Bloomberg Businessweek

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A key House committee on Friday failed to advance House Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill after hard-line conservatives bucked President Donald Trump and blocked the bill over cost concerns.

The House Budget Committee rejected the bill 21-16, with Republican Representatives Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde joining Democrats to vote against it. The four hardliners demanded deeper cuts to Medicaid and other government programs.

It’s incredibly rare for bills to fail at this step in the process, with the committee vote typically serving as a rubber-stamp to the bill before it moves to the House floor.
Negotiations will continue through the weekend, with the committee planning to meet again late Sunday night.

In deal news, Charter Communications Inc. has agreed to combine with closely held Cox Communications in a cash-and-stock deal that would unite two of the biggest US cable providers. The takeover values Cox at about $34.5 billion including debt, the companies said in a statement Friday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The deal includes about $12.6 billion of net debt and $21.9 billion in equity, the companies said. The combined company would be the top broadband operator in the US, and increase Charter’s subscriber base by more than 20%, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Geetha Ranganathan. It also comes at a time when cable companies are facing increasing competition.

Today's show features:

• Bloomberg Balance of Power Co-Host Joe Mathieu
• Kabir Ahmed Shakir, Chief Financial Officer at Tata Communications and Bloomberg News Senior Editor Nina Trentmann
• Craig Moffett, Founding Partner of MoffettNathanson
• Katie Hubbard, EVP of Capital Markets for Walton Global

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Julie Smolyansky, Chairperson of the Board, President and CEO of Lifeway Foods discusses what she considers to be a hostile takeover attempt by dairy-product maker Danone, which has been among Lifeway's major shareholders for more than 25 years.
Danone responded in a statement issued to Bloomberg that "there is no ‘raid’ or ‘hostile bid,’ since Lifeway's board decided in November 2024 to reject Danone's highly attractive $27-per-share acquisition proposal, depriving Lifeway's shareholders of a very significant premium."

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Coinbase Global Inc. is cooperating with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on an agency probe into its previously reported user metrics, the company said Thursday.

“This is a hold-over investigation from the prior administration about a metric we stopped reporting two and a half years ago, which was fully disclosed to the public,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said in a statement. “While we strongly believe this investigation should not continue, we remain committed to working with the SEC to bring this matter to a close.”

Grewal noted that Coinbase’s “verified users metric” might have overstated the number of unique customers and that the company continues to disclose “the more relevant metric of ‘monthly transacting users’” on the platform. The SEC declined to comment.

Meanwhile, it turns out that hackers had near-constant access to some of Coinbase’s most valuable customer data since January, according to a person familiar with the incident who asked not to be named discussing company matters. 

The largest US crypto exchange disclosed earlier on Thursday that hackers bribed customer representatives to steal the data and then demanded a $20 million ransom to delete it. Coinbase began noticing unusual activity from some of these representatives in January, the company confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg News. 

The hackers bribed customer service representatives to get access to names, dates of birth, addresses, nationalities, government-issued ID numbers, some banking details and details about when customer’s accounts were created and their balance, the person familiar with the situation said. This information could be used to attempt to impersonate Coinbase and convince customers to let the hackers into their account. It could also be used to impersonate the victims with other service providers to attempt to convince them to let hackers into other financial accounts they might own.

The threat actors had bribed enough customer service representatives to achieve effectively on-demand access to Coinbase customer information in the past five months, the person said. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Chief Security Officer Philip Martin disputed the near constant access assertion, saying Coinbase pulled the agents’ access as soon as it was discovered they were improperly sharing information. Therefore the hackers “did not have persistent access over the course of the entire period,” he said.

Today's show features:

• stacy-marie ishmael, Bloomberg News Executive Editor for Crypto and payments
• Dana Telsey, CEO and Chief Research Officer of Telsey Advisory Group
• Bloomberg News National Security Reporter Jamie Tarabay
• Tim Herbert, Chairman, President and CEO of Inspire Medical Systems

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Jeff DiLullo, Chief Region Leader of Philips North America, examines the state of the health-technology business as tariffs pressure supply chains amid President Donald Trump's trade war. 

The multinational company has been in operation for more than 130 years and does business in more than 100 countries around the global. Philips recently reported earnings, and saw 1Q adjusted Ebita beat company-compiled consensus estimates by 15%.

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The White House said President Donald Trump had secured deals totaling more than $243.5 billion with Qatar, laying the groundwork for a bigger $1.2 trillion economic pledge with the tiny Gulf country.

“The landmark deals celebrated today will drive innovation and prosperity for generations, bolster American manufacturing and technological leadership, and put America on the path to a new Golden Age,” the White House said.
The announcement came on the second leg of Trump’s swing through the Middle East, a day after the president touted some $600 billion in investments by Saudi Arabia in US manufacturing, products and services. 

Trump has focused much of his energy on the trip in securing investment dollars, while praising Gulf states for seeking a deeper partnership with the US.

Trump’s take so far has fallen short of his ambitions for an even bigger haul; the president had floated the possibility of securing $1 trillion in investment pledges from Saudi companies and on Tuesday said the two nations would work toward that goal.
Earlier Wednesday, the White House announced that Qatar Airways had inked a $96 billion plan to acquire as many as 210 Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft. The White House cast the buy as the largest-ever widebody order and the largest-ever for the 787s.

Today's show features:

• Bloomberg News Senior Reporter Jennifer Dlouhy
• Drive to the Close with Aaron Kennon, CEO at Clear Harbor Asset Management
• Dr. Justin Schwartz, Chancellor of the University of Colorado Boulder and Bloomberg News Higher Education Finance Reporter Janet Lorin

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Daniel Wagner, CEO of London-based Rezolve Ai, explains how his company uses artificial intelligence to improve and personalize the shopping experience across a variety of product categories.

Rezolve is among the first publicly traded, pure-play AI companies, featuring a proprietary Large Language Model specifically designed for the retail sector.

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President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman touted a pledge for $1 trillion in commercial deals in Riyadh on Tuesday, a staggering figure that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny.

“With the help of the people of the Middle East, the people in this room, partners throughout the region, the golden age of the Middle East can proceed right alongside of us,” Trump said at a Saudi-US investment summit to announce the planned deals. “We will work together. We will be together. We will succeed together. We will win together, and we will always be friends.”

But the glitzy event — where top officials and corporate executives including billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang sat in armchairs, serenaded by Trump’s typical rally soundtrack — sets up a test for the US president and Saudi crown prince, who have struggled at times to match their rhetoric with reality.

Both leaders claimed Saudi Arabia would invest $1 trillion in the US, but signage at the conference put the cumulative total of the deals as actually worth over $300 billion. Hours earlier, the White House cited a $600 billion investment. The discrepancy is significant: The $1 trillion figure roughly matches Saudi Arabia’s entire gross domestic product.

Today's show features:

• Gregg Roman, Executive Director of the Middle East Forum
• Bloomberg News Senior Editor & Crypto / Digital Payments Team Leader Mike Regan and Bloomberg News Investigations Reporter Anthony Cormier
• Karen Veraa-Perry. Managing Director and Head of iShares US Fixed Income Strategy at BlackRock
• Bloomberg News Investigations Reporter Rachel Adams Heard

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Peter Atwater, President of Financial Insyghts and Adjunct Lecturer of Economics at the College of William and Mary, discusses the broader financial and economic implications of President Donald Trump's trade war against Xi Jinping's China.

After two days of high-stakes talks in Switzerland, trade negotiators from the world’s biggest economies announced Monday a massive de-escalation in tariffs. In a carefully coordinated joint statement, the US slashed duties on Chinese products to 30% from 145% for a 90-day period, while Beijing dropped its levy on most goods to 10%.

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Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

Wall Street’s bets that the US-China trade truce marked the end to an all-out tariff war drove the S&P 500 up over 3%, while sinking defensive corners of the market from bonds to gold and haven currencies. The dollar saw its best day since November.
The rebound in risk appetite and diminished expectations of a recession drove the stock benchmark above Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” level.
A surge in big techs drove the Nasdaq 100 back into a bull market just a month after it plunged 20% from a previous record. Amid a potential reset in inflation expectations, Treasury yields climbed as traders lowered their Federal Reserve wagers to just two rate cuts in 2025.
For big investors shocked into defensive measures at the height of April’s chaos, the swift recovery in markets has been a mixed blessing. Shorting the dollar, going long stock volatility and piling on bets premised on multiple Fed rate cuts were among the most popular trades in mid-April. Each has taken severe lumps. Indeed, their unwinding may be adding fuel to the bounce-back.

The US and China will temporarily lower tariffs on each other’s products, buying the world’s two largest economies three months to work toward a broader agreement. Trump said China had agreed to remove non-tariff barriers to US imports as he announced a de-escalation of his trade war with Beijing, suggesting even greater concessions could be in store if talks progress.
Today's show features:

• Nancy Lazar, Chief Economist at Piper Sandler
• Doug Ciocca, CEO and Partner at Kavar Capital Partners
• Jay Inslee, former Governor of Washington

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Bitcoin crossed the $100,000 threshold for the first time since February last week, fueled by expectations for an easing of global trade tensions. Metafide CEO Frank Speiser joins to discuss the outlook for crypto amid broader market uncertainty.

Then, Ken Griffin's Citadel is putting its Florida lobbying muscle behind an effort to allow stricter non-compete clauses and garden leaves. Bloomberg News Florida correspondent Anna Kaiser joins to break down her reporting on Griffin's growing influence in Florida. 

Hosts: Matt Miller and Norah Mulinda
Producer: Justin Milliner

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