planning a trip this summer. it's wednesday, june 9th, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin joe is out today we've been watching the u.s. equity futures, things are barely budging dow futures down by 8 points, and s&p up by 2, nasdaq up by 18 let's also take a look at treasury yields this morning you're going to see right now that the ten-year looks like it's yields 1.53%. still at 1.5%. pressure going down, not up. check out the "squawk stack" this morning a lot of names to be watching

including gamestop which does have its quarterly report after the bell that stock was up by 7% yesterday. and new stocks added into the gamestops. clover up, up 86% after gaining 32% on monday. at one point yesterday, clover share has doubled. this was incredibly heavily traded, too. 720 million shares were traded versus an average daily trade of 22 million shares. and 49 million shares short. that's 43.5% of the float. so, a lot of people watching this checking to see what happens. wendy's shares yesterday up by 26%. again, you thought you were dealing with mcdonald's but this is a much loved stock. once again, people talking about this on the wallstreetbets game boards bitcoin closing down yesterday 31,000 and change. this morning, you see it's back up to 34,000 and wti once again closing at a new high yesterday the highest level in 2 1/2

years, this morning $70 a barrel >> do you sell the clover shares? you can -- >> will we know if he sells it i know that lockup expires -- >> the lockup expires -- i don't know how quickly you know. i've got to look i assume he's on the board if he's on the board you'd be insider, you'd see the sale, rather quickly, within 48 hours of the trade, right? the question is, do you sell this is the adam aaron issue with amc, this is the issue with clove. all of this, they're all divorced from reality. >> i think it's important that adam aaron didn't sell >> it's important for adam aaron to continue to raise money clover may be a different story, clover may not need to raise money. i don't know if there's any anticipation that they're go to the shareholders

>> it wouldn't help chamath's image to sell. the senate passed one of the largest industrial bills in u.s. history yesterday, it was a bipartisan effort to compete with china $250 billion for science and research, chipmaker president biden applauding the bill's passage saying he was encouraged by the bipartisan effort meantime, separately, the president ending a couple weeks' long effort to reach a deal with senate republicans on infrastructure the call yesterday with the lead gop negotiator which is senator shelley moore capito of west virginia, the president making clear the divide was too large shifting focus to a group of senators working separately of an alternative compromise that will likely face steeper odds of gaining support. >> interestingly, the only bipartisan game in town these days is trying to go up against china. >> right >> it was a vote of 68 senators

who got to sign off on that. still goes to the house. we'll see what happens new inflation data from china, producer prices rose 9% in may from a year ago as commodity prices surged. it's the fastest increase in production costs since september 2008 china's government is rolling out support to cope with raw materials. i am clearly losing my voice >> we'll try to have you hold on a little bit longer this morning. we've got 2 hours and -- >> -- 56 minutes to go >> maybe some tea. el salvador has become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. school of 84 lawmakers approving the measure. prices can be displayed in bitcoin. tax payments can be made with the digital currency exchanges in bitcoin will not be subject to gaepcapital gains tlx

a lot of interesting elements to this the price of bitcoin jumping since the vote concluded you're looking at bitcoin, $34,000 after previously popping down into the 32-ish range after some of the questions about what the u.s. government had done to get the money back for the colonial pipeline. >> do you think this helps or is anybody paying attention >> i don't know if el salvador is the centralizing country for this issue maybe if the g7 does it. >> a different story >> yeah. the irs here in the united states is reportedly investigating the release of tax information for wealth in americans. this comes about propublica with jeff bezos, warren buffett, bill gates and 22 other people. i think it was the 25 richest americans that they focused on taxpayer information is confidential and there are potential criminal penalties for irs employees or others who

released such information. we're going to talk with the author of the piece, jesse eisinger coming up >> i have mixed views about this piece. first of all, it is 100% illegal, we should say, not for propublica to publish that we'll talk to jesse about the decision to publish. but private citizens, not elected officials or people that are running for office, because there are big debates over president trump's tax returns. private citizens, the idea that your tax information, yours or anybody would be publicly disclosed. it's one of the last things in america that's actually been protected. >> right it undermines the credibility of the system to see something like this i thought what was weird about this is, they say they don't know where they got the information. >> right >> which is how do you make sure -- >> right, looks like they went -- we'll talk to jesse

about it, that they can confirm it it was regulatory, in so far, again, we'll talk to jesse about it, but there was a year in which jeff bezos not only didn't pay taxing but got a $4,000 child tax credit which is fascinating. i think it was cherry picking of information because you saw years that they weren't paying, but you didn't necessarily see what they were paying in the other issues i think a larger issue which i also want to talk to jesse about which is they spent a lot of time comparing the tax bill with the overall tax welalth >> right >> paper-based wealth, not necessarily realized gains now, part of what i think the piece is trying to suggest is there should be a larger conversation about overall wealth versus tax bills. basically realized gains but i think there's, again, that's a larger debate, too. >> that's a conversation you and i were having yesterday. >> yes >> that strikes me, if hurt not page a minimum tax

again, a amt, a real amt that says you're going to make sure you that pay at least this much of your income that's different than a wealth tax that realizes the unrealized can gains i think it's a slightly different story but you're right, the two are melded closely together. >> and the thing that was brought up, there are people at that level able to live off the unrealized gains by essentially taking loans again against the elon musks of the world, carl icahn doing this, and larry ellis, taking enormous loans against that, effectively don't pay taxes for years and able to do that. i think there's a lot of ways to fix the system >> yeah. >> i'm not sure i'm upset people who are not page off unrealized gains because nobody is asking them to pay off unrealized

gains. anyway, longer conversation with the author of what is now a controversial piece. we'll do that in the 7:00 hour we'll come back with the biggest movers the names you have to have watch. stocks to watch. and then he's back, dr. scott gottlieb weighing in on new vaccines for kids and new conversation from the cdc. a conversation you do not want to miss. "squawk" returns after this.

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stock to watch today physical up, sherwin-williams, the company raising its sales and profit outlook for the second quarter and a full year on strong demand for paint and other products but it also saz thays that risig costs forcing it to raise prices amazon is forced to replace jpmorgan as issuer of its credit card jpmorgan could fetch a 15% premium if it's replaced as the partner on the portfolio which has more than $15 billion in loans. and evercore wrapping up its meeting today. with grab and next door, but it was comments from uber that stood out to the next guest.

mark mahaney is here, senior managing director at evercore. congratulations on putting together a pretty remarkable group of people in one place tell us about, this moment, if you will, with derrick >> thanks, andrew. uber presented at the conference with the ceo, the person most responsible for regulations for a company like uber, that's a mitch investor issue anyway, the takeaways for us were it looks like ride-sharing demand is recovering just a little faster. a couple of small percentage points but it matters faster than street expectations and it looks like the delivery business, larger uber eats but other elements are sustaining growth, faster than expected despite the reopening of the company in the u.s their advertising business also seems to be tracking a little better than expected

and uber as a company that's not profitable needs all the high-margin revenue things it can get. advertising is one of those. finally on the regulatory side, this is a hard one to handicap, but it does look like the chances seem to be demi minimis that will affect over the next year or two. >> i'm curious, get, lots of people want more demand. but the biggest question is if you think enough drivers get on the road and what that ultimately looks like. >> yeah, it's a key part of the equation for uber. a three-sided marketplace. you need consumers, drivers and the merchants. the new data point that came out in the conference, the disclosure in the second half of may, they had 70,000 new drivers sign up for uber there's at least two issues with drivers on the ride-sharing part of uber. one is vaccination or social safety for a lot of drivers they are

unwilling, reticent, cautious about getting into a car with strangers as vaccination rates rise it is luring, in fact, more drivers into the system. uber has gone out of the way to announce incentives. they announced $250 billion of driver incentives at the end of the year in march. maybe, as a third issue is the impact that -- impact that subsidies have, you know, the stimulus checks to americans has had on maybe disincentivizing some people from working for uber it seems like those issues are starting to improve. and at the margin, you should see supply issues get resolved for uber by the end of this year >> what's your sense, longer term, about the employment picture, gig worker issue that we're going to see both from this administration and how that's going to impact companies like uber, grubhub and the like? >> you know, this is going to

evolve over years. i think doordash actually makes a really interesting argument about gig employees. what they'll tell you, their average dasher, their driver, drives around four hours a week. what it tells you is that the people who drive for some of these companies, particularly doordash, these are full-time employees at other companies or part-time or students just looking for incremental income at doordash and other companies make it easy to do that. to the sense that's true, it's a nice feature of the economy. it's almost like an economic stabilizer in a way. it's a quick way for people to get extra -- in that case, it's beneficial i realize there are other issues with gig economy employees but there is that element that sometimes gets mixed >> mark, great to see you, a little bit of technology issues.

you're in the technology issues so you'll appreciate it. when we come back, beyond amc and gamestop, we're going to take a look at the meme stocks that might not just be on your radar just yet comes a day after clover health got the reddit surging higher. on monday, the stock was up tl 32%. add up those games and it's an incredible week. "squawk box" will be right back.

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♪ welcome back to "squawk. u.s. electric truck make

lordstown motors shares plunged yesterday. the company said there, quote, substantial doubts about continuing with growing concerns in the next year and recently warned it was at risk of being delisted for missing a filing during an earnings call last month lordstown saying its truck production due to covid and other and a spac that emerged with the blank check company diamond peak, we'll see if investors have diamond hands >> or lettuce hands. >> lettuce hands >> wilting >> wilting hands >> wilting hand. right now time for executive edge, while investors are watching amc, gamestop and blackberry, there are stocks that have fallen under the radar. christina joining us making the "squawk box" debut, welcome,

christina, welcome, it's good to meet new person. >> i'm very happy, this is my first time, i guess i can go into i've never heard lettuce hands before we'll talk about the speculative stocks and diamond hands and everybody talks about holding gmc and amc. and with the online platform discord. take for example, carlotz, the stock closing 28% higher end thering higher in premarkets although there was no specific news aside from a hub they talked about in virginia lotz chatter drived. 13% of the float is shorted. ear meme stocks under the radar you ask? clean energy fuels clne on the screen, mentioned 16 times on reddit, making it the

sixth most mentioned stock on wallstreetbets and last but not least, electric vehicles and cannabis stocked the most mentioned pot stocks tillray and sundial growers. here's the sundial weighing in on the meme frenzy >> you look at our stock today, we traded close to 30 million shares and that's almost on a daily basis. there's a big, big retail, you know, population out there, buying our stock, talking about our stock, social media getting the word out >> since this is a new term, there's no textbook definition, if we're going to define what is a meme stock, this is from analysts it's usually high volume, a stock that pops with new news catalyst which we saw with lotz, and large short

interest and social media mentions that we see, twitter or twitter discord, et cetera i can also quote from michael pasture from web bush, he told me the meme companies are the ones to take over the world. at least that's what we believe. >> that's what people are waiting to find out it has been unbelievable to see this happening in name after name i actually wondered if it was going to happen with lordstown one of these other companies that looks like it's having problems just about every company that runs into trouble, once the shorts pile in >> lordstown is a great example, when i spoke about it a week ago on rapid fire. a lot of people went online. there was a clip people commenting, what are you talking about, there's so much potential on the upside. and wish, that stock the third most mentioned yesterday it's a software company. there's so many names.

the big question is who's going to be next what's going to be next? a lot of these guys, that's what they're looking for. >> thank you >> thank you coming up next, when we return, dr. scott gottlieb weighing on the cdc's new travel guidance and the latest information on covid vaccines for children and later, we dig in this week's roller coaster ride for bitcoin. as we head to break, we look at yesterday's s&p 500's winners and losers hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot.

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♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here at the nasdaq market site in times square take a look at futures right now. the dow looks like it will open up 25 points nasdaq, 25 points s&p, 1.5

points here. the cdc, let's talk about this, the cdc easing its travel recommendations for more than 100 countries. new ratings take 61 countries out of advisory for all travel united states has been lifted out of that category as well some other places that move from level 4 to level 3 this includes japan, france, the risk is still high there unvaccinated people are advised, quote, to avoid all travel there. and france will allow vaccinated europeans to visit without a covid test vaccinated people can visit if they show a negative covid test. by the way, japan being on that list because of the olympics >> i was going to ask the same thing, is there a guidance, because i thought there was a problem there. >> the numbers are not great there. so, it's interesting to see.

maybe our next guest may know the answer also, pfizer says it will begin testing its vaccine in children under the age of 12 at a lower dose a company spokesperson said they expect the data from 5 to 11 year olds in september joining us is dr. scott gottlieb, he's former fda commissioner and serves on the boards of pfizer and moderna his new book "uncontrolled spread" is due out in september. scott, let's start with the news about pfizer we did talk about it yesterday and spoke with dr. marty mckerry of john hopkins. i know you're familiar with him. his concern is maybe we shouldn't be giving vaccines to kids because the risk-reward scenario doesn't play out and not necessarily useful for children what would you say from that >> look, i think we need to see

what the data shows from the clinical trials. remember, we're testing a much lower dose in the child. any act of genicity that you get in terms of immune-related effects. people reporting sore arms from the vaccines it should be reduced at a lower dose. we have to see what the data shows. the reason why you test a lower dose because children have a more brink immune reaction you don't need the same level of antigen in the vaccine i think the trials will roll faster across 90 different sites. 4500 kids that they're enrolling. they should be able to enroll the children quickly i think we should have an answer in the fall what the company said is a reasonable time frame. we'll see how it goes. >> i was just -- when you start thinking it through. i'm eager to get my young children vaccinated because of existing conditions that i'm worried about being aggravated with that. would you vaccinate your

children as soon as this is available? i will >> yeah, i plan to my kids are turning 12 heading into the school year i'll be vaccinating them will the dose currently available for children i think having the lower dose for children is going to be important we might find that the children have a very brisk immune response from the lower dose we might end up going with a lower dose across the broader spectrum i think we need to see what the data shows so far in the populations, they have a pretty robust immune response with the vaccine. in this trial, what the fda is looking at immunogenicity data looking at it as a mroxproxy tht it's delivering. they're going to want to see if the lower doses present antibodies in the kids >> another big story yesterday, it was pretty concerning the idea that johnson & johnson has millions of vaccines at risk of expiring this month.

they can't find people to take them in states like ohio and yet we can't give them to other countries where the need is desperate what's the solution? >> well, unfortunately, i don't think there's a clear solution the fda might extend the shelf life of these vaccines there is more stability tests under way demonstrating that they can be stored for longer periods of time in normal situations and freezers. we do have the vaccination that could be extended into the fall. i don't know that they'll be cleared for export we're going to see vaccine demand drop off in the summertime as virus declines moving outdoors a lot of people who haven't been vaccinated up to this point say they will wait until the fall. when you look at the date day, gallop put out a poll saying 10% of americans intend on getting vaccinating. i think there's a cohort of

americans who haven't been vaccinated up until this point who say i'm not getting vaccinated in july or august i'm going to wait to september or august, when i read back to work or school we will likely see that, i don't think we can draw a conclusion that it's defeat or portending something bad in terms of the vaccination uptick in this country. i think it's going to be the natural ebb and flow of the distribution and uptick of the vaccine. >> hey, scott, what's your sense, talking about the cdc guidelines before you came on, we were talking about japan being taken off the list, being moved from level 4 to level 3. given where their levels are, and the olympics coming up, would you have any concern about going to tokyo right now >> i wouldn't have any concerns about traveling to asia or europe right now there's parts of the world where we see pretty dense epidemics. i would have concerns going into those regions, particularly where you see the new variants spreading. i wouldn't have any concerns

going into japan or europe i think virus levels are relatively low in those parts of the world. we don't have a very rational system for determining travel bands that we still have in place in parts of the world. there are discrepancy with the state department and cdc in making a determination i think this is something that we should have not careful about with a very careful rationale based not just on the virus levels in the country but the ability to do testing and actually report an accurate figure on what the virus levels are. and based on assessment of what's circulating in these countries. in a nation that you could have a new variant simulating that can be a different challenge to variants that are comparable to our own. >> you're masking up if you're going on one of those type of trips or not >> well, i'm still wearing a mask on a plane when i travel, you know, it's obviously a regulation >> you have to >> right, you have to. you know, internationally, i

think it's going to be hard to travel for that length of time wearing a mask but i don't know what the regulations are once you get into international markets actually when i go into foreign countries if i was in europe right now, i'd feel relatively comfortable traveling in europe right now. i'd feel as comfortable in europe as the united states. >> there were concerns how the uk may extend it's kind of lockdown policy. it's supposed to be a decision made by monday and extend it by four weeks the delta variant there, 62% of the cases were the delta variant. you see headlines like this, you say it's not a concern because it's a much lower level? what are you saying? >> 6. 7, the variant in india no called the delta variant it's not widespread. although the virus levels are picking up quite dramatically.

it's been clustered around schools. it's very worrisome because this seems to be more contagious and more pathogenic. that said, two doses of the vaccine team to be protective. dr. fauci was out yesterday two doses of the mrna vaccine are 88% protective against this variant, and 91% against the b.1.1.7 variant in the united states the outbreaks are happening in unvaccinated populations, partially vaccinated populations. there's data out looking at people hospitalized with 6.7 delta variant in the uk. and the overwhelming majority of them were people who either had one dose of vaccine, hadn't completed their vaccination or unvaccinated it does appear that two doses of vaccine are more important against the new variants than the old strain of the virus. so the uk's decision to only roll out one dose of their

vaccine initially and then try to get the people vaccinated with the second dose later on, that's probably opened the door to this spreading more wildly. they are catching up now with the second doses but this is something that i think is worrisome in unvaccinated population. the question for the united states, it is here we are seeing it here at very low levels the question is are there enough of unvaccinated people that this could get into the population and start spreading more widely. i happen to think this is unlikely it's a threat to the fall because i think there's people unvaccinated or have partial immunity from a prior infection but it's not a foothold in communities. that said, if you have unvaccinated people and a superspreader event with delta, you could get an outbreak here >> we really have to run i have to say, two shots to save, what about johnson & johnson? >> right, we don't have specific data looking at johnson &

johnson against 6.7. presumably, the efficacy is diminished we have the data of johnson & johnson where we saw diminished with some level of protection against 1351 >> scott, thank you. we'll talk soon. >> thanks a lot. okay coming up when we return, your chipotle order is going to off the a little more this month details, sad details, after the break if you're a chipotle addict just asking. talking about a friend right now, not anybody else. later, you don't want to miss this, the exclusive intervw th tiewihe head of instagram going to talk to us about all things likes and unlikes. right back after this. ing hpe pe servers. with best in class security measures, they build defenses... against new vulnerabilities. and simplify the hybrid cloud by enabling cloud economics and agility, all while reducing costs

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here's news for you. the burrito is going to cost you more they've hiked prices 4% to cover the workers' wages in may chipotle announced would raise the hourly wage at $15 an hour speaking on monday hosted by baird, saying month more price increases are coming but watching the price ofvocadoavoc. maybe if you get a burrito, you can say, it costs more but i'm paying a higher er wage. >> it's just the example, look, when you raise a wage, it's goes it's way through the system. by the way, you don't come back and lower prices once it gets into wages at the counter, these are permanent changes. they're not going to get rolled

back >> permanent changes, they are >> it's not transitory >> not transitory. so much of it is not going to be transfore. transitory >> that's the question for the fed, at what point does the fed say this is no longer tra transitory that's the billion dollar questions. and coming, bitcoin rebounding after el salvador ad approved it for legal currency there. you don't even have to pay capital gains on it. we're getting word of crackdowns on crypto in china wel take you live to beijing, next. you need a financial plan that fits the way you want to live in retirement. a plan that can help grow and protect your money - now or in the future. with an annuity in your plan to help cover essential expenses, you'll have the freedom to live the retirement you want.

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welcome back to "squawk box. we got new word from china about more cryptocrackdowns. eunice yoon joins us eunice >> thanks, andrew. in the past hour the nail names searches have been blocked they're both in chinese banned on bidu as well as the accounts of informational crypto folks in china were disabled over the weekend. perhaps a sign of beijing tolerance of crypto trading. or maybe an admission that it can't actually cut off completely demand for cryptocurrencies about two-thirds of those accounts for those crypto influencers came back. at least they came back and

reopened accounts. and also, what's interesting is that some of the most influential people in crypto such as the ceo of okx still does have an account to open so, a really interesting pattern is that the people who are being banned tend to be ones who are offering up advice on trading. so, likely a move by the chinese to clamp down and take some the froth off of the cryptocurrency trading here in china. >> eunice, what's the take, though, in china there's a mechanism that there's value, if some of the biggest countries in the world say we're not doing this, it means this thing has no value >> yeah, it depends on who you ask. i was talking with folks in the

government who had said this isn't going to take off. at some point, people are going to go back to using just regular cash not cash, but you know, differential currency and not be so interested in cryptocurrency and see it more as an asset. but, at the same time, i do speak to a lot of people in tech and those folks believe that cryptocurrency trading is here to stay. that this is a decentralized currency of the chinese government as well as other governments can't really do anything about demand and the future of these cryptocurrencies >> eunice yoon, it's great to see you, thanks.

more of a substitute for gold than the dollar. so what does that mean well, central banks around the world are holding the dollar as a reserve asset. and they're also holding gold as a reserve asset. and then the next logical step we will see central banks

substituting gold for -- bitcoin for gold so the question you should be asking who is going to be the first central bank to do that. eventually, all of these dominos are beginning to fall. and what we'll see is bitcoin becoming a reserve asset >> does it ever become a currency, though first of all, by the way, i i'm not sure i agree with you. obviously, you're in this business you have a lot of bitcoin, you represent the crypto world let's make sure everybody understands what side everybody's on here. but does it ever become an actual currency, as far as what i can tell, as far as transactions, when i say transactions i do not mean just trading bitcoin. it seems to be used, unfortunately, more for ransomware than anything else. >> bitcoin is becoming a substitute for gold, not for the dollar we're talking about the base of the monetary layer a store of value when it comes to a store of

value, bitcoin is really prevailing as the winner there and solidified its role. and that's what's happening -- >> hold on, how is it a store value if it's worth $64,000 a month ago and is now worth half? >> yeah, you got to understand, this technology is literally 12 years old. it's very nascent. as adoption increases, that volatility is going to level out. if you look at the volatility indexes, they are decreasing over time. we believe anywhere from 20% to 25% of households owns some form of cryptocurrency today. once we get to 80%, 90% adoption, you won't see that volati volatility you will have swings but not in the long run >> can you explain why po policymakers can figure out why

they're using cryptocurrency >> what we saw this week in the colonial pipeline is a clear demonstration that bitcoin is not the currency of choice for criminals. the united nations estimated between 2% and 5% of global gdp, that's about $4 trillion is connected to illicit activity and money laundering last year in 2020, less than 1% of all crypto transactions is -- >> okay. >> -- less than $10 billion. >> i will tell you 90%, at least, i'm making up the numbers of ransomware attacks over the last several months have used crypto we can talk of money laundering and other things >> and thank god they did because the doj would have tracked those transactions and ultimately were able to seize

that money and putting a stop to this. >> what if they used deeper money or an analog channel, do you think we would be where we are to this day? absolutely ly not >> we are where we are today because i don't think we can carry briefcases of cash to do it. >> less than 1% of all illicit transactions are associated with cryptocurrency that is a fact. >> according to who? >> according to who? >> if you do chain analysis, if you look at -- if you look at the actual transactions facility that's on cryptocurrency networks, less than 1% are associated with illicit activity >> what percentage of ransomware attacks are credited with cryptocurrency >> less than 1% is associated with cryptocurrency. >> we can define the numbers however you like but we're

moving the goalpost. come on back, we should continue this conversation in the future. for now, we have to leave it here thank you, appreciate it when we come back, instagram head adam mosseri will be with us later in the show to talk about knew tools for creators on the platform later, we'll talk about the propublica tax pceie on wealthy americans, jesse eisinger will join us. "squawk box" will be right back. , and all the ways schwab can help me invest. this is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that there's no fee to work with him. here's me learning about schwab's satisfaction guarantee. accountability, i like it. so, yeah. andy and i made a good plan. find your own andy at schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. hey, you wanna get out of here?

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the ceo of colonial pipeline back on the hill we'll speak with the ranking member of the homeland security agency and what companies should do when hackers come knocking. and the irs is looking into how tax records were leaked to

propublica. andrew ross sorkin with becky quick. joe is off the dow is off marginally. we'll call it 10 points. 11 points. we're looking at the nasdaq up 41 points. the s&p 500 looking to open 4 points higher. president biden is shifting gears. he's ending talks with shelly moore capito he's focusing on a separate group of talks with a differen group of lawmakers. two well-known companies are raising prices to deal with costs. chipotle is raising menu prices by 4% as it hires more employees and is raising pay

sherwin-williams is boosting the sales and profit outlook as demand remains strong. we were talking about the issue of transitory versus permanent this is permanent. >> right. >> this is real. >> this is not going to go away. >> any time soon, if ever. >> yeah. once prices go up, once wages go up and once prices at the counter go up, they don't come back down. >> cloud computing company fastly issuing an apology. we talked about this yesterday because it was happening while we were live on the program. there was the major internet outage that took place yesterday morning. it found a bug in its software that triggered the outage. one of the customers changed settings fastly said it was sorry for the broad and severe impact and the problems that they say should have been anticipated. it shut down sites like the u.k. government's home page, "new york times," financial times,

guardian, cnn and lots of other news services that use that technology. there are a lot of questions about what's really going on inside the labor market and a closer look at the numbers doesn't lead to answers, just a lot more questions steve liesman is the man to dig into those questions he tells us why the jobs data makes no sense why is that, steve >> economists struggling to figure out where are the workers? how many jobs there are. whether we have a temporary problem as andrew was musing about or if this is something that lingers on. job openings hit a record 9.3 million in april wait, we're only 7.5 million jobs below where we were in february 2020. what is going on out there one answer looks to be the economy has grown so we need more workers than we did even before the pandemic. labor supply is being held back by a variety of factors.

they seem mostly temporary but you take a hard look at them and there could be some permanent parts to all of this here are some of the issues we have come up with. oxford economic says 2 million have retired early those 70 or earlier has plunged. immigration issues also leaving jobs unfilled. resort towns like cape cod, the jersey shore, they don't have their normal influx of summer workers from overseas. there are government benefits holding people back and child care they're keeping some workers on the sidelines. jobs it could geographically be in different places where low income workers, they haven't or can't move to where those who fled the pandemic now live and look for workers they use the jobs data to calculate. this is 2.1 million more jobs.

the jobs accommodating food service. they added 270,000 manufacturing 240,000. trade and utilities, 440,000 they expect an influx. when the schools fully reopen. could be lingering shortages, folks. for example, from early retirement, those folks may not come back with a permanent decline in immigration from several years ago. that would play a role in driving up wages >> i hadn't thought about the immigration status or people moving across state lines. i was listening to a report this morning about the u.k. which is having the same sort of problems they listed brexit as problems people left and went back to the home countries and are not coming back as a result, too >> that's a big issue, too i was reading a local paper. the biden administration just

opened up one of these programs. there's the h2b and the j21, they may only get half of the workers. all up and down the resort town where people are expecting huge summer travel, by the way, becky, because people are not going overseas there's that and i was floored by the number of early retirements. one of the interesting things is you could actually retire early and get your unemployment benefits because there was not a work prerequirement in the pandemic benefits. we'll see if some of those folks who did retire early come back we'll see if we can solve this immigration problem which was an issue that began and began reducing that. some of those programs and they got rid of some others big problems all around. >> steve, can i throw another story idea your way too? >> sure. >> okay.

>> hang on, let me take notes. >> no, talk this out with me, barry sternlicht was with us he talked about how they can't get enough people in to clean the hotels they're at 80% capacity. they only have something like the staff that they would normally have 50% capacity and my question that i didn't get to ask him because we had a million other things going on and we were asking him, what do you do under that scenario? if you only have the staff for 50% occupancy for cleaning and you have 80% ccupancy, do you leave things dirty do you pay people overtime >> no. >> how do you fix that >> we were talking about this. we were talking about this the other night with restaurants and my guess, i happen to know barry is a very smart businessman who thinks long term you do not under any circumstances degrade the service that you are providing so you only open up enough so that you can provide the level of service that you want to

provide that has people coming back this is a huge problem for businesses who are watching money sort of go out the door, so to speak, because they're not able to do it. what they don't want to do is have somebody come in and have a lousy experience we'll see. people are saying this is going to be a summer of long waits at the restaurants in the resort towns. people might get more acclimated to that. you want to be very careful, i would suggest, not to provide a level of service below what you want your customers to experience. >> you think about the complaints and talk about first world problems i had to wait too long at the restaurant get over it. steve, thank you great to see you >> it's a pandemic >> yeah. the fintech company that powers names like uber, doordash, instacart and more set to go public we'll speak to the ceo of marqeta. let's get a quick look at the markets. the dow is off 13, 14 points

nasdaq higher, 47 points higher. the s&p 500 will round up close to 5 points higher bitcoin $34,000. we're back after this. ♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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we'll keep you ready for what's next. get started with a great offer, and ask how you can add comcast business securityedge. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. call today. welcome back to "squawk box. fintech startup marqeta will make its wall street debut the company which was number 7

on cnbc's disruptor list will trade on the nasdaq under the symbol mq. joining us right now is the company's ceo jason gardner. congratulations on this moment you're upstairs, we're downstairs, nice to see you nonetheless. talk to us about this moment for your company your business is now i think 11 years old and it has come quite a far way in a very short amount of time. >> yeah. thank you for having me. it's a very, very exciting day for marqeta. over 11 years, many people, many hands, many minds have built what you see today this is another step in our journey so we're very excited about this. >> let's talk about the business itself and let's talk about the various revenue sources, how investors should think about this company in terms of comps, in terms of multiples. when you think about the comps and multiples and you put it on a white board, who are they? >> so we created modern cord

issuing. there's $6.7 trillion of volume. companies like square, doordash, insta cart, klarna, build. visa and master card want our platform they can be virtual. consumers use these buy now pay later reduces fraud at the point of sale for doordash if you believe that everything from a payment perspective is moving to modern platform, being digitized, cash to card, there are many payment companies in the market today who believe in -- that that's going to happen and marqeta is one that believes in that we've proven that with our growth over the last ten years. >> can you explain to the audience a little bit more about the business, but specifically i think about your business in

some ways as an arbitrage. you may not like this, around interchange fees between the smaller community banks that benefitted from the durbin amendment after the financial crisis and the big banks. >> the durbin amendment was created back in 2010 to protect consumers and protect small banks. companies like marqeta derive revenues from interchange. we take a portion of interchange. we share that to our customers, we share that to the acquiring sides, pay at the point of sale and the networks and the banks this has sustained lots and lots of companies around the world, companies like marqeta we have built this product to serve customers. they build on top of our platform we either support their core business or we are their core business this affects consumers at the point of sale. the buy now pay later or their

food on an app like doordash or instacart. that is shared with a lot of companies and businesses the durbin amendment was created to protect them. >> is there any risk over time that that interchange fee gets compressed because of government policy or commission >> nothing we've seen. there's nothing we're hearing about the durbin amendment being taken away we operate outside of the united states we operate in 36 countries today where interchange actually is not high like it is in the u.s. and we have created business models that have been able to support us, especially in europe. >> when you think of being a publicly traded company, having the currency of a stock, do you start to think about acquisitions and what this company may look like five years from now the reason i ask, there are so many fintech companies that have gone public in the last 12 or 18

months i imagine there will be consolidation. >> lots of opportunity around the world. is our plan is to go strategic you build the marqeta way and how we build around the world. look at acquisition and decide there are lots of fintechs around the world being we operated 36 countries around the world, we want to grow that. how we enter countries, organically, inorganic >> business model. you mentioned the international model versus the u.s. business, the interchange fees in the u.s. the interchange fees elsewhere are much lower in terms of both revenue and if we were to look at a pie chart, how much does the u.s. represent how much does the international piece represent? >> today all revenue is 98% out

of the united states only 2% internationally but $30 trillion of carted volume happens outside of the united states that's tremendous. we're just scratching the surface there. it's a different business model because you don't have the level of interchange that you have in the united states. outside the u.s. you do internationally. keep in mind, the ability former chance to accept payment cards whether online or offline is a global phenomenon. the ability for us to provide services through our platform is another way for the company to generate revenue and obviously the opportunity outside the u.s. is tremendous. >> i could not get through an interview about fintech and payments without asking about crypto, which is to say what is your take on crypto and do you plan to transact in it >> our take is if you and i are talking about it and we see it on the news every day and people are trading it, it is here to stay we see a lot of momentum

we power the coinbase car. we power the coin base of canada the ability for consumers and businesses to pay for crypto at the point of sale and the conversion that happens on the back end it's been going on for a long time it's only going to grow and we're excited to be part of it. >> what are the interchange fees looking like on that >> they're all the same. convert crypto and the interchange is the same. >> you have to get a deal going in el salvador congratulations and good luck today. >> thank you for having me very exciting. coming up when we return, the colonial pipeline ceo is back on capitol hill testifying. we'll speak to the ranking member of the homeland security committee about today's hearing. "squawk" returns right after this time now for today's aflac trivia question. how many companies went public on the u.s. stock market in

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. how many companies went public on the u.s. stock market in 2020 the answer, 480. that was 107% higher than 2019 and 20% higher than the previous record ipo year of 2000, which had 397. welcome back to "squawk box. the reddit traders have found a new favorite in shares of clover health jumping more than 85% yesterday. one of the most mentioned stocks on reddit's wall street bets form which has 10 million members. could put a squeeze on short sellers who lost an estimated $500 million yesterday we'll show you where clover is

today. up another 23% at $27.49 what should chamath palihapitiya be doing he was the sponsor and talked about it on our air. lots of questions. there was some major short sellers. hindenburg research and others he was behind the efforts of pushing gamestop options at one point. >> it's not just that. there's an sec investigation they received a notice of investigation. >> i believe it's still -- >> we haven't heard what happened >> we don't know exactly where that is. the question is if you're chamath, do you sell into this or not he's no longer -- he's no longer restricted meaning he could sell if he wanted to. if he did so, it would probably impact the stock. >> $16 million is what he put in originally. >> right. >> 1/3 was pledged to credit suisse for a loan.

that's worth $682 million based on where they've gone. that's a gain of over 4,000% obviously it would be profitable to sell into this but it would not help his reputation to do so. >> we're in agreement. we're in agreement merck will supply an oral antiviral medicine to treat mild to moderate covid-19 meg tirrell has the latest >> reporter: hey, andrew this is an agreement to supply 1.7 million courses of this drug called molnupurivir. it's an still in phase 3 trials. the deal would be worth $1.2 billion only if the drug gets emergency use authorization or approval it's being tested by patients early in the course of the disease, not yet hospitalized and who have a risk factor for severe covid some previous trials suggest that is the place where it could

benefit patients the most. this is a pill for covid that you take twice a day early in the diagnosis. so the u.s. government will potentially pay more than $1 billion to supply the 1.7 million courses. we expect to see the data sometime in the second half of the year and filing with the fda. we'll have to see what those data look like a signal from the u.s. government that they want this kind of drug if those data are positive guys, back to you. >> meg, any information about potential side effects if you are asking people who have a mild case of this to take this early, the big question they're going to face is are the side effects worse than if i think i have the mild case of covid? >> such an important point so far we don't know a whole lot about the profile, although it would need to be tolerable in order for people to decide to take it. this is a similar population that we are seeing eligible for

the antibody drugs for covid this is a much more onerous process where you have to get an infusion or becoming available through injections this is a pill so it's a little bit easier to take if you are early in the course of the disease and you don't know if you're going to get severe disease, that's something people might take. >> the other question is i guess just how big of a population is it for those who are at high risk who -- i guess this wouldn't be something for people whoget vaccinated as you get more and more of the high risk population vaccinated, how big is the market at least in the united states >> that's an important question. we don't know too much about whether this is something you would give to people who are vaccinated the idea of severe disease after vaccination is so low.

that's a good question the number of people who have not been vaccinated and have a risk for covid-19 is shrinking clearly the u.s. government thinks it needs this tool in the coiffeurs. >> thanks a lot. great talking to you. >> you, too. still to come on "squawk box" today, ranking member of the homeland security committee con man john katko will join us. a lot of tough questions asked yesterday. we'll get more deeply into that in just a few minutes. plus, don't miss our exclusive interview with the head of instagram, add dam mosseri. stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

welcome back to "squawk. colonial pipeline ceo is back on capitol hill eamon javers joins us with more. good morning, eamon. >> reporter: good morning,

andrew joseph blat was on capitol hill yesterday. he defended his decision it was an hour and ten minutes from when they detected the incident to the time they had the entire pipeline shut down. he also defended his decision to pay the ransom saying he was worried about what would happen up and down the east coast, airports, first responders and the like he had simply no other choice although it was the toughest decision he's made in his career he had bad news for ceos who might be facing a ransomware attack of their own in the future take a listen to this. >> what a lot of people don't realize about cyber attacks and repercussions of the attacks, it takes months and months and months and in some cases years to restore your systems. >> reporter: so his message there was don't think necessarily you can pay the ransom, get the crypto key back

and suddenly be scott free he said this is a long and ongoing process. he was interestingly a little bit ee vash sus with senator josh hawley on the question of exactly how much his company spends on cyber defense overall. take a listen to this exchange. >> given the importance of your company, the size of it, the reliance, what are you doing in terms of your investment for cybersecurity? i know you're paying well. >> our dividend is not different than any other midstream company. our owners have never denied us any opportunity to spend what we need to spend in order to keep the pipeline safe and secure. >> which is about what a year? >> you know, take the average. over $200 million in the last five years >> but, becky, that $200 million over the last five years is not what the company spends on cyber defense, it's what they spend on i.t. overall i checked this with the company after the hearing yesterday. they're saying they're not going to release the figure for how much they spend on cyber defense

as a breakout, just the overall i.t. spend obviously cyber defense would be a much smaller subset of what they spend on i.t. overall to be fair to the company, it can be difficult to determine what is cybersecurity, defense spending and what is general i.t. spending. they're not breaking out a number for cyber consultants and the like we can expect more questions on that today he'll be on the hot seat today this time in the house of representatives. >> eamon, i have one question for you. you can help settle what is not too much of a debate we had a conversation with the head of the chamber for cryptocurrency and we were talking about ransomware and the difference between crypto and cash. she was making the argument that cryptocurrency is used -- a tiny portion of cryptocurrency is used for illicit purposes. i was making the opposite. are you aware of any ransomware

cases that have used briefcases of cash? >> no. no when you talk to law enforcement about this, they say that this ransomware scourge could not be happening if it was not for cryptocurrency cryptocurrency has lots and lots of great uses and it's a wonderful innovation but there is this subset that's being used to fuel ransomware leempt says ransomware would not exist because of this because this makes it seamless otherwise you have people in helicopters dropping duffle bags of cash and the logistics are so much more difficult and complicated. this is a much smaller problem if it wasn't for crypto. >> thanks for your honest and factual answer, eamon. >> thanks. i try for that. our next guest will be on capitol hill congressman john katko is the

ranking member of the homeland security committee and, congressman, we know the colonial ceo will be ahead of you facing questions from you this morning i guess the first is, all the pressure he's getting about paying the ransom. i know that the government looks down on this, that it only encourages other people to do this, but i don't see that he had any other choice in this situation given the importance of the pipeline and given how gas shortages were already starting to impact the nation. >> yeah. i can't speak for him, but i can tell you it's a common problem with the ransomware attacks. do you pay the devil or do you not pay the devil? that's symptomatic of a larger problem and it's emblematic of a larger problem, that our systems are vulnerable and we're not doing enough to fight back there's a lot of things we're doing. what this ransomware attack in colonial pipeline represented was how much our critical

infrastructure is intertwined with daily life. i can ensure you no one had heard of colonial pipeline and no one realized that by shutting down colonial pipeline for a few days would have the gas shortages and fuel shortages we have that's why with critical infrastructure we need to do a better job >> i guess the question becomes what is enough and we talked a little bit just now about how much companies should be spending, are spending on things like cyber defense are there best practices that companies with critical infrastructure or other essential businesses would be held to at some point by the u.s. government? >> there's no question best practices are critically important. best practices in the private sector best practices in the government let's start with the private sector you need to invest in cybersecurity. that's not getting someone a computer, that's making sure

it's secure. that's going to cost money and investment we don't know how much colonial pipeline invested in cybersecurity. every company in this nation probably does not invest enough. on the government side we've got to do the same the cybersecurity -- cyber infrastructure and security agency at the homeland security has -- was stood up just a few years ago. it's completely overwhelmed trying to deal with ransomware attacks and cyber attacks. colonial pipeline is the last in a long line of those we need to make sure the sisa as it's called is properly beefed up we need to make sure the biden administration and subsequent administrations have cybersecurity infrastructure plans in place so that when critical structures attack, they can anticipate that and have a plan in place. much like if there was an invasion in germany. we had a plan in place if something happened we have to have the same type of

security plan ready for cyber attacks and ransomware attacks in this country. we need to do a better job and this is a sober reminder and this hearing is meant to make sure people understand what's at stake and we need to act accordingly. >> i don't know if there's enough money that can be spent it's like roaches in the kitchens or rats coming around the attacks are coming so fast and frequently maybe we need to have the government take much stiffer action against russia, iran, china, any nation that at the very least is allowing them to act. >> that's a great point. i want to make sure i make that clear. i've had the five pillars. the fifth pillar of cybersecurity is basically whacking the bad guys. you named the bad actors the colonial pipeline attack emanated from russia, we know that i find it hard to believe the

russian government didn't know about this entity doing this because it was a very sophisticated attack for that they should be severely punished i think president biden has an opportunity to lay down the law, let them know you can't do this. if we don't have proportional or even disproportional responses to these attacks that are state sponsored, then we're just going to allow them to continue and that's the same thing that happens with respect to the ransomware attacks that we pay back in cryptocurrency i heard someone talking about cryptocurrency earlier it has definitely been a game changer for the criminal element. the criminal element -- i was a federal organized crime prosecutor in 20 years the hardest part was to spend the money and hide the money cryptocurrency has been a game changer for them i applaud the fbi. they were able to chase the cryptocurrency trail back and get the money back that needs to be the norm, not

the exception and we need to be able to could that going forward. >> congressman katko, thanks for your time. >> thanks so much. coming up when we return, federal authorities are now investigating the release of wealthy americans tax information including jeff bezos and warren buffett propublica talked about the leak and could involve penalties. we'll talk about the implication on tax policy, wealth policy and so much more with the man who wrote it jesse eisinger we're right back after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box. dow futures down by 35 points. s&p indicated up by 2. nasdaq up by 36. >> shares of campbell's soup falling premarket. adjusted quarterly earnings of 57 cents a share

when we come back, a trove of never before seen records leaked by we think maybe an irs employee nobody seems to know really how the nation's wealthiest avoid income taxes published by propublica. jesse eisinger talks about it. as we head to a break, check out this morning's winners and losers in the s&p 500. "squawk" returns in just a moment ♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box. pro publica is talking about a story with never before seen informed from warren buffett, bill gates, mark zuckerberg. the wealthiest who pay taxes went live. there is a huge debate they are not disclosing how it obtained the information it went to considerable length to confirm the information nbc news has not independently verified the information pro publica does not say that they did anything illegal. joining us right now is one of the authors behind that

explosive report senior reporter and editor jesse eisinger it is the story that everybody is talking about and we want to talk about it with you on so many different levels. i want to start the conversation if we could just going into detail about some of the individuals and what you reported people like jeff bezos claiming a $4,000 tax credit for children in 2011 after reporting he had no income. warren income reported $24 million in taxes between 2014 and 2018 mike bloomberg paying 70 million in tax in 2018 despite reporting $1.9 billion in net income carl icahn and elon musk clearly taking out loans against stock collateral again, that prevents creating additional income. george soros had no federal income for a couple of years

between 2016 and 2018. there's a lot that is revelatory in this. my question to you is how do you think they're doing it one of the things you do in the story is compare how much money they paid in taxes to their overall wealth or their gain in wealth during those periods. to me, that piece of it i want to get to in a second, but i want to just spend some time thinking about how and why and whether you think it's legal what they're doing. >> sure. thanks for having me, andrew always great to be back on "squawk box. so let's just situate this for a second if you want to talk about effective tax rates, the tax rates on billionaires, we have a companion piece to the main piece. it shows that billionaires pay effective tax rates that are lower not only than the 001% but also lower than someone making $45,000 a year

about 15%, 16% in the last -- 2014 to 2018 that's effective tax rates on income we don't think that's the most meaningful way to talk about the ultra wealthy because they're really not in the tax system i and many of the viewers -- well, maybe not many of the viewers on cnbc, maybe not you but most of us are in the tax system and we get salaries and we get taxes extracted from our salary the ultra wealthy are completely outside of the system and their wealth and all of the power and all of the means that their wealth confers is completely almost entirely outside of the system and the question is whether that system is working. >> so the question that i would ask you is to me there's the issue of realized gains and unrealized gains the thing you do that's been interesting, although there has been a number of critics of it, is the idea of comparing it to

unrealized gains steve ratnor oversees the money of michael bloomberg called the piece financial gibberish. >> steve radnor. that's -- you know, the funny thing is that first of all there's a whole economic concept about unrealized gains being income it goes back to the 1920s but irrespective of that, what's happening is with the super wealthy, their wealth is growing and that is allowing them to have the means to do an enormous amount of spending and keep control of the company so how do they spend if they cou don't realize, they borrow against the wealth elon musk pledges his shares and borrows billions, tens of billions of dollars. carl icahn borrows billions of dollars. larry ellison had a $10 billion credit line. what's happening when they

borrow is that they're not selling, they're not taking gains, they're not paying any taxes and they're living lavishly in the case of carl icahn we're all subsidizing the leverage that he uses to boost his returns. so is that a system that's effective? is that a system that's fair are they paying their fair share? we think this is the right measure. i don't think it's gibberish at all. i don't think haig simons in the 1920s thought it was gibberish to measure money this way. it's a very carefully done analysis. >> i agree with you there's a very fair question to be asked about whether we should be incentivizing the interest expense of loans to be used in this way at this level i've asked questions about -- when it comes to philanthropy at that level, what the kinds of

deduction that should turn out to be and whether and how you can deal with the step up in basis issue and eliminating that at death so you can capture all of this. >> >> there are elements you and i are completely in agreement with there's a big question right now about this data itself which is to say historically private actors, private citizens, their tax information has been kept private. that's different than elected officials or even private citizens that are running for elected office do you think that that data should be private? >> well, we don't think that some of the data should be private. we published it. we are being careful, responsible stewards of this information and we're only putting it through a prism of what is in the public interest we think it is in the public interest to know that jeff bezos, the world's richest

person, paid 0 in income tax in two recent years, that michael bloomberg paid zero, carl icahn paid zero. elon musk in 2018, zero taxes. irdefy anyone, one to say this is old news, we're jaded and the rich can avoid taxes i think no one would have thought this was the case until yesterday when we published it maybe real estate moguls like donald trump or jared kushner might pay zero, but not these guys we think it was in the public interest we were very careful we verified all of the information. the most important aspect of this to us is the information comes and we put it through a prism. is it verified is it true is it newsworthy we thought it passed that. every source has bias. i'm familiar with cable stations that have money managers on who talk about stocks that they own. i think that they can have valid

points every source and every interaction for every journalist has an agenda and a bias we put it all through the prism of whether it's true and whether it's newsworthy. >> do you believe the government should pursue an investigation about the leak >> oh, i'm not going to comment on that. that's not my business i don't opine on that. we think what we're going to write all year will pass the test of being in the public interest and we think this story passes the test of being in the public interest. >> you do plan to publish more stories. what are you hoping to find, to look at? i imagine you've seen some of this i'm very interested, by the way, in what i call the apples to apples comparison which is to try to understand the deductions that these people are taking to effectively show a loss and whether that's charitable contributions. do you know, what is the maximum amount you can deduct from your

taxes when it comes to interest expense. >> interest expense, you can wipe out your entire income. that's what carl icahn did, wiped out half a billion in 2016, 2017 with interest expense. charitable deductions, there's a limit on that. so we're -- your audience would be very helpful for this we are looking for tips and help to analyze this information. we have an enormous number of stories we're going to do. they're all going to be carefully done and they're going to show the techniques that the ultra wealthy use to manufacture losses sometimes they're paper losses we're going to show a lot of deductions, interesting stories about credits. we have audit records. we're going to try to analyze what the audits of the ultra wealthy have been and whether the irs is really pursuing the ultra wealthy when they're

aggressive >> jesse. >> we want help from viewers like on cnbc. >> jesse, just a quick question. kr correct me if i'm wrong, i don't think there's anything illegal that they've done. are you trying to embarrass them for what they'vedone are you trying to change the laws >> well, we only highlighted legal behavior in this story, that's absolutely right. we wanted to hire the system it's not about embarrassing individuals and it's certainly not about a policy advocacy. we're just journalists you've known me for 20 years now. i'm just a journalist, i'm not an advocate and i'm not particularly, you know, advocating for one policy or another. what we thought was valid and newsworthy was to say all of the information we think from the zero paying intaxes to the fac that these guys are effectively outside of the system, we believe that that is in the public interest and newsworthy. >> want to thank you for coming

on this morning. we hope to have you back whether people like it or not, this is going to have a huge impact on the tax around wealth taxes and the like over the next year we look forward to seeing the next jump of stories that come our way. thanks, jesse. >> thanks for having me, guys. when we come back, it's been a year since corporate america made a pledge to increase diversity. we'll talk to sherrilyn ifill. and later don't miss our exclusive interview with the head of instagram on the platform's latest features "squawk box" will be right back.

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with our commitment to better esg outcomes. join the pursuit of outperformance at pgim. the investment management business of prudential. good morning, meme stocks on the move shares of clover surging in the premarket after doubling one point yesterday. reddit users seem to be craving some wendy's as well. the creator economy. instagram showing how users can profit from posts following mark zuckerberg's taking a big shot at apple for its commissions the head of instagram is going to join us in a little bit.

it's been years since corporate america made big pledges to the black business community. we'll dig into the final hour of "squawk box" right now good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site intimes square i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin joe is out today check out the u.s. equity futures. things are mixed they've been coalescing around the flat line. dow futures down s&p futures up by 6 and nasdaq up by 46 the s&p is targeting going after the all-time high. about five points away with the gains it is seeing, if it were to close there, that will be an all-time high it has missed it for the last several days have to show you some of the big

movers among the so called meme stocks first on the list is health insurance seller clover which went public in october by a spac backed by chamath palihapitiya shares in the company shot up more than 100% yesterday before ending up 85%. then there's wendy's which seems to be a new favorite among red dit's wall street bets forum it gained 25%. blackberry, bed, bath & beyond a couple other stories we'll be looking at this morning here's what's happening. merck is supplying a drug to the government which is an oral covid-19 drug. phase 3 trial data expected in the second half of this year meantime, shares of campbell's

soup getting hit in the premarket. the food company reported revenue and adjusted quarterly earnings below forecast. sales fell from a year ago when demand got the pandemic related boost. it was hit by higher costs and the company cutting the full year forecast. campbell's ceo said our results were impacted by rising inflationary information and executional pressures. and the senate has passed one of the largest industrial bills in the u.s. history the u.s. innovation and competition act has subsidies for computer chips and robot makers and puts money to overhaul the national science foundation many see this as a way for the u.s. to keep pace. it's not clear when the house will take up the bill.

kate rooney covering gamestop's annual meeting and mike santoli looking at the latest market action kate, we'll start with you. >> good morning. a board overhaul is underway at reddit favorite gamestop there's not a lot of push back ryan cohen has become the de facto spokesman. a majority of the old board has stepped aside. three new nominees that do have ties to cohen from chewy which he sold to pet smart in 2017 we have quarterly results coming in later in the day which have drawn attention despite no one really looking at the numbers. analysts tell me the quarter doesn't matter for the stock price. shares have far outpaced fundamentals they're up more than 1400% since january. they have been way more focused on future quarters

the future includes a new ceo. george sherman said in april he was stepping down by the end of july or earlier. gamestop picks a successor the company hasn't said much on that apparent tech driven strategy any details or a cryptic tweet could fuel optimism on reddit. back to you. >> it's unbelievable can i just ask you separately a clover question. >> sure. we're watching clover and we're thinking about chamath palihapitiya what do you think the reaction would be if he sold shares >> i think that's something people are watching. virgin galactic in march he has been seen as the pied piper of spacs it's seen as a sign of confidence

his profits have recovered he's taken a $16 million investment to a more than $680 million investment that is still on paper you have to wonder he is not required to hold shares i think that is something to watch as far as clover and the optimism and confidence from the retail crowd. >> if he does sell, then it would be disclosed he's on the board, correct >> that's right. >> something to watch. >> appreciate it. we're going to turn to the broader markets right now and talk about notable investments under the surface of the indexes. cnbc's senior markets commentator mike santoli joins us from the new york stock exchange. >> andrew, clover, gamestop, they're part of the excitement that's raging on the margins of the market the core has been more about mow not tow any. we were talking about the flirting of the new highs.

it's been since mid april. seems like a downshift in general in macro expectations. take a look at the comparison of the home builders, etf, consumer discretionary sector they peaked a month ago. home builders and equal weighted discretionary. they recover early what you'll see, they've come off the boil a little bit. take a look on more of the meme stock side a lot of these viral names remember that buzz etf that launched in march. social sentiment that's up 7.5% just in a month as well as the micro cap russell micro cap index up the same amount. at the same time the s&p 500 has been flat lining

that's where the energy is remember, late january destabilization of the overall market because it caused losses in the hedge fund market one of the reasons is many of these moves in heavily shorted stocks, they're not as heavily shorted. the losses aren't as shorted except as clover. >> thank you, mike let's bring in liz young, the head of the investment strategy at sofi. liz, what mike was talking about, that boring s&p 500 move, maybe it's not sell in may and go away. maybe it's hold on in may and see what's there to play >> that was a good rhyme, becky. i think as we move through summer we're probably going to be bored with the market action. that's okay. boring is fine with me if we can look even at just last

week and the meme mania that went on, the vix still stayed well below 20. so the market isn't taking some of that as an indication that it's on a broad basis. we'll get cpi data and hear from the fed. we may get some gyrations and tech stock stocks may get scared or yield stocks may get scared we'll grind sideways for most of summer. >> why do you like small caps? >> i like small caps because the cause of the crisis and the way that we went into a crisis matters and it matters for how we come out of the crisis. small caps got hit the most on the way in small businesses got hit the most on the way in coming out they should be able to rebound much more largely than some of the larger cap stocks

what concerns me, however, and this is a difference between this year and this cycle what concerns me is some of that small business optimism index data that came out this week looking at 48% of small businesses that have unfilled job openings of that 48%, 93% of them can't find qualified workers yet still 27% of small businesses are planning to create more jobs in the next three months. that gap was going to widen. why that's a problem is if we start to depend on small businesses to drive gdp growth and they can't find workers to make their businesses run and reopen fully, the gdp growth is going to see a headwind going into 2022. >> i saw that, too i wonder if it's tougher for small businesses to be able to thrive or survive. they may have trouble finding people and because it's a big company, they can camouflage that and work around the edges.

there are different revenue streams that can do well at different parts of the economic cycle. small businesses tend to be more concentrated they do one or two things and they do the one or two things very well. if those parts of the business are suffering, they don't have a lot else to lean back on it is possible that small businesses aren't quite as resilient if we continue to have the labor problem. it's important to watch the data as we get through the end of 2021 i'm going to keep a close eye on that making that transition and having small businesses find that labor to keep their doors open, meet demand and have top line revenue growth is going to be really, really important for

the economy. other businesses employ 50% of the labor force. it's not something we should ignore. >> liz, thanks a lot good to see you. >> thank you coming up when we return, we're going to speak exclusively with the head of instagram that the platform just unveiled to make money. next, an interview with one of the most important people in aviation, the executive chair of air lease. he's not happy with boeing we'll explain why when "squawk" returns.

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we'll keep you ready for what's next. get started with a great offer, and ask how you can add comcast business securityedge. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. call today. welcome back to squawk as america makes progress, the cdc is changing travel recommendations in more than 100 territories. 61 countries in which the government has discouraged travel the cdc recommends travel when passengers are fully vaccinated. this is all good news for airlines they're still grappling with big problems brought on by the pandemic phil lebeau joins us with a special guest. phil. >> andrew, thank you very much let's bring in the executive chairman of air lease corporate. steven, you've long had your finger on the pulse of the airline industry as they're coming out of just a brutal year and a half, what's your sense in terms of how they

are positioned right now relative to how much debt they've taken on >> well, that's a good question. thanks, phil, for having me on the last year and a half has been brutal. the industry has lost virtually all of its profit since world war ii it's had to rely on significant help from the financial community, from government agencies, government guarantees, borrowings left and right. many airlines have mortgaged all of their assets. it is a very difficult situation but we are seeing blue sky ahead. this tremendous pent-up demand for travel, particularly in the discretionary side of the business and our long-term view still a strong recovery for the balance of '21 and very strong surge into 2022 and traffic recovery >> that recovery for a lot of airlines will be dependent upon or focused on bringing a new aircraft

a lot of those being ordered and being leased from you are boeing aircraft 737 maxes, 787 dream liners. last year you were very clear, very blunt about saying, look, boeing's had some problems in terms of delivering these aircraft and you said they need to get their act together. do you still feel that way about boeing >> very much so. we had a situation where in march of 2019 all of the maxes were grounded worldwide. we had to wait until the end of last year, end of 2020 for faa certification and the foreign authorities including the europeans just authorized use of the airplane earlier this year there's a number of countries like china, russia and others that have still not certified the max. there's great pent-up demand for the airplane but the production rates are much lower than they were before their grounding.

we've had some engineering issues a number of aircraft that were delivered earlier had to be grounded again for a period of weeks. so it's been a spotty recovery and then on 787s we've seen very, very significant challenges at boeing, particularly at the charleston, south carolina, facility the faa is all over them and the airplanes are not delivering right now. no 787s are delivering at this moment >> have you told this to dave calhoun and to stand diehl at boeing, have you said, look, what's the problem here? what have your conversations been like? >> they've been professional but i've been very open with them that this is not the boeing we know they have to meet their promises boeing has let down a lot of their customers. i think they're working very hard, putting a lot of resources on getting back on track, but

it's been a very, very difficult last two plus years with boeing. >> steven, you've seen a number of airlines that are starting up, whether it's avelo, whether it's breeze. david neilman's new startup. right now if you've got capital, there's access to aircraft how many startup airlines do you expect to last let's say five years from now >> i think we'll see as many as 50 to 70 airlines startup on a global scale with jet aircraft seating over 100 passengers. right now you have three ingredients that are helping start new airlines access to low cost capital, there's access to aircraft, both used and new at relatively favorable pricing and there's a lot of pilots and flight attendants and engineers so there is a labor supply that's available because many airlines have downsized. there's capital and there's aircraft those are the three primary

ingredients in the recipe to start a new airline. but it's going to be very competitive. the large carriers have learned how to deal with the new startups so it's going to be a very interesting landscape to watch over the next several years. some will survive, no question about it. >> steven, i want to go back to what you said a minute ago you think this is not the same boeing that you used to be dealing with you've said as much. what do you think went wrong what happened? how did all of these problems come about at least from a customer's perspective >> well, i think the biggest issue that i see looking back 20 years is boeing used to be the leader introducing airplanes like the 747, the 777, the 787 in the last five or six years i feel like they've allowed airbus to spend more money on r&d and basically take market share away from them, particularly in the narrow body, the single aisle family the combination of the a320

neohas departmented boeing's share on 737s. that's the bread and butter airplane for boeing. and the very sad story with the two accidents and the investigations all demonstrated that boeing could have done a better job so i think there was a leadership problem i feel that the board of the company was a little disconnected from what was going on in seattle and then you have the tremendous pressure from congress on the faa oversight. so i think it was a culmination of all of these things coming together that has put a lot of pressure on boeing then we had the pandemic we had the grounding of the 737s no question boeing's had tremendous challenges. they've got to work their way out of it. we have a duopoly. we can't have a situation where we have one dominant aircraft manufacturer we're going to work with boeing. we have a long partnership that

goes back by 45 years. we're going to work very hard with them to make sure they do what they have to do to get back on the right track >> the types of problems that you're talking about, not investing enough, those are problems that take place years and years before the inefficiencies or problems actually kind of sprout up and people can see them. >> exactly. >> they've made a lot of management changes do you think the management changes have been sufficient >> well, you can change the lineup in the orchestra, but if the music doesn't sound good to the audience, it doesn't matter. changing people just for the sake of changing leadership titles is not going to solve the problem. boeing has to look at the future what are the kind of airplanes that airlines will need with all of the environmental challenges, regulatory challenges? what is the airplane type that airlines will need 5, 10, 15 years from now

boeing needs to invest the 737 is a wonderful airplane but it's been in operation since 1967 we have an airplane design, the basic design has been around 54 years. it's time for a new technology airplane that will give airlines and the public greater efficiency, better economics, better environmental footprint so the airlines can make money with it and yet meet the challenges that we're facing on the environmental front. >> steven, thank you very much for joining us we know you will always give us candid commentary not only just about boeing but the industry. we appreciate you joining us as i send it back to you, it is important to note that when you look at what's going on in the aircraft market right now, while the airlines are still stru struggling, there is what you're seeing from a number of the carriers the recycling or reordering of aircraft looking for more fuel efficient aircraft

that's just starting i think we're going to see that continue over the next couple of years. >> i agree. >> thank you, phil thank you for bringing us that interview. >> thank you, steven. when we come back, it's been a year since racial justice protests swept the country after george floyd's death america's biggest companies made promises to help have they delivered in the past 12 months? we'll speak to the president of ayndnaacp legal defense fu st tuned, you're watching st tuned, you're watching "squawk.ttle more. ♪ ♪ the feeling someone's always there, ♪ ♪ just to show how much they care. ♪ ♪ the feeling you're not alone, ♪ ♪ now she's a part of your home. ♪ ♪ with so much to protect each day, ♪ ♪ caring goes a long, long way. ♪ ♪ nationwide is on your side. ♪♪ no one likes to choose between safe or sporty.

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it's been a year since corporate america pledged to focus on diversity in the wake of george floyd's death. a recent analysis shows that some progress is being made in board rooms. according to iss corporate solutions, there's been a 200% increase in board directors for s&p 500 companies. 148 companies appointed a black director between july of 2020 and may of this year that's up from 52 in the prior year overall numbers still remain low. iss says that just 10% of directors of s&p 500 are black joining us right now to talk more about what needs to be done is sherrilyn ifill thanks for being here. first off, let's just say where

do you think we've come? how much progress has been made? >> thanks so much. i'm glad to be with you. the fact that we're having this conversation this morning is evidence that this is now a mainstreamed conversation about corporate responsibility when our democracy is in crisis i'm using that language very specifically because i think when we talk about racial justice, we need to center it in a conversation about the strength of american democracy and last year as you indicated there were many corporations who came forward and pledged their commitment many gave money to civil rights organizations and other organizations working on these issues the issue of diversity in the board room became more urgent and all of those are important but then we got to this past spring and as we saw with the voter suppression legislation being promulgated in georgia and other places, many corporations kind of hit a misstep.

they didn't understand the connection between what was happening this spring with the passage of these voter suppression bills and the commitment they made last summer i think that's where we need to really explore the conversation about what is the nature of the commitment, what is the responsibility of corporations, what can we expect from them and what should we expect from them. >> sherrilyn, i'm glad you brought that up. it was a lot easier to book people to talk about this a year ago than it is right now this is an issue that corporations were very eager to come out and talk about last year since then there's been a lot more push back i think they're feeling the bite, whether it be from elected officials or whether it be from their customers. i just wonder whether you think this has staying power or whether this is something that gets kind of pushed under the back burner at this point? >> at this point i would say to corporate leaders, you don't have a choice because i do think

that the strength of american democracy is very much in peril. last summer there were protests in 50 states, multi-racial protests after the video of the murder of george floyd was released the largest mass civil rights protests we have seen in this country ever, and i think every decent person was so moved and repulsed by that video that they felt compelled to move of course it's impossible to sustain perhaps that level of engagement and passion that people felt when they saw that video, but if you're sitting where i sit in the work that i do, you see videos every week of ongoing police violence against unarmed african-americans. if you sit where i it sit sit, you are in litigation in multiple states challenging laws restricting access to the polls. if you are passing laws to keep your fellow citizens from participating in the political process, if you are passing laws after voters stood in line nine

hours to vote in the primary and you decide to pass a law that you can't give water to people standing in line to vote, that's a democracy problem. corporations should be deeply concerned about anything that threatens the integrity of american democracy corporations have been in the past we should remember there were 400 corporations that signed on to briefs in 2015 encouraging the supreme court to support marriage equality. corporations have been signing on to amicus briefs and talking about the importance of diversity in their corporations. it's not as though they haven't taken steps. the question is what is the reason for the misstep now and when we're in a situation of crisis, which i honestly believe this country is in, what is the responsibility of the corporation which benefits from all of the resources and all of the freedoms that go along with american democracy there have to be

responsibilities that go along with that. they're not just responsibilities to the shareholders for profits. >> what are you asking of corporate leaders right now? >> well, in 1886 the supreme court issued in a throw away line called santa clara county versus southern pacific that corporations were persons for purposes of the 14th amendment that has given corporations the ability to act as citizens to sue as they did in citizens united and to receive all the protections of the constitution like a natural person would. well, the natural person like me or like you has responsibilities to american democracy. we, too, are citizens. so i think that corporations have to see their role in that way. of course they have a responsibility to shareholders and that's one of theirprimary interests, but in moments where there are core issues that affect our democracy, corporations have to speak out they have to make demands of their colleagues and of their clients and they should be

unafraid to do so. i think corporations need an infrastructure within the corporation that is looking at a set of social responsibility issues it's not limited to dei. it's not limited to diversity and inclusion. we want to see the numbers of diversity keep ticking up. that's vitally important it's wonderful to see some of the corporations expand to women on the boards and ceos, but we need a commitment to american democracy and willingness to speak when necessary to address the crisis that we're currently in. >> some corporate leaders will say i'm not capable of being able to track every state's voting laws. i don't know the ins and outs about it they hear push back from customers and elected officials. they say the laws are less restrictive than in states like new york or connecticut. as a corporate leader, they probably at some point say this is a little more complicated or

complex than i can really track and it's not my primary job focus. what do you say to that? >> i do get that i really do. it's one of the reasons i stay engaged. it's important to have good information. i think we all know we are in a moment in this country where the truth itself is constantly under attack part of the threat to our democracy is the pretense that there is no truth. the good thing about being a lawyer and a litigator like me is i actually get to read the statute and the statute says the words that it says and i actually try to be an honest broker in the space in providing information to corporate leaders about what the bill does say you have to decide what you believe is truth and not truth there are issues that are not particularly complicated i would love to see them all come together. i don't think there's any corporate leader that what we saw on january 6th is consistent

with american democracy and consistent with a healthy democracy. i would have hoped corporations last fall would have issued a collective statement indicating that the peaceful transfer of power is critical to american democracy and to the economic vitality of our democracy. we're not seeing statements collectively even around things frankly that i think are easy, are not complicated. so i actually challenge the idea that this is too difficult because i actually haven't seen the kind of commitment that i would expect to see around moments when it's very clear we're in crisis and we need to hear from the leadership of this country and the leadership includes business leaders. >> sherrilyn, thank you for your time and perspective it's great having you. >> thank you. coming up when we return, an interview you don't want to miss with the head of instagram we'll talk about the company's new bids trying to keep creators happy. plusthme, e me stock era

all of that and more when "squawk" returns yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done.

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coming up, jim cramer's first take on the trading day ahead. then the head of instagram joins us live. don't go anywhere, "squawk" returns after this

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new chapter. wellness, well done. let's get down to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer joins us. jim, what should we talk about today? i know you were tweeting earlier about the bitcoin interview andrew did earlier this morning. >> i listened in because andrew was trying to deal with facts.

i often find that to be a good thing when we're journalists and the guest herself had her own set of facts remember during the previous administration, andrew, when you had two sets of facts? >> yes. >> but only one of them actually i think was accurate so i thought that was pretty exciting you guys had an amazing show this morning you're kind of capturing everything from the meme to the actual of course to cryptocurrency. >> what do you make on the meme side of things for example, we're obviously seeing clover continue to move higher this morning. >> they're taking them all up, andrew everything but lord's town we're seeing anything related to meme and now of course we're taking up things like westport they're taking up clean energy fuels which has one probable year in ten. they're going for anything, andrew you have to figure out which one is next. it's like you have to define that i don't know you need to figure this stuff out. it's exciting, fun and real.

>> if you're a long-term investor i don't think this is a game to play if you're going to play it, how do you even begin to think about it >> well, if you're going to play it, i think that you can -- i don't know, go to the casino these should be offered at the casino, right, andrew? why are they offered at the new york stock exchange. wynn, macao, wouldn't that be a better place. >> i agree with you. you're gary gensler, this is happening real time in front of you. >> right. >> what should you do? >> i think gary ought to have a series of town meetings explaining how stocks work i know that melissa mentioned the term naked short and people went nuts. i talked about how wendy's moved -- i think he ought to do what arthur leavitt did. town meetings explaining to people how if you do something like this you have to recognize it can end badly, it can end well we have the gamestop meeting

we ought to have education going out of the sec go back to the old days. instead of being quiet and lassez-faire, let's get back in. we've got young people coming into the market. we have 10 million people in re reddit, they need to be educated that's the solution, andrew. i know that's old-fashioned but i think it would help. a lot of money has to be lost. i like people to make money as long as they understand it's not a game it's not a game. >> jim, i did see you weighing in on lord's town this morning as well. it's funny, i was reading about lord's town and thinking i wonder if this is going to be one that the reddit crowd or the wall street bets crowd jumps in. you have to imagine there's a big short position specifically taking place from lord's town based on what you're hearing. >> oh, lord's town, i've had them on. they're challenged when you have the going concern.

you don't need to kind of augment that it's obviously they're in big trouble. but i think this group is not in trouble. i think lucid is not in trouble. i think they've got really interesting business models and maybe should be bought i'm seeing a lot of stocks because of clover people are going back to these stocks they have to know what they're doing and only through education can they do that we have to talk about the -- we have to explain the sec has to, again, have town halls explaining to people what investing means. i think people know more about having to hit on a 16 if the dealer's got a queen i think there's more knowledge about black jack than there is about these. there's more knowledge about sports betting than there is stocks we can change that but the government has to recognize that they have a role and the role is education. gensler knows that he wrote a really good book, but if they just do it lassez-faire, a lot of money will be lost. >> it's not easy to do

>> a shame. >> i can see the sec setting up a seminar, learning more about stock trading. versus you want to watch gambling, betting on sports, see what happens at the craps table. >> but you don't know. leavitt did it they had town hall meetings and they worked. maybe we get some of the more exotic mad attendees people in a room and have them talk about why they do what they do have the options guys who have no choice but to sell calls and they can't hedge, tell them what they do. and just educate i don't know what else to say. if we don't educate, then we're not doing our jobs because otherwise it is just gamefication and gambling and we shouldn't support that. >> jim, we will see you in just a few minutes. >> thank you for the time. i really appreciate it. >> thank you great to see you. >> great to see you. instagram making a big play for influencers. it kicked off the first ever creator week

it's going to be easier to open shops, to sell merchandise and creators will be able to earn more money when people buy enough badges to support them during live videos also instagram is going to be testing what's called a native affiliate tool allowing people to earn money for purchases they inspire others to make joining us to talk about all of it is the head of instagram, adam mosseri thank you for waking up early on the west coast it is a big week it does feel a bit to me, i don't know if it's a business model shift, but i'm curious when you think about the shift how much of it you think ultimately will be a business model shift if we look at what instagram looks like two or three years from now. >> in general i think it's our job to try and identify how the world is changing and make sure we lean into those broader shifts one of the most important ones is the shift in power from institutions to individuals. sports is a good example

athletes are more relevant than teams for the first time in history. we think creators, people whose personalities are their brand and they make a living online, are an important part of that shift. people want to see the world through the eyes of those they aspire to be like. they want to see what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. we want to lean into that shift and a key thing we need to do is help creators make a living. we aspire to have millions of creators make a living across all of our apps. the announcements are one step on that longer path. >> if we do have this conversation when you look at a place like instagram will it be advertising driven or what i imagine will be a commission oriented business where you will capture a piece of what the creators are capturing. >> i think it will be predominantly an advertising business to be clear, creators generate an immense amount of content

which we advertise against so it's very symbiotic for us there's got to be a range of different ways for creators to make a living. we announced yesterday mostly in the space of commerce. marketing, creators can tag products they love, earn a commission and new tools around creator shops. a lot of merchandise but there's other things we can do in the space of allowing users to pay for dated content, or tipping, or digital goods, and there's obviously ride share as well which we experimented with in the video space. if we're going to be the best home for creators online, we will have to offer a suite of these products because there is a lot of competition and it's heating up fast. >> speak to the issue of how you're going to be splitting the revenues between the creators and instagram itself and how that may differ from some of the other platforms. >> so we also announced this week that for all of the products where users actually

pay creators directly, we're waiving all fees to the end of next year. we think it's an important way to signal exactly what we will be taking and what creative artists can make over the long run, we also signal that we will take less than the 30% that companies like apple take for digital transactions, because we just quite frankly think that's too high and not sustainable but we wanted to make sure we signaled to the market where we're going and particularly creators, so that they can make educated decisions about where to place, or where to spend that time, i should say. >> how is ha going to work on a platform like ios? meaning is apple going to still be taking a piece of that? >> it depends on the specific products so when there are digital transactions that happen on ios, apple insists that they take 30% of that, there's a very few number of exceptions so for transactions that happen directly in ios, we have to abide by the rule, it's their

playground, they set the rules, we have to abide by those, but in general, we will look for other ways to help creators make a living and transactions that will take place, where sometimes we can help brand creators and vet each other and find each other and they can make those transactions happen. so if you're looking at marketing, it's real good, it's about digital goods and they're the apple store, or the general app store, those takes don't apply so we try to lean into places where creators can actually make a statement. >> and do you think that rules have around the app store at 30%, do you think that's fair, should they be able to determine what that price is >> i will say that they have an immense amount of power. they own one of the most important operating systems in the world and they can dictate those rules with very little oversight. i think it is hard to justify taking such a large cut of a transaction that you don't facilitate directly but i don't get to set the rules, they do.

>> the flip side, i'm sure somebody at apple would say, should facebook set the rules for the prices on advertising, at facebook? >> it's a reasonable rhetoric, and i would say, reasonable retort but i would say our prices for advertising are auction based and there are ways that we are involved and in general, we believe in free markets, we believe that allowing the demand to set the price, and as a result, you will see our prices move, not radically but move up and down based on our ability to generate more supply but also our ability to deliver value for advertisers and at the end of the day, we need to decide what we're going to spend as an advertiser and we think that's important >> one big policy shifts that you also made was the likes or not likes policy which is to say that the user now can keep the heart and you can see the heart count on a post or you can remove it. take us inside the discussion about that, and also the issues

around sort of online addiction, kids and comments and all of that >> yes, so this is a product that was near and dear to my heart. essentially what we did was test, making the like counts private, so only you would know how many likes you got and it was, you know, it took a long time, because we got sidetracked by a lot of things in 2020, as most of our teams did, actually i think as most of the world did. the hope was to depressurize instagram a little bit so allow people to focus on how many like, less on the likes andthe people that inspired them and connecting with their friends. in practice, even though it was a really big change, it actually changed much less than i thought it would about how people use instagram or how people feel about instagram and the same for facebook, both instagram and on facebook but people felt really strongly about it it was really polarizing, one way or the other and it's important to me personally that people feel really good about the time that they spend on the platform

on instagram and i think two big key pieces to that, to make sure that people understand how instagram works but to also give them control over the experience. to give them choice. and so this was, i think a really great ending for us, it allowed us to give you the decision to shape instagram into what you think is best for you >> do you think it's a good idea for children to be on this and to build product for children >> yes, so i mean i'm a father, it is something i always take very seriously, but i think two things are true. one is that those that are 13 today want to be on instagram and social media products more broadly and two for an age demographic where people don't have i.d.s it is incredibly difficult to verify age, we do a lot of work in the space, we're getting better but it is a really tough ask, so in that world, i have to believe that it's more responsible and better for everyone for parents to have some oversight and control over their kids' experiences online

than for kids to just lie about their age, and go rogue. and if i know my boys, who are too young right now, but they are mi chee vous as can be -- mischievous as can be, and i'm sure they will lie if we don't come up with an alternative solution and we may get a lot of criticism but i think it is our responsibility to do the right thing? >> we're up against a break, but the meme stocks ark lot of people using instagram to promote stocks and i am wondering if the s.e.c. could and should regulate media sites like yours over these issues. >> so i don't know about weighing in on the regulation specifically but i think this all has to do with that shift of power from institutions to individuals. it's pretty wild in this case, it's a little bit concerning for obvious reasons i should ask you the same question but i think what we're seeing is not a trend that is going to go away, it's going to continue, and i think it's something we need to take seriously, but we haven't seen a lot of this activity on instagram but we're keeping a close eye on it. >> i think it's coming, if it's

not there already, adam, it's coming soon. appreciate seeing you this morning. hope to see you live and in person maybe on a live instagram at some point. talk to you soon. >> sounds great. >> absolutely. >> my pleasure. >> thank you. we will see you all tomorrow that's it for us today, becky's voice will be with us tomorrow >> let's hope. i feel like it's come back a lot. >> it has come back a lot. >> thanks for watching "squawk on the street" is coming aerhis.

good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla, jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. futures remain range-bound as we await tomorrow, and in the meantime, meme stocks will get more action, the president goes to europe for the first overseas trip 10-year below 1.5 for the first time since may 7th the road map begins with the rise of a new crop of reddit fueled names clover, wendy's and others joining the ranks. and merck's set to supply the u.s. with an oral covid-19 treatment, an antiviral treatment, to treat mild to moderate patient