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TikTok, TikTok, stop the clock.
Washington and Beijing agree to work together.
Getting to this framework was made possible by President Trump.
It was a deal that is fair for the Chinese and completely respects U.S. national security concerns.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Sam Fenwick.
Donald Trump has taken to his own social network to announce that the US and China have reached a framework deal on TikTok.
But who's going to buy it?
And what does it mean for the US businesses that rely on it?
And the Pope takes aim at runaway CEO pay, singling out Elon Musk as a symbol of widening inequality.
So the Chinese and US trade officials have been meeting in Madrid, and the big news is a framework agreement that will allow TikTok to keep operating in America.
The Chinese-owned social media platform had been facing legal uncertainty after Congress passed legislation last year forcing it to sell its US operations or face a nationwide ban.
North America tech correspondent Lily Jilmali has been following this story for us from San Francisco.
Thanks for joining us, Lily.
The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, said that a framework deal with China on the ownership of TikTok's American operations had been reached.
But what does that word framework mean?
Well, thank you for having me on.
And I would say that the announcement of this framework deal actually leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
The major one is who is going to buy TikTok?
Which American company is it?
And it has to be an American company in order for this deal to comply with the US law that was passed last year and upheld by the Supreme Court in January.
Mr Besant said he wasn't going to discuss the commercial terms of the deal because it's an agreement between commercial parties, private parties.
And the other thing is we don't know what will happen to the TikTok algorithm, that very powerful algorithm tool that allows TikTok to push content to American users.
Does ByteDance, the Chinese owner, transfer control?
Does the new owner have to build its own?
We don't know.
Mr. Besson did say the deal completely respects U.S. national security concerns.
A lot of people want to see the details there.
Here's more of what Secretary Besson had to say.
We have a framework for a TikTok deal that The two leaders, President Trump and party chair Xi, will speak on Friday to complete the deal.
But we do have a framework for a deal with TikTok.
So that was Scott Besson.
But Lily, tell us, why has TikTok faced this ban in the US?
And this goes back to the former president, Joe Biden, doesn't it?
Yeah.
And you could even take it back further still, to 2020.
Donald Trump's first administration, when he actually tried to ban it himself, got struck down in the courts there and then obviously has had this huge change of heart in recent years.
He thinks it's helped him. get voters among the young cohort of Americans.
But national security concerns are really front and center.
So two things.
Members of Congress worried about the prospect of China controlling the kind of content that we see here, especially younger Americans.
The other concern has to do with data fears that US user data could be accessed by the Chinese government.
The data issue is really what's top of mind for lawmakers who pass passed this law on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.
And a lot of security experts who I've been speaking to.
They wonder could there be a potential backdoor for Beijing to Americans' data as part of this deal?
It's important for us to note though, that TikTok and ByteDance have long denied that right now, under the status quo, the Chinese government accesses the data of American users.
But I think this question of These details about national security are really important to a whole host of people here.
And so are people sort of calmer about those security concerns now?
I think that if this deal goes through, there will be a lot of questions about how those those details are actually hammered out.
So, for example, I mentioned that backdoor that Beijing might have if they want to access Americans data.
From just from an engineering standpoint.
Making sure that they can't access Americans data could be pretty tricky, according to one expert that I spoke to.
And you know, I think that it's important to note that you've got all these different parties Congress, President Biden, who signed this into law, the Supreme Court, who upheld it.
And then, on the other side, you have Donald Trump, who has unilaterally extended the deadline for a sale or a ban pretty much on his own, ever since, in the face of all of this, you know actually quite rare unity on how important these national security concerns are.
Lily, stay with us.
Let's get a thought now on how China has reacted to all this.
Beijing has confirmed the framework agreement, but stressed that no deal will come at the expense of Chinese companies' interests.
Regarding the TikTok issue, China consistently opposes the politicisation, instrumentalisation and weaponisation of scientific, technological and economic and trade issues.
China will never seek to reach any agreement at the expense of its principal stance corporate interests and international fairness and justice.
Let's talk to Wendy Cutler now.
She's vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and also a former acting deputy US trade representative.
Wendy, what then do you make of China's response to this and its negotiating stance?
Well, I think China is just trying to make clear that the deal that's been reached fits into its constraints and its concerns.
So just like the US negotiators emphasize national security.
China is emphasizing the concerns that it has always had about this issue.
So I don't view their comments necessarily as negative.
I think they're trying to spin this agreement.
But I will say it's a framework agreement.
And the word framework to me means very general agreement.
So, you know, we're going to have to wait and see the details.
And it could be that the details after Friday's phone call need to be ironed out by experts.
This is Friday when President Trump will be speaking to President Xi Jinping of China.
Lily set out what America's concerns are with ByteDance owning China.
TikTok.
What are China's main concerns?
China's main concerns are why are you restricting our company, a Chinese company which is doing legitimate business in the United States?
This is unfair.
And we want access and we want to be able to have our companies operate without unfair restrictions being put on.
Furthermore, once it was legislated that this TikTok needed to be sold to a US company, they're very concerned about why do we have to sell our algorithms to a US company?
And so I'm going to be looking at this algorithm issue closely to see if indeed, The US company buying TikTok is going to have to develop its own algorithm or will buy this algorithm from ByteDance.
Again, a lot of details unknown.
Do you see it as a bit of a tactical truce, perhaps just on this one issue, because also during these talks in Madrid, China ruled that NVIDIA, the big chip maker, violated antitrust laws?
And I just wonder how that might affect trade relations going forward.
Well, and that's an excellent point.
TikTok is just one of a whole array of irritants in the U.S.-China economic relationship.
And what struck me is it seems like, in these 12 hours of meetings between the two sides, that most of the time was spent on TikTok, And I think it just shows how difficult it is to narrow gaps between the two countries on a whole array of issues facing them, including semiconductors soybeans, excess capacity, fentanyl tariffs, export controls, and I can go on and on.
So there's a whole more many hurdles to get over if you just take this deal out of the equation.
Right.
Look, this deal is a welcome development.
Anytime you can solve an issue with China, that is positive in my view.
But, on the other hand, there's so many other issues that plague this relationship, which lead me to think that both sides are right now working to stabilize the relationship and make sure it doesn't go south on any of these issues themselves, versus looking for ways to strengthen and expand it.
I think those days are over.
Well, TikTok isn't just about entertainment.
It's a vital marketing tool for many businesses in the US.
So what does this agreement mean for those who rely on the platform to reach their customers?
Let's talk to Jordan Smith now.
She runs Elevated Closet, which is a clothes business in Austin in Texas.
Jordan.
How important then is TikTok to your business, that role in kind of reaching customers, making sure that they know that you're there.
Yeah, you know, thank you.
It's such a vital, important piece to my business, especially being such a niche business.
I have a clothing brand for tall women and finding those women is like finding a needle in a haystack.
So for me the marketing on TikTok has been so good and I'm finding all of those women in the same place.
And the algorithm just knows that That's who they're supposed to be showing this stuff to.
And I get thousands of views a day on my content, where on other social media platforms, I'm just not getting that.
And so when this ban was going to come in and the ban has been the deadline for this negotiation has been moved since January and to April, then to June.
How was it doing business with that uncertainty?
It's very scary.
I'm a very small business.
I'm literally the only one running it.
I have an assistant and a warehouse.
But it's really scary because honestly, for me, if TikTok goes away right now, it's at least 50 of my business, if not more.
At this point, and especially going into the fourth quarter, it tends to be even higher.
So for me, it's really vital.
If this goes away, I don't know if my business will continue.
You must be more confident though today, listening to this conversation that we're having, but also looking at the news playing out Donald Trump's posts on his own social media site saying that a deal is done.
Yeah, I mean it makes me feel very good that there's a possibility.
But it's been such a roller coaster over this past year year and a half that I still you know I'm nervous, but I definitely am feeling a bit better about it.
Jordan Smith from Elevated Closets, a clothing business in Austin in Texas.
Thank you very much for joining us on the programme.
Let's go back to Lily Jamali, the BBC's North America business correspondent.
Lily, 170 million Americans use TikTok.
We've heard there just how important it is for one business.
What are you hearing about who might buy it?
Well, for the last eight months since Donald Trump took office, we have heard from a number of different parties that are interested.
Some are, you know, pretty well known YouTuber.
Mr. Beast is one.
Mr Wonderful, also known as Kevin O'Leary, a prominent businessman who's on the show.
Shark Tank is part of a consortium that is actually interested in buying TikTok without the algorithm.
So I think that's quite an interesting possibility.
But I think the leading contender has got to be Larry Ellison, who is the co-founder of Oracle.
Also currently the chief technology officer there, who's been involved in a slew of huge deals here in the US lately.
He just purchased Paramount, the movie studio, as well as the U.S.
TV network.
And it's our understanding that he's interested in buying yet another Warner Brothers discovery.
So there's a lot that could happen here, but he's got a lot of leverage.
He's very close to Donald Trump.
And we've seen a lot of indications from Mr. Trump that Larry Ellison would be his preferred choice.
Wendy, if a buyer can't buy it without the algorithm, how valuable is the business?
Oh, I think it's still extremely valuable, but let's not forget, the algorithm was kind of the guts, the core of this company.
So again, we'll have to see the details.
And I just expect that even after Friday we're going to see negotiations between the companies that are working on the sale and to work through a lot of these details which the two governments probably have touched upon, in order to conclude a framework deal and announce success.
But a lot of the hard back and forth on the details is still going to be up in the air.
I want to just bring Peter Jankowskis into the conversation.
He's Vice President of Research and Analysis at Arbor Financial Services.
He joins us today from Chicago.
Peter, as an investor, would you be eyeing up TikTok?
Well, I think it certainly would be, if it becomes a public company, definitely worth buying into.
Certainly you look at the success that both Google and Meta have had with being those sorts of platforms.
I could see it being very attractive.
Do we know how much it's worth?
I have seen some estimates in the past that were, I believe, several hundred billion dollars.
It's really hard to put a definite value on it though, because we don't know exactly what's being purchased.
Peter Jankowskis will stay with us for the rest of the programme.
Many thanks to Wendy Cutler, Vice President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and the BBC's Lily Jamali.
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This is World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Now university and college graduates around the world are stepping into one of the toughest job markets in decades.
The number of entry-level positions is shrinking, and some are pointing the finger at artificial intelligence.
But how big a role is this new technology really playing?
It's a question our reporter Hannah Mullane has been investigating for us.
MUSIC
I'm a recent graduate from Lehigh University.
I studied journalism, so graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
I initially went into school knowing that I wanted to pursue journalism, because I did it all throughout high school, and Lehigh has an award-winning student newspaper that I knew I wanted to be involved in since day one.
Kirby Child had a strong vision.
She knew the job she wanted and what she needed to study to get it, well, she thought she did.
I think that, you know, it's always difficult for recent grads.
Entry-level positions are you know, few and far between.
Kirby's right.
It's always daunting at the start.
I can still remember leaving university and feeling like I had a big challenge ahead of me, applying for jobs and trying to get my foot in the door.
But does AI now play a part in that difficulty?
I think that there are fewer entry-level jobs.
I think that part of that could be attributed to AI.
Just because you know copywriter, copy editor, things like that.
I think those jobs are few and far between.
I think that journalism in general has the capacity to be impacted at the entry level by AI.
From Kirby on the job hunt to recruiters looking for new employees.
My name is Chris Brulak.
I live in Toronto.
I co-founded a software recruiting company.
Chris is responsible for recruiting people for tech jobs all over Canada.
And he says he's seen a change in the past year in what hiring managers are looking for.
They don't want to hire 10 engineers.
They want to hire one engineer.
And they want that one engineer to be 10 times more productive because they're using these tools so heavily.
So what about graduate roles?
Are you seeing that they're being impacted more than others?
Yes, yes and no.
I think it's hard to give a definitive answer on that when you separate the economy out of it.
I think it makes it a little bit harder now because there is that expectation that entry level people are more up to date on all the new tech.
With that in mind, should graduates be considering completely different career paths now that AI is going to be such a big part of our working lives?
Geoffrey Hinton is known as the godfather of AI for his work on artificial neural networks, basically getting computers to analyse data better than humans can.
AI is lagging far behind people in manual dexterity.
And if you're a plumber and you have to get into funny, awkward places, I think it'll be a while before AI can do that.
So training as a plumber, I think is actually quite a good bet right now.
Probably a better bet than training as a lawyer.
It seems no one really knows exactly how much of an impact artificial intelligence will truly have on the job market.
What we do know is AI will play a part in many jobs.
So if you've got years of your working life ahead of you, then learning how to use these tools is certainly going to help.
That was Hannah Mullane reporting for us.
Now the Pope has taken a swipe at what he sees as a runaway pay for CEOs, particularly singling out Elon Musk's trillion dollar Tesla compensation package.
In his first set down media interview, Pope Leo warned that pay gaps are fuelling polarisation in society.
He said that while 60 years ago, bosses might have earned four or six times more than their workers, for some today it's closer to 600 times.
Well, earlier I spoke to Peter Hugh Smith.
He's the CEO of the investment manager CCLA in London.
It manages $20 billion for church and charity clients.
And I asked him how they keep their investing ethical.
Last year 2024, we voted against 82 of the remuneration packages that the companies we invest in had put forward.
82%?
That's like virtually all of them.
That is virtually all of them.
So in those instances, how many times higher does it need to be for it to be in the excessive bracket?
I think we try and steer away from there being a specific amount.
I think what we see as excessive is.
It's somewhat linked into what market norms would be where that company is.
It's also linked into how that company treats its wider workforce.
So, for example in the UK, If that company is not signed up to be a living wage employer, we would vote against the remuneration policy.
So we're not there saying that we disagree with the remuneration policy, specifically how much the directors are paid.
What we're saying is we think you need to be more focused on the many.
So we're voting against you at the top who are getting larger amounts, but it's not necessarily about a factor.
So we're not against high pay, but it needs to be justified and it needs to be fair to a degree.
And that's what we're trying to always get a balance with.
And it's a judgment.
But we do try and avoid the X times is wrong because that can get you into the wrong place.
In those instances when you were voted against it, what's been the result?
What's happened?
Sadly, in most cases, it's recognized by the board.
Do they change their view?
Most votes against remuneration are advisory, not compulsory.
So in most instances, in virtual instances, that pay would continue.
But again, it's about continuing to give that message and that conversation with the boards.
And there's other engagements we do with companies that we invest in.
And actually for some we don't as well actually to get them to think about how they are handling themselves.
So for example, in the cost of living crisis, particularly when it was at its peak at the beginning of the Ukraine war and the energy impact that hit so many people, we wrote to a lot of boards asking them to consider around if they weren't living wage to be living wage and just to think more carefully about how they looked after the lowest paid within their businesses so again there's lots of levers that we can pull here and engagement is not something you do think one thing once and get a result You have to keep on having these conversations and it takes time, but it does start to have an impact over time.
But overall really, in those instances where you voted against it, the pay has gone up anyway, hasn't it?
More often than not, correct.
That must be hard for you to take.
It's a part of the world that we are all living in and it's a part of the world that we invest in.
It is frustrating, but we have learned over time that if you keep on talking to these companies, you can drive change.
So you wouldn't pull out any investment?
You would stay as investors, you would just try and keep the conversation going?
It would be very unlikely.
I mean, I never say never.
It would be very unlikely that we would exit from a company purely on a remuneration basis, because actually our role, what our clients pay us to do, who are all charitable organizations of one way or the other, or religious organizations predominantly, is to give them a return so they can keep on doing the work that they do, the good that they do.
So again we have to be.
Our primary focus is financial, but we want to do that in a way that is not making money.
And our clients want us to do it in a way that is not making money off the backs of others.
I think that's a very important principle.
And that's why we're always gauging with these firms and getting them to improve.
That was Peter Hugh Smith, the CEO of one of the largest faith-based investment firms.
Let's talk to Peter Jankowskis now.
He's still with us.
He's Vice President of Research and Analysis at Arbor Financial Services in Chicago.
Just listening to Peter Hugh Smith there, Peter, how important do you think those conversations are?
Do you think that they really achieve anything?
Do you think that maybe these conversations board members might just pay lip service?
I think it's primarily lip service.
The reality is they're trying to find the best possible match in terms of the management skills that are out there.
And they basically have to face the market that's before them.
Many of them hire outside firms to actually determine what the appropriate rates of compensation are for these jobs.
So any one firm, any one board cannot really stand up against that.
What do you think about what the Pope was saying?
He's not the first Pope to talk about inequality in pay.
But he does make a point, doesn't he, that 60 years ago, bosses might have earned four or six times more than their workers.
But now it's closer to 600 times, which is pretty unpalatable, isn't it?
Well, I think there's an important point that businesses have just become larger over time as well.
Those bosses that were earning four or six times what their employees were making were looking after a lot fewer employees than someone like Elon Musk, who is looking after Tesla's employees, looking after SpaceX employees and others.
So I think some of that increased scale simply reflects the increased scale of the businesses that are being operated these days.
You mentioned Elon Musk.
He was highlighted by the Pope.
He's also just bought a billion dollars worth of Tesla shares.
Explain to us why he's done that.
Well, I think he's trying to demonstrate that he has commitment to the company.
I think in the after effects of his work with President Trump, people were concerned that he wasn't as committed to those businesses.
And he's stepping up and putting his money where his mouth is.
President Trump today, on his social media platform, said that companies should no longer be required to post quarterly earnings.
He said that this would allow managers to focus properly on running their businesses.
What do you make of that?
Well, I think it's difficult to say one size fits all.
For a company like Boeing, for example, that has capital plans that extend decades into the future, quarterly report doesn't make a lot of sense.
The business doesn't change that frequently.
If you're looking at a retailer, Walmart, for example, quarterly reports are very important.
It actually gives you a sense of what the overall economy is doing.
So I think, having a set requirement for companies, there should be more flexibility in the reporting cycle so the reporting cycle matches the dynamics of the business.
I wonder what we would talk about on World Business Report if there was less reporting, because it is very important to our agenda, isn't it?
Thank you very much, Peter Jankowskis, for joining us today on World Business Report.
That is all we have time for.
The producer today was Matt Lines.
I'm Sam Fenwick.
Don't forget, you can always subscribe to our podcast.
Search for World Business Report wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Thank you.
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