>> from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond. this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang.

emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up, twitter starts to ban people who impersonate others. musk saying to vote republican. and some of the employees laid off last week, some are being asked to come back to the office. plus, china's covid policies are undermining apple's plans. our scoop on the plan to cut iphone production billions of units. and fcc commissioner brendan carr inks the u.s. government should ban tiktok. why and how far will he go to make it happen? he will join us to explain. first i want to get a look at the markets. tech stocks rallying for a second day, taking time to find their feet ahead of key midterm elections pretty earnings season also continuing. ed ludlow bay -- here with the big news. ed: lyft, after hours down more

than 12%. it is interesting, lyft beat on the bottom line in the quarter ship but ridership was disappointing. the added 20.3 million active riders, but the estimate was 21.1 million. how different of a story of that for lyft compared to uber, which grew by 22%. lyft goodness a worrying picture, down 13%. it was kind of a slow moving day in financial markets. the nasdaq 100 up for the second straight day. only the second two day gain for about 10 sessions per it there was outperformance in semiconductors at a time where yields continue to push higher. u.s. 10 year treasury at 4.2%. also bitcoin, i posed this question on twitter so if you have a good answer to this, at me. bit wrote -- bitcoin trading is in a narrow range between $20,000 and $21,000 per token. why?

we have seen match from the -- much from the fed earnings season, nervousness, but bitcoin is holding in his narrow range and steady. there was a slew of technology news to digest on monday as well. separate and without any hard news was tesla, the clear laggard across technology shares on the nasdaq 100, down 5% closing at its lowest level since june of 2021. we would take into that later. apple actually closing up .4%. it had been lower from much of the session, on track for a sixth consecutive day of declines. that is following a bloomberg scoop that apple is paring back its iphone shipment target, much of that to do with the lower end handsets. the company coming out with a statement saying that covid lockdowns were foxconn assembles much of the pro models is going to impact the supply side of this equation. you look at meta, up 6.5%, its

best jumped since july after immediate report we are on track for actual layoffs to come out of meta this week. you have more on that story. emily: we do. thank you. in addition to that, twitter asking some laid off employees to come back and beginning to pertinently ban users who impersonate real people. as ed said, meta reportedly cutting thousands of jobs as soon as this week. kurt wagner joins us to talk about this more. you have been very busy covering meta and twitter. is meta planning to lay off thousands of people this week? what do we know? kurt: the company is obviously not confirming anything but pointing people to what mark zuckerberg has said previously, which is that they are planning for cuts. and this is something he has also told employees at an all-ha nds meeting is the company will look a lot smaller at the end up 202 -- end of 2023 than it is now in 2022. all that seems to suggest that

something like this is coming. we can probably learn a thing or two from what happened at twitter over the past week in terms of how not to handle a situation like this with employees, and all the information that is shared. i imagine meta will be more structured in what they ultimately end up doing, but it does feel like something like this is probably coming very soon. emily: so, let's talk about what is actually happening then at twitter. you reported that more than 3700 people would be laid off. has that happened, have all of those people been told, and is elon musk really trying to get some of those people back, and if so, how many? kurt: yeah, so there were massive layoffs that started thursday not of last week. employees started losing access to internal systems like email. on friday we saw the bulk of the layoffs happen. i believe the internal employee,

they track the number of employees at the company internally and it is around 3700, 3800 employees right now, which was down from about 7500 at the beginning of the year. so thousands of people have been cut in just the last couple of days. as you mentioned, yes, when you do something so drastic so quickly, there were mistakes that were made. there were some employees who were laid off were done so accidentally. there were some layoffs that the company then realized, oh boy, we need their expertise in the building. so we are told dozens of employees were approached over the weekend and even heading into today about returning. i don't know about anyone who has actually accepted that offer. i think it will be a tough sell to convince someone who was just fired to essentially go back to the company that just fired them, even if it was a mistake. emily: meantime, musk has said there will be an independent board focused on content moderation, but it looks like some users are already being

banned for impersonating real people. parity accounts have been quite popular on twitter for many years. talk to us about what is happening here. kurt: not just impersonating real people, but impersonating elon musk. that seems to be the line that a lot of people are crossing. but what is interesting here is elon, when he was talking about buying this company, he said he did not believe in lifetime bans. that was sort of part of his thing. when i get in, i'm going to remove these things. he has taken a softer stance since then, and said he will review these with an outside counsel. we don't know who is on that counsel or if they had add any conversations yet, but it is interesting that he is crossing this line and saying if you are impersonating someone we are going to boot you. i have to imagine this a coming from a lot of the pushback he is getting on this blue check verification process we have been talking about, which is where if you pay $8 a month you can have that blue check mark

next to your name. historically that has been to verify you are the actual person who you claim to be on the account, but now it seems you can just buy that check for the $8 without any actual verification of your identity, so that is probably why he is now trying to get ahead of people who are impersonating both himself but presumably other famous or well-known users. emily: and last quick question, because i just have to ask. he's now encouraging voters to vote republican, and also went to great lengths to say he is a registered independent, he has voted entirely democrat until now. why is he going this far? kurt: well, he claims in his tweet the white house is run by a democrat president, and so to counterbalance that power we should have republicans who are running or controlling congress. but this is something that has been sort of a change for him over the last couple of months.

he told employeesin an all-hands in june he voted republican for the first time. it seems he is swinging that way. it is just interesting that he would come out and say it so bluntly. can you imagine if mark zuckerberg came out and took a very strong political stance like this? i think people would be absolutely up in arms losing their mind over that. but the fact it is elon musk, and the fact he is saying vote republican, and those are typically -- conservatives typically have the biggest issue with these social networks and the speech on them, i think maybe people are ok with that given the stance he is taken here. emily: right. it is wild when you put it that way. kurt wagner, thank you. we will continue to follow your reporting. i do want to dig into another bloomberg scoop from this weekend. apple expecting to make at least 3 million fewer iphone 14s. mark gurman broke the story and joins us now. why is apple making these production cuts?

mark: two things going on here. you have the iphone 14 and iphone 14 plus, than the i-80 -- the iphone 14 pro and max. in terms of the 3 million units, going from 90 million to 87 million, that is because of softer demand that has plagued those two lower and iphone for teens from the beginning. the pro and pro max is supply issue. aand apple put out a warning discussing how their outlook is going to be lower than anticipated because of the output at their foxconn facility for those two particular models in china going mostly off-line. due to covid protocols. so mostly it is a supply and demand issue depending on which models of the iphone 14 you are looking at. emily: how will this impact of company's outlook? you have reported about spending -- tim cook told us he would be

more deliberate about spending, then getting pretty granular in your reporting about what rules they plan to cut and keep. how does this fit into apple's bigger picture? mark: right now it seems pretty clear that revenue for the holiday quarter which fell to the end of january, this quarter runs through december, will come in lower than expected. when apple held the earnings about a week ago they did not know this was the case. the covid-19-related lockdowns was just emerging the days after that. that is why they had to put this statement out over the weekend to indicate there is some sort of change here from what they spoke about previously. the good news for apple from a financial regulations standpoint, they did not get any formal guidance, they did not say our revenue would come in between x amount and x amount. lisa growth would come in slower than the 8% in the fourth quarter. then the apple cfo was asked if that means we are going to see how it from the how a quarter and he said it will just be less

than 8%. that could mean 7% were -2%. we will not know until they announce those results. but it seems the numbers will come in lower than the $120 billion revenue wall street had been looking for because the iphone 14 pro line will come in lower-than-expected because of lower shipments and also means delays for deliveries for consumers. emily: all right. we are going to continue to follow your reporting on this, mark. thank you so much for all of those updates. bloomberg's mark gurman, lots to digest. meantime, the ceo of the tech identity giant okta joins us to talk about how the looming recession is impacting sales and his thoughts on elon musk's take on verification, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: how to secure and protect online identity has only become more important as more businesses go all in on a digital world. this week the cloud identity software provider okta is holding an investor day to talk about the future of our digital identities along with its biggest customer event of the year. joining me now is okta ceo and cofounder todd mckinnon. great to have you back. look, everyone is talking about the outlook right now. it seems like every company is laying off folks. we are expecting potentially thousands of layoffs at meta alone. what are you seeing any sales environment in terms of the appetite to buy your software and enterprise software right now? todd: the first thing we are really excited about is the appetite for folks to come to this conference pretty it is the first time we have had this event in three years. the whole thing is sold out.

your oversubscribed from our customer event and investor event. people are incredibly interested in this topic and they like to be together in person, which is a powerful platform for us to start telling the story. as you mentioned, this is a different world the end -- than we were in a year ago. everyone is really scrutinizing their investments to make sure that they spend their dollars on the things that are going to move their businesses forward. and the good thing for us is they make those decisions, identity is coming up as a very strategic initiative they should invest in. emily: what is your outlook, given the macro environment, todd, and how are you thinking about jobs and spending? are you planning any layoffs, are you planning to cut back anywhere? todd: we are not planning layoffs, but like every other company, we're really scrutinizing where we are investing. and we think our team is a great investment. they are the best in the industry and they are going to help our customers be successful. across-the-board everyone is

trying to do more with less, make sure every dollar we spend is in the highest roi area. and our customers are getting a huge return on their investments in identity. it is not just for security, it is not just for i.t. productivity, it is also for customers. they can build your customer relationships, they can drive new revenue channels, and that is what you want to do when there is a time of economic certainty -- uncertainty. you want to have good investment, but you also have to drive growth because a lot of times that is when you can get ahead of your competitors. when they are cutting back you can invest in the right areas and move forward. emily: meantime, digital authentication services are still a huge prize for hackers. of course we have talked about the hack that okta had to deal with earlier this year. twilio also dealing with one as well. how would you say the threat level has changed and what are you doing to stay on top of it? todd: one thing that does not change is whether there is economic uncertainty and how people are thinking about

investments, the risk from security breaches and the regulatory overview that comes when there is a security breach and the cost that puts on companies, that is consistent, that is always there. so companies have to invest in their cyber posture and they have to make sure they have a great foundation to keep everything secure. they of course have to make sure they are spending the right investments and getting the best innovation for that money, but cybersecurity is something that is recession resistant. emily: i am curious what you think of elon musk's approach to verification, this idea of knowing your customer, approving identity, when others are saying this is just a way to pay to play. todd: i think that twitter is a great technology company, it has changed the world. and even a company like twitter has to do better job connecting with their customers. whether that is figuring out who gets the blue check mark, whether that is figuring out what is a bot or not a bot. these things in the takeover of twitter and as elon comes into

run the company, these things have come up over and over again. so it to show that if twitter has the challenges and opportunities, think about every other company, every other organization in the world. if they can know their customers, if they can build great products and service for them that about the right users, get them into the right capabilities, that is going to be a groundswell for every organization in the world. that is what everyone is trying to do. that is why it all comes back to identity, because you have to know that customer is. you have to have high confidence in it so you can deliver a great personalized experience that changes their day, makes them perceive a ton of value from your product or service and moves your company forward. emily: he is also telling users to vote republican, and i know federal government sales are important to okta. how do things change for you if, you know, republicans win congress? does that make a difference for okta? todd: one thing i want to say is i voted today. emily: good 4 u.

love it. todd: we had this big conference so i had to do it early absentee. all i will say on this is everyone needs to vote. democracy works when everyone is heard so everyone should vote. it is an important part of what we do, it is an important part of our country in the world. so get out there and vote. emily: all right. i can only support that. you have a huge customer event coming up, an investment day, you have been talking about a password-less future for a long time. winner we all going to be done with passwords -- when are we all going to be done with passwords? todd: we are on the cusp, especially at work, of being able to get rid of passwords. okta has the possibility today to remove the password from every employee in the world, and that is because two things. one is we can utilize the strong

authentication from the iphone, mac, pc, and integrate that. it has to be integrated to every application and service you need to go in your entire workday. that is what is challenging. it is not that we did not have the right biometric sensors, it is that it is hard to get them connected to everything in your environment. that is the problem we solved. so this is an exciting development and we can make employees much more productive and more important if it is a biometric sensor, it is much more secure. that is why we are excited to tell our story to the world this week. emily: all right. well good luck this week. okta ceo and cofounder todd mckinnon joining us. todd, thank you so much for stopping by. coming up, we are going to hear from microsoft president brad smith from cop27 in egypt. we're going to talk about microsoft's new climate initiatives and how the company is also navigating the downturn. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the cop27 summit is underway in egypt with this year's event providing a chance reinject momentum into the energy transition. heads of states and governments all in attendance as well as major companies, like microsoft, which plans to be carbon negative by 2030. i caught up with microsoft president brad smith. take a listen. brad: i think it is really important to think about the problem that we and others are trying to help solve. so much of the work that is needed really involves better use of ai, more data, better protective modeling. you look at predicting wildfires, whether you are in the united states, india, or africa. when you look at things like responding to floods, you need to be able to predict these things and then give people early warning systems. yet, if you look at africa

today, for every 14 data scientists that there are in developed countries, there is only one in africa. so we have opened up, we are announcing today, two new data labs, one in egypt, one in kenya. we are partnering with planet labs in san francisco, which i think is doing extraordinary work with new satellites to bring satellite-based imagery and data, including for africa. you put our ai capabilities, our data scientists, planets, imagery together, now we can be a bit of an equalizer. we can help climate scientists on a continent like africa. emily: now, meantime brad, the economy continues to go south. we are seeing layoffs in the tech industry across the board. we are expecting thousands of people to get laid off at meta just this week. i know microsoft has dumb some layoffs but has not done a major round of cuts yet. are you planning to do more

layoffs and how are you thinking about spending, etc. "bloomberg technology brad: -- etc.? brad: we are not in the advertising business the agree -- to the degree other companies are put we are focused on providing digital infrastructure that companies, businesses, nonprofits, governments needed. so in a world with increasing economic headwinds -- and there are many -- the kind of technology that we create is one of the better tailwinds on which people can rely, and we are seeing that. so to answer your question emily, i think we will continue to manage through this recession the same way we have image -- we have managed through every recession since microsoft was founded in 1975. we identify the technologies that will not only be important in the quarter and a year, but fundamentally two decades ahead. we may even invest more in the

technologies in the future, things like artificial intelligence. we may have to trim some other cost areas because there is a recession, but what you will see us do is trim if we need to and use that to free up resources to invest in what we regarded as the long-term creation of value not only for ourselves, but for our customers. emily: fcc commissioner brendan carr coming up next, calling for a ban on tiktok. he is with us next. this is bloomberg. ♪ at fidelity, your dedicated advisor will help you create a comprehensive wealth plan for your full financial picture. with the right balance of risk and reward. so you can enjoy more of...this. this is the planning effect.

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang and fencers a skull. twitter may now be a private company, but elon musk's purchase of the social media platform is still being felt by

the public markets. ed ludlow is look -- is here with a look at tesla. and obviously, can't ignore this if you are a tesla investor. ed: you cannot. the stock is down almost 50% on a 12 month basis. it is at a 17 month new 52-week low, down 5% during monday's session, worst performer on the nasdaq 100. clearly there is a twitter overhang. i think one of the numbers that jumps out at me is that tesla shares are down more than 12% since october 27 when musk closed the deal to buy twitter. in that time the s&p 500 is basically flat, and there is a lot of discussion in the market about what is going on here. a big part of it, as you come with me to the bloomberg terminal, it seems to be key man risk that as we know from twitter, anyone who has paid any attention to the platform in the last 24 hours for the last few months, elon musk a sweeting very regularly, he is focused,

based on the reporting that we have done. and there is concern from tesla shareholders who have voiced concern on the platform that he is distracted being away from tesla. there is less of a conversation now about the concern of him settling down more of his own tesla shares in order to finance the twitter deal because of what he did both on the debt and on the equity go investor side. but clearly there is an overhang here, and it is just strange to see such poor performance in tesla stock in the short, medium, and long terms. emily: ed, question but -- this is sort of a perennial question but i wonder if the answer is changing. is tesla a tech stock or a car stock, and how are investors taking about? ed: i will take a perennial wash and from you any day of the week. it is the question. 50% of the sell side analysts that cover tesla do so from a classic automotive perspective. many treat it as a higher multiple tech or software play,

because much of it is valuation in recent years has been based on the promise of full self-driving. this is a stock that trades at 47 times forward earnings. if you compare with general motors, that is a stock that trades below seven times forward earnings. 47 times forward earnings is a stretch to multiple stock in anyone's book. we talked about nvidia trading at 3ow. that is not a definitive answer, i am sorry to back you away, but ids how you look at it. if you look at the fundamentals, tesla does not trade like a legacy automotive name. emily: all right. bloomberg's ed ludlow, thank you as always. more perennial questions to come. ok. coming up, how midterm voters will impact crypto regulation. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: the u.s. midterm elections are coming up and the crypto industry has its eyes on congress. question? after the vote, will we finally get progress on crypto revolution? bloomberg's kailey leinz reports. >> our regulators and frankly our congress is one hour late and a dollar short and we need to catch up with where these cryptocurrencies are going. kailey: congress has been calling for greater regulation of crypto for years, but it has been a lot of talk and to this point, not a lot of walk. >> we have the intention of just not quite getting over the line. kailey: the crypto industry has

been asking congress to help create the rules of the road. but optimism has faded. >> there was hope that this was actually going to happen this year, that he bunch of bills that had been proposed were promising, that we could see movement on capitol hill. but just like pretty much everything in washington heading towards the end up 2022, it all seems kind of stuck. kailey: the bills that have gained the most traction include regulation to -- but success on those initiatives will have to wait until after the midterms. >> i think both kiersten and i believe that the bill in one piece, as a total bill, is more likely to be deferred until next year. it is a big topic. it is comprehensive. and it is still new to many u.s. senators. it is a lot for them to digest with the few remaining weeks we have in this calendar year. kailey: big names in crypto likely billionaire founder of ftx are also trying to make

change with their dollars, emerging as influential plug of donors. while he says he is motivated primarily by pandemic prevention, he also has been pushing for a regulatory agenda. >> as a member of industry we need to try to move the industry anymore responsible direction. and i think that requires engagement. it would be irresponsible for me not to engage with capitol hill, with regulators. and the things that i have been arguing for are more regulation for the industry. that is what is right for the country. kailey: he is the fourth largest individual donor this midterm cycle and has made about $40 million in political contributions this year. he said he could get even more in the 2024 race. >> i think that you are going to see more people pushing into politics because now the interaction with d.c. is going to be one of the main drivers of whether enterprises are able to grow and operate successfully.

emily: bloomberg's kailey leinz with that report. coming up, election day, almost here. working women in the u.s. want to be heard. we are going to talk about all of that and more with the founder of girls who code, and the marshall plan for moms, reshma saujani, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: republican lawmakers have been working to revive former president trump's bid to ban tiktok in recent months over fears that u.s. data is ending up in the hands of the chinese government. just last week fcc commissioner brendan carr told axios that tiktok should be out right banned. he joins me now for more on this. commissioner carr, thank you as always for taking the time. you said specifically you do not believe there is a path forward for anything other than aban, which is a step up from what you said in the past. why take it that far? brendan: it seems like every week there is a new leak of material coming out of tiktok that eviscerates the trust. at the end of the day the

national security agency's have been working on what is called project texas, which is to move a lot of tiktok servers to oracle servers in the u.s. in response to national security concerns. the problem with that is there is a new report from 10 days ago that he tiktok official out of l.a. having an unusual outside business our meeting where they were asking another tiktok employee detailed questions about the location and other details about the oracle servers. we also heard from another official that said once project texas is put in place, it remains to be seen if beijing can still get access to u.s. user data because at the end of the day these are there tools that they build in china. so tiktok is not sure that these new protections will safeguard u.s. future -- user data than i do not think we should be so sure either. emily: you do not have the authority to ban tiktok, so what are you hoping to accomplish with this decision? brendan: that's right. this is not like why way -- like

huawei -- what i gained from all those cases is insight into dealing with companies that have ties back into communist china and maligned data flows and so i am happy to bring that expertise to bear and talk about it. but the reality is this is broad and bipartisan. you have a democrat chair of intel who at briefings every day and he said it is tiktok that scares the dickens out of him. just last week, you have democrat chairwoman czajkowski in the house, she wrote a lette r saying we are concerned about your continued inclusion of tiktok in the app store. this is not just about meet, it is brought, deep, by party concern being expressed. ultimately it will be treasury which has the process, that should be the focus of federal action. not the fcc, but it could be

the commerce department as well. emily: so what do you hope to come out of that national security agreement with tiktok that we have at this moment? brendan: i have been open, at least theoretically for a while, that there is some agreement put in place that addresses national security concerns. but there was a new york times piece a couple weeks ago that said there was a tentative deal put in place with tiktok, but it had multiple high-level sources in the justice department saying that the number two in the doj is concerned that that tentative deal is not tough enough. so i think we have to be very careful here going forward that we are not allowing data flows back into china. because it is not just about espionage and for an instant owns -- foreign influence, we are also feeding china ai. ai can be used for good or bad, and the pla and cpp have set a goal of dominating ai. so i am very concerned about sending ai for with various purposes.

emily: how far do you take this? should companies like meta, alphabet, apple, have employees in china, in your view, at all? brendan: i do think this is an opportunity here where we need to revisit these deep corporate ties into china, particularly as xi saber rattles on taiwan, coming out of the comet is party confab of last week. i was in taiwan last week myself and i think it is time to start think about diversifying outside of china. up until now my concern had been focused on individual companies and what i call plus factors, meaning it is not just you have ties back to communist china, but there is something else concerning. that was the case with huawei, and it is the case with tiktok. i am not ready to make a broader pronouncement more generally about companies doing business there. emily: hmm. now, we've got a midterm election happening in a matter of hours and i'm curious what your hope is for a new congress, along with ftc chair lina khan

to take action, or not, on big tech over the next couple of years. brendan: i will leave it to the american people to make the decisions there. i think about the hatch act, i am not in a position to make partisan comments. but generally it is important we find some alignment, republicans and democrats alike, on addressing outsized abuse of corporate power. and i do think we are starting to see more and more bipartisan interest in that topic, and i was always look forward to find partners on both sides of the political aisle to drive towards that result. when it comes to tiktok in particular, my sense is the tide is moving out on tiktok. you see on most every week new letters from new bipartisan members of congress focused on this issue. emily: what's the latest on the plan to ban all of huawei and zte telecom equipment from the u.s. market? is the fcc go to be voting on

that soon? brendan: we are making really good progress. a couple years ago we voted to withdraw all future funding from huawei, an right now axios had a report that said we are about to vote at the fcc on do nine equipment authorization for those devices which would close what i have described as a huawei loophole. which means up to now you cannot use federal dollars to purchase but -- i have long called for us to close that loophole. to the extent that axios reporting is right, i do not want to get into the details of it, but suffice it to say i would be very happy with that outcome at the fcc. emily: quickly, at the ftc, what are your thoughts on the actions that lina khan has taken so far? brendan: look, i think our guiding printable has to be to protect individual liberty. we can have threats to individual liberty from the overreach of government. we can also have threats to individual liberty from the

abuse of corporate power. we have to find a way to have that as our guiding star. i know would has been a partisan time at the ftc and they have had a hard time agreeing at the ftc. we have been working to the middle, compromising and finding common ground. i hope we continue to do that at the ftc at least. emily: and what is your response to the changes that elon musk is making at twitter thus far? do you like what you are seeing? brendan: i am hopeful. i'm hopeful we end up with protecting a widespread political abuse. i think this is the modern version of the digital town square. but i don't think we need to just rely on the benevolence of elon musk or any other billionaire to come in and purchase a platform. that has been my position for years now. we need free-speech guardrails. let's protect political speech, let's push for you user transparency -- empowerment. i do nothing we should rely on

that alone. i do think we should put regulations in place that are going to protect political speech in the digital town square. emily: all right. fcc commissioner brendan carr, thank you so much for stopping by. meantime, millions of mothers have left their jobs as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. the cause? inadequate joe carroll -- inadequate co-chair. that is why girls who code co-founder reshma saujani -- and is working with big companies on employer-sponsored childcare per she joins me now for more. i have to asking about the midterms, which we are now hours away from. which races are you paying the closest attention to ny? reshma: all of them. this is the most important election that women have seen. following the dobbs decision, women have essentially become second-class citizens in america. and we have a lot of extremists on the ballot. a lot of candidates on the right who want to restrict our rights

even more. and so what happens on tuesday is going to fundamentally change the lives of american women. emily: how concerned are you about misinformation, given i know that you have pointed out the voices of women, especially, have not been heard? reshma: i'm very concerned about misinformation. and i think it is something that is critical a lot of my students, for example, are working on. the comet that was just made by the commissioner and seeing what happens with twitter and elon musk taking over twitter to make sure we continue to root out disinformation and everyone has access to fair and just and reliable information is critical. emily: that was my next question, is, i am curious what your take is on the direction at elon musk has taken twitter thus far, and how free-speech can be balanced with safety and security and healthy dialogue. reshma: i am watching it, emily. we know that social media,

twitter, has been a toxic place for women and girls and people of color, and that there has got to be a way to moderate content without making people feel like every day they are going to face abuse or be called a name or showed content that will be really toxic for them. so again, i think this is an opportunity to do something right and to do something that, again, uplifts people of color and women. we will see if that actually happens. emily: now, given your work with the marshall plan for moms, i am curious what you are hearing from moms and parents right now about their concerns as they head into the election. what matters to them right now, and why? reshma: i think republicans have made it seem like the biggest concern you should have is the cost of gas, or the cost of cereal. but if you talk to a mom, she will tell you my biggest concern is the cost of childcare. 40% of parents have gone into debt because of the cost of childcare. the cost of childcare is outpacing the cost of inflation. it is literally the most

expensive line item for families. and the only party that has tried to do something about it is democrats, through the build back better bill. so, moms have to be paying attention and voting on tuesday, and we have got to be making sure that we are pushing an agenda that is going to put families first. and if we want to see that women in the workforce are not just nice to have, but a must have, t hen we have to make sure that we're providing affordable childcare. and that is what we are doing with our national coalition for childcare. we cannot wait for government to do the right thing. we can push them too but in the meantime we have to advocate for subsidizing childcare in the workforce. emily: you recently went toe to toe with a parents rights group that banned girls who code books, and i'm curious if you can share some context on that. what do you think it tells us about the state of america? reshma: i think it tells us that they were coming for our bodies and now they are coming for our minds.

emily, i woke up to a headline that girls who code books have been banned in pennsylvania. it was not just girls who code books, it was books that were giving girls of color an opportunity to be anything and everything. what is happening in schools right now, what is happening in terms of the school board fights and the culture wars is critical. and we have to start paying attention. i cannot stress this enough that we have entered this period of forced birth where our reproductive rights have been taken away, and i am shocked to see what they are trying to take away from our girls. and every single parent who cares about their girls having a chance to be an engineer, a dr., a president, needs to be informed about what is happening in schools because it is shocking, it is frightening, and it is scary. emily: how much progress is actually happening in the schools? you founded this company to get more girls to learn how to code. how optimistic are you about

that truly happening across the board? reshma: listen, covid was devastating for kids, especially for kids from underserved communities. i saw so many of my students were on their way to learning about peter's science had to drop out of college or not go to college because their moms were essential workers and they had to take care of their siblings. that is why it is so critical we fixed the broken structure of care. the second thing is we have got to continue to invest in public school education. i am sure you saw the new york times article about, again, the math and science rates of what our kids are learning in schools have diminished and decreased. i know that is happening. we had tens of thousands of girls who code clubs at the start of the pandemic and now we are inching back to where we were before. so when teachers are exhausted, tired, not getting paid adequately, they are not volunteering to teach a coding club, and who can blame them.

so we have to make sure that our kids have access to opportunity in the jobs of the future, which includes coding. emily: reshma saujani, thank you for your advocacy for girls. appreciate you stopping by. and that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology ." coming up on election day here in the united states, we have an all-star lineup including lyft president johns emmert talking about prop 30 in the future of the gig economy and so many other important guests. and don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. this is bloomberg. ♪

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