He declared only 2 of the west bank is occupied. The u. S. Says his comments do not reflect policy shift. Global news 24 hours a day. Parenti and this is bloomberg. Emily i am emily chang and this is bloomberg technology. Coming up, the growing social media lines to fight fake news. The latest on the investigation into russian interference in americas electoral process a day after twitter visited in the capital. Hoteltonight opens its booking window to a wider audience and raises nearly 40 million in its latest funding round. The c. E. O. And cofounder sam shank checks in. Elon musk upgrades his commercial space dream with a new mission for rockets on earth. How realistic is shanghai to new york in half an hour . We will discuss. We begin with breaking news out of washington. Tom price has resigned as the health and Human Services secretary after taking private and military jets at taxpayers expense. Alex wayne joins me now. This happening in the last 20 minutes or so. The latest white house scandal. What do you make of it . It is more turnover in the Trump Administration after a summer that saw a series of departures from the white house itself. We are now losing our first cabinet official, tom price. Emily there are other individuals who are part of the administration who may have taken flights that are questionable. Are we expecting more this . Trump has not singled out a guy like the interior secretary and the way in the way he did tom price. On wednesday, he told reporters he was thinking of firing price. He said he was very disappointed. He repeated that today before he got on marine one and a helicopter to go to bedminster. Time he the same landed, the press release came out saying tom price resigned. I think the decision was probably made before trump got on the plane. In theprice has been crosshairs after months of unsuccessful attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act. How much of that do you think impacted this turn of events . I think tom price did not have many friends anywhere in washington. I dont think anybody in congress was speaking up for him. The Health Care Industry was certainly not sticking up for him. The could not help get any of the bills over the finish lines. The most recent one, ram cassidy, tom price had not been involved at all in the debate. I think that was weighing on the president s mind as he made this decision, in addition to the egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars in these private plane flights. Has been namedht acting secretary. Something we will continue to follow. Alex, thank you. Twitter presented its findings on russian interference in the 2016 president ial election to the house and Senate Intelligence committees thursday. Lawmakers are not pleased. Listen to democrat senator mark warner. Again, thanks many more questions banks many more questions begs many more questions. The response was frankly inadequate on almost every level. Emily in a blog post, twitter announced it disabled 22 accounts after reviewing information from facebook showing connections to 450 bogus accounts on the social network. Twitter revealed an additional 179 related accounts it says violated its rules. Joining me to discuss this as well as the latest news in facebooks fight against fake the and election meddling, founder of the National Security institute at george mason law school. Before that, he was the former chief counsel and Senior Advisor to the Senate Foreign relations committee. Also with me, Kevin Whitelaw who heads bloombergs congressional coverage. Kevin, i want to start with you. All of this unfolded on thursday on capitol hill. What kind of fallout today in terms of twitters perceived inadequacy dealing with this . Listening to senator warner last night, he was really upset. He was upset about not getting a lot of information. I think what he was really upset about was the sense that twitter has not worked hard to understand what happened on its network during the u. S. Election. It is a complaint he has also had about facebook. These companies have not done the full amount of work to begin to figure out what level of manipulation where other things might have occurred. The twitter presentation was mostly derivative of what facebook the work facebook did as well as looking at what one russian outlet did in terms of spending. Pretty minimal. I think there will be a lot of followup questions. There is a lot of pressure. We are told facebook, twitter, and google have been invited for a november 1 hearing in public before the Senate Intelligence committee. If they dont have more detailed answers, it could be uncomfortable hearing for them. Emily there is concern facebook did not act quickly enough. Now we are seeing twitter working mostly off of facebooks disclosures. How significant is this . This is a big deal. These are serious folks on the committee. They are being invited for a hearing in early november. The house has announced a hearing in october. There will be a lot of attention to this. Facebook and google makeup 20 of global ad spend. The top three are in the top 30 of global media owners. This is a big deal in th these ads can haveat a big impact. Companies regulate themselves or does the government have to step in . Oh fake accounts accounts allowed certain hashtags to trend on twitter. Twitter hasbe more yet to uncover . It seems like it. About thequestion capacity twitter has to investigate. It grants a certain amount of anonymity to begin with. There are questions about how deeply they want to look and test the strength of their algorithms. These are communities built on being automatic and selfcorrecting. To the degree they are supposed to adapt to things, there is a lot of room to take advantage of them it seems. Then there is the question of whether these Companies Want to look hard to understand how they can be of use in the same way they can also be used for good. Emily what is the responsibility of social networks . I think it is important they try to do the right thing. Kevin is right. They need to figure it out. If they dont, they will face regulation. Regulation is bad for the economy and technology. It cannot keep up. Expecting laws to keep up with the speed in the valley is crazy. It is important the companies figure it out and find a rational path forward. If not, regulation is coming. That is bad for technology and innovation in the United States. At a storylooking about a similar investigation at google. We had not heard about ads on google yet or snapchat. Do we think this issue could expand to many more media . We know google has received invitations from the senate committee. We expect the House Committee will be reaching out to google. There has been some level of conversations between the panels and a company. It is unclear which parts of the google empire they will be looking at. You can certainly look around. It is not just google ads but youtube and other things and say theres probably a fair amount of potential for manipulation to have been done. I think the key thing is going to be all of these Companies Act like media companies, but they do not take the same proactive level of responsibility about what is on their site as a Media Company does. Theseant to act like Companies Want to make money advertising and other things but have not taken the same level of control or responsibility. Tough questions ahead for these companies about what their role is in the economy and also in a democracy. Emily Mark Zuckerberg has apologized. At the same time, he has cautioned that facebook cannot sway an election entirely. Do you think some of this new information reveals social media could have played a Critical Role in swaying the election in trumps favor . Is that a stretch . I think it is a little bit of a stretch. Far is what you see thus hundreds of thousands of dollars on spend on thousands of accounts. We are talking about millions of accounts, billions of dollars of ad spend. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall scheme. This is an area of danger for these companies. You see facebook trying to do the right thing and correct the situation. Clearly, the Senate Intelligence committee does not think twitter has done enough. They need to be more proactive. There has been separation between d. C. And the valley. Come important they together because if they cannot Work Together on this or encryption or law enforcement, we will see a real problem and we will see Congress Getting involved. I dont think it is good for the economy or innovation. Emily jamil jeffer, Kevin Whitelaw, thank you both for joining me. Obviously something we will continue to follow. Softbank is branching out from its roots. The Japanese Firm eyeing further acquisitions to potentially create a 300 billion Asset Management arm that would also million vision fund for tech investments. In february, the firm acquired Fortress Investment group and is considering additional investments in the Financial Sector. Coming up, hoteltonight expands its booking window from last minute to 100 days. C. E. O. Sam shank joins us for an exclusive conversation. This is bloomberg. Consortium capitals plans to take the Toshiba Memory unit public after the 18 billion acquisition of its business. People familiar with the matter say the precise timing of the appeal will depend on finances and Market Conditions and could change substantially. Hoteltonight is beefing up its competition with expedia. The Company Announced it is expanding its booking window to 100 days after hoteltonight closed a 37 million funding round to expand its international presence. An exclusive interview, sam shank, c. E. O. And cofounder of hoteltonight. Why the change . When we started, we saw the opportunity in mobile. We saw the world was going to move to mobile. But mobile was only 1 of all bookings. We focused on this inherently mobile problem of i need a hotel right now but you did not have your computer. We had a great Product Market fit, invented a new category, expanded into broader definition of lastminute. Now mobile is mainstream. Our customers are telling us they want to do all of their bookings on hoteltonight. Likewise, hotels said we love we, we love the ease of use, love the customers rescinding, and we want to do more. We responded to the needs of our customers. Emily i am excited. I have three kids. I cannot book lastminute. I see how it can reach a broader audience. Of the of this a result threat from other online , nonhotelon sites accommodations that are more popular . I do not think it is a response to a threat. This is an opportunity for us. Our business is very healthy. We are profitable. We decided we could expand and serve our customers better. There has not been much innovation from the big Online Travel agencies. Over the past 10 years, most of the focus on the product site has been on improving Conversion Rates and marketing efficiency. Not in serving the needs of their customers. That is a Good Opportunity for us. We have a ton of innovation. We are going to use that structural advantage to provide a Great Service for consumers. Agenciesme of the big have been active in m a and bought companies. Could you bring nonhotel properties onto hoteltonight . The word hotel now means roof over your head. We dont work with every hotel partner. We work with only the partners that provide the level of service we feel good about. We will even not work with a hotel if the review score is low. That is different from our competition. It makes it easier to use hoteltonight and gives you a better experience. For alternative accommodation, guesthouses, we want to work with places personally vetted and that we feel good about putting people in. Emily there has been speculation uber could be in interesting acquire for hoteltonight. Any possibility . I think dara is fantastic. Weve known each other for a long time in similar roles. What people do not realize is he was a banker first but is also a great product guy and gets product very well. He is the right guy to run uber. I cannot wait to see what he will do. Emily no plans to sell . There is a lot of m a happening. Your name comes up. I think it is a testament to what the team has done and the quality and value we provide to customers that our name does get mentioned. It is an honor that comes up. What i am focused on is what we can control providing innovation and building a Great Service. Emily why not participate in the m a . Why go it alone . We see these trends in the industry. What do you see as potential . For us, it is about building a great alternative in the legacy to Online Travel agencies. We are something different. We are born on mobile for the mobile era. It is a massive market that has not had a lot of innovation in a long time. We are excited to bring it. Emily what trends are you seeing in travel different from years past . One thing that is happening is people are going toward boutique or independent inventory which combines what is orat about a hotel stay Traditional Hotel chain with the consistency and security but also the uniqueness and quirkiness and unique orrytelling of a home stay shared guestroom. That is where we are concentrating. The big brands are spending money on building a particular into a. What will like is the great inventory independent hotels that tell a great story. Independent, any update on the ipo you have promised . I did not the guy promised it. But it is certainly a possibility for us. Anis flattering that is opportunity for us and speaks a lot to what the team has done. It is not something i think about everyday. I think about what we need to grow. If the companies in the right place and the market is in the right place, it is something we would consider. Emily you have new launch cities. You are expecting the 100day window to be available everywhere . Absolutely. Emily sam shank, thank you so much for stopping by. Coming up, it is another blow for bitcoin after south korea cracks down on cryptocurrencies. We will hear from jack lew on the bitcoin debate. This is bloomberg. Emily bitcoin at ethereum dropped after south korea banned domestic initial coin offerings. It is the second major blow to cryptocurrencies this month after china similarly banned ipos and later on cryptocurrency trading. Prosecutors in south korea be cryptor would claim traders in a pyramids game. Jack lew spoke to bloomberg and weighed in on cryptocurrencies. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about these Virtual Currencies and tried to keep my mind open to innovation and change. You think about innovation in the financial system. It comes through things that happen in a disruptive way. That is how you get checking accounts, credit cards. So i am reluctant to say new things are bad. I had some special concerns about Virtual Currencies, partially because of the secrecy factor. We worry about large cash transactions because large cash transactions can be used for bad purposes. You create something that makes it easy to do that and it has the same characteristics. We decided to treat the Virtual Currencies like currencies for the purpose of trying to keep track of them, but it is hard. I also worried it could be used as a means of storing value because when i made comparisons to to look prices tulip prices, it did cross my mind to say that at the time. I would not store my savings in something that unpredictable. I dont know how many unsophisticated investors are doing that. One of the things you have seen with these currencies, because of their anonymity and ease of movement, is in a country like china where people want to get their money out of the country, it has become an easy mechanism to do so. I think that is why youre seeing china clampdown on things like bitcoin. I end on this where i started. Bitcoin isogy behind now being appropriated by the mainstream Financial Sector to cause the kind of improvements in processing and safety that are going to be really good. As, should the same you store your wealth in bitcoin . I think you have to separate out the Technology Question from the application. Emily that was former u. S. Treasury secretary jack lew. Coming up, u. K. Prime minister theresa may goes against the ban to stop uber from operating in the capital. Can this help the c. E. O. Get a leg up in reversing the decision when he travels to london next week . This is bloomberg. So we need tablets installed. With the menu app ready to roll. In 12 weeks. Yeah. The world of fast food is being changed by faster networks. Data, applications, customer experience. Which is why comcast business delivers Consistent Network Performance and speed across all your locations. Fast connections everywhere. Thats how you outmaneuver. Mark i am Mark Crumpton in new york. You are watching bloomberg technology. U. S. Health and Human Services secretary tom price has resigned. A white house statement says President Trump accepted secretary prices resignation friday. His travel itinerary came under scrutiny after it emerged he frequently used military and charter planes. The tab is reportedly in excess of 1 million. President trump told reporters earl