US Ratchets Up Iran Pressure; OpenAI Funding to Top $100 Billion

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here
are the stories we're following today and Karen.
Oil is on the rise again after gaining the most
since October yesterday this morning, West Texas Intermediate is up
one percent. That's as Axios has reported, the Trump administration
is closer to a major war in the Middle East
than most expect. Axios says a US operation would likely
be a week's long campaign. We get more from Bloomberg
Managing editor Paul Wallace in Dubai.
It sounds as if Iron has roughly two weeks to
get back to the Americans, and then if they're broadly satisfied,
the Americans will say, okay, let's go to round three.
And we don't know where that will be. But of
course there are plenty of people, including in the oil market,
who think America might be essentially trying to allowl Ran
into a false of security and maybe willing to strike
the country, you know, before Iran, you know, returns with
those proposals, because that's you know, in some senses, that
echoes what happened in June last year with the twelve
day war between Iran and Israel and then America at
the end. You know that will happen when, or at
least it started when the US and Iran were in
the middle of nuclear talks.
Bloomberg's Paul Waller says the US has announced visa restrictions
on Iranian officials and executives for repressing recent anti regime
protests and cutting off internet access.
Now Nathan to the latest fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Billionaire retail mogul Les Wesner testified behind closed doors about
his relationship with the late sex offender to Democrats on
the House Overside Committee. The former CEO of L Brand
said he visited Epstein's private island once with his wife
and children, but was unaware of any sex trafficking operation,
and he repeatedly said he could not recall the key
details of his relationship with the late sex offender, including
giving him considerable financial support. Arizona Democrat Yesim and Ansari
says it's all on the record.
He allowed Jeffrey Epstein to live in his homes, to
have hundreds of millions of his dollars to use his
yachts and his planes. This was obviously a very very
close relationship, and so far what we have seen is
a denial of that relationship.
Congressoman Yesim and Ansari spoke to reporters from Ohio, where
Wexner agreed to testify under an agreement with the committee.
The Justice Department named Wexner as one of the ten
co conspirators in its twenty nineteen investigation into Epstein. Wexner
was not charged in the case and says he was
duped by Epstein well.
Meanwhile, Karen Bill Gates has backed out of a speech
at the high profile AI summit in India, just hours
before he was due to speak. In a post on
x the Gates Foundation said the Microsoft co founder made
the decision to make sure the focus remains on the
event's key prior parties. Gates has come under criticism for
his ties to Epstein. The Gates Foundation did not mention
the financier and its statement, but Gates has called his
relationship with the late sex defender a huge mistake.
Nathan, Let's get to the latest in the search for
Nancy Guthrie. It's been nineteen days since the mother of
Today's Show host Savannah Guthrie was last seen at her
home near Tucson. Police are still looking for new leeds
as they sort through upwards of fifty thousand tips. Pima
County Sheriff Chris Nanos spoke with BBC News.
I think she's somewhere here the work locally.
No, what makes you think that.
I just do.
I don't know why.
I don't have any evidence to prove that, but I
just believe that she's somewhere locally.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nano's speaking to the BBC. The
sheriff has come under some criticism for his handling of
the investigation. He declared the scene at Nancy Guthrie's home
done three days after her disappearance, only to return later,
and he has not held a news conference in almost
two weeks. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal,
Nanos some of the criticism is politically motivated, and in
his words, haters are going to hate.
Karen Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has testified in a social
media and safety trial in Los Angeles. He says it's
very difficult to enforce Instagram's age limits, but Zuckerberg says
Meta has introduced some proactive tools to try to identify
and remove accounts that violate the rules, but he calls
it a challenging problem. Bloomberg Kurt Wagner says, this is
a signature moment for social media to.
Kind of be challenged with these allegations, and in Mark
Zuckerberg's case, to defend himself and his company against these accusations.
And so it's been highly watched, highly anticipated, and this
is just really the first of more than a thousand
potential trials that we could see.
Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner says, this trial centers on a twenty
year old woman who blames Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube
for her years of mental health struggles.
Well Nathan, Bloomberg News has learned open Ai is close
to final the first phase of a new funding round
that's expected to bring in more than one hundred billion dollars.
Source of say the overall valuation of the company, including
the eventual funding, could exceed eight hundred and fifty billion.
Brad Smith is Vice chair and president of Microsoft, a
key OpenAI partner, and he says the chat GPT maker
is branching out.
It's not as exclusive as it was, say a few
years ago. OpenAI uses our compute they train models in
our data centers, but they work with other companies as well.
We critically rely on OpenAI's frontier models. They are among
the best. Many days they are the best in the world,
but we have a relationship with anthropic.
Microsoft's Bread Smith made the comments earlier in an interview
with Bloomberg, and you can check out that interview as
well as live streaming news, all our Bloomberg TV shows, documentaries,
and more. It's all in one place at Bloomberg dot Com.
Forward to slash videos.
It's turn to the markets now, Karen.
Futures have turned lower after yesterday's gains on Wall Street.
The NASDAK dumped eight tenths of one percent. Barbara Reinhardt
is Chief investment Officer of Multi asset Strategies at Voya
Investment Management.
Short term are very oversold at this point. Look, you've
had a thirty three percent correction in US software stocks
from their peak in October of last year. It seems
to be a bit overdone and somewhat indiscriminate selling at
this point. So I don't think there's a reason for
us to go to cash at this point. Earnings for
the fourth quarter. We're very strong earned your visions are
still holding in their relatively well, and the labor market,
which is a big part of consumer spending, seems to
be getting a second second breeder at this.
Point, Voya Investment Management's Barbara Reinhardt. The Nasdaq is still
down more than five percent from its all time high
from late October. We have this red headline crossing the
Bloomberg terminal, Karen. The BBC is reporting that the UK's
former Prince Andrew has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct
in public office. The report shows cars arriving at the
former Princess Sandrimis State comes after local police said they
were assessing a complaint that the former prince may have
shared confidential material with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew has denied any wrongdoing. Again, the BBC is reporting
former Prince Andrew of the UK has been arrested on
suspicion of misconduct in public office.
Time now for look at some of the other stories
making news in New York and around the world, and
for that we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr.
Michael, good morning, Good morning, Karen in New Jersey. Flights
in and out of Newark Airport were temporarily suspended last
evening after a reported engine failure forced a Jet Blue
flight to return to the airport and evacuate passengers shortly
after takeoff. The flight heading to West Palm Beach immediately
returned to the airport after takeoff. This passenger says, while
everyone remained calm in the air, once they were safely
evacuated on the slide, it became emotional.
Everybody was panicked, but the moment we got off the plane,
everybody was. There was a lot of release of emotions,
a lot of tears and shaking and shoutings.
Airport operations resumed after flight five forty three was removed
from the taxiway. Authorities say the bodies of eight backcountry
skiers have been found and one remains missing after Tuesday's
avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California. Six others were found alive.
Heavy snow and the threat of additional avalanches slowed the
rescue effort in the mountains near Castle Peak, Nevada County
Sheriff Shannon.
Moon it's a very remote, rugged area on the north
side of the highway. There it is not a groomed
area or a ski resort area. This is a back
country area, rugged terrain.
Sheriff Moon says this is the deadliest skiing avalanche in
modern US history. The New York area could get another
winter storm system this weekend. Bloomberg medirologist Rob Carolyn has
the latest.
Michael, the weather pattern's getting rather active. We've got another
weather system which is going to bring rain to the
Tristed area late tonight and tomorrow, then a stronger storm
system which could potentially affect the area's Sunday and on
into Monday. The problem right now is the computer models
aren't in agreement. Some of them take it out to
see to the south of the Tristate area don't bring
us any precipitation at all, and some of them bring
it close enough to us that we'll be dealing with
some snow during the day on Sunday that would end
Monday morning. We'll be keeping a watch on this over
the next several days. I'm Rob Carolyn, Bloomberg Radio.
Global News twenty four hours a day and whenever you
want it with the Bloomberg News. Now, Michael Barr And
this is Bloomberg.
Hemon Well thanks Michael all the time. Now for our
Bloomberg Sports update, and for that we bring in John
stash Hour.
Guys, darreny was quite a day at the Olympics, with
the Kayals shiffer in winning the gold medal in the slalom,
and three quarter final hockey games went to overtime, including
Team USA's dramatic two to one victory over Sweden women's hockey.
Today the US versus Canada for the gold medal and
Jordan Stoles goes for a third gold medal in Speedskatie.
Just a couple of days after Tony Clark resigned as
the head of the Baseball Players Association, they've promoted his assistant,
Bruce Meyer. That's a Bloomberg Sports Update.
Stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this.
Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM,
and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the
Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.
Good morning on Nathan Hager.
After the latest ground of Iran nuclear talks, both the
US and Iran said they had made progress on a deal,
but oil is on the rise. This morning on reports
the US maybe edging closer to war than many Americans
might think.
Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
The President has always been very clear though, with respect
to Iran or any country around the world, diplomacy is
always his first option, and Iran would be very wise
to make a deal with President Trump and with this administration.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. This morning, we're joined
from Dubai by Bloomberg News Managing editor Paul Wallace. Paul,
that sounds like a veiled threat. Is that how Iran
is taking it? This morning?
Good morning, Hi, good morning.
Yes, it is a threat of Iran for sure. The
thing is that the Americans in the White House, they've
been pretty consistent in the last few weeks. They have
said publicly that they want to try to make the
negotiations with Iran work, to try to resolve this diplomatically.
They've said they know it will be very difficult. Dealing
with the Islamic Republic is anything but easy. But at
the same time, if they don't reach a deal, if
Iran doesn't agree to a deal, then it should be
prepared for military action, which I think is something you know,
Caroline Levitt was reiterating yesterday.
I think what you've.
Got also, you know, to note, is you've got a
massive build up of US forces in the region, naval
ships and jets as well, and a second aircraft carrier
is on the way and should be in the Middle
East pretty soon. So this is a huge amount of
but looking bigger than what the US had off the
coast of Venezuela in you know, December and at the
beginning of January before it captured Nicholas Maduro. So there's
a lot of military hardware there. It seems as if
the US is pretty much ready to go, the military
is ready to go to moments notice, if Trump decides
to go that route. And there are some people who
think that even though the US is saying it will
let to promise you run its course, that it may
not actually do that. It may decide to strike whilst
the talks are ongoing and before there's been any collapse
in them. So that's something that's sort of hanging over
the oil market right now, and I think that's a
big reason why.
Is rising.
Paul.
What are we hearing about whether the administration is close
to making that decision, what's the latest that we're hearing.
We've only got about thirty seconds left.
Yeah.
To be honest, I don't think it's a cliche in
this situation to say only Donald Trump knows. I mean,
some of the things we're hearing from the White House
suggests that even pretty senior White House people don't know
that Donald Trump is going to make that decision himself,
and he hasn't fully let on what he'll do yet.
This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories
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And I'm Nathan Hager.
Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you
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