Power Lunch - C-Suite Security, Bracing For A TikTok Ban 4/22/24

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

As more and more American executives take a stand on social issues, their companies are having invest more and more into their personal protection. We’ll dive into that. Plus, we’re already seeing backlash on social media over a potential TikTok ban in the U.S. We’ll explore the fallout for users and creators alike.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome everybody to Power Lunch alongside Contessa Brewer. I'm Tyler Maths. I'm glad you could join us ahead on our program C-suite ramping up security as more executives take social stands on behalf of their companies. Companies are investing more and more into personal protection. We will discuss that. Plus, we're already seeing backlash on social media over the potential passing of a TikTok ban added to an important foreign aid bill. We'll dive in on that. But first, to check on the markets, they are slightly higher today coming off a rough previous week. but we are heading into key few days now for earnings, big tech reporting results. Meta, you got Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, all on deck. And for that, let's go to Steve Kovac with a look at what to expect. Steve. Hey there, Tyler.

Yeah, so it's going to start this week with Meta on Wednesday. And then we get Microsoft earnings on Alphabet on Thursday. Amazon and Apple, they're coming next week. And I wanted to take a look at each one of these names through the lens of AI, which of course not big businesses yet for any of these names, but some are progressing more than others. So let's call this your AI gut check. Let's start with meta, partnering with Google last week to power a new version of its meta-chatbot. The most important thing here for meta is engagement, proving that this keeps people using meta apps like WhatsApp and Instagram and, of course, Facebook.

It debuted to millions of users last week, so a huge user base to play with there. Then we got Microsoft. One thing to listen here is any hints at copilot sales, that's the digital AI assistant they're selling, and a little taste of AI revenue growth from the Azure Cloud Unit. And then over to Alphabet, just reorganized its finance and product teams around AI ahead of the report this week. That includes bringing AI researchers into the broader AI unit called DeepMine. And then next week we'll start with Amazon. Not much consumer facing there in AI, but does have a lot of AI hosted on its AWS Cloud.

And that is the metric to look for, sales growth there. And then Apple, the laggard of the bunch here. Not much of an AI story right now, but expecting that to come at the developers conference in June. More concern right now around declining cells in China. And notably, like I said, shares are only negative one of the group down 14 percent year-to-date, guys. All right, Steve, thank you for setting us up there. For more on tech earnings. Let's bring in Brent Thel, senior analyst at Jeffries.

It's good to see you today. Brent, what do you see in the tone of tech going into these big earnings? The tone is really mixed. It's overweight semis and hardware, and it's really negative software. I'm primarily a software analyst. So software's down 2%. Semis are up 16% year to date. So it's very different. We're dealing with kind of beach weather and semis and hardware. We're dealing with Arctic blast inside software right now. And so I think it's so negative in software, it bodes well for a lot of these companies because everyone has been making so much money owning Dell, owning Invinia, that they've had no time for me. They don't really care about the group. And I think that's a signal in the last year and a half. I haven't seen it this bearish on software. So, you know, semis and hard war have been the area that investors have made the most money. They want to continue to ride those stories. But I think at some point, you're going to see transition inside tech back to software. I think everyone's waiting for

the summer, waiting for more. AI data points. So it's, it's, it's again, a tale of a beach and an Arctic blasts and software. So it's very mixed right now. And who wouldn't rather be on the beach? Let's start with meta then about earnings this week. You heard Steve Kobach there talking a little bit about AI increasing engagement in Instagram and WhatsApp and really all of its broader platforms. Talk to me a little bit about the opportunities with META? Yeah, META has some of the best checks in Internet. Advertisers continue to go there

because of the effectiveness of their platform. So we continue to see really high engagement. Advertisers are spending more money. There's definitely been a shift to META, even away from Google and other social platforms. And the checks have been phenomenal. And they've been trending that way since last fall. And I think this goes through, you know,

the privacy labs, the refocus in AI, and the quality of the Instagram platform is like no other platform for advertisers to be on. So we continue to hear good things. They will generate incrementally more ad dollars than the rest of the industry. They effectively continue to be very disciplined on expenses. So Zuckerberg, every call opens up and says, we have three billion people touching our platform every day and we're focused on doing it efficiently. If he keeps with that tone and they continue to roll some of these innovations like they're doing with meta AI, there's going to be more users that want to be on the platform. So hearing continued really, really good things from the field about where they set. I was speaking last hour with Deerboza

about meta and whether it gets sufficient credit for its positioning in AI and that it may be sort of a stealthy gainer in that area. Would you speak to that point and compare it on AI with, for example, Microsoft and Google? Yeah, I think they're stealthier. I think if you think about where they sit, right, so if I'm sitting in my office, I'm not using meta. I'm using Microsoft. So I look at Microsoft and Amazon is a great way to play AI for the enterprise. And for the consumer world, meta and Google and others are in a better position. So we kind of put our investors in different buckets of, hey, this is more of a consumer-facing story today. Over time, META could get into the enterprise.

They have open-source Lama, which is one of their AI languages. We think that could be a really big business over time. So today it's largely consumer-facing. It could be over time they have a mini enterprise business inside the company. But today, it's simple things like you're a small business and you want to have a sidewalk sale. and you want to create a campaign. Well, with AI, you can create these campaigns with not bringing in expensive video shoot

and makeup bars and all these things to create the campaign. Finding people on the platform is another big thing. You think that the AI winner out of this group, though, is Microsoft, why? In the enterprise, and for a consumer, it'll be meta. But for the enterprise, Microsoft has led the charge. They've been out in front.

Nadella has nailed this. They have partnered with the business. best AICOM, the OpenAI, and they've effectively ingrained it in every single product manager that you're going to have a co-pilot in every one of these businesses, from apps to infrastructure to security, all the way up and down the stack. And they're monetizing this better than anyone in software, and they're the most trusted right now, which is a huge thing in AI. And so for the enterprise, Microsoft will win, and they are lapsed ahead of anyone else. And consumer meta, meta will be in a really good spot.

Really appreciate your insight, Brent. Thank you for joining us today. Brent, Phil. Thank you. All righty, many investors hoping those tech names can help the market regain a little bit of its footing as the S&P comes off six days of declines. Our stocks oversold or will Fed policy drive us maybe even lower. Joining us now to help dissect last week's downturn, Michael Farr, chief investment strategies with High Tower Advisors, CEO and founder of Farr Miller in Washington, also a CNBC contributor and one of the longest serving ones of all. if not thee. Michael Farr, welcome. Good to see you. You say the markets may be due for a bounce. What tells you that? And to the minute, when will it happen? Okay, to the minute, I think it's happened, Tyler. Thank you very much. I usually never answer

that question with a straight answer. But it does seem that we followed a pattern last week that started out again today. Futures were a little bit higher. They couldn't sustain any strength. and every day followed the same pattern where stocks just traded lower and lower and lower. A little bit of strength in the morning, lower. Showed that again this morning. A did indeed move lower, and then they found support technically

and have risen higher. I've got to tell you, Mike Santoli in his weekend article, absolutely nailed it. One of the best articles I've found in a long time. He's so good. This guy is so good, but I commend this article to everybody.

They should really read it. Mike's line was the work of a pullback in a bull market is to unwind over aggressive positioning, drain excess optimism, reset expectations, and take prices down to meet fundamental buyers' convictions. That's what I think we've seen so far. So we've had a pullback in a bull market, have the fundamental buyers came in. We need to see another day or two. But certainly a bit of a bounce here. we could revert, but this is the bounce you look for at least to put us to the end of those six days, Tyler.

And yet you think, the fact that there's a bounce does not necessarily mean that there is another leg higher in this bull market, right? Or what should my interpretation be? Absolutely. Absolutely. So what happens now on a technical basis is the stock prices will have some rally and we'll see if this is sustainable. We've reached an oversold condition, and now we're going to see if this bounce back is sustainable. The Fed's in a quiet period. I think you probably get a little more strength out of all of these earnings calls this week, and then it'll be back to the Fed. We've been through this same pattern with the Federal Reserve,

where the Federal Reserve and FOMC has said, we're going to be data-dependent, and we're going to be really cautious until we see the real whites of inflation's eyes. the markets created its own narrative of six or seven eases this year. The Fed never endorsed that. And when the market narrative runs into the Fed's actual actions, there's been disappointment and trade downs after the Fed's meeting. We'll see if that happens again. If Jay Powell spooks the markets after the next Fed meeting again and says it's going to be longer before we see a rate cut, I think maybe you see a renewed sort of pull back and fall in prices again.

Okay, so if all of that is the case, I mean, here, you're quoting Mike Santoli, I'm going to quote you. Cowards live a long time and nobody ever went broke taking a profit. Are you suggesting right now is the time to be cautious, keep your money in a money market? And what about the ultimate safe haven gold, which has just kept climbing? Cowards live a long time, and I am the guy who typically lays up rather than takes the long shot over the water when I'm playing golf. too. I save my golf balls that way. I save my money this way. Prices are still very high. There's a lot of conflict in the world. We're still near all-time highs. There are a lot of outsized positions. It never is a problem to trim some of those. You don't want to take capital gains for no reason, so you do have to be cautious. But the old line that you sell in May and go away, well, how about raise a little bit? Take some profits if you have them in

these outsized positions, do a reevaluation here at the end of April, safe never offends. I'd rather miss out on that last 10% to the upside. But for now, the economy's in good shape. Things are okay, but things in no way are cheap right now, Contessa. Even after we've seen this bounce back today of 1.5%, I think caution still is the rule, and complacency is the danger. If I want to follow your advice and take some profits, where would you, put very quickly, where would you put that money and store it? Would it just go straight into a money funded 5%? Treasuries, what? So two places. One, if you don't own like the Microsofts, the Amazon and Google, if you don't

have some sort of core position there, those are core positions for me. I would look at a stock like Mondalese, perhaps, that hasn't performed all that well and has pulled back for some other reasons that has a reasonable growth rate and kind of a core position. The consumer, or less riskier area. And then money market at 5.3% or 5% anywhere in there. The Treasury bill right now, three months is around, again, 5.3, 5.4%. You're still getting paid to wait and be cautious. And there's a lot of money out there that seems very patient and waiting to see also the white of inflation's eyes and hear that the Federal Reserve has seen it too and that Jay Powell is going to sound the all clear. Wow, the white of inflation's eyes. I mean, that's

Really, that's really saying something there, Michael. Vivid. Thank you. Coming up. Thank you all. Today is Earth Day. And while investing in the future of the planet has its own returns, of course, there's a big money at stake as well.

Global funding into clean energy hit a record high in 2023. Now, Massachusetts is looking to attract climate tech to the state. Governor Mara Healy joins us next. The CNBC Stock Draft is back. Hoping to take this year's title is Brianna Stewart of the New York. Liberty. If she were a stock, the ticker symbol would be MVP. She has two WNBA titles, four college championships, and two Olympic gold medals. Will she add to that impressive resume? We'll find out starting Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern. Happy Earth Day, everybody. And on this Earth Day, we take a look at

the growing role of the startup space in fighting climate change. With early stage investment in clean technologies exceeding $50 billion for each of the past three years up from $17 billion in 2020. And now even states are looking to help grow climate tech. Massachusetts, for instance, has won its own climate conference starting in June. Here to discuss it with us as Governor Mara Healy. Governor, it's great to see you today. You know, it's interesting because when we talk about a climate conference, you can find

one nearly every day of the year. So what makes this one so important for the future of Massachusetts? Well, Contessa, thank you for having me on. and Happy Earth Day, Earth Week. This is really unique. What we're doing hasn't been done before. This is a conference that we hope to be able to have annually, but it's a conference that's going to bring together

the best thinkers, leaders, business people when it comes to climate tech, when it comes to the technology that's going to help us decarbonize our buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and also help us with the solutions, resiliency, and the like that will help mitigate against some of the effects of climate change. So it's unique in that we're bringing together researchers, scientists, business people, entrepreneurs, investors.

I'll say that Massachusetts is number one when it comes to venture capital per capita. And what we're seeing in Massachusetts is there's incredible interest and investment here in climate technology. And so we're going to show that off in June. And my aim really is to make sure that Massachusetts becomes, the global hub for climate technology. And that, of course, would mean a boon to the local economy as well with jobs and things like that. Here's venture capitalist John Doer, who is part of speed and scale.

That's a climate action platform who says, look, yes, we need to get things done in the long run, but we need to do it actually quickly and we can do it quickly. But the laggards in this space where we're not meeting our timely goals, our heavy industry, the food industry as a whole, and carbon removal. Are those issues that are important to you as the governor of Massachusetts? Are those things that you think, if you can convene all these stakeholders, you can bypass bureaucracy? Absolutely. I completely agree with him.

And this is about using technology to really help us leak frog with some of the innovations that we need. I mean, we have these climate goals out there in terms of all states in this country. In fact, we have goals around reducing carbon emissions. But at the end of the day, those just become goals unless you have a way to actually operationalize things. And that's what this is about. We're home here in Massachusetts to some of the greatest R&D in innovation and also entrepreneurs who are pioneering new ways to bring technology to bear to mitigate climate change in the very ways that you and the commenter was speaking of. And so that's why this is so important. Not only is it important for addressing climate change,

there's also a huge upside in terms of investment and economic growth for our region in particular if we do this right. And so that's what I'm hoping to land here, really create an ecosystem where we become the hub for global innovation when it comes to climate technology. Governors, I think sort of naively about the various ways,

that government could encourage climate progress. I think of direct subsidies to companies. I think of indirect financial incentives. I think of private investment that could be made. And I also think of regulatory incentives. In other words, penalties for failing to live up to certain standards. Which of those, or am I leaving some out, which of those, in your view, is the most effective

and the most righteous way to do it? Well, I think you've got to do all of the above, and that's what we're trying to do here in our state. You know, I announced the country's first Green Bank for housing that's really focused on how do we decarbonize our housing stock. I know that with every state dollar or public dollar we put in, we have the ability to leverage private dollars, private investment. And that's what I'm really trying to drive here through a combination of state subsidies and actual capital funding, matching that with tax. tax credits and other ways that we can incent and support private investment and private development, that's how we're going to get there more quickly. We also, too, have to work from a regulatory perspective in speeding up the deployment of

this technology. We can't let things get bogged down with unnecessary permitting processes and the like, because we just can't go fast enough when it comes to the kind of technology that we need to be deploying now here and around the world to mitigate against climate change. So I really subscribe to an all of the above approach. And I'm particularly excited. You know, today we just got word from the Biden administration. We received about $160 million in federal funding through the Important Inflation Reduction Act that's going to help us deploy solar around the state. The important thing there is that $150 million is going to be paired with what we estimate to be $300 million.

in private investment right here in Massachusetts that will work to deploy solar around the state, which is going to help us decrease energy costs. We estimate it's going to bring 3,000 new jobs to Massachusetts. So it's just an example of what I'm talking about, when I'm talking about this kind of synergy we can bring to bear public, private to incent the development and deployment of climate technology. Governor Mara, Healy, Massachusetts.

Thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it. Great to be with you both. Thank you. Yeah, good luck. All right, speaking of climate tech, you may think of the agriculture industry as being green, but it's actually one of the world's biggest carbon offenders. And that's why startups are coming up with futuristic ways to reduce waste. Diana Oleg explains in her continuing series on climate startups.

Hi, Dai. Hey, Ty. Yeah, what if I said we could now talk to plants? The plants could actually tell farmers when they're in distress, and then farmers could help them. That would not only reduce waste, but it could also streamline the use of pesticides. Sounds crazy, but it's real. Even with the use of pesticides, 40% of most food crops globally are lost to disease and pests.

Agriculture already emits massive amounts of carbon dioxide, and this waste makes it worse. That's why companies like Sat Agro, Climate Fieldview, and a California-based startup called Innerplant are working to reduce agricultural waste. Inner plant genetically engineers plants, making them able to communicate with farmers. So as the plant is reacting to the stresses in their environment, like fungal pressure, insects, or nitrogen deficiency, it will start to signal,

and then we can help farmers understand what areas of the field need something. Innerplant's technology uses fluorescence, so the plants leaves emit a signal when in distress. That signal is detectable by devices, that can be attached to satellites, drones, or tractors. Farmers then know what to treat and don't waste money on chemicals, which are up to 30% over-applied.

We want to eliminate all the unnecessary applications of chemicals into our food system, into our soils, and also the additional cost that comes to farmers that they don't get any benefit from. This plant-by-plant technology is highly scalable and could be licensed to major seed companies. That royalty revenue would come back to interoperable. which makes it enticing to investors.

If you can get this technology into every single corn seed or soybean seed across North America and maybe than South America, that is many hundred millions of acres. And you can think about, you know, a few dollars per acre. And that all of a sudden ends up in a lot of revenue for this business. In addition to Bison Ventures, Inner Plant is backed by John Deere, MS and AD, Up West and B. partners. Total funding so far, $22.3 million. Interplant is now working closely with small farmers as well of some of the nation's top agriculture producers. Some have paid early access to the technology, which will start

with soybeans and then expand to other crops. Back to you guys. It sounds like technology that would come in handy for me with houseplants. I'm just curious, then what's the opportunity with these fluorescence? And does it go into the seed itself or it's part of the plant once there, it's beyond the seed. Yeah, it's actually a genetically engineered seed. So it gets into the seed and then the seed are then sold to the farmers. The farmers planted. It becomes a plant. And it emits the signal. But it actually just has tremendous potential beyond just the farmers. It could be to the agriculture large producers as well as to the food producers who are themselves agriculture producers.

Diana, thank you. All right. Ahead in Power Lunch. Bracing for a ban. The House voting in favor to potentially outlaw TikTok in the U.S. We will explore the fallout from that. Power lunch is returning in two minutes. All right, welcome back, everybody. Let's get a check on the bond market. Treasury's moving higher. Rick Santelli, tracking the action, Rick.

Yes, Tyler. You know, we're still dealing in large part with the remnants of the 10th of April's CPI and really lousy 10-year note auction. Let's go to the charts. You can clearly see the jump at 830 East. on the 10th of April when we did that CPI release. And later on the afternoon, a very iffy 10-year note auction really kicked rates up.

We're at 435. So here we sit basically 30 basis points, higher in yield, and as you can see, it doesn't look like it's letting up. However, if you look at a year-to-date chart, on the 16th, we settled at 467. That is the high yield close, not only of the year, but going all the way back to November. But I do underscore that that is a very significant technical resistance level on a closing basis, and we need to monitor that. That could be the last big area of resistance until we test potentially 5%. And if you consider that on the 16th, we also did something else when we had that high yield close,

we moved towards 218 basis points higher in yield than a 10-year European boon. That is the widest in four and a half years. Contemplate how much more we're paying an interest on our tens. And think about how tomorrow and Wednesday, two-year and five-year auctions, tomorrow's two-year is $69 billion, a second record in a row versus last record, which was $66 billion, followed by five years on Wednesday at $70 billion, also a new record after last time's $67 billion, which was a record. So we want to monitor because it's quite clear that the interest rate markets are paying attention to auctions in a way they have never done before. Contessa, back to you.

Mr. Santelli, thank you very much. Let's get to Seema Modi now for a CNBC news update. Cima. Contessa, the U.S. is reportedly considering giving legal status to immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens who are in the country illegally. Officials telling the Wall Street Journal and announcement of such a program is not, imminent but say the White House is discussing potentially timing it before the election. Immigration advocates say there are an estimated 1.1 million undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens.

Donald Trump's lawyers reaching an agreement today with the New York Attorney General in his civil fraud case, the deal will allow the former president's $175 million bond to stand. Trump had to post the bond to appeal a more than $454 million fraud judgment against him. The AG had raised concerns about the bond security, but the agreement today introduces some stipulations, including requiring the collateral to remain in cash. And Delta announcing pay raises today for tens of thousands of non-union employees. The oil line is boosting its starting pay to $19 an hour and will raise wages by about 5% for flight attendants and ground workers.

This as the union does attempt to organize flight attendants. But for now, we'll see if this works. Andessa? Seema, thank you for the update there. Coming up, social discourse and the C-suite, America's CEOs increasingly are getting caught up in hot-button political issues, and often it costs the companies big time. Think personal security. We'll dive into that when Power Lunch return. All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. More companies find themselves having to take a stance on hot-button political topics, or they choose to, whether that's Disney's standoff with Florida's Governor DeSantis, a Palantier, buying a full-page New York Times ad, a voice support for Israel,

anti-vaxxers, threatening Pfizer's CEO or Larry Fink's ESG push. With tensions high, many companies are upping the security budgets for their top executives with costs for bodyguards, home security systems, additional protection, sometimes surpassing a million dollars annually. Here to discuss is former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, along with conference board CEO, Steve Adelan. Steve, you were the CEO of a large company. You must have some sort of insight on how CEOs feel risk and threat from the outside. Talk us through it. Well, you know, as a CEO, you are considered a public figure, and you're opening yourselves up to all of these kinds of attacks.

Usually they're verbal or they're written attacks in the media and the social media. Increasingly, CEOs are getting pushed to take a position on. these hot button issues, increasingly social issues that are very divisive in our country, as we all know, and very political in our country. And when you do that, you have to remind yourself as a CEO that you have to balance all of your constituents, your customers, your employees, your owners, and community. And you can't just indulge yourself by taking the position and the platform and, you know, supporting your own personal views. You have to do it in the context of what is best for your company. In this world, though, there are crazy people.

out there who then threaten the safety of these people if you don't line up with exactly what they think. And that's the world we live in. And unfortunately, it's creating safety issues and therefore security issues for a lot of senior executives today. It's very sad. Senator Heitkamp, it's no secret that we live in a polarized kind of angry country in lots of ways. And CEOs are, in some cases, put on the front lines of those political fault lines. are the expenditures that you see, and we have a list of some of them up on our board here, are the expenditures that you see legitimate business expenses, or should they be considered imputed income to these CEOs who already make tens of millions of dollars in most cases?

I think they should absolutely be considered legitimate business expenses. If a business executive believes it's in the best interest, the fiduciary interest of their business to take a position, whether it's on diversity and equity, whether it's ESGs, then that's a business position that if they took that position, they should be supported and protected. Speaking as someone who had their life threatened and someone served seven months in jail as a result of that threat, let me tell you, you look at that number, think about $1.7 trillion in Congress, congressional spending to beef up protection for our election.

officials. This is the world that we live in, and I hope that what we see is not a retraction of people willing to take positions, but a reduction in the amount of incendiary language that's used with those positions, whether it's now you're an enemy of the people as opposed to, I disagree with your position. And the more you say that people are, you know, that you're threatening our democracy by taking a position, the more people who see themselves as patriots wrongfully will attack other people. And so I think the rhetoric needs to be downsized. You know, it's interesting that you say that, though,

because since the advent of social media, what we've seen is that it's very easy to threaten CEOs and other public figures because all you need is your device and the keyboard where in the old-fashioned days you had to go out and get a letter and a stamp and actually go to the post office to mail in your threat. That's number one.

Number two is that I cover a lot of publicly traded companies. And it's interesting, Steve, because what I see is that it's pretty normal for CEOs to have personal security, even those who haven't taken a stand on any controversial issues. Well, remember that, you know, these security issues didn't start with ESG and, you know, some of the latest hot button issues. They've been issues all along. As there are public figures, they, you know, they're at risk from employees that are upset

about something or, you know, a community issue. There are crazy people out there. There are a lot of divisive issues. But these clearly are not perks. And unfortunately, a lot of the activists position them as perks when in fact they are absolutely required. You know, even private travel is required in order for security to be assured. So these are positions that the boards of directors of these companies want the CEOs to take, that they have to take to support their employees. But in a divided country where you've got half of your constituents on any issue disagreeing with you and a lot of crazy people out there, you know, that these issues can happen. And so the security of senior executives is paramount.

Safety of people is paramount. Senator, if we were to broaden out the, and Steve, if we were to broaden out the conversation away from what seems like defensible expenditures for security and protection of individuals who have sensitive jobs in the corporate field, where, Senator, and when do you it makes sense for companies and CEOs to speak out on socially divisive issues, whether it is abortion or transgender rights or whether it is ESG investing or environmental causes. If you were to advise a corporate board or a CEO, what would you tell them? I would tell them first and foremost, you're acting in the fiduciary interest of your business. and of your shareholders. And if that position is consistent with what your shareholders want,

consistent with your business purpose, and consistent with maintaining good employee relations, you have to take, you know, on behalf of yourself or on behalf of the company, a position. And you shouldn't be afraid to do that because there is the potential of these threats. We've got to get beyond that and basically get to a more civil kind of dialogue about disagreement. And that's the problem. It's not taking the positions. It's that people believe that once someone takes a position, it's within your right to attack that person,

to threaten that person, to try and intimidate that person. And I think the last thing we need is intimidation of speech. How much, Steve, has social media inflamed this issue? Well, it's made it immediate, and I agree completely with Senator Haidkamp on these issues. I just think, though, you know, this conference board has written a lot, on the frameworks that companies should put in place, that boards of directors and senior

leaders should put in place and try to judge what to comment on and what not to comment on. It's not, you know, necessary that the CEO comment on every issue that comes along. It's not germane to their core business or it's not germane for their people. So you need to have, and then there's the internal kind of comment versus the external kind of comment. And there needs to be some judgment that is put into place and some guidelines on this. I think it's really important that you think through all of these issues. So there's not just a prerogative of the CEO to come out and say,

well, you know, I think this political party or this person or this candidate or this issue is, you know, you can't indulge yourself as a CEO. You have to use your platform responsibly and within the business strategies. And this judgment is absolutely required for fiduciary reasons. Steve Adlin, former Senator Heidi Hyde-Kamp. It's great to talk to both of you. Thank you for your time. And remember, you can always hear us on our podcast. Be sure to follow and listen to Power Lunch on your favorite streaming service, and we will be right back.

Welcome back. Time for a quick power check. Check out shares of Tesla lower after chopping the sticker price of the Model 3 in China, along with decreases in other markets. It is down right now by more than 3%. On the other hand, you've got Ford that seems to benefit higher by 5% or so today. Almost, yeah, we're looking at closing in on 6%. And that is your power check. Still ahead. The House passing legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States if the platform's Chinese parent does not sell its stake within a year or thereabouts. We will discuss that one and its implications for free speech and other things next.

Welcome back. The ban on TikTok is becoming even more likely. The House passed a series of foreign aid bills along with a measure. potentially to ban the social media giant, at least in the United States. Let's bring in Emily Wilkins, who's watching congressional measures, Julia Borson, on the social media angle here. And Emily, let's begin with you. So the House passes it. How likely is it to pass the Senate? I mean, at this point, it looks very, very likely to pass the Senate, Contessa. And that's for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is partnered with this $95 billion of foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific.

We know that that's popular among senators. We know that they want. want it to pass. The fact that they're moving TikTok with it really helps the chances. Plus, TikTok has bipartisan support in the Senate. You have Senator Maria Cantwell. She's the chair of the committee on commerce. They've overseen TikTok. She's been a very key player here, and she came out and endorsed that House bill. You've on the Republican side, you've seen Senator Ted Cruz, her Republican counterpart endorsed the bill. You've seen Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority, a minority leader endorsed the bill. And so you have a lot of bipartisan and support. Certainly we're not expecting everyone, but we do see a majority of senators come out

to support this legislation. Tick-Tock spokesperson released a statement Saturday saying it's unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill. But Emily, it makes it sound like this might have passed even if it had been a standalone bill. I mean, yes, there is a really good chance that it could have. The one reason that we did not see the bill move as quickly in the Senate as it did in the House is because Cantwell was taking a closer look at it. Remember, her committee's got the jurisdiction. And one thing that she really wanted to see was a longer period of time for a seller to come forward

and be able to buy TikTok. And she went to the House members when she saw this was going the way that it has, said, hey, look, you have six months, can you make it a little longer? The House was able to meet her request. It is now a minimum of nine months for TikTok to be able to find a new seller with a potential three months added on after that if the president OKs an extension. So after that change was made, Can'twell came on board. And at this point, the bill looks very likely to go through. So, Julia, six months versus nine months, does it matter to TikTok?

I mean, I think TikTok's going to fight this as long as it can. And I think that it could be up to a year for bite dance to divest itself of TikTok. And TikTok is as part of the response of this has put out some key numbers that they believe will be part of their defense. They say 170 million Americans use TikTok and should have the right to when it comes to free speech, which is something they're going to be citing here. They say seven million businesses use TikTok. And TikTok says it contributes $24 billion annually to the economy. Now, here's the key thing here. When it comes to add revenue, analysts are starting to weigh in to look at what kind of an impact.

the potential sale of TikTok or the shuttering of TikTok would have on the ecosystem. And they say there's a potential $16 billion in incremental 2025 revenue that could be split among the remaining players or up for grabs if TikTok is shuttered. And first and foremost, it would be a huge win for meta as well as potentially YouTube and snap. So, Julia, I know you're not the chief justice. I know you're not a lawyer. But how legitimate really are the free speech that a ban would trample, was the verb I've seen, trample on the free speech rights of the people who use TikTok?

Because what's at stake here is a platform that people use to post videos and statements and things like that. But there are others. And what's different about this one alleges the government is that the Chinese ownership puts at risk American data and potentially American national security. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right, Tyler. I mean, I think what's interesting here is that this bill is saying that TikTok can exist, but it can't be owned by a Chinese company. So the question is which company or which consortium could step up and buy TikTok,

and then would the Chinese government allow the sale of TikTok with certain key algorithms? So there are a lot of unknowns here. We don't know which way this is going to go. We don't know what assets the Chinese government or bite dance would be comfortable being sold to a U.S. entity or a U.S. consortion that might be interested in some of those TikTok assets. Very quickly, if I might, Emily, if the TikTok ban fails to carry in the Senate, do the other parts of this package fail as well necessarily, or do they stand alone? At this point, yes.

It either all rides or all fails. All right, interesting. And that makes it more likely, I think, to all pass. All right. Emily Wilkins, Julia Borson. Thanks. Coming up, the price of Bitcoin climbing following the first halving since 2020. We got that and more when we return. Big event over the weekend, crypto prices higher to start the week following Bitcoin's first

halving in about four years, which reduced the incentives paid to Bitcoin miners. Sort of cuts in half the amount of Bitcoin that can be mined in any particular unit of time. But look, Bitcoin up two and a half percent. And ether's following as well, up 1.4 percent. and other coins following suit as well. By the way, Dow Jones Industrial's up a full percent now. Thank you for watching, Power Lunch.