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Squawk on the Street

Post-Fed Rally, Apple in the Crosshairs, Reddit CEO on IPO, Peltz Backed in Disney Proxy Battle 3/21/24

Jim Cramer and David Faber had a lot to discuss on a busy Thursday: Stocks hit fresh record highs after Wednesday's post-Fed meeting rally. Micron shares soared on AI-fueled guidance and a surprise profit, leading the chip sector higher.New regulatory headwinds for Apple. The anchors and Julia Boorstin spoke with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman about the social media company's IPO and public debut. A prominent proxy-services firm is backing Nelson Peltz in his battle with Disney. Also in focus: David's reporting on Paramount studio sale buzz, former President Trump's potential windfall, Jim's Thursday night "CNBC Leaders" special -- featuring his exclusive interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Squawk on the Street Disclaimer

Duration:
54m
Broadcast on:
21 Mar 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Jim Cramer and David Faber had a lot to discuss on a busy Thursday: Stocks hit fresh record highs after Wednesday's post-Fed meeting rally. Micron shares soared on AI-fueled guidance and a surprise profit, leading the chip sector higher.New regulatory headwinds for Apple. The anchors and Julia Boorstin spoke with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman about the social media company's IPO and public debut. A prominent proxy-services firm is backing Nelson Peltz in his battle with Disney. Also in focus: David's reporting on Paramount studio sale buzz, former President Trump's potential windfall, Jim's Thursday night "CNBC Leaders" special -- featuring his exclusive interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

 

Squawk on the Street Disclaimer

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I'm David Faber, live for the most lineup in Earth. Stock has changed. Jim Kramer is at our office at One Market in San Francisco and Carl has the morning off. Let's give you a look at futures as we get ready to begin trading one half hour from now. Looks like we may get a continuation of yesterday's rally, and that is where our roadmap begins this morning. The S&P Top 5200 after the Fed said three rate cuts still likely this year. And of course this morning, we're still waiting for that Reddit IPO right here at the New York Stock Exchange. Chip stocks also bouncing this morning, Mike Ron, saying it is benefiting from AI chip to man. TD Cowan hiking its Nvidia price target also upgrades Broadcom. And Apple's regulatory headwinds. The DOJ looks ready to file. Looks like it's ready to file. It's long anticipated antitrust suit against that tech giant, perhaps as soon as 11 a.m. this morning. Jim, let's start with the markets. Get your take here. Of course, after that very significant post Fed meeting, Fed press conference rally. What are your thoughts on the broader market here? Well, I think what happened yesterday was once the Fed was clear that you're not fighting it, because the Fed is fine. I didn't want to go into two cuts, three cuts. I think that that dialogue is a parlor game. I'm not there. Take Fed off the table. What immediately happens is we go back to earnings. If we go back to earnings, there are so many groups right now that are putting up some good numbers. And what we really ended up focusing on in the evening was Mike Ron, which said things I was going back and forth with Sanjay Marocha as the CEO said things that frankly have never happened before, which is high bandwidth memory chips. Those are the ones that go with Nvidia are already on allocation. You can't get them for 2025. And that's why that's talks up the most. And that's why it's the umbrella that's going to give tech another good day. So the long negative trend in NAND and DRAM prices is over. Correct. Correct. A quarter earlier than I thought. Sanjay, who at times, this is a CEO, by the way, who's not given that I purply many times I've good into trying to say good things. He wouldn't go there. This was a time where he just said, look, there's nothing I can do with the high bandwidth. I wish we could make many more. And they make a lot more money for those. Again, those are AI. But yes, the other parts of NAND are doing better. There's getting to be a kind of across the board sense that there's demand for everything tech, whether it be PC, server, data center, of course, anything that is connected with Nvidia. So these are all systems go when you're something at Micron building block of all tech, saying good things. All right. You want to explain a bit more though. I think it's always good for when we can kind of connect everything into this ecosystem that we talk so often about, Jim, so often leads ultimately to Nvidia chips. But when you're talking about high bandwidth and Micron's role in that, can you just give us a little bit more of an explainer as to how they're benefiting? Sure. Well, when you have artificial intelligence, it requires tremendous amount of power throughout your whole system, whether it be with Broadcom, which is soaring today, whether it be with Micron, whether it be with ARM, these are all companies that are affiliated in the network grouping with Nvidia. So as you bring in the new chips, in this case, it was Blackwell, everything has to be accelerated. Everything has to have require more density. You just need better chips, faster chips. Now, Micron has a lot of what I would require as being good stuff, just that goes into your PC. But this is the stuff that goes into the supercomputers that Nvidia is creating. So these are all look, Nvidia is at the epicenter of this next generation of technology. And anyone who's connected with it, of which Micron is, and which Broadcom is, and which ARM is, Cadence, Synopsis, those are the companies that are soaring here, because we know from what Jensen said, and what Sanjay Marocha said last night, that we just can't meet the demand. The demand is just too strong. So everyone is on allocation. And when he used the term allocation from 2025, I was thinking, "David, this can't be." And then, sure enough, you check him with Sanjay, he says, "No, it's never happened. They've never had this. They've never had allocation to 2025 for something this big." So that's why you can see a stock up 18, which, and Nvidia, you can see Micron's going to be up more than it is right now. It's amazing. And it follows on from yesterday. I mean, back to the broader market, although yesterday it was, it was not just big tech that was a beneficiary. No, yesterday we had really good numbers. Retail ran until cheer reported after, I mean, two EN of my five below, I'll have to talk about that. But yeah, it was just a, it was a jailbreak, David. You had a jailbreak. Everything moved. With the exception of some healthcare, everything moved. Justified, though. I mean, again, all right, we didn't get, you know, a reduction in the dot plot from three to two. We got the still expectation of three. Perhaps he was less hawkish during the press conference, and some had anticipated the Fed Chair would be. Is this move justified based on the prospect that we still do? Maybe start getting rate cut starting in June? If we do that, yes. But I want to be clear that the market, there are two markets. There's the markets that are really being driven by the demand of customers, okay? And that happens to be tech. And then there's markets delivered by animal spirits because the Fed was less hawkish than we thought. And that's everything else. And I think everything else is just okay, David. I mean, I'm not going to come out and say that, you know what, I've been talking to a lot of retailers, so things are far better than expected. I'm talking to William Sonoma, things are better than expected. And then we've got the, frankly, the downer of Apple. Apple was getting some really good talk with Nvidia, but Jonathan Kanter at the Justice Department is not raising numbers, Apple. He is not going to hold it by Apple today, David. He is slashing it to underperform. Yeah. Let's talk about Apple then, because we can't see the stock is going to be down a bit, at least when we open 24 minutes from now. There are any number of reports out there at this point that, in fact, the DOJ is getting ready to bring a case against the company. In fact, they've, I think they've sent a release. I've gotten a release sent to me by any number of people. They don't say what it is, Jim, but everybody assumes that it is going to be related to them finally kind of coming after them in terms of what they say is their stranglehold on the app world, so to speak, in the 30% take in the app store. These cases can go on for years, and there are any number of them already out there. We've obviously referenced the DOJ case against Alphabet many times. What are your expectations here? Well, I think the main point is it's going to go home for years. Look, if it's the Apple store, I remember when I started the street.com, which is now owned by the five-hour energy junior guy, very interesting piece by image average this morning about the filler. But what's most interesting is that your decisions are always, do I go to the app store and let them have 30% or do I do it on my own? And I have always said to people, unless you're a huge brand, you get, let them have 30% of what you make because you may get nothing doing it on your own. So I've always regarded the regulators as not understanding the way small business and medium-sized business work, which is that without the app store, you're dead. And forget the fact that they take a percentage. You won't have a lot of sales if you don't have the app store, but the government has been after the app store and hates how much money Apple makes. Yeah, well, they make a lot of it. And it looks like we've talked about any business. Any number of times during earnings season, I always sit there. Malphajar, just the numbers themselves. I point this out. The size and the power of these platforms is almost hard to comprehend sometimes, whether it is a Microsoft or an Apple or a meta or an Amazon. The expenditure is uncapital for capital act. The CapEx are incredibly, I mean, all the numbers are incredible, including the bottom line numbers. That said, it's not clear. There are trillions versus any laws, but say again. Right. It's trillions versus billions. That's the problem. I mean, I want to go and energize the Costco. Thank God they're so big. Where if you want to sell in the Costco, you have to take less, but in the end, you take less of a big volume. You want to sell into Apple, you take less of a big volume. But David, when you look at the other numbers of all the other companies we talk about, I mean, it's like, should we talk about Norfolk Southern? Do we talk about Macy's? Yes. You and I, I guess, you know, yeah, maybe a little. I think people are married. Yeah. Maybe like seven people care at this point. Don't say that. You know, we tell this like I kid, I get, I've talked to you how much time I talk about this. My kids watch now. Don't say that. But by the way, on that note, Paramount compared to to Amazon or Apple and what they're doing. You know, I mean, that's the world that they're kind of competing in, not to mention even Netflix far smaller, but nonetheless, so much bigger. We're being the only the stream God small. Don't feel bad. It's okay. It's all right. You've had a great week. Feel good. It's not done. You sat down with the man that mentioned tonight. The most special man in a clock in business right now. Let me go have a 10, five hour energy drink energy drinks during this vacation here of commercial leaders tonight, eight o'clock. It'll encompass all of that fascinating conversation that Jim had with Jensen Wong, including including the concerns I know that Jim now shares with me about what this all means for us. I do. I do. All right. When we come back, though, Jim, we've got Reddit because it is gearing up for that public date. You today, and we are going to have the CEO of the social media company right here at the New York Stockers James. Let's give you another look at futures. We get started with trading 20 minutes from now. Got a big show ahead for you. Don't go anywhere. Hello. I'm Laura Castleton, U.S. Head of Portfolio Construction and Strategy at Janice Henderson Investors. 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Social media company Reddit getting ready to make its public debut right here at the New York Scottish James, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and our own Julia Borson are with me here at post nine. Ahead, of course, of the opening bell. Julia, let me turn it over to you to begin the questions. Thanks, David and Steve. Thanks so much for joining us here as we await the opening trade of Reddit shares. This has been a long time coming. Reddit is a 19 year old company and you're taking an unusual approach to the IPO itself, opening up 8% of retail allocations to your active moderators and also your active users. What kind of interest did you see from them? And are you concerned they're going to sell today because they have no lockup period? Sure. So first, thank you for having me here. It's truly an honor to be here. It's been a journey and to be surrounded by our employees. I just, I'm overcome with gratitude and for our communities to make Reddit what it is. So in this IPO, yes, we invited a number of our users and have a healthy retail component beyond that. And our goal there was to bring in, I think, as is the ethos of Reddit, level the playing field, bring people in on the same terms that professional investors would. And so it's a free market. I hope they believe in Reddit and support Reddit. But the goal is just to get them in the deal, just like any professional investor would. Well, there has been a lot of chatter on Wall Street Bets, which is obviously a very popular Reddit form that has not been so positive. You mentioned this as a potential risk factor in your S1. Are you concerned that having this very, very big presence with those retail investors, very high-profile presence is going to drive volatility in a bad way? Well, first of all, like, I love Wall Street Bets. I'm a user. I've seen their comments over the last couple of weeks, so I just send them my regards. And again, that's Reddit. Reddit is people. Reddit is a fun and special, but sometimes crazy place. And so I wouldn't expect anything less for marketing. It doesn't upset you, though. You're like, "Wait a second. We're going public. You guys are a part of this. You've helped us in terms of our success. Why aren't you more supportive?" Look, that's exactly, I think, they've helped us get here. Reddit is nothing without our users and communities. And I think that's the beautiful thing about Reddit, is they tell it like it is. But, God, you have to remember they're doing that on Reddit. And it's a platform they love. It's their home on the internet. And look, I think it's such a privilege for I and the team to get to work on Reddit, but they really are Reddit. Steve, one of the questions I think that's come up a lot is companies been around, as Julie has said, for roughly 19 years, and has not managed to be profitable in any of those years. And so what will change or has changed if you haven't been able to figure out how to get to profitability over that period of time? Well, so first, that's not exactly true. So we have been around 19 years. So I came back to the company, though, in 2015. And that's when we really started to build the business of Reddit. And that hit high gear in 2018, really when Jen Wong joined as COO. And she's really been my partner in running Reddit and building this business. But we made a profit in the back half of 2023. We grew revenue three times as fast as cost last year. And so what's, I think, beyond the community of Reddit and the platform of Reddit, there's actually a very nice special business here. And our gross margins are very high, the high 80s, and have been for a long time. And so even small improvements in revenue go straight to the bottom line for us. And so this is truly, I think, a special company in profitability is an important milestone for us. And we're getting closer and closer. I know Jim has a question as well for you, Jim. First thing, thank you for being on the set. It's fantastic. Thanks, Jim, for having us. Absolutely. You know, when you and I talk, it's just really important, I believe, that people who have been so important to your company, that the Redditors get stock if they want stock. Where the brokerage houses understanding of that is in place with people you think that actually have done so much and might want to hold on, because it could be great, a great stock. You know, it honestly was not a controversial ask at all of our bankers and of the investors. What we've been pitching, and we've been pitching Reddit for two years, telling them why we do this, why it's special. And we've met so many investors who get Reddit, who understand Reddit, and know that this is, including our users in a moment like this, is the most natural thing we could do. Make it clear, it's not just Wall Street best of one stock, right? I mean, those people might be sellers. Who knows? You're talking about hardcore people who have really helped build your brand away from stocks. I imagine that they want to be long-term holders. Look, I hope so. I think the best investors of Reddit are people who use Reddit. And so I want our investors to be users, and I love our users to be investors. I think, look, we're all building this together. We're building the platform, and now we get to build the company, too. I think that's just such a privilege. So speaking of building the company, your business is currently 95% advertising revenue. And for those ad dollars, you're competing against the giants. We're talking about meta, we're talking about Google. It's an incredibly competitive space, and you're very small compared to these other players in terms of the number of daily active users you have. What is your strategy to be able to grow market share in such a tight environment? Sure. So I have two answers to that. First is the digital ads market is so huge. It grows by five to ten Reddit's per year on its own. And then what's special about Reddit is whatever you're into, whatever you're going through, whether you're getting into college, getting your first job, relationships, ups and downs, whatever health malady you have, and everybody's got one. It's all on Reddit. And so Reddit is all about context and interests. And so literally every brand's customers are on Reddit somewhere. And so I think it's actually a very good fit. And for us, I think there's really no constraint on how big the ad's business can be because of that breath. But you haven't been monetizing that effectively yet. I mean, you know, I'm looking at a Bernstein piece monetization well behind peers just by starting to sell ads in 2006. You had 804 million in revenues in 2023. That's not exactly a huge number. Well, look, we had 12 million in revenue in 2015. So look, we're getting there. And I like the way our business is scaling. I think our advertisers are rooting for us because Reddit is it's not about personal and private information. It's about connecting with your customers around shared interests. And so we're seeing, I think, a lot of momentum in the market. So look, we got to start somewhere. Momentum in the market, but your 20% growth last year was still slower than other companies at your sort of age in terms of monetization. But this raises a question about your new revenue streams. And you've talked about how your emerging revenue stream is licensing your data to train AI models. And you made a deal with Google. But then the FTC started an inquiry saying maybe you hadn't secured the legal right to do that with your community. What do you have to say about that FTC inquiry and how much a threat it could pose to this new revenue stream? So that's not what the FTC said at all. In fact, they didn't say anything other than we'd like to know more. So, you know, they, this is a, I think it's a new exciting space. Data licensing is hardly new. We're not doing exclusive deals. And in fact, in any contract we do, we include protective provisions for our data and our users' privacy. Because it's very important to us to be considered about where our data goes, what it's used for in preventing people from using it to, for example, reverse engineer the identity of our users. And so that's the sort of thing we're doing in the market. Because the status quo before this moment is everybody is crawling everybody using the data for who knows one. So right now, I think locking that down, making it safe and predictable, that's been our goal. And so you're confident that this data licensing for AI training will become a meaningful revenue stream and over what time period? So I think what we know for sure is that the value of Reddit's data is increasing. You know, historically, we've looked at Reddit as our core business. And look, this is still our core business, community and conversation. But the value of our data is growing. In a world where more and more content on the internet is created by artificial intelligence, the premium on actual intelligence, which is what Reddit is, continues to grow. And so, look, it's a new business for us. We just started doing this like this year in 2024. So we'll see where it goes. But I mean, I like the shape of it so far. I learned a new term, NSFW, which means not safe for work. I have to admit I wasn't aware of that. But of course, apparently a good amount of the platform or some of it includes content that is not safe for work. And there's a question, can that be monetized? Because if you can, that might be a positive thing. But these are things that advertisers may not be want to be associated with. How do you do that? It's kind of aside the point whether it can be monetized because our answer is no. We don't monetize it. We have no plans to monetize it. And honestly, that just keeps things simpler for our advertiser customers. We just say there's no ads there. There won't ever be ads there. And I think that content is important, like sex and sexuality is an important part of the human experience. Therefore, you can find it on Reddit. But not all of Reddit needs to be monetized. And our users who look at that sort of content, they also look at the entire rest of Reddit. And the commitment we make to advertisers is, you know, you will be where you want to be, right? We're in the happy customers business. And so there's a portion of Reddit, the vast majority, but I think is great for advertisers. And that's where we do our business. And finally, net proceeds. I can come in 450 or 500 million to the company to use. What are you going to do with money? Look, grow the business number one. You know, maybe there's M&A opportunities here and there. But I'd say first property, first priority is is grow Reddit, continue to just make this company bigger, better, healthier. Well, we'll watch today the debut coming up and we certainly appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you, Julia. Thank you as well. Coming up, we're going to have Jim's mad dash. We'll count you down to the opening bell as well. We're swapping the streets right now. At the UPS store, we know things can get busy this upcoming holiday. You can count on us to be open and ready to help with any packing and shipping or anything else you might need. Is there anything you can't do? Um, actually, I don't have a good singing voice. Nope. But our certified packing experts can pack and ship just about anything. At least that's good. The UPS store be unstoppable. Most locations are independently owned. Product services pricing and hours of operation may vary. See center for details. Come in today to get your holiday goodies there on time. Welcome back. We're going to get to a mad dash and we'll have an opening bell. Expect loud cheering very soon here. Of course, as Reddit gets ready to have its debut, Jim. Five below is what you want to talk about. Yeah, they had a good quarter, but David, the shrink was incredibly bad. They just had so much theft that it really crushed their quarter. And by the way, on the conference call, the analysts just were after these guys saying how this happened. And one of the reasons why it happened, David, is something that you and I, we've talked about before that I think is a big mistake for all retailers, including CVS, self-checkout. Because they had a huge problem with self-checkout because you also are supposed to pay when you do self-checkout. A lot of people seem to not want to pay. And it was a remarkable conference call because Five Bull is a very good company, but thought up and based, but the amount of stealing just wrecked the quarter. And they didn't seem to be able to make it better. And so anyway, I put it out there. Listen, to your point, that self-checkout, it seems to be self-defeating in a way. You can pay for a few things, but not all of them, or for God. I didn't do that one, put it all in my bag, and who's going to stop you, right? Well, so they're putting more associates there to try to stop this, but they admit that it hasn't worked yet. The shrink jump was actually such that I want to double my efforts about seeing who's having problems with self-checkout and stealing. I thought that when Brian Cornell at Target talked about that we've seen a high water market shrink, I did not think we'd see a company that would have bad numbers versus last year. But unfortunately, Five Bull is a very well-run company. It's a good growth story. So it takes more looking into, I think people have to rethink this self-checkout. I think it turned out to be something that is not good for retail. And retailers, we're so anxious to get rid of people. Bring the people back. It may be worth it when it comes to the bottom line. All right, Jim, in the brief time we have before things get very loud here, you seem kind of positive just judging from your questions on Reddit, are you? Well, I just think it's place. Well, yes. I mean, I think that the people who love Reddit, and they're the kind of silent majority use an unfortunate Nixon term, and then there's the kind of rabble-rousing people who really genuinely feel that Reddit should be more of a great unbox, like a kind of a common carrier of stories, and it shouldn't necessarily be making so much money. I think that the people who own it and own it for a long time who want to stop and want to own it and not trade it. If those people got a lot of stops, then the stock goes higher. All right, well, there it is. You'll end up doing the honors as Reddit, celebrating that initial public offering today. Over at the NASDAQ GraphJet Technology producer at Graphite Celebrating, it's listening. That's via SPAC. I'm going to be talking about SPACs in a minute. By the way, they priced at 34. Company could raise as much as $78 million at the top end of that range, which is 34. Roughly 22 million shares. Of course, it's the first social media IPO since 2019, and the company was selling 15.3 million shares, other selling stockholders, Jim, to your 0.6.7 million. A long time, some people have been waiting for liquidity at Reddit, given how long it's been a private company. How about that kind of ASL run? Yeah. That was a nice, nice investment. It's good to see someone from the print world actually have the foresight, even though it took a long time to get the pay off. But I always think that it's such a shame. Like I said yesterday, but classy and breaking up with associated press. And we'll get these institutions and saying, "David, what the heck happened?" We had a really powerful press in this country. I don't think people realize at home how fractionated, how unimportant so much of what print is. And so seeing that someone from print got in on this and made money, thanks. How will you? Yeah. It has been a difficult road to say the least with so many, particularly not the national, but the more local brand journalism. Did you see the piece by Moffett Davidson yesterday, by Mike Davidson about the winner TV numbers? How much they're even worse than we thought? You know, I usually do, but I'm not sure I actually laid my eyes on that one. Then don't, don't, because you want to switch risk. I mean, he's talking about just linear being, he said it linears now. It's at its radio moment. The radio moment. Radio moment. Radio moment. Well, radio still around. Radio moment. Yeah. Radio moment. Think of the positives. I mean, we can say anything we want. Nobody's watching. I'm kidding. They're still out there. Do you know I made a joke today about how the Justice Department is going to go after Nvidia because they're so powerful because, and some people actually believe me. One of the problems that I'm finding, David, is that there's no sense of humor about about anything involving Nvidia. If you just, Nvidia, like it's a national treasure, the government is not going after Nvidia. The government is going after Apple and David, we do have to focus on this because I think that in the end, you're seeing this pattern of who this government goes after. And it happens to be the big companies that a lot of Americans know and life. Yes, they do, but there's also a belief that they have enormous power, even though it, by the way, may be very difficult for the government to prove that in court, at least as such, that violates any trust and other laws that are on the books in terms of trying to curb that power. That said, it is not as though Meta and Amazon and Alphabet and Apple and Microsoft are not incredibly powerful companies with reaches into so many different areas of our lives. They are. The FCC has hated Amazon. I had Adam Slipsky on last night, Amazon Web Services. Every year they lower prices for Amazon Web Services. Is that clear to bear? Are people saying they lower prices in order to be able to get everybody else out of the business, or do they lower prices in order to make it so that you and I, as prime members, do better? I believe it's the latter. And it conceivably is going to be a very strong argument that they're able to make in terms of withstanding any of the antitrust litigation that's brought against them, because some of it is simply based on what is it, whether it is good or not for consumers. I mean, they are going to be making somewhat different arguments, aren't they though, as well? And that's been part of the problem overall in terms of the FTC's record thus far in some of the high-profile cases going down roads that the courts are not willing to follow. Right. I mean, if you're Tim Cook, who's in China right now, if you're at EQV, any great people at Apple, where you've brought this product that everybody has and everybody loves, and all you ever hear about is from Justice that listen, we got to see you because you're so powerful. I mean, they're powerful because everybody loves them. You can go get a Samsung phone for having say things like AI. You can go buy, you can go into the Samsung app store. What do they got? They got like them. What do they got? I don't know. I'm an Apple guy like you. But that said, listen, eventually you could see some sort of legislation come out of Congress. That conceivably could be built into a business. They can all agree on it. Let them go focus on the TikTok thing. Let them do the TikTok. TikTok? We'll see. By the way, we're watching the Senate when it comes to TikTok. We'll see if and when they come out with that bill, or what happens there. I guess it's less certain that they are going to pass the ban, but certainly very still quite possible that it will and then be signed by President Biden. And then, of course, it'll probably all end up in the courts the same way that Apple's litigation is going to and so many other things do. Well, I mean, to bring it back to stocks, brook comes up big today in part because they got a bike dance as a potential customer. We didn't reveal what it is. They already have Google. They have meta. But apparently, bike dance is bringing the stock up 46 points. And I think that Joe Carter today said younger people vote and therefore the Congress will not go against TikTok. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, there is a question as to that and any number of people who are in their living on TikTok, the many influences we talk about, the brands that are dependent on it to a certain extent. That's why I think it's a fascinating story. Again, I think if in fact there is a ban, I think it's unlikely the Chinese are going to allow the technology transfer that really would have to take place for significant value to be ascribed to TikTok's non-China businesses. Because by the way, when Mnuchin's out there raising the group, he's talking not just about US, but all of the businesses outside of China, trying to bring them together and buy them. Without the source code, I don't know what you do. It's very much unclear if you don't get access to that source code that you really have a business. Jim, you mentioned Nvidia. It's up, although backed off already in the last couple of minutes from where it opened. But nonetheless, I saw 2.3 trillion briefly on there. There was an IPO yesterday for Ester Labs, semiconductor connectivity, AI. I went to their website, just looked at theirs. That was the beginning, David, of what you and I don't want to see, which is just an IPO that right from the get-go starts out in $10 billion market. Wait a second. When you go and look at their numbers, they're almost nonexistent, for heaven's sake. But it doesn't matter, and people get excited. We don't want this. I mean, Intel backed. Okay, great. Please let people understand. We don't want $2,000. We don't want $19.99. Buy companies that are doing well. I mean, this company is because it is AI. You know, David, we're going to get it like, "I have AI. You have AI. Let's go buy me." It's following through today. It's following through today. I was hoping that it would lift off after it's IPO yesterday. Yeah. I was hoping that it wouldn't, because when I went to the website, I said, "Okay, look, they've got all the buzzwords. They have everything that you need to be able to say, "Hey, I'm an AI." It's like, we watch every morning, Soundhound. It's like all their AI. I mean, because NVIDIA gave them a nod. We don't want to be in the world where you can say you have AI, and then your stock goes higher. Are we in that world or not? Because I feel like we were every company felt obligated to mention AI in their conference calls. Then things seem to die down. Now, we seem very much focused on a handful of companies that are the true beneficiaries right now, before this thing really gets into the enterprise in terms of all sorts of applications that haven't yet been invented, frankly. Right. Well, that's why Micron is here now. They are on allocation for the high bandwidth memory chips that go into this. That's a real AI play. That does make sense. Cadence synopsis. They are real AI plays. They make sense. I don't want everybody to come public who's ever done anything AI, and then claim that they're the next NVIDIA, because everybody wants the next NVIDIA, and there isn't. There's just NVIDIA. NVIDIA is the next NVIDIA. I think we've said that a number of times, haven't we? Yeah. Apple's being, I was, I stepped into the on-the-verse, on-the-verse streaming into the Vision Pro yesterday and saw some remarkable things, including a car that when I got out, I was actually a chair, but I still lifted my leg like I was in a car. It was incredible. If Apple adopts what NVIDIA is saying they should do, it can be big business to business for Apple. But right now, I have to, I have to explain to people, it's still in its infancy, and many companies haven't yet figured out how to use what NVIDIA is doing, except for then you get companies like Amazon that have figured it out, Metas figured it out, Apple has figured it out, and of course, Microsoft has figured it out. There you go. That's me looking at a Nissan car and selecting colors for it, and then later on getting in the bucket seats, thinking I was in it when I was really just in a chair, in a room. Interesting. Yeah, look at that. You see, there's one, there's one picture where I'm trying to get under the hood. I'm trying to actually open it, and then I go under the hood, and I'm looking at the engine. The engine looks fantastic. But does Apple even know what Jensen's got going? I'm not even sure how Apple even understand. Of course, they know. But how big this could be? Yeah. Big! Waiting for some news here, Jim. I just got it on the Disney proxy fight. The CEOs who endorsed Nelson, did you get that? No, I got ISS, and ISS is an important proxy advisory firm, and they are advising to vote for PELTS on trying to buy Sea Card, not Jay Rizzula, but they do go for PELTS. ISS. Yeah, ISS for PELTS. Well, one board seat there is what they are recommending. That's not insignificant, by the way. That's certainly a positive sign for Nelson PELTS and Tryens' efforts to be seated on the board. So, Les Lewis was in favor of Disney. ISS says, "Go PELTS, not Rizzula, so one seat." Okay. And, again, it will come back to many of these large institutions, and how they choose to vote, how influential is ISS. I haven't seen the actual report itself in which they explain their thinking, but there it is, Jim. So, certainly, as we track this closer and closer to the April 3 date for the actual vote, that's another significant data point. David, are you surprised at how ugly it's got, or do you think that's just what happens? No, that's what happens. I mean, you're in a contest. It's so personal. You're going to fight. Visceral. But it is personal. It is visceral. And, you know, I think as well, something that I've kind of hit on. Bob Iger takes it personally, too. There he is. And, you know, I do have a question as to whether, in fact, PELTS gets on that board, how long Iger will stay at the company. Because there is a view, rightly or wrongly, that PELTS is operating for I-pro-mutter, and I-pro-mutter is out for Bob. Again, I say rightly or wrongly, that is a view. And so, I think, you know, we'll watch this closely, because it may impact at least Mr. Iger's tenure as well. Were you surprised that board, you know, South Africa, it's Parker from Nike, Calvin McDonald, and James Kortman. Totally heavyweights, right? Total heavyweights. Would they together do better with PELTS? Because this board has not done the shareholders of great service in terms of succession, one of the most important things they do. When do they do better? I don't know. I kind of feel like at this point, they spent a lot of time in energy. They should just had them one, move one. I mean, this is so disruptive. It has been very disruptive. It is coming to an end. And to your point, you have that view. That view was not shared. Not shared at all by the board and top management at Disney. Great story, a great business story, because these are some of the greatest business people in the world. And it's an iconic company. And Bob Iger did really well for a long time, and you would think, "Okay, listen, let's get all the great minds. I know PELTS, but it's the opposite." It's like, "Hey, Nelson, please, let it along." Listen, there's still great confidence in the Disney camp that they are, well, I've got the report in front of me, that they are going to prevail here. But again, I assess this decision at least is not an insignificant one. It depends. It's not definitive in any way that just because they say, "Oh, we think PELTS should be on the board," that he, in fact, will be voted on the board. Do I have time to get to these of a couple of favor reports? Can I do them now? Please, please do. Jim, I'm going to start with one you may not expect, and you know, we watch Redico public. Next week, we're going to have a de-spack of a company that is starting to, once again, get a bit of attention. And that is Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAZ. Did you see? Yeah. You're on that. I'm not home. I have been on it for some time. I'm not home. I've been talking about it. I've talked about it last week, I think, briefly as well. In part because of the overall conversation around Foreign President Trump's legal bills and his need to post the bond of somewhat $454 million here in New York, and the access that he potentially has to what would be billions of dollars of shares if current prices hold in DWAZ. Why do we mention it now? Because tomorrow, they're having their vote. And they're going to vote in favor, obviously, of the deal to merge with Trump media and technology group. And that's the math. I'll come back to it in a minute. You can see Digital World has had a very nice run of late, and let's call it $44 or so. You want to do the math? I can take you through it because Mr. Trump will, TMTG, essentially, Mr. Trump will have 87 and a half million shares right away, and another $40 million on a so-called urnout. The urnout looks pretty money good right now. It basically says if in any 20-day period following the despact, which will happen next week, by the way, that's when we're expecting it, any 20-day period, the stock stays above $17.50. There are actually various numbers along the way here, but, you know, $12.50, $15.17.50. He gets another 40 million shares. So you can do the math. That's 127.5 million shares. Multiply that by 45. You get about $5.7 billion, maybe even more. I haven't done the math in this very moment. Dollar's worth the stock. The overall value of the company, I've got it at 169 million total shares out. You got 30 million shares for DWAC. You've got 12 million from the other bucket. That's 24 million, but half of those are warrants, roughly. And by the way, I'm not including any number of converts and warrants, which will take the share count up. So let's assume 169 million shares, over 7.5, 7.8 billion dollar market value. Company right now, 3 million in revenue from Truth Social. That's the main entity that it will be operating under the TMTG banner. And you can see there's been a great amount of enthusiasm among certain shareholders. By the way, you can't even show it at this point. The borrow is simply through the roof in terms of how expensive it is. But I've also heard, as you might expect and have not been able to confirm that at least there have been some conversations around, is there a way for Donald Trump to use some of this enormous stake as collateral for a loan that would then be posted to meet this bond requirement. He has a lock up. It's six months. It's not clear whether that would have to remain in place fully for that six month period. There may be some ways to work around that, Jim. But I did want to bring that up. I've been talking about it a little bit and looking at it for quite some time, but it's certainly worthy of some note given this is going to be an almost 8 billion dollar market value of which he will control some 5.7 billion. When you include the earn out shares, the 40 million earn out shares, which I'm assuming the stock doesn't collapse after it goes public. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm stunned. I'm stunned. I think you're right. He will have a borrow against it. Some bank probably would lend money based on the shares. But the company, David, if you value it on earnings, sales, anything, it's not worth anywhere near what we're talking about. No, it's 3 million in revenues. He got 5 billion dollars out of a company that's doing 3 million rev. That's the numbers as they currently stand. I encourage people to read the facts. This is an Ipsy Ray Loker. Let the facts be for themselves. I don't know what to say about that, David. It's fantastic. We'll watch it the vote tomorrow, but more importantly, the DSPAC. Jim, we got some existing home sales, LEI, due out at the top of the hour. First, though, it's manufacturing and services PMI from S&P Global. So let's get to Rick for that. Yes. These are March preliminary, David. So in a couple of weeks, we'll get the final reads. But it's very interesting. If you look at manufacturing, we're expecting 51.8 to 51.9, 52.5. This is the best month over month change the most above 50 since June of 22. June of 22, manufacturing might be on the way back. Now, services expected to be at 52.0 comes in at 51.7. 51.7. That's the weakest number since diesel last year. Now granted, that isn't that long ago, but it really does underscore that what was highlighted as the best portion of the economy seems to be slowing a bit. And, of course, this has ramifications for the Fed because of services slow. Maybe some of the price structure, of course, will be altered with respect to the rate of change of inflation. And finally, the composite number at 52.2 is right in line with the last several months. We had 52.0 in January, final read of 52.5 in February. So, of course, we'll continue to monitor. Interest rates have moved up rather dramatically. And most of that, of course, was claims very well behaved in some of the early morning data that was economy-friendly, of course, which means economy-friendly has fed implications pushing rates up because, of course, if the economy's a bit strong, maybe that means that inflation isn't going to necessarily be under control. David Faber, back to you. All right. Thank you, Rick Santelli. As we take a look at a broader market that's up another half a percent this after, of course, that significant move higher yesterday. The latter half of the day, certainly following comments, the meeting and then comments from Chair Powell during his press conference. Jim, I did want to come back to a story that broke in the last few minutes that we've already hit, which is the Disney proxy fight. Of course, we spent a lot of time on it and will continue to, given the high-profile nature of it and the battle, so to speak, that's underway and continues. Here's the quote from ISS, Institutional Shareholder Services, an influential proxy advisory firm that essentially tells large shareholders how they think they should vote. In the past, certainly the index funds, which control so many shares, have often taken these kinds of proxy advisory firms and use them to make their own decision. That's changed a bit. A lot of them become more active in making their decisions along the lines of a BlackRock, for example. Nonetheless, here's what they say. Peltz, a significant shareholder, could be additive to the succession process. That's something you mentioned, providing assurance to other investors the board has properly engaged this time around. He could also evaluate future capital allocations decisions, moreover, multi-year concerns surrounding the role as compensation committee members strengthen the case that Peltz's addition on balance would appear in that positive. So there that is, Jim, again, just to give you some language from ISS in terms of its decision. Look, I think that we forget what a board meet is supposed to do, and a board is supposed to offer guidance at the highest level, and the board is supposed to have a succession plan. And I think that this board uniquely has not been able to do that. And therefore, what you get is someone like Nelson comes in and says, listen, the board is not helping the CEO and not helping the succession. I think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Now, the critics of it, and obviously, Disney, a chief amongst them, have argued that there was no real plan there, that he didn't come up with any specific things other than simply saying that board oversight has been lacking as we pointed out, and that's the reason he should be elected. Jim, you mentioned Paramount. I guess I'll just hit it briefly here as well, given we're on the subject of these companies. Obviously, Disney is so much larger than Paramount, but there was a report yesterday in the journal that Apollo, the large alternative asset manager, that still does some private equity occasionally, is looking to buy the studio for some $11 billion. I would point out, by the way, it's 10% higher than Sumner Redstone paid for Paramount Studio 30 years ago. So, you know, 10% gain over 30 years. But it's not going to happen. It's sort of what I'm hearing. There's no plan in place at this point to sell the studio. It's simply too tied into everything else that Paramount's trying to do. And so, while it may have been linked to the journal, it may be of interest. It certainly sets a price, Jim. It's not something that seems actionable based on my reporting at this point. I continue to hear that they're trying to move down the road with that David Ellison redbird plan to try to acquire national amusements, paying a premium to Sherry Redstone for the control stake, then merging Skydance Ellison Studio into the Paramount studio, and then potentially issuing equity as well, potentially deluded to sort of give them the base they need to really grow the company. Unclear whether that deal makes it or not, but this one doesn't appear to have much life to it. Well, but David, one thing that people recognize that people still watch is live sports. If you get Paramount Global, do you get the live sports that they have? Because that's actually worth more than any of the numbers we're talking about. I mean, you get their contracts that are in place for CBS and the NFL, of course. Right? So, why wouldn't you want that? I mean, we know that the NFL had great numbers this year. Yeah. That seems like a no-brainer to get. Not for CBS. I mean, CBS is the one that has the contract, you know, so that's what you get. But that's why people watch The Masters, people watch March Madness, people watch the NFL. That's worth a lot to it, to it out to a Google. That's worth a lot to an Amazon. But we know that they can't do that because they're the justice department going after them. Ever. Can't do it. Not with this, FTC. Famizant could buy this stuff and was willing to. They'd all sell to it. I think Zazlove wouldn't be on the phone right away. No. He would. Yeah. He would be. He might just because we just mentioned it. Those guys still watch. It's a non-starter. It is a non-starter. It is a non-starter. Apple's not going to know about it. Amazon's not going to be able to buy Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount. I mean, the buyer for the studio is Netflix. That one may, by the way, and I trust why shouldn't be an issue, but they're not selling the studio. Everything I can see here. They want to make a bit for the whole company, but nobody has. So that's worth thinking. I like traders. I'm watching traders on Sunday with my kids. Traders. Okay. It's not TRAD. It's a TRAI. Oh, traders? Yeah. It's actually great showman. Are we at the point of the show where we make our programming recommendations for? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, you're absolutely. I've been watching this showman on Netflix. I've been enjoying that. So my sister's watching that. Just told me to watch it. I'll do that. Now, how about chewy? And also slow horses on Apple. Great. I watched it twice. I watched it twice. I pretended to my wife that I watched it without her. I'm glad we hit that part. Now you want to finish. How about chewy? We like dogs. Hit some stocks that we haven't hit yet and tell me why. Okay. So chewy had good numbers, and then you start going through the conference call, and it turns out that, you know, the pet adoption is lower than people thought. And the growth there is going to be almost nonexistent. David, pets are not in favor right now in this country. They went out of fashion on the Wall Street fashion show. They did? Yeah, pets know we have a no growth industry, the pet business, which is interesting because general mills had good numbers, but it stopped because of pet adoption. Pet adoption is run out as a theme. And the whole humanization of pets theory, I don't know. That also may have slowed. Really? My dogs do. Yeah. Sleeping in the bed. Well, you got to show discipline. No, you got to show discipline. You got to kick them off the bed. That's what I do. Every night, just kick, walk, walk. What do you got on the big program from San Fran tonight? Well, I got Palo Alto net, which I think is important. We want to be sure, whether it's cybersecurity is still as strong. There's a lot of people who feel it's not. And then David, I've met Tronik talking about the revolutionary things that people are doing in AI and medical, which is not talked about nearly enough. And I don't know if you saw what Elon Musk is doing in neuro stimulation. We're going to talk about neuro stimulation with Jeff Martha from Medtronic. I think they're probably the company on the GE Healthcare's endorsed it, J&J. These companies all understand AI and they also understand it here and now can make money for them. Yeah. And then you got your leaders program tonight as well. Yes, it has a conversation with with Jensen Wong. So that's at eight tonight. David, he's smarter than all of us, but he's also nicer than all of us. And soon his artificial intelligence will be smarter than all of us. Well, that's you and I. When we get back, you, me and many David and Mini Jim will have a conversation and we'll see who's more important. Mini us or us? Got it. All right, Jim. I'll see you later. Congratulations in Elson Pelt, huh? Well, he hasn't won yet. No, you can't. Another congratulate. Not yet. All right. There's Jim Kramer. I'm still here for another hour. We got a lot more coming for you on this busy Thursday morning. Keep it here. You've been listening to the opening hour of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. All opinions expressed by the Squawk on the Street participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC Universal or their parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information. Squawk on the street participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy and it should not be relied upon as such. 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