now investor bill ackman is considering taking the real estate giant private.gail doolittle caught up with the ceo and joins us now. what have you found in your reporting? abigail: it was such a neat interview to speak with david o'reilly who has touch point in all parts of the economy. he is talking to homebuilders, big employers, schools, hospitals, retail. they are bringing a movie studio to nevada. one of the biggest issues is needing a big parcel of land to expand. >> there are so many companies out there that own a little piece of dirt, will talk to ceos and they will say i can build you an office building. i am not just building an office building, i am finding a place to live, their employees a place to live, schools, the right houses of worship, outdoors time that they can spend with their family, give them the quality of life outside the walls of their office that most cannot. abigail: what is the biggest draw? the commute? >> a lot of it is the commute, overall quality of life. i have worked in connecticut, new york city, i know what it is like. that

ackman in putting out that post on a very low volume day.t said, it's not without specifics certainly, and possibility. in fact, our viewers may recall any number of times leading up to the election i had mentioned that one of the key trades for those who believed president-elect trump would win was buying the preferreds of freddie and fannie, and we can go back to it there. there he's talking about an ipo in 2026, what they could raise, how they would meet the capital standard. and, listen, they got close in the last trump administration. treasury secretary mnuchin and others at the ffha had planned -- they were moving towards that. they didn't quite get there. and, you know, i've mentioned a number of times when john paulson was considered for treasury perhaps his $4 billion face ownership of the junior preferreds there, that's been a big trade for paulson. it's been a big trade for ackman as well, and it's paid off. you can see what's happened just since the election as a result of the expectation perhaps that in the second trump administ

i saw bill ackman there. >> yep. stuart: brian cornell, jane frazier. j.d.he was there. the energy secretary of the future is there surrounded birdieing any tears walking the floor. back to individual stocks. nvidia. they're going on a hiring spree in china? >> yeah, which sounds interesting, right? a lot of nvidia's chips, the most advanced ones are banned because china is not to our friend, we don't want them having our best testimony. but nvidia did get about $5 billion of revenue from china, so they do have a presence there. they're hiring some researchers to work on autonomous driving. >> gm shutting down their robotaxi arm called cruise. microsoft had an investment. >> they did. stuart: the how much have they lost? >> about $80 million. a big writedown -- stuart: they're okay. >> they can afford it. >> i mean, this was super tiny, right? this doesn't move the needle, but it does speak volumes to what analysts are saying who's going to be the binners and the losers from robotaxi. google's waymo, tesla clear clearly a winner. if gm's cruise division can'

>> and now billionaire bill ackman is calling on maryland governor wes moore to fast track that liquoro the pizzeria can stay in business. thanks to portnoy's viral video the line last night on christmas eve was reportedly out the door and phones were ring ringing off the hook there and now to this. it's one of the most famous christmas movie scenes of all time. the sinister triple dog dare and flick's tongue stuck on a flag pole. going viral with their version of the holiday classic. watch. >> come on, just do it. >> all right. >> all right. >> spine stiffen, lips curled in defiant sneer. there was no going back now. ♪ >> carley: the savage fire department making festive videos for the last four years including this one from last year remaking the iconic christmas vacation scene and now finally to this see these precious nicu babies wife of very own todd piro showing the tiny newborn swaddled in knit stockings. i triple dog dare to you beat that one. >> carley: favorite report you ever delivered so far? baby todd's wife fantastic. she works at a hospital. >> griff: we have those guys

we have bill ackman and david solomon. they are all showing up. jane frazier. taking over social security. >> wow. >> or they have gotten jobs. >> they will come the same way we are. do you want to come up and have a conversation? >> why not? let's spread some news. >> cornell and target. >> 1. 37. higher. >> to the business community, they can walk over from certain places, not far from city and goldman headquarters. >> this is very different. >> these guys employee millions of people. they are not looking for handouts. they have, i would say they are pretty much the pulse of american business right here and right now. incredible. >> what do you make of this? you mentioned this incentive theory. you will invest a billion dollars and expedited. you think businesses respond to that that? >> i think when you contrast that with the pause in ellen g that president talked about in january, what it says is that that is over. that is over. and by the way, that destroyed a whole industry. the lng business. and he said, done. i think he did the billion and it says, open

. >>> bill ackman has been a long time investment in fanning mack and freddima e c.ing at the trump administration. we have that story later. squawk box will be right back. . spacex is launching 9 rocket, carrying a batch of startling satellite into orbit. it lifted off from the kennedy space center in florida. this is the 16th flight for the booster supporting mission. the booster landed on board of a spacex drone ship about minutes after takeoff. >>> the federal aviation administration is investigating a near miss incident at los angeles international airport that happened on friday. you can see it. that is a charter plane that almost cross into the path of that delta airplane. we obtained the video and the charter plane carrying a then zach a men's basketball team had just arrived. it was taxiing to its gate when the larger delta flight was taking off. the gonzaga jet was just about ready to cross when an air traffic controller was heard repeatedly telling it to stop, stop, and stopped just short of crossing the path of the delta airplane. in the statement, then z

and i and i think ackman the soundbite you have from ackman really underscores it. it's not it's unlike anything any adult has ever felt in this country ever. >> so besides the tax regulation and rate cuts. tell me about the confidence. just the instincts that looks like have been unleashed is what is more instrumental in driving this huge rally. >> i think it's a two parter. i think first and foremost, an environment where people, americans are told, you can do it. yes, we have pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps, this young upstart nation that went against the greatest power in the world and then eventually, in 100 years, became itself the greatest power in the world. you know, it did this through this raw energy, this ethos of, yes, you can do it. we were told for the last four years, you can't do it. you need help. and, you know, it's just it's just a reawakening of who we are, the ethos of the average american. and then the other part of this is the team led by donald trump. but he's put together a team of doers of achievers. right. i hate to say this, but mo

crowd on the floor of the stock exchange, huge names in the industry including james frazier, bill ackman, donald trump telling the crowd he wants to make america business friendly through incentives. >> we will create the incentive theory again. i announced yesterday, anybody investing a billion dollars or more gets a very expedited approval process, tremendous incentive like no other country has. we are going to cut them substantially, down to 20 one%, now we are getting them down to 15 but only if you make your product here. otherwise you pay 20 one. it is in the middle of the pack but 15 brings you lower. >> reporter: the incentive of a lower tax rate presenting companies to move manufacturing back to the united states. the goal to reduce regulations is flying the ic relationship with business leaders. meta's spokesperson confirmed meta donated to the trump inauguration fund a few weeks after the meta founder had a dinner and meeting in mar-a-lago. facebook and instagram band trump, they have reversed that decision, he says that amazon founder jeff baize owes will come to mar-a-lago f

business involved as well bill ackman posting saying elon and vivek's real time response to the spendinghow doenl works without formal authority providing a road map for a relationship doge progress house doge you say had first meeting three democrats there how would this work in a practical sense. >> that was the purpose of first meeting to find a format how can we collaborate how we can break the cycle, we are leaning towards creating work groups, we are leaning on having every, every work group be bipartisan, because, maria, as you know not getting this done with republicans only. with a one or two seat majority into next year we are going to need everybody it turns out, maria, how about this. >> waste fraud, abuse not just a republican issue it should be and is a bipartisan issue, so, i am hopeful we are going to meet again in january i will save ameet, maria, i should come. >> i would like to be watching all this really, an incredible moment in fiem, to actually see this cutting wasteful spending become a priority, i love it. i want your take on agenda in new year you know in debate

borrowers he said president-elect trump wants the stock price up for the shareholder friends like bill ackmand of the day, it is shareholder incidental i don't believe anybody in the administration is looking to help them or hurt them >> reporter: calabria says this is not high on the priority list for the president and it may not happen zandi says the most likely scenario is the gses stay if conservatorship and adds privatization is a solution looking for a problem. frank. >> a lot of what this means for mortgage rates when can we expect movement? if this is realistic, when would it happen? >> reporter: it is not a 2025 issue. they say it is possibly on the president's top ten list, but not in his top five list it could take several years and possibly be one of the last things in the term coming up there is consider chatter. a lot of talk and articles written on this in the last couple weeks it will be on the agenda, of course, we still need a new fha director when he gets in office. it will be a while it will be interesting to see. >> interesting the conservatorship wasn't meant to be perma

cheryl: bill ackman led the charge in particular, because of the protests. >> why should the federals help when they have the $53 billion in endowments. >> which goes back to the segment on government waste. they don't need that money. that doesn't need to come out of the department of education. cheryl: that's what the voters asked for in november. that's what they want to see hand. talking about healthcare. president-elect trump's picture for health secretary, rfk junior wants to ban television drug ads, he says they harm americans by promoting overpriced medications and calling out broadcasters for reliance on big pharma advertising dollars. some say it's a critical step to lowering costs. previous attempts to curb the ads have failed in the courts on first amendment grounds. do you think rfk junior can succeed in this when others have failed 1234. ?>> this will go through several agencies. it will go through the ftc as well. that's why i think it will be hard. this is an argument from years and years ago. you see in some of the ads that side effects may be and there's 15 things t

bill ackman outlining on president-elect trump's plan for fannie and freddie.d after his post on x. >>> we are learning more about a near miss at l.a.x. airport involving the gonzaga men's basketball team. it's tuesday, december 31st, 2024. last day of 2024. take me six months to say 2025. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ >>> good morning everybody, welcome to squawk box on cnbc, live from times square. andrew is off today. here we go. it is the last day of the year. the last trading day of the year. we are watching u.s. equity futures. at least this morning he will get green arrows early in the session. dow futures are up by 150 points. the s&p is up by 22 and the

executives are major financial institutions stand that visa, meta, goldman sach's, citadel, bill ackman bigelow was there. all of these people ultimately want to work with him is going to reduce regulation teach the landscape or business after such a dramatic shift from the biden administration and they will make a lot of money off of it. >> so they would talk to him. >> joey, one tech businessman in particular early on to be in trump's favorite was a mark and recent you're talking to him in the commercial break. he was on the free press and was explaining why so many people in tech and silicon valley came out and out really supported trump he gave three reasons the first one i don't member the future capitol gains tax for the second one was ai regulation was crypto and how the government will treat crypto. what he said was he went and had meeting with the biden/harris administration. the folks at work this for them in their presentation or in their communication they say very matter-of-factly ai would be so regulated only a couple companies would really have access to what they call th

that as part of an effort to shrink the size of the government, hedge fund manager billionaire bill ackman posted this on x biden is attempting to make permanent the deep state before he leaves office by burdening the government with untenable contracts so donald trump and doge cannot succeed this needs to stop now it is an interesting take trying to blow up the place. imagine creating a contract before you leave office so the incoming president cannot get what he wants there is always ways around it, let's say the biden is able to secure if your federal worker you have to come into the office and the other performance measures introduced by doge, you got a performance some of those performance and reviews have to be done in person and you have to be here three days a week to do it. maria: how does that change what is signed sealed and delivered in the contract he agreed to. there is always clever workarounds for these sort of things this is just the first following. >> what's more concerning, he is the president unbridled he allows ukraine to use the weapons into russia he creates these c

claiming republicans he wrote you seem to think the public is dumb, they are not head fund manager bill ackmanthe real-time response to the spending bill shows how doge works without formal authority writing i think today's events provide a roadmap for rapid doge progress. we were poking holes into the continuing resolution yesterday in two weeks ago i spoke with kevin mccarthy the former speaker of the house and he said why are they pushing this into next year to complicate president trump's first few days in office. watch this. >> right now it does not look like they will finish the issues funding and they will push that into next year's funding you're putting more burden on president trump that means government funding never got done and they gotta get that done by next march if they're worried on that let delays that not doing the board and the tax does not delay anything it's not funding. the plan that i had the funding done and you could do the debt ceiling now to truly give president trump a honeymoon. mariaa: that was part of the issue with pr president trump ws upset with the bill but

investors poured into the gses yesterday after bill ackman if says he expects donald trump to removership. fannie may if up more than 30% -- fannie mae on the expectation that the companies will go private within the next four years. it would be a big move for the new trump administration. the companies have been under government control since the 2008 financial crisis. meanwhile, wall street expecting need gates to to open up under trump -- floodgates, so what m&a action do we expect next year? joining me now in a fox business exclusive is montgomery scott director of research, chris marina. chris, great to see you, happy new year. >> you as well. taylor: is that something you can talk about? do you see privatization, and if so, what does that sort of por portend to other sectors within your world of banking? >> sure. i think it's something that's been on the table if the administration would change, which it is, and i think it's going to be a good thing for the biggest banks in the country, bank of america, jpmorgan, all those who are robust players in the mortgage space should be

and bill ackman was tweeting saying, look, this isn't even possible, to spend $600 to million on a wedding at the wedding a house. howard: you know who else didn't retract the story? the daily mail. they just updated it with bezos' denial. it was supposed to be this weekend, it hasn't happened. i just love the owner of "the washington post" saying this is completely false and all those people who repeated it, hey, how about acknowledging that you were wrong? >> my favorite part of the story is elon musk weighed in saying i really hope that jeff bezos has an epic, huge, massive wedding. and, by the way, it was supposed to be at kevin costner's ranch, so whatever you're going to spend, let's still do it out on my ranch. howard: how did you get that detail? >> i read it in the media. as bezos said, don't believe everything you read. howard: griff jenkins, thanks for done -- doing, i guess, triple duty today. that's it for the final edition of "mediabuzz" in 2024. i'm howard kurtz wishing you all a healthy and happy new year. now, you can subscribe to my free, daily podcast, media buzzmeter, a

fannie mae and freddie mac are soaring today, freddie mac is up about 20% after bill ackman posted on x that he is hopeful the new trump administration will remove the mortgage lenders from conservatorshop. he said there's a credible path for removal from conservatorship in the relative short-term. during trump's first term secretary my mnuchin took steps towards this but they ran out of time. the companies could repay their loans. take a look at micro strategy, it's falling almost 4% today. the company disclosed it sold 492,000 common stock shares to fund the purchase of more bitcoin. the software company's common stock sales raised $209 million to buy 2,138 more bitcoin at an average price of under $100,000. that was during christmas week. micro strategy if you're counting now holds more than 446,000 bitcoin. it is the biggest corporate holder. the stock's at 3 317 a share. apple tv plus will be free this weekend if you're interested. apple is giving consumers a chance to start the new year off by binge watching a popular show, severance, before it makes its highly anticipated seaso

i raised this with bill ackman, another hedge funder who is -- liz: john huntsman pulled his money, he anti-semitism. >> this stuff has been going on, it's been going on for years where these guys actually funded these universities that were essentially hiring people like her. only now is it coming out that rubber meets the road because it's so insane. but remember, they did fund the garbage that you're seeing, the progressive woke garbage that is taking a whole life of its own. and my guess is that -- not my guess, from what i hear from the trump transition people, they're going to take aim at this and they're going to do something with these endowments because this is a hot bed of anti-americanism. liz: charlie gasparino, good piece in the post about this. thank you very much. lawmakers are now reaching across the aisle to crack down on healthcare companies. democratic senator he elizabeth warren and republican senator josh hawley intro duesed legislation last week together that seeks to break up healthcare conglomerates. the bill would force big companies like united health occur, c

you heard bill ackman on this show yesterday. fanfare, has been a big supporter. listen to what he said about the kind of environment we're in right now. >> we're stepping into, i would say, the most pro growth, pro business, pro american administration i've perhaps seen in my adult lifetime. i don't know anyone who is opposed to the business plan of this next administration. and i think it bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy. the backdrop is you've got a fed that's lowering rates, you have inflation under control. you have a ftc, which is going to be more thoughtful about allowing transactions to happen. that's very bullish for markets. >> no doubt about it. >> you've got the wealth effect, right? >> i mean, very excited about, i think, the current market prospects, and also sums up the mood that you are starting to see in the surveys, like small business or in the in flows into u.s. equities. you mentioned some of the pushback, the knocks. tariffs high on that list, right? what's going to happen with tariffs, is that going to dis

. >> there were chains and guys like musk, and there was ackman.> you have the wilting effect of the sleeper effect. >> that might have been a shocker for you. >> no. we always thought it was going to be close. nobody said -- >> it wasn't that close. >> it was 1.5% -- >> it was very close. >> he won michigan, wisconsin, the popular vote. >> i understand these things, but it was one 1.5%. the bigger issue i wanted to raise was this issue around mar-a-lago most of the ceos who are going down there are saying to themselves, you know what? a, i'm not going to worry until i have to worry, and b, i want to try to support the country, and c, there is no downside in me trying to create a relationship now given the situation. >> my point is -- >> hoping that maybe it helps later down the road when tariffs do come, and maybe they want to get a carveout or whatnot. that's what's going on here. >> they have company-specific issues for their shareholders and they want a lobby of big pharma companies trying to bring superstitionality. they're atriotic and they w

argues that president-elect trump just wants to boost the stocks for wealthy shareholders like bill ackmans. >> important to remember, at end of the day, anything that happens to the shareholders is incidental i don't believe anybody in this administration is looking to help or hurt them. >> he admits this will not be high on the president-elect's priority list. zandy says the most likely scenario is they stay in conservatorship. he added privatetization is a solution looking for a problem becky? >> that's really interesting he thinks it's more likely even though the plan was never for this to happen and here we are 15 years later >> well, zandy think it will not happen collabria think there's a good chance it would be two years from now but he says there's a lot of backing for it in congress and in the new administration. he thinks that the plan is ready, as he said. it's on the shelf and ready to go it's just a question of will the new treasury secretary want to push it. >> does callabria think, it will drive up borrowing costs by 75 to 100 bases points? >> he does not he does not at all

and freddie mac saw their shares jumped over 30% by yesterday's close, sparked by a post from bill ackmanism the companies will be released from conservatorship under donald trump. the u.s. government fund created to compensate victims of bernie made off announced its 10th and final distribution this week. the government paid out $4.3 billion to 41,000 people, schools, charities and pension plans were swindled by the steam. 50 him's recouped an average of 93.7% of their losses. -- victims recouped an average of 93.7% of their losses. hollywood seeing a late year surge at the box office. sales were $8.66 billion. the three-day weekend total of 165 million dollars was led by disney's mufasa, paramount sonic the hedgehog three, and nosfera tu from focus features. sales are still below 2018, the year adventures admitted he wore -- the year avengers infinity war and black panther came out. seems like a lifetime ago. romaine: i've not seen any of those movies. i need to get out more. coming up on the high cost of owning a home. >> in 2025 we are expecting mortgage rates will be volatile, but th