>> good morning. >> everyone. >> and welcome to. squawk box right here on cnbc. >> i'm becky quick. >> i am. >> live from the nasdaq market site in times square. joe is off today and andrew is live from davos in switzerland. and there. >> are so many headlines. >> that are coming out. i think from the interviews yesterday, andrew. maybe starting with jamie dimon talking about how he thinks stocks are overvalued at this point. it came on a day where the s&p once again was sitting at a fresh all time high. and that into the entire spat that took place between elon musk and sam altman. that was satya nadella getting drawn into things too. so some very interesting things that have been percolating. >> we're going to get into all of that. in just. >> a. >> moment because you're right.

>> the spat. >> did continue, and a lot of it actually emanated from the conversations we were having right here on squawk box with satya nadella, with marc benioff. elon musk taking to twitter, tweeting out some of those clips and things. but let's talk about what's going on today here in davos. >> huge lineup. >> of ceos to speak on our broadcast and then a huge lineup of executives making news here as well. the ceo of. >> honeywell. >> blackrock's larry fink is going to be joining us in just a little bit. we'll talk to him about jamie's comments, morgan stanley's ted pick and so much more. all of this coming ahead of president trump's speech to the world economic forum. that's going to happen a little bit later today, 5 p.m. local time. that's 11 a.m. in the united states. that's an address that's going to happen virtually. he's going to be in washington, d.c, but we will all be here watching it and analyzing it. i want to tell you ahead of head of that speech two other things. the president of argentina saying that he's proposing now to make

america, i shouldn't say make america great. he has a new phrase he's proposing to make the west great again. this is malay. and he said that i've been able to find allies in all corners of the world. and he specifically called out elon musk, viktor orban, benjamin netanyahu and donald trump. so he's making news this morning. there was another tech panel that's made a lot of news. and to the piece that you were talking about, i think we should i don't know if we. becky, do we have some of the tweets. maybe we can we. >> can we do. i think. >> we're. >> going. to get. >> to. >> it in just a moment. i think we're going to get to it in just a moment. they have a bunch of things laid out from yesterday. we're still trying to straighten out the timeline on some of those things. i think it was elon musk that kind of tweeted off the entire twitter storm. sam altman responding, before we get to that. also with with donald trump speaking there today, it's pretty interesting that there are some ceos there who are going to be asking questions of president trump. brian moynihan i know is among them, and i'm trying to. >> see who else for some. >> of them. but i think that

should make it pretty interesting to get the questions coming straight from the ceos on this to very quickly, before we talk about some of those tweets, let's take a quick look at the markets. things are flat right now for the dow s&p futures indicated off by about 11 points. the s&p futures indicated down by about 101. but you did have a very strong day for the markets yesterday. s&p touched a new record dow in the nasdaq. looking at this dow is at a six week high. the nasdaq has been on 3 or 4 sessions in a row where they've been straight up. and the nasdaq is at a four week high. you've also got chip stocks though that are weighing on the nasdaq right now. if you take a look at where that pressure is coming from, broadcom amd nvidia micron. those shares are down. micron the most. it's off by 3.5%. that comes after yesterday's gains though where the dow was up by 131 points. the s&p was up by 6/10 of a percent and the nasdaq was up by one third of a percent. we're also continuing to watch those treasury yields because believe it or not andrew, we've got another fed

meeting. a fed decision day with the fomc next week. the ten year yield has pushed back up to 4.63. the two year is at 4.3. >> meantime we have some news becky also just out in the last hour as we should tell you about britain's competition regulator saying it's now opened an investigation into apple and google's mobile ecosystems to determine whether they are in breach of the uk's strict new digital competition rules. the new rules allow the regulator to impose changes to prevent potential anti-competitive behavior, if it deems companies have a significant amount of market power. dubbed strategic market status now the watchdog is seeking to assess the position the companies hold in their operating systems, app stores and smartphone browsers. worth also noting, though becky, i don't know if you saw there was a story yesterday out of the eu suggesting that actually the eu was rethinking maybe some of how they're going to approach big tech in the united states, in part because of some of the things that trump has been saying and his vociferous support for those companies. so

i think the landscape, as we've been talking about all week here in davos, is shifting under our feet. >> yeah. and i. >> think we asked jamie dimon of that yesterday jamie dimon david solomon maybe both of them. just this idea that if you watch what's happening in the united states from the deregulatory look at things from the pro-innovation pro-business approach, who was it? i think it was jamie who said, yeah, they are. european leaders are looking at this very closely and realizing that they are going to have to adapt. otherwise they're going to look like a less much, much, much less attractive place for capex and for businesses to start doing business there. so it's interesting the impact it's having already. and one of our guests earlier this, i think it was brian moynihan on on monday or tuesday, pointed out that the difference this time around is everybody's reacting very quickly because the trump administration came out of the gate with so many things, so many moves that they were doing instantaneously. andrew, back to that big tech battle that was

heating up on x, the one you were alluding to just a moment ago. there was a big back and forth over stargate. stargate funding. elon musk posted this tweet from sam altman that altman had posted back in december of 2021. it said, very few people realize just how much reid hoffman did and spent to stop trump from getting reelected. it seems reasonably likely to me that trump would still be in office without his efforts. thank you reid. after that, openai sam altman posted. watching potus more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him. i wish i had done more of my own thinking and definitely fell into the mpc trap. i'm not going to agree with him on everything, but i think he will be incredible for the country in many ways. so this was the tit for tat, the pushing back and forth. remember, musk co-founded openai, but he's been battling with altman in recent years. he launched rival xai in 2023 and more recently sued openai and altman, accusing them of antitrust violations. but

andrew, then it really kicked off. you saw the tweet later from elon musk, where he was pulling up the clip of your conversation with satya yesterday where satya said, well, i don't know about this entire situation, but i know i'm good for my $80 billion. and elon posted that and said. >> yes, he is, because. >> i think we i think let's walk through that because i think we have it in terms of how that tiff sort of walked through. and i think we have the tweets right here to show you, because really what happened was after elon musk decided to effectively undercut president trump's announcement of the stargate project, which unto itself, i think is a remarkable thing, or at least worth remarking on, that musk, who's been so close to the president, seeing, of course, sam altman behind that podium and then effectively trolling the deal that the president was putting forth a commitment of up to $500 billion from openai, oracle, softbank and others to build ai infrastructure. then, in response to a post by openai

announcing the deal, musk said, quote, they don't actually have the money. he later claimed that softbank has well under $10 billion secured, and then altman took to twitter and said, wrong. as you surely know. want to come visit the first site already under way? this is great for the country, but here's where it gets, i think, very personal, he says. this is great for the country. i realize what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role, i hope you'll mostly put america with the american flag first. but there's been sort of a lot of lot of back and forth on this. then earlier this morning, musk retweeted a clip of the interview that i had done right here in davos with satya nadella and commented, on the other hand, satya definitely does have the money. and then to make this whole thing crazier, satya went and replied to him, said, and

all this money is not about hyping ai, but is about building useful things for the real world. so i think, i hope we've caught at least most of this. i should also say there was. i don't know if you saw the other. back and forth was one point. sam said. i genuinely respect this. as to elon, i genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time. but then the comments got personal and nasty after that. so there's it's i think it's sort of hard to keep track of the full timeline here, but it is watching it. i should also say. >> in real time. >> one thing that's just worth noting, becky talking just to so many of the financial folks, bankers, ceos and the like here, a lot of them, for better or worse, were actually siding with elon musk saying that right this moment. it is unclear whether they fully have $100 billion. i don't know if they have $100 billion committed or not, but a number of people raising that question. i remember we had raised that question ourselves,

even on the broadcast many, many weeks ago when. >> we. >> bring you news emerged, you know, the royal we, the royal we because, because, because the truth is that softbank technically, at this very moment has not raised $100 billion. and how they're going to do it, it may actually have to be a combination of equity and debt. but as one ceo said last night, you need the equity to get the debt. and we don't know how much of the equity they really have. so it depends. if they were to, they could pledge, you know, parts of arm, you know, which is which is owned by softbank or other things. so there's there are maybe ways to get what's the or it's not going to happen. >> what's the oracle part of all this. because they've got some money. >> oracle oracle's got a lot of money. but it may be that they're doing in-kind contributions in terms of they may be building some of these facilities themselves. so again i don't think we know the full extent of how this is all going to work. having said that, as sam altman said, and this was the other sort of irony of this, he said, we've already started building this because he's

inviting elon musk to go see it. you'll recall also, interestingly, at that session or two days ago at the press conference, they said this could not have happened without president trump as they're announcing it and then said that they started building it already. >> so that was larry ellison who made those comments at the at the press conference. >> it's all a little hard to. >> well, look, there's it's an interesting sort of dance that takes place. this had happened last, last go round in the administration with tim cook. i, i think it's a real feeling that people say, yes, we are more willing to commit capital, but there's also wanting to make sure that you are showing president trump that you are doing something, and there is some pageantry that comes with that, too. any event though, every executive i have talked to has. >> said. >> that they. >> feel. >> more confident about putting money to work. >> fascinating soap opera is playing out here on squawk and

online and wow. >> it's been interesting for sure. we're going to have more of all these conversations coming up. we will track and keep our eye on x to see if more things are posted along the way. in the meantime, though, today's biggest pre market movers, including a plunge for video game maker electronic arts, we will talk about those moves next and later charles schwab ceo rick worcester will join us in his first earnings interview since taking the top job earlier this month. that exclusive interview is coming up right here at 8 a.m. eastern time. squawk box will be right back. >> currency check is sponsored by interactive brokers. the best informed investors choose interactive brokers and interactive brokers. independent rias work with the best research and trading tools. >> designed to help them.

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electronic arts plunging after the video game maker slashed its full year guidance for bookings. it's blaming underperforming games, notably its soccer franchise. that franchise was renamed ea sports fc after the company's deal with fifa ended in 2022. the company said that a slowdown in that franchise in the prior quarter would hurt its online sales this year, and that warning comes ahead of ea's planned earnings report on february 4th. again, if you take a look at that stock, it's off by more than 15% this morning andrew. >> thanks, becky. when we come back right after this, a huge lineup from the world economic forum here in davos. the ceos of honeywell is going to join us after this. and then we've got larry fink from blackrock. talk about the davos vibes and his takeaways from president trump's first few days in office and what he thinks is happening in the markets right now. don't go anywhere. squawk box coming back right after this. >> break. >> executive edge is sponsored

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>> ha ha ha. >> you all should be. >> laughing harder. davos 2025 andrew ross sorkin and sara eisen sit down with world business leaders on the geopolitical outlook and key global economic issues. the ultimate power summit special reports all day cnbc. >> welcome back to squawk box. we're live from davos at the world economic forum. i want to bring in our next guest, honeywell chairman and ceo mark cooper. it's great to see you, sir. andrew, there's a lot going on. i want to get your the sort of vibes of davos from you, but then i want to dig into what's going on with honeywell because there's a couple of moving pieces. there's an activist in the middle, there's spin offs happening. so you're a busy boy i am, i am. so before we even get into all of that, we're on day three. day four. yeah.

what's been the biggest takeaway from this whole week for you? >> so second, in a year in a row, i would say i is the storyline here. but if i wear my honeywell hat in the context of ai, it's like, what do we do with it? so to me, how do we use it for our customers? is the industrial sector we serve, right. so we've been talking a lot about that with our customer. i think part of ai is also the whole energy story, because increasingly, i'm hearing from our data center customers that basically we're constrained by power sooner or later. and then how does quantum fit in into the ai? so i think that's where the ai discussions are getting into multiple streams. how do we use it? how do we make money? is power going to be constrained. it's quantum fits in, which is kind of where we're headed. >> what is your sense, though, just of from your customers and clients who have to buy from you what their appetite is to buy right now. >> data center in particular? absolutely. i think the build out continues to be strong. we haven't seen, you know, any constraint capacity built out.

but what we are really hearing is now the concerns around availability of power in different places in europe and germany and asia and singapore, us, maybe in some states. and if you have to look around for the next 2 or 3 years, people are worried in terms of pacing up the capacity of power generation. >> explain to the audience what honeywell is today and what honeywell may be in a year from now, given there's a spin off in the works. elliott management is now, and in their telling it, pushing on you for another spin off. what all is said when the dust clears. what are the various sort of honeywell's? >> so when i started about 18 months back, the first thing i said is i want to simplify honeywell into three things future of aviation, energy transition and automation. and with that, then we said we have to build portfolio around that. we have to stay true to these three statements. so we did

about four acquisitions last year around these three themes, invested almost $10 billion. we announced a spin off, a chemical business because it doesn't fit into these three themes, and also announced one divestiture of a business which doesn't fit into these themes. so we've been very active portfolio manager, primarily with the premise that we want to make it highly growth oriented company, that how do we top quartile growth as a industrial? and elliott reached out to us in november. to me, i they're another shareholder and we are engaged with them. and their thesis is that two honeywell's are better than one honeywell and. >> and you break it apart exactly how. >> those are. i would say at this point we are working with the board to see what's possible. and what we have said publicly is that during our q1 q4 earnings call, which will happen in february, we'll share more detail what's possible and what's not possible. >> what kind of multiple do you think can go on the chemical company? >> i think there are early enterprise values which have

been published here, some early readouts on that. i mean, what i can tell you is about the business, because it will be wrong on my part to speculate the value. >> it's no, i know, but people when the when people do spin offs. yeah. excuse me. >> they yeah. we did our. >> work looking to try to understand. you know our are two things going to be worth more than one. there's d synergy costs i imagine there's some costs as you're doing this i imagine you guys some of your executives are working overnight. yeah. all the time trying to figure out how this is all actually going to happen. >> yeah. what was fascinating, andrew, was that i was not sure that a company of this size could be spun off in the chemical business, but when we did the work, we realized that this business will be one of the top three stocks by enterprise value because of the earnings quality it has and the enterprise value we estimated. it puts us into the top league, into the specialty chemical. you know, somewhere right around $12 billion. couple more. but it puts us into the right league of aspirational spectrum. and the business has very well positioning into the segment that operates and some very

strong growth factors. >> and when the dust settles, is the is your foot on the pedal on the m&a front after that, do you think for the rest of the business? >> no, the foot on the metal on m&a is not stopping because key for honeywell is to rebuild its portfolio. and it's important that momentum we have, we don't let it go because we have built up a good momentum. we are working on several active pursuits and all the three segments in aerospace and automation and in energy. now, of course, m&a, as you know, the name of the game is still does not put to the paper. you never know. but we are actively working while we are dealing with some of the activities. >> which are there things that you think you can do today in a trump administration that you couldn't do two weeks ago? >> i think i'm getting excited with energy policy as it's shaping up. we have a big play in energy, both traditional energy and renewable energy. when i talk about renewable energy, think about green molecules, think about sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen. i'll throw lng also into that. i'm glad on the broader, more holistic view that

administration is taking is that energy always goes to the trifecta of three things cost, security and emissions. and it's hard to meet all the three. and when you try to optimize this, you can confuse the policy. so i'm glad that lng, for example, is being opening up. we have a big play in lng on liquefaction of lng, so we are happy about that. we're happy about the fact that there's a consideration on carbon capture sequestration opportunities. which brings us back to it's oil and gas peak capacity. so i think there's a few very positive. >> i assume some of the clean energy efforts are going to slow down around the world. i, i. >> i don't. >> know, economics. i mean, do the economics change at this point? >> to me, it's always going to be the trifecta of the three factors and depends on who you are. some some care about climate, so they still will continue to do it. some care about economics and some care about security. so to your point, if i'm a country which is importing fossil fuel, let's say i'm importing crude oil, i'm

importing gas, i'm hoping to adopt new technology because i'm getting security of energy. right. if i can make sustainable aviation fuel from cooking oil, i don't have to buy crude. so even if it's more expensive, it's okay for me to do it because security is checked in that case. so it's a trifecta of security cost and emissions and depends on which country you are and which hat you wear. your priorities change. >> it's a good lesson. thank you for coming in this morning. >> thank you very much. pleasure. a pleasure. >> talking to you. hope to see you back stateside and keep us, keep us up to date on what's going on with. well. >> yeah, a lot happening. we'll be in touch. >> the next piece. >> yeah. >> thank you, thank you. i'm going to send it back to becky in new york. >> andrew thank you. ge aerospace just reporting. and phil lebeau joins us right now with those numbers. >> hi. becky. this is a beat. >> on the top. >> and the bottom. >> line. >> for ge aerospace. that's the reason the stock is up. take a look at the fourth quarter numbers a buck 32 versus the street at a buck zero four with revenue coming in at 9.88 billion again better than expected. their free cash flow

up 21% in the fourth quarter compared compared to the same quarter a year ago. operating margin 20.1%. the company saying that it plans to increase its stock buyback up to $7 billion, and it also plans to increase its dividend by 30% in terms of guidance for 2025. they are expecting to earn between 510 and 550 a share. right now the street is at 523. one final note just got off the phone with larry culp, ceo of ge aerospace. he is optimistic about the setup going into 25 versus 24 across the board, whether it's with orders, whether it's with the setup, with suppliers, which has been challenged but is improving. he is optimistic as they head into the next year. guys, we'll send it back to you. >> okay phil, thank you very much. we'll continue to keep an eye on that and see how the stock is trading as we get all of that news. when we come back, though, we've got a rundown of president trump's executive orders so far. we'll be speaking with axios white house reporter marc caputo. and later, the growing battle between elon musk

and openai's sam altman. we talked about it earlier this morning. walter isaacson literally wrote the book on musk. he is elon musk's biographer. he's going to join us in the 8:00 hour. squawk box will be right back. individually. >> each of us is great. but from here. >> you. >> can see we're one big team. at atlassian. >> we believe. >> real progress. takes all of us. >> working together. >> on new. >> sources of energy. cars that. >> drive to the. >> future. >> even pizza deliveries. >> together we can go beyond where. >> we've. >> ever been collaborating from anywhere on everything. anywhere on everything. >> atlassian m with dexcom g7, managing your diabetes just got easier. so, what's your glucose number right now?

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>> one are right for you. >> start today. >> at forhours. >> com. >> good morning everybody and welcome back to squawk box. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. the futures this morning are mixed. you've got the dow futures up by about 20 points. the s&p after hitting a new record yesterday as indicated off only by about ten points. and then the nasdaq which was a high flier yesterday as well. down by just over 110 points. roughly 31,000 people were ordered to flee an area north of los angeles yesterday after a fast moving wildfire wildfire there exploded grew to more than 10,000 acres. within hours. there were something like 15,000mi■!s that have already bn charred on this. the l.a. county fire chief says that the fire remains difficult to contain,

but say that they are starting to get the upper hand. the last i'd heard, there was about 14% containment of that fire. yesterday's winds were not as strong as those that fueled the eaton and palisades fires earlier this month. to drop tens of thousands of gallons of retardant to try and help stop the spread of the fire. andrew. >> thanks, becky. when we come back, we're going to bring you a rundown of president trump's executive orders so far. we'll tell you about that after this. and then a reminder, make sure to follow squawk pod on your favorite podcast app. because all week we're publishing special reports from our big interviews with top executives and policy makers from davos to washington. don't go anywhere. squawk box will be right back after this. >> in a rapidly expanding $21 billion market, laser photonics nasdaq labs is a world class manufacturer and r&d powerhouse built on 40 years of innovation, developing state of the art technology for laser drilling, time release, pharmaceuticals and pioneering counter-drone

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federal workers. joining us right now is marc caputo. he is axios trump white house reporter. and, marc, a number of items doesn't really do it. we are less than 72 hours into this president's term and they came ready to go. there were 100 actions and orders that were issued, i think, in the first day, many more since then. this is a huge storm to cover. what's your takeaway from what you've seen so far? >> well, they promised a shock and awe campaign and they're delivering on that. and trump is. really concerned or interested in having a promises made, promises kept. initial start to his first 100 days. so most of the things that he promised. >> to do. >> he's doing. yeah. he said on day one that prices would come down, inflation would come down. that didn't happen. that's impossible to kind of have by. >> fiat. >> but the sheer scope. >> of the executive. >> orders that you just kind of briefly touched. on are just pretty breathtaking. not only is it immigration and energy, but

there's transgender policy. there's a so-called woke policy here. >> diversity. >> equity and inclusion. there is health care policy withdrawing from the world health organization. it's just on and on and on. it's going to take us weeks to figure out everything that he did in just those first two days. >> i know that executive orders have been used more and more over the last 12 years, maybe a little longer than that. can you give us a history lesson in how this measures up to what's been done in the past, and how many of the executive orders that he issued are undoing executive orders that other administrations put in? >> well, i think. >> it's on the order of 80 or so that he undid from biden's. the history of executive orders really tracks the history of the restrengthening of the executive branch. you really saw it under george bush. it wasn't just executive orders, executive actions. he would do things called signing statements where he'd basically say, okay, i'm going to sign this law, but we're kind of not going to enforce it to a degree. but by and large, the executive orders.

are a clear sign for those who are interested in wonky history that congress is failing at its job. the most powerful branch in the united states government is actually congress. it's the only branch that can write laws, pass laws, kick a president out of office, reshape the supreme court, overturn basically everything. but it is so paralyzed by partizan politics essentially can't do anything. and that creates a vacuum and that vacuum. the executive branch the president has filled and the supreme court to a great degree as well. >> yeah, that's a very, very interesting thing. congress can't even pass a budget at this point, let alone. >> they can. >> apparently. other powers. >> they can barely name a post office these days, so that might change a bit, because this congress is, though the margins are small, controlled by republicans, and by and large, they view trump. well, they even call him daddy as the boss. so you're probably going to see

byron donalds, for instance, a fellow florida man who is probably on track to be your governor. yeah, he literally said, daddy is coming home. it's a riff on something that tucker carlson had said at the rnc and actually something i'd written about a year ago, where people at trump's campaign had said that after he had taken over control of the party by winning the primary, that, quote, daddy's home. so this is the general view of a lot of republicans in congress. so this congress might be a little different. nevertheless, there are going to be people who are going to resist his agenda. but donald trump is governing from a position of the greatest strength he's ever had, the greatest support levels he's ever had in his party and overall. and he also knows what he's doing. and he has a staff that knows what it's doing, what it is doing. and that's different from when he first took office. >> that's right. these people are well versed. they have a mission. they know what they want to do and how to go about it. i thought what was interesting, because it's not a surprise to me to see him overturn things that the biden

administration put in. it's just the swing back and forth of executive orders. but in going back what i had not realized he was kind of targeting was he revoked decades of executive orders, including the equal opportunity, equal employment opportunity order of 1965 that was signed by lyndon b johnson. now, that is something that trying to get dye out, trying to go against all of those issues and change things, it's not just in the federal government. he also directed each agency to identify what it is up to. nine potential civil compliance investigations of either publicly traded companies, large nonprofit corporations, associations, foundations with assets of $500 million of more higher education institutions on and on. so they want to make sure that this is not just the federal government, but it sets the standard for the nation. >> yeah. and in addition to that, the office of opv, the office of policy and management, they had put out a memo that told employees and all the agencies subsequently have

repeated the language that in order to get rid of dei, they believe the trump white house believes that some agencies have tried to implement these dei programs, but by another name. so they've directed all employees to find these secret dei programs and to report them with a special email. so critics are calling this a, quote, snitch email. it's a good example of how trump is creating this sort of total information awareness aspect of his administration to get a handle on the entire executive branch. also, there's the schedule f issue, which gives him more ability to hire and fire more federal employees. it goes on and on and on. it's a really a broad, deep and wide number of executive orders that touch every aspect of the government and perhaps even american life. >> mark, it sounds like you've got more digging to do. we certainly want to hear more about it, but we appreciate how thoroughly you're covering all of this. and thank you for joining us today. >> thank you.

>> andrew. >> thanks, becky. coming up a big lineup still to come. we're going to talk to morgan stanley ceo ted pick in the next hour. but first champion skier lindsey vonn is here in davos for the first time. i spoke to her about her comeback bid on the slopes. we'll bring you that interview right after this. >> are you having. >> a hard time. >> growing your sales? >> is it tough. >> getting new customers? >> try info free. com hot. sales

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today at gamescom. >> welcome back to squawk box here in davos, switzerland. a number of ceos taking some time away from the meetings on the promenade to yes, play hooky and hit the slopes. earlier this week, i spoke with ski legend lindsey vonn, who's here gearing up for her comeback in hopes of competing in the 2026 winter

olympics in cortina. while she's skied before in davos. it's the first time being here during the world economic forum. >> i am here. >> skiing with. cloudflare and the us ski team. >> and how did you get hooked up with them? >> they're actually u.s. ski team sponsor. so a bunch of us, you know, picabo street. daron rahlves. >> some current. >> athletes, jackie wiles and lauren machuga, we are all here skiing with clients. >> and business. >> leaders. >> just testing out their skills on. >> the. >> mountain and see if. >> we can do. >> business together. you know, it's a good it's like golf. >> you know. >> skiing is a great place to do business. >> so there are a lot of ceos and the like that are good at golf. yeah. do you find that there are a lot of ceos that are good skiers? >> yes. golf, skiing, tennis. >> i mean. >> we're kind of. >> high achieving people. >> you know, they're very ambitious. and skiing is, i think a sport where you're you're getting some adrenaline and it's a little. >> risk factor. >> so a lot of. >> businessmen.

>> i think. >> and women. >> enjoy skiing. >> let's talk about what happened this weekend. you were at cortina crash before the competition. what happened? >> they added some new terrain into the course. and from the last time i was here, which was six years ago. and i just kind of got too much air off the jump. my edge. >> caught when. >> i. >> landed, and i just. >> kind of. >> fell. >> you know, it in the air or you knew it when you hit. >> when i landed. >> it was very quick and. it was clear that that was going to happen. >> my airbag. >> went off. >> and i was fine. >> i was fine. >> everything totally. >> everything was great. >> that's a special place for you, though, because you've won a lot of world cups. >> just a couple. >> just a couple. and that's where the olympics are going to be. >> yes it is. it's a it's a it's my first world cup podium. i've won there 12 times. i broke. >> the. >> women's record at. >> the time. >> and it was my last world cup race. so it was really great to be back. and the cortina olympics next year. it's a good place for me.

>> how's the knee? >> it's great. yeah. >> titanium. titanium. >> it's a pretty strong. >> is this like the. you think this is the future of sports? i mean, of being able to get back on your feet and do stuff that people thought that was never possible. >> i mean. >> i would hope. >> that athletes don't get to the point that you needed a knee replacement at, you know. my age. >> but i do. >> think that it's a very real possibility. >> and. >> i think that it changes the perception not just for athletes, but for people in general. i don't think you need to wait until you're 60 or. >> 70 years. >> old to get a knee replacement. you know. >> if. >> you're. >> in pain, right? there's a solution. >> it's pretty high tech. >> it's a decade old. >> yes. we started. >> with the foundation. in 2015, and. >> we've given over $1 million in scholarships. our goal is. >> to empower and. >> inspire underserved. >> girls through scholarships. >> and programs. >> so. >> you know. i've really happy with what we've been doing. >> we've helped thousands of girls. and i. >> really want to continue to do that. >> and a really. >> meaningful way we have are. >> actually our own curriculum. >> now, our. >> empowerment curriculum. and what's on the what's in the

curriculum. >> you know. >> it's when. someone tells. >> you something negative, how to turn. >> it into. >> something positive. you know, there's. >> a lot of kids. >> that. >> you know, really need the basics and need. >> to find their self-esteem. >> and realize that their uniqueness. >> is what makes them special. >> a lot of kids. >> you know, especially. >> with social media. >> it's really hard. >> for them to find themselves. >> and so it's just a basic. guide and journal for them to. >> you know. >> find their confidence. >> and becky, most importantly, you know, we always talk about offerings and, you know, my terrible scores on my ordering. and lindsay wears an earring. i have a very low hrv. so viewers who have a low hrv through their aura ring and their. hrv like scared about it. heart rate variability. this is like your parasympathetic. how relaxed or not relaxed you are. you don't want to have a low one. you'd want to be 30s 40s. it's supposed to be measured to yourself anyway. i've always had a low one to the point where i, you know, doctors think it's terrible. and then i saw

lindsay, who's an olympian, and we have the same hrv. >> and so. >> i think. >> that would be a good thing. it means you have a good resting heart rate so you don't get. >> stressed out about stuff. >> no no no no. so there's two measures. there's a resting heart rate, which is probably probably not as low as you want either. but the hrv you want to have high, you want lots of variability. so some of like the great olympians have like hrv, like 140 or more. so to be at like 17, 20, i mean, you start to worry you're gonna have a stroke anyway. it's a long conversation. >> but you have the. >> same as. >> lindsay vonn, so you must be doing something right. >> that's what i'm trying to tell myself. that's what i'm trying to tell you. but i don't know if that's really true or not. anyway. >> i. >> would say. >> take it. >> stop worrying. >> in a in a minute with somebody who, by the way, just skied with lindsay vonn on tuesday. they played hooky. that's a tease for you. so we'll tell you about that. >> oh. >> that's a good tease i want to see. also, when we come back we're going to talk about the future of work, from remote and hybrid jobs to the push to return to offices. that conversation is next. and later,

charles schwab ceo rick worcester will join us in his first earnings interview since taking the top job earlier this month. that exclusive interview is coming up at 8 a.m. eastern time. squawk box will be right back. >> how's the. >> quarter coming along? >> kate? >> what do you think? your name is? >> kate and. hates when people correct him. >> pretty great. >> define pretty great. >> we added coopers. i powered total spend management platform. so we're finding new efficiencies and multiplying margins. >> so you can mind your. >> business so you can mind your business. >> no. >> no, that's not what i meant. >> you all should be laughing harder. >> what happens when you drink rice? mushroom coffee? >> you start. >> to feel your mood shift. >> that's a reishi mushroom. >> a superfood. >> mood. booster that reduces stress. >> that's much better. and who doesn't want better to start right now? >> most power.

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psychology. i call them up really a behavioral psychologist, so i don't know what's the right term. author and becky quick, a ski partner of lindsey vonn's adam graham, who was just named glassdoor's chief work life expert. that was the tease. he just spent a day skiing with lindsey vonn. i thought that was worth mentioning. how are you guys doing? doing great. let's talk about the state of work, because it does seem like there was a major shift that's happened. it feels like we're under a major shift right now in terms of just the power of workers labor. yes, relative to management, something, you know, seems to have shifted maybe five years ago in favor of management, or rather, i'm sorry, in favor of the employer employees. yeah. and now it seems to be shifting back. what's happening? yeah. >> i mean, it's certainly shifted back. >> in the last couple of years that. >> we've seen. >> you know, go back a couple of years, a huge demand intensity of. >> hiring. >> and then. >> 2023. >> 24 that. >> shifted back. and so. now i. >> think with. >> that and we've.

>> been. talking about it a lot at davos. >> is that. >> there's these new policies coming out as employers are back in the driver's seat around return to office, around changes to dei policies. and so it's gonna be interesting. >> to see how this plays out. >> adam you now have a new title. you're the chief work life expert. >> it's hopefully. >> more than a. >> title for these guys. so what does that mean? >> so my job. >> is. >> basically to. >> work with glassdoor to figure. >> out what are. >> the most important trends affecting companies. >> and. >> employees and. >> leaders, and how can we have better conversations. >> that are. >> data driven. right, andrew, we've. talked about this before. >> but one of. >> my biggest frustrations. >> with. >> both corporate and government. >> policy is. >> people make choices based on. >> opinion as opposed to. >> based on evidence. >> and when we talk about return. >> to office. >> for example, there was evidence. >> pre-covid that. >> if you take. >> a big. >> government job. >> patent examining patent examiners. >> were more. >> productive when they. >> worked fully remotely. >> and it's. >> the kind of independent. >> knowledge work that doesn't. >> need to be co-located. and i worry. that we're not learning from that kind of evidence. and so working with. glassdoor is a. >> great opportunity. >> that i keep hearing over and

over from ceos here. and i've been to now a number of dinners, cocktail conversations about this very topic, which is that the ceos feel that during the pandemic, a lot of things got loosened up to try to help the worker right, to make everything sort of work. but that meant shifting out deadlines, shifting out sort of performance. a lot of things got a little bit easier for everybody, and the question is whether that is helpful long term or not. and a lot of them obviously are saying, get back to work. we can't we can't do it that way forever. >> i can't. >> imagine that either or. >> makes sense. so i. >> feel. >> like. >> it's been a. >> pendulum shift. >> back and forth between. >> okay, we're going to. >> care about people. >> we're going to care about. >> performance in. >> the short term. >> there are trade offs. >> but in the. >> long term, what we know is caring about people is the best way. >> to. >> drive performance. and so. when we study organizational culture, one of the. >> things we see. >> is there are some cultures that are more results oriented and. >> others that are more relationship oriented. >> ironically, if you are a result oriented company. >> and you bring in a relationship. >> oriented ceo, that ceo drives

more value than if you had a. >> fellow results. >> oriented leader because they're bringing something. >> that's absent. what's the difference between you're saying, what's the difference between a result results oriented versus relationship oriented? >> it's basically people. >> first versus performance or profits first. and i think. >> the surprising lesson. >> from that. >> research is. >> if you really. >> care about. >> maximizing profits, and that's. >> what your. >> culture has been all. about. first. then if you bring in somebody. >> who puts people first, that's actually better for your profits. >> and we. >> see that same. thing on glassdoor in terms of glassdoor, where. >> the. >> world's leading. >> platform for workplace transparency and it's built on hundreds of. millions of workplace reviews. and so we've started looking at all the ratings and reviews, and then we've cross-referenced. that with stock market performance. and it turns. >> out the. >> companies who do the. best by their. >> employees are. >> actually the ones. >> how much do the ceos call you up and say, i can't believe this is happening. i mean, this is a little bit like, you know, people who who put down reviews on tripadvisor and the hotel can't believe that there's something terrible happened. do you get a lot of complaints? >> i get. >> it, but. >> i'd say rewind. >> you're empowering. you're

empowering the employees to actually tell people what's absolutely. >> and ten years ago when i first joined. >> glassdoor. >> i think. >> you know, people. >> people all. the heads. >> are. >> in the sand saying, i hope this thing kind of goes away. >> and you fast forward. >> ten years to today, i think employers are much. >> more constructive. >> and they start. >> to. >> really understand the whole. premise of that. >> if you. >> engage your employees, it's actually good for business. >> and so. >> the narrative. >> has changed. let me ask you this. the other thing that happened in the last five, six, seven years was obviously a move inside hr departments to develop a dei programs and the like. and there seems to be three things going on. there's some folks who are sticking with it. maybe they haven't gotten a call from robby starbuck yet. there are some who have completely abandoned it, or at least say they're abandoning it. and then there's a third group that says they're abandoning it, but actually is continuing it, just sort of rebranding it as something else. what do you think is really happening here? >> well, i mean, from my perspective, you know, i think dei. >> is not. >> just a fad. >> that's kind of begun in 2020. >> if you go. >> back to the beginning of. >> glassdoor, 18 years.

>> ago. >> when we first started having workplace. >> reviews. >> one of the key. >> topics that people want to talk about was diversity. and so we've seen this trend over time where employees are wanting to talk about it. leadership are coming to the table to talk about it. i think. adam was saying, you know, we're seeing maybe a. pendulum swing back and you're seeing different. reactions from from different employers. >> but again. >> we've seen that the best employers who engage with their employees. who lean into diversity are the ones who actually perform better as businesses. so i. >> expect. >> you know, that the conversation will be very different. we're going to meeting again in a year or two from now. >> really? what does that what do you think happens? >> i think. >> that there's. >> danger right now of throwing. >> out the baby. >> with the bathwater. so i think. i've seen. >> a lot. >> of leaders. >> get sort of mired in. >> this zero sum. >> well, if we make space for. >> certain kinds of people with underrepresented. >> backgrounds, then. >> we're reverse discriminating against a historically. >> privileged group. and that was not the original intent of this movement. it was to say, we want to create opportunities for. >> people who are. >> motivated and talented but didn't. >> have access. and we want to make sure that everybody has a. >> sense. >> of belonging. and i don't.

>> think those imperatives. >> go away. >> so i think. let me ask you this. and maybe we're going to get into like a little bit of treacherous, sensitive area. i think one of the things that has happened and that ceos talk about is as they sought to diversify their their staffs and things, they changed the parameters for the experience, necessarily for some roles, they in some cases, they said, you know what? we because we actually care about diversity in this instance, we're going to take somebody who maybe has a little bit less experience, who thinks it's really a promising, promising person. it may take us six months to get them totally ready, and that might be a little different than being able to hire somebody else who's plug and play, right. the plug and play person says, i can't believe this is happening. if they, in fact, are not part of that diversity pool, right? yeah. how how do you think about that? yeah. >> well. >> i. think if you look more broadly at the war. >> for talent. >> and it's only. >> getting going. >> to get. >> more and. >> more intense. as you have

aging populations, lower birth rates in developed. >> countries. >> you are going to have to figure out ways to engage a broader talent pool. and that's what i think many of these initiatives were about, of how do i get tap into broader talent pools, because it is. >> getting more and more intense for talent. >> so, you know. >> i think that's. >> when you. >> kind of view this not. >> just as. >> something that's about social justice, but actually, again, this is. >> about how do i perform better? i think this this can. >> make sense. >> yeah. >> and andrew, you know. >> this the. >> pace of change is accelerating. >> and i think what that means is the currency. >> of success used to be ability. now it's agility. and in. >> the long run the. >> people you want. >> to. invest in. >> are the ones who have the motivation. >> and capability to learn. >> adam grant, kristen, thank you for coming in. you're going to go skiing again. more skiing probably. okay. good for you. i don't have. >> a real job, andrew. >> we'll see. you appreciate it very, very much. becky, back to you in new york. >> so that's got to be intimidating skiing with lindsey vonn. no. >> yeah. do you want to comment on that. what was it like to ski with lindsey vonn? were you nervous?

>> it was it. was a lot of pressure. >> i chased her. >> down the mountain. >> and i. >> thought i was flying. and then. >> she said basically it was a leisurely stroll for her. >> yeah. she's like, bye bye, adam. i give you credit for trying. i would never attempt. >> it was a great challenge. >> yeah. well done. all right. it is 7 a.m. on the east coast and you are watching squawk box right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick live from the nasdaq market site. andrew is in davos at the world economic forum. the futures at this hour are mixed. you're looking at the dow futures up by about 26 points. but the s&p futures down by about ten after touching a new high yesterday. the nasdaq indicated off by triple digits down by about 106 right now. and if you take a look at treasuries maybe not a surprise to see that yields have picked up the ten year yield back above 4.6% at 4.63, the two year is just below 4.3% for 29. american airlines out with its quarterly results. let's get over to phil lebeau. he joins us with the numbers

right now. good morning again phil. >> good morning becky. >> did you take a look at shares of. >> american airlines. you'll see that. >> the stock is down. what about 7%. that's a reflection of the guidance. we'll talk about that in just a little bit. but in terms of the fourth quarter look this was a beat on the top. and the bottom. >> line with. >> record quarterly revenue. >> company earning. >> $0.86 a share, $0.22 better than the street was expecting, with revenue coming in better than expected at 13.66 billion. the numbers within the numbers in the fourth quarter revenue per seat mile up 2% compared to. >> the. >> same quarter in 23 cost per seat mile, up 5.7% compared to q4 of 23, an operating margin of 8.4%. importantly, the debt at the end of the fourth quarter is now under $40 billion, coming in at $38.6 billion. paying off that debt has been a big, big motivation for the management team at. >> american airlines. making progress there. >> now let's talk. about the revenue by segment. international up 2.6%, domestic revenue up 3.5%. and this is the

story in terms of why the stock is under pressure. the guidance for the first quarter eps. it's a loss of between 20 and $0.40. the street is expecting a loss of $0.04. why is there a difference there? american believes that perhaps some of the analysts did not fully account for all of the labor contract costs that take effect in the first quarter? that may be true, because when you take a look at the full year guidance. >> from. >> american airlines, its guidance is to earn between a buck 70 and 270. and the street's estimate right now is at 242. so perhaps the street has just factored in across the entire year the costs for all of the labor contracts, but did not fully factor it into the first quarter. regardless, the stock is down 7%. we're going to be talking with robert isom, ceo of american airlines. that's coming up in about 15 minutes. becky, i will send it back to you for now. >> all right. that's going to be interesting seeing what the street has taken into account what they haven't. phil thank you. we'll see you in just a

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two leaders spoke on the phone yesterday, but didn't comment on whether it would be public or private spending or how the money would be spent. though the expectation is around infrastructure. trump has promised his first trip overseas would be to saudi arabia. we're going to continue our conversations here in davos. i want to bring in our next guest, larry fink, blackrock chairman and ceo, somebody who's invested a lot these days in the world of infrastructure. >> i have. >> a lot of questions about what the saudis could ultimately do with that kind of money in the united states. right. there's been a lot of debate even in the past 24 hours here about talking about infrastructure. this this big stargate transaction, $100 billion, $500 billion, depending on what you what you think, how much money do you think, actually, all of these. how much money do you think actually needs to get raised to fulfill all of these, these these promises. right now, data centers represent about. >> 50gw of power. and if you use the us estimates of how much power we're going to need for data centers, it's estimated.

>> to go up. >> five times to about 300gw of power. >> if you if. >> that it's all for data centers. it's all for i you should assume for each gigawatt, it's about a 40 to. >> $50. >> billion. spend on the framing, the chips. >> the coolant and all that. >> stuff, the power sourcing and all that stuff. so it's we're talking trillions of dollars. >> so would you just be long? anything and everything that touches data centers right now, or do you think that it's in terms of the way the equity markets are that it's already built in? >> some of it's built in. >> but. >> you know, the areas that. >> are trading at lower ps companies. >> that provide. >> hvac, i mean, there, you know, there is going to be a shortage of electricians here. >> so we already have shortages. >> in our country with electricians. so all of this is. >> going to is going. >> to stimulate the economy. >> now the. key is. >> how do you. >> you know. >> to me it's a triangle of three major powers. >> are coming into force. >> you have technology. and most technology. >> firms thought, okay, whether you're in software. >> or you're.

>> in social. >> media or. >> some sort. but now. >> i intersects. >> not just. >> technology. >> but power. >> and power sourcing. >> and as with. >> all these. >> announcements. >> the biggest. change in all of this it requires. >> access to the. >> capital markets. and that is what. >> what is. >> probably the most instrumental. >> that's going on. >> this is not going to be any one pool of money that's going to be raised. >> you're going to have to be raising money throughout all the. different areas. >> the beauty. >> of this and this. >> beauty of this growth for the united states is. >> most of this money is going to come. >> from the private sector. it's not going to be. >> ballooning or deficits. >> it's actually going to probably be reducing. >> our deficit. it's going to create. >> more revenues and more jobs. >> let me ask you about the stargate deal, because i think there's a question mark about and you probably saw elon musk taking to twitter saying they don't have the money to do this. then, by the way, satya nadella saying he has $80 billion. he says, i've got that money. that's real money. what do you think is really happening? you, by the way, have a partnership with microsoft and mg. mg, i think is a partner in the

stargate enterprise. >> i'm not. >> sure of that, but i'm not here to discuss that. >> you know, we announced a few. >> months back our partnership. we're raising. $30 billion. we have. our gp capital already. >> we're going to have a few more announcements in. >> the coming weeks. >> we are going to be going out. >> raising another $22 billion of equity. we have a lot of it already lined up. >> and then. >> by project, we'll probably need another $100 billion. >> you need another hundred billion. >> well that's for debt. so each project. >> we're going to be financing. >> some equity. >> we have the. >> 30 the. >> 30,000,000,000in equity. >> right. >> and so we are differentiating and trying to describe to everybody. >> you know. >> you need the equity first to. >> be able to. >> attract the debt, to finance it, to first on the on the stack. the equity. comes first and then you start. >> raising debt. said the enterprise value of all this creation is going to be

enormous. and what i just talked about is a need in the united states. we're talking about every country in the world is going to be needing it, and this is going to play into a very large geopolitical issue. you had the biden administration in the last week put restrictions on where we could give our advanced technologies to. right. and it is my opinion, the country that we deny our advanced technology is the next phone call is to china, right? and so we have to this is this is as large as we've ever seen in the role of the capital markets and in issues. and so but we're with our partnership right now we're working with many different companies, companies and countries. and we really have the money to. right. >> you have the you have the money to are you going to subtweet satya. i saw that. i don't. >> do that. i got the tweet from satya. >> you got all the tweets? all, all. >> and i got elon's tweet too. >> let me ask you a different question, which is we talked a little bit when i saw you last

week about the markets. yeah. jamie dimon was here yesterday and he was not pessimistic, but he was, as he would say, cautiously pessimistic insofar as he believes that stuff is relatively priced for perfection right now. does that feel right to you? >> so i'm cautiously optimistic. that being said, i could i have scenarios where it could be pretty bad. i believe if we could unlock all this private capital, we're going to have enormous growth. at the same time, some of this is going to create new inflationary pressures. right. and, and i do believe that's probably the risk that is not factored into the markets. i think the bond market is going to tell us where we're going. and i've been saying now for some time i may have said it last week. you know, there's a probability we could see the ten year over 5%, maybe even 5.5%. that would shock the equity market. that would not be a good scenario. >> and do you think that would be a temporary scenario insofar as the bond market says

effectively to the us government, we're not doing it this way, folks. and then you'd see a pivot administration pivot, and then the equity market would i. >> think we would it would start what we actually would start a conversation that we need in our country. and that is how are we going to bring down our deficits? the positive side of what the trump administration is doing, they are trying to find growth from the private sector. so depending on how that all plays out and how quickly the private sector can, can effectively put capital in the ground and start building, that's one side. at the other side of it, there are some very large inflationary pressures that we all have to be aware of. and depending on how this plays out, there is a scenario where we're going to have much more elevated interest rates because of inflation, and that's going to have a very negative impact on the equity market. it's going to change. it's going to force a revaluation, but it will probably create a real conversation. what are we going to do about the deficits? >> becky's got a question back in new york. becky. >> hi, becky. happy new year.

>> hey, larry. happy new year. good to see you. i'd like you. i'd like to hear a little bit more about this. that's not your base case. i assume this this higher inflationary situation and higher interest rates. what do you think the fed does? first of all, how likely of a scenario is it that we see that higher inflationary issues. and second of all, what do you think the fed does. because we've got another fomc meeting next week. do you think they're going to be sidelined for a while. just waiting to see what the impact of the new administration's policies are, or how do you kind of figure this out from the market perspective? >> well, a i don't think the federal reserve spends any time focusing on what policy issues are going to be affecting the future. i think they're going to be focusing on the data at the moment, and the data at the moment is fine. you know, whether they're going to ease one more time or pause. i do not see any scenario in the short run that the federal reserve is going to reverse course. and my base case scenario is we're going to have rates staying stickier. and what i mean by

that is we're going to have probably a more normalized yield curve. the yield curve is going to become steeper and steeper. so i could see a scenario of the federal reserve easing shortly. but at the same time, i think the ten year is going to be locked in this zone where it's been trading right now. and we'll see how this plays out in my in all my scenarios too. by the way, the yield curve is going to get steeper, not flatter. remember we've been living in a in a world where the yield curve has been inverted for so long which harms, you know, savers benefits capital because the long rates were at lower rates. if we have a normalized yield curve, the borrower's savers are not going to get that benefit, but borrowers are going to get more harmed. so it has all these implications in our society. >> hey larry, talking about society. one of the questions i had is there's a vibe shift here, not just in davos but around the world. yes. around climate, a topic you talked a lot about, and written letters to many of these ceos that

became the topic of conversation in davos for a long time. dei, esg, all of it seems to have been rebuked in many ways by the election, perhaps, of trump and a lot of companies that have now turned turned the other way. what do you think about all this, and what do you think about on a very personal level, just your role in it? as somebody who i think was an advocate for a lot of these ideas. >> well, we're in the midst of raising a $10 billion decarbonization fund. we have, first of all, everything we do is on behalf of clients. we have clients who are investing more and more money in decarbonization technology especially. it's gotten so much cheaper. some of these enterprises stocks have fallen dramatically. so we have more and more clients who are looking at this not as a counter trade, but they're looking at it because they still firmly believe it. i've had many conversations with different ceos here at davos who are saying they're still moving forward in it, but the narrative has changed. it's i would say it's more pragmatic conversation today. it is not being driven by ngos. it's being driven by

client demand and being driven by economics. and so look at, you know, as a as a frequent visitor to davos, let me be clear, i have always done the best when i've gone against every every davos week. right. and you know what i learned this week in davos is the abject pessimism from europeans. i mean i've never seen or heard more pessimism on the future of europe. so i'm actually coming around now and saying we may be near a bottom. interesting. two i mean, the euphoria we have in the united states, i you know, as jamie said, we all have to just be mindful that we've had these big macro trends. if you look at the performance of the s&p over the last 20 years versus any other equity index, it has outperformed everything. i'm a believer it will continue. but i have to ask myself, am i? i have to judge myself. and making sure is that are all the ingredients in place for that. and so davos in my mind is i

come here to learn but i come here to hear the mood but i don't. >> and you usually think it's the opposite. >> so i generally don't invest with the mood. >> let me just ask you one related question though to the to the vibe issue. yeah. which is that, you know, we had jamie here yesterday. we had david solomon here yesterday. there are now activist shareholders who are taking on these companies over their esg policies. others have taken on you. there there are folks who have gone to court. american airlines over, you know, over, over using firms like a blackrock who are looking at certain metrics like, you know, esg or other things. >> but in that case, we weren't. but i mean, that that i don't want to go to the case, but that's not even a fact. >> but but i guess my bigger question is, what should companies do as it relates to these things? >> and i'm sure both of those ceos said it. you got to stand by your clients every day. you got to be authentic every day. you got to be doing the right thing on behalf of your clients every day. and that's it. and you have to, you know, there are

fringes on all sides, right? but you have to stay true to your convictions, true to your clients. i mean, despite all that noise, we talked we talked about it last week where, you know, we raised $641 billion on behalf of clients. no firm has ever raised anything close to that of which 300 and something of $1 billion was from the united states. so, yes, i am being attacked on the left and the right. at times it's actually been diminished because we're we're listening to our clients. we're doing the right thing. but i do believe what you're raising is something what i hope the trump administration does with the sec, which is under under gary gensler's sec. they made it much easier for proxy, you know, votes. i mean, so there are so many proxy from the far left and the far right. >> there's folks coming out. >> i was talking to a ceo of another company, very large. i think this ceo is on your on your show the last two days. he

has 14 proxy inclusions and he said half of them are from the far left and half from the far right, and they actually are against each other. right. and he said if we could net them we had none. >> right. so you got to figure out how how to change that dynamic. >> i think we have to review what what is the role of a proxy vote. right. and it's been it's been just it is it's too vast today. and it's the amount of money we're spending legal and all that stuff. and i'm talking across the board. i mean, every ceo is complaining right now that it's, it's just like an open warfare. and we need to find ways to minimize that. and it's not just it's just not the banks or the asset managers. get it. we're talking about real companies, really strong consumer brands that are still are getting the same type of attacks. >> are you planning on issuing any either a meme coin, etfs or anything like that, now that the animal spirits seem to be very much alive?

>> i think the sorkin coin should. >> sorkin coin, we got to do a squawk coin. we've talked we've talked about a squawk coin. yeah, i don't know. are you fascinated by this, by the way? just the whole phenomenon. >> no, i'm not. i you know, as a huge believer of crypto and, and blockchain and tokenization, i mean, i want the sec to rapidly approve the tokenization of bonds and stocks that will simplify things, make things easier. some of the tax on blackrock, blackrock would never have to vote on a proxy vote anymore, because every owner of record would be notified through a tokenization of equities. and we and it would save more money for more people. it would bring down the cost of ownership of stock and bonds. so those are the type of financial reforms we need, right. >> larry fink, thank you for coming. >> to see us. >> thank you. appreciate it for doing this. thank you. it's gotten colder here. >> it got. >> colder literally. as the interview has gone on i could tell we got we got i think. >> i think it fell five degrees while we talked. so i don't know

what we did. >> i don't know why i. >> saw snow behind you too. >> yep. we got the snow. it's coming, it's coming. >> it's 11 degrees here too, so don't worry. you're not you're not. you're not alone. you'd be cold here too. we will be back with andrew in just a few minutes. in the meantime, american airlines reporting results just a short time ago. we want to get over to phil lebeau. he joins us with a special guest this morning. hi, phil. >> hi, becky. robert isom, ceo of american airlines, joins us. you beat on the top and the bottom line in the fourth quarter. but the stock is under pressure because of your guidance, especially for the first quarter. lower than expected or greater than expected loss. what's the disconnect here between what your guidance is and what the street was expecting? >> well phil great fourth quarter for us. record revenues record free cash flow. and it was all about setting up for the future. really proud of our team. difficult operating conditions. we were excellent in terms of performance. from a reliability perspective. we're setting up for the future, so record free cash flow allows us to address our balance sheet issues, strengthening that,

hitting our debt reduction target one full year earlier. the citi deal is a really big thing for us as we take a look out into 2026. but the other thing is we were able to get labor contracts done with all of our major work groups. that is hitting in the first quarter, probably, you know, analysts didn't take that into account. but as you take a look out into the future, it's going to be the first time in my career where i'm not going to be at the negotiating table. our team won't be at the negotiating table for three years. that brings labor cost certainty. we're going to be able to manage that very well. and as we take a look out into the remainder of 2025, those cost pressures moderate, and you're going to see us really do a nice job as we move through the year. >> i don't want to belabor this, but i know you guys, your investor relations are constantly in touch with analysts. shouldn't this have been more clearly communicated or shouldn't they the analysts have taken into account? i mean, this is a big disconnect here in terms of their estimate versus your guidance. >> well, certainly it's a known

issue, but it it hits in the first quarter. that's the quarter in which we didn't have our flight attendant contract represented. and also our mechanic and fleet service contract. we'll do a better job as we go forward. but i think as we explain and take a look out into the latter half of 2025 and you look into 2026, our labor costs are going to be able to we're going to be able to keep those well under the cost of inflation. i'm very optimistic about the efficiency of the airline. and the revenue backdrop is such that i'm very pleased with what we saw in the fourth quarter. as we look into the first quarter, you're going to continue to see, you know, outperformance from american. and that's that's going to be shown. we're projecting revenues up 3 to 5% on capacity. that's flat to down. >> how much of your corporate travel that you lost last year have you been able to regain because of the issues that you have corrected in terms of direct booking versus going through third party? >> well, what i like to cite is, you know, the facts and from that perspective that our, our large corporate travel, we our

revenue grew 8% in the fourth quarter. that gives us great momentum as we move into 2025. and the work that we're doing with the travel management companies and also the large corporates, it's brought me closer and our team and i really like what we're doing. we're on target to be able to win back all the share we lost and hopefully more as we move through 2025. >> you talked about the revenue growth and the limited capacity. you're keeping your capacity in check and if the industry does as well, are we in for a year where we see fares continue to move higher because of it's a supply and demand issue? >> well, i know it's a supply and demand issue, but it's also a premium issue. and from that perspective, as we take a look at into 2025, we see our revenues growing four and a half to 7.5% over this year. on capacity that is low. >> as you add more premium seating. >> as in overall capacity is low single digits. and for us for premium, we think that that's going to continue to grow and we're skating to where the puck

is going to be. and on that front, over the next two years, two years, we're going to grow our premium seating by 20%. >> last question. trump administration new transportation secretary likely to be confirmed here in the next few weeks. what are you expecting from the transportation department relative to what you saw the last four years under the biden administration? >> well, i'll go back to the first trump administration. and let's face it, without the trump administration's quick action in the first term during the pandemic, the airline industry would be in a very different shape. they i know that the administration understands the importance that airlines bring to the overall economy. and as we take a look out into 2025 with the new trump administration, i'm looking for a couple of things. one, from a regulatory standpoint, i think that there's going to be a more favorable group to work with. and then the second thing is, i think that there will also be a desire to invest for the long term. we can really do a lot more in terms of efficiency. there's a burden that is brought

on the airline industry with with all the regulation and also in terms of air traffic control, not being able to keep up. >> not the first ceos told me that air traffic control. i'm sure the trump administration has heard you talk about that and other ceos guys will send it back to you, andrew, back to you. >> hey, thank you. and thank you for that great interview, phil. meantime, still to come right here at the world economic forum in davos, switzerland. we've got morgan stanley ceo ted pick. he's going to join us right after this. and then later elon musk and sam altman. they've been sparring over that $500 billion stargate deal announced by president trump. satya nadella jumping into the mix as well. we're going to hear from musk biographer walter isaacson about the billionaire battle. about the billionaire battle. and squawk box returns to this. it all started with a small business idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. pulling in the perfect team to get the job done. i'm just here for the internets. at&t, it's super-fast! you locked us out?! and when thrown a curveball...

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that we get to use every day. >> we are watching. shares of ge aerospace after the company reported its fourth quarter results, that company beating on both the top and the bottom lines. ge aerospace says that it plans to increase its dividend by 30% in 2025 and up its share buybacks to $7 billion. the company is expecting fiscal fiscal year earnings a share of $5.10 to 5.45. the estimate was 523. the stock right now is up

by about 6.5%. andrew. >> yeah. thanks, becky. we got to talk about morgan stanley right now because shares of that company are up more than 50% over the past year. the company recently reported a strong quarterly earnings that beat on the top and bottom lines. here to discuss all of that, the banking sector, the path of interest rates, the davos vibe shift and everything else. ted pick is here. he's the ceo. and of course, now the new chairman of morgan stanley. it's very good to see you, sir. >> thank you for having me, sir. >> okay. so we're all trying to figure out and we've been sort of taking the temperature of everybody who's joined us. just what the level of confidence is and how much you think the feeling here in davos is actually accurate. because as you know, oftentimes. >> the indicator. >> can be a contra indicator. so tell us what you think the feeling is. and then you can tell us whether you think it's a positive indicator or contra indicator. >> okay. well i had a view on this. but the temperature here has dropped like five degrees in

the last five minutes. so you got you got to factor that in. >> to factor this time okay. >> i think the temperature is mild and positive okay. and i just think the enthusiasm that is typically you know people don't want to be exuberant. but i think there's definitely a fresh step. >> are you feeling that. so i've heard that from a lot of the us ceos. >> so there's a there's. >> another europe and it's like. more reflective feel like they're on the death's door. >> no, i don't think it's that i think it's a reflective moment. there's a there's been talk about capital markets and banking unions since again the draghi report of the fall, which everyone read. but nothing happened. and i think the new administration is a catalyst. catalyst is we should really talk about where we fit in the global community and what the new framework is. and i think there's the beginnings of a real discussion. so i think in a sense it's positive. now there's some folks that say europe, the negativity is such that maybe the assets are available and there'll be activity. but i think in the short term, what's more important is that we're thinking about what's going on in the us, and clearly there's a

sense of greater connectivity of the business community to new administration. and what about. >> what how do you think about how the i mean, given you own e-trade, how do you think about ty markets? i mean, are they priced to perfection? you look at some of the p e ratios and the like and you're like, this is sure pretty high, right? >> so the index looks pretty full. but the reality is we've been talking about growth. and so you really have to not look at the earnings we've seen but the earnings we think we're going to see over the next 12 to 24 months. that is kind of the indicator. and the earnings continue to be strong. how many companies right now are really talking about recession. if anything they're talking about inflation. so i feel like the earnings pull through looks pretty sanguine. but more importantly i know we like to look at the index. but the index is dominated by the half dozen technology companies, which, by the way, are all doing great. but if you look at the deregulation possibility and the energy sector and the financial services sector, those those sectors are still at multiples that aren't actually that, that expensive. so i just think in the sort of if you're an investor and you're thinking about allocating over the next

six, 12, 18 months, maybe, sure, there could be a drawdown at the at the index level. if you really want to be thinking about where do i have sector exposure. >> and what about country exposure? >> country exposure matters too. i mean, i think the two themes, andrew, right now are kind of the end of financial repression. i've talked a little about, which is sort of zero interest rate, zero inflation that's behind us. and whether we're going to have another we're going to have 1 or 2 moves by the fed this year or none at all. we kind of know where we are in the bond market somewhere around four and a half. >> do we though, because there is real questions about, you know, we're going to hear from president trump this afternoon. sure. about tariffs. sure. jamie dimon was here. mary erdos was on stage talking about how she has their bidding war rooms. sure. jp morgan sure. sort of analyze these executive orders and what's going to happen with tariffs, both for the clients and the firm i don't know. sure. war rooms. >> sure. no, we all got them but but i but i but i think what's important here is that in the, in the broader context of the post pandemic period where we're trying to figure out what rates would generally be when we had a

roof off the back of the inflation burst. we know for this moment, for the next period of time, we're somewhere in the fours on a risk free basis. and as you know, if you're an analyzer looking at portfolio company, you're a private equity sponsor that's sitting on 2000 companies. as you know, they're out there, each worth a billion or more. they want to move them. so what's been one of the arguments not to move them? the argument has been the uncertainty around rates. so i'm not saying there isn't rate uncertainty at all. i'm saying we're kind of have that in a box. and the second box i think is kind of the end of end of history, which is we're going to have nation state rivalries and interests. and you could argue, oh, but isn't that a chilling effect too? and i would argue, no, actually, if you have the combination of some certainty around general rate framework, and you know now that there is going to be discussions at the nation state level, well, gosh, i have to act then am i going to be a buyer? am i going to be a seller? am i going to do some financial engineering? and that's why i'm bullish on the m&a cycle. i know some folks are still wondering like, when's it coming? and there could be a pacing of that, but i feel like

it's those two coming together, zero behind us. and, you know, kind of the global race in front of us that breeds m&a and capital markets activity, which is great. >> for more confidence you're talking about. there is an animal spirits situation going on in the markets right now. you have a wealth management business. e-trade obviously is a big part of that. so you got the retail side of it. what do you make of crypto under trump, this trump administration, what may happen and what that speaks i mean, we're talking about meme meme coins. i don't know if you're following the trump coin or the melania coin and what that says about what's happening here. >> well, i think there is liquidity and the liquidity, you know, express itself in all kinds of different ways. i think the broader question is whether some of this has come of age, whether it's hit escape velocity. and, you know, time is the friend. the longer it trades and, you know, perception becomes reality. for us, the equation is really around whether we as a highly regulated financial institution can act as transactors sort of follow the money, and there will be working with treasury and the other regulators to sort of figure out how we can offer that in a safe

way. >> let me ask you a different question. you've now been a year in this role, and people look at this succession plan, this transition as one of the great successes. your former chairman, former ceo is now managing the succession plan at disney. people give him a lot of credit for what? what do you think that you guys did that worked? what didn't work as other companies? sort of to the extent that you're supposed to be a role model for this, what was it? >> well, the way you asked that is excellent. i think it worked principally because of the people. and when i the. other people. >> yes. not, you. >> know, i mean, i was happy to i was happy to participate and i was honored to participate. but it doesn't work without james saying i'm my time. i'm going to go on and do the next thing. i mean, he was spectacular. ceo and chairman, transform morgan stanley. i mean, you know, he just said, i'm done. >> i mean, we just talked about the great results, though. and i mean, i assume when you walked in, you scared, were you

thinking, oh, i can, i can, i can make these numbers jump by 50% like that's possible. >> well, i think i think some self-awareness would be, you know, you should be a little scared every day. oh my gosh. there go your notes for the next set. >> of i don't know. now i don't know what to ask you. >> now we're going to see. no, i also think dan and andy saperstein. i mean, people talk about collegiality and there are lots of memos around that. but we're friends. we deeply care about each other, and that's what's made this partnership work. and the vibe at morgan stanley's, you know, our history, right? you've you've written a little about that. the reality is that we have some humility because very rare as a financial institution that gets to the brink and comes back. so in our good days and our good moments, we don't forget that when we're hosting dinners for our global clients, as we did last night. and we'll do it again tonight. we talk a lot about that because, you know, you don't want to get imprisoned by it. you got to transform. you kind of want to remember where you've been and that's that's important. >> okay. last one, maybe easy, maybe hard. but the wall street

journal is reporting it was a note that fell on the floor. yeah. morgan stanley star banker michael grimes discussing job in the trump administration. yeah. can you tell us. >> michael grimes, one of my favorite people. >> one of your favorite bankers? yes. banker to elon musk. >> broadcast.com for mr. cuban. yeah, we worked on that together. and then we worked on the google auction back in oh four. i believe that was for a year. michael's one of the star bankers and one of the culture carriers in morgan stanley. if he if in the end decides to do something away from us, we need him back. >> you need him back when it's over. >> of course. >> okay. ted, thank you for coming in. >> thanks so much for having me. >> thank you. becky, back to you in new york, andrew. >> thank you. and i just want to say to ted. yeah, i admire what you're saying. ted. just good to see you, too. i admire what you're saying about being humble, having a little bit of fear every day. i think a lot of people are afraid to admit that. but i think that's how you stay on your toes, how you don't get complacent. and i appreciate that you're willing to say that. >> i appreciate that every day. we just got to get a little

better. >> it's good attitude. everybody should think that way. >> it's a good attitude. >> we all should appreciate that. thanks for having me guys. >> really appreciate it. >> good to see you, ted. when we come back, the push to create oil and gas jobs while lowering prices. senate gop policy committee vice chair james lankford is going to join us to talk about his new bill and much more. squawk box will be right back. >> in a world of uncertainty and disruption, how will your investments stay resilient? we've been navigating change for 125 years, always looking forward, anticipating risks and trusted to manage over $1 trillion in assets worldwide. solving for the needs of investors today and tomorrow. investors today and tomorrow. that's the power help us retire. it's a simple ask of our elected leaders. but the tax treatment we rely on to grow our 401(k)s, iras,

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out of the inflation reduction act. if we can't get rid of that entirely, we need to at least need to give some relief to those folks that are those independent producers. we're not talking about the mega companies, but a lot of independents, because as folks know, if you actually grow to a level that you actually get caught with the kmt, you're stuck in it at that point. so we need to be able to get some relief to them so they're not constantly worried about it. the last thing we want to do to a business is say, you can't keep growing. you've got to be able to cap your growth. that's not good for our economy and it's not good for our energy future. >> yeah, i understand the idea of wanting companies to be able to consider intangible drilling costs as a way of really promoting drilling, doing what the president has talked about. but do you think this flies as a separate bill, or shouldn't this get wrapped up in the one big, beautiful bill that's going to do everything from, you know, figure out the taxes to figure out where we're doing with tariffs and other issues along the way. why do this as a one off? >> we're dropping it to be able to put it out there and say,

let's talk about this as one beautiful amendment and one big beautiful bill. so focus is how do we actually get this out there, get it into the conversation and make everyone aware of it, to say, we're not just talking about the 2017 tax bill and moving that forward. we're also talking about some other areas as well, including some things that were done in the ira that really hurts our economy, where, frankly, the intangible drilling cost really incentivizes companies to drill the next well to make sure we're doing more domestic production. and it's and it's a basic expense that every single business has. so right now we're treating energy production differently than we're treating other manufacturing. this just levels the playing field for them okay. >> this is this is interesting though. is this what we're going to see. a lot of bills that are put out for discussion to really elevate the issue. make sure that people understand it. the public, the other senators, the house potentially on these issues. is this what we're going to be looking at for the next several months? everybody trying to say, look at this very carefully because we're talking about one big, beautiful bill, but it's going to have a lot of

moving pieces. and i would guess that the negotiation began three days ago and will continue until that, that that bill gets put forward. >> actually, the negotiation began about nine months ago when the finance, ways and means committee, we sat down privately and said, okay, let's say all the different. for instance, here. one of those was, what if we win the house and the senate and the white house, and we have an opportunity for reconciliation? so we started gaming that out to be able to determine what could be done, what should be done. so we've got all the things on the whiteboard on it, but we've actually got to get the language right in each individual segment. so you don't write the whole bill all at once. you write the different pieces, do the technical work that's on that, and then be able to say, let's get this piece into the whole. >> that sounds like a protracted and kind of messy process. what are the odds that these things each get picked up? and even if this gets voted on, what are the odds it winds up in the final? i mean, there's so many stories we hear about the back and forth, the negotiations, the deal making. you know, let's just take salt, for instance. you

have the new york and new jersey republicans who have said that they would vote against it in the house. if they can't get the salt deductions lifted to 20,000 or maybe more. how does this all work out? is somebody who's on the policy committee, as somebody who sees everything that's taking place, describe the process. >> it's a big, messy process on that. so i serve on the finance committee, which is that tax writing committee in the senate. so we'll take different pieces. let me take not just the intangible drilling costs, but let's take bonus depreciation, bonus depreciation in the 2017 bill tax bill was diminishing. each year we've got to get a stable higher bonus depreciation up there to be able to incentivize again businesses to be able to compete with china and to be able to do more manufacturing, more energy production, more semiconductors, all the things that we need to be able to do here. but that allows those businesses to be able to write off the deduction faster. that doesn't change the amount of income coming into the treasury. it incentivizes business activity. and for them to be able to write it off right now rather than in the future, that's a way that we can actually impact the economy.

that's one slice of that that i'm working on among many. so we work it out in our committee. we work it out with the house members. i met with some of the house members on ways and means earlier this week, and we start talking through what what's the parameters, what's the fence that we're going to try to put in, how are we going to manage this and to be able to make sure that we get the pieces in that help our economy and take the pieces out that don't. >> all of that has to be negotiated behind the scenes. and at the same time, i would i would assume you're working pretty closely with president trump to make sure that he's on board with the proposals you're putting forth. >> sure. yeah. they've got ideas. the white house has ideas. ways and means has ideas. the senate finance committee has ideas. so we work those together. and then we once we put that out, then other members, not in those committees, they also have ideas. and they'll say there's something significant they want to be able to do. welcome to a very messy republic. we're pretty noisy and this is how we work things out. >> yeah, i bet the lobbyists are going to be working overtime trying to get their words in on this, too. it's all it's all happening at the same time that

the president is carrying out his own negotiation on a global level, talking about tariffs, talking about security issues, talking about things that he'd like to see happen. we're now looking at potentially february 1st for tariffs of 25% on canada and mexico, 10% additionally on china. do you think that that happens or how how do you even prepare for that with the legislation that you're putting forward and all of this? i mean, is that in the back of your mind, do you think that's a negotiation? do you think that actually happens? >> yeah, it affects the global economy on it. so a couple of things to this. we want more international trade. that should be a basic benefit. we've been free traders in america since before we were a country. it's one of the arguments in the declaration of independence from england is that they were suppressing our trade around the world. so we've been passionate about trade for a long time. when other countries put high tariffs on us to be able to block our products going to them. the president's been pretty clear. we're going to put tariffs on you. we're going to try to bring levels down on this or we're going to equate to you.

but if you want to get access to the american market, you've got to open up your markets as well. president trump and his team was very active in doing trade agreements. president biden was to our great frustration, would not go get new trade agreements. he would tweak existing but he wouldn't go get new agreements. we need to go get new agreements around the world. and as far as canada and mexico, it's pretty clear the presidents said, hey, you want to negotiate? i want to talk about border. i want to talk about fentanyl. i want to talk about the issues that we've got in all these trade agreements, whether it be softwood lumber, whether it be dairy products coming from canada. those are big issues to be able to negotiate. and he says, let's actually get them resolved. and in the meantime, i'm going to put a tariff to try to get you to the table to try to get things resolved. i don't think he's looking for tariffs long term, but i think he's looking for things to be right for american companies to be able to trade more. >> canada, really the problem with fentanyl. >> our issue with fentanyl in canada is just enforcement there and seeing what's actually coming from the northern border to the south. we're seeing some movement of fentanyl from there as well, much more from mexico. the primary issue is, quite

frankly, china. i think that's why the president put the big piece on china to say, if china actually stopped sending precursors to canada, and mexico will have less supply actually coming at us. we got to deal with our desires with the issue of demand in the united states, but also we've got to deal with the supply issue at the same time. >> senator lankford, thank you for the peek behind the curtain at the messy process that's taking place. we hope you'll come back and tell us more as things progress, and you get a better feel for what's going to wind up in that final bill. >> that we look forward to the conversation. >> senator lankford, thank you. let's get back over to andrew in davos. andrew. >> hey thanks, becky i want to discuss the future of work with our next guest. workday ceo carl eisenbach. it's great to see you, sir. as always. great to see you, andrew. one of the things we talked about yesterday, i think it was yesterday, all the days come together now. marc benioff from salesforce, a partner of yours. yes. was talking about ai and was talking about the future of the workforce with aging force and the like. but then we started talking about how many new engineers he was thinking he

would need to hire. and he said none because i was that powerful in terms of helping his firm really be able to do things that they couldn't do, make them that much more productive. yeah. and i'm curious how you think about that, because we all think about, like, the future of labor. yeah. your whole business is dependent on labor, i imagine. yeah. and how you think about that dynamic? yeah. you know, it's a great question, andrew. >> our business is dependent on labor today. it's dependent on human labor. right. going forward, it's going to depend on both human labor and digital labor. right. so there's always going to be incremental labor that's being added. and someone has to protect all of those employees, whether they're human and digital. they have to onboard them. right. they have to have policies. they have to have controls. right. they have to have access. right. someone has to manage them. and we think we're uniquely positioned to manage. >> but you're thinking, would you use the phrase digital labor? you're thinking that you're actually going to be onboarding a digital labor. digital like a not a real

person, but a digital labor that's going to have instructions about what they do and how they do it. >> i absolutely do believe that if you think about what everyone's talking about here in davos is agents, and we're moving into this world of agentic future. if you think about what we do today, we onboard human employees in the future when these new agents come into work, someone's got to manage them. someone's got to secure your enterprise. someone's got to protect your enterprise as they come in. and i think there will be people, and we're going to be one of them that manages the entire labor force, whether it's human or digital, and they're going to peacefully coexist on a platform in a secure way. and there's no one better position than workday to do that. so while you may see some decrease or moderation in human capital from a human side, there's also going to be increase in digital labor. >> what is the defensive moat though around that? and i ask because if ai is as good as we keep hearing, it's going to ultimately be, won't ai to be able to build that app or that

software package that is able to instruct my digital labor to do what it's supposed to do? yeah. >> so the moat is all around data. everyone spends a lot of time talking about ai, and i think you would agree at this point. andrew, the output of ai is only as good as the data you're training off of. and the moat we have today is we have 70 million employees on our platform in a highly curated platform, all the same data set. and not only do we have all that data, but we understand the context of what's happening with that data. and we're processing now 800 billion transactions a year on that platform, which gives us an ability to train off of that data that is so clean to drive true output, that will drive business value around ai. one of the things i see everyone talking about, even here this week, is the impact of ai, and everyone's talking about it and how it's going to reduce your costs to operate the enterprise. well, that is true. it's going to drive efficiencies. i think

we need to turn the conversation. how can we leverage ai to drive growth in our corporations? how do we drive enterprise growth through the use of ai? we need to take those savings and apply it to growth. that's the opportunity around ai. it's not just a cost saving exercise. >> are there any trends you're seeing? i mean, i remember talking to your your your you were his successor or he's your successor, neal, about different trends over the years where there was stuff in the data about what's happening to employees right now, meaning if there's anything right now that's jumping out at you. yeah. >> so listen, we do see a lot of data today. we're processing almost 1 million applications a day on top of workday. that's a 3 to 1 ratio on the number of job wrecks we see on the system. so while there's still jobs being created on top of the workday platform, it's actually harder and harder to get access to those jobs because the demand is out, you know, outweighing

the supply for jobs today. so we are seeing that, but we're still seeing growth. everyone talks about ai and the impact of the human workforce. it's moderating, but there is still growth. and that growth will continue with every tectonic shift. >> saying that there's a shift in terms of the power that actually labor is losing power to management, right. there was a period of time where everyone said that labor had more power over it. do you see that being the case if you're saying there's a shortage? >> so here's. >> what i see. >> we talk about the power of a ai. we're truly in one of the most revolutionary tectonic shifts we've ever seen in technology. with ai, we think that is going to drive an ai right skill set revolution. and what i mean by that, we're going to move from a world, andrew, where today we work with technology. you work with technology. in fact, most people spend the majority of their day using technology. we're moving to a world where technology is going to work for humans, and what that's going to do is it's going to free us up from those

mundane tasks, and we're going to go reskill our workforce, and we're going to go reskill management. and i don't call it soft skills, because i think they're life skills that we need to bring back into the enterprise. empathy, being authentic, having contract conflict resolution. how do we think about emotional intelligence, all of these things i think we've lost because we spend so much time using technology. it's going to free us up to go focus on those life skills and soft skills. and i think management is going to be even more effective because of the power of ai going forward. >> okay, karl. thank you. it's great to see you, sir. great to see you. hope to see you back stateside. meantime, it is just past 8 a.m. right here. i shouldn't say on here on the east coast. it's just past 8 a.m. just past 2 p.m. if you're watching here in davos, switzerland. we're on squawk box on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin i'm at the world economic forum. becky is at the nasdaq market site in times square. joe is off today. i want to quickly show

you where markets are headed right now. ahead of the jobless claims data, we're going to be bringing you very, very shortly. futures right now of 44 points up on the dow. the nasdaq off about 93 points. the s&p 500 off about six points. and let's show you treasuries looking right now at the ten year and the two year note the ten year sitting just at about 4.642. the two year at four point three. back to you. >> thank you. shares of charles schwab are up more than 8% so far in 2025, and 26% over the course of the last year. on tuesday, the brokerage giant topped the street's revenue and profit expectations for the fourth quarter pretty handily. that stock was up sharply on tuesday as a result. i think at one point i saw it up by 7%. the company said investor engagement surged following the election. the company, of course, has a new ceo and that would be rick worcester. he took the helm at the beginning of the year, and he says the company is positioned for strength and poised for liftoff in 2025. rick worcester joins us right now.

and rick, it's great to see you this morning. >> thank you. really nice to see you. thanks for having me on. >> thanks for coming in. so let's talk about why you think you are positioned for growth. the numbers were really strong, stronger than the street was expecting. i think you beat by $0.10 or something on the on the top line 101 versus the $0.91 the street was expecting. revenue was up 20%. that was a pretty strong turnaround from what we'd seen in the quarter before. what happened? >> well, we have engaged clients in terms of our being ready for liftoff. we're number one or number two in the two fastest growing areas of the financial services market. we have what we think is the broadest set of ways for investors to engage, and the broadest methods for people to come and find us, whether it's digitally, whether it's walking into a branch and there's a bull market for ease. and so being able to find us in multiple places and do more in one place, that's leading to lots of client growth. and that growth is what's accelerating our stock. >> where are the clients? they're coming in. who are they? >> we see clients across the board. i think a little known fact about schwab is that about

one out of every six households that have more than $20 million in our country work with schwab. and at the same time, we're crushing it with younger investors. roughly a third of our new news12 schwab households last year were from clients under the age of 30. >> that shocked me. i was reading through some of the demographics numbers on that. a third were under the age of 30. how many were under the age of 40? >> it was more than 50%, close to 60%. so we really are doing well with young clients, and our model is that we attract them. and then what we do is we try to do everything we can to delight them and grow those relationships over time, both through digital channels and through in-person interactions. >> what delights them? what makes them happy with that? what makes them stick around? and i guess i ask because if you think of younger investors, a lot of times people think it's robinhood, right? that stock was up about 192% last year versus the 26% that you guys were up. what are you doing to find these younger people and how do you keep them once you find them? >> well, our success with young investors is driven by the fact

that we can do so much to help them. so young investors often are figuring out how to pay off their college debt, or they're figuring out how to buy buy their first home. and investing is an important part of that journey. and we can help them both with the investing part, but with also the broader life and how it's all going to come together from a financial standpoint, that's where we really stand apart. it's not just about a trading app. we have what we think is the best trading app in the market. we do more than we do more trades than the next two closest competitors in the retail brokerage space. but it's also because of everything we wrap around it. >> and where do you find them? are you finding them online? are you you say you you bring them in in person to where are the majority of these new younger customers come in? >> i think our younger clients tend to engage with us first digitally and we have a great brand. we have a terrific marketing department that goes and finds young investors where they are and introduces content to them. that's of interest to them. we have about 35 hours a week of content that is curated

specifically for newer investors that are just figuring out how to invest. we have a capability in our thinkorswim trading tool that allows young investors to practice investing without using real money. so it allows them to get used to what trading and what investing is like. >> they're like, whoops, what did i just do? >> what's a good way to learn right. >> so what do you think when you hear of the hotshots like a robinhood or an interactive brokers or somebody who comes in, how do you guys measure up? how do you think of them as competitors? >> we feel great about our positioning being number one or number two in the two fastest growing segments of our space is a is a great starting point. having the breadth of capabilities that we have, which we don't think can be matched in a period where people value that more because they value ease and they want to get things done in one place. having that breadth of capabilities is very helpful. having the lowest expense base in our industry relative to client assets is a big advantage, and being able to work with clients in multiple ways. we often find that as clients, lives change big moments, whether it's paying off

their college debt, whether it's buying a home, whether it's having their first baby or getting married, all of those things. people tend to want to come into one of our branches and have a discussion about it, or talk to one of our experts on the phone and being there for them in multiple ways, i think, is what sets us apart. it stems from seeing through clients eyes and doing right by them. >> so you get frustrated when you see the stock gains of somebody like a robinhood. >> no. listen, i think we're focused on delivering for our clients. so i don't look at, you know, with envy at anyone else's stock price. i look at nailing it for our clients and what i feel great about. and we had a lot of outstanding quarterly numbers that we just reported on tuesday. the number that gave me the greatest satisfaction was the fact that our clients satisfaction scores across our major businesses are all at all time highs. that's what i'm excited about. >> let's talk about some of those other numbers. net interest income was up 19% to 2.5 billion. that's the biggest portion of your revenue. what happened there? why why did it ramp up like that? net interest

income obviously is the difference between what you are paying or the interest that you have to pay to people to get them to keep their deposits there, versus what you get paid on your interest. >> we've seen a real stabilization of cash deposits at schwab, and that's what drives our net interest margin. and if you if you look back to the past couple of years, what has happened is clients have been, at our suggestion, finding places to put their cash where they could earn more. and now we're down to levels of cash where it's really about their transactional needs. and so we saw in the last four months, client deposits grow by about 52 billion. and so that has added to our to our net interest margin. >> and the net interest margin again with rates. let's just talk about what the fed has done right now. is it harder to find for clients to find more attractive places to put their money? and that's just a broader example of where the fed stands right now. >> i think it's a great time to be a fixed income investor right now because you can find yield. it wasn't too long ago we were

talking about zero rates, and now clients can can find great rates in a lot of different places. you know, for me, if you're if you're a retiree right now buying 30 year tips, you can get a 2.5% real yield, not really any inflation risk and not a lot of risk generally to be able to go and earn 2.5% real. it's as high as they've been in a long time. it's a good time to be a fixed income investor. >> you all have talked about some opportunistic buybacks at this point. stock buybacks. we haven't seen that in about a year. what what are you looking at. because it would have been more opportunistic maybe at the end of last year than right now. just given where the stock has taken off, what would make you do the share buybacks at this point? >> well, we've been building capital and we've been building capital towards what we expected to be the new basel three regulations. and we're now at a place where we meet the new basel three regulations should they take place. and we're at a point now where we do think we're getting ready to be able to, to, to opportunistically buy back our stock. >> and if basel three goes away, you would buy more aggressively. >> well, i think we'd we'd want

to think about the safety and soundness of our firm and what the right level of capital is, but certainly we would be well above the capital targets that we that we shoot for. >> and basel three, in your opinion, was that i mean, most bankers will say that they thought that was too aggressive. >> there were elements of it that i think made sense and other elements that didn't. we commented on it like many other financial institutions, and i know the fed is thoughtfully looking at it and likely to propose some form of it. and i think it's been a good example of being able to have a voice and share share collectively our industry's thoughts with with the fed, and they've been responsive. >> you all have been looking at having spot crypto trading later this year. what has to happen before that that comes out. >> well, first, crypto has been of incredible interest to our clients. we had a 400% increase in traffic to our crypto site in the fourth quarter alone, 70% of whom were prospects that we don't work with. so what's exciting to us about crypto right now is there's a lot of interest. and when there is interest, they come to schwab because they know it's a place

they can trust. and we offer lots of ways to invest in crypto. at schwab, we don't yet offer spot crypto because of the regulatory environment. we think that is likely to change. and when it does, we're going to be quickly and we'd like to be quickly into the. >> market because you want to be able to offer everything that somebody's interested in. >> we want to be able to meet someone's crypto needs in a variety of ways. today, they can invest in etfs. they can invest in futures. they can invest in closed end funds. we'd like to add spot crypto at the right time. >> what did you see post-election? additional interest in trading. additional optimism from the from the retail traders that you're dealing with. >> we did we saw one sentiment increase. so we saw in november and december we measure sentiment among our trading activities, seeing what they're buying and selling. trading activity increased in november and then increased again in december. and then we saw activity increase. and so our december daily average trades were up about 30% over the prior december and up over over the prior month. so there definitely has been an increase in sentiment and activity.

>> rick, i want to thank you very much for joining us here in house, rick worcester again, the ceo of charles schwab. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> it's great to see you, andrew. we'll send it back over to you. >> great interview becky. when we come back we got some more interviews in davos, including a chat with scale ace alexander wang. speaking of ai, elon musk biographer walter isaacson is going to be weighing in on a brewing feud between musk and openai's sam altman that involves satya nadella here in davos as well. stay tuned. squawk box coming right back squawk box coming right back after this. (♪♪) (♪♪) what took you so long? i'm sorry, there was a long line at the thai place.

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>> get started today with a prescription that's right for you at wrexham.com. >> things were all smiles for tech leaders attending president trump's inauguration, including elon musk. but in the last 36 hours or so, musk has caused friction for the new

administration. he got into a spat on x with openai's sam altman over the white house's new stargate ai project. hours before that, altman had appeared at the white house with trump as he announced the stargate plans. joining us right now to talk about this and musk and other billionaires impact on the government is elon musk, author walter isaacson. of course, he's also a professor at tulane university. he's an advisory partner at perella weinberg and a cnbc contributor. and walter, you have you're a great historian who has looked back at some really phenomenal figures in time. i think of ben franklin, your book on him, your book on einstein, your book on leonardo da vinci, steve jobs and now elon musk and jamie dimon was with us yesterday. he said, you know, elon is our einstein. and i think that is true. but i think part of the reason people think it, not just because of how many spectacular things elon has done, but also because you've put him in that pantheon. you only look at really interesting people. what do you think of what's happened

in the last 36 hours or so between elon musk, the administration, sam altman and beyond? >> you know, if you want to understand elon musk, just look at the way he's been for the past 50 years or so. and there are two chapters in my biography of his relationship with sam altman and the forming of openai and musk's fury at sam altman. when openai no longer becomes open and it no longer becomes a nonprofit, and there's a simmering resentment there. as you know, there have been lawsuits there. and, you know, i've seen them together. it's sort of this interesting thing that musk can do is be both a total enemy, but also somebody who feels like he's just a gladiator contest. you know, we were in one of these conferences not long ago. i saw the two of them talking together. and yet when trump rolled out sam altman, along with larry ellison and others to talk about this new stargate ai storage system,

and musk was not a part of it. you just knew from the history that you see that that would cause another eruption in musk. and musk's genius comes in, you know, from his amazing ability to do things, but it's driven by a darker force of intensity that erupts time and time again. >> i think that's something that the new president, president trump, will just kind of gloss over because he likes the good part of elon and what he gets in the relationship there. or does it risk a broader fissure with these two who have worked so closely together? >> you know, the broader fissure is the is the rift between what i would call musk and the tech bro community in terms of having a growth strategy and even wanting h-1b visas. that was one of the flashpoints of this versus the more populist steve

bannon crowd, who doesn't feel that the tech companies of silicon valley should have that much power. and we saw in the inauguration who won that, because steve bannon said, by the end of inauguration day, elon musk, i'll make sure he's not around. and it was steve bannon who wasn't around. and there's musk sitting in front of the commerce secretary designate. and so that's the big one. the rupture. as you know, i've shown in the chapters in the book that involve ai and its development come from musk's passion to create safe ai and robotics and his rivalry with altman. but there's not a philosophical, at least a major philosophical dispute. and this is a problem because this is musk with his own interests and sometimes resentments taking on sam altman. and that's going to have to be resolved by trump.

>> i think andrew has a question, too. >> andrew. >> walter, hey, it's great to see you. one of the things that i. >> by the way, let me just say you're you're such a nadella answer that you got. was it yesterday about i got the money to do this. even if elon musk said there wasn't money. that was a classic interview. thanks. >> thank you. walter, as it relates to that, though, you know, one of the things that i was curious about from your perspective is when elon sees this all happening and clearly he was left out of this particular transaction with, with openai. you know, one of the worries that i think people had had about his relationship with trump was, you know, would it impact an open ai? would he use whatever influence he has to try to shut down certain things that openai or, or jeff bezos might try to do because they're competitors of his. both sam altman and jeff bezos have been quite public about saying they while they have lots of questions and issues with maybe

certain things that elon has done, that they don't think that he would use his influence to hurt them. do you think that's true? >> yeah. i think that in his rational moments and, you know, clear thinking, he knows he's not he actually kind of supports jeff bezos's ability to go into space even though he's a competitor. spacex is a competitor to blue origin. likewise, you know, his his ai company x ai is a competitor to open ai. and it's just in these late night tweets. i mean, he's done a flurry of them in the past 4 or 5 hours. he lets his resentment show. the question is, will he actually try to stop openai and sam altman for doing something? or will he just slinging barbs on x as he has been doing? and i suspect it's the latter. >> and walter, it appears that his barbs are aimed at sam and

openai as opposed to president trump. but at the same time, this announcement was made by president trump behind a presidential lecture and by something that president trump was trying to suggest to the public he was very proud about. and i wonder, i wonder whether you think that undermines the relationship in any way, or do you think that president trump says, oh, he's not really trying to point the finger at me. he's he's trying to troll this other guy. >> well, what's also interesting and you just described is donald trump deciding to make that announcement and a field that's right, core to what elon musk is doing, and to have larry ellison there, have sam altman there make the announcement, but not have elon musk be a part of this whole thing, or for that matter, some of elon musk's you know, colleagues like david sacks and i, it's sort of like when biden had a summit on electric vehicles and invited mary barra of gm and the other major companies, but not tesla. this

got into his room. and so what was trump thinking? why does trump do this and cut out elon musk? is it trump playing a game too? i don't think so yet. i don't think so. i think the relationship is solid. >> this felt like it was more of a masa son who had come with the $100 billion. trump immediately said, make it a $200 billion investment. masa son maybe came back with larry from oracle and sam, but walter, now he's got an office in the executive building next door to the white house. we hear he has a white house email, although i haven't seen any emails from him on that. i mean, he's he's in a much closer position. you point out that over the last 4 or 5 hours, he's had a lot of things that he's been going back and forth. you know, he's very frustrated by people accusing him of this nazi thing. he's forwarded some stuff from benjamin netanyahu. now he's making some other postings on this, i guess. have you spoken with him lately? where

where do you think he stands? because he seemed like he was in pretty good spirits at the inauguration. but you're right. some of this late night texting or tweeting doesn't quite match up with maybe where i thought he would be at this point. >> now that i talked to him recently. but if you, as you know from the book as you've read it, becky, he just goes in waves sometimes he's in engineering mode, sometimes he's in getting mode like he was at the inauguration, just jumping up and down and doing things. sometimes he's in engineering mode when he's focused, and sometimes he's in with his former girlfriend. grimes called demon mode, where he just gets dark. and i do think that sometimes late at night, he gets into that dark demon mode. and i think you're right. trump is very transactional. this whole thing about 100 billion. let's make it 200. let's make it 500 billion. i think just trump did that in a typical trump fashion. it wasn't a dig at elon. >> what do you anticipate

expect? and while he may very well welcome the broader moves of a bezos moving into space, i mean, the ai battle with openai seems so personal. and obviously there's that long history. we didn't talk. we've talked about it often in the past, but elon funded sam altman. sam altman agreed to not take any equity in it. he's now looking to take an equity stake. and elon was tweeting about that yesterday or about that yesterday. posting on x. absolutely. >> i mean, if you saw, you know, the chapters in the book when they start openai together and musk tries to push sam out early on in that relationship, and then they come back together, then altman, you know, changes it. and musk resentments begin to rise and you put your finger on it. sometimes musk just gets very resentful and has trouble

containing those. this anger he feels about what sam altman did. i think that musk power in the federal government is pretty secure because, as you say, he and trump are very close. but musk has been able over the past week to make sure that his people are embedded at omb with russell vought and others embedded in various departments. and i don't think that's going to be used against personal vendetta, against sam altman. it's going to be used for this mission he has for government efficiency. >> walter. it's fascinating. i feel like we can't have you here often enough to talk about these things, because it's affecting so much of what happens in business and in politics these days. but thank you to walter. >> thank you so much, becky. >> by the way, are your book sales taking off again? >> yeah, yeah. but, you know, it's not about the books. i think people want to have the

playbook of how has he done this in the past 20 years and want. >> to. >> implement it. and this is anybody. >> who hasn't read it yet, already needs to. that's exactly what i would think. this is going to be pretty important. >> i think people in the federal government should read it right now. they see what they have coming at them. >> i think so too. all right. when we come back, we've got breaking jobless claims data. stay tuned. squawk box will be back after a quick break. >> some people thrive on the edge. >> we are. >> improving lives by bringing intelligence to the edge. lays edge ai technology processing critical data with blazing speed, bringing the most sophisticated ai intelligence to computation at the edge. distinctive efficiency, limitless innovation. make smart decisions with precision and agility. now publicly available. trade today. blaze. life on the edge. >> are you having a hard time growing your sales? is it tough getting new customers? try

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today@hims.com. >> welcome back to squawk box. rick santelli here live. >> cme hq breaking news. this continuing jobless claims on initial claims 223,000. that's a little higher than we're used to. that would be the highest level going back to the first week in december of last year. and keep this in mind, we haven't been over 250,000 on initial claims since the first week in october of 2024. continuing claims also bit higher. we're watching yields move down on this info 1,899,000. literally a whisker under 1.9 million. we haven't been above 1.9 million now in 33 weeks 33 weeks. yes that's

correct. and in the rear view mirror, subtle revision 1,853,000. now is last week. we know we were closed monday of this week for martin luther king day. that next week probably show us some seasonal adjustment issues. but these numbers right here should be pretty straight. and they have moved up a little bit. as i said, yields moving down. but maybe the big news in yields if you look at yesterday's yields in treasuries they traded above the previous day's highs today. we're already trading above yesterday's high yields. looks like the market on interest rates has had a subtle turn to the upside. andrew back to you. >> thank you rick. we are here in davos switzerland at the world economic forum. and for the first time on the show we're going to not for the first time on this show, but for the first time, we're going to be talking about ai, global ai, of course, we've been talking about that all week. but first time on the show scale. ai founder and ceo alexander wang. his company provides accurately labeled data to help companies train their ai tools. and back in 2022, he

became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. pretty amazing. >> thanks for having me on. >> i want to go straight to what we were just talking about off camera, which is the idea of where the us is on ai versus china, because you have some very surprising statistics that i think will probably, frankly, freak out some of the viewers. so yeah. >> first of all, the ai race and the ai war between us and china, i think is one of the most important issues of today. we took out a full page ad on the washington post on on tuesday saying that, you know, america must win the ai war. and so this sort of relative race in ai between the us and china is critical. today we released humanity's last exam, which is a new evaluation or benchmark of ai models that we produced by getting, you know, math, physics, biology, chemistry professors to provide the hardest questio could possibly imagine that are relevant to their recent research. to really put the test

to the models, to give you a sense, no model is getting above 10% on this test. that being said, you know, what we found is that deep seek, which is the leading chinese ai lab, their model is actually the top performing or roughly on par with the best american models, which are zero one from. okay. >> so i think we have been all under the impression that the us was way ahead of china as it relates to ai, in large part because we have access to, you know, nvidia gpus and chips and other things that that supposedly the chinese do not have. i keep hearing from people all week from people, chinese, chinese, ai executives that they say, we're so close. and by the way, we're doing it with one hand tied behind our back. our algos are better. we're actually going to figure out how to do this, do it better than the us, and in even a more energy efficient way, because we don't need these super powerful chips. are they happen to be right. >> there's two things happening. first, it is true. it has been true for a long time that the united states has been ahead.

and that's been true for, you know, maybe the past decade. that being said, you know, the very recent event on christmas day, you know, about a month ago, deep seek released a model which, by the way, i think is symbolic that the chinese lab releases, you know, an earth shattering model on christmas day when, you know, the rest of us are sort of celebrating the holiday and they released it to much fanfare, and then they followed up with their reasoning model, deep scar one, which is the one that we evaluated as top of the leaderboard. you know, the reality is yes and no. so, you know, the chinese labs, they have more a100s than than people think, you know, the. >> and these are the highest powered nvidia chips that they were not supposed to have. >> yes. my understanding is that is that deep seac has about 50,000 a100s, which they can't talk about obviously, because it is against the export controls that the united states has put in place. and i think it is true that, you know, i think they have more chips than other people expect, but also going to go forward basis. they are going

to be limited by the chip controls and the export controls that we have in place. >> how do you i mean, you work with all you work with everybody. so i don't know if it's fair or unfair, but how do you stack rank these large language models and who ultimately is going to be a winner? or are they all so close and it gets commoditized? >> the interesting thing that we see right now, so we actually specialize in this. we've produced our seal evaluations, our safety evaluations and alignment labs evaluations, which which measure across many different dimensions. and we measure across math capabilities, coding capabilities, multilingual capabilities and reasoning capabilities, and many different dimensions, including tool use and agent capabilities. and what we see is different models are better at different things, so it's hard to put a clear stack ranking among all the models. you know. for example, the openai models are extremely good at reasoning, but the anthropic models might be really good at code. and sort of there's a there's a diversity of capabilities of the models. that being said, i think what we're seeing in general is the space is becoming more competitive,

not less competitive. >> i keep hearing from business leaders here that they're all playing around with, you know, openai or they're playing around with claude, which is the anthropic model, or they're playing around with gemini, etc, and then they're going and using llama. they're going to find some open source version to try to get close to what they could approximate these other guys doing because of just the different price points of these things. do you think that's the future of this? i think in in a lennox world, there's. >> there's definitely a dimension. you know, it comes down to ultimately the level of capabilities and intelligence that are required for your use case. i think ultimately what we're going to see is, you know, what we do with all the leading labs, including openai and google deepmind and meta and many others, is continuing to push the frontier and push the boundaries. and so how do we leverage data, given that, you know, as a as an industry, we've sort of run out of publicly available data. how do we generate new data to keep pushing the frontiers? and our belief is that, you know, advanced capabilities are going to enable incredible use cases

where where you're going to be willing to pay for those for those increased capabilities. but for the more simplistic use cases, those will probably go more towards open source or more basic models. >> we've been talking all morning about stargate and the debate happening on twitter between sam altman and elon mus, about whether they really have $100 billion or $500 billion. satya nadella was sitting in your chair just yesterday saying he's got $80 billion. his money is real. he took to twitter. what do you make of all this? you know, all these players. >> you know, so much is on twitter anyway. so i'm not sure i have. >> x we. >> should say or yeah x. but i mean i think one thing that is very real, regardless of sort of stargate specifically as a program, is that the united states is going to need a huge amount of computational capacity and a huge amount of infrastructure. so this was actually in we wrote a letter to the trump administration to on recommendations on how to ensure that the us stays ahead. and one of them was really around infrastructure. we need to unleash us energy to enable this

ai boom. and that's clearly what we're seeing right now, which is, you know, in addition to the stargate program, many of the major ai companies and major clouds are going to be looking to produce to build giant data centers. >> so the reason i ask this, though, about the different companies doing this, do you ultimately think we need five, six, seven companies all trying to build frontier models or. i mean, there's been a talk forever that, you know, in a different if lina khan hadn't been running, the ftc would have amazon wanted to buy anthropic already, for example, or would have microsoft bought openai or would have some of these folks so there wouldn't be as many everybody competing against each other in the same way? i don't know, maybe you think the competition is great. i just don't know how long, long term, how many models there ultimately will be like that. >> i mean, our view is actually. >> that. >> this is potentially going to be one of the greatest markets or the greatest industries ever. you know, right now, let's say there's between 10 and $20

billion of lm based revenue. and if you believe that we're actually on a track towards superintelligence or agi, then it stands to reason that that's going to go to $1 trillion or more of revenue. and so if you're looking at a market that's going to go from, let's say, 10 billion to 1 trillion over who knows how many years, i tend to believe a fewer number of years. i think we're sort of in the 2 to 4 range, 2 to 4, two. >> to get to agi. and what's your version of agi? >> i think obviously there's many definitions. you know, the definition i believe in is our powerful ai systems that are able to use a computer just like you or i could and could use all the tools that a computer could and could basically be a remote worker in the most capable way. you know, one one of the ways i think about it is one of the areas where capabilities have moved the fastest is coding. and, you know, let's say, you know, mark zuckerberg said on on joe rogan that we're going to have, you know, mid-level software engineers this year. let's take that. let's take that as at face value. then you're pretty close to having ai

development agents that will work on their own. and then you're at self-improvement. and once you have self-improvement models, the models get very good very quickly. so i believe that. so again, economically, if you believe this, this industry goes from 10 billion to 1 trillion, you should have more competition. this is going to be one of the biggest industries in the world. and frankly, we should have more players. >> workplace question for you. >> you were. >> very outspoken about switching or talking about instead of a dei framework to this mta framework. i'm curious what the reaction has been here in davos this year about that topic for you. >> well it's interesting. so this was last year when we when we rolled out my. >> but now but now with with with trump winning the world has moved towards you. >> yeah. in fact trump mentioned is an inaugural speech. you know a removal of dei programs, making sure that that hiring was merit based. and i think what we're seeing is sort of a broad based realization that, you know, the meritocracy is the

core and fundamental. you know, north star, you know, we operate in an incredibly competitive and fast moving industry in ai. and i don't have any option but to hire the best and most brilliant and most capable people for every single job inside my company. so as a result, we have no option but to be meritocratic and to practice mta. and in the process, we achieve diversity. >> what do you make of president's executive order as it relates to this. >> which one. >> around dei because, you know, he has announced he's made an executive order that if you have dei in your title, for example, that you should be fired. there's now some efforts if dei is not in your title that other employees are supposed to, you know, id you effectively and he wants to remove all of those people, is your sense that they should be removed, that should they be recast? what should what should happen? >> you know, i haven't read the exact text of the of the executive order, so i'll be sure to look to that. but, you know, i think in general what, what

what we saw was a was an overrotation towards dei. i mean, i think, you know, diversity is not an evil, it's just the, the full overrotation towards dei resulted in a bunch of strange behaviors that that weren't conducive to meritocracy and weren't conducive to business success. >> alex, it's great to see you. thank you. it's fascinating. fascinating. come on back. are you coming to new york? ever come to new york? >> i would love to come. >> to new york. okay. you have a you have an invitation to sit on the set, and we'll continue this conversation. becky's back in new york. becky, back to you. >> that was fascinating, andrew. thank you. a lot to think about with what alexandra was talking about. when we return, another can't miss interview. this time we're going to hear from the ceo of broadband giant liberty global. live from the world economic forum in davos. mike fries will join us. stay tuned. you're watching squawk box and this is cnbc. >> with income products from brighthouse financial. you can turn a portion of your portfolio into guaranteed lifetime income

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progress takes all of us working together on new sources of energy. cars that drive to the future. even pizza deliveries. together we can go beyond where we've ever been collaborating from anywhere on everything. atlassian makes software for teams to do what is impossible alone. >> don't miss a members only event. >> the club is really about empowerment, empowering you to manage your own money. >> join the cnbc investing club to access jim's monthly meeting. go to cnbc.com slash monthly meeting. davos 2025. andrew ross sorkin and sara eisen sit down with world business leaders on the geopolitical outlook and key global economic issues. the ultimate power summit special reports all day cnbc. >> welcome back to squawk box. we are live in davos, switzerland at the world economic forum and 5g and

broadband adoption in focus in davos. our next guest provides 85 million connections across europe. joining us right now is mike fries, ceo of liberty global. good morning to you. >> nice to see you andrew. >> an annual meeting with you. yes we do. we get to find out what's happening in europe, by the way, before we even get into the sort of broadband media ecosphere in the us. it feels like a lot of the us ceos are very optimistic about things. right? a lot of the folks that i've been talking to, european ceos, are very seemingly pessimistic about the state of affairs. and i'm curious, since this is your land. yeah. what you think of that? >> i bet. >> i mean, they may come across as pessimistic. they're probably just uncertain. okay, that's that's a difference there. what does it mean? what does the us policy going forward mean for them. and remember europe is in a very it's a very important inflection point. this draghi report that came out was a wake up call for europe. if you want to increase productivity, increase investment, increase innovation we better get this regulatory thing right. right.

and historically europe has not gotten that right, which is a long conversation we can get into in the telecom sector is a poster child for where they got it wrong, focused on prices, not focused on investment in infrastructure. and i'm hopeful i'm hopeful that the european commission has received that message and will actually start making changes. >> where are you in the shift of what liberty global ultimately is? i mean, i'm thinking of all the things that have happened just basically in the last year, buybacks spinning off the swiss telecom business. you bought warner brothers discovery's controlling interest in formula e that's motorsports for. what does this ultimately look like. >> to you? yeah. >> well. look, john malone also has his own designs on the rest of his empire. >> look, we are following the same playbook that john has been using for 20 years, which is, if you can, in the case of sunrise here in switzerland, if a business is better off on its own and will trade better than it does inside the belly of the whale, give it, give it freedom. and that's what we've done here. punch line is we issued our shareholders a $9 and 50 cent tax free dividend on a stock that was trading at $18 by spinning off 20% of our ebitda. just do the math. we'll do those

things all day long because this is about value creation, not empire building. so we have a telecom business that remains pretty big, one with, you know, $8 billion of ebitda. so we have a lot of telecom assets yet to sort of rationalize crystallize value for. we have a very exciting growth portfolio of 3 billion of assets in tech, media, content, sports infrastructure. and so we're we're busy. and i think the value creation opportunity shrinking the value gap, that's what we do at liberty. and that's what we're doing here. >> i'm curious about what do you think is happening with both unbundling. yeah. in europe versus what's happening in the us. right. and also, by the way, broadband wireless versus physical. yeah. because that seems to be a major shift that is upon us. >> yeah. i mean europe is moving much more slowly in this unbundling, this melting iceberg of linear television moving much more slowly. broadcasters. >> why is that? >> because broadcasters here have a much stronger position and presence. it's a fragmented market. so nobody dominates media in europe. what country are you in then? i'll tell you. so it's a very difficult thing to dominate media and content. netflix does a great job of course. and amazon, they're all

over and they're penetrating widely you know widely. but i think people still watch local news, local sports. so i think that that's one of the reasons. and so it will happen. unbundling is inevitable. i think it will happen here. we're doing those kinds of deals, but just happening on a slower basis. broadband. we're in the we're in both fixed and wireless. fixed business is healthy. i think we're you know, we're offering a gigabit up to two gigabits almost everywhere. so broadband is good mobile, tougher business, lower arpus. and europe faces a ■k7200 billin investment gap to get to the magical 2030 goals of fiber and 5g. so we're in a bit of an investment cycle, which is why having greater regulatory certainty is a good thing. >> long term. how big a threat does satellite represents to you thinking of what starlink is doing? yeah, amazon's going to have kuiper. >> i think what they're doing is brilliant. we don't believe there's two applications. one is will it replace your home broadband? unlikely because we're offering one gig. it's going to be ten gig. and just the economics of physics of that make that difficult. the second question is will you be getting

will it be broadcasting to your device harder? the cost of that device? they needed spectrum in every market to land that signal. now, i don't underestimate either of those companies. and when i tell my team says, hey, don't worry about it, boss, i say, i'm worried about it because they have unlimited capital, it seems, and unlimited ambition. so but i think for the next 5 to 10 years, listen, 5% of the world's population multiplied by the world's population is a big business. if you were to get to 5%, he may not be satisfied with that, but he has succeeded. so i think that's that's how we see it. >> becky's got a question for you. for you from times square. >> hey, mike, how are you? >> hi, becky. good. >> all right. i want to talk to you about formula e. i mean, it's something that you now own. i think 65% of you bought the 25% stake from warner brothers discovery earlier last year. right. it looks like it's on a phenomenal growth trajectory. 400 million fans. i know you've got 16 cities that races in on like four continents, but it's

also listed as like the number one esg sport. with this turn we've been talking about at davos about how esg and dei is losing popularity in the united states. how do you market with that? what do you do and what do you do just as a majority owner at this point that you want to change and boost things? >> thank you for that question. listen, we are very excited about formula e. it has been net zero since day zero. and it is, you know, a poster child for sustainability for sure. but it's also a really exciting sport. first of all there are very few global championships. and this is i think, second biggest ever to be developed in the last, you know, this century. so it's exciting to be in it, to own it, to drive it. what's happening. the cars are getting faster. our car on the road right now beats an f1 car 0 to 60 by 30%. so that car is just going to get faster and more powerful. it's inevitable. fans are excited about this. we have much more of a younger fan base, more female fans. and i think, look, it's a global sport and at least 400 million. we need 400 million to be 800

million. and formula one is a fantastic business. listen, it's done incredibly well and we think we're in a pretty good wake there. and we're excited about the future. and you know the teams are exciting. porsche is exciting mclaren nissan, jaguar. these folks are in for a reason. the electrical the electric vehicle business is only going one direction. you might disagree on when or how many, but we have an exclusive for quite a long time, and in that in that time frame, we all own electric cars, and that's really where everybody's attention is going to be, including the manufacturers, which matters a lot. >> that's fascinating. >> yeah. >> i'm curious what you think is going to i mean, i know it's outside of your, your world sort of. but in the us, given the new regulatory environment, yeah. you see massive consolidation happening in media. and then how does that relate back to. >> well, a lot more than we had in the past. right. so i do believe that the floodgates are going to open, at least in terms of deal flow. what will get done? what won't get done.

tougher question. but i do think people see a window here opening and i think they will jump through it. and i believe it will involve the entire sector and deals that you could probably never consider or imagine in the past. in terms of our business, we're seeing a similar opening in europe. the uk just changed the chairman of the cma to apparently it'll be somebody who's more open minded about consolidation and the importance of regulatory relief, which is really the message. and i think the european commission will follow along. so i think there's a there's a global trend towards regulatory relief. i think that's a good thing. >> can anybody catch up to netflix? i mean, do they just now it's just. >> yeah, i don't know. i mean, you know disney will try. >> can they. >> so well. >> can they get close. >> i think it'll be tough. >> i think it'll be a mix of where of where netflix is now is just i think almost like a different business. >> i think it'll be tough. although disney has a leg up on sports, netflix is obviously, you know, embracing sports. amazon. so i think sports question will be a really important one over the next 5 to 10 years. who kind of owns that. which is another good reason to

own a sport like formula e. >> so okay mike thank you. it's nice to see you. really appreciate it. thank you. yeah. we got a lot more coming up on squawk in just a moment from davos, switzerland and times square. >> in a world of uncertainty and disruption how will your investments stay resilient? we've been navigating change for 125 years always looking forward, anticipating risks and trusted to manage over $1 trillion in assets worldwide. solving for the needs of investors today and tomorrow. that's the power of nuveen. >> how's the quarter coming along, kate? >> what do you think your name is? kate and hates when people correct him. >> pretty great. >> define pretty great. >> we added koopas. i powered total spend management platform. so we're finding new efficiencies and multiplying margins. >> so you can mind your

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>> welcome back everybody. a programing note for you tomorrow right here on squawk box. verizon ceo hans vestberg will join us for a first on cnbc interview after the company reports its quarterly results. a few earnings headlines this morning. of note, american airlines beating expectations, but that stock is way down. we're looking at shares of apple right now. let's try american airlines. maybe we can get that up. this is a guidance story for the first quarter. american is projecting a loss of somewhere between 20 to $0.40 a share, compared to the street's expectations of $0.04 a share. american thinks that the big reason for the difference here between what the street was expecting and what they actually are expecting, is that some analysts didn't fully account for the extent of labor contract

costs that take effect during the first quarter. you can see right now that stock is off by about 4.8%. it's actually shown some improvement through the course of the morning. again beating on the current expectations but warning on the on the quarter's expectations, but warning that the current quarter is going to be more impacted by those labor costs. earnings also out from ge aerospace, the company topping fourth quarter profit and revenue expectations and issuing some encouraging eps guidance that stock up by better than 7.6% and one non earnings headline for you. saudi arabian crown prince mohammed bin salman telling president trump that his country wants to invest $600 billion in the united states over the next four years. the saudi state news agency reporting a phone call between those two leaders. that was president trump's first visit abroad in his last administration. we'll see how this shapes up. a quick final check on the markets this morning. dow futures now indicated up by about 32 points. the s&p futures down by six. remember the s&p set a new high

yesterday. and the nasdaq indicated off by close to 100 points. andrew wrapping things up in davos. phenomenal last several days that have been there i hope you get some well-needed rest maybe in a little bit. >> it ain't over. we got we got president trump in two hours from now. that's right. i'm actually going to go do an interview right now with the governor, sarah huckabee sanders and andy beshear. so a lot more to come. stay tuned and we'll see you tomorrow. >> that's right. right now it's time for squawk on the street. >> good thursday morning. welcome to squawk on the street i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer david faber at post nine of the new york stock exchange premarket fairly steady following wednesday's intraday high. and that brief trip above 6100. corporate earnings dominate today. jobless claims at a six week high. the president does address davos in a couple of hours. our road map begins with stocks trading near that record territory as investors digest another big batch of earnings reports.