here on cnbc courtney reagan. >> he did. thank you. taking a quick look at markets. fading gains dow up now only about 56 points or 0.1 of 1% does it for "squawk on the street." "techcheck" starts right now. ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa big day today. why gamestop has obsession with amazon, plus news from microsoft and ryan cohen will not like then, if you can take the heat, get of you 0 the app store creators feeling pressure from tim cook and fighting back later, put a sock in it. bill ackman make as piff to retail investors de >> he does, indeed also ahead this hour, paypal

mafia member max lev if chen, and tech stocks to watch this a.m. as the street makes calls on zoom, fastly, servicenow and more jon? >> first news out of microsoft that can only be bad for gamestop announcing xbox is actively working with tv manufacturers to invent a cloud-based gaming experience into smart televisions with no additional hardware needed to play outside of a controller basically a netflix for television, and this could push gaming business beyond the console making gamestop in particular, despite its relatively strong earnings last night look more and more like block buster video, continuing to rely on sales of hardware either in-store or online. not software to supply growth. carl, what we've increasingly seen happen is whether you're talking microsoft or amazon or,

i mean, down the line. google others moving to this streaming model for gaming trying to bring it to the cloud. that cuts out the middleman. i mean, look at unity, look at -- what we see tim sweeney doing. also with epic i mean, all of this is fitting into this new gaming economy, which would be bad for gamestop. they get cut out of. >> yep it's true. it's part of the reason we've spent part of the morning, de, talking about the street's reaction to ryan cohen's memes wedbush and baird saying gotten you this far that's great little debt, raised money. enthusiastic shareholder audience, but, it's not enough as baird said. memes are not dog food and investors deserve more in order to put a long-term valuation on your business model. >> okay. let me put this out there, then. trying to think like a reddit investor, is this necessarily bad? i mean, gamestop, its whole

transformation isn't built on it being a middleman necessarily. it's built on increasing its software and ecommerce service so if microsoft speeds up this sort of shift to the metaverse and gamestop is able to position itself for that next era. >> how, though >> could this be benefit, jon? >> no. >> look at-the-business up 91% past quarter and want to go into nfts nfts will likely be needed in a future metaverse that's not left behind. >> how many funkos do you have to sell to make up for the margin that you miss from selling a $500 xbox? people aren't coming in, gaining loyalty to buy games because streaming directly from their tvs. that's bad you become either black buster or quickster right? remember, netflix had that ecommerce business before, and -- and went direct that's gamestop's future, unless

they figure out some way to get into the business that, i don't know, applovin is in and unity and based so far, i don't see it. >> okay. then, playing devil's advocate. >> needs one this morning. go for t. okay go for it. why can't it be an amazon? a lot of the believers, the hoddlers will say amazon started with books and transformed its business i know, we hear this from many, many companies large and small that that he have an amazon-like model to justify huge losses or businesses no the growing yet at the pace they think they should. just saying, the gaming industry is ripe for this type of disruption we talk about it all the time. gamestop now that capital behind it ryan cohen, as well as a bunch of amazon executives why can't they make that transition >> i think the question would be, can they create their own cloud gaming platform?

do they need to become a gaming studio do they need to become like a zynga, right or a jam city? if they can become a game publisher somehow and make money on that end of it, assemble gamers on their platform and leverage them, become like a discord, i see that. that's not ecommerce that's not becoming -- >> de, interesting interesting to see whether this amazon diaspora that migrated to gamestop will be diversion of "frazier" after "cheers" or after "m.a.s.h.," after "m.a.s.h." >> i don't und those >> i was afraid of that. >> i know. i'm sorry. keep them coming, though. >> not just canadian. >> we will continue. >> a differ generation than we are in a way, carl at least half generation >> i will look that up

though. moving on, apple finding new critics from content creators. fan host founder jasmine rice went full it attack mode on twitter calling apple's commission fee "theft and exploitation." other companies like cameo also joining in, and there is, of course, ep uk games which is suing apple over the fees it charges with the app store in epic apple insists it's the cost of doing business and keeping a safe market plplace intact several high ceos took apple's side here we have an interview from a few weeks ago. >> snapchat wouldn't exist without the iphone and amazing platform apple created so in that sense i'm not sure we have a choice about planning the 30% fee, and, of course, happy to do it in exchange for all of the amazing technology that they provide to us. inners it of software, also in terms of hardware advancements. >> then there is unity ceo and

former chief have a listen. >> i know this is hard to reconcile, but we're actually really friendly with epic, seeing there and friendly with apple. an important business partner with us. step back a moment from perspective of the app stores. that 30% figure across the range, pretty much every app store is at about a 30% break from the console companies to pc distribution stores and app stores >> and now we're going to hear from the other side. here to break it all down, two critic's of apple's app store, a content creator and ceo steve galanis. thank you for being here to you both. >> thank you. >> hello. >> to speak of the point, jasmine, you first, would this exist in its current form without the app store? >> i think this is tricky here

it's yes and no. directly to your question, current form, no right? a lot of our creators rely on this app to be able to connect to their fans, to be able to sell their content to fans and able to make an income because we know everyone is on their phones without being on the app store, this would hurt creators' revenues for sure. >> okay. stephen, same question to you. would cameo exist in its current form without the app store >> yes, it would interestingly, cameo today over 80% of our revenue comes from web versus app part of the reason is, like jasmine, we were actually kicked out of the app store three years ago, and in our business we have a 25% take rate. so effectively, what's happening is any cameos built, that are booked on ios, creator gets 52.5%. cameo makes less than apple from cameo's business the big issue here is that if apple continues these policies, it's putting a tax on creators

imagine if uber drivers were interviewed vee host had to pay 30% for physical waiver. big difference that apple looked at digital creators, they really thought this was a digital good. like a coin in the game, where there's no margin's cost, but this is real people doing real work pup see the biggest platforms in the creator economy, a lot of the work is happening on the web fans and on twitch, most of revenue is coming from web so if apple continues this, the big issue they'll have is the creator academy will be built on web and off platform >> huh so that's fascinating. jasmine, wonder if you can speak to the psychology of a content creator in the wake of what epic and the stand they've made, all right, what they've done where's the willingness right no to simply walk to say, look, we can do this elsewhere, unless you bring down your fees? is that a conversation that creators are actively having >> i -- i think -- i mean, we

talked to all of our creators. i am as much as creator myself we can exist on web, but it will just be so much harder right? in that notifications, that brings people to opening the app. brings people to consuming the content there. and apple knows this apple knows that it's kind of running monopoly and why its taxing 30% and kind's like, pay this or you're out for small developers and small -- there's really no choice here. that's why i use the words i use. i said the exploitation, because it's very much oppressive when you're not giving people a choice. >> jasmine, i hear you, and, you know, i hear so many small businesses who have what sounds like legitimate beefs with especially apple's inconsistency sometimes in the app store what i don't get is why people think they have the right to decide how much apple charges for placement in its own store

i mean, you called it a monopoly but both said web is an option, same time. suggesting to me it's clearly not a monopoly, just a really nice store and you'd like to be there. you yourself made $35,000 in a month there, in a sanitized way, only fans, i should point out, and it's over the web. right? so -- so what's the problem? >> so -- >> the issue. >> sorry that was to jasmine. >> i will say the model is very different and to be explicit, only fans is corner content ap completely different consumption structure when you have the lead verse an interactive community will people are messaging the entire time, right it relies on more in-app notifications for that that said, comparing apple to

the web, the web doesn't charge people to have browsers on it. or, yeah, charges domain fees and developer fees, but none of them becomes 30% of an individual contractor. similar what stephen said. right? we don't think about charging uber drivers 30% for every drive they do. that would be ridiculous we believe that that's their labor, that they pay for and apple needs to learn creator literacy and think how it's a real job and income people rely on same as uber drivers. >> stephen, your creators are celebrities that are able to increase their earnings thanks to your platform i wonder, do they care about the 30% commission do you think you can harness some of them and perhaps some of their celebrity and star power in this argument that you're making against apple perhaps not a legal battle as we see from epic, more of a p.r.

one or appeal to apple's, you know, senses in terms of getting more people, especially high-profile ones onboard with this fight >> look, we hear about it all the time one of the other issues that isn't talked about as much with the limitations of anin-app purchases that affects cameo, for example, that in-app purchases limited creators from charging no more than $999 on cameo, there are actually a lot of top talent that aren't even able to be in the app for us which you know, obviously it creates a worst customer experience, and, look, there's so much to jasmine's point there is so many great tools that you can build in the app. look, cameo has a 4.9 star app we're doing our best to work within the system, but it's putting an unfair tax on creators, and we hear about it all the time. >> and last one, stephen, are you prepared to, then, have your app taken off the app store? said beginning cameo would exist

in its current form. >> we had done that. one of the issues, when out of the app store for a while it was a limited -- really a situation -- something we were out of the app store but actually disabled bookings in the app. imagine, deirdre, talking about our business and describing cameo to someone and people say cameo is an app that, that you can't purchase ar down to two stars. we ended up putting bookings back in the app. i mentioned about 20% of our business right now, and we're a 4.9 star app today we're happy to be in there we just love to work with apple and, again, this is not about cameo, not about fan house this is about creators and this is about making sure that creators are getting more than 52.5% of the work they do on a lot of these platforms. >> yeah. and if i can chime in -- >> you guys bring this angle yep? >> sorry you mentioned earlier, too, that it is fair and from the statements of the feel that you

showed, that they do provide value. we absolutely agree. stephen and i would be happy to pay apple something from our revenue share. right? we take 10% cameo takes 25%, and creators can still walk away with majority of their income if we get to pay our profits. the way apple's policies apply, take 30% of the entire thing. >> one last thing to mention -- >> an important distinction. >> yeah. one last thing i'll mention, too, part of the customer's problem is that the app store doesn't allow you to download an app off the, off apple our creators are paying a 3% rate to strike on web bookings and literally 10x higher in the app store. really is a big tax on the creators, and we're just trying to stand up for the creators making sure they're getting as much of their hard work as they deserve. >> well, we really appreciate you bringing the creators' angle to this. really important talk a lot about the developer

angle. thank you both very much >> thanks, guys. >> thank you. we mentioned it before gamestop's obsession with amazon a firm ceo max levchen and monday.com goes public on a thursday a big hour of "techcheck" that's just getting started it's another day. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. get ready for it all with an advanced network and managed services from comcast business. and get cybersecurity solutions that let you see everything on your network. plus an expert team looking ahead 24/7 to help prevent threats.

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affirm and shopify out with a deeper partnership buy now pay it later company affirm launching a new venture exclusively powering shopify's shop pay installments. the program allows you to pay in four installments now available for all 107 million shop pay users. early access to the service available to more than 12.5 thousand merchants companies using installments already, average order volume up to 50%higher than with other payment methods. joining us now is affirm co-founder and ceo max levchin, we occasionally mention he founded paypal, and in this digital payment space for a long time max, we've been talking a lot

about inflation, higher prices happening, and the impact on the economy on consumers i wonder what you see in buying behavior and what this means for sellers when you're able to break the payments down this way? >> first of all, thank you for having me. exciting for us. this was a long time coming, this purchase, and could not be more thrilled to talk about it buying behavior in general we're seeing a significant acceleration in consumer sentiment about saying, "yes" to things ed to to say no to themselves for so long. fre amount of demand in all kinds of places. travel down relative to 2019, yet growing very rapidly we saw fiscal q2 with a triple -- fiscal q1 for us not the growth you normally expect a tremendous number of, all kinds of relationships got

postponed, weddings, fancy outfits not a thing in 2020 now in extreme demand. seeing growth in all sorts of places and maybe counter intuitive, learnings that people had about working out in their home or cooking more often, because you can't go to a restaurant is not slowing down which is quite interesting lastly, touch on inflation an interesting topic obviously, inflation fear is something you have in an accelerating economy the thing that's interesting about firm, we become more valuable in a higher interest rate environment, because more than half of our volume is interest-free. 0% is that much more compelling if you are a shopper looking at a price that just went up. >> yeah. we were just talking to creators about apple's app store. and such big players in the digital economy. amazon, on the ecommerce side for sure

shopify, though, attempting to provide tools and options to smaller business a different option, perhaps, than being a third-party merchant through amazon. how much of this is about that flexibility, giving it to merchants, giving it to small business and applying technology tools? how important is that going to be >> exactly right shopify's fundamentally about bringing modern top-end technology tools to very massive merchants. hundreds of thousands of merchants eligible for shop pay installments that we're announcing today, and lots of other really great tools by shopify and by a developing system they've created these are, most, anyway, tiny businesses that would never have access to these kind of tools. very excited to partner with them the reason they chose us is because we are a technology-first, technologist-led company, in bringing these tech tools to these businesses that would normally be disadvanced. a huge part of their mission and

super excited to contribute do that. >> max, talking about the consumer's willingness to spend in the face of rising inflation. bank of america has a chart out today looking at existing home sales. growth slowed. versus furniture sales, now echoing that slowdown. i wonder, if you've got the consumer starting to think about how things maybe more expensive in the future, at what point does that start to suppress instinct to spend all the savings you've accumulated >> if i knew how to forecast consumer sentiment i would probably be -- i can't complain. our firm's doing fantastically, but it's always very hard. throw my head against the wall that said, we're not seeing a slowdown in our category, especially things like connective business and lifestyles my guess is that things are going to keep growing strong,

although some are ominously distributed. >> and pharma announced it raised money at a nearly $46 billion valuation. its ceo says it plans to use the capital to further expand in the u.s., where it says it is already leading among merchants. why should merchants choose affirm over other players that may have a bigger footprint, also overseas? >> well, u.s. merchants, my guess, probably want to go with a u.s. leader. i respectively disagree. i think we are the u.s. leader, and i think with this launch on shopify with hundreds of thousands of u.s. eligible merchants, and hopefully millions to come we're solidifying that position nap said, we are different the thing that makes us quite different from the rest of the pack is, we don't do others well, and we can do others, the things that others won't never charge add money of late

fees and continue abiding by a total transparency stance. that's fundamental to us and a huge part of our brand and value promise and why shopify partnered with us, and as i said, we are a tech company first. we build things that we see missing in the space the thing you can expect as a customer, we will continue create things that are very new thash , not seen before, and you want to partner with a lieder, leader is the place. >> before you go, talking interest rates a bit savings. a few days ago shopping around trying to figure where you can still get a decent interest rate on savings happened to notice that affirm has a savings account option as well how does that financially interplay with the loans that you also do within the structure of your business >> the reason we launched

savings accounts thank you for considering being or becoming a customer, if you are, is because we've seen engaging deeper with customers helps us retain them better and help us be there when they need us and helps them make more responsibility financial decisions. telling them, we have tools for you, many cases interest-free, never gimmicks also, by the way, here's a tool to save. it's been really great look at the engagement levels and customer sanction levels upon those who open a savings account, even higher than what already think is a very, very impressive promoter score. primarily it's there to help our customers, and we are excited to ocher an excellent rate as well. >> yeah. i couldn't help but notice your rate's a little higher than goldman sachs marcus even. max levchin, thank you. >> thank you very much. and dogecoin is coming up.

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resetting here bottom of the hour welcome back to "techcheck." i'm carl quintanilla along with jon fortt and julia boorstin. >> and putting on edge, a news update first seema mody. >> reporter: happening at this hour inflation hitting a 13-year high consumer price index up 5% since last may one-month gain 0.6%. used car prices showing the biggest gains. bond yields largely unchange and this news. jobless claims continuing decline falling to another

pandemic low of 376,000. continuing claims posting their biggest drop in weeks and fell below 3.5 million for the first time since march of last year. cigna jewelers wowing investors with earnings 75% of investments of same-store sales doubling raising guidance shared rose as much as 22% this morning and as much as 10% at this hour. and home furnishing retailer beat q1 revenue. copy citing the housing market and record stock market. shares up now about 140% in the last year. jon, back to you. >> seema, thanks. talked earlier about creators issues with apple fees. julia boorstin has more why so many industries are feeling pressure now from tim cook, not just video creators. julia? >> that's right, jon apple's expanding options in its

ecosystem and building walls around its garden higher some companies are push aring back, as you just heard. just yesterday fanhouse joined the list of companies not wanting to pay apple 30% of creators, what they give to the app. this supports epical lawsuit against apple for the fees that apple charges. this is just the latest example of how many different industries are on edge about apple's broadening reach we just learned this week that apple's launching a paid podcast tool putting it further into competition with spotify and other music podcast platforms launching next week. and spotify file add complain in 2019 about apple's power in the app store prompting the eu to investigate competition concerns and apple's recent eenounsments spreads concerns as well journalists warning that apple's

mail blocking and email metrics could threaten the newsletter boom and, of course, device tracking system, tile accused of anti-competitive behavior claiming it isn't allowing them to track, and watching a new apple home care smart thermostats and security cameras. this comes as democrats circulate drafts of antitrust bills following a year l-long investigation. drafts could change and could limit ability of apple along with amazon to marketplace products and apps where they sell their own goods and apps. jon, a fascinating space to watch. >> it is, julia, but, you know, i like to argue with people. what can i say i think it brings out the facts, and helps people consider different angles when it comes down to it, there are more web browsers out there

than there are i iphones. more android phones than iphones. people seem to like the way apple has curated the ios and app store experience so people feel safe spending money there. so these creators have said, yeah, we could do it on web but we want the bells and whistles that apple adds into its ecosystem, but we don't want to pay for t dpo do you understand that >> jon, i'm in agreement apple offers a huge amount of value to consumers. apple might make my life easier integrating all the different services of theirs i use and i pay for. i do think that apple's arguing it's giving consumers what they want improving its tools for consumers and also offers appmakers and small businesses huge value in connecting them with so many consumers on this platform you mentioned earlier this hour. a lot of big app developers such as snap's spiegel said they

wouldn't exist without apple apple has a very strong argument with antitrust and what it's offering consumers fascinating to see all the ways apple is spreading out across the map and moving into all of these different businesses i mean, even look at the way apple's improving notes. its alternative to google docs and trying to make sure that its easier for user to stay within its own version of google docs rather than switching over so i think it will be fascinating to see how more of these companies react to this as apple's power grows. its functionality improves for people like us, jon, who love to use all of those tools. >> yeah. as power and functionality grows, also does the controversy. julia, thanks for extending that out for us. meantime, guy, ride the retail wave. be sure to get out in about two weeks. read the reasons why only on cnbc.com and meantime watch

zoom, upgraded this morning to a price target of 440. hybrid work should work out for shares in the long run shares up nearly 2.5%. a lot more "techcheck" straight ahead stay with us wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done.

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is doge hitting a home run ask the oakland as made sports history giving them a chance to buy tickets this season. have a listen. ♪ >> play ball >> nothing said summertime quite like a day at the ballpark and nothing says keep 2021 like purchasing those baseball game tickets, do you think? dogecoin. >> added ability to buy tickets with dogecoin. 450 transactions the first day. >> california's oakland athletics club becoming the first major league baseball team to sell game takes in exchange fop the meme cryptocurrency. >> saw opportunity to support the as and doge, we jumped on it. >> earlier this year the pro baseball team made full season suites available for one bit

c coin the question on many fans' minds, will transacting be digital bitcoin be an explosion across sports? no swing and miss -- just yet. >> you're out! >> for the entire piece take out your phones and scan the qr code you'll find an entire treasure-trove of content just like this, and, jon, they're serious about this oakland as are holding on to cryptocurrency taking in from this. >> right first "moneyball" now dogecoin i like it. and read this story on cnbc.com and watch fastly downgrading the stock. removing it $85 price target saying the recent outage to lead to customers looking for

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love the analogy gamestop's outgoing ceo george sherman may turn out to be one of the biggest winners in this meme stock era announcing his successor a former executive takes ceo job end of the month, and d.espite him pushed out, he is set for a huge payday if he sells. sherman's exit agreement calls for hiss 1.1 million gamestop shares, and sherman shares are worth more than $260 million big payouts for departing executives aren't unusual, guys, but usually tied for performance. gamestop's financial performance has not quite cut the pace with its 1400% rally in the stock this year. sherman joined gamestop back in april 2019

a few months after the company failed to find a buyer gamestop's fifth ceo since 2017 and he also pledged to turn the company around and the company reduced costs and debt while there, but revenue fell by more than $1 billion in his first year alone, and losses topped $680 million in the past two years combined guys, sherman's not alone. three other executives including cfo with that same accelerated vesting period question now, will they sell guys, back to you. >> wow quite a development, kate. appreciate that. peeking of which, one group of executives leaves, another crop comes in and all from the same place we just told you gamestop named matt furlong ceo and a new cfo both previously worked for amazon's consumer business those counting, five former amazon executives in the gamestop sea sweep.cto and a spl

proprietary tool calmed ly linkedin the search beginning typing amazon in the search bar de, years ago ge executives figured they wouldn't help run the company, highly courted by other management to come run their business clearly a generational shift that's gone to amazon. >> right we don't know how senior these guy was in the grand scheme of amazon, but have seen this management shift at the top over the last year. of course, jassy coming in taking over from jeff bezos. a few other bezos lieutenants leaving. one coming back, jon curious about the compensation package. right? we've seen a number of amazon executives leave the company mostly for silicon valley start-ups or venture capital firms. interesting to go to gamestop and you wonder what they're

offering in terms of pay and incentives with that incredible run this year already. >> and an investors, gamestop even with these skating to where the puck is or where the puck is going to be? ecommerce, selling physical goods and maybe individual software packages, software titles's shipping them maybe instead of people coming into the store. talking beginning of the show with microsoft xbox move will they be there in five years? yet to be seen we'll see what the strategy really is. okay moving on. ceo of monday.com, going public. through a traditional ipo. we will ask why after the break. meantime, watch shares of

servicenow, goldman adds the stock to its conviction buy list saying selling some revenue, should continue near-term fundamentals price target there, 695. and mcdermott told the story on thechcheck" not long ago see at there. "techcheck," back in two.

call it the case of the mondays here on thursday

productivity platform monday.com goes public at the nasdaq this morning in a traditional ipo, as we continue to await the opening trade there. it is a competitor with us this morning to talk about the company, the origin's monday.com aaron zinman is with us welcome. good to have you >> thanks. thanks for having me >> the company has a fascinating back story it was a spin-off from a prior company after 2010 can you talk about how you got to this point and sort of the space you are trying to carve out in workplace management? >> yes, sure so it has been an exciting journey since we started the company. so we started with a mission basically to give people the power to control their own software if you think about it, people have been using software for a very long time usually the way people use software is in a specific way. a software is built to serve a specific use company with monday.com we created a new type of how -- type of people that basically allows you to use software anyway you can imagine.

so you control kind of your own work flows, how you visualize information. so essentially giving the power to our users >> the number of customers, i think, is over -- almost 130,000. is this a small customer model or are you trying to attract large enterprise >> so we try to attract both through our marketing we get both s & bs but large enterprises to use our platform. we have customers over 7,000 people using monday.com's platform as we grow we enable the platform to accommodate more and more enterprise companies. >> among those that agreed to purchase some of the shares in a private placement at the ipo price includes zoom and salesforce's venture arm some pretty big names. can you talk about the relationship that you have with those two? >> yes so we have very long relationship with both salesforce and zoom. we actually have an integration in our platform for both, so it

has been a long relationship i think that investment is a testament to the fact that they both believe in the company and its future, so it is a great addition to our ipo process. >> we will watch for the opening trade, eran. congratulations to you look forward to talking to you in the weeks and quarters to come thanks >> thanks for having me. and up next, bill ackman pulls an adam aran and gets weird with a puppet. we will explain after the break. meantime, price target rates to 243 on u.p.s "techcheck" is back after one more quick break

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wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. one more thing bill ackman, whose spac pershing square ton teen holdings, last week announced its intention to acquire a 10% stake in the

upcoming music public offering for $4 billion he tweeted a link to a reddit video explaining the deal. >> you will get shares before kanye himself. how? because bill ackman can do [ bleep ] magic. this dude stole brad pitts girlfriend and married her this is bill ackman's world and we're just living in it. bill did that with $4 billion. he still has $1.5 billion left, so he's included another $5.25 share of this mystery company. no clue what it is yet, but knowing bill we probably don't [ bleep ] canada >> guys, i got to say i did not ever expect to see something like this on cnbc. despite playing to the wall street crowd, the stock as you can see here still down nearly 8% since the announcement, though it is up 1% today i don't know if you guys watched this, but despite all of the profanity -- >> oh, yes >> -- and some of the jokes or

maybe because of it, i actually thought it was a pretty good take on why you invest in a spac and sort of teasing out some of the nuances, and what a way to speak to a new cohort of investors. >> yeah. i mean are there disclosures in there? i don't know do there have to be, carl? >> he did tweet a disclosure >> yes, he tweeted a disclosure. carl, overwhelmingly what i want is for carl icahn to make a sock puppet video that responds to it and tries to take it down. that's what i want, though it won't probably happen. >> i have little to add, although i can't wait to ask gary gentzler about this one >> dee, this is certainly going to be one of those things, like the sock puppet before it from pets.com where we thought about it showing kind of the sign of the apocalypse before the dot-com bust, whether it is a bust or not i don't know

this is another sock puppet we are going to remember. anyway, meantime, tesla planning to roll out its new model s plaid today at the fremont plant in california, the higher end version of the model s will cost just under $120,000 and can go nearly 400 miles on a single cha. elon musk saying the car can go from zero to 60 in seconds carl some remote work, stay-at-home names back in the green led by zscaler, twilio and roku and zoom. chips, the sector is higher bring about 2% we did get new projections for semiconductor sales for next year, in the 8% to 9% range. faangs getting involved, amazon a leader in mega caps today, up about a percent and a half apple is the only laggard. for a while, apple was the only dow component that was read in a

day uniformly green at the open despite the cpi number we kept talking about the bond vigilantes where were this as was said, maybe the discuss returns into more a story of deflation versus transitory and we don't know which comes first, 1% or 2% on the ten-year let's get to "the half." all right, krarm thanks so much welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, a new record for stocks even as a read on inflation comes in hotter than expected so what does that say about the prospects for a summer sizzle? we'll debate with the investment committee. joining me for the hour, josh brown, brenda vingiello. steve weiss, pete najarian along as well. let me check the markets we mentioned the new record high nor the s&p brushing off the cpi report in fact, anything over 4232, that's the number to keep your eye on because it will be a new closing high we will discuss that and the question we raise at t