emily: welcome to the "best of bloomberg technology." all of our top of ouwe bring yu interviews from the week in tech. coming up in the next hour, ibm took center stage at the consumer electronics show this week. we will speak to the ceo about the next frontiers in ai and quantum computing. plus, from a shutdown to a slowdown. how the u.s. government shutdown could delay the most highly anticipated tech ipo's in 2019. and can elon musk be the voice of reason in u.s.-china

relations? we will bring you the latest ceo's meetingla with the chinese premier. our top story, ibm took another step towards bringing superfast computing to commercial reality. and the ceo sees results coming as soon as 2021. she delivered the opening keynote at the largest tech expo and highlighted what she believes is coming next for ai, data, and quantum computing. she also talked about how it is impacting business and their clients. we spoke with her after she delivered her remarks and talked first about ibm's relationship with delta. >> we had a great conversation with ed bastion at delta, and we have done a lot of work together , and it boils down to how you

can make the flyer's experience better. it is everything from recognizing who you are and your history without saying anything. so if your flight is canceled, all the work we have done to build ai to say this is the flight you should take and to predict the kind of compensation for the situation. at the other end of the spectrum, it is maintenance. and the other side of it, we had a big announcement today on weather. we own the weather company. this is a huge announcement about the most accurate local weather. we will be able to predict turbulence an hour in advance. think about that not only from safety, as well as if you are the pilot. instead of having a flight path where the pilot comes on looking for smooth air, they know that well in advance. we covered everything from the impact of weather, the number one factor in our industry. weather, customer service, and customer relations. emily: when it comes to ai, on

the one hand, there are concerns for people like elon musk about an ai apocalypse threatening humans. and on the flipside, some say ai is not living up to the hype and is not living up to expectations. which is it? ginni: i do not think it is either of those, to be honest. i got a chance on stage to cover and give people a way to look at ai in a broad spectrum. on one hand, people talk about ai as a human brain. general ai is decades away if at all. on the other end, some of the ai is very narrow ai. it does one simple thing. that issue is of expectations or is that just what it does? what we introduced today was to get people thinking of the next level will be broad ai. it will be the same task. broad says i can learn something next to me.

if i am an insurance company, i can train my claims on the roof types of the world. i have to do a lot of training on that. broad ai says i have been trained on roofs, if one is hit by hail, i can recognize that m withoute rest of the more training. this to me is what helps bring the promise of ai alive. way less training and the time which is value to a business. today when you talk about am i getting value yet, such a huge amount goes into training. so much of what we are doing is trying to narrow that down, so you get a value faster. emily: you unveiled a new high precision, local forecasting system in your acquisition of the weather channel. you unveiled a new design for your quantum computers. all of these things sound cool, but how do they affect the bottom line? ginni: yes, so the discussion about weather, as you know, we are the weather app on your phone. almost every phone around when that is us.her,

that is good business. when we talk about ai for clients, data, you have to prepare the data which is good business. the analytics and ai on top of it. and quantum, i think what you are asking is what is the timeframe until quantum produces commercial results? we are probably in a two-year to five-year time frame what you will see commercial businesses doing that and that means revenue. emily: how many quantum computers are you expecting to sell in the next two years? ginni: that is a very good question. but do not think of it that way. these quantum systems are a capability that you offer on the cloud. 7 million experiments have already been done. quantum does not replace other kinds of computing. it is on the cloud, because it operates at something colder then out of space. we will offer it via the cloud. different people are preparing -- we introduced it as a system

, because real humans can operate, manage, write languages to it. we have been going through a phase to prepare everyone for this. exxon mobil joined us to talk about the work they are starting about how to more effectively think about it as creating different kinds of fuel and chemistry. what quantum is going to get at for business is everything we do today that is approximated, you and i do not think people realize things like drug discovery, it is wet lab. you cannot model these things literally, and that is what we will get to. when you say how many will you sell, it is really about usage , because it is offered over the cloud. that is how it will be. as i said, already 7 million experiments. there is a network formed by the way people are beginning to pay for that. the real issue is usage. emily: trade talks, ginni, are ongoing, and we are seeing some real impact on u.s. businesses, even apple blaming poor iphone sales in china in part on trade tensions. ibm does not manufacture in

china, but how does each downturn and the trade war impact ibm? ginni: the big picture on trade, i have spent a lot of time on trade, and we all really believe trade ought to be fair and responsible and what is out there. we would always prefer people to engage in a dialogue and resolve these issues, because trade is good for all of us. and, in fact, history shows it creates jobs for all of us. what i have seen here, i have begun to see a difference in how clients are looking at what they want to accomplish with technology. if i look over a long arc of time, emily, you would see a lot of focus on just innovation. i see a more balanced requirement from clients now on both innovation and productivity, and i think that is in response to an uncertain environment. emily: you were on the president's strategy on business council. you focused on important issues, like taxes and immigration. on the day the president is scheduled to give a primetime

address at the border, have you found engaging with the administration to be productive? ginni: look, i have always believed no matter what government, including our own, it is about engagement of policies. we have had very productive engagement on skills and education, and we have really accomplish some great things, including the perkins act. it is about creating a society where you value skills and not just diplomas. that requires a lot of policy change. if you roll back to your initial questions to me on technology, the number one issue for, i believe, our society right now is skills. it is retraining and people coming out with fresh skills. that is why there are 7 million jobs, 6 million people looking, but not a match in skills. we have found a receptive audience in trying to advance things like apprenticeship, policy things around education, to put focus on how do you get an environment where people can participate in new tech and that it does not always require a

four-year college degree. i talked about this, more than a bit about this at ces. i introduced a lot of ibmers, we call them new collars. not blue-collar, not white-collar, nontraditional. someone who is a firefighter or a barrista. we have about 200 of these going on. that is an example of an area that i have found to be very productive for discussion. emily: there has been a lot of volatility in big tech. hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the market cap of apple, of facebook, even ibm has been hit. what is your outlook for market sentiment, investor sentiment around big tech in 2019? ginni: well, i will certainly let you work on the market sentiment piece. i will circle back to my point on what i see clients wanting, what are they looking for people to do? i look a year ahead of us, that

i do think we will see clients deploy their tech dollars, and they will want solutions that bring them productivity and bring them innovation. this is one of the best things ibm does is allows work on both sides of the equation. emily: my conversation with ceo ginni rometty at ces. stay tuned for our conversation with verizon ceo hans vestberg in the show later this hour. facebook got a vote of confidence from jp morgan on tuesday. the firm called the social network one of its 2019 best ideas, despite negative investor sentiment over data privacy , telling clients that accelerating earnings growth could help the stock move past its scandals and controversies. still ahead, the partial government shutdown has taken the sec down to a skeleton staff. delays. what is expected to be a busy year for ipo's. which companies are in limbo , ahead. if you like bloomberg news, listen to us on bloomberg radio. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: 2019 is supposed to be the year of new big tech ipo's. uber, lyft, and more. but with the u.s. government shutdown, the u.s. ipo market could be facing a slowdown. bloomberg learned uber analysts have yet to receive feedback on from the u.s. securities regulator on confidential submissions for the initial public offerings. the sec is one of several federal agencies down to a skeleton staff. so just how much of a delay could we be looking at? we spoke with bloombergs managing editor elizabeth fournier in new york on wednesday. elizabeth: well, if you think back to the end of last year, we

were talking excitedly about how 2019 could be a banner year for ipo's, especially tech ipo's. we knew that uber and lyft had both confidentially filed. what that shutdown means is that none of that paperwork has been looked at. companies can still put in a basic filing, but there is no one to review the paper or give feedback to the companies and know when to communicate what else might be needed to move on to the next step. khosrowshahi, the ceo of uber, told the "wall street journal" that the uber ipo is still on track. that said, even if the government resumes operations, couldn't there still be a delay? elizabeth: yeah, absolutely. there will be a huge backlog of paperwork. we're focused on february the 14th. after that date, it is required for companies to provide a new order for their numbers.

usually what we see in january is lots of companies trying to price before then, so they don't have to update financial numbers. between now and then, if things do not clear up, and even if they do, there could still be a backlog that pushes us into the next period of financial reporting. emily: what about m&a? there are several pending deals , pending deals involving foreign companies. what happens there? elizabeth: we have already seen a few companies communicate with investors about what happens next, saying things like this could slow down our regulatory approval or when we could have a shareholder vote. people are not sounding an alarm yet. but i think if you are waiting for something like an approval for one of the u.s. antitrust things, or if you are a drug company waiting for an fda approval to come through before you are trying to sell, then there could be a slowdown there. emily: elizabeth fournier, thank you for weighing in. of course we're watching every day. i want to continue this discussion about the 300 companies that have been acquired.

thank you for joining us. are you worried about the impact of the shutdown on silicon valley companies? alex: first of all, thank you for having us. i will say the sec shutdown is not good, is not good for business. the ipo market is a crucial end stage for many companies that want to build standalone and sustainable businesses. it is important for companies to aim for that long-term. this was so abrupt, that our companies were anticipating that it was an option for them. they spent their capital. they depend on the proceeds from the ipo.

the good news is that we manage over $6 billion in capital, and most of our companies have a backstop and they can continue to stay private for longer. these companies have to find other options and ways to fund their business. emily: you do have a few unrealized unicorns. netscope, tripaction. are any of your companies seeing an impact already? alex: we cannot comment on any of those companies going public. the nice thing about being at a firm where we have ample capital is we can't support these can support these companies, regardless of what the liquidity situation looks like. all of these companies are trying to build sustainable companies. all of them have a backup plan given any sort of scenario that we will go into in the economy in 2019. a lot of our companies have put that together given the uncertainty coming out of the government. emily: mercy, you ran growth before joining lightspeed.

i know you will not share any inside information, but it is one of the companies that we hear about potentially going public this year. what is the impact on employees of a potential delay like this? mercy: i cannot comment on the potential impact. while there, i ran growth for years, so what i am excited about in joining lightspeed is to bring that understanding to other companies. emily: we will talk about that , but is the funding environment being impacted by the uncertainty in washington and the trade war and now these delays? alex: there is a certain amount of certainty that markets like. they like predictability. when markets get volatile, it is not good for in general the capital cycle. and i will say that there has been a lot more conversations around board room tables about how to plan for contraction in the market. it is still in the stages of

planning. we have not seen it affect the businesses, at least the ones that i have been involved with, that much. emily: at the end of the year, lightspeed mentioned three partners. it was like a bomb dropping. one of them is you. merci, one of them is you. why did you decide to join lightspeed? and what is your focus? merci: i am focused on the future of investing. probably not surprising. i started an organization in 2015 called women in product that has since become a global movement. i started that organization, because in my 12 years of working at early-stage startups, i worked with one other female product manager. now, i have joined lightspeed , and 25% of the partners are women. i think there has been a big shift already.

emily: how many women at lightspeed have checkwriting privileges at lightspeed? alex: we have five investment professionals at various stages in their careers. it has been amazing to see all of these talented individuals joining in the last three years. it has been an incredible transformation. i have a partner that joined around the same month that you did. nicole, ashley, and natalie have all come on in the last few years. emily: what are you looking at in terms of what is exciting, but also what is overhyped and not exciting? alex: i can tell you where i am spending my time. i spent a lot of time over the last years trying to think about what is going to happen to the retail landscape in the age of amazon and where technology can continue to sustain businesses in areas that are not traditionally covered by amazon. we like to think about the retail apocalypse that people talk about as being a little overhyped, maybe to your point. there are certain categories that are more affected, department stores, for example.

but in other areas, we see a resurgence, including the independent retail business. we have backed a company called faire that raised $100 million from us and a few other firms and they are building a wholesale marketplace between parties and artisanal brands. they are all tiny but together, economically they are a powerful force. we have given them the ability to purchase inventory risklessly. they test out new products in the store and extend product offerings. they have access to the powerful tools that the larger firms have had. and have the added benefit of being local. we think that is a resurgent category of retail. while the big boxes might be suffering, they are doing pretty well. emily: merci, what is next in the future of work? what is the next slack? merci: the next slack we might find in blue and pink collar

industries, there are a huge number of businesses still run with pen and paper. there are a lot of businesses that are relatively blind to the risks they face in the global supply chain. i think that the consumerization of enterprises something maybe we are tired of talking about in silicon valley, but once we're tired of talking about something here, it has barely started to charge global business. emily: thank you to lightspeed's partners. still ahead, softbank another $2 billion invested but a lot less than $16 billion they planned to invest on a controlling stake. and we take a road trip across europe in a tesla. our experience and recommendations. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: softbank is detailing its bet on wework.

the japanese conglomerate announced it was investing in the co-working start up. but it is a step back from the $16 billion that would give them a controlling stake in wework. and it is rebranding itself. as the we company. mark tells us why. mark: it signals that softbank can do anything it wants to do. late last year, they floated a plan that they were going to take over wework. we will be fully invested and we want an ownership stake. then the stock market went haywire. stocks took a dive, 20% in the last month. this giant, $100 billion vision fund, investors were not stoked about the deal, so they could not get it done with that huge amount of cash. so they did what they could with the money that they had available. emily: does it also signal

skepticism about wework or the we company, i should say? mark: certainly, there must be investors in the vision fund that do not have full confidence in terms of taking a full takeover, but we should also remember that softbank now has put something like $10 billion in this company which is a lot of money. it is a big vote of confidence in the business which has been expanding rapidly. money, but they are purchasing up a lot of leases and buildings and doing interesting things. emily: let us talk about some of their challenges. rents are going down. right? mark: right. this business has only existed in a bull market. prices are going up. now, we are starting to see, and the ceo with wework says they are seeing declines in leasing prices in almost every market. emily: and pushback from the landlords. mark: pushback from landlords, which we have risen about. they have grown to this size

where they can no longer maneuver around the edges of the real estate business. they are -- in manhattan for example, they are the biggest leaser of commercial real estate. emily: communally designed apartments. how optimistic are investors about this line of business and another which sound good. mark: for a lot of people that invest in private technology companies, they are very optimistic people. the prospect of some dudes that have no experience in schooling to go and reinvent the elementary school, there are people that believe in that. the ceo is signaling here that they want to be more

than just a co-working business. emily: that was bloomberg's mark millian. still ahead, the plunging of the stock as more investors rush to sell as soon as they can. we hear from the cofounder next. and bloomberg tech. follow our global twitter partner, tictoc. this is bloomberg. ♪ i am a family man.

i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

emily: another smart phone maker has been feeling the heat. it is neither apple or samsung. in the second week of xiaomi january dropped over three days. at least seven analysts from goldman to chinese national targets.ut their price bloomberg's tom mackenzie sat down for an exclusive interview. >> apple recently cut its sales forecast for the year blaming much of that on the slowdown in china. what are you seeing in terms of demand for xiaomi smartphones in the chinese market?

are you seeing any evidence that consumers in china are ditching u.s. brands and moving more towards domestic brands? >> 5g is coming very soon. at this point, the demand for smartphones is declining but i believe when 5g comes, we should expect to see a peak in demand for smartphones. four of the world's top six companies are chinese. it's understandable that foreign brands are facing pressure in china as local brands are more competitive. >> wanting to push you on your priorities were specifically for overseas expansion. i know you talked about the growth xiaomi has seen in india which has been very strong, and in europe countries like spain, but what are your priorities and have they changed given the current tensions in the current environment?

>> the new priority will be european markets. we hope to choose two or three companies to break into to prove that xiaomi can put a foot print in developed countries. that is our global business strategy. >> there is some skepticism about the claim that xiaomi is an internet services company more than just a hardware company. what specifically are you doing to address those concerns? when do you think the steps you are putting into place will start to have an impact? >> xiaomi is an veru innovative that includes the e-commerce and internet. i always say that we are a new creature taking the internet business as an example. in the third quarter of 2018, that revenue increased more than 80% year on year. it is growing very fast. our active internet users are as

many as 220 million people, which is a large number. emily: tom mackenzie there with the xiaomi co-founder. i want to continue this discussion. josh wrote the cover story for k's bloomberg businessweek. we are looking at how u.s.-chinese tensions are impacting the global market. we have heard about the revenue forecast cut for apple. chinese smart phone sales falling off a cliff. samsung also cutting revenue but not mentioning china specifically and now xiaomi. what is happening? >> i think with apple you see a reminder that the u.s. and chinese economies are really interconnected. and any action that u.s. policymakers take that have a negative impact on the chinese economy will eventually end up impacting american companies like apple.

obviously there is more going on in the smart phone market then just the trade war. there are other reasons that the market is slowing down but it is one factor. emily: what is your take on all things combined here? the revenue cut from apple was unprecedented. >> i kind of pointed that out. apple is essentially a luxury product, especially in chinese markets. and all of the luxury brands have suffered pretty aggressively in that market. sales have slowed down. but if you add to that, the overall demand for smartphones is actually softening. it has been a growth industry for about 12 years now. it is growing at such stupendous rates that people have a hard time understanding how growth tapers off after a period of time. we have seen this in the pc's and we saw it in other devices

so why would smartphones be any different? emily: are smartphones the next pc? om: they already are. it will be a battle. it will be a battle of an ecosystem and what the companies are selling. in china, the market will be more interesting because it will be dependent on all of the services in china and not just the hardware. i think that is why you would want to give an advantage to companies like huawei which have such influence in their domestic market. emily: there is skepticism about how much this has to do with trade tensions. tim cook said he would like to have seen apple do better in developed markets in the last quarter as well. how much of what we are seeing here has to do with time specific trade talks and how much does it have to do with a

broader global smartphone issue? >> i definitely think the latter is a significant factor. given the amount of attention we are seeing to the trade issue. everything is understood through the lens of that, but the fact is the smart phone market has been softening for a while. you see people who own smartphones just not buying them with the same frequency they used to. there is not as much of a difference between the generations. there is going to be a softening. you are going to look for companies to try to make more of their mark in services because the devices are not going to be the factor they have been in the last couple of years. emily: can services be as bigger business? om: apple pay, apple music. i think they have an opportunity

in the video aspect of their business. i wish they would get their act together on the cloud business and they could make a lot of money there. there is a lot of opportunity for the company. i think most people forget why apple gets the premium and will continue to get a premium in the future. they have made privacy their primary, unique selling point. you do not get that with an android phone no matter who is making the android phone. there is some semblance of privacy challenges. from that standpoint, if you are in the apple ecosystem, you are opting for a privacy oriented ecosystem. i think people will realize in a year from now. on the other aspect of the pc -- the similarities are so much between the pc business and the phone business.

the pc business was an all-out war with very low margins except for microsoft and intel. everybody else was living on scraps except for apple. and you will see the same thing. emily: would you say the same thing for a company like xiaomi. they have always tried to build themselves as an i.t. business. they make things other than smartphones. and then they talk about services. he talked about it as a new creature. that is why people do not quite understand these other lines of business. om: new creatures always have the same reality that the rest of us live in. humans don't have an insatiable capacity to consent. our wallets are so big that we keep buying things and get rid of them all the time. a lot of electronics companies are going to face that challenge apple included. , emily: when 5g comes, he said

there would be a new smartphone peak. is that going to drive new sales? josh: when people talk about 5g it is when they are talking about these applications. it will drive autonomous vehicles and so on. in the short-term, phone makers will not see that as a main reason to upgrade. maybe a little further down the line though. emily: still ahead, we continue our coverage out of ces. verizon determined to win the 5g race. our chat with the ceo. plus we catch up with bob , pittman, the ceo of heart radio about the future of advertising on radio. ♪

emily: tencent is creating its own digital assistant. the company will soon introduce

a virtual assistant that will link to several of tencent's services. assistants fight for dominance in the united states but they remain largely nonexistent in china. it is unclear when it will be rolled out. back to this week's consumer electronics show in las vegas. last month, i heard media and pure channel finalized their long anticipated divorce. clear channel spun out. the goal for i heart media is to emerge as a leader company that can capitalize on its dominance in radio broadcasting, and as a potential target for a potential buyer. bonnie klinge caught up with bob pittman test about the health of quinnmpany -- vonnie caught up with bob pittman to talk about the health of this

company. >> there are two aspects to it on one of them does not have to do with bankruptcy. splitting the outdoor company from the i heart media segment which is primarily audio. it allows us to serve companies -- align the companies better for investors. what we found was investors that really love outdoor are not necessarily those that love audio and vice a versa. we now have some pure plays for them. i think from an operating standpoint i think we have done remarkably well even with the high debt load. but i think having a balance sheet which finally matches the operating performance of the business is certainly giving us a lot of opportunities and lets us take advantages of opportunities more quickly as they crop up. vonnie: how open are you to being acquired? and if you had your one wish, what entity might that be? bob: for us, we have a great future running as i heart. i am not looking at that. and that is not on a wish list

anywhere. but we do recognize that once the capital structure is fixed, we will be attractive to a lot of companies. there are a lot of companies that i think want to partner with us and want to be involved with us and i think it is understandable and i guess it is flattering. emily: speaking with news out of ces, while we are still more than a year away from a fully functioning 5g network, verizon is pumping up its speed to differentiate itself from others. we caught up with the ceo to talk about the race to 5g. hans: i think we have to prepare ourselves for a long time. we see this as only the beginning. that is where we still are in the city's. we are getting better performance than we expected and we are very happy with that. as soon as we get the next generation of equipment, we will continue to roll out all of the 5g homes. we are very happy with the

outcome so far. >> eventually this will go national as well. step back for a moment and give us a sense for end-users the new services they will be able to task. hans: i think that what we need to realize is 4g to 5g is a quantum leap when it comes to speed, throughput, and latency. 5g r of the capacities of for industries. if you are a consumer, you will see a totally different type of production. we call it the 5g ultra wideband. we are committing to a minimum of 300 megabits per second in the home wireless. and we are seeing much higher numbers. the whole ecosystem has to be

there. the infrastructure which we are building. and the handsets or the cps for the homes. we are now working on that and will roll out a lot in 2019 when it comes to smartphones. scarlet: it is also very exciting for consumers. at&t coming your competitor, plans to introduce an e-service. set falsehat expectations for customers and what their understanding of what 5g can entail? hans: we are talking about the eight different capacities. i collect currencies -- i call it currencies that 5g is giving in the future where we are building out the network. we are building all of our network to be prepared to delivering those eight currencies. we want our customers to feel that it is a quantum leap from 4g. this will be a bigger leap from 3g to 4g.

we are working with enterprises that will benefit from it. society at large will also benefit because some of the things that 5g is bringing out is a lower power consumption. maybe 1/10 of what we are doing on the 4g network. there are so many other things and that is why we are building a network. to enable all of those capacities on the 5g network. emily: verizon ceo hans vestberg. still ahead, could elon musk be the answer to easing tensions between the u.s. and china? now that the factory has broken ground in shanghai the chinese , premier seems to think so. we will discuss next, this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the u.s. and china are still at a standstill over trade. could elon musk be the answer? the tesla ceo met with the chinese premier and he hopes

tesla can become a better promoter of ties between the two countries. china even offered elon musk permanent residency. wants musk to break ground on the factory for electric cars. on monday, tesla broke ground in shanghai. >> only 10,000 foreigners have gone into this ultimate exclusive chinese club of folks who have a chinese permanent residency, a so-called chinese green card. what it gives basically is equal treatment as chinese citizens if that is something that you want , which is another question of course, but you can buy a home, you can get a drivers license along with financial services. to the question of eligibility, basically it goes to folks who are smart and powerful if they have some contribution to the chinese economy. to society. to technology. of course elon musk fulfills all

of those. especially if you are contributing a lot of money. with the opening of the tesla factory, breaking ground this week on the order of $5 billion, elon musk definitely hits a lot of those boxes. emily: should we call him ambassador musk? is it too soon? when you think about diplomacy, our producer said that elon musk is not the first person that comes to mind. >> i think you should look at this from two perspectives. one is the tesla perspective which is elon musk needs china. china is the most important growth market for electric vehicles and probably for everything. it is an area where tesla has not played very much. getting this factory making nice , with the chinese government is very important to elon musk. what this china one in elon musk? i think what it wants is a public relations opportunity.

this is a way to subtly take a dig at president trump and maybe even drive a wedge between the president and elon musk at a time when there is a lot of tension. i think it is telling that this does not seem like it was an offer made in a back room but in -- for the purposes of the tv cameras. there's a reason we have not seen comment from elon musk on it. emily: how often do we see china use something like this as a political tool? >> that is a good question. really it is more about the brain gain that china is trying to do. if you take a look at the folks who have gotten these things, they really are super high level. the question is if they need it or not. for example, this started from 2004 when the first person who was a nuclear physicist was given this, maybe awarded might be the correct term. you can see a couple of other folks on your screen including nobel laureates in chemistry.

and the first nba player, stephan marbury. these are folks that are famous and the question is if they needed or not. i do have a little skepticism because there really is no free lunch. if you are given something free, what does this actually mean? lee wants to pave the way so elon musk can contribute further to the chinese economy. contribute further to intellectual property and technology processes as tesla ramps up even more. emily: and i wonder if some of the other big tech ceos that have been trying to break into china might not be so happy about this. who knows if tim cook has been offered something like this but mark zuckerberg has been trying to get into china for years. >> it puts elon musk into a difficult situation. he wants to as quietly as possible -- he does not want to wade into the political back-and-forth between president trump and the chinese because we

are one tweet away from some kind of embarrassing thing that could spiral out of control. i don't think tim cook or mark zuckerberg are jealous. what is kind of interesting is it speaks to the power of the elon musk brand. -- we talkedody about his hijinks and craziness, but he is probably admired and ,he kind of person any country even as powerful as china would be happy to claim as one of their own. emily: can elon musk really have an impact on u.s.-china relations? >> especially given the position of the president? >> i think lee would be hopeful but i think it is something more for the cameras if he can use elon musk for some kind of political purpose. hey, elon musk is coming to this country, elon musk is breaking

ground. let us do something together. a second level, if anything, this will only help the beijing authorities push forward their own goals in terms of "made in china 2025." and in terms of the ev they want to get out. by the country wants to have 7 2025, million evs out on the roads. that is about 20% of the sales they are expecting. this is supporting tesla in its bottom line. hop onto the bloomberg terminal. i want to show you the forecast from bloomberg on energy finance. you can see the red bars in 2020, 2021 and 2022 indicates china's share of the sales of ev's around the world will be more than 50%. even through 2029, 2030. this is really playing into the hands, into the goals of china

for its own purposes. emily: we decided it was time for a road trip across europe. being a resident of paris, she is not blind to electric vehicles. she decided to make a 715-mile battery-powered lawyer in other than a tesla. mary: recently i went on a special road trip, my first road trip with a fully electric vehicle. i am used to driving and -- driving an electric car around paris where i have lived for years. there has been a car sharing scheme of electric vehicles. but driving hundreds of miles outside of the city is something i'm not familiar with. what i did was i rented a tesla and i drove from paris to mannheim in germany. which is the home and birthplace of the automobile. when you ask most consumers, they will tell you what they are most worried about is running out of gas and not finding anywhere to plug in. in this case, it was running out of battery juice.

finding somewhere to recharge the car. that was a lot of anxiety i felt during my trip. a lot of difficulty in planning the trip was that i could not just fill up the tank. in most cases, i had to plan my trip around where charging stations were and where i knew i would be able to stop along the highway or at hotels to refill my car. when you ask people, this is what they are anxious about. most of that is something you will run into in reality. it is hard to plan whether a charging station will be available. whether it actually exists in some cases. whether it is a fast or slow charging station. until that infrastructure evolves, the adoption of electric car will keep people nervous about heading out on longer distances. that is definitely true from what i found out. emily: and that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology."

we will bring you the latest intact throughout the week. tune in every day 5:00 new york. we are live streaming on twitter. follow our global breaking news network, tictoc. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ carol: welcome to bloomberg "businessweek." i'm carol massar. in this week's issue u.s.-china trade talks front and center. jason: the magazine has several stories looking at china and its relationship with big tech, emerging economies and its impact on the digital economy. carol: on the cover the technology giant, we're talking about zte. jason: can paypal survive on its own?