emily: i am emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." volatility royals the market. a selloff in the u.s. as concerns mount over record new cases of covid-19 and political uncertainty as two senate seats in georgia hanging in the balance. we will have the latest, plus

the u.k. on lockdown again. is there a bubble intact? what about bitcoin? we will dig into all things crypto as bitcoin sores passed for 34,000 dollars, then pulls back. and, a meet at the google bargaining table. google employees start a union, aiming to take on issues from compensation to ethics and challenging the search giant's leadership. onst, u.s. stocks slumping spikes in cases of coronavirus and before this week's georgia senate runoff. wrap it up for us. little bit of a positive gains in the premarket and then everything went south. nasdaq end thee day in the red by about equal margins. the new york faang index and the stocks index outperforming the

major benchmark. a lot of the pain was in those tech hardware stocks. this idea that demand for tech hardware with this virus risk isn't going to be as robust as some people thought. ine of this tech pain chinese companies listed in the u.s. you saw the nasdaq golden dragon index under as well. theyou look under the hood, major worst performers were these e-commerce companies. you also saw jd at alibaba shares decline as well. this idea that the new york stock exchange delisted major telecom companies that were said to be associated, some fears on that front. techlso can see that big was outperforming, the new york thing index pulling back, but

not as much as the nasdaq. last flip of the board, you need to look at what is going on with the amazon stocks. that partnership with berkshire hathaway and j.p. morgan on that health care venture now paused and potentially not coming back. you saw those shares take a hit as well. emily: thanks so much for that roundup. we will keep watching. we are learning more about what led up to that our long phone call with president trump pressuring georgia election officials to turn the november election his way. here is part of that conversation. want to do isll i this. 11,780 voteso find , which is one more than we have , because we won the state. on tuesday, tomorrow,

georgia holds perhaps the most consequential senate runoff election in history. my colleague joins us now from atlanta with the latest. let's talk about the runoff. where do things stand in the midst of this controversy between the president and georgia's secretary of state? >> this is a huge runoff that has ignited georgia. it is not just one or two senate seats. this is for control of the senate. huge thing in georgia. they have been flooded with ads. biden just had his rally behind me. trump will have one later tonight. georgia is ready to vote tomorrow except for the georgians that have already done early voting and absentee voting. emily: control of the senate hangs in the balance, emily, but what about this call from the

president to georgia's secretary of state? how is that factoring in? >> immediately democrats picked up on the call. vice president-elect kamala harris in savannah said it was abuse of power. democratic candidate jon ossoff said it was an attack on democracy. even republicans, david perdue said he was shocked by the call. what impact this is going to have on voters does remain to be seen. i've spoken to voters and a lot of them do believe there was fraud in the november 3 election despite the fact that we don't have any evidence and lawsuits have been dismissed or debunked. there's is a chance that if people think trump was doing the right thing, republicans might not see a great loss of votes tomorrow. is tuesday.lection the ratification of the electoral college is wednesday. what are the chances that republicans, and only some

republicans are challenging these electoral college results, but what are the chances republicans are successful in overturning that? >> it is almost next to impossible that they are going to be successful. they will delay it. they will stretch it out. we will see sort of a longer than normal process. but in the end, there isn't enough power to overturn the results of any state election. so we do expect joe biden to become the next president. but this movement does speak to the number of republicans who still feel loyal to trump. they want to back the president and show that they are doing what they can to support the president's unproven claims that this election was fraudulent. emily: there seem to be remaining concerns about what president trump will do in his last days in office. what are your sources on the biden team telling you about how

the transition is going? >> we've seen a number of things. we have seen trump pardon a number of individuals, some that were involved with the case regarding russia trying to interfere with u.s. elections. some of those weren't surprising but trump has indicated there might be more on the way. there are also difficulties that seem to be emerging between the biden transition team and trump officials. usually the outgoing and incoming presidents would work together, making sure the next president can hit the ground running. but biden has said that not all trump administration departments have been cooperative, that some have been withholding meetings and information. that could potentially impact how quickly the biden administration is able to move on their first day. runoff,s for the actual the count took a really long

time after the election in november. are we expecting the count to extend in today's or will we know the results fairly quickly? >> i wouldn't recommend staying up late on tuesday night. this is likely going to take a couple days. exactly how long depends on how close the race winds up being. we don't think it is going to take quite as long as the general election but we are expecting at least a few days wait and we expect to see something similar we saw to the general. when the in person votes are counted, republicans are likely to have a lead, and as absentee ballots are counted, democrats are expected to close that lead. emily: ok, good to know. , emily wilkins on the ground in atlanta. tune into our live coverage of the georgia senate runoff tomorrow night in new york. sets the stagea

for a new year with multiple efforts to ramp up production after closing a remarkable 2020. all the details next. this is bloomberg. ♪

tesla came close to its half a million delivery goal for 2020. just 450 vehicles shy of the mark. the electric car maker been boosting output, expanding efforts in china, and new factories in texas and germany. we are joined by jay jacobs,

senior vice president and head of research and strategy. thanks for joining us and happy new year. very close to the mark but not quite. what does that tell you? >> tesla set goals to grow substantially in 2020 and by and large they made it. this was driven by the bottom of the market. it was growing in china, the tesla model three, and it shows that their strategy of expanding into emerging markets and the affluent masses is starting to work. emily: obviously this is on the back of an incredible year. tesla got added to the s&p. they've got expansion efforts going. clearly the demand is there. what is your outlook on whether tesla can meet that demand? >> they are going to continue to grow substantially. 2021 iss forecast for about 750,000 vehicles. i think the question is, can

they continue to scale up production? they are growing factories in berlin and austin and shanghai. that is a huge operational lift. in the past, tesla is not the best at operational scaling. this is going to be much more about the supply side of the equation. shares rallied over 700% in the last year. at what point does that slow down? >> if you look at lithium battery technology, there are 40 holdings that we think are going to benefit from this electric vehicle revolution. it is a lot of chinese battery manufacturers and lithium miners. if you look at today as an example, we saw that those were companies that were leading in performance, not tesla. tesla is really the tip of the spear, but it is the entire

ecosystem that is going to start to rise as people look beyond tesla. what about other electric car companies in general? tesla has really risen so far above the rest. but is there a competitor you have your eye on, anyone that could come close to unseating tesla as the leader in electric cars? >> in the next five years is the perfect way to phrase it. right now there isn't really a competitor to tesla. there's no car that really has the same range, the same specs as their cars. you see the major automobile manufacturers coming in. volkswagen is coming in. we know that these companies have expertise in producing vehicles and have massive reach around the world. a lead, buty have

after that, the gap is going to close. tesla is pricing its model y suv below the competition. elon musk has said it could be their best selling vehicle ever. what is your outlook on that model? >> that is probably not going to be their best selling vehicle ever. it is still a relatively expensive vehicle. in emerging markets in europe, you don't see small suv's taking that much market share. they are more interested in small mass-market vehicles. can they get to that $30,000 level? if they can, they are competing with toyota and that completely changes the game. the valuations on tesla have very little to do with profit margins. it has everything to do with technology and potential for

subscription-based service. it is important to maintain those high valuations. now, over the years, must has said he wanted to take tesla private again in order to focus on innovation. he's now saying it is basically impossible. how do you think tesla, what is your outlook on tesla's ability to innovate under the pressure to meet such extreme global demand given that there aren't other automakers to meet that demand? a verynology happens at rapid pace. tesla has been at the tip of the spear. but you see other companies coming into the space now. amazon, youfrom have people competing in the

space race. you have other people in the communications and satellite space as well. more competition is going to lead to probably greater advances in technology. we think this is probably a really exciting time, not just for tesla, but for the broader space. emily: what are your other best tech picks? what are you watching? >> the space we are looking at now is telemedicine. this is technology that we are leveraging right now. we are using videoconferencing to communicate, but maybe i would be speaking to a doctor or health professional. it strainedow much health care systems. we've seen how much people are still worried about going outside. telemedicine to advance in 2021. we saw a lot of early adoption in 2020.

we think this is the year health care providers start to proactively reach out to patients and convert them to doing medicine remotely as much as possible. there's been talk that we are in a tech bubble. do you think that tech will continue to be a safe haven like it was most of last year? >> i think a lot of the names that were critical to making are as good as it could be very well positioned going forward. cloud computing companies where the technology heroes of 2020. those companies are really well positioned. when the lost it today outage happened. people could not handle slack being down for a couple hours. it shows how critical these companies have become. ,ven after the pandemic is over these technologies are going to be integral to our everyday lives.

that is not going anywhere and these companies have demonstrated that they are going to have a lot of pricing power going forward in the new year. emily: all right. i was one of those people. frustrated i couldn't get onto my slack to restart remote learning for 2021. jay jacobs, vanke you as always for weighing in. we will be watching out. still ahead, more concerns about covid. new york governor andrew cuomo confirming its first case of the u.k. covid-19 variant. we are going to have the latest on that, next. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ you can go your own way it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more.

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new york state has found

its first case of the new york variant of coronavirus according to governor andrew cuomo. a man in his 60's in upstate new york tested positive for the new strain. the manhattan traveled recently which suggests community spread. let's get the latest with bloomberg's michelle cortez. how concerning is it? there is additional evidence that the new variant is going to be across the united states at this point. we have a handful of cases in california, moving east across the country. york,do, florida, new none of these cases were directly connected to anybody who had been in the u.k. and they are not connected to each other. what that means is that probably a significant number of people already have this variant. it is here. the question is how quickly is it going to move and how quickly will that accelerated pace start

hitting our hospitals even harder than they are already being hit? emily: tell us what we know about the new variant. is it more contagious, and how much more contagious? how effective will vaccines be against this particular variant? >> those are great questions. at the moment, we understand that the vaccines we currently have will still be effective against this new variant. the issue isn't that, however. we are seeing reports that it is up to 70% faster moving than the original coronavirus. the problem is that even a lower rate than that, there's an exponential ratio that happens here. as we start getting more people infected, this is a faster moving variant, and they will infect more people and each one at that faster rate. so you are going to see

exponentially higher spread. at only that, we are already a very high rate in the united states and many hospitals were already overwhelmed. we are already hearing reports in los angeles that they are telling their ambulance services not to used to much oxygen for folks that were in the ambulances because they might not have enough to take care of everybody. those kind of terrifying risks are coming to the fore. and of course the vaccines, at some point, they will slow the trajectory of the disease, but what is going to get you first? the virus or the vaccine? we are all pulling for the vaccine at this point. emily: that is certainly a terrifying picture that you have painted. meantime, the u.k. is on lockdown. we are seeing fresh outbreaks in parts of asia that were calm. about the global

picture and presumably this variant is everywhere, right and mark -- right,? >> we are seeing it in hong kong. schools are closing back down again in the u.k. and scotland. they are going into full lockdown. they are going into stay-at-home mode. not only no schools, no barbershops, no gyms, no gatherings in any kind of substantial way. even outdoors, only two people from different families are allowed to be gathered together. they are already close to the breaking point. they are taking really dramatic action. that is going to last until the middle of february. six weeks of this really tough lockdown. we've seen in the past that these lockdowns do work. that is how this virus got under

control in asia and places like china. in that environment, they are able to shut everything down and say no one goes anywhere. we have seen less adherence to these rules and approaches that control the virus and it is now getting to that point where we are close. we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. but if you don't protect yourself now, with even more of the virus out there, the most dangerous time of this outbreak is right this minute. emily: goodness, michelle. thank you so much for laying out the big picture for us and reminding us why we all need to be vigilant and listen to what our public health authorities are telling us. alright, coming up, china steps up its scrutiny of tech behemoths. what is next for the country's

big tech players and famous entrepreneur, jack ma? this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." the new york stock exchange says it will delist three chinese companies to comply with president trump's executive order which bars investment in china-based firms affiliated with the military. this as china cracks down on its own tech giants, including antitrust probes into alibaba and tightened regulations in the fintech space. joining us now to discuss, our the instituteat

for management development. what do you make of china's seemingly sudden crackdown on its own tech giants, that it worked for so many years to build up and protect? sudden we start to see chinese regulators clampdown on these tech giants. historically people have seen them as national champions. they pioneered business models. really the pride of the country. what we've seen now is, these tech giants are becoming so big, they are creating a systemic risk to the financial sector or the industry environment in general. regulation trying to rein in the power. wave comingg this in now. emily: how does the chinese

government then walk this tight rope or manage this balancing act whereby they are cracking down on their own companies but wanting to tell the world that china is still a good place to do business? >> this is really fascinating. in a way, china is facing this transition from the traditional economy into more knowledge-based. this is the ambition. in many ways, these tech giants represent that dream. fundamentally, whether it is alibaba or tencent or jd.com, companies that are hot on nasdaq, in terms of the international revenue, they are tiny in comparison to domestic revenue. past,e have seen in the not just china but japan and south korea, these companies,

when they try to develop, they encourage these companies to go abroad. have failediants the beijing government in terms of revenue abroad. i think there is this combination between disappointment as well as systemic risks that these regulators are now given a green light to rein in these tech companies. about we have to talk what is happening with jack ma, who hasn't appeared in public for the last several weeks. he didn't appear at the taping of his own television show. he basically vanished from public view since the cancellation of aunt's ipo. he gave a speech being quite critical of the lack of economic reform in china. what do you make of this, given that he is perhaps the most famous entrepreneur and tech

figure coming out of china? >> in china, we have this old proverb that friends of mine would tell me, when the tree gets too big, it attracts wind. jack ma by his behavior is extremely charismatic and really took on his mission in driving growth for the organization. time will tell whether this incident is going to be a seismic shift in terms of entrepreneurial activity in china. but no doubt this is signaling that in china, nothing is too big to fail. agenda are nots' aligned with the national agenda, their competitive advantage will get eroded. mirror in europe or u.s. as well that regulators are stepping up.

emily: it is absolutely fascinating. what do you think the impact will be on ant financial? it was supposed to be one of the biggest ipo's ever. will this impact the future of alibaba? >> at business school, we always track the development of financial sector. how does fintech disruption change the way people bank? and if you take on the alibaba playbook, at the very core is this idea of taking data advantage. so fact that they can expand quickly across all these sectors is not just because their bankers are smarter than others. but everything is done based on data. they have your purchase behavior, online search behavior, all this to give them

a competitive advantage. society in seeing is china and regulators are not happy about that advantage. in the u.s. and western europe, it is about people having adverse reactions. think it is for innovation to take hold going forward. not only that innovation needs to be great, but the organization in western europe. in china, it needs to comply with the regulator in terms of rules of the game. i think executive needs to think broader in terms of the regulatory regime as well as the reputation of their organization. emily: what happens to china-u.s. relations after joe that takes office given the delisting of some of these companies is tied to an executive order from president

trump? does biden continue this more aggressive policy or pullback? i think it is going to get intensified going forward. if you think about these tech companies, in china, if they were to survive, the only way to grow is internationally, to bring foreign money back to china as a way to demonstrate their value to the government. case, which means international competition, whether it is the middle east or asia or latin america, these would be the frontier markets. u.s. firms and chinese companies would compete more intensely going forward. i think the battle would simply get intensified as an ongoing backdrop for the new administration. something thatt, will be a huge topic of our coverage.

howard, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. coming up, bitcoin bubble popped? we will take a look at the famously volatile cryptocurrency's pullback after a spectacular new year's rally. ♪

bitcoin pulled back after a spectacular rally today. the cryptocurrency falling as since march.ost bitcoin is up, though, 300% in the last year. for the first time, bitcoin supporters arguing that it is moving in on gold as a hedge

against the u.s. dollar's weakness. joining us to discuss, sunny, good to have you back. you got past 34,000, but why the pullback, closing today just over 31? hopefully santa claus gave you some bitcoin for christmas. i think today was just a minor blip in the road. i think it was a trading position that got liquidated. i think what you are seeing over the last month is supply and demand. there's a lot of institutional buyers and very little suppliers. because of those reasons you just said, it has become the popular trade against the dollar. buying two or $300 million orders, there is no supply for that. think i know your

answer to this next question. is there a chance the bitcoin bubble just popped? >> a lot of the institutional buyers bought in around 20,000. that would be my floor for how far bitcoin could go down. in,those buyers that bought they said we are in for a three to five year timeline. that is great. but if bitcoin hits $45,000, they are going to say, we don't need that anymore. let's start selling. that could cause a catapulting event and we could see it go down to 30 or things like that. but i think the floor will be 20. emily: are you saying you think it can go to 45 in the next month? hit 30000 andould

i was proven wrong very fast. it hit 30,000 in 20 days. i think there's very little pressure and i think it goes up month or in the next so pretty easily. 45,then when you get to 40, you will see some pressure. but i think you will see something else coming to play. bitcoin will become a trillion dollar currency. , it becomes aber trillion dollar currency. you could even see governments and treasury departments start buying bitcoin. two years ago, corporations buying bitcoin was crazy. emily: but before that point, does the government step in with more aggressive regulation? >> governments are already trying to do regulations. they are passing policies on the

exchanges and all that. aroundt more slows it the utility of sending bitcoin to your friends and things like that. the actual mass institutional buying and selling, it makes it easier and safer. how much does the coinbase ipo -- they filed to go public. how much do you think a successful ipo of coinbase could change the game? >> i think it is going to help a lot. i think it is going to hit 45 and then maybe go to the trillion dollar market cap because of that. it is going to be instrumental for a lot of reasons. wall street loves that square traded $1.6 billion worth of crypto. coinbase traded $1.5 billion two

days ago on a saturday. they've been trading over a billion dollars every day. they are charging. these revenue numbers are going to blow people's minds. wall street is going to really drive that stock price up. and what of the exchanges like charles schwab? it is going to put a lot of media frenzy around this whole industry. everyone is going to start offering pretty soon. emily: meantime, ripple has been sec.by the the government seems to be concerned. ripple saying it is a currency. not a good look for ripple executives. what do you make of this? >> it is definitely going to be

a headache for ripple. they are going after a lot of these companies and getting settlements. we will see if they want to do a drawnout court case. what is interesting with the new administration, a new executive coming in. do you want to do a drawnout court case with ripple or a quick settlement that is easier for the industry? emily: interesting. sunny, always appreciate your predictions. we are going to check in about that $45,000 mark. good to have you back on the show. theto another top story, joint health care venture between amazon, jp morgan, and berkshire hathaway shutting down next month. a spokesperson for the venture says it made good progress

exploring health care solutions. the three companies will continue to collaborate informally. maybe they make progress, but obviously not enough. what do you make of this fast and furious shut down? release saying that jamie dimon and warren buffett were getting together to revolutionize health care. not their words. i think this is not what folks would have assumed if you look at those companies getting together to lower health care cost. what did haven actually accomplish? that they piloted a bunch of experiments. a lot of stuff didn't make it outside its walls. did toominent thing they get across the finish line was experimental benefit plans.

kind of shifting the cost equation or at least trying to make it more transparent. at allere rolled out three companies. not on a super widespread basis, but -- emily: amazon has independently continued to move in on the online prescription market. what does this say about their general ambitions in the health care space? are there more limitations ahead? >> it certainly highlights the challenge that companies like amazon face. anybody in tech who says they are going to figure out a new way to deliver health care. certainly amazon's ambitions have grown. they've launched online pharmacy. they've started telehealth services for their employees.

for whatever reason, this was no longer part of their future plans. matt, do you know how much the pandemic has to do with this? does the pandemic potentially accelerate the failure of this venture? we are at a critical moment and healths very ambitious care organization couldn't make it work. >> very well may have. down,o, when he stepped he said at the time part of the reason was he wanted to focus on this covid response. i think that may have played a role in his decision. i think you've also seen champions of this project, really pushing for this to come together. crisis created other

priorities. matt, thank you for weighing in. we will be following amazon's continued efforts in the pharmacy business. ok. still ahead, tensions coming to a head at alphabet with the creation of a union, a rarity in silicon valley after years of unrest among google staffers. this is bloomberg. ♪

netflix's effort to lure shanda rimes from disney is paying off big time. bridger 10 is on pace to be netflix's fifth biggest debut ever with 63 million households watching in the first four weeks. it is number one in 76 countries including the united states and reached the top 10 in every

other country other than japan. netflix committed $100 million to persuade the creator of scandal and grey's anatomy to join the company. employees of google and its parent alphabet announcing the creation of a union, escalating years of confrontation between workers and management. the effort called the alphabet workers union is a rare campaign within a major u.s. tech company. i want to bring an bloomberg's josh adelson. you don't see unions at tech companies. what is your take on this? this really opens a new chapter in the activism that has been riling google. we've seen workers protesting over research ethics issues, over collaboration with the pentagon, over the handling of sexual harassment, over the treatment of contract workers. we saw thousands of google

workers staged a walkout that forced a change in the company's forced arbitration policy. some of the workers who have been involved in taking on those issues at google, they want something that is a more resilient institution to extend that work and carry it forward, to bring more resources to bear, including paid staff, to have a structure that includes elected leaders that they believe will amplify their voice in trying to change the direction of the company to take on what they see as matters of conscience as well as compensation issues. this is not -- emily: now -- we got a statement from google. the director of people operations saying, we have always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace.

our employees have protective labor rights. as we've always done, we will continue engaging directly with our employees. understand, this started with about 200 employees. are you expecting that to get significantly bigger? >> we are going to do more in the weeks ahead. the workers involved, one of thereold me they expect will be a flood of interest from other people. but at any company in the united states, there are concerns people have about getting involved in a union or any other kind of labor organization that is seen as independent of the company. people, wee hundred will know a great deal a month from now whether they turn out

to be just the beginning of many more rushing to join or not. this is an organization that right now is not seeking collective bargaining or formal recognition from google or alphabet management. it doesn't necessarily need to have a majority of the workforce signed up to effect change at the company. the share of workers that gets involved is going to shape how much impact the workers can make and how seriously the company takes it. is certainly a fascinating turn of events. on the back of that walkout where 20,000 plus google employees walked out on the company in protest of how the company was dealing with sexual harassment and other issues. bloomberg's josh title vii, thank you so much for your

insight there. we will continue to follow. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. bloomberg daybreak: asia coming up next. i am emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ > good morning. i am haidi stroud mark in sydney. -- hi strut ma -- haidi in sydney. >> there are fears that surging virus numbers will derail the fragile u.s. economic recovery. investors are also nervous about the senate runoff in georgia. england has been ordered back into lockdown