that has the respective experience, and you also probably only have one customer, and that is the government or a government for that matter, and that's a tough customer to have because the procurement processes are slow and the you know, it's very complex, so I think to come back to DTCP, they kind of like broadened the space that they want to invest in in a bit to look at products that are being made for civilian and military technologies and for weapons, to kind of like circle around that question.

Bloomberg Tech reporter Christina curious Oglu, Great to have you on the show, Thank you so much.

Coming up the rise of humanoid robots and why Barclays says it could be the next two hundred billion dollar market.

This is Blouemberg Tech.

Just a few years ago.

The robots here were kind of yankee.

They were wobbly, and they had wires coming out of their head, and they looked like science experiments.

And it's really fascinating to see just how quickly humanoids are turning it into a real product.

That was Open Mind CEO Jan Liphart speaking of US at CEES, where humanoid robots dominated the conversation.

This week, Barkley's published its forecast for the humanoid market, with expectations that it could grow to two hundred billion dollars by twenty thirty five.

Here to break down that research is zonitza Tudor rover Barkley's Somatic FICC research team director.

Really timely piece of research as well.

And what is interesting is there's the two hundred billion dollar market forecast, but you identify two or three key factors about why you now see the commercial viability.

What are those factors?

Hello and Capornik, and thanks for having me on the show.

AI is indeed getting very physical, and I think humanoid robots are the forefront of his strength.

But I think the reason why the proposition is changing and why there's going to be demand for these robots is because the demographics of the war population is changing.

The reality is that humans are getting older.

I think by twenty fifty the share of people aged about sixty five is going to double.

Also, humans don't really want to live in rural areas anymore.

They want to be based in cities.

But the factories and the manufacturing facilities are actually located outside of these cities, which creates a bit of a structural issue.

And then let's not forget that.

Workers' preferences are changing.

So which means that they will be certain essential jobs yet undesirable which might not be sealed.

And I think this is precisely where humanoid enter the picture.

I think they could be taking on these repetitive jobs, this now dirty, potentially dangerous jobs of maintain productivity and producing efficiency gains for the industry as a whole.

The main players in this field talk a lot about the labor shortage in particular manufacturing and heavy industry.

You're saying it's going to be a two hundred billion dollar market by twenty thirty five.

In your research, do you have any sense of how real the market is today, how many humanoids are actually out there in manufacturing contexts around the world in present day.

The reality is that I think that humanoid robots are no longer confined to research labs.

They're stepping out of the lab and they're getting into the real economy, into the real world.

They are a couple of thousand humanoid robots already deployed on factory floors doing actual work in manufacturing, which I think is a natural starting place.

Goes the jobs that are more structured, more easily defined, so it is the place to start for humanoids.

But I think this is going to change in the next five to ten years as the technology matures and as this market picks up space.

So I think I wouldn't be surprised that by twenty thirty five, when we actually project that the humanoids market is going to be as big as two hundred billion dollars, that we'll see tens of thousands, potentially even millions of humanoid robots.

The supply chain for the humanoid robot is fascinating.

I think a lot of emphasis at CES was on the breakthroughs in the models themselves, the ability to solve, in particular the real world data limitations.

But you've got some interesting pricing you're talking about, like you know, per unit three million down to one hundred thousand, the economics changing fifteen thousand dollars for a humanoid robot.

What's happening that gives you conviction that you'll see that change in the economics of a humanoid robot?

Right?

So, I think that there are a couple of things happening at the same time.

First of all, over the past three to five years, we've seen really significant breakthroughs in cognitive AI models.

But it's not only the AI that is getting better.

The batteries are also getting better, more efficient, more powerful, and they also have been significant breakthroughs in high precision manufacturing and When I put all these three components together, the result is that the unit costs for producing humanoid robots is coming down.

We estimate in our research that costs have been thirty have declined by thirty times over the past five years, from three million dollars per unit to one hundred thousand dollars per unit, and this means that the economics are getting optically more attractive.

The use cases are expanding, and hence I think that the investment opportunity is also becoming more real and stronger.

Right, very quickly, Zanita, who's ahead?

We have fifteen seconds China or the United States here.

I think it's going to be a tough competition.

I think, for the moment if China, this is where we've seen most of the Roberts being deployed.

But I think the US is quickly catching up.

So I need to throw over Berkley to again out this week with the forecast that humanoid will be a two hundred billion dollar market by twenty thirty five.

Thank you so much for joining us on the program.

Now coming up an important conversation, We're going to be joined by the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to discuss antitrust, consumer protection, and AI regulation.

A lot has happened this week with regards to the FTC.

A conversation also about aqua hiers, which in the technology industry was a mainstay story of twenty twenty five.

That conversation is next.

This is what your markets look like, flat at the index level, outperformance in chips.

This is Bloomberg Tech.

Welcome to our Bloomberg TV and radio audiences around the world.

A recurring theme of recent tech m and a has been deals to bring in talent in so called aquahiers.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking notice.

One member of the FTC worn Thursday that these quote creative deal structures could raise antitrust concerns.

Let's discuss and delighted to welcome Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the FTC, to the program.

We cover the topic of aquahiers on Bloomberg Tech regularly.

It was a mainstay story in twenty twenty five.

When does a talent deal stop being a talent deal and become more than that, become a merger?

What are the rules based approach that the FTC would take chairmen to look at that?

Yeah, so we are examining look, aqui hiers have been around, especially in the sort of startup founder space, for a long time, and they've gotten bigger basically in the last ad men and a lot of people were of the view that these things were sort of being constructed in these big deals to try to escape you know, Hart Scott Rodino review, which is pre merger anti trust review in the United States, because the Biden administration was trying to block all deals, and I think generally they were that isn't you know, necessary anymore.

We don't need clever workarounds for around anti trust review anymore because at the FTC under the Trump administration, you get a fair shake.

I'm not saying your deal will go through.

I've sued to block several deals this year and I've won those cases.

But if your deal's not illegal, we get out of the way and sort of let the market take care of things.

So we are beginning to examine that the HSR Act has a provision that says you're not allowed to structure deals in order to escape pre merger review.

And so we are beginning to examine these actly hires to make sure that they aren't an attempt to get around HSR.

Review.

But the message I want to send sort of Silicon val and so the M and A infrastructure generally is you don't need to structure deals as a clever, you know, attempt to get around pre merger review.

You'll get a fair shake at the FTC.

Deal may not go through, but if your deal is legal, I will get out of your way very quickly.

And if it's not, I'll take you to court and I'll fight to win there.

We're not going to let the process be the punishment anymore.

But jem, you know it is.

It is important to us, to us to make sure that people aren't going to use clever deal.

Structures to get around pre merger review.

The language of clever or creative deal structures that I've cited at the beginning of our conversation was from your colleague and fellow commissioner Mark made or Right, who is speaking at a conference in California yesterday.

I think what the industry hopes to understand from you is what the threshold is or what the set of rules would be where a hiring proposal situation should be reported to antitrust author It should be Yeah, as simple as that, it should be reported.

Yeah, and you know, we are beginning to examine how these deals work.

Aqui higher deal structures vary from deal to deal, and so there wouldn't necessarily be sort of a one size fits all rule, but we are beginning to examine these big aqui higher deals that raise a lot of attention so that we can understand when an aqui hier is in fact an acquisition that might be covered by the pre merger review laws and when it's not.

And we need to understand them before.

We're sort of out there telling people what the rules are.

But this is you're right, this has become a big enough deal that we are beginning to work very closely at how these things work, including you know, determining whether we need to promulgate additional guidance here in the coming months about how we understand these aqui hiers.

Is there a fact that that matters more to you, you know, the number of employees hired, or putting a value on the intellectual capital or the competitive advantage that such a transaction would give the.

Aquara So the value that matters for HSR is set by the statute that's not really here or there, but the HSR Act applies to deals where assets or stock are being purchased, and that's what triggers HSR review.

And so what we need to understand, which is why we're beginning to examine this question now, is when does an aqui hier you know, involve the sale of the acquisition of assets or stock in a way that would trigger the statute.

Look, at the end of the day, I'm a lawyer and a law enforcer, and I enforced statutes, and those statutes have texts, and so it's my job to understand whether things happening in the marketplace trigger the text that Congress is actually passed for us.

But that's what we're looking at.

We're not trying to set sort of we wouldn't be setting like aqui hier rules generally, we would be looking at deals and trying to understand, you know, does this in fact involve the acquisition or sale of assets or stock and is anything being structured as an attempt to circumvent review.

But you know, I'm not here to say this is what the rules are.

There will be you know, hard and fast, clear rules.

There aren't even for the ordinary deals.

We've got the you know, the HSR Act and the HSR rules.

But deal structure is even an ordinary in then a very widely and so we have to apply the text that Congress.

Actually wrote to specific deals.

But aqui hiers have become frequent enough and large enough that we are beginning to look at the appropriate way to apply the law that Congress actually adopted to aquihiers.

I don't it's not my job.

As an enforcer to sort of fit square pegs into round holes.

But it is my job to make sure that the will of Congress, which is the will of the people at the end of the day, is being followed.

And that's what we're here to try to do.

We're trying to figure out how that applies in the case of aquehiers.

CHAM and how common is this in the field of ofstficial intelligence or how often is this particular scenario, And crossing your desk from the AI industry.

We've seen a couple in the last twelve months.

My understanding is that the act we hire sort of structure, if you want to call it that, where you know, a firm acquires a lot of the talent and another firm is pretty old, has been going on for a long time, but it often involves very small firms, and I think the reason that a lot of people are starting to notice it is because now it involves much larger firms, and the sort of price being attached to obtaining the talent into licensing IP is in the billions.

So I've definitely seen a couple in the.

AI space this year, which is why has attracted a lot of the attention, and it's why we're beginning to try to examine how are these working and how does the law that Congress passed governing pre merger review actually apply here as well as the provision in the pre merger review law that says you can't structure deal in order to try to escape HSR review.

So that is what we are trying to understand now.

But certainly, I mean you are reported on them, you can read them about them on the Wall Street Journal.

It's definitely true that there have been a couple of these big ones in the AI area.

You're alive with.

Us on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radar around the world.

We're speaking to Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the FTC.

I think the biggest case study of late which just to give an example of the structure is Nvidio and GROC because you know what in video CEO Jens Mung told me a couple of weeks ago is they hired about four hundred engineers, but it also included the licensing of the core technology at a twenty billion dollar value.

But over a set time Horizon Grock exists as a company still, but with a focus on one of its business lines, that hiring and licensing of technology format.

Is there anything specific.

There, Chairman, Yeah, so I can't talk about specific deals or specific buttial investigations.

As a law enforcer, you know, I have to maintain a lot of confidentiality about the work of the commission.

But I mean, you know, that particular structure of the equahier was different from example, from the one that Meta conducted earlier in the year.

These things vary pretty wildly.

The terms of the.

Aile I'm sorry, of the software and IP licensing can vary.

The number of employees obtained in the transaction can vary.

So we're trying to understand these things first of all, because the last thing I want to do is sort of blindly charge ahead with a bunch of you know, sort of pre determined assumptions and start trying to apply the law to something we don't understand.

But it is very important to me, because it's very important to Congress that people not try to come up with ways to attempt to get around pre merger review.

And that's what we're looking at.

And again, it's just not necessary.

I get why people wanted to do this in the previous administration, where the anti trust enforcers tended to use the process as a way to block deals rather than you know, sort of being a lot more honest about it than taking people to court.

But under the Trump administration, we are either going to get out of your way very quickly or.

We are going to take you to court.

We're not letting the process be the punishment, and so people don't need to try to come up with ways to get around HSR.

You will get a fair shake at the FTC.

Chivan, there's a lot of interest in the FTC and consumer protection and what the FTC's remit is in the domain of AI.

It's an example.

I know you won't comment on specific cases, but x and Elon musk s XAI and Grock have been in the news because of the use of the tool to generate non consen sensual sexualized images.

Does the FTC have a role in regulating from a consumer protection standpoint that domain?

Yeah, I mean the President.

Congress passed and the President signed in spring of last year the Take a Down Act, which is seminal groundbreak legislation to protect people from artificially generated non consensual intimate images.

The criminal component of that law that the Department of Justice enforces is already in effect.

The part that we enforce where we.

Have to compel platforms to take down these images and then bring enforcement actions if they fail, will take effect in the spring.

We are getting ready for that.

I have been meeting with the elite child protection prosecutors and investigators at the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that we're synced up on that mission.

This is relatively new to the FTC, and I want to make sure we hit the ground running when the authority takes effect.

Right now, we are hiring specialists, prosecutors, lawyers, investigators, and IT experts to enable us the second that this thing takes effect to start bringing enforcement actions wherever these things are happening.

And I don't care what kind of company you are, if you are a platform.

Whether you're a.

Legacy social media company a burgeoning AI company, I don't care if you are violating to take a down Act.

You are going to hear from us, and we are going to be ready to do it.

This is incredibly important legislation.

I'm really excited that the FTC has a role in this.

I lobby Congress very heavily to make sure that we had enough money to get this program off the ground.

When it takes effect in the middle of this year.

You're getting that money and we will be ready.

Chairman.

President Trump has nominated David McNeil to the Commission.

Our audience have asked.

Me to ask you your thoughts on that someone perhaps without antitrust experienced legal experience, the Commission experience, and somebody you know, frankly with high net wealth.

Your thoughts please.

Look.

I am generally of the view that Washington has too many lawyers.

I think it is great that the President has decided to nominate someone who isn't a lawyer, who doesn't sort of think in the pathways that lawyers always think.

I think it's great that the President has nominated.

You know, I've never met mister McNeil I've talked him a little since the nomination.

The man is a true American patriot.

He's created thousands of jobs in this country.

He has been one of the most outspoken proponents of manufacturing here in America.

That has been one of the President's principal economic priorities is to make sure we make and build things in America.

David McNeil has done that.

He has been successful in doing that, and I think it's great that there is going to be sort of someone with that perspective who isn't coming at this like I am from fancy law schools with a long sort of litigation and law enforcement background.

He's coming at it as a job creator, as a wealth creator, and as one of the most outspoken proponents of manufacturing in America that there is in this country.

You know, is it an unconventional pick, Yeah, of course it is.

But part of what has made President Trump so successful is that he doesn't always think in the conventions that governed DC.

And I think that this is a really, really good idea to bring someone with mister McNeil's perspective here to the Commission.

The major concern for the consumer right now is affordability.

What is the FTC able to do on pricing pressure, bringing prices down, addressing that consumer concern.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of my main concerns too.

We're doing a lot on this front.

On the merger review front, my first two merger enforcement actions were in the healthcare space.

Just won one of those healthcare enforcement actions last week and several months before the judge denied our injunction, but only because after I sued them, they offered to divest the assets that were the problem, so that was a win for the Commission as well.

Another merger enforcement action I brought is about industrial adhesives that are used to build homes.

We have a real home building crisis in this country.

Although under President Trump, home sales went up last year for the first time in a while, we still have a home affordability crisis in this country.

And I have focused intently on the competition side, on making sure that we are active in markets grocery, healthcare, homes to try to bring prices down consumers and to make sure that all Americans get the advantages that come with vigorous competition.

On the other side, I sued ticket Master and a groundbreaking lawsuit charging them with having basically inflated all the prices of tickets in violation of multiple federal laws.

Americans have been complaining justly for a long time that it has become almost impossible to take your family to a ballgame or to a concert without having to fork over the value of a mortgage payment to do it.

We have been very active in the ticketing space to make sure that those prices are going to come down.

We have been bringing actions on the consumer protection side in the healthcare space.

We've also been bringing a lot of consumer protection cases and competition cases to protect the value of wages against non competes, against job scams.

The FTC is a little agency.

Our budget is even half a billion dollars, but we have returned literally billions of dollars of wrongfully taking money just in the last year back in the pockets of the American consumers.

We are doing everything we can within our little remit to try to bring down prices and to make this country a more affordable place to live, which is exactly what President Trump has been telling us to do.

Chairman.

Very quickly, Bloomberg's reported that the White House is considering you for a DOJ fraud role.

What would that entail and legally would it be possible for you to take on that role while remaining chair of the FTC.

I can tell you definitively, I'm not leaving the Federal Trade Commission and I'm not going to the Department of Justice.

This is an important full time job that the President entrusted me with to try to help the American people that just voted in their tens of millions to make Donald Trump president.

That's what we have done.

We've sent billions of dollars of wrongfully taking money back to Americans, and I'm focused on fighting fraud and protecting competition right here at the FTC.

Andrew Ferguson and FTC Chairman, thank you for your time here.

On Bloomberg Tech.

Okay, coming up, Jermaina Alaman of Prometeer joins us to discuss the future of banking within AI.

That's next.

This is Bloomberg Tech.

After TSMC reported huge profits in the fourth quarter, CFO Wendel Huang sat down with Bloomberg Tech's Annibal Drawlers to affirm his strong conviction in the mega trend of AI demand.

He first weighed in on whether the company is prioritizing certain markets as part of his expansion plans.

Listen to this.

We don't look at it this way.

It really depends on customer demand.

In the US, A lot of customer wants to go there, so we will expand over there.

But for the leading edge technologies, it will be in Taiwan because it's a heavy cooperation between the R and D people and operation people for practical reasons.

And leading edge will continue to be led by Taiwan.

You think over the US market and that no changes to that at all, even with you adding a lot more capacity in the States.

Yeah, that's for practical reasons.

Is it possible though, to speed up how quickly that advanced tech can be shifted from Taiwan to the States.

Yeah, we can try to do that to shorten the gap.

What does that transfer gap look like then?

If right now it's several years Taiwan is ahead, what does that actually look like in the future.

We don't have a specific timeline now, but we do we can try.

To accelerate that.

We think we can try to accelerate.

Could it be shortened months?

Do you think it will be difficult challenging?

Okay, so it stays at least one one year behind.

Then there was tsmc CFO when Huang along Bloomberg texts Annibal drawers president Trump's call for a ten percent cap on credit card interest rates.

Since shares of financial firms tumbling this week, with bank CEOs in particular warning the move could harm the economy, not just their bottom lines.

Let's talk through it with Shamena Alamann, co CEO of Promiteo, which provides technical infrastructure to help corporations connect to financial institutions.

I find this very interesting because rate caps also may have an impact on how unsecured credit and that's the conversation, right is essentially engineered.

It's also about access, your reaction to the week's events.

Okay.

So I think that what's most striking about these news is somehow how it has shown the US commerce dependency on grade guards and great guard rails.

And so we're talking about eighty percent of the population access in grade through grade guards plus gradecard bands being one point two trillion, which I think it's a very relevant number because it shows its sizes the opportunity, you know, and it's a massive opportunity.

Okay, And so I think that when we talk about a limitation like this, like a restriction on an intervation on the rates.

We are talking about somehow reshaping the infrastructure.

You know, we always tend to think as financially infrastructure as a given, but it's actually designed, you know.

And what we're having here is a direct intervention, and what basically forces a conversation on the underlying infrastructure and the underlying product.

And the conversation is the question is basically what needs to happen at the product level in order to meet this constraint, in order to meet this new condition, you know.

And so I think that the question goes to, well, basically, what's the design, you know, like what's the shape of the great car system?

Right now?

So this time, right, she may let me just jump in, like this time, we're also going to wait and see if this happens.

What the behavioral reaction is.

So let's say that a section of the economy is closed to the credit card.

Well, we spoke to the Klana CEO earlier this week, Right, there's a lot of those that would talk up buy now, pay later, account to account payments.

Does that kind of phase out credit card reliance?

Well, I think that what will happen is that you have a one point to trillion opportunity, you know, and if we talk about the actual shape of the great card system right now, it's a bundle tool.

You have a payment tool plus a credit line tool, okay, and these tool are combined.

If we see what has happened in the payment space over the last ten years is massive disruption, which is basically New Entrance leveraging technology to provide better and most efficient solutions, more cost effective solutions.

Okay.

And I think that that gives us a glimpse, you know, like a on what would happen at the credit line infrastructure level, you know, like we could expect a movement like that, and that means New Entrance very interested seeing the size of the opportunity jumping into the space, leveraging new technology in order to meet the requirements of this demand because the demand won't go anywhere, you know, and it's a huge demand.

Samana, It was a big week for bank earnings where we hope to find out about how banks are using AI in real terms.

A lot of questions to JP Morgan about how much they're spending on AI.

But what was your takeaway on the transition how we go from like analysis to the banks running function using AI.

Okay, Well, I think that twenty twenty five marks the year in which AI moved from being an experimentation to full deployment, you know, And I think that's very interesting.

Perhaps the most popular initiative was open Ai since and checkout powered by Stripe.

Definitely we will see more of that, especially in the financial institutions banks landscape over this year, you know.

And I think that that will bring a lot of innovation and a lot of news over the coming year.

I think that what we've seen over twenty twenty five is AI becoming an efficiency lever and not an innovation toy anymore, you know.

And so what financial institutions banks have done is use AI internally.

Initially it was mostly chatbots, small projects.

But what we've done, what they have noticed is that basically AI can impact the main areas of the financial institution, and especially four banks that have been historically very site have had stortally a very siloed tech stack, you know, with different parts of the bank having different databases, different technologies, different systems.

AI helps all of these to.

Come together, you know, and work as a comprehensive tech stack, you know.

And so now we are seeing initiatives in fraud and credit of course, in middle and back office, you know, and creating efficiencies in speed okay, and this is real time responses to anything that an user can need.

Samana Adaman, co founder Coco Prevateere, great summary of the banks in an AI.

Thank you very much.

That does it for the edition of Bloomberg Tech.

What a week it's been.

Recap on the pod.

You know exactly where to find it.

Have a great weekend.

This is bloombag Tech