Hello, and welcome to the ProRata podcast, a podcast that takes 10 minutes to get you smarter, faster, on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Change of plans, filling in for Dan Pramak today. I'm Axiore Special Projects producer Naomi Shaven.

On today's show, Morgan Stanley buys e-trade and the Trump administration sides with Oracle. But first, Bloomberg's

social media strategy. Yesterday, before the Democratic debate became the biggest story about

former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal reported that his presidential

campaign is hiring people in California to post about him from their social media accounts

and send texts in support of him as well. The campaign is reportedly hiring at least 500 people

to work 20 to 30 hours a week for $2,500 a month. Their responsibilities would include texting every contact in their phone once a week with a message about Bloomberg, and publishing social media posts about him from their own accounts daily.

His campaign social media strategy was already viewed as unorthodox.

It made headlines last week when a spate of memes dropped depicting messages

between his social media accounts and popular accounts. They were sponsored content. His campaign

worked out with influencers. It's one thing to pay for a sponsored post by an influencer with a huge

audience. It's another to have everyday people texting all of the contacts in their phones and posting on their own social media pages, targeting people that that individual knows personally.

Bloomberg has been in the race for only 10 weeks, but has spent more on advertising than Sanders, Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar combined.

That's a huge part of what propelled him to last night's

debate stage. This latest effort around texting and social media posts could cost millions on its

own. In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper on Bloomberg's campaign tactics with Axios Media reporter Sarah

Fisher. But first, this. Axios chief technology correspondent, Enah Freed, shares breaking news and analysis on the most consequential companies and players in tech from the Valley to D.C.

Subscribe to get smarter faster at signup.axios.com.

And now, back to the pro rata podcast.

Joining us is Axios media reporter Sarah Fisher to talk about the Bloomberg campaign

and social media. Let's start big picture. Bloomberg has spent upwards of $50 million this year

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