good morning. 8:00 a.m. in google headquaters in california. 11:00 a.m. here on wall street and squawk alley is live. ♪ good wednesday morning. welcome to squawk alley. john fort and mike santolli with me. also joining us is elle wheeler

and also at one market in san francisco, mike isaac. good morning to all of you. we start of course with that apple story. u.s treasury secretary jack lew with some stuff tough talk about the 14.5 billion dollar ruling that came yesterday. the decision creates an environment of uncertainty. >> our concern with european commission action is that it is using a state aid theory to make tax law and it is doing it in a way that's retroactive and overrides national tax law authority in our view and we think that it undermines the environment in europe. for international business because it creates uncertainty. >> it undermines the cooperation between paul ryan the house speaker called it awful. are you surprised to see such

tough talk about a situation determined by europe? >> it has far reaching implications. and european leaders on the fact that it's creating an environment that is not favorable for u.s. business and perhaps even it's over the top negative. for u.s. businesses operating in europe. they need to take a tough stand. >> it seems in a way like u.s. politicians are reacting more strongly to this than other silicon valley companies are that for the most part are more of an apple issue. is that the sense you get? if so, why? >> apple is a figure head for the eu to go after at this point. i don't think it's really spread

or, i guess they're waiting to see apple is clearly the most valuable company in the world. they're probably the easiest target as far as tech companies that practice doing this sort of tax loophole structures in ireland so it's pretty easy to go after them. i still think they're going to do more postjurorsing despite the fact that they consistently go after u.s. businesses themselves for this hype of behavior. and going to watch and wait because apple seems to be the real strong and easy target here considering it's size and value. and apple is a big company. they can handle different things at once. is there a risk that apple gets focused not just on this case but they have a lot of financial complexity and they have been

all about financial engineering on one level. is there any long-term risk there? >> i don't think so. this is a multinational corporation. everyone is working in a global siermt so they will, they will handle this with their teams of lawyers and their lob yiss and the other folks that they have on payroll. they'll continue to execute in their core business. >> they do have a product event next week. i'm thinking that conversation was crowded by the on going fight at that time with the fbi over the locked iphone. now to have this come out before another product event do you think they'll be able to get the gadget community behind this? >> i do think that the gadget community is probably not as interested in the intricacies of irish tax law as some of us are. it's definitely not the nicest thing to happen pfr your new phone comes out. >> to put it in perspective drop

in the bucket for apple as far as overall revenues go they have some $230 billion in cash in the bank right now so of course tim cook is going to come out strongly against this. it's bad precedent as far as american business in ireland but is apple still going to sell a lot of phones in the next month? definitely. are they worried about that effecting sales in the near term? probably not. >> google is moving in on ubers's turf. getting ready to launch a ride sharing service next month to help join car pools using it's ways app. the first question that came to my mind is lyft is struggling to compete against uber is there room for another ride sharing competitor in this space? >> google is going to take a fundamentally different approach. what i think is interesting about google taking this on is

that given incredible investments they made they have an incredible amount of data to do this in a way that's different. perhaps even bypassing the human driver element which of course is no small thing to manage. i think you'll see them laep frog and go directly to autonomous when that is possible. >> one of is interesting things to me is that the way it's set up up to this point, the driver is just charging for gas using existing insurance because they're not making a lot of money and it's been in the peninsula la area but they're extending it to san francisco. in a way this the is a threat to uber and lyft's business models because they're not trying to make money at it but does it help people get more comfortable with using these services instead of their cars. could this turn out to be good for the ubers and the lyfts of

the world. if you need to get somewhere else and you don't have your car, how are you going to get there? >> that's a good point. wary on what google or the level of google's actual success here. they're really towing the waters as you said. it's not a direct threat to what they're doing because it's essentially a car pooling service. hopping in someone's car in a direction they're already going. >> it's more like sophisticated hitchhiking. >> that's exactly right. >> there's a few programs like that that have a casual car pooling service that a lot of people do. they're aggressive on how they expand into markets and this is google backing into this market that they don't have a whole lot of experience in and i'm not exactly worried for uber in the

near term. maybe in the long-term. a really good point though is when autonomous comes in is when things start to get interesting. >> immediately though do you think there will be any changes to the uber user experience? because we have seen a clear conflict of interest stepping off the uber board announced yesterday. they use google maps. is that going to change? >> uber is making big investments across the board. you can see that. it would not surprise me if they're making investments to get off of google maps. and google has a tremendous asset there but more in the medium to long-term there. >> i think i will really quickly

add maps are actually probably one of the fewer reported on things. probably one of the most valuable assets that some of the companies have, especially google. uber was thinking of buying nokia here which is this big mapping thing once owned by nokia but watch the mapping stuff in the next few years. >> that would have been a multibillion dollar deal if they had done it. but shares are underpressure this morning some reports suggested the phone's battery can overheat and explode. no company likes to delay shipments but is there something bigger we should be focussing on here? >> maybe battery proof pants at some point.

this is clearly terrible timing for them right before the apple event approximate you're thinking about what next phone you're going to buy, this is just bad but samsung has been sort of in -- i wouldn't say dyer straights but struggling over the past few years to just prove that they can do more. they were, you know, one of the early quest successes in the android eco system as far as smartphone makers but this is just terrible for them right? so you have to think about what that means in the connection of new iphones and what it's going to look like. >> we'll see. thank you to both of you for joining us today. >> thanks for having us. >> well it's the final trading day of the month. the s&p 500 and the dow negative for the month. it couldn't be more still.

the volumes have been anemic all summer. we're seeing if it's a catalyst. and then perhaps what is going to happen with the fed later on with a possible interest rate hike or maybe not. now let's take you through how things are shaping up as we close the books in the month of august because we have some notable moves here and you can see the dow jones and s&p just barely to the down side. the nasdaq up by almost 1%. if you look one layer below that into some of the big sectors on the move we are seeing action on the more cyclical side of things. the bank stocks, technology stocks, energy stocks, three of the bigger gainers overall as we head into the last day of august here. telecoms and utilities. the biggest rise for almost a year in this month and that rise has taken a hit on some of the interest rate sensitive sectors. if you look at individual stocks

and also micron technology is taking big hits and on the pharma side of things. always a volatile stock in this vier vierlt. look at these names. first solar. diamond offshore. so it's stocks for many peel out there. net, net the markets haven't moved much but as for guys i'll end with this, what is going to happen in september. nobody really knows but if history is any guide we asked our data partners to take a look at what's happened since 2010. the post financial crisis era and as you can see the s&p, nasdaq and dow all up 50% of the time and the gains are there but they're very marginal so if you're waiting for a pig catalyst it could be the jobs number coming up on friday. it could be a possible fed rate increase but over the course of

the post financial crisis error we have not seen that much action on average guys over the course of that time. back over to you. >> the seasonal factors start to turn a little bit negative but then again you see the studies where you had such a calm month like we had in august it is to the upside. >> it is raising additional capital in the 2016 calendar year through equity or debt offerings. according to the filings this morning the funds will be used primarily for the production of tesla's new model 3 and equipment in nevada. tesla raised $1.5 billion in may to help fund production of the model 3. shares of tesla slipping marginally in trading but it will be interesting to see howell another stock sale in this calendar year will go given

18% of the shares are being sold short. >> the stock backed off from that 220 range where it had been for sometime despite a lot of it really. everyone knew that eventually tesla was going to continue to have to raise capital. maybe it's sooner than people were anticipating. i don't know if they feel that the window is there for them and they're going to go through. >> they're preemptively managing expectations for that. when squawk alley returns it's the company leading the charge in health care and cloud and cyber security industries and squawk alley exclusive up next. forget about being lost in space, how about investing in it? we sit down with the venture capitalist to ask how he is making money in a that final frontier and later why walt thinks it's too soon to compare the legacies of steve jobs and tim cook. more squawk alley after this.

better than expected earnings. they include biogen amgen and mylan. what does the future look like for specialists like viva? the ceo of viva systems and also a veteran of sales force and people soft. thanks for joining us.

and just the documentation they need to stay in business. what's behind the better than expected results there? >> if you look at the quarter, it was just a great quarter. a great quarter in so many ways. revenue, 131 million. that was up to 34%. operating margin 28%. we raised our guidance for the year. we'll do well over half a billion this year and on top of that we launch these four new products so a lot of t you know, you look at okay what's driving that. a lot of it is the new products that we introduced over the last several years and a lot of those are vault products which is our content platform and customers are successful and buying more products. >> what do you expect to happen

in the cat space. because in previous areas where you live through you have seen the likes of oracle especially and others buying up companies that acted in verticals. and starting to see them eyeing those specialists like microsoft eyeing linked in in a way. even though that is different. and this to play out and the pressure to come to bear on viva. >> it's a good question. i've seen these patterns before. i've started out my career in the mainframe die days and the early days of cloud at sales force.com and now you're right. we're getting into this stage and there's quite a few mergers and acquisitions and things. first of all we're early days for cloud. very early days and especially

industry specification clouds in very early days. people can see the growth and they can see the profit. you're going to have these consolidations go forward but for us we're building this for life sciences in early days and focussing on our execution. the markets will find the right level in terms of mergers and acquisitions the last few years but cloud is here to stay for the long material. >> how much do you feel your fortunes are influenced by up thes and do you understand of the hief sciences market? we see the biotechs in particular can be pretty volatile just in materials of how they are valued but how much are you a discretionary purpose and how much are you these days, how much are you just something that the companies are going to have to have. >> yeah, viva's core system is a record for life sciences company and the life sciences industry is large. it's a $1.6 trillion industry

and it's growing at 6% or so and not very cyclical because in good times or bad people need their medicine. the fortunes of an individual pharmaceutical company or bio tech company can go up or down having to do with really can they get drugs approved, do their drugs go off patent but overall the industry is stable so that's the backdrop. but the viva solutions really core systems of record must have solutions. absolutely not discretionary spend. that's why we have been profitable over the last several years with profit and growth so a very stable business. >> i'm wondering quickly if you can what pushes your customers to actually make that move to the loud versus the systems that they have been on and how dependent is that on the economic environment.

and we have really never seen any influence from the macro level economy on our business. >> all right. well, thank you peter. ceo of veeva systems. quite a pop for the stock after earnings and guidance above expectations. >> thanks for having me. >> when we come back, he is one of silicon valley's most respected investors and now he is investing in space travel. find out why, next but first check out shares of twitter. some heavy volume this morning right out of the gate up almost 5% right now. there are many thit want in industrial strength- like coffee. but there's one thing you do. you guys okay?! it's called predix from ge. the cloud-based development platform that's industrial-strength strength!

b. >> how he plans to make money in orbit and joins us now from san francisco. hello josh. >> well, mike i'm here at a start up called planet where he is an investor. now as you described he is a fan of all things space related but he isn't alone they already committed $300 million. they appreciate the money making opportunity of these private companies. >> i think for most it's the calculation that wow this is an industry that's been sheltered from competition for decades and there's money to be made in watching satellite networks and rox kets and spaces opened up for commercial activity now the first investment was space x that made some news. the satellite operator ses will be the first to launch a

satellite on a reusable space x rocket. >> it will be one of the greatest of humanity. these are greatest hits of evolution. having a lifeboat that whatever it might be, we have it as a back up plan. it's incredible. >> his office is a private space museum complete with head sets worn by astronauts, slices of the moon and the second largest mars rock in private hands. for all his enthusiasm though he is also quick to mention the challenges facing start ups including a shortage of software engineers. >> it's all about software people. mars needs software.

we need all types. it's the tightest recruiting partially because the people that do that could join other kinds of companies. electric car companies and facebook and anything. their capacity is pretty interchangeable across industries. >> still despite those challenges jurvetson is passionate about the technology that is ahead. he says we're on the cusp of space tourism to the moon and beyond and he's excited about this company this builds these small relatively cheap satellites that circle the earth and capture images of the planet. they already committed more than $180 million to this pane. guys back to you. >> that is what we call a moon shot for sure. josh, thank you. we're just a couple of minutes away from the close in europe. let's get to seema with that. >> that's right. european markets flat on the last day of trade for the month

but investors focus on the out performance in european banks they discussed a merger this month while they concluded that it wasn't a viable option it does suggest to some that european banks are evaluating options and prospects of m&a partly the reason we have seen them post gains this month up about 8% in august and the rally pulling the broader stoxx 600 index into positive territory for the month. meantime, economic at a at a points came out this morning. and 10.1% for the fourth consecutive month. inflation changed at 0.2%. you have the lack of change in the economic landscape as more pressure on the european central bank to reevaluate whether their policies are having an impact on the real economy. it's on tap next week where the impact of the brexit will be he

value crew waited and speaking of, the u.k. priel minister met with her cabinet in what is seen as the most important meeting since she was elected. there will be no second referendum on britain's vote to leave the eu but that discussion will not happen this year as a plan still needed to be forl you late sod the timing of when article 50 will be triggered is still up for debate. her comments come ahead of the g-20 meeting where brexit will be one of the main topics discussed by world leaders. >> thank you. when we come back, why it's still too early to compare the innovation legacies of steve jobs and tim cook. and later, advisor chairman leon cooper man joins the halftime report at 12:00 p.m. eastern here on cnbc. we'll be right back. it's scary when the lights go out. people get anxious and my office gets flooded with calls.

so many things can go wrong. it's my worst nightmare. every second that power is out, my city's at risk. siemens digital grid manages and reroutes power, so servi can be restored within seconds. priority number one is keeping those lights on. it takes ingenuity to defeat the monsters that live in the dark. farm fresh ingredients, step-by-step recipes, delivered to your door for less than $9 a meal. get $30 off your first delivery blueapron.com/cook.

>> canadian prime minister justin trudeau attending a welcoming ceremony hosted by the chinese premiere in beijing. they're trying to strengthen ties between their countries. >> the syrian government releasing footage it claims shows fighting between the syrian army and rebel groups in the hills south of aleppo. and a norwegian ship arrived in

italy carrying 1100 rescued my grants. they were rescued off the coast on monday. a total of 266,000 migrants have arrived in europe by sea this year alone. some 3,000 have died orgon missing in an attempt. >> an elderly driver backed up into a gas pump in connecticut tipping it over on to a second car resulting in numerous fires. the driver was able to pull the kids from the second car before it went up into flames. a store clerk hit the emergency shut off for the gas helping to avert what could have been a terrible tragedy. that's our cnbc news update at this hour. let's get back downtown to squawk alley. john to you. >> it's been five years since steve jobs sat down as am ceo and tim cook took the reigns. the come lull this week looks at apple in the years since steve jobs and walt joins us. he is executive editor with the verge. walt, good morning.

>> good morning, john. >> so part of what people criticize modern apple for is not having the same kinds of world changing hits that we saw under jobs but just as an experiment i did a little adding and i added up ipod sales from when it started selling through 2013. and all of those together didn't equal the iphone sales just for the year 2012 so even if they had something as big as the ipod was back then the iphone still really overshadows it doesn't it? isn't that part of what we're dealing with here? >> it is. it's become a huge company extremely dependent on one product. and that's a tricky situation but if you don't come out with a new break through popular product or series of products,

you can never escape that situation. particularly as we see the smartphone market maturing. >> now in a way, isn't apple in the situation with the iphone that it wanted to be in with the mac? originally with the ipod jobs was looking for this on an object in order around the mac that made it more desirable. now they're doing all of these things whether it's suri or apple tv, all of these things that seem to be gaining some traction on their own while the iphone continues to maintain better margins than most in the industry. is that such a bad thing? it's not but where with are you going to be? it's a little early to judge. tim cook brought out in my opinion two important new

produc products. one is a physical product the apple watch that has not lit the world on fire and the other one is apple pay which could conceivably become a big deal and it's just a little bit too early to tell whether those things are going to be world changing. i pointed out that it was several years before the ipod and iphone took off so you'll have to wait and see. >> the headline commemorating five years said more profits less innovation. is there something to be said for tim cook maximizing the business model that apple has for investors? >> absolutely. that was one of the major points

in my piece this morning. he has not only managed to double their revenues and double their profits in five years to astonishing levels despite a couple of weak quarters lately but he is figuring out new markets for them. he famously hated the idea of the enterprise market. tim cook opened that up. opened channels up. done deals with ibm and sis coe and box and a lot of companies to, you know, try to sell ipads and iphones and other things in there so you have to give him a lot of credit for that. >> quickly i want your take on this irish tax situation and whether it will have any impact on apple's reputation or brand worldwide? a lot of officials in the u.s. are rallying behind them but there's lots of competition out

there as well. >> well, officials in the u.s. and also the government of ireland is rallying behind them. i think this -- yeah it probably hurts their reputation in some parts of the eu but i don't think it's a big deal in terms of reputation. it is in terms of the eu and it's member countries but that's another piece and another column. >> indeed it is. a lot more eyes will be on that iphone 7 launch we expect a week from today. thanks for joining us. >> thank you, john. >> when we come back, why the former president of yale university says the future of education is online. but first rick santelli, what's catching your eye today? >> you know, the apple story continues to be the water cooler topic and many are pointing to there hasn't been a huge market

response but my issue is its not about today or tomorrow but belonging to a club, the eu, well, forcing people to belong is a whole lot different than those countries wanting to belong and that's what we're going to talk about after the break. i'on in my 60's. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my mical expenses, i looked at my options.

then i got a medicare supplement insance plan. male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out aban aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcar surance company. like all standardized medicare supplent insurance plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. to me, relationshi matter. i've beewithy doctfor 12 ye. now i know i'll be able to stick with him. male announcer ] with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctorr hospital that accepts medicare patients. us, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. so don't wait. call now and request this free decision guide to help u better understand medicare... and which aarp medicare supplement plan might be best for you.

there's a wide ran to choose from. we love to travel you. and there's so much more to see. so we founa plan that can travel with us. anywhe in the country. [ male announcer ] join the millions people who havelrea eolled in thendorsed by aarp,plement insurance plans an orgizatioserving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insance plans help cover what medicare doesn't pay. d could save youin out-of-. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will here for you now - and downhe road. i have a lifetime of expernce. so i know important that is. >> an investing legend is

today's halftime report. cooperman is with us today. the stocks he is buying and selling plus his thoughts on the decline of the active management model. also very unusual activity today and a big named stock investors love to ride these days. halftime report coming up noon. big hour starts in about 15 minutes. we'll see you in a little bit. >> looking forward to it. thanks. instagram finding new ways for users to spend more time on its feed. you'll be able to pinch and zoom on photos and videos. the zoom pucks was one of the most requested features from the community. the features are going to be available on ios. starting today they say and on android in the coming weeks i just downloaded the update and it's not working for me. it's frustrating so maybe it's another update later today. >> all the better to look more closely at the product placements. >> they have something like this for this sponsored stories that were in instagram. you could click through and in some cases you could zoom and

people probably wanted it for their friends if they were getting it for the businesses that were clogging their feed too. we'll see. keep trying to download that john. >> i will. >> keep us posted. let's get over to the cme group. rick santelli and the santelli exchange. >> i think what's at the core of brussels apple grab is the notion of how it may effect the complexion down the road and how apple and they weren't the other one effected from a stock vantage point yesterday and shares were effected. has to take notice as to what's going on. the first issue to hit off right off the bat is a bit of tax

apocracy going on. it's not good. it doesn't foster the kind of fertile landscape that business needs. you know, whether it's, you know, jack lew and some of the issues that we had with inversions in targeting but it's also the political class. it's an election year here. when i hear so many speakers representing various governments around the globe talk about these issues especially in the u.s. we have politicians running on the notion that they're going to clean up the tax mess. they're going to reform taxes and in many ways it is the very people saying that that have created the tax policy and the loopholes and give them more leverage. as the finance minister of ireland said on our channel it's the dynamic. large governments like the fear favor dynamic, okay? they could have more control over the direction of what big companies and corporations do and of course that's all about

money, isn't it really? put let's look at what it does for potentially london, u. k., now u.k. before the brexit vote and even after has been under the microhe scope and still many believe the big negatives hasn't hit yet and the negotiations haven't started. listen talk to the finance minister of ireland. my guess is even though it may not happen the notion of belonging to the eu under these terms is all about growth. you can't tax your way into prosperity and even though big entities like brussels, like u.s. government have the power to tax and even have the power to reform in many cases the issue is how far is it going to take them? it's not. growth is not anywhere near where it needs to be. not only domestically but globally. a fertile landscape is the way to go. my guess is we might not be able to pinpoint it but overtime these issues in brussels are are going to help the u.k. and

ultimately either feed more exits or force change. john fort back to you. >> lots of pressure indeed. thanks. still to come a cnbc disruptor. trying to change the online education landscape. we'll speak to the ceo next and be sure to watch ground zero rising. freedom versus fear. a new cnbc documentary airing tomorrow night at 10:00 eastern right here on cnbc. ught i was crazy to open a hotel here. everyone said it's so hard to be a musician, but i can't imagin doing anything else. now th the train makes it easier to get here, the neighborho is really changing. i'm alwa hopping on thtrain, running all over porand. i have to o wherever the w. trains with innovative emens techlogy i have to o wherever the w. help keep cities moving, so neighborhoods and businesses can prosper. i can book 3 or 4 gs on a gooweekend. i'm booked solid for weeks. it takes ingenuity to make it in the big city.

like cologneny things you don't want in industrial strength- i'm booked solid for weeks. morning! buthere's one thinyodo. ags) it's called predix from ge. the cloubased develoent platform

announcing the launch of coursera for business today. the company already provides online classes from universities to consumers and is now expanding enterprise market goi directly to companies and their enemployees. joining us now, the ceo, rich levin and president of yale for 20 years and knows a little something about this sector. rick, great to have you. >> great to be here. thanks. >> what sort of skills were employers asking for they weren't getting from the people that already worked for them? >> well, employers need to retrain people these days. i mean, we have jobs that are changing so fast. work requirements change. and so companies see the need to do more rigorous and deeper training. courseara provides an unusual breadth of subject matter and a depth not customary in corporate training programs. a real opportunity for employees

to better themselves and for companies to take advantage of that. >> is this corporate training mandatory or is it optional? because there's so many employees of big companies that still have to fill out a code of conduct or work players safety assignments they haven't been able to get to? >> no. our content is different. a big chunk of the online corporate training is compliance or regulatory agency driven. ours is not that. ours is fundamental skills in computing, data science and business, taught by the greatest universities. 145 university partners and a consumer business with 21 million registered learners. we learned, many of our learners were taking courses from company e-mail addresses. as many as 10,000 people from one company using coursera already to deepen skills. seem add natural for us to move from the consumer market, where we're having terrific success, into the enterprise learning

space, which is, i think, ripe for disruption of this kind. for a provider of really high quality, world's best quality education at a very affordable price. >> so this is course work that is already there? already exists? not tailored for a particular industry or company. correct? is this going to, for example, reimburse corporate tuition plans? where where this fit in terms of what companies already do? >> partially replace partial tuition plans, but it will also allow, you know, companies to actually alter the skillset of their employees in a much more efficient way. for example, bank of new york mellon is one of the new, one of the pioneer customers of our coursera for business product. what they're doing, taking a set

of courses on full web development and using it to onboard all new software users. and others companies taking a different approach. okay, axis bank in india. 21 categories of employees and we want you to curate coursera to pick out three courses for each group that will enhance their skills in that area. different approaches, and we're excited about it. >> what i'm wondering what are the limits of this type of education? is it really more for enhancing skill sets that people already have, tweak them, build on that, or retraining a possibility here as we see numerous companies, especially in tech, cutting back on certain categories of employees, even as they're hiring others? could this be a way to allow employees to change and not just change over? >> you've it had the nail on the head. one of the enterprise customers

we're talking to, deal not yet closed has specifically this objective in mind. take employees from obsolete areas where business is diminishing and would otherwise have to lay people off and retrain them to learn software so they can do various i.t. jobs. >> rick, interesting to watch. please, come back. rick levin of coursera. >> thank you. still to come on "squawk alley," strange things happening in netflix. details, after the break. ♪

[engine revs ♪ [cheerin ♪ the hi advanced audi a ♪

fallout from that apple tax ruling continues. eamon javers with a news alert out of d.c. what is it this time? >> a new report from reuters. flashing over the wire the irish cabinet meeting going on this

afternoon east coast u.s. time has failed to agree on an eu apple tax appeal. the cabinet will meet again later this week. now, according to background information i've read, they have about two months to decide whether or not they're appeal the decision by the eu requiring the irish government to collect about $14.5 billion from apple in back taxes in this eu ireland tax dispute. interesting. it gets into internal irish politics. the finance minister there recommended that they appeal this ruling, and that they not take the $14 billion from apple, or seek the $14 billion from apple. you can imagine how that would go over with irish taxpayers, say, wait a second. why would our government turn down $14 billion from an american company? could fund our health ministry and why should irish taxpayers be on the hook for that money instead of apple? a complex set of negotiations and politics between ireland and

the eu and we saw jack lew here in the united states weighing in on all this this morning as well here in washington. a very complicated and fast-moving situation. >> thanks so much, eamon javers with the latest there. jon, does it surprise you? this development? >> i think the line yesterday seemed to be ireland's going to appeal, and that was what everybody was embracing, but the fact that there is some in ireland saying maybe not. that doesn't entirely surprise me. suggests they're a democracy and people disagree about these things. if it goes in the direction of them altogether deciding not to appeal, that seems it could have implications for the way other businesses view ireland. i would be surprised at that. we'll see. >> you wonder if at that point they didn't appeal, not as if apple says, here's the money. right? >> presumably a negotiation or argument over exactly how much they owe pep, because this is just the european commissions. >> and how much goes to other european members. >> exactly. their estimate based on old data financial results.

a quick look at tesla, too, turned positive on a tweet from elon musk about new developments to autopilot. >> more good news, just when needed. an update. saying we'll be better than ever on autopilot and going against the fears from before. >> that does it for "squawk alley." over to the judge and the "half." all right, guys. thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner. we begin today with a special guest this hour. hedge fund legend lee cooperman. the chairman and ceo of omega advisers. also with us the hour, joe terranova, stephen weiss and jon and pete najarian. lee, always great to you have, and especially now. >> nice to be here. >> with everything going on in the market this year, the election, a couple of months away. you have a possible rate hike, a couple of weeks away. so how does the market look to you today? >> you know, everythi