>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, this is "bloomberg technology." ♪

emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, crude cyberattack. hackers go after the largest u.s. fuel pipeline, freezing shipments to large swaths of the country. the latest information about the ransomware attack and what the white house is doing about it. plus, bargain-basement borrowing costs. amazon cannot resist refinancing debt, even though with tens of billions in cash, it doesn't really need to. it's one of the many companies taking advantage of wide-open open bond markets and spreads. and it's a hussle. elon musk takes a deep dive on saturday night live. what's each joking or was he serious? we will discuss.

tech shares leading stocks down as a convergent commodity prices could derail a growing rebound in the united states. >> we are officially in correction territory. let's look at what's underneath the hood look at some of the big tech names individually. you can see a lot of red here, emphasizing the selling. let's start off with google and facebook, warning of a growth slowdown, putting cold water on some of the optimism we saw after the earnings. qualcomm dropping on a report of apple using a 5g chip to powered south -- to power its iphones instead of going to qualcomm. i also want to look at cybersecurity stocks, you talked about how exciting you saw the hacking thing on the gasoline market.

a lot of cybersecurity stocks down, with the exception of fireeye which is higher on the day. emily: we will talk about that next. thanks so much. president biden said while there is no evidence that russia is involved in the colonial pipeline attack late friday, there is evidence hackers or the software used are "in russia." a white house official said the pipeline hasn't suffered damage and can be brought online relatively quickly. however, north america's biggest facility may take a few more days to recover, raising fears of shortages in local -- if local reserves run out. i want to bring in william, what is the latest that we know? william: thanks for having me. we learned today that biden said

it was connected to russian intelligence -- he didn't connected to russian intelligence but more and more people are saying hackers are in russia. we still don't know what the status of the negotiations is, but we reported this weekend that the hackers also stole nearly 100 gigabytes of data, which is common in events like this. they will still sensitive data and threatened to leak the data publicly if you don't pay a ransom. emily: so we don't know if they pay that ransom yet at all, is that correct? william: that's correct. we don't know if they have, or if they will or what the amount is. the hackers seem to have made a massive strategic error and that they have attracted the ire of the full force of the u.s. government now by shutting down the pipeline. they are quickly trying to

backtrack and may be regretting what they've done. emily: so talk to us a little bit about attribution, this group, the dark side, out of eastern europe. what do we know about them and why they might do something like this? william: these groups are primarily financially motivated. there is a blurred line between these criminal groups in eastern europe and russia and intelligence services, just because they are always cooperating together. the cybersecurity forces will say they sometimes do collaborate. they are relatively new group on the scene, but i think everyone acknowledges that they're able to go after -- there ransomware is comparable to that of other groups. emily: the government meantime is still dealing with the follow-up from solarwinds and

the microsoft exchange hack. and now this. what can the white house do at this point? william: that's a great question, because i think the government could invest more in cybersecurity, but they find it really hard to deter groups like this. even if you manage to deter groups like this and you have cybersecurity, nothing is on hackable, it just doesn't exist. -- unhackable. even with the best efforts being enforced -- emily: it sounds like we just lost william turton, but we have another special guest here to talk about this. general keith alexander, he served as the director of the national security agency and commander of u.s. cyber command among other notable roles in protecting our country. general, we were talking to william about what more the

government could do at this moment, having been in that position, what can they do and what are they doing now behind the scenes? gen alexander: the biggest thing they can do, we need to figure out how to work together between the public and the private sector. the government's job, specifically the defense department and cyber command, is to protect the country from attacks, that they can't see those attacks in time to do something about it. as a consequence, the response is too late. so we need to build a radar or air traffic control picture of attacks coming into our country from the private sector side in a way that can be shared with the government so they can respond. this is really important, because i think our nation is going to be continuously tested in this space. as you mentioned, solarwinds.

you look at the microsoft hack. you see a number of attacks by china and by russia and by groups like the darkside. they are hitting us with ransomware. it right now, every company is defending itself. that is crazy. we have to work together, like a radar picture, show the government what's coming after us and allow the government the opportunity to defend this country. we've got to get good at it. emily: when you look at this hack, what do you see here? what is at stake, and does this look different than other ransomware attacks to you? gen. alexander: it's interesting, listening to what mike said. i agree on parts of it. they got in probably through phishing, they grabbed information and brought it back and thought, this is a lucrative target. i think they underestimated how big a target this would be for our nation, and as a

consequence, they probably put themselves into an area where they will be aggressively pursued by the fbi and others. the issue you brought up with them, though, russia's involvement. almost for sure some of these folks came out of russia -- russian hacker groups, giu, something like that. they are moonlighting or they are already out. the government almost for sure knows what they are doing. this is something we have to get out in front of. we have to attribute and hold these people accountable. we need to make them pay a price if we are ever going to get this to stop. the only way to do that is to catch them in time to stop them. emily: do you have any occasion here that there was any other motivation other than profit? for example, in the worst case, did they intend to blow up the pipeline, or are they just trying to make a buck? gen. alexander: i would say most

probably, just trying to make money off two areas. encrypt the data and make them pay for that, steal data and make them pay to get it back. so they're going to get paid twice, or they are going to try to. it could be if you step back, the question you asked deserves merit. something that has to be looked at. is this being used as a test to see, can they get in, can they maintain access even after the cleanup, and can they do something going through the i.t. system, which is what they did, over into the ot system? this is a place where the white house is done a good job in bringing this together as one of their 100 day things, let's bring i.t. and o.t. together and create that collective defense for the energy, oil and gas, and others.

so i think it is the right approach the white house has, but we have to go beyond that, in my opinion. emily: it does make you think about the worst-case scenario when a company using computers connected to the internet does something as important as transport fuel. what is the worst case scenario, in your opinion? gen. alexander: shutting down the network is about as bad -- could they do things to the industrial control systems? absolutely you want to put a focus on that. i'll tell you my experience. the energy sector at large, they are laser focused on defending the grid and other parts of our sector. i am singularly impressed with the ceos of many of these companies leaning forward and saying, we will work together to defend this nation and we will share that with the government. they've got the right approach. we've got to help them cross

that bridge from the private sector to the public sector to do that. bad things can happen, for sure. you see that in hospitals. but i am impressed with the way the energy sector and oil and gas are working. but they can't do it by themselves, and that is today what is happening. every company out there is defending itself. they can't get that information to the government in time for the government to help stop it. we've got to change that way we are doing business, it's got to change. real-time collective accounts is the future of cybersecurity. emily: they are saying they should be able to get back online by the end of the week. we don't know yet if they have paid this ransom. what approach should they take? should they pay? do you know if they paid, and how long after that doesn't normally take for a ransomware

victim to get back online? gen. alexander: they have to go through all the systems that were infected and rebuild those systems, clean them up. i'm sure kevin and his team are all over it, because they are great at that. that is one step. i think they won't pay, but i don't know that for sure. i think that are -- they are in cleanup and they will do that. and what do they do about the data that was stolen and could be given out? i think, again, i don't know if they are going to pay or not. i think they would be reluctant to pay. i think that's where our government has to step in and help. they are a victim here. we can't treat them like they are the bad guy. they are the victim. when people with nation state like tools attacked them, we can't treat them as the bad guy

here. colonial was attacked. we should hold the bad guys that actually did this accountable. so we have to change that rhetoric that is going on out there. colonial is a victim. and our country should not stand for it. emily: all right, general keith alexander, thank you so much for joining us, chair and cofounder and ceo at iron net. we do have some breaking news that the fda has officially authorized the pfizer and biontech covid vaccine for children ages 12-15. this is a huge leap forward for kids under the age of 16. of course the pfizer vaccine had been approved by the fda for age 16 and up but the fda has now amended the original emergency use authorization for the pfizer vaccine. the fda has determined that

pfizer biontech and the covid-19 vaccine has met the statutory criteria to amend the emergency use authorization and that we know the potential benefit of the vaccine in individuals 12 and older outweigh the known and potential risks for vaccine use in this population. we know pfizer got a jump on moderna in his testing of children so we are waiting for results out of moderna as well. coming up, shambles. that is how one of the facebook oversight board members describe social medias internal rules for monitoring content. we will get reaction, discussed transparency and more, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> they needed some time because the rules are a shambles. they are not transparent, they are not clear. he made a series of recommendations about how to make the rules clearer and more consistent. emily: michael mcconnell, the cochair of facebook's independent content oversight board on fox news sunday. also concerns that facebook was violating donald trump's first amendment rights. let's get investor inside with the tosha lam, an activist investor in facebook. i'm curious your reaction to the board's decision and description there that the rules are a shambles, knowing that basically the board upheld facebook's decision but also kicked can

down the road and facebook will have to decide again whether to leave the ban on president trump in place six month from now. natasha: i think that's exactly the point, they kicked the can down the road. now in reaction to kicking the can down the road, you have republicans once again wanting to break up facebook. at that is an area where republicans and democrats agree. as we know, when i look at this, i look at it from the perspective of an investor, and try to address the root cause of why content on facebook is so problematic versus the supreme court or the oversight board which appears to be a band-aid solution, when you've already created a problem and now you're trying to address it at the end of the pipe. so you look at facebook, and

facebook is too big. it has proven that it cannot effectively manage the platform, with 3.4 billion users between all of its platforms. two, its ad revenue is driven by algorithms and they are designed to propagate the most provocative content. so that drives when you see this information about the election, those algorithms are driving that provocative content and creating public policy wrist in the meantime. three, the company -- it's not just because zuckerberg is the ceo and chair of the board, it doesn't make sense from governance standpoint, but we think the expertise that is necessary for this company is absent from the board, so we are

asking again at -- for that at the annual meeting. they end up talking around the political hot potato of whether trump can come back on the platform or not. i just don't think that's where we need to be. emily: meantime you have 44 attorneys general urging mark zuckerberg not to release a version of instagram for kids, something had announced they were planning to do earlier this year, got a mixed reaction. what is your reaction to that reaction? i wonder, is this cool, or is this a parent's worst nightmare? natasha: i'm a mother of a 10-year-old and an eight euro, and i'm constantly trying to get them away from screens. i don't think anyone has seen

any data that social media use improves the emotional well-being for children. certainly not for teenagers, we know it sets them up for predation, bullying, it sets them up for increased suicide. when i look at what is happening here, i think, why is facebook doing this? obviously there is a profit motive, but given how poorly it has upheld its own terms of service on its main platforms which were made for adults, i'm just surprised they would even foray into this area, because there is so much public policy risk, headline risk and it comes to children and the abuse that they can face online. emily: we are doing a big special on biotechnology ecosystem and how that has grown, and specially in light of the pandemic where you have pfizer and moderna both headquartered in boston.

you are based in boston. talk to us about how the recovery is going from your perspective there, and where you see potential unequal recovery happening. natasha: i think boston has been leading. new england has been leading, outside of the sins that we have this biotech engine, are populations have been less vaccine hesitant. over 60 percent of folks have already received their first vaccine dose. that's going to be a big positive going into this ball, and allowing colleges to stay open, which is a big driver of the economy here in boston. when i look at the pandemic and how folks have reacted here and elsewhere across the country, and having to work from remote

this year. if you know anything about commuting in boston, it's the worst. it's literally the worst traffic in the united states. those roads were designed for horse and buggies. if you can effectively go forward and remove the constraint of everybody needing to commute, then there is room for growth, which i think is great. emily: so much to talk about what we will have to leave it there, the tosha lam -- natasha lamb. our boston special tomorrow, don't miss it right here on "bloomberg technology." ♪

emily: pfizer again authorizing -- the fda authorizing the pfizer biontech covid vaccine for kids age 12-15. this is a huge milestone. now a kid's oldest 12 can get the vaccine. we will have more after this break. ♪

emily: welcome back to bloomberg technology. emily chang in san francisco. amazon is selling bond in its first debt offering in a year. issuing debt in eight parts. a forty-year security. amazon will use the proceeds to refinance debt and buy back stock. want to bring in kriti gupta. talk to us about the details. what do we know so far? kriti: $18.5 billion.

that is how much debt they are issuing. amazon coming up on an important timeframe. you're seeing a lot of issuers come forward. it is mostly equity that makes up the capital structure. that is why this debt sale is so important. amazon is one of those companies that has a scarcity of bonds. that has helped some of its borrowing costs. you have already seen some of the pricing drop down from the 115 basis point spread down to 95 basis points. that just means and there is very high demand for these bonds. emily: i now? -- why now? obviously amazon has a lot of cash. what makes now the right time to do this? kriti: because it can. that is the really simple answer for an important thing you are seeing with a lot of investment-grade issuers. if you look inside my terminal,

you can see when it comes to investment-grade issuance, it lags a little bit behind high-grade insurance. what that means is that -- this idea that a lot of people and big companies were trying to get more cash, raising more debt in 2021 some of the revenue streams were under pressure. so now, it is a question of, you are seeing the economy reopen and the revenues come back. we were also seeing ultra low interest rates. why not try to capitalize on those ones. -- those bonds? amazon is doing just that. emily: we are coming out now of earnings season. just another week left. are going to see other big tech companies take advantage of that? kriti: it is possible. they don't actually need to take advantage of this. they have these massive cash cushions they are relying on. to see this actually come out, we are seeing amazon set the

lead for not only tech companies but major firms whether it is financials, retailers. the bigger the company, the more reason to issue bonds now. this is coming on the idea we could be around an environment where you start to see rates increase. despite that sensitivity, they could be sitting a trendier. -- a trend here. emily: thanks so much for bringing that down. continuing our discussion of amazon, what was once just an online bookstore with low odds of success has grown into one of the most powerful and feared entities in the global economy. our senior executive editor for bloomberg's global tech coverage rings on us an unvarnished picture of amazon's unprecedented growth in amazon unbound: jeff bezos and the invention of a global empire. brad joins us from san francisco.

this is your second book about amazon. it is a company that continues to surprise us every day. what is it you wanted to accomplish in another book about this company? brad: i think we spoke at the end of 2017 as i was starting on this journey and even back then, i felt like it was important to update the amazon story. i brought -- i wrote the everything store back in 2012. today, it is the alexa company and the cloud company. all i was researching the book, so much else happened. there was jeff bezos' personal journey. you had amazon's navigating of the pandemic and becoming a lifeline for millions of customers around the world . -- the world. what i set out to do was allow people to understand the company. it is not as simple as what a lot of critics and regulators

want to make it out to be. it is worthy of scrutiny. i try to get into what its tactics are and what some of the anti-competitive tactics are and why it is worthy of understanding it. emily: you talk about so many of amazon's when shots. -- amazon's moon shots. thank you for my advance copy. building a ws and blue origin and the one thing that stood out to me was that all of these things were really jeff bezos' ideas and he alone were pushing these projects that many people told him were not good ideas to start. he and the company made it happen. that seems to be somewhat of the theme. brad: yes and no. certainly alexa springs almost

fully formed from his brain. he sent an email to his top executives, we should build a computer whose brains are in the cloud and is controlled by your voice. the fire phone was his idea. that was kind of a debacle. amazon's push into movies and tv shows. that was his idea. i also tell the story of the grocery initiative. while he signed off on that, he does not think it should be a rush. it was one of his deputies who kept pushing that amazon needs to get into groceries. because people shop for food multiple times a week. the question you raise is a good one. how important is jeff bezos to amazon's inventiveness and what will happen to the company when he is no longer ceo? andy jassy is a great operator but he is not the innovator jeff reseau's is. when you look at the innovator team, they are not as many technologists. jeff says he is not going

anywhere. he wants to continue to continue to work on new things. over time, i think they are going to have to find someone with as much of his magic if they want to continue to pioneer new industries. emily: you mentioned jeff besos' personal journey. you paint that as it -- a kind of turning point. did you see a turning point in jeff bezos the ceo? amazon employees at a certain point were still asking, is this still our ceo? talk to us about that change in how dramatic that was for him and for the company. brad: totally dramatic and totally surprising to the people who knew him well and other executives at the company. this was someone who was wholly focused on the business, who was unfashionable, who saw himself

as a family man and integrated that into his public profile. to have these changes at the end of 2018, that represents him stepping out onto the world stage. i report in the book he is building himself a super yacht. the idea he spends more time among the elite is definitely i think an inevitable one and it means a little bit less of his time is focused on amazon. emily: what is the future of the company without jeff bezos as it runs into potentially massive antitrust battles? concerns from its workers. are they being treated well enough? how do you see amazon battling all of these different fronts? brad: it will remain in the hotseat. its relationship with its workers, that is something jeff in his recent shareholder letter identified as a place for more

attention. going forward, the eyes of the u.s. government and perhaps the european union continue to focus on amazon. it is a complicated target. it is not the monopoly that google is. it is more difficult to get a handle on it. i also think andy jassy will be the figurehead of the company. bezos is the wealthiest person in the world. andy jassy i think is a little bit of a humbler target. he would be a little bit more of an effective spokesperson being the guy in the hotseat answering questions from politicians. emily: all right. it will be an interesting next chapter. maybe worth a book number three. brad: don't even say it. emily: a few years from now. brad stone, senior executive editor for our global tech coverage. amazon unbound is out this week.

it is a page turner as only brad stone could deliver. coming up, the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a digitization of businesses worldwide. we are going to speak to a microsoft executive about what industries handle the transformation the best. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a new report by the

economist intelligence unit commissioned by microsoft fined 72% of businesses in multiple sectors claim the pandemic has accelerated their industry's pace in multiple ways. this as companies prepare for a gradual return to work. joining us to discuss, the corporate vice president of worldwide commercial industries at microsoft. she is the latest guest in our work shifting series. talk to us about the trends you found and what surprised you most. >> thanks so much for having me. we commissioned the study to make sure we can learn from the market, learn from our customers and make sure we were lining the investments from microsoft. that helped us drive things like industry clouds. as i think about what surprised us the most probably was their focus and energy around employee engagement, employee wellness and social consciousness. we expected to see them say we

know the digital transformation is a must-have. it is not even a competitive advantage anymore. it is a need be to accelerate our transformation. that pivot toward customer for us around employee, around social consciousness was nice to see. emily: we are seeing more companies now put their stake in the ground, what policy they are going to have about a return to work or not come september. google made an abrupt turn. it's aimed -- it seemed like they were going to ask for everyone to come back to the office. they are allowing employees to work remotely indefinitely. you feel there is one right way to go? >> i don't. this is very cultural. as you go from company to company, the key is to have a plan that you make sure you are clear about what you want to have as an organization, that you take employee feedback.

we mostly expected hybrid environment. what we are driving towards is to think about how customers use technology to innovate -- to enable the environment. how you manage to work from home and in the office. collaboration tools allow us to do that more. we are thinking about a plan and make sure you are clear in getting employee feedback when you are putting that plan together. emily: when you're looking at the companies and industries that met the challenge well, it seems like many did rise to the challenge. i wonder where you are seeing industries still lag. >> i think they did. it was interesting when you said 74% of our customers surveyed felt like they were doing fairly well when they think about the transformation. i think organizations that traditionally have a lot of disparate systems have a lot of time gathering data and information to create great insights.

that exists in places like health care, retail is an example has had to think about how they make this incredible pivot with what has happened with the pandemic. rei is a great example when we think about retail has been in a space where people walk into stores. rarely are people doing both. the pandemic has driven these customers to say i have got to be ready to take orders via technology. rei is a great example of a customer who has been able to not only deliver on that but also expand from innovation perspective. they are now doing virtual shopping and crating these opportunities where you can fix bikes online. you can even fit your hiking boots. where we see really interesting opportunities is they take the challenge and they pivot it toward acceleration of their capability. emily: we have been covering this colonial pipeline ransomware attack through the

weekend. it is terrifying. we are talking about large swaths of the country that could be without fuel if things do not get under control. i know microsoft has many cyber defense initiatives. talk to us about the risks of companies being increasingly digitized when the cyber attackers always seem to be one is not 10 steps ahead. >> this is a super important issue obviously to all of our customers and microsoft as well. we deeply care about security. when you think about the things that come forward with us such as industry clouds, security compliance, regulatory opportunities, privacy are all deeply embedded in the clouds we release. it has to be part of the plan our customers put together when they think about what they are going to do from a cloud perspective. deeply important to microsoft and something we will focus on. emily: we are in this transition

point now where we are coming out of the pandemic after going into one. i wonder what you think we will be talking about a year from now. how much of the world will have turned back to the normal we knew or will it be a completely different world that is hard to predict? >> i don't personally think it will be a normal we know. companies are going to continue to accelerate the transitions they had started. they are all finding ways to innovate differently. the role of the employee continues to get more important and to see companies react to the way they have and say we are deeply concerned about our employees and their well-being, i think we are going to see more of that. we are focused deeply on making sure we create scaling opportunities for employees. we have initiatives that have scaled employees all of the

world. we think, how do we create for -- create the opportunity for people to understand the skills they have? it is going to take us more towards this environment where we are more technology enabled. we are creating more tape -- more opportunities for employees. we are also driving better of social consciousness. everyone feels this role. it is not about them or the company. they recognize they need to do more for the environment as well. mount sinai is a good example. they are using hollow lenses in dynamics 365 to do remote surgeries in uganda. things are starting to come out because of the experiences we have. i think we are all going to orient around ways to continue to provide value and enable and power people. emily: interesting. we will have to talk again a year from now if not before to check in on where we are.

corporate vice president of worldwide commercial industries at microsoft. thanks for joining us. coming up, elon musk's appearance on saturday night live did not take dogecoin to the moon. the currency retreated after his comments on weekend update. and that word, hussle. more next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> and is an unstoppable financial vehicle that is going to take over the world. >> so it is a hussle? >> yeah, it is a hussle. emily: elon musk making a

saturday night live debut this past weekend. comments from the self-proclaimed doge father causing the currency to decline from its highs. to be fair, doge started going down before s&l aired because of all the conversation around the appearance. what do you make of that word? was he serious or joking about the currency that is supposedly a joke? ed: is the first time since may 4 dogecoin has fallen under $.50. the whole run-up was because elon musk was going on saturday night live. this was the least subtle topic. he tweeted about it constantly. even open the show with it. he had his mother on stage and she said i hope you got my mother's day gift. i hope it is not dogecoin. in that sketch, there was a

back-and-forth constant. what is dogecoin? eventually he answers, it is a hussle. it was started as a joke cryptocurrency. elon musk continues to treat it as a joke cryptocurrency. emily: you believe he believes it is a hussle? is that what you are saying? ed: it is hard to know because the other piece of news that came out on sunday was that spacex had accepted payment for a small lunar satellite that spacex will actually carry into lunar orbit in 2022 that was paid for completely in dogecoin. his business is transacting using dogecoin. saturday night live is a sketch show. there were references to him, his quirky nature, him as the rocket scientist. he kept in the spirit of it being a sketch show. when he talks about

cryptocurrency, it was in that vein. emily: they certainly cover a lot of topics. all of elon musk's additional interest. i want to talk about some news out of tesla regarding that crash in texas. the initial reporting said there was not anyone in the driver's seat. the ntsb has confirmed there is video of someone in the driver's seat. tell us the latest. ed: this is the report we have been waiting for from the national transportation safety board. home security footage shows at the time, the two people told, there was someone under the driver seat. we still do not know how that individual ended up away from the driver's seat. when the fire was put out, it was discovered he was in the passenger seat. not in the passenger seat -- not the driver seat. the ntsb did say he started in

the driver seat. he found no evidence all of these -- any of these driver assistance features were used. they backed up what tesla said, that autopilot was not used in this circumstance. emily: do we have any indication of what caused the crash? ed: only that the speed at which the vehicle traveled, we now it made impact with a tree and that caused damage to the battery pack, caused the fire question is, where were the centers sitting definitively and how did they end up in seats other than the driver seat? emily: we'll be waiting for more information on that thanks to our ed ludlow for breaking that down. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. tomorrow, we will hear from boston area business leaders including those in biotech and

life science. do not miss it right here on bloomberg technology. this is bloomberg. ♪

sophie: welcome to daybreak australia -- haidi: welcome to daybreak australia. shery: good evening from bloomberg's world headquarters in new york. haidi: surging commodities prices stoke inflation concern. traders fear rising prices will spoil the record run to equities. ga