emily: i am emily chang in san francisco. this is "bloomberg technology." in the next hour, president calls out social media again. this time saying the platforms are silencing millions of people. into autodesk shifts subscription and it pays off. tenure at apple. how the tech giant has transformed since he took over

at ceo and who is on the bench. . first, to the top story president trump is going after social networks. trump tweeted "social media giants are silencing millions of people. -- people. people have to figure out what is real and what is not without censorship." the tweet did not mention any companies by name but does follow actions taken by facebook, twitter, and health of it removing hundreds of accounts linked to alleged propaganda operations. brad joins us now. brad, amidst all of the other controversies happening, his top advisers flipping on him, and we are hearing the word impeachment being used by lawmakers, but what is your reaction to the latest information? >> a little bit of exasperation.

down's -- down to issues. facilitators trying to get rid of free speech on their platforms. mark zuckerberg went and met with conservative leaders and i think that is one topic. the other one is the introduction of foreign influence content on social media. speech that incites hatefulness or action against minority -- like alex jones. tech companies are trying to create basic rules and to enforce them. i think everyone rationally should support that. emily: to be clear, preventing foreign interference in your selections is not censorship. it is a crime. there's a spectrum of things happening here.

we heard from mark zuckerberg earlier when facebook revealed it had shut down hundreds of account tied to iran and hundreds more. we don't know how many were tied to russia. take a listen to mark zuckerberg. >> it is as important that we focus on building relationships with folks in law enforcement and governments in other companies so that we can exchange information and find threats to build our own capacity to do this in isolation. emily: let's talk about issue one, the tech companies have made it clear they cannot do this by themselves. facebook acted on a tip from the cybersecurity company "fireeye" which led to them discovering these accounts. we are now hearing a report that representatives from facebook and others are all meeting to coordinate in their election meddling strategy. brad: it's long overdue. each of these companies see these attacks and they will get together to talk about what they

have seen, what they are doing, and whether they should make these meetings routine. the former chief security officer of facebook wrote on the website recently that it might be too late to save the 2018 elections. emily: he said it would be too late and is too late. brad: it's crazy. the more these tech companies and law enforcement can coordinate, share with they are seeing, share best practices, our democracy will be better for it. they: let's talk about second point, an ongoing issue these companies are in a position of deciding what stays and goes. it is a very slippery slope. how does facebook and twitter make those decisions on an ongoing basis without getting the seat from all sides? brad: it is a slippery slope, but to some of the examples we have seen are not that in the u.s. emily: do you think alex jones is one? brad: absolutely. the thing that got him some send -- got him suspended from

ting hiswas get subscribers to get their battle rifles to fight the media. facts and content -- content that encourage hatred is not a slippery slope, that is black-and-white. the tech companies can do more to keep those off the platforms. emily: despite this very long-term issue, the midterm elections are months away. that aeally possible secret meeting between the tech companies will get things in order before november? brad: it is a good sign. they should be meeting and coordinating with law enforcement. we are now over a year from the 2016 elections. have all of the intelligence agencies agreeing the russians manipulated and interfere with our elections.

this is another sign the companies are taking this seriously. emily: all right, brad, think you so much for weighing in. two another story we continue to watch. coming tootlight is an end as elon musk propels to a possible rebirth of the private company. muska hired morgan stanley to assist him in the possibility of going private. morgan stanley is just advising musk, not the board or company. the bank suspended coverage of the stock tuesday without an explanation. for more, i want to bring in our report of the covers this. >> goldman sachs was also advising elon musk, so he has the top to invest in the -- investment banks in his corner as he puts forward an actual proposal to the board, which no one has seen yet. there is a lot of factions now.

there is musk himself who is the ceo, chairman, and largest tesla as the company, the board of directors, and the special committee of the board to evaluate any real proposal from musk when he puts one forward. what is happening is you have your firms, lawyers, banks, all lining up to get a piece of the action. no matter which way this goes, there is money on all sides. emily: absolutely. what are the actual next steps we should expect to see in this unexpected scenario? dana: we've not seen any real proposal from elon musk about his go private plan and to the funders are. he tweeted about it, wrote a blog post, but that is different from perhaps a detailed financial plan that tesla would issue. he has to put forward a plan. --hink he has broadened in brought in bankers to help him. but, that would be the next

obvious step, a real plan. they're probably talking to banks, but there is nothing to evaluate get. that is what everyone is waiting for. there's not a lot of hard news right now, just speculation. the next step is a proposal. emily: how long could we expect this process to take the matter what the endpoint is? he can do this on whatever timeline he sees fit. point, there was a rumor that they want to get this done quickly before third-quarter earnings reports, but what is the rush? the stock is remarkably resilient in terms of share price. some investors do not want them to go private. there is a lot of question about how it will happen, but i imagine it could go slowly. there is no timeline. this is basically his company and he can do whatever he wants. emily: talk to us about what we know about the sec and we had a former attorney on from them

that said it is clear from her perspective there are multiple investigations going on into tesla given how quickly the sec has moved. that is an outside observer's perspective, but what do we knew about the progress and enforcement the sec could take? dana: my understanding is that ae sec, when they investigate company, they have simultaneous inquiries going on about more than one thing. as our reporters figured out, the sec was already looking at tesla and company statements, then the tweet happened and that spurred them to look closely. i do not know whether they have converged or on separate tracks. apparently subpoenas have been issued, we do not know which executives have been interviewed but there were supposed to be interviews this week. tesla is a big target for an agency like the sec.

he did, the king, you best not miss. i imagine they are still investigating -- if you come at the king, best not to miss. i imagine they are still investigating. emily: most analysts say there is zero chance of this happening. have you talked to anyone else who says otherwise saying this is a realistic option and here is how? dana: it's hard to say. i guess i would recall but when musk proposed to buy solarcity, everyone thought that was bananas and it ultimately passed with 85% of shareholders saying yes. it's a question of their ir team and what investors he has in their pocket. if you can flip big shareholders, and convince some of his personal friends to go along with him, there might be a way to do it. spacex seems to be the template of what you would like to do.

i think the question is also, what are the limits of the big shareholders in terms of their ability to go private. he is a very determined guy, and he has made his intentions public. there will be a huge agar on his face -- huge egg on his face if he cannot figure it out. emily: have you spoke to any current tesla employees about how they feel about this? are they upset they could lose their for stability around liquidity? dana: i think people want to know what it means in terms of their stock options. you have our issues, options, investing in trenches, how will that change. spacex is a popular program where employees do have options that trade on the secondary market. they are able to sell them during different liquidity events. i do not think people are in a panic, but i think the whole go private timeline is in the air

and people want to know what it will mean for them. for tesla employees, stock compensation is a big part of their overall package. the bay area is a good place to live, so they want to know what will happen with that. emily: indeed it is. thank you for your continued reporting on this story. autodesk is showing progress converting customers to subscribers. we speak to the ceo about the company's earning report, next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, listen on the bloomberg radio , and, onloomberg.com the u.s. -- in the u.s., on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: autodesk climbed to a

record high friday after the second quarter earnings report and forecast gave analysts at rbc capital market and oppenheimer confidence for the stoxx citing the transition and subscriber growth. the ceo of autodesk joins me now in the studio. why do you think investors are so excited? andrew: a couple of people -- there are a couple of things people are excited about. growth is up 28%. it was the kind of thing they were expecting to see moving in from this transition. a the front end of transition, everything was going this way, now they are going this way. people are seeing the result they expect to see and it gives to talk about the long-term and not just the mood to subscription. emily: where is the subscriptions? andrew: the exciting thing for the new age of automation for the company is we are moving into being a designer make

automation provider getting much more into our customers make processes or construction processes or manufacturing processes or others. that is the exciting long-term opportunity for the company. transition, by the but also fueled by the cloud-based age of machine learning and automation we are wondering into now. we had oneking of, of your employees on the show to talk about ava, the female ai you have been working on planning on being integrated into more of your software. -- this ai can analyze facial expressions and it can detect emotions. what is the progress? andrew: that is a customer facing application helping customers do things with our products. it's not actually built into the product. it is how we interact with our customers. the way it is designed for the processes we use it for, it is increasing customer satisfaction. we have all had interaction with

chatbots, sometimes you want to find the button that gets you off of the chatbots and you just want the person,. this one, we targeted it so tightly to a problem customers were calling about, that satisfaction scores go up. that piece is working, but that is the tip of the iceberg. emily: what you think about the backlash to these ai's and that people want true human connection and they are still going to physical stores in order to get that connection even though e-commerce is booming and will continue to grow? andrew: we are automation optimists. we are machine learning optimists's about what the future is going. we believe the ai and machine algorithms that you are seeing, their best when they facilitate collaboration between human beings. when we look at the software, we are trying to move away from having software talk to you, and more facilitate interdisciplinary connections between architects and

construction managers, and architects and building planners, and architects and owners. this is where we believe the real power is. people want the human connection and want to know their role as human beings is an important part of the process. emily: you're not worried about the apocalyptic future elon musk warned about? andrew: i have a great deal for -- great deal of respect, for elon but i disagree with him on line, butspect for e i disagree with him on that -- elon, but i disagree with him on that. we see a capacity problem in the world. we work with people that build buildings, products, roads. do we think we can do enough of that's right now? no. people need to do it a lot more with a lot more -- a lot less negative impact on the world. this will create a whole new

class of climate and jobs. emily: what about m&a? andrew: we have always been inquisitive and we are trying to be number one in the construction space and move deeply into the digital manufacturing space, we will be looking at all options michael: -- options. emily: what areas? andrew: construction is for most. we but a company called assemble helpshelps reconstruct -- improve the reconstruction part of our portfolio. emily: we have been talking about increasing cybersecurity is everything goes to the cloud and hacks become more sophisticated. what are you doing to safeguard yourself and your clients against it? andrew: security and they security of the data and the preservation of the data, and frankly privacy, is of the guilt for us. the whole discussion around privacy and facebook, this is something i have been passionate about for five years.

i think silicon valley is at its best when it treats its end-users as its customers, not products. youwe move away from this " are my product and i can do and -- sell you to something" area, we are going to get past that. privacy laws will accelerate the market. emily: facebook's business model is fundamentally based on selling our information. that's not going to change. andrew: no. one of the things we need to look at, and this is a hot if we starte, looking at uniformed privacy laws, we will start leveling the playing field on which business model is successful. look at apple. they sell small micro subscriptions for everything. i happily give my money for every little thing. i have lost track on how many

subscriptions i have with mike i likewith apple because their environment where they treat me as a customer and do not sell me. what europe has done with gdp are -- gdpr is partly right. there is a little anti-american tech companies in there, but we should do that everywhere. emily: facebook is exploring it. they key so much for stopping by , andrew anagnost. hasfuture of syntactic china as the center of technology. more that next. this is bloomberg. ♪ -- more on that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: in china, you can pay for almost anything with the phone and almost everyone does. country may $9 trillion worth of transactions on mobile devices in 2016. for the first report in this series, we take a close look at its cash flow society.

>> sophia will not leave the house without one, very important accessory. her smartphone. sophia takes a taxi to the office, orders breakfast, and lunch. afterward, she jumped on the train and calls in her dinner while she pedals him from the station. she pays for tall using her smartphone. mobile payments are -- surged 382% in 2016 compared to 2015. transactions were worth almost $9 trillion. most of them were made using apps and payment platforms owned or backed by china's to tech giants, alibaba and tencent. more than a billion people use

wechat pay for simple transactions like buying food and more complex deals like taking out a personal loan. financial technology is easing into the business from traditional state-owned banks. >> the growth of mobile payment reflects the underdevelopment of the traditional financial element of china. people are either so -- they are people that are under banks were no bank services. >> making online banker apps and more user-friendly is crucial. >> they are picking up fast because there is almost no barrier in terms of technology. >> the chinese central bank is also complaining a cashless society threatens deposits and fees. in july, china urged consumers and businesses not to refuse cash. in early august, it find alipay

hundreds of thousands of dollars in breaching rules. but, they are one step ahead. they launched a chain of stores where, not surprisingly, mobile payment is encouraged and cash is not. >>[speaking a foreign language] doubt thehina is no number one cashless market in the world, there are still places in the country where cash is king, like traditional farmers markets. emily: coming up, protecting the midterms. one former facebook exact says

it is too late to save 2018. is he right? we will discuss next. this is bloomberg. ♪ xfinity mobile is a new wireless network

designed to save you money. even when you've got serious binging to do. wherever your phone takes you, your wireless bill is about to cost a whole lot less. use less data with a network that has the most wifi hotspots where you need them and the best 4g lte everywhere else. saving you hundreds of dollars a year. and ask how you get xfinity mobile included with your internet. plus, get $300 back when you buy a new smartphone. xfinity mobile. it's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today.

emily: this is bloomberg technology, i am emily chang in san francisco. to our continuing look at securing the midterm elections. facebook organizes secret tech giant meeting ahead of november slow. that is according to email by buzzfeed. discuss what to do to prevent -- facebook and security some of the alarm saying it is already too saved 2018 election.

u.s.id in some ways the broadcast to the world that he is not taking issue seriously and that any perpetrators of information warfare will get at most a slap on the wrist. while the spell your has let the u.s. unprepared there is still a chance to defend american remark democracy in 2020. i want to get straight to new york with our guest. he recently co-authored a report that are safe than sorry how election officials can prepare. do you think it is too late for 2018? >> i definitely don't think it is too late. there is a lot we can do ahead of november to protect our elections. it is important we are talking about this concept of foreign interference in our elections to distinguish between three related but separate issues. one is disinformation and information warfare on social media. is on i'mlot of focus

sure between facebook and google and other groups. against thinkx tanks. attacks onare infrastructure. voting machines, electronic poll looks. particularly in the last area there is a lot we could be doing in the next 75 days before the election to make sure we can protect the vote. >> you mentioned registration systems poll looks voting machines. there are failures and all of these in every election but in a cyber attack, these failures would be more widespread so we need a contingency plan. what is that contingency contingency plan? >> you are right. no election is perfect and there are always lost. the key is to make sure every jurisdiction is prepared this time. election officials do have a lot

of experience with contingency planning. i will give you an example. polls,w up to the somebody is checking you and with an electronic poll book. that is a tablet or a computer. it might not be working. or part ofa failure a cyber attack. the key is what do officials do then to make sure you can vote. we seen hours long lines in the past. we make sure there is a paper backup. in 10 states, they do not have the paper backup right now. so that they can check you in. similarly on the voting machine, isn't working, are there problems with it? we what to make sure there are emergency paper ballots to fill out in case they have to take time to fix those machines or get replacement machines. that is the key. most atave alex stay

saying russia has given every other country of playbook on how to do this. iran is doing it as well. his essay that china and north korea are not already doing this as well? if best practices were actually in place in november, with that be enough? >> for protecting the boat and making sure people can vote and at the end of the day we can count results accurately, i do think being prepared is what is critical right now. we only have 75 days left. the point that alex is making in the peas is the big structural changes are probably not going to happen in the next 75 days. ist we are concerned about making sure even if there is a breach everyone can still vote and that afterwards we are able to count the votes accurately. that is possible and that is

what we should focus on. i think we all have a part to play in that. we learned that facebook twitter google microsoft snap are having a secret meeting reportedly to coordinate on their strategies to combat election meddling. talk about what they are doing. what can they do to be stronger together? better industry, more uniform standards, especially around paid political at. foreign powers should not be purchasing political at -- at. that is illegal. moving closer to industrywide standards. that's a good thing. one of the things that facebook in particular was criticized for was being fairly slow and

investigating and that top into what they were finding. having rapid investigations when they discover stuff and being transparent about what they are finding of what they are doing would be great to see. if they can agree to that that would be wonderful. what these you think him present state should be doing? >> there is a bill in congress, the secure elections act. particularly around election infrastructure would go a long way towards increasing cybersecurity for that election infrastructure. i would like to see that bill move. two senators have an honest ads act. paidwas struck to regulate ads on the internet the same way

we do and broadcast tv and print. that is another important step. there are actions that congress can take. it should not be breaking down upon partisan lines. we can protect our sales from for settling. to 2020.move ahead what are some longer-term things that the private and public sector can and should be doing to make sure we are ready by 2020? >> one of the things i am focused on is starting to invest in securing election infrastructure. that use states paperless voting systems. virtually everyone agrees that we should have a paper backup. the director homeland security said yesterday that we should have auditable systems in every single jurisdiction. that costs money.

investing to make sure we replace those systems and that we have paper backups, that we are auditing the paper backups and taking the paper that 80% of the country is voting on and using it to check the software. those are straightforward simple things that we can get done before 2020. starting to think that there is a shared federal state and local theonsibility for funding security of our elections. this is a national security issue. we will be talking about what is happening over the next 75 days. thank you for your recommendations. sticking with election news, sure people make have arrived. it is working to offer free and discounted rides to polling places.

coming up, is tech responsible for slow wage growth? we had to jackson hole to find out. apples new tim cook? coming up, this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: this week the annual symposium is underway and jackson hole. with the economics professor at the university of chicago to measure the tech affect. >> markets are changing in a pretty systematic way. we are seeing more and more concentration of activity within industries with just a few firms. there is a lot of discussion about what that means about market power and changing the technology and how industries are going to evolve from here forward. what that means for inflation things like that. that we are or bad seeing this kind of concentration? what he could be either. be marketion can power monopoly power which can depress investments. harm consumers, raise prices. on the other hand, changes in

technology that make it easier for companies to obtain scale or things that affect markets to make things easier for customers to find a preferred seller, we would think of those things as beneficial evolutions of the industry. >> the fed wants to learn more. do regulators understand this new world? >> i think they understand the two stories that he could go either way. darke all a little in the about what it actually is. some people have strong feelings one way or the other. the evidence is pretty mixed and the jury is out but regulators realize that. wrote the software is what area where people don't get what's going on because the marginal cost of production after your first unit is zero. aat's that is an example of

technological advancement that could make it easier for companies to get really large. once you develop the software you can make as many copies as you want. you might not be surprised in a market like that that one company can take over a substantial share of the market. that is not necessarily a bad thing. theyn be a bad thing if use that position to keep out new entrants. antitrustere the angle becomes important. antitrust angle becomes important. >> are consumers better off or worse off at this point is people point to this concentration is one reason why we don't see wages rising? >> that is something that is being discussed. the evidence is kind of mixed on that. it could be either way. i think time will tell. we need to look a little more closely at the issue especially with wages. you said we lived in an age of paradox where we have rapid

advances in artificial intelligence and machine yet measure productivity growth is happening what used to be. can we understand what is going on? >> the best popular explanation for that is that we are in a. where the new technology has come along, companies are trying to figure out how to use it, they can test the potential of it, but harnessing the potential takes a lot of time and effort additionalng, takes investment, retraining, all that takes up resources during a. . we have been exploring this in this a recent story

is the best explanation for this juxtaposition of slow productivity growth but optimism about new technology. >> eric was here a couple of years ago and said the same thing you did. when does that happen? it isyou look in history similar introductions of big technology, it can take a decade or more. if you look at the introduction of the electric motor in manufacturing or early computers , that took 15 or 20 years in some cases to get to the point where you actually saw the productivity benefits of those new technologies showing up in the productivity. >> you have slow productivity and lower wages. which is the cause in which is the effect? >> that is another good question. something to the issue of slow productivity and slow wage growth prayer. there is some evidence but it is

not quite clear. >> to bring it back to the topic of the conference here. , with growingange market power of some companies do we see the investment from them, do we see the incentive for them to invest if they have the power to control markets anyway? >> one of the things i think that people will be talking about is what is the relationship between changes in market structure and investment, how is that related to technology. isn't about market power are a different kind of investment that we are not good measuring? how is that related to wages? that will be a big talking -- topic of discussion this weekend. that was from jackson hole. google taking another step on the road to getting back into china. out ofme it involves that setting up a subsidiary.

the move comes after google confirmed it is working with the chinese government to create a search engine for use in china. coming up it takes a village to run apple but beyond the ceo tim cook, who are the other faces of the tech giant that we may not know as well. we will discuss next. also we will bring you our best interviews from the week. tune in this saturday for the best of bloomberg technology. this is bloomberg. ♪

it is tim cook seventh anniversary at apple but behind

the face of the company over 100 executives help run outside the limelight. tim cook says passing through baton is one of his biggest responsibilities. we are looking at the other executives. let's start with tim cook. there are no signs that he is going anywhere. how long do we expect a? .> he is 57 years old it seems that apple is the only thing he cares about. apple is his entire life. he runs the ship even though it is not a one-man shop. i could see him being there for the next 10 years plus. typically retire around the age of 70. some go longer some go shorter. apple has always been unique in that respect. >> who are the other faces of apple that we need to know?

who could potentially be next in line? back, there are three organizational rows. there is tim cook and the board of directors. then he has a group of 10 senior vice president. the two people to focus on are the head of marketing who was symbiotic with steve jobs in returning apple to the company it is today as well as the chief operating officer. if anything were to happen it would likely go to one of those two. below that row are dozens of vice presidents who report to those people. talk to us about the female executives on the bench. the head of retail, she was the ceo of birth very through

2014. she has a high profile. there is kate adams who is their new general counsel. she handles all of the legal duties. she has been at the forefront at that. there is the head of china operations. jennifer bailey runs apple pay. there are lots of women at the top. >> the $1 trillion milestone was huge for tim cook. he has said passing the baton is a and they talk about succession. what do we know about those

discussions assuming that even if it is not going to happen imminently that they did discuss what will happen years from now? >> we had a pretty good idea that they have a plan of what would happen tomorrow if tim cook stepped off the ron kirk. they have a plan. this is the biggest company in the world. there are no excuses for them not to have a six russian plan. they plan everything in such fine detail from the piece of paper they put in the stores to indicate prices -- >> if you're interested in some of those lesser-known phases of apple. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. it is all for now. i'm emily chang in san francisco. we'll be back on monday.

♪

david: one month after you take this job, you get a heart attack, and they say you need a heart transplant. oscar: they said get the surgery. that is the only way you will live. david: i assume you are not flying on private planes. oscar: you have to eat what you cook. david: emotional support animals? oscar: one of the animals recently required another emotional support animal. [laughter] >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. alright.