week. it is monday, march 11th, 2024 and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen and melissa lee who is hanging out with us. becky is off today. look at u.s. equities at this hour. the dow right now offthe 80 points. the nasdaq is up 18 points. s&p is unch. it is up 1 point. the treasury yields. two-year yield at 4.048. there is crypto.

another record. bitcoin reaching a new high above $71,000 this morning. look at the move. it has been a staggering move. $71,758 as we speak and climbing. crypto adjacent names, coinbase, et cetera, seeing gains. there is three days after ethereum breached the 4,000 mark. look at the crypto stocks. trading higher this morning. early this morning, i should say. coinbase and robinhood. we will talk to michael saylor at 8:30 a.m. today. we will ask why invest in the proxy when you can invest easily in the etf now? >> that's one of the big shifts. >> he's a brave man. >> he is a brave man. >> buying more bitcoin. >> that would be his argument. he is a levered bet on crypto.

the stock is a leveraged bet on crypto and bitcoin in a way that you could go leverage. >> aside from the software business. >> that is not part of the deal. >> have you heard about coinbase and what goes on there? >> the zero balances on the high volume base? >> i have been looking at it. what's going on? i have seen it. that number is nice. it goes to zero. >> that's what we were talking about. >> i have no money. >> that's a good sign for coinbase. high volumes and the weird glitch. >> they have to get it together if they are the main one. it is hard with that much interest. larry fink has bitcoin surging. i think jay powell has something to do with it, too. the bill in the house is

moving closer to the vote to ban tiktok in the u.s. or force the chinese parent to sell the company. "the wall street journal" says the momentum caught tiktok by surprise and flood congress with phone calls has back fired. president biden said friday he would sign the legislation if congress passed it. "the journal" reports that bobby kotick has expressed interest in buying tiktok. he floated that idea at the dinner last week which included openai ceo sam altman. and formerly president trump now doesn't want to ban tiktok. now swirling. it is anti-zuckerberg. that's all it looked like to me. the enemy of my enemy a lot of

times with the former president can be. again, there have been times when we said you just get uncomfortable about banning companies that you don't like what they're doing. >> china can do the same to us. >> exactly. if ccp is manipulating our youth and krucorrupting them. >> we might be able to talk about this with somebody later? >> i forgot about that. we may be able to ask former president trump about tiktok. he will be our guest at 7:30 a.m. not everybody remembers -- do you remember trump tuesdays? >> i do. >> i do remember trump tuesdays. >> before he was president. we had a segment where he would phone in. i always enjoyed it. tho not everybody enjoyed it. i don't know if this is the

beginning of another weekly segment. at this point, would you say presumptive nominee? >> yes. >> i would say we would say that to him. was he not the presumptive nominee before last tuesday? he probably was. i don't think he has done ain af an interview since sotu. i'm sure he will have stark differences on how he views things. >> we will ask him a lot of things. openai saying the law firm concluded the investigation into the events that led up to sam altman's ouster. there was a breakdown of trust with the board and altman. they did not anticipate the instability that followed. the concerns did not involve product safety or security or finances or statements to

partners. sam altman will join the board and we will talk more about the story later in the hour. this is what you expected. they did not tell you more than what you already knew. >> like why. >> exactly. elon musk posting on x that his startup xa.i. will open source grok. he unveiled it in november of last year. he sued openai and sam altman saying they broke the funding agreement and criticized them for not being open as in openai, the name of the company that he helped create. nvidia has been sued by three authors who said it used copyrighted books without permission to train its a.i. platform. the works were part of the data set of 200,000 books to train the models to simulate written language before being taken down

last october due to copyright infringements. the authors say this is an admission that the company trained the model on the data set. i know this is an issue for you, andrew, in terms of what data can be used in a large language model to train it. what is up for grabs and who is getting paid? those are a lot of questions here. >> the question is can you train the model yourself? i think the answer is no. i think that is going to ultimately be the answer. the question is what is the fine and how much will this cost everybody and is there a different business model and what happens? >> the bigger question for nvidia in today's session. the key reversal from friday. it hit a new high early in the session and finished at the lows. a 10% session traiintraday. >> what is it? trees don't grow to the sky.

this is already in the sky. >> it's in the sky. >> through the sky? >> people would have said that 100 points ago. >> they would have. justice department has opened a criminal investigation into the boeing 737 max plug blowout on the alaska airlines flight. investigators contacted passengers on the january 5th flight. alaska airlines doesn't believe it is the target of the investigation. we will talk more with phil lebeaulater this morning. coming up, key inflation data tomorrow highlighting the squawk planner. later, we referenced this, former president trump will join us later to talk about the campaign and the economy and regulatory environment and maybe tiktok and more. "squawk box" will be right back.

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it's not a nine-to-five acce proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today. on this week's planner, inflation data in focus and producer prices and sales on thursday. it is a light week from earnings. we hear from oracle today, kohl's tomorrow. on wednesday, dollar tree and home builder lennar. on thursday, dollar general and

dick's sporting goods and ulta beauty and adobe. joining us is stephanie link from high thetower. step stephanie, the number on friday, good number, but some revisions. the labor force and the way that works put us up to the highest level we have seen in a while although the number was good. there's all these cross currents, but the bottom line is the ten-year yield continued to come down a little. i think tomorrow's number could do more of that if it looks like january was a one-off for inflation. >> yeah, joe, the data has been pretty good in the last couple of weeks. >> what is good? good? we're looking for soft. >> i'm looking for good, joe.

we root for good. we want growth and we wants inflation to come down. that's what we're getting. look at the three-month average for jobs. friday's number was wonkyvrevis. 260,000 jobs per month. hourly wages are coming down 4%. that is good for the consumer. we got within gdp with consumption up 3%. you have personal income up 4.8%. you have savings at 3.7% and at the same time, inflation is coming down. to your point, tomorrow's number is big. we are making progress. core pce at 2.8% versus 5.6. we had labor costs that came in better than expected. add it all up. it's good for earnings. we have been talking about the

broadening since last october. joe, friday was wild with tech and semis getting crushed and energy and financials have continued to rally. i like that. it is also worth pointing out the russell 1000 is up year to date. the russell is playing catch up. that was flat a couple of weeks ago. i like the broadening out. that's good. >> you did indicate that generals were retreating. do you expect that to continue? the rank-and-file will be moving up, but not the same for the previous leadership? >> i think that tech and comp services could take a pause. look at the charts. they are parabolic. not to say they are great stories. there are a lot of great themes

with a.i. and cloud and cybersecurity. i get that. they had their days to shine and the valuations are a little more rich. they are crowded. when i look at earnings and i see financial services earnings grew 7% and industrial at 6% and he healthcare at 8%. that is attractive for those sectors. you and i talked last week and you were laughing at my picks. i was picking more cyclical names with eton and schwab. i still like those names. they have a long way to go. today, i like target and exxon anddr horton. there is a lot to like that is not tech. >> tech isn't magnificent seven. i was looking. adobe is a quarter of a billion.

they are under appreciated. both reporting this week. interesting? >> i think oracle is interesting. they just have inconsistent execution. the valuation is attractive. obviously, they are in the whole cloud arena as well. i think it will probably be a good report. it has lagged the mag seven. i think within tech, there are other places to own. you know i liked ibm forever. that stock has done well. it is trading at 18 times forward. you do get data center cloud and a.i. in that. i like cdw. you and i have talked about that, too. i think if you listen pto dell, the pc cycle is bottoming out. i like apple. i know the stock acts horribly, but it is more attractive now

ahead of the april print when numbers have come down and expectations have come down. we know china is a disaster for them. they will fix that eventually. you have wwdc in june that comes. we will learn more about the a.i. strategy. i think in the april quarter, you get another $90 billion buyback. >> how late were you up? did you see best picture? what did your night look like, steph? >> i was asleep by then, but i was up early to watch iowa. >> did you see the red carpet or anything? >> i did not. i will watch "entertainment tonight" to watch the reviews. >> it was on early. it was a little late. >> what was your favorite outfit? sounds like you watched it for the outfits, joe. >> did you like the "barbie"

song? >> i saw that. what is his name? phineas. she is only 22 or 21. i have interested parties in the house. thanks, steph. they had me strapped in the couch. >> did you watch? >> i did not. just clips, my friend. >> why? >> we have breaking news. we can come back. we have news on the i p po. revealing more details in the filing. leslie picker with more. >> good morning, andrew. reddit filing with the pricing details for marketing it's ipo. $31 to $34 a share. they plan to sell 70% of the

offering and shareholders and employees on the rest. the valuation range amounts to 5.8 billion to 6.4 billion. that is a 36% decline from the $10 billion valuation that reddit received in the 2021 private funding round. it calls itself a global digital city where 73 million people collaborate with common interests. at the high end of the range, reddit is seeking eight times the sales where snap is trading at six times. last year, 98% of the revenue generated from third parties advertising on the platform. the company recently signed a licensing agreement with google worth $60 million annually to share content to help train a.i. models. 8% of the stock will be reserved as part of the so-called

directed share program. this allows for qualified moderators and users and a few other types of people on the platform to buy in at the ipo price. i'm told the company is aiming to set a final price next week and will debut the following day with the listing on nyrc as rddt. >> looking through the filing. alexis ohanian doesn't own more than 5%? >> i don't think so. the first filing came out and obviously the one that got a lot of attention was the ownership of sam altman. this filing shows those who are selling into the ipo. we didn't know that initially. you have steve huffman here selling 500,000 shares. you have some of the employees selling a combined 1.3 million

shares. none of the major vcs that own 5% appear to be selling here. it is more on the individual basis. this is a company that's been private since 2005. nearly 19 years. they have a lot of people seeking liquidity. >> given the allowance for liquidity on day one, i know it is not vcs, but what pressure do you expect to see on day one? how much harder does it make for the folks running the book, if you will? >> they have 8% of the shares allocated for the direct the share program. that allows more retail investors and moderators and users and friends and family, those types of people to buy in at the ipo price. you see the 8% level before. that is not out of the ordinary. i believe it was airbnb had something similar to that.

uber had less allowing more interest to come in buying the programs. that's something that people were somewhat concerned about. how much are they allocating to more of a retail investor community as opposed to the institution investors with the concentrated book and can expect to hold on to it for longer. that dynamic is important here. in terms of the selling side, you have 22 million shares. employees had to say if they are putting shares up or ownership up for sale in the ipo based on what was out there as the floating valuation idea. that's part of the 30% of the 22 million shares sold is comprised of selling shareholders, including employees. >> leslie picker, thank you. i appreciate it. coming up, a big night for "oppenheimer" at the oscars winning awards in seven ca categcat

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>> a big coronation for "oppenheimer." all of the studios had the opportunity and universal took this on. they made almost $1 billion in theaters and now an old fashioned sweep at the oscars with seven wins. it's a huge win for nbc universal and comcast. >> matt, when you look at the oscars this year and a period of time where the ratings were low and the idea that nobody was watching movies and everyone was disinterested. this was a pandemic situation. do you think that has changed this year? >> i think so. we have seen award shows rise in the ratings across the board this season. starting with the globes and

dp going through the grammys. the oscars went up last year. not nearly the hey day that used to watch. the ratings will go up this year. they did start an hour early, which was a challenge. if they don't go up with "barbie" and "oppenheimer" they may as well throw in the towel. >> matt, i thought for a while the make good on sideways was going to happen for paul giamatti. i like to see the academy just drag kicking and screaming into not considering makeup or dei or any of that. there is no way not to gillve i to cillian murphy with that. >> the star of the big bio-pic

movie, that actor tends to win best actor as well. the academy thought exactly what you were thinking. how do you honor this moveie as best of the year and win in all of these categories and not honor the center of the movie? paul giamatti had the momentum, but it was clear that cillian murphy was going to win. >> matt, explain how the voting works. we talk about the academy and i put the academy in quotes, has decided to give it to this person, but not this person. don't they vote on each thing singularly and don't know what is happening on the other side in the moment? >> in the nominations phase, where they determine the nominations, the individual branches vote for the nominees. the actors vote for actors, editors vote for editors and

everyone votes on best picture. for the actual winners in phase two, everybody votes on everything. there is a group thing out there where people talk to each other and there's advertising and campaign events and media appearances. you sort of start to have a group around town. that is where it narrows down to the face-offs. emma stone against lily gladstone. that went to emma stone. the "oppenheimer" movement was very strong. it never really waivwharf waver. >> matt, do you think any of the streamers get a bump? peacock has "oppenheimer on it." do you see a winner or see a

song played and say i'm going to subscribes on is that too much? >> we will see. the major streamers, netflix and apple, were shutout. netflix won one award in the shorts category and apple won nothing. amazon won for "american fiction." there is not a lot to crow about on this night. all of the movies that are plugged and promoted to the huge crowd, even "barbie" which get a bump on streaming. we have seen that in the past couple years on these movies that a lot of people have seen in theaters. >> we have to run. mike tyson and jake paul fighting it out on netflix. netflix said they were not doing sports. wrestling and boxing. >> it is entertainment sports. not live sports. >> the question is when they get into pay-per-view.

i'm waiting to be netflix have the add-on effect. >> they have the drama of sports. it is not technically sports. they see it as an advertising play. they want a new advertising tier to get excited about the stunt. that is why they haven't done the pay-per-view yet. what netflix is doing is a series of experiments. they are seeing the data on the events, tennis or golf or now boxing. they will change accordingly. maybe they do pay-per-view. i think ads is the movement right now. >> matt belloni, thank you for staying up with us. coming up on "squawk box" we will talk about the week ahead with the live shot of the capitol and the momentum building for a potential ban for tiktok. that's next. later, we talk to him about

this. former president donald trump will talk about tiktok and the economy and the race for the white usansohoe d much more. "squawk box" is coming right back. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. from rylee's r hi! this listing sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪) the future is not just going to happen. you have to make it. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future where you grew a dream into a reality. the all new godaddy airo. put your business online in minutes with the power of ai.

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good morning. welcome back to "squawk box." we're live at the nasdaq market site in times area. the dow is off 80 points. the nasdaq is looking to open higher 17 points. joe. momentum building in congress to ban tiktok unless the chinese parent company divests. we have our washington correspondent emily wilkins here with us. you lost? >> we will get to washington much like the lawmakers. that's the way to do it. >> same. >> no tsa pre-check.

the wifi was good on the way up. >> the food. bison chili. that or oysters. >> bold moves. we expect the tiktok bill vote on wednesday in the house. we saw it go through committee and we saw it pass 50-0. that is not common for any piece of legislation that has the controversy that tiktok has around it. it is interesting to see the margins in the house. i was talking last week with chairman mike gallagher. the head of the committee on the ccp. he said the house is strong and we hope to get a vote in the senate and biden said he will sign it. it is surprising how quickly this bill has moved. that raises questions of the challenges and could it slowdown in the senate. >> what does divestiture mean?

>> that is how lawmakers are pitching it. 165 days for tiktok to find another buyer and go off somewhere else. this raised questions about what a sale would look like and who would be the potential buyer. certainly, you see that trickle into the politics of it as well. tiktok said that is not enough time for us, but talking with mike gallagher, he said tiktok knew this was coming. they knew we had problems. they knew we had issue with the parent company bytedance and we wanted to divest. >> do you think this gets signed? >> not necessarily. you have seen concerns raised with the tiktok bill. first amendment. freedom of speech platform. that has tanked other efforts to ban tiktok in the past. then this bill actually names tiktok. that can wind up with a couple of legal issues for them calling the company out the way they do. law mmakers say this is not jus

tiktok, but it could apply to other apps. they don't have an answer with other apps right now. >> in your heart of hearts, don't you feel uncomfortable? i'm trying to not -- i'm not using my brain. >> strange bed fellows way -- i have questions about tiktok and the kids -- no, i don't. >> want a ban? >> no, no, no. i thought you want to ban it. >> no. >> all about security? all of the people running around -- >> i know. >> the biden campaign. >> the default mode. my default mode is let things fall where they may. i can't believe you are not there. let things fall? >> my issue from the get-do from the time of the last administration began with this situation is it is unclear to me

whether this was actually a national security concern. >> you don't want to ban it. we are on the same side? >> i have never fundamentally believed the ccp is taking the data -- >> what data is being taken if it is taken? >> i have never found that. >> point to the tiktok algorithm. it is as successful as it is due to the strong algorithm and that is powered with data. americans' data. they raised concerns of what they have done with the data in the past and targeted journalists. i think there was a shock to capitol hill last week when tiktok sent a push notification to the users and said congress is trying to ban tiktok. call your lawmakers. lawmakers were flooded. a lot of them had phones go straight to voicemail. a lot of teenagers and didn't know what they were talking about. it freaked them out that tiktok could with one move put out a

push notification. >> what do you think of the kellyanne conway lobbying for tiktok? >> there is a reason they crafted a bill after -- remember when the tiktok ceo came to the hill and both sides had strong push back . it is taking that long to get to a bill because they had to make sure. >> what is happening with the american investors in bytedance? we had bill ford on who runs general atlantic. he is on the board of the company. >> right. he got mad about the questions. >> it is a huge question as to what happens with american investors. lawmakers talk about a national security issues and the legality of it and the money aspect of it. we have seen that play into trump's recent comments on tiktok and facebook. >> emily, thank you.

when we come back, more on "squawk box." sam altman has rejoined the board of openai after the ouster last year. the ga asand soap opera. we will have the details after the break. with its customizable options chain, easy-to-use tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. e*trade from morgan stanley. (vo) what does it mean to be rich? maybe rich is less abouthe mareaching a magic number.... and more about discovering magic. rich is being able to keep your loved ones close. and also send them away. rich is living life your way. and having someone who can help you get there. the key to being rich is knowing what counts.

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box." openai's investigation into the ouster the sam altman led him to rejoin the board. we have steve kovach here with more. >> a lot that we didn't learn. sam altman is back on the board plus three new board members. that's the headline there. the summary into the investigation by the outside law firm found altman did not do anything last year to justify the original firing. first, the board members sued the former ceo of the bill and melinda gates foundation and the general counsel at sony and the ceo of instacart and former facebook executive and three current board members are sticking around. brett taylor and larry summers and adam deangelo. as to the investigation of the fi firing is light on details. here is what it is saying.

the big one. altman's behavior did not justify the firing by the previous board. they will adopt the governance guidelines, but it is unclear if they nix the non-profit. also events leading up to the firing of altman which said the prior board had the authority to fire him and believed it would help with internal management challenges by doing so. like i said, the board did not realize the disruption to the company that the firing would cause. the understatement of the year. the firing had nothing to do with a.i. safety or the company finances or statements to investors, things like. that we found out the s.e.c. was looking into that as well. basically, it was a breakdown in the relationship with altman and the old board. "the new york times" reported that the concerns of the altman management style before the

board fired him. the board drama appears to be over for now, but still plenty of questions remain about the governance and what happened that made the board think they needed to fire him and so forth. >> how important do you think it is for the public from a trust perspective to understand this? is this the juournalista? >> in the short run, there's the narrative which got away from the board and the original board, that is. remember the news first broke and all of the signs that oh, he was going too fast and moving and developing a.i. too quickly. there were things about the management style and rumors. those will remain until they come out and say specifically what happened. if they are okay with the conversations happening, it seems they are, it will continue. the interesting thing is the

governance. what does that mean? will they change the structure of the organization or what? >> i know we have to go. one of the most important people inside the company doesn't seem to not be mentioned and no one knows if he is staying or going. >> there are talks he is in conversations he is staying. >> that seems significant. that is more significant than all of the other issues. >> he was at the center of the complaints with altman. who knows what his role is right n now. he is like a ghost employee. >> thank you. coming up, the nvidia 5.5% drop in the market spoking inve spooking investors. we will talk to one of the analysts next. what do you know about rock stars? billy idol? i mean where's the skin-tight leather? my shoes are leather. where's the unnecessary zippers? that thing! billy, rock star is just how doug feels when he uses

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♪ nvidia stock is up more than 80% this year alone. our next guest has a $1,400 price target and buy right on the stock, highest on the

street. here is rosenberg senior research analyst. hans, great to have you with us. the 10% intraday drop record high to the closing loes on friday. i'm wondering -- i know this is a technical signal, but does that concern you at all in terms of how it's positioned? >> well, we're a little volatile here as some players are going through the remnants of the down cycle. last week broadcom and marvel broader-based semiconductor plays, some parts of the market still weak. some of these stocks have shot up aggressively, so some profit taking. but i think the nvidia gtc in a couple weeks we like the story and certainly into the year. >> what do you think will be announced there? >> well, there's going to be a significant amount of debt, not just on the product side, the gpu, compute side acceleration and the software side.

that's an element of the story that over time is more important than the hardware. the software stack, the technology and investors will realize this is a soft ip play long-term on ai, not just hardware. >> yeah. i think that what they haven't necessarily communicated too well to investors is this notion that once you buy that gpu for ai you're also on the hook for the software side of it. you're buying into an ecosystem do you think jenson hong will be able to sell that at this event? >> he's been selling it for years. >> are investors going to buy it at the event? >> well, i think that it's a matter of little by little. and people realize that this is not just, you know, a quick cycle. this is the mother of all cycles you've been calling it. and they're the tip of the spear. the software side of the business is one that probably could be about half the business by the end of the decade.

so it's huge. and obviously that's all profits coming from royalties, subscriptions and son on. >> you mentioned marvel's specifically, disappointment and broadcom. people would overlook that to your point, they are broader semiconductor plays and not necessarily the nvidia story. yet we had the contagion felt in the space. does that signal to you there may be investor just concern about how far semis broadly have run. >> yeah. i think we got a little ahead of ourselves. there are parts of business this cycle is different. it came in waves in terms of how it went down and how they're coming back. marvel and broadcom got nvidia love on the ai side since the beginning of the year. got a little ahead of itself. about half the business is still going through the throes of this down cycle, probably another quarter. i don't look at that something that's fundamentally wrong.

marve-l and broadcom are doing custom basics. not everybody can use nvidia for their workloads in the data center and enterprise. >> all right. hans, we'll leave it there. thank you so much. $1400 price target on nvidia. coming up, former president trump will join us at 7:30 a.m. eastern. we'll talk about his view on the economy, his campaign and a lot more. "squawk box" coming right back.

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good morning. breaking news this hour, former president donald trump is going to be with us, joining us, at 7:30 a.m. eastern time, right here, in a wide-ranging interview about his campaign, his view of the economy and so much more. plus, a very big week for the markets. wall street coming off a losing week, making its worst performance since october. we're going to find out if this is the beginning of a pullback after a strong run for equities,

infrags data and a read on the consumer and jobless claims will be a key focus for investors in the days ahead. we're going to discuss that all as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin and melissa lee is in for becky this morning. we'll take a quick look at the futures. earlier i know the dow was down. it's paired its indicated losses by about half now down 41 points or so. nasdaq indicated higher. treasuries, yields have been falling a little bit since we have seen some of this data that's come in in the past week or so. 408, up a little this morning.

and then crypto and bitcoin above 70,000 now. got to 72 at one point. 71.5, up about 3%. in the next hour, micro strategy executive chairman michael sailer is going to join us to discuss the move in bitcoin. let's talk about what's making headlines this hour. the road show for reddit closely watched new york exchange debut kicks off today. company filing for its ipo earlier this morning and now expecting to offer 22 million shares at a price of between 31 and $34 a share. so we'll be watching that over the coming weeks. in the meantime, the justice department is now launched a criminal probe of the door panel blow-out on that alaska airlines flight in january. investigators reportedly contacted passengers and crew on that boeing 737 max 9 jet. phil lebeau will be with us in just a bit to discuss this story. universal pictures, oppenheimer winning best picture and six others oscars in last

night's 96th academy awards. best actor and best director. there was a whole -- there were so many. we should also mention that oppenheimer is a film owned by parent company of this network. bank of america second consumer -- >> robert downey jr., too. >> oh, yes. >> supporting. bank of america second consumer check point of 2024 is out and it's a soft spending momentum. but total spending rose 2.9% following .2% decline. let's bring in head of the bank of america institute. liz, great to have you with us. soft but stable overall. but i'm wondering how that is differentiated between the income cohorts. >> sure, yes. and great to be here. sorry i can't be there with you in person this morning because i'm down at the bank of america consumer and retail conference which is kicking off today. but, as you said, the headline number was up 2.9% in february.

but really what was doing most of the work there was the extra day of leap year. so, if you were to control for that and we looked at seasonably adjusted month over month spending, it was up .4, real rebound from the down .3 number in january. but as you pointed out, i think that the issue there is really a rebound. it wasn't a leap. and to your question, about who is doing the spending, what really jumped out to me in our data the most was the moderation in spending of lower and middle income households. because remember, lower and middle income households were really outperforming for much of 2023. and what's interesting is when you look at the fundamentals that are driving lower and middle income households, you look at wage growth. wage growth in february, the way that we look at it in terms of the actual money coming into consumer deposit accounts was up 3.4%. that's the highest number through all of 2023. when you look at checking and savings balances, those are

stable at 40% higher than where they were back in 2019 before the pandemic. yet, the lower income and the middle income consumer is moderating their spending, which certainly creates some questions. really i think driven by what's going on with consumer sentiment. now, if we were to contrast that to what's going on with higher income consumers. higher income consumers aren't benefitting from wage growth. their wage growth declined in our data again. and really over the last year they've been relatively flat. yet, their consumer -- their sentiment, if you look at michigan, continues to increase. and why do we think that is? i think it's really a function of which households are invested in the market. we talk about what's going on in the market. the market has obviously done well. that's the real driver. but for lower and middle income consumers, they're not participating as much. and therefore, the sentiment is a little bit lower and we're seeing them moderate their spending. >> the wealth effect when it

comes to the gains in the stock market is really felt by the higher income households which makes sense therefore they're sort of holding up better in the spending game. >> absolutely. and impressivingly when we break down the higher income consumer, higher income consumer we define as the top third, which is above 120,000 in household income. but there is a real dichotomy there between the highest of high income consumers. so those households making 600 and above, versus those that are just high income making 120,000 and above. and really the difference there, the spending growth is coming almost really exclusively from the highest of high income households. their sentiment certainly better. again, those would be the households we think are really participating more in the financial markets. >> what i thought was also interesting was buy now/pay later. and that you're still seeing that go on. i'm wondering if you can give us any sort of color in terms of who is employing buy now/pay later maybe the credit quality

of those using it increasingly is lower, those are people more strapped on a paycheck to paycheck basis and choosing to spread out their payments. >> absolutely. so we are still seeing growth in utilization of buy now/pay later. in terms of little under 9% of bank of america consumer deposit holders actually are -- you did a buy now/pay later transaction in february. but, what's interesting is that pace of that growth has halved, relative to last year. and the people who are really slowing down higher income consumers, they were essentially flat. so we're seeing the growth come from the lower income households relative to the higher income households. the other thing i thought was really interesting that we saw in our data was that retail spending by those people who are using bnpl, that has been accelerating faster than those who aren't. right? so to your point, maybe buy now/pay later is really supporting the retail spending of those folks.

but, the pace at which they're spending, spending growth is happening, that has come down in the last month. so that may not be the buoy that it had been in 2023. >> liz, thank you for joining us. >> great to see you. thanks. coming up, former president donald trump joins us live at 7:30 a.m. eastern. we'll discuss his campaign and the economy and much more. but up next, institutional shareholder services offering up a number of options from voting policy choices ahead of proxy season. iss, global head of the investment stewardship will join us right after the break this morning. coming right back. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting.

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global head of investment stewardship lorraine kelly. good morning to you. >> thank you for having me. >> it's great to have you. you know, i don't know if the public understands how much influence you have over corporate america in so many ways given how you -- what your recommendations are around board governance and the like, but it is vast and it is big. let's talk about esg, because that has been sort of the canary in the coal mines the topic du jour all the time and you are shifting -- i don't know shifting, but offering a new product of sorts. >> so, let me first start by saying thank you for being here. but the comment on influence we don't believe that we have the influence. it's really about institutional investors. so our business model is that we offer research and recommendations through the lens of a voting policy and investors make those vote decisions. happy to chat about esg -- >> we can talk about your influence in a moment.

esg seems to be the news right now. >> absolutely. so what i wanted to comment on is that we offer voting choice. we've offered multiple voting policies. we always have. what you read about in the newspaper is our benchmark or our house view. but we offer other policies as well, such as catholic values, sustainability, global board. in keeping with that theme, we determined we're going to offer a policy from a company called boyer research, which is self described as esg skeptical because we believe that that meets a need of the marketplace. >> what does that mean in practice? >> what does the policy mean in practice? >> what does the policy mean in practice. so pretend i'm an institutional investor, i subscribe to your services and i get the esg skeptic recommendation, everybody or just those who pay for it? >> again, if an investor chooses to use iss, they will sect a

policy that meets their needs. in this particular case, sit a boyer research policy, so it's actually not an iss product, andrew. but it is a policy that we will implement on their behalf. what does that mean for them? >> right. >> i think boyer research would be best to describe their own policy, but they are really not supporting the majority of the esg proposals that are going to be on the ballot this year. so they're going to support maybe 5% in comparison, the iss benchmark or house view, which is pretty centrist, supports about 50%. >> how much of this is about the investment thesis, the actual underlying investment thesis of what's going to actually get you to a better return long-term versus something else? and how do you think about that in the context of this new product? >> so, the investment thesis is

something we leave to the investors, frankly. and when we work with the investors -- >> right. >> -- they help articulate what their philosophies and their programs are. >> can i interject. this goes to at the top, you say we don't have this influence. i would make an argument, you can disagree with this argument, i actually think it's unfortunate but it's the truth and i understand how the world works. that a lot of institutional investors effectively outsource their investment philosophies on governance to you. that's why they're hiring you. and a lot of folks get the iss recommendation and they're able to then turn around to their investors and say -- well, pensioners and everybody else, we did what iss did and that's an easier way -- rather than us have thousands of people who are going to work for us who are going to look at every single stock and every single company and figure out the governance, we're not going to do that. there's this other company called iss. that's what they do. and we're going to let them tell us what to do and that's how

we're going to run things. i don't think it's a fair expla explanation. that's why i think you have the influence you do even if you don't want to believe it. >> i don't think that's what's happening. i think we enable investors. so investors will come to us. again, it's not one view that we're offering. it's a multitude of views. they're going to pick that policy. the majority of large investors come to us and we implement their house views, their custom policies. so they established their views and their perspectives. we then provide a research report that collates all the data takes them through the framework and gives them that recommendation. >> ten years from now if we go back and look at stock performance on these esg -- companies with esg proposals and companies without, what do you think we're going to see? >> well, that's an interesting comment because on the esg proposals and the esg shareholder proposals this year, and you know, we have seen

record numbers of them in terms of the volume, but we are seeing less investor support. so, there is a disconnect there. they're not happening. >> no. >> it's at 16% as of last year. >> and what do you think the distinction is between u.s. investors and european investors? because one of the things that you used to hear from larry fink all the time, one of the reasons they were offering all sorts of different esg products and the like was this idea that they were getting pushed from frankly european investors originally to think this way. >> i think there is definitely, if you speak broadly, more of an esg mindset in europe. and i think that the u.s. tends to be more about financial materiality on these factors. >> right. >> there are certainly areas within the u.s. that are very pro-esg as well. >> you can see that maybe the

european stance can go a little bit whacky. did you see john kerry's comments last week? if you can get to a person -- he actually was designated to be forming our policy in this country, and he said maybe we'd -- putin would be -- we would forgive him for what happened in ukraine if he cut his emissions. you're getting to the point where you're not really thinking too clearly. and i think that happens a lot with esg, does it not? >> yeah. i think investors are thinking clearly. i don't think investors are looking at that because they have to, you know -- they're answering to their underlying beneficial owners, right, if it's an investment owner. >> the united states have a lot of money at retirement, that would be -- >> do you think there should be a restriction -- a greater restriction on the ability to put forth these esg proposal or any proposal based on having a modicum of shares -- >> three shares. >> right. >> i think that's issue for the

s.e.c. i think if you look at the numbers, though, you can see that those proposals have significantly increased. as i said, the -- >> but do you think -- that's good for your business because you have to opine on all of those things. i'm asking you -- from a policy perspective, do you think that's a good thing or bad thing? if you were the s.e.c., which tried to democratize business in some way. i don't know if democratizing all this is such a great thing. is it? as i said, i think it's good for your business. but is it actually good for business? >> i fundamentally think it's an s.e.c. issue. when you say it's good for our business -- >> the s.e.c. called you and said, what do you think? do you think we should put in a stronger program effectively that says you need to own x percent of the company before you can make a proposal. >> and that was how it used to be. >> yes. >> right? >> do you think that was better or worse? do you think it's better or worse now? >> in what way in terms of the

business outcome. my sense is that you will probably see it go back to a certain extent depending on what we see moving forward because there are so many issues in this space now. investors as well, are not voting for many of these or supporting many of these because they are not -- they're not good for long-term -- they are not linked to long-term shareholder value. >> right. >> and in many cases they are far too, you know, prescriptive. >> right. lorraine, thank you for joining us this morning. it's fascinating. appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, the justice department has opened a criminal investigation into the boeing 737 max plug blowout on an ak arc airlines flight. we have the details next. then, former president donald trump will join us live to discuss the economy, geopolitics and much more. take a look at futures, we have turned negative across the board. s&p 500 just barely positive right now. nasdaq lose half a point here as we approach the open year on this monday. ay tedstun. you're watching "squawk box" on

cnbc. ♪

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lower volume and crude price as well as tighter margins for refining and chemical products. the company boosting base dividend by 4% and performance by 9% resulting in $30 billion payday. meantime, let's get over to phil lebeau. the doj now opened a criminal investigation into the alaska airlines 737 blowout. nice to see you this morning, mr. lebeau. what a story. >> reporter: it is a story, andrew. when this first broke over the weekend, by the way, first reported by "the wall street journal," a number of people said, well, are they looking specifically at the door plug blow-out or looking at boeing? and it's a little bit of both. here is what we know based on our conversations with a number of people who are surrounding these events. first of all, the doj is investing the alaska airlines door plug blow out. they're looking at that event, part of that is interviewing alaska crew members as well as passengers. and there is a review of boeing that is part of a broader

review. we'll explain that in just a little bit. remember, we're over two months now since we had that incident, which the ntsb has already filed an initial conclusion of, saying that there were four bolts not in the door plug when it was ripped off mid-air. those plugs were not put in as part of the manufacturing process at boeing. by the way, the ntsb probe is not finalized. that continues. in fact; they have been critical of boeing in terms of being slow to provide certain information. as for alaska airlines, we reached out to the airline and it says in an event like this, it's normal for the doj to be conducting an investigation. we're fully cooperating and do not believe we are the target of the investigation. the target is widely believed to be boeing and it ties back into the 737 max crash investigation by the doj in 2019/'20 and '21. they settled that in 2021 at a cost of $2.5 billion. part of the agreement in that settlement was to avoid any

criminal charges over the next three years. in other words, if you kept your nose clean, there would be no criminal charges. there was a three-year period there. we're within that three-year period. as we look at shares of boeing, we should also tell you we reached out to the company. it has no comment regarding this doj investigation. as for the department of justice, as is typical, guys, they will not comment about an on going investigation nor will they acknowledge that an investigation is taking place. bottom line is this, for boeing, the risk here is substantial, guys, because if the doj comes back and says, look, part of the settlement here was you had to keep -- everything clean. you couldn't have any situations develop that would say, we really aren't paying attention to the terps of the agreement of the settlement. therefore there could be criminal charges. or, further finds with the doj. so that is the real challenge and the real potential problem for boeing in all of this. >> phil, just quickly, would it be criminal charges that would

not be, you know, on the table for the past crashes in addition to the door blow-out? or just the door blow-out? >> good question. melissa, we don't know for sure. it could be both. it could be neither of them ultimately. it could bethat there is an amended settlement coming off of the 2021 agreement. >> all right, phil, thanks. phil lebeau. coming up after the break, former president donald trump on his bid for the white house, the state of the economy, thoughts on bidenomics and soucmo. 'lbeig back.re

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♪ ♪ welcome back to "squawk box." we're getting ready for our interview with former president donald trump. in the meantime, here are the futures this morning. i think that there's some reportedly some inflation data coming tomorrow, which will be closely watched following the jobs report we had on friday. there you can see not a whole

lot. the dow jones paired its losses to some extent, but still negative. in fact, everything is in the red at this point. joining us on the set, jay clayton, former s.e.c. chairman and a cnbc contributor. someone who will join us interviewing the former president, who you work for, know fairly well. i think you have a pretty good feel for the regulatory environment that we had under former president trump and what we have right now. >> uh-huh, uh-huh. look, i think the regulatory environment under a future president trump would emphasize growth. and not sacrificing consumer protection or competition or those core values of regulation. but there's no doubt that this country is going to need growth given our debt position. >> exactly. i believe on the squawk newsline we are joined by former president, donald j. trump, djt 45. it's good to welcome you. it's been a while, mr.

president. >> good morning. nice to be with you. >> this is the first interview i've been told since you became the presumptive nominee. i'm not sure that prior to last week you weren't already the presumptive nominee, but i think this is your first interview since the state of the union as well. so, can we just start with your vision for this country after watching the state of the union. how does it differ from what you heard from president biden, president trump? >> well, i heard a very angry man who is losing badly in the polls. who is willing to weaponize government like has never taken place in this country. it has taken place in third world countries, quite often actually. and they're willing to use the justice department to sue opponents, like me, because i'm his only opponent other than life, life itself. and frankly, i serve a very

angry and confused man. i assume he's going to be the candidate. i think it probably maybe was a terrible performance, but i think it was probably good enough to get him over the heap, to get him over the -- you know, the barrier as to whether or not he's going to be their nominee. i was saying that for a long time i find it hard to believe, but i think he probably ill. and we'll see what happens. but it was really a speech on division and hate more than anything else. talking about snickers, you don't want to really talk about snickers, even though it's true. they put a little bit less in the bag. but you have more interesting examples of inflation and other things that he was trying to point out than that. you have a lot of -- you have a lot of big league things you can talking about like energy prices through the roof and food prices

through the roof. but, you know, it was probably the worst state of the union ever made, according to many. that's not according to me. although according to me it was also. but i haven't heard too many of them. >> there are stark policy differences, obviously, mr. president. but one thing that i think that at least the perception is that there's not a whole lot of difference between what you think we should do with entitlements or nondiscretionary spending and what president biden is proposing. it's almost a third rail of politics. and we've got, what, a 33, $34 trillion total debt built up. and very little we can do in terms of cutting spending -- discretionary is not going to help. have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, social security, medicare, medicaid, mr. president? seems like something has to be done or else we're going to be stuck at 120% of debt to gdp

forever. >> so, first of all, there is a rot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entit entitlements. tremendous bad management of entitlements. tremendous amounts of things -- numbers of things you can do. so i don't necessarily agree with the statement. i know that they're going to end up weakening social security because the country is weak. let's look at outside of the stock market, our -- what we're going through hell, people are going through hell. i believe the number is 50%. they say 32 and 33%. i believe we have accumulative inflation of over 50%. that means people are, you know, have to make more than 50% more over a fairly short period of time to stay up. they've gotten routed. the middle class in our country has been routed.

and the middle class largely built our country. and they have been treated very, very badly with policy. when i was president, i was doing a job -- we were going to start to pay off debt. we were drill baby, drill. we were producing oil but we were going at a much higher level. oil and gas, we were doing -- we were third when i started. and when i ended, we were -- won by a long shot and very close, energy independent. we were very close to becoming energy dominant, joe. we were going to be dominant. so dominant like double what saudi arabia and russia were doing. and we were on that path. we were going to be paying down debt. we were doing a lot of things. then we got hit with covid. we did a fantastic job with covid. but nobody -- nobody wins with covid. i guess china found that out because they also really got hit very hard also. but nobody wins with covid.

so we had to get -- we had to do other things. we had to help -- you know, if we didn't -- if i didn't do the expenditures, if we didn't do the kinds of things we did for the economy, we would have had a 1929-type depression. i had to stay out in front of it. we did. we did a great job with that and with all of the things, coming up with regeneron and doing so much else. getting all -- because we had empty -- when i came in, we had empty -- i call them empty cupboards. we had empty shelves. we didn't have equipment. we didn't are the gowns. we didn't have the ventilators. we didn't have anything. this country wasn't prepared for a thing like that. i'm not blaming in anybody on that. when it came, nobody thought a pandemic would ever happen again. it sounds like an ancient problem, not a problem that you have in -- you know, at the time. very modern -- a very modern age. it was like an ancient thing. who would ever -- so i'm not blaming anybody for that. but we had empty cupboards.

i got them stocked. and i got them stocked fast. and we did a great job with it. never got credit. i got credit for the greatest economy. i got credit for foreign policy. i got credit for knocking out isis and not going into wars. >> right. >> but we beat isis. but i never got the credit for having done a great job with that. >> mr. president -- >> some day i think history will give us the credit. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. jay clayton is here. i know you worked with jay. jay was at the s.e.c. i want to get jay to talk to you about regulation, et cetera. but before i turn it over to jay, i just wanted to ask you about something very specific for regulation. and that is, bitcoin. and i have in the past -- i don't know if you recall, but i said you got to get -- you have to look at this closely, mr. president. and you know, the current s.e.c. commissioner, gary gensler finally allowed for this spot ets and now we see bitcoin at

almost 72,000. but it's almost as if it's in spite of some of the efforts over regulation of maybe the biden administration. do you have any thoughts now on crypto? >> i do little things sometimes for fun. and you know, make money with it. but i have fun with it, too. >> you mean you bought bitcoin? >> no, no, no. sometimes we'll let people pay through bitcoin or we'll let people get involved in a new -- you know, if you think of it, it's an additional form of currency. i used to say, you know -- i want one currency. i want the dollar. i don't want people leaving the dollar. i feel that way. but i will tell you, it has taken on a life. i did a thing that people smile at, but it was wild. we did 1,000 sneakers. so limited edition sneaker run.

the last one -- and you can go through you know our crazy new currencies. because that's what i call them. crazy new, whether it's bitcoin or others. and so many people were buying these things. ultimately the last pair of sneakers sold for approximately -- i hear, $450,000. it was a limited edition. a run. they were gold. and we thought it was just very small thing. it was a branding thing. and it was -- i had a good time with it. the last pair sold for $450,000. people were going crazy for these sneak eers. you probably were, too. everybody was. every friend i have has called me for a pair of sneakers. so it just took off. and i notice that so many of them were paid for with this -- with the new currency. >> the crypto. >> it's a new crypto, yeah. crypto currency. and i couldn't believe the

amount. and i'm saying, you know, this thing has really -- and other things i do. people are using it. and you know, i would be -- i'm very much a traditionalist. i like staying with the dollar. you know that from when i was there. make the dollar the choice. i hate when countries go off the dollar. i would not allow countries to go off the dollar because when we lose that standard, that will be like losing a revolutionary war. that will be a hit to our country just like losing a war. and we can't let that happen. and too many countries now are fighting to get off the dollar. and frankly -- i know jay feels strongly about this, and jay did a fantastic job, by the way. in a group where there's always scandal and problems, jay went through four years. there wasn't one scandal -- i don't know, jay, maybe you can tell me, but there wasn't one scandal. that is the most scandalous

position because it involves massive amounts of money. with jay clayton, we had no scandals. zero, nothing whatsoever. so i thought it was great. but i have seen -- i have seen -- there has been a lot of use of that. and i'm not sure that i want to take it away at this point. >> yeah. hey, mr. president. thank you for that. that was nice. before you came on, i was saying to joe, look, your regulatory agenda in a second term would be one of pro-growth. not anti-consumer. not anti-competition but pro growth. >> right. correct. >> mostly because we don't have a lot of fiscal tools left. do you want to talk about the pro-growth agenda that you had in the last term? >> yeah. number one, we don't have a choice. it has to be growth. it's not like we have a choice. it would be nice to say let's get nice and conservative and let's not grow. if we don't grow, you know, we have $35 trillion out there.

we have to grow our way out of it more than anything else. but we also have to cut spending. and we can cut spending. there's massive amounts of waste. look, we give foreign countries trillions and trillions of dollars a year. and when you want to cut them, you're met with levels -- it's crazy. when you want to cut some of these foreign countries, many of whom don't like us, many of whom -- almost all of whom takes advantage -- everybody takes advantage of the united states. i have that very much stopped. but they very much take advantage of the united states. china -- until i came along, china was killing us. china was taking out 300 and -- in terms of numbers, you know, were just -- it's $507 billion a year. now under biden it's worse. it's gotten much worse. and it's -- you can't -- no country can sustain. we can't sustain that. when somebody -- when a country

just rips us off like china, then what i did is tariff. they were forcing companies back to the united states. we want those companies to go to china and many other countries, not only china. the european union rips us -- almost as bad as china but they do it with a smile. nobody thinks of the european union that way. oh, they're wonder mfl they really take advantage of us. until i came along, they took advantage of us militarily, as you know. nato was a total disaster for us. we were paying almost -- so think of it. european union, paying almost all the military. we were paying close to 100% until i came along. i said i'm not doing it. you're going to have to pay. we're not doing it anymore. they said would you protect us if you don't. if you're delinquent. >> they said yes. if you're delinquent you're not going to be protected. $400 billion came in like clock work. obama, bush, everybody else they

did absolutely nothing. >> mr. president, i just wanted to ask you, though, you also talked about proposing a 10% tariff, if you will. >> yeah. >> i wanted to ask you about that because the center action forum, a think tank, said that they thought the plan would, quote, distort global trade, discourage economic activity and have broad negative consequences for the u.s. economy. >> well, they're wrong. it would distort international trade. it would bring it back to the united states. we have companies -- if you look at -- if you look at india, you look at china, you look at so many different countries, they're smart. much smarter than our country. we were getting ready to do this. and we were -- i had it just about set. >> but you don't think it results in higher prices for american families? by some estimates it would be the ekwi lent of $2,000 a family, according to economists? >> no. i think it will -- i think taxes could be cut.

i think other things could happen to more than adjust that. but i'm a big believer in tariffs. number one, i fully believe in them economically. when you're being taken advantage of by other countries. for example, china was taking advantage of us on the steel. they were destroying our entire steel industry which was never doing very well over the last 25 years any way. but because it's been eaten alive by foreign competition. and they were dumping steel. i put a 50% tax on china steel coming in and every person in the steel industry when they see me they started crying. they would hug me. they would kiss me. sir, you saved our industry. i put a strong, 50% tariff on, on dumping steel, when they dump steel. and by the way, nothing was perfect. frankly the tariff should have been higher. i was getting ready to do that, by the way. >> mr. president -- >> tariff should have been highered. saved a whole -- this saved a

whole industry. one thing, let me say, beyond the economics. >> uh-huh. >> it gives you power in dealing with other countries because china would come in and say, no, no more tax. no more tax. they were absolutely fine for me to deal with because they were so petrified of me putting on additional tariffs. and we don't use that. china is right now our boss. they are the boss of the united states. almost like we're subsidiary of china. and that's because the biden administration has been so weak. >> mr. president, is there no concern that china could impose retaliatory tariffs or retaliatory reactions that would make doing business in china difficult on china -- >> it's okay. >> it's okay? tell starbucks, mcdonald's, it will be more difficult to do business there? >> sure. they didn't do it with me. they went through years and they didn't do it with me. and they never pulled that trigger. that's a big trigger for them to

pull. but even if they do, let american companies come back to america. look, if you want to sell a car in china, you can't. okay. you have to put a -- they pay -- you pay a massive tax or massive tariff. if we make our -- because we can't sell in china, they charge tremendous tariffs. well, they're very mart. they're saying, come over to this country. look at apple. i've had a great relationship with apple. and with everybody over there. it's fine. but i said you have to build your plants here. they built a big prlant in texa. i was working on that very, very hard with various companies. they build in china. because if they build in china they have no tax. they make it in china. i said we want you to make it here. they did. they came back with a very big plant here. said, i'm not doing this unless topic of tariffs to me is so e simple. number one, it's great economically for us and it brings our companies back. because if you charge tariffs to

china, they're going to build -- they're going to build their car plants here. and they're going to employ our people. they're building big plants because of biden in mexico. so they big a big china plant in mexico. then they sell it across the border with very little tax. it's ridiculous. we want them to build their plants in the united states. we don't want to get cars from china. we want to get cars made by china in the united states using our workers. >> mr. president -- >> but also gives us a big political power. tariffs are tremendously powerful in terms of stopping wars because they don't want tariffs. and frankly, i can -- i made them sing. i made other countries sing with the threat of tariffs. and if you don't have tariffs, we have nothing whatsoever on them. we have lost such an opportunity. what i've seen -- if you want to build -- harley davidson, as an example.

i said, how are you doing in india? they were in the white house. how are you doing in india, no good. why? they have 100% tariff or more than that even. and therefore we basically cancer, because you have to double and triple the price in india. what are you going to do? they want us to build a plant in india. they go and build a big plant in india. under me, we started doing the same thing here. and we have the pot of gold. we have the best pot of gold. but eventually we won't have that because our country is going down. and we're not going to have it. we're losing our economic power. >> mr. president, talking about china. i want to ask you about perhaps one of the biggest business stories in policy stories of the moment and that is tiktok. you have called tiktok a national security threat. at one point you said that they are, quote, data collection threatens to allow the chinese communist party access to american's personal and proprietary information and yet it appears that you now reversed your view on banning tiktok.

why is that? >> so, i had it done. and then congress said, well, they never -- they ultimately -- usually fail, you know. they are -- like extremely political and they're extremely subject to people calmed lobbyi happen to be very talented, good and very rich. i could have banned tiktok. i had it banned just about, could have gotten it done, but i said, you know what? i'll leave it up to you. didn't push them too hard. let them do their own research and development and they decided not do it. i was at the point i could have gotten it done if i wanted to. i could have said you make the decision, it's a tough decision. frankly a lot of people are on tiktok that love it. young kids on tiktok would go crazy without it. a lot of users. there's you know, a lot of good,

and there's a lot of bad with tiktok, but the thing i don't like is that without tiktok you can make facebook bigger. i consider facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media. what facebook did with lockboxes with the $500 million zuckerbucks lock boxes he put in i considered illegal. you know, they put people in jail when they spend -- put people in jail when they spend more than $5,600 in a campaign. go to jail if they're $200, look at d'souza. put him in jail over a couple hundred bucks. here's a guy spends $500 million and he doesn't go to jail. very interesting. >> but do you believe tiktok is a national security threat or not? i believe the emergency powers put in place at the time suggested it was. was that not true? >> i do believe. i do believe it, and we have to

very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the american people's privacy and data rights. and -- you know, we also have a problem with others. facebook and lots of other companies, too. i mean, they get the information. they get plenty of information and they deal with china, and they'll do whatever china wants. you know, if you look at some of our american companies, when you talk about -- >> ight. >> -- highly sophisticated companies you think are american. they're not selling american. they deal in china, and if china wants anything from them, they will give it. so that's a national security risk also. but when i look at it, i'm not looking to make facebook double the size, and if you ban tiktok, facebook and others, but mostly facebook will be a big beneficiary and i think facebook has been very -- very bad for our country. especially when it comes to

elections. >> mr. trump, you met recently with jeff yas, hedge fund manager, stake in tiktok. huge gop donor. steve bannon suggested you've been paid off to switch your view. how did your view change? how did that comable and did you have a conversation with jeff yas about it? >> no, i didn't. i met with him briefly. made a speech and said hello to him and his wife who was lovely. actually, her primary thing was on education. she wants choice, as i do, and she mentioned to me more than anything, you know, we talked about education. it was a meeting that last add few minutes. now, the only one i met was -- i met them both, and -- i don't think i ever met them before, but he never mentioned tiktok. she did mention school choice, and that's what -- in fact, she said, my whole life is based around school choice. very important thing to her and i agree with that. >> mr. trump --

>> also a meeting with elon musk recently. >> i did. >> i saw a -- a piece written that silicon valley uncharacteristically, not saying it's 100% behind your candidacy, but certainly there seems to be a sea change to some extent this time around. what did you -- what did elon musk tell you? you think you'll eventually get his support in some way whether verbal or monetary? >> i don't know. look, i've been friendly with him over the years and helped him when i was president. i've liked him. we obviously have opposing views on a minor suggest called electric cars. i'm all for electric cars but you need alternatives also. you can't just go to electric. you have a grid system that's obsolete and a disaster, worked on it a lot, our grid system. can't produce the electricity and can't distribute's

electricity. electric cars are not even a possibility to the go all-electric. biden, all-electric mandate very, very stupid people. first of all, they don't go far, far too much and going to all be made in china and autoworkers are voting for biden. no idea why. like blind sheep, but the auto workers are going to vote for trump because they understand. look at my numbers in michigan. leading him by 12 or 14 points. that's always hard for a republican, but not now. leading in a lot of places that republicans don't lead and including with african americans. we are, we have numbers with the african american population, black population. the asian population. hispanics. we have numbers like -- like nobody's ever seen before. so i think we're going to have a very good election and i think that's probably why silicon

valley is -- but i think they're also with me, because i want, i want to help businesses. i want to -- they saw what happened. we had, and you know that, jut p just prior to this horrible scourge, gift of china, we had the greatest economy in history of the world. there was never an economy. blacks were doing best they've ever done. hispanics. women. asian men with a diploma from m.i.t., without a diploma at all from a high school. every single group, every single group was doing great. and -- that's the way it is. and we had the greatest economy ever and ready to pay off debt. we were drilling, doing things. think of it. i got anwar approved. it's bigger, perhaps, close, but probably bigger than saudi arabia, in alaska. and one of the first things biden did is end it. reagan tried to get it.

couldn't get it done. nobody got it done but me, and nobody else could have gotten it done. anwar is the biggest -- probably the biggest site, if you look at -- remember, we celebrated that. nobody could believe i got it done and we're getting ready to start drilling and they were doing it, great for alaska. a tremendous economic development for alaska, but i got it done, and they ended it. we were going to pay off debt. we were going to do things that were incredible, and then -- we had an election that, i would be very nice if you show -- didn't go too well. didn't go too well. >> go ahead. >> let me ask you about that, mr. president. something i want you to comment on that i've said on this program is, you know, we have a tendency to want to import european regulation to the u.s. thinking that european-style regulation, whether it's around the environment, whether it's around how we deal with national security, financial matters and

the like. can you comment on that? because i think the u.s. is different, and we have to play to our strengths. thoughts on that? >> yeah. i think you're right. i think you know, we have a tendency to follow them a little bit amazingly in regulation because they're doing so badly. they do so badly. they've become a socialist state and you know, not doing great. you look at what happened. angela -- believe it or not i was very friendly with her but i disagreed allowing 2 million illegal aliens, we would say, or migrants, call them whatever way you want. about 19 different names and everyone becomes obsolete within about two week. now they like to call them neighbors. the new name by the democrats is, we like to call them neighbors so they want to call the people flowing into our country, and in many cases killing people neighbors. but you know, europe what they

did, what germany's done to itself between that and their energy policies has been a disaster for germany. nobody talks about it. and they totally reversed course amazingly. totally reversed course. so we shouldn't be following them. we have to go by our own. we need guys like jay clayton and others. jay did a fantastic job in deregulating so much of the s.e.c. and so much of, you know what he did. he was a big deregulator. and again did it with -- with, it was a beautiful thing to watch that agency ran so -- i have a lot of great people. never talk about those people. i think that's natural. we talked about some of the ones i didn't like, and some of the ones i had in there i didn't like, but mostly i had fantastic people, because you know, we get -- we got -- you can check every record in the book. nobody was even close. i did the biggest cut in regulations. we did the biggest tax cut in history and gave the biggest

regulation cut in history. we gave a tax cut, by the way, coming up. it's going to be very bad for democrats and very bad for this country if that's not extended the trump tax cuts. biggest in history. the other one biggest regulation cuts in history. jay a part of that. from what he was doing. we gave them on the environment, gave them on so many different things. we had plants built in louisiana, refineries, absolutely debt for 14 years, and i got them approved in one day. i got two plants in louisiana, massive plants -- >> mr. president -- >> like three empire state buildings playing on their side. these wering biggest plants. i got them done, literally, in one day. waiting for 14 years for permits. i got it done in one day. >> mr. president, you mentioned earlier. >> yes. >> about the country losing economic power and some might cite downgrade of the united

states credit rating one way we're losing economic power. fitch down graded over the summer specifically cited increase in polarization, declining governance over the past 20 years more specifically cited january 6th insurrection. under your presidency, if you are re-elected, what can you tell us about how stable the u.s. will be especially as it appears that you are stoking political divide. you held a rally in waco, texas, and sort of playing to this polarization of groups here. >> well, when i was roud any waco we had 100,000 people show up. that's where they wanted the rally. i'm like a businessman/politician. you go where the people are, and i go to places, had a tremendous rally this rally this weekend. we're having rallies in michigan. the rallies are bigger than they've ever been. we have, as soon as the season gets warmer where we can do outdoor. right now no arena can hold the number of people. >> does had matter we've been

downgraded and that our credit rating could be at further risk? should there be further polarization? >> it's not because of january 6th. we're downgraded because of incompetent people, very incompetent people doing incompetent things. losing countries. we lose iran, this one, have russia that's out. many, many countries that we throw out of the system. and we can't lose that system. that system is raised the dollar. that system is a very important system to the vitality and strength of our country. if we ever do lose that, take out russia. china would love to be -- you know, leader of the pack is china, because they'd love to take it over, and it will be possible to take it over if we're not strong. we have to hold countries in. and if countries want to get out we're going to have tosy, well, if you want to get out of our system, and go to, let's say, a russian version, or your own version, we're not going to do

trade with you and they'll be back in about two seconds. depends on who's posing that statement to whoever it is the leader. like dealing with macron or dealing with leaders. you have to be able to talk to them properly. our people don't know how to talk to them. our people are like, we go there hat in hand. we're like beggars. our country is no longer respected. the people representing us are not respected. i just had viktor orban, a tough man from hungary at my place in florida. you know, get along with him very well, friendly, i have respect for him. he made the statement. a wonderful statement. he said we'll solve the problems of the world if donald trump comes back. he said russia was afraid of him, china afraid of him. no problems what so ever under trump and now we have israel attacked, by the way would have never happened. we have ukraine and russia fighting. that would have never happened. all of those dead people and in

blown up cities. ukraine is now just -- just -- it's like a demolition site what they've done to ukraine. none of that would have happened. all of those people would be alive today if the election results were, let's say, correct. and united. >> mr. president, given how divided it feels this country is, i want to play you just a piece of tape from ken langon on "squawk box" about a month and a half ago now and show you what he had to say. i think it represents a lot of voters out there. i'm curious if you would react to it and explain sort of how you feel about it to the voters. look at this, if you could, for a second. >> i worry if trump wins that it's going to be four years of getting even. and that's scary. because we got serious issues coming up that need to be addressed. >> what do you think of that, mr. president? because i think that there is a

feeling that there is still an anger and frustration that you have about certain issues? >> well, look, never been a fan of ken. never. i don't know if he supported me. maybe he supported me because i was the only one he could support, because that's the reason, but never been a fan. i've been a fan of bernie marcus. big fan, bernie marcus is a big fan of mine and that was the side i chose and frankly, you know, he's right in one sense. people think that there's going to be revenge and i say, no. revenge will be success. not revenge in a readvantage stance. it's really gob to are success. turn our country around. we're goingto bring sense and, common sense. you know, people say you are conservative. i'm not conservative. you know what i am? i'm a man of common sense and a lot of conservative policies are common sense. no open borders you have to come in legally. close up the borders. i had the sayest, the best

border in history of our country and all he had to do, gone to the beach like he likes doing. he look goods in a bathing suit. if he would have left everything in place. including the people that were doing it, i had the best border in history. we built 571 miles of wall. i got mexico to give us massive numbers of free soldiers. there's a case of tariffs. i said if you don't give us the soldiers we'll put a 25% tariff on your cars. they laughed at me when i said i want 28,000 soldiers and i liked the president of mexico. a very good guy. happens to be a socialist but you can't have everything. they laughed. i want you to give us 25,000, 28,000 soldiers on our border stop the people coming in with the caravan. it's they laughed. don't want to do it? yea yeah. i'm going to put a 25% tariff on all products including all cars you're selling. they stole, like we were babies.

32% of our car manufacturing business over the last 30 years. 32% now made in mexico and getting bigger all the time. and now as i told you before with china going in building plants there to sell in to the united states, i would say to china, if you're building a plant on our border, to build cars in mexico and to tell them into the united states, i'm putting a 50% tariff on all of those cars and know what? they would stop building their plants in about -- we don't do that. we have stupid people running our government. to be honest. >> mr. president, we will -- we will see. i -- i know you've got a lot going on. the campaign. got legal issues. people sometimes wonder, you know, how to prioritize and you just keep charging. >> the legal issues, joe, aren't legal issues. they're biden issues. biden put fani, beautiful fani,

who's turned out now to be a corrupt district attorney, but in my opinion, they're almost all corrupt. all of the stuff that you see is weaponized government, and the d.a. in new york is being run by the doj. they put their top person into the d.a.'s office. all of this stuff and frankly i get a lot of credit for it. i think i'm much more popular now, because theydid it. it backfired on them. they've weaponized government. think of it. put one of their top people, the top person into the d.a.'s office to go get trump. they deal with letitia james, a real low life. they put people with her. dealing with her all the time to go get trump. these are the democrats. the prosecutors and judges in new york, our country could fall because of it. how bad it is, and companies are moving out of new york because of what they've done to me. and i'm going to end up winning on appeal and if i didn't win an appeal of these ridiculous decisions, if i didn't win on

appeal, the most ridiculous decisions, including the ms. bergdorf goodman. a person i never -- no idea who she is except one thing. sued. from that point on i said, wow! that's crazy what this is. i got charged. given a false accusation and had to post a $91 million bond on a false accusation. people arena 't moving into new york because of the crap they're pup pulling on me. i feel like a pioneer. we have a very fragile country. we have to be careful. people are rejecting it and watching. normally somebody would be out of office stuff likes that happens. my numbers are much higher had this not happened but you have to be able to speak about it. a very, very dangerous thing for our country what they're doing. it's the weaponization of the doj, the fbi, et cetera.

>> we -- we appreciate all the time you've given us this morning. mr. president, look forward to another conversation in the not too distant future. >> thank you very much, joe. thank you, everybody. >> thank you. >> yes, okay. thank you. all right. just after 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. just joining us speaking with former president donald trump for the last half hour. jay clayton is here with us. would you work in another trump administration, if asked? >> look, if the president asked you to work in a position and you're very confident in the team around you have to say yes. i think anybody should -- anybody who has the opportunity to make a difference for people in america should do it. >> you -- do you think that if y he were to win re-election he'd have people, the type of quality people -- because people were expressing that concern.

i've heard the opposite from a lineup once again. >> just saw stephen mnuchin doing a transaction. he came on this network. his ability to articulate exactly what was going on, to demonstrate confidence, you know, people like that did incredibly well in the last administration, and i think he'll get people like steve mnuchin again. >> i think it's good to have, go around just all of us ask questions, and you will concede he's willing to take any questions from anyone without saying, uh-oh. i'm going get in trouble. right? acknowledge that? >> tries to engage with the question. >> and he's ready. how long was that? 40 minutes of -- even got merkel right. all right. >> we're going to -- this is your case. take us out here. >> thank you jay for being here.

>> come back. a lot more on "squawk" talking about the market week ahead. you don't want to miss this one. microstrategy co-founder co-chairman michael saylor talking crypto and bitcoin. don't miss that interview ppinat 8:30 a.m. eastern time. "squawk" returns after this. it should be called wiffle tennis. pickle! yeah, aw! whoo! ♪♪ these guys are intense. we got nothing to worry about. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? got him. good game. thanks for coming to our clinic, first one's free.

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welcome back to "squawk." joining us, mike santoli. >> hello. hesitation in the pre-market action follows on last friday's pretty sharp reversal on highest momentum areas of the market. look how the s&p shapes up. it's been mostly reward and not a lot of risk since october. very, very strong orderly uptrend. 25% low to high. kind of built on all of the economic optimism. soft landing expectations. fed's going to cut rates into a record high stock market. a lot into the market and high octane action in things like nvidia. nikkei in japan strongest momentum trade in the world had reversal as currency and rates reversed in japan. now is it a gut check on the most popular trades? look at momentum segment of the

s&p 500 against the calmest part of the s&p 500. the s&p low volatility versus s&p momentum. really matched up pretty well back when in a defensive-type market. 2023, most of it. then you see liftoff. nvidia, meta, lilly, costco, the strongest stocks. just that little sharp downtick at the end there. the question is, are we going to have a greater unwind? creating instability in the tape? look at the volatility index. a little clue here. been sticky up in this 14, 15 area for a while even though the s&p 500 has been making new highs. you see we're up off the low around 12 from december. yeah, pay attention to that. some is seasonal. some we have a higher velocity, higher octane tape right now taking account of that. some sense out there maybe we're overdue. if for nothing else a little turbulence on the wayto whatever landing we get. >> mike, thanks. mike santoli.

joining us now onset for more on the markets is jason trenor. chairman and ceo of a research partner which is a baird company. a lot of print over the weekend with the "wall street journal" and mr. freeman? >> yes. >> tell us about it. >> well, just talking about the idea how you get out ofs $34 trillion of debt. two points i made. one, grow your way out. no other way out. you're not able to raise taxes enough, in my opinion, in the next administration. whoever's president, to get out of that. also we talked a lot about our common man cpi. which suggests to me it's going to be very difficult for president biden trying to be as fair as possible. very hard for him to ignore this issue going into november, because people's standard of living declined over the past threeyears, based on our common

cpi things you have to buy. it's food, energy -- insurance. clothing, housing. utilities. it's now things you "might" like to buy. food and energy non-core, and for most people eating and staying warm is pretty core. this is what we focused on. that's shown, again, a pretty serious deterioration in the standard of living, over the past three years. >> people forget and i think you forget the key elements of effect of the four-year highs in inflation, and when inflation comes down, the prices don't come down. they go up less slowly. if you just do the math, between what things are costing and the raises in dollars that people have gotten, it doesn't -- in real dollars is does not add up to more of a paycheck.

adjusted inflation below where they are. >> absolutely. one of the implications, it's likely you get another wave of inflation. we look back. chief economist dan looked back at 100 years of data 30 different countries. one wave of inflation over six you are about 90% likely to get another wave of inflation over six. largely because of what you describe. people behind. labor wants more. come back for more saying listen, nice. saw teamsters and uaw last year get nice wage increases but not enough to make up for decline. i wish fiscally we were doing more things to not try to, i would say, no coordination between fiscal monetary policy right now. fiscal policy is stepping on the gas while monetary policy is trying to step on the brakes. >> we ask president trump about

tariffs and whether or not it would be inflationary. how do you few this tunder a potential trump administration? talking tax cuts and same time tariffs are tariffs. if companies reshore to the unite that's inherently inflationary? >> melissa, that's happening anyway. i feel strongly that the relationship we've had with china before the pandemic, that's over. not coming back. and i think the bloom is off the rose. few things democrats and republicans can agree upon right now and one of them is china is seen as a threat and very few other countries in the world that really have the scale to match china's ability to produce things and to ship them. so first, i would say that reshoring or onshoring is going to happen regardless who's president, in my opinion. tariffs are obviously very inflationary over time. no two ways about that. the question is, can you get

counterrallied benefits to offset the negative impacts of tariffs? used as a tool or is it something that just the only tool in your tool kit? right now i would say very little difference between joe biden's policy towards china and president biden's -- policies towards china when it comes to trade. the style is very different, but if you look at the actual trade policies there's not a lot of difference between the two. that might change if president trump were re-elected. there's no, not much difference now. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> tough act to follow. >> yeah. a biggy. coming up, canvas interview if you are in the world of crypto or just thinking about what it all means. the top corporate supporter perhaps in america. microstrategies michael saylor is with us. the company revealing purchase of an additional $820 million in

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. we spoke at length with former president trump last hour. he sounded off on everything.

literally almost from foreign policy to entitlements, a bit of what he said on that topic and touched on the stock market and inflation. >> there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements. in terms of cutting, and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements. tremendous bad management of entitles. tremendous amount of things and numbers are things can you do. i don't necessarily agree with the statement. i know they're going to end up weakening social security, because the country is weakened. look at outside of the stock market, what we're going through, we're going through hell. people are going through hell. i believe the numbers, 50%. they say 32%, 33%. i believe we have accumulative inflation of over 50%. that means people are -- they have to make more than 50% more over a fairly short period of

time to stay up. >> former president also spoke about bitcoin and we're going to get reaction in a few minutes with microstrategy executive chairman michael saylor. coming up takeaways from last night's academy awards. who won big at the oscars? that's next. stay tuned. u' wchg quk"n cnbc.

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"oppenheimer," big winner at lat last night's academy awards. seven oscars best picture, director, actor and supporting actor. talking more about hollywood's biggest night we bring in julia boorstin and talked a little earlier, julia, and there have been previous years where i thought the academy and -- also we talk how it's not -- you

know, they're not monolithic. they all vote and things happen, but they just couldn't avoid "oppenheimer" and cillian murphy. give it because of the slight for "sideways". all said and done you have to give it mostly to "oppenheimer"? >> yeah. a huge sweep for "oppenheimer" and for universal, which we have to say is cnbc's sister company both owned by nbc universal, but what was really notable here is seven wins for "oppenheimer" of its ten nominations. eight total for universal, because "the holdovers" also did win an ward faward for best supg actress and streamers didn't get assen wins. netflix expected nominations for "maestro." didn't bring home any oscars. apple tv+ martin scorsese, so

many nomination and didn't bring any home. we saw this year not just dominance of "oppenheimer" but success of a movie from a traditional hollywood studio and a movie that did very wealthy at trickily. for many years now the academy criticized for giving a lot of awards to films not a lot of people saw. that was not the case this year. a critical success, commercial success and now a massive success at the oscars. >> i mean, i saw a lot of it. i guess -- heard it was bad it started early. we'll see. i think it will be above last year. maybe over 20 million again. is that what you're thinking? >> there tends -- interesting to see how earlier start impacts things. i was there last night. a lot of people were very excited it was starting early because it meant it wasn't going to be finishing so late. and the idea of it starting early that it will also reach a broader audience on the east coast as opposed to running so

late at night. but i think the sense is that if people had seen the movies which they certain did between "barbie" and "oppenheimer," people have seen movies more inclined to kuhn in. one reason the academy expanded the number of films that could be nominated for best picture beyond just five, the prior limit. now if you have more people seeing the films they're more invested, joe. >> that's true. i had seen, having been -- seen also -- still haven't seen "barbie." >> you haven't seen "barbie"? >> i haven't either. >> i really don't understand it. >> you should see it, joe. a cultural phenomenon. >> got to see it. >> and everybody's named barbie in it? more than one -- >> just got to see it. >> really? >> he knows that. >> i knew that. founding member. dammit. julia, thank you. up next, bitcoin and

microstrategy executive michael saylor joins us. don't go anywhere. "squawk box" will be right back. into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. it's the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. trust. hang out. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. powering more businesses than anyone. powering possibilities. it's time. yes, the time has come for a fresh approach to dog food. everyday more dog people are deciding it's time to quit the kibble and feed their dogs fresh food from the farmer's dog. made by vets and delivered right to your door precisely portioned for your dog's needs.

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welcome back to "squawk box." this morning bitcoin crossing

the $70,000 mark first time friday. this morning above $72,000. joining us now to talk bitcoin michael saylor. strategy -- microstrategy and end of last month the company held about 200,000 bitcoins. michael, thank you for joining us. you have been early and courageous and you continue to double down. i want to talk about where you think bitcoin is, but also i want to talk about how you think about a microstrategy, your company has a proxy for bitcoin now that etfs are available to the public. >> sure. well, i think i'd start just with bitcoin. bitcoin is certainly a least digital goal and going to eat gold. has all great attributes of gold and none of the defects of gold. if you could teleport gold from new york to tokyo in a few

minutes, people would like it. it's going to divert capital from risk assets and risk etfs like spy and you can see that these etfs are doing that. it's going to be incorporated into a lot of funds like a blackrock global opportunities fund or strategic income opportunities fund, and so as -- it's an asset class. as it goes into other funds it's going to become structural. the havings will cut organic supply of sellers in half by april 20th meaning only abouts 3ds 1 million, $32 million a day of natural sellers. the price of bitcoin will have to adjust up to meet that investor demand. i think that's what's happening next to the asset class n. terms of how investors should think about your company and right now i think they think of it as a proxy if bitcoin. a way for investors, frankly, who didn't want to buy the underlying coins to get access

to bitcoin and exposure to bitcoin. the question now, though, that these etfs are approved and folks are funneling money towards blackrock and so many others, how should they think about your company versus doing that? >> yeah. so blackrock is like the containership or the super tanker of bitcoin. they can take a billion a day into their capital structure and can haul that efficiently. 25 basis points. microstrategy is like airfreight. higher performance. so what's going on here? microstrategy has leverage. if we borrowed $860 million at 62 basis points, is there any company in the world you wouldn't like to invest in that could borrow a billion dollars less than 1% interest to buy into your best idea? we get intelligent leverage. non-recourse, unsecured and then buy bitcoin with it. that leverage gives volatility.

the, gives performance. the performance gives us volatility. that attracts capital and we can then leverage more. it's kind of intelligent, because it's convertible debt. it's -- it's given our shareholders more bitcoin per share this week than they had a few weeks ago. so it's very creative for them and compelling for every investor. if you're bitcoin curious right now and want to buy bitcoin at the all-time high how do you get upside in bitcoin with downside protection? microstrategies sold $800 million in debt and we have $12 billion, $13 billion of bitcoin. bitcoin max mist and love it and want to hold it forever etfs charge 25 basis points. microstrategy is giving you a yield against your shares. and a tax-efficient fashion.

so maximus equity, hedgers, like the upside with downside protection. the traders love the vol. 100 vol asset and they like that. we're unique, because you can't really trade options on the etfs and that isn't going to issue a convertible bond with upside to bitcoin with downside protection. >> so, michael, i try to understand the mathematics and i know people like you, went to m.i.t. and it just seems -- maybe it's more understandable for you or andreeson or peter thiel or everybody, but at 17 down from 68, and you know your leverage and everything else. did you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have any doubt whatsoever, that's my one question? i was thinking about you at 17,000 and look at it now and

it's -- i just can't believe what the, the markup your company is based on it now. i guess the other thing is, when it halves should we, look at it on stock to flow, do we have to double what the potential price is based if you use that metric? is that a valid metric to use and amps having shouldn't be that immediately if it's at 62 now? >> two good questions. thanks for asking me. with regard to bitcoin, no doubt in my mind bitcoin was a better investment at 17,000 than at 65,000. i take the warren buffett view on this. bitcoin superior investment to gold, equity bonds and real estate because it's digital. trade it 1 million times faster than conventional assets using a computer. it's available. most other assets only trade less than 20% of the time. bitcoin's trading 168 hours a week.

we bought 800 million dollars of bitcoin and a lot of it -- we bought over the weekend when all of the conventional markets are closed. it's global. it's the most widely recognized and trusted investment asset in the world right now. it's ethical, because it's the king of all commodities. there's no issuer. there's no company, there's no country controlling it. and fundamentally it's useful. thousands of marketmakers can trade it all the time. millions of companies can trade it. billions are people. if you want to buy a house on saturday in africa, this is the way to do it. if you want to buy a car on sunday morning, this is the way to do it. so it's a pretty great asset. it's the greatest of the assets, in my opinion, there's no second-best asset. i didn't have any question about it. we're just waiting for the rest of the world to realize how good it is. as for your second question -- the having? look, the selling and market the

past month primarily bankruptcy estates liquidating gbtc at ftx, genesis or the like. once they got done rebalancing the natural sellers of the miners, they can only sell 900 bitcoin a day now. only able toll sell 450 bitcoin day coming end of april. as long as there's more demand in the market than 450 bitcoin a day there isn't a catalyst to drive this asset down. it has no cash flows. the critics think that's a defect. it's a feature. with no cash flows, no quarterly results, no product cycles, this is the longest-lived asset in the financial ecosystem with the least uncertainty. we're buying it to hold it 100 years. so that being the case, that 66 to 16,000 dollar crash, that shook out the tourist. shook out the non-believers. when it was 16,000 we were already to write it to zero and

that's what you'll find with the bitcoin maximus. now writing it the other direction, and the protocol's working, working to everybody's benefit. just no reason why it shouldn't just keep adjusting up to find the marginal supply as demand builds. >> 25 million. gots $25 billion on the balance sheet of bitcoin. substantial is bitcoin opposed to the core software business. is software business solely to borrow off that to buy bitcoin and how can we understand health of your business undergoing transition of customers to cloud-based software? >> we have now rebranded ourselves as a bitcoin development company. think like a real estate development company. and certainly a substantial amount of value unique ability to issue securities and purchase bitcoin with convertible debt

with equity and the like. so we understand that. but the only reason we can make this transition is because the software business was healthy. it does generate steady cash flow. it does allow us to issue debt, to issue equity and make us unique. we have a very functional options market, a very functional debt market. and we've got a very stable operating business that we can use. if you look at our last result, we actually bought a lot of bitcoin with operating cash. or cash out of the operating business, and that is purely accredit the to shareholders. we think we're unique and it's working very, very well right now. >> michael, do you think long term that there's any risk at this point? has bitcoin reached such a scape velocity that there's any risk that governments, the u.s. government, chinese government, other governments, somehow do something to bitcoin that puts

its growth in jeopardy? >> you know, another great question, andrew. a lot of times the skeptics say bitcoin looks too good to be true. so good to be true someone's going to take it away from you. that's based on a fundamental misunderstanding about bitcoin. people refer to it as currency or digital currency and that's not artifact. it's digital property. once you makethat big leap, i understand it's property. the compelling use case is capital preservation for everyone in the world. there's no -- there's no anathema associated with owning property. you can own a $1 billion building in new york city. every place in the world allowing you to own property, china, europe, the u.s., they're going to embrace bitcoin as digital property. all of the controversial issues around crypto what do with use

as a medium of exchange. what i'm here to say really is median exchange worth a few dollars. store of value is worth $100 trillion. i give your company, your family, a trillion dollars drop it in africa and say save it 100 years. what are you going to buy? the answer is nothing. nothing on the entire continent you can buy better than bitcoin. so bitcoin's going to be embraced as property. it's going to be controversial if people think of it as a currency. i encourage people to think of it as digital property, $ 1 billion property in cyber space 100 years. >> ever consider a currency? >> it doesn't have to be a currency is nobody's trying to buy a cup of coffee with a fraction of their building on fifth avenue. right? but every rich person i know

owns property in london or new york city or somewhere, and none of them complain about not being able to spend their building to, as a medium of exchange. so the killer application is capital preservation for everybody. the store of value is the killer use case. medium of exchange a distraction. governmenting always issue currency make it legal tender always and that's just fine. bitcoin's competing with gold. it's going to eat it and then its competing with risk assets as a long-term hold and it's competing with you buying an airbnb as a retirement income source. if you're a middle-class person. >> michael, thank you for joining us this morning. really appreciate it. look forward to talking to you again very, very soon. thank you. >> yeah. thanks for everything. coming up, the death of a

high-profile computer hack. chris krebs. "squawk box" will be right back. with no children and no casinos. we actually have reinvented ocean voyages, designing all-inclusive experiences for the thinking person. viking - voted world's best by both travel + leisure and condé nast traveler. learn more at viking.com. ♪ ♪ next. next. stop. we got it? no. keep going. aga... [ sigh ] next. next. if you don't pick one... oh, you have time. am i keeping you from your job. next. i don't even know where i am anymore. stop. do we finally have it? let's go back to the beginning. are you... your electric future. customized. the fully-electric audi q4 e-tron.

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pgim investments. shaping tomorrow today. dealing with hackers who reached corporate accounts back in late november ajer it said it was reaching out to customers with offers of help after hackers sold secrets such as passwords

apasswords. ajer chris, great to have you with us. certainly it's a black eye formicrosoft, dealing with an attack that's been ongoing for so long. it had been ongoing prior to them admitting that it happened. i'm wondering what your take on it iis. if anything has to do with anything in your opinion and figuring out where they can breach. we're obviously having some difficulty with the audio, so we'll check that. oh, chris o i sisback.

there are probably two separate i think things we need to isolate and look at here ajer state security services from russia, china, and elsewhere are certainly aware corporate governments across the world are making this significant pivot into the cloud, and unfortunately the hyperscale cloud gains are over and it's dominated by microsoft, google, and amazon aj. so they're dedicating their resources to compromise, get inside, and as i understand in talking to government officials,

the threat is very, very real and they're hanging on by a thread. >> do you mean other hyperscalers that might be handling cloud business across corporate america as well as government? >> i think it's mainly cloud provider providers. it's the old joke ajer why are the threat acactors going after them? they're going after the source code, the shared information by microsoft for clients including u.s. government climates. >> so when the breach happens and it has to do with data breach in the cloud, whose response is it? i'm trying to figure out where the blame lies and where the costs lie. >> that's actually one of the

pivots to the cloud ajer. yes, they're responsible for patching and securing that what they ship is secure. there's absolute responsibility that lies on the clouds of the providers including microsoft in this case. i think one of the great concerns out of the government is there is not the ability to go in and audit the security practices. there's a significant amount of investment debt out of the cloud security advisers and they have a lot to make up for in the coming years, and there's a lot of explaining to do, and i expect congress to up their interest in what the security practices are and what the security investments have been and what they're going to be. >> chris, great to speak with

you. thanks so much. coming up, we're going to look at the futures and trading days in just a moment. "squawk box" coming right back. american announcer: that's 21 missed cuts in a row. [car trunk slammed shut] for 88 years, morgan stanley has offered clients determination and forward thinking to create the future... crowd: stop it! ...only you can see. american announcer: rose, back in the winner's circle. [crowd cheers] [music out]

test you're doing a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with ti tiktok, but the thing i don't like you consider facebook. it's the enemy of the people along with a lot of the media. >> you've got the susquehanna guy actually visiting. it's very hard. i thought he answered your question. i thought he answered it. he answered it. >> i met him briefly, talked to

the wife. >> talking about that. >> no, i still want to understand more. look, the issue is if it's a national security threat, it's a national security threat. if it's not, it's not. to use one national security threat and say it's the enemy of the people is a whole nother thing. >> you've always got to look underneath the friggin' hood. you just have to. make sure you join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" is next. ♪ good monday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." cramer has the morning off. premarket is extending the weakness from friday's downside reversal. calendar packed this week with cpi, retail sales. we begin with the big week for investors. we'll get the latest