9am Hour: OpenAI Urges Caution, Qualcomm & Amazon Partnership, Novartis’ Drug Trial Setbacks 9/8/26

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1:16Big lineup for the next couple of days. We will kick off the fall season, though, with the pre-market red. The focus once again on rates, 10-year pin near 4.8. And oil, Brent, two bucks from 100, where it hasn't been since May 26th. Goldman does raise their price forecast today. Our roadmap begins with OpenAI, though, sounding the alarm around the speed of AI development. Novartis shares down sharply on some drug trial setbacks. And that latest around the Amazon cargo jet crash in Miami as federal investigators examine the fallout there. Let's begin, though, with this new warning from OpenAI. In a blog post over the weekend titled An Alien Mind, the company's chief scientist urges caution around the pace of AI development, saying this is a time that calls for extreme caution.

2:02I'm concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence. This is we're watching some positive moves from AI beneficiaries like Intel, a five pre-market leading the NDX gym. What did you make of this chief scientist's comments and then Bill Gates at Telluride saying we're essentially in a HAL 2001 kind of moment? Well, look, I think that we have to be careful. I know that there are guardrails. I would say that I find it somewhat ironic because we are playing with chat GPT with Astra, the new one, and doing remarkable things and drawing pictures and doing charts and stuff.

2:41And I have to tell you that if anyone's going to be the people who are in charge of our lives, it's going to be OpenAI because this product is so powerful and so exciting. I guess I'm still – I have to be careful because I am in the excitement moment. I have been talking to a lot of the hyperscalers about how to get the data centers to have a code of conduct to see whether there isn't some level where they couldn't start demonstrating some sort of responsibility. But, look, I understand him. I'm George Kurtz. I know that David's going to have George Kurtz on. You have to have guardrails, and you have to have the agents be dependent upon you.

3:18And I guess right now that the hugging face was so raw that people just say you can't trust them. They're going to be smarter than you. Yeah. We do have Jensen congratulating OpenAI. Yes, he did. I guess we're at AGI is essentially his take. Right. I just say that this is, again, I want to point out, I am the joyous part. I'm not at the, I'm looking at the next industrial revolution. I think it's entirely possible that you might have felt that some of these other industrial revolutions with the computer that they had gotten ahead of us. But I'm not willing to say we should slow things down. I just don't see it.

3:56Do you feel like you know OpenAI and Sam Altman well enough at this point to bestow on them this kind of responsibility? No, I don't. And that's a really good question. And again, I'm going to say that where I am in this, because I'm not I'm in wonderment. OK, I'm not deep enough in it. So I would be probably one of the people who would be fooled by it and think that it may not may be a real person and not the some sort of illusion. So I don't want to say I'm the one person to ask because my job is to look at these things. But I do have faith in Nikesh Arora at Palo Alto. And I do have faith in George Kirch.

4:38And I think George has got – he's really thought a lot about this. And he's come on a couple times. And I think CrowdStrike is maybe – I mean, I'm sure these people think CrowdStrike, Jim, they're tinker toy players. And these guys are the real deal. And they're going to be able to start World War III. I still think that we have we have them under control for now. For now. But time is of the essence. Look, here's what happens. You slow ours down and then we hear that China is going to take us over and we're going to lose to China. I mean, look, we can either lose to them or lose to China. And I'd rather lose to them.

5:14I see I see less of a slaveocracy than if China takes us over. I mean, honestly, it's kind of like when Jensen buys Hugging Face and people yawn and it's$13 billion, maybe pay too much. But if Broadcom had bought Hugging Face, people would say, wow, I mean, let's pay$400. You're going to stop Jensen. There's a big double standard. Anybody who wants to say, I can come out here and I say, you know what? I think this whole thing's got to stop, Carl. You know, it's got to stop. And let me tell you what I know. I know I have seen things like you wouldn't believe. And it's got to stop. And maybe people say, you know, Kramer's like, he's really tied up.

5:49Well, I'll tell you what got some attention, Jim, over the weekend was this Times piece about open source corporate America getting addicted to open source. Like at AT &T, where in May, open source was 20 percent of their usage. It's now 40. It's going to be 60. Well, I mean, it's exciting and it's cool and people fool around with it. But look, let's go back. There's another good piece in the journal about not the piece that just said, be careful, the summer's over. I mean, I've written that piece for like 40 times when I was at thestreet.com. What matters, I think, is we're looking at times where we thought that Salesforce was going to be dead, and it's up 100.

6:28We thought that ServiceNow was going to be dead, and it's up 60. Now, some of that is because Leopold, situational, unaware. But some of it is just because the software is not as good. Now, the tagline of that article was, it's hard to break habits. It's hard to break it. But here we hear that at AT &T, they're breaking habits every day. It's very inconsistent. And I'm not going to just say they should slow it down because it's inconsistent. I don't see enough that makes me feel like that these people aren't doing anything other than being very responsible and telling you we should be aware. So the kinds of things that would make you think that are?

7:07Well, I think that if we found out that there was a major utility that shut down and there was no North Korean influence, Or if we felt that there was someone who was an illusion who really ended up being you running your company for five days because that person had all every single cybersecurity issue solved. And that person then turned your company into a cash machine for the I don't know, for the the Belarus mafia. That would be that would be a warning sign for you. That would be bad. We're definitely still in the build out phase, Jim. This Qualcomm News with Amazon, building multi-generation collaboration, customized silicon.

7:47I think Qualcomm's up 10 now, pre-market. Well, geez, I happen to have, I have Matt Murphy one. I have Marvell Technology. I want to know whether they're good partners with Amazon. I'd like to know what that means. I know that Qualcomm's stock has been treading water, and suddenly they've got something special. And we're always worried about Qualcomm's telco. So, Cristiano, good job. I think Matt's done an amazing job. I've just got a really good deal with Alphabet. But let's find out. A lot of these companies are really in competition now. Like we didn't see. Like Broadcom. I mean, my chefs are still in Broadcom.

8:21And I'm like wanting to slit my throat. Just kidding. Just kidding. I know. Warning, suicide. But I felt so bad about what happened that Broadcom had a quarter that wasn't that great. But they gave you fantastic guidance. And I prefer to see a great quarter and great guidance. That's what I like. Yes. Like, if you give me great guidance for a bad quarter, I tend to say, come on. I mean, you can't do that. Well, Matt said that 2029 is going to be our year. And a lot of people were hoping that they took it from Brocom and therefore 2028 would be the year. And there were a lot of people who were – the stock was down on the announcement.

8:57Again, these companies – Carl, these companies trade positions every single day. Yeah, and it's kind of like models, right? They really are. Yeah. I mean, I thought that Chad's GPT was nowhere and that Anthropic Claw was great. And I come in today and it says, make a picture of me riding a rocket ship while I play great games. And, you know, next thing you know, I'm selling it to you online for$40 a trade. I mean, this stuff is happening very fast. Now, a lot of guys are doing it with their fantasy, and apparently everyone's drafting A.J. Brown number eight. I question. I think there's a rogue, a rogue animal is taking control of ChatGPT because I think AJ is finished.

9:37Yes, I know you have a soft spot for AJ. At least you used to have a soft spot. I used to have a soft spot, but I've got to tell you, I've been able to confuse ChatGPT and Claude into saying that he should be drafted last. While we're on the Qualcomm Amazon stuff, Amazon getting ready for a sterling bond sale, their first ever. I couldn't believe that. I mean, I believe that Amazon is very close to profitability. I said it this weekend in a piece I'm going to write today, saying that, look, I think next year at this time, you're going to start seeing a lot of money from them. I think that Alphabet's making a lot of money.

10:09It's just that it's all lost in the spend. But they're making money. Yeah. And that kind of brings us to one of the big earnings Prince will get this week. Not Adobe, but Oracle. And what they'll say about this whole chapter. Oracle's up very big. You know, we do think we always, you know, OpenAI was not public, but we we trade Oracle on OpenAI success because they have such good partnership. Look, I really want to know what Oracle is saying, because Oracle is the stock that was up the most and has given up the most. And I would like to see a comeback from them. But maybe does David David knows this guy's he interviewed them.

10:46They're kind of a mystery. Yeah. There's a look at the at the week, a little specialty retail mixed in there. You know, Adobe might be a company. Look, Adobe is deeply embedded. The problem with Adobe is they actually have a competitor. They have Canva and they have Figma. There turned out to be no ServiceNow competitor. There was really no Salesforce competitor. And it's those that you're most worried about, especially because the Adobe competitors are so inexpensive. But a lot of people, again, like the article in the journal, habit. Habit says use Adobe, and Adobe's a Lamborghini. So are you saying that the dark mood about September and post-Labor Day going into midterms, that's overdone?

11:28You're not as worried about the next eight weeks? I'm not crazy about it, but I don't think it's really bad. If you told me, look, if the long bond, if the five and a quarter goes to six, then I guess we're going to be plenty worried. But if the five and a quarter stays here and oil keeps going up at a little bit of an increment, this market can now handle that. It's crazy. It doesn't seem to matter, the$6 diesel. I don't understand why it doesn't matter. That's at the diesel supermarket. That's what you have to think. Diesel supermarket. And what's up? Now, I know the president was somewhat critical of Mexico, but Costco's tomatoes are holding in.

12:08They get their tomatoes in Mexico. Yeah, I mean, about a third, up to a third of the food cost is diesel. Yes. And food is about, you know, 15 % of the CPI basket. And it's right in your face. You know, if you're not renting, it's not in your face. And if you're not buying a car, it's not in your face. But when you go to the supermarket, you realize, wait a second, I'm just paying a substantial amount more. Now, I happen to go into Citarella. Now, that's not even. What the hell is that? Most people try not to. Oh, my God. I mean, like, that diesel means nothing. It means nothing to them. That's a store on Long Island that charges a huge amount, but it's high quality.

12:46But if you're, like, trying to get Cisco, the S-Y-Y kind, or Baldur, you know, it's built in. Your restaurant's going to be—the restaurant costs a lot more. Yeah. And I think, like, a McDonald's has to be able to figure out how to be able to save, cut price. It can't let— No, I mean, McDonald's is in one of the worst drawdowns it's ever had. I think it's just—it's inflation. I really do. I don't think McDonald's is a bad place to go. Yeah. I just don't think they can make as much because of inflation. I think Walmart can't make as much because of inflation. I think Costco can't make enough because of inflation.

13:19These people, they're trying to hold the line. And they're trying to hold the line. And someone's eaten the margin. And they are eating the margin. Yeah, well, we've talked about what a slim, what a sliver consumer discretionary ex-Amazon Tesla is of the overall market, right? It's not getting reflected in the headlines. No, but I mean, if you look at the stock in Kroger, I think Kroger very much is, That's the economy when it comes to the individual who's not making a huge amount of money. And you can just look at the stock. Kroger, there it is. That represents the individual trying to be able to keep up.

13:47And then because people feel that Dollar Tree and Dollar General, that those sizes are bigger, they don't really understand it. They should just look. I mean, a lot of the younger people, they go in, you see them doing this stuff. They're looking at the OZ and figuring it out. But if you look at Dollar Tree and Dollar General, I don't think they're the bargain that they claim they are. But Kroger's trying to be the bargain. And look what happens when you're trying to be the bargain. They're getting killed 11 times earnings. It's a legitimate company. Oh, there we go. Yeah, Dollar Gen. Yeah. And that sort of leads us to a brief discussion about the consumer.

14:17Inflation has wiped out most wage gains since April, maybe March. It's just amazing. We got credit card debt all-time high, savings rate near a multi-year low. Doesn't that make you worry about midterm results? Well, yes. But look, I happen to believe that gridlock is actually a little better than the crazy stuff we have now. I mean, that's a pejorative term, but I mean, that every day you look up and it's like, well, I don't know, that's something I didn't count on. And maybe gridlock makes that lesson. Right. And so therefore I'd be a little less crazy. Even a Dem Senate? We've seen some trade ideas of a Dem Senate.

14:52A Dem Senate? I don't know. Well, look, the Democratic Socialists, I mean, if you go on their website, that would be, you know, if they take over, Carl, nice to meet you. Because I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be, because Lenin would have come after me first. Despite my close relationship, we have to understand that there is an element of demonization that may be too hard for a lot of people in this country. Demonization. Well, I mean, I think the Democratic Socialists just are for wage distribution. And I get that. I mean, there's been whole societies where they have wage distribution.

15:25But if I'm doing well, I admit that. I surrender. I'm not supposed to do. Yeah. Well, I mean, they are in favor of government control of some industries. but Jim, president over the weekend, tweeting about his gains, his paper gains on Intel. Yeah, I love that because my trust goes into him and says, yeah, please don't sell it. Remember, the last week of August is when he can sell it. I was thinking he's not going to sell it. I mean, I felt that he's pounding the table on it. I'm hoping he's just trying to get it over 100. I know, Jim. And then today it's definitive agreements of deals on Rigetti and Qubits and QNT.

15:58So you're okay with some socialist aspects of business? Well, social... What do you mean, social... I mean, the government-owning parts of companies. Oh, I thought you meant, like, socialism, like, they would take my channel, but trust Intel. Yeah! Look, I think that Intel was very much in danger. I want anything that's quantum. I believe we should lead... Look, I believe we have a race against China. I really believe that. And I think the things that make it so that we win the race, whether it be Chris Wright and what we're doing with oil, whether it be what we're doing with quantum, whether it be what we're doing with nuclear, these are all really important.

16:32I mean, look, if they were really bad, like if we were trying to win with coal, I know the president likes coal, that would be problematic. And when you say win the race, by that you mean? We have to triumph over China. I think that that's why I was so upset that NVIDIA wasn't able to sell into China, so everyone got addicted to NVIDIA and China. But I think that China is a world-class opponent, and we've got to show them that we know what we're doing, And I don't want Intel to be the reason why the stock don't because we lost Taiwan. We shouldn't lose Taiwan. We lost China in the in the mid 40s.

17:08We should not lose. You don't want to be the president that lost Taiwan. You really don't. Yeah, that would be bad. Bad for all kinds of different reasons. Two big themes leading the show today, Jim, AI and energy. That's as we start this first program post labor day. I'm not fearful of AI. It doesn't sound like it. I'm joyous about the Industrial Revolution and how many jobs it's going to create. But I am a disciple of Jensen Wong, and I'm not budging. You've been very clear about that one. I'm not budging. Very clear. Take a look at the pre-market here. We'll get to some of the action in bonds later on as Treasury buybacks begin, and so do Canada tariffs.

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19:08That's because CDW customized an ever-pure, Evergreen One SLA-driven storage-as-a-service solution, delivering hybrid cloud storage that's easy to manage, efficient, and continuously evergreen. Simplify storage administration with Everpure and CDW. Make amazing happen. Find out more at cdw.com slash everpure. It's been quite a summer for Micron. Stock got to$1 ,250 in June, then dipped down to$7 ,300 in July. Today, finally reclaiming$1 ,000, adding to the gains on Friday when it was up better than 6%. Enjoying a nice few days here, Jim. Oh, yeah, we bought it after we went out to see them. This company's going to$1 ,200, right back to$1 ,200, I believe.

19:52We'll watch that. We'll get Kramer's Mad Dash. Countdown to the opening bell. More Squawk on the Street in just a minute. Who's ready for a bike ride? Peppa Pig is learning to ride her bike. First, pop on her helmet. Safety first. Then attach the push stick and give her bike a push. And watch Peppa paddle. Her legs go round and round as the wheels turn. With more than 75 sounds and phrases, every ride is a big adventure. Peppa Pig Ready Paddle Go. Available at all major retailers now. Weren't agents supposed to take things off your plate? Building another to handle the others is a bit much. Don't make more work out of work.

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21:17Simplify storage administration with ever pure and CDW make amazing happen. Find out more at CDW dot com slash ever pure. Time for Kramer's Mad Dash as we count down to the bell. Yeah, we're seeing some deals being done where private equity companies are finally kind of unleashing, unharnishing some of the great stuff they have. GE goes in and buys consolidated precision products. Now, this thing is going to send this stock up. And the reason why is because this is more defense-oriented, and everyone's crazy to see them building up defense. Larry Culp, he's doing a terrific job. Sold by Warburg and Berkshire, Berkshire Partners.

21:59But mission-critical cash parts, I just think that this is one of those things where you say, OK, it's good to see them, instead of constantly getting rid of stuff, now they're starting to acquire. And there are a lot of companies that have been spun off that are kind of doing nothing, and it's time for them to start doing what Larry Culp's doing, which is pick off some private equity stuff that's really good. That's interesting. Is the deal at all focused on commercial aviation? Well, yeah, they do some commercial, but they really want it to be military. It's a defense story. It's a defense story.

22:28When you go over with Larry Culp, I mean, one of the things that they really turned big on is defense. They've got a lot of defense, and they're really great at it. It's great that they're building up that one level. I think commercial has been very, very hard, by the way, because commercial is kind of lever to oil. And people keep thinking there's going to be a lot of cancellations and orders. There's not been so far. That's true. I've been checking in. Because demand's been so incredible. Demand's been making up for it. Demand's amazing. But I thought this was a great acquisition, and it's also great to see the PE firms starting to unload some things because we know we want them liquid so they can do more buying.

23:03We certainly need more stock taken out because, man, we've got a lot of stock coming in. Yeah, that's a pretty big price tag relative to some of the deals we've seen. It's a huge multiple to EBITDA, 26. There are probably some people who say they overpaid. I say these assets are scarce, and if you have a chance to buy them, you buy them. You buy them. Well, watch that closely. We'll get the opening bell in a couple of minutes. Don't go anywhere.

23:27Canadian counter tariffs on more than$20 billion worth of U.S. imports take effect today. The duties range from 15 % to 50 on U.S. steel, aluminum and iron products, as well as furniture and clothing. Ahead of those new tariffs, the president took to Truth Social, threatening to ban Bombardier sales, urging people to buy American Bombardier. In turn, Jim pointed out they employ people, have facilities in 20 some odd states. Yeah. Look, I think that we have a lot of situations where these companies kind of, before we got into NAFTA, they only committed to our country and, you know, they didn't pull out.

24:05Look, I'm a buy America first, or if I can figure out what it is. I mean, you know, Bombardier, I went to their facilities in Mexico. They're gigantic just to see them. And I say, OK, well, they're pretty much everywhere. Equal opportunity hirer. So I don't know whether you should blast them or not. I don't know whether you blast companies like Ford because they spent a lot of time shuttling engines. It's kind of like what you were supposed to do. You can't blast people for what they were supposed to do. When the agreements were written is what you mean. Well, I mean, like the idea was you can't just suddenly say, look, everything that you heard, you did wrong.

24:40I mean, I'm waiting for Union Pacific to take a lot of heat. They have trains in Mexico that really matter. And maybe they put a tariff on Union Pacific. I don't know. it's very hard to figure out who's done wrong. It's very hard. Yeah. I mean, Bombardier buys a lot of American engines and avionics and systems. They're a great customer. I mean, they did it because they were afraid of getting power, but also because, like, we make a lot of good stuff. I don't know. Bombardier is one of those companies that it's done everything right, and it's hard to figure out why they're wrong. They've done everything right.

25:17I mean, it's not like it's done for a camera. Check this out. They have what that's what it's about. I mean, I stated to President China bomb that the only thing good for Mexico is tamales and tomatoes. By the way, 16.9 on the peso dollar. That's an amazing move by the peso. Maybe she got that right. Maybe the fact that homicides are a multi-year low. Maybe she got that right. Maybe she's become a great friend of a lot of American business companies. Why is she being attacked? What? She's like, she's done everything. I mean, I cannot tell people how important she has been as a president and what a great friend she's been.

26:01But I guess it doesn't matter. She's a great friend of ours. Let's get the opening bell this morning at the big board on Wall Street. It's Extend, a developer of software and AI powered robotics celebrating a recent listing at the Nasdaq and Times Square figure technology solutions. A fintech using blockchain and AI, celebrating its one-year listing anniversary. And at SIBO in Chicago, it's the internal floor operations team. Every day we listen to these companies, I always have to think about the lightning round. Like if someone will call me about these companies, and I have to admit a lot of them sound the same.

26:32They seem to be doing a lot of the same thing, a blockchain company, fintech. And when you look at them, you just figure, okay, when the smoke clears, who's going to be left? It's too many. Yeah. Well, Robinhood got some good action last week, Jim. Today it's a deal with Crypto.com. They have a predicted market. There are a lot of people talking about this company being the next great brokerage. I come back and say, has anyone thought about Morgan Stanley, which is going to be lead broker? Lead left on Anthropic. And you've got Ted Pick, who has done a remarkable job. I will tell the story about how great Ted Pick is.

27:09He has put together an amazing team. And I think E-Trade quietly is doing very well. But no, all we hear about is Robinhood. Robinhood's good, but Morgan Stanley's done a great job. Ted Pick is not going to come on the show and tell you how great he is. Because Ted Pick doesn't think he's great. He thinks he's got to get better and stronger and faster. That's my kind of guy. Although financials, Jim, over three months, one of the best performing sectors. It's terrific. Maybe second to health care. It's been terrific. And a lot of the companies are quietly going up. I don't know whether it's the buybacks or not, but they've done well.

27:43You have to have one But there haven't been that many deals I thought that after Webster went After Santander bought Webster Which is the first big deal Big presidents in Massachusetts Big presidents in New York I thought that there would be a lot of others You mean consolidation within banks Yes, because I think that they're looking the other way The authorities are saying Listen, go be as big as you want That's always been something that they haven't wanted to do But no one followed Anna Boutin, who is by far, I think, if you lined up the bankers in America and they'd say, okay, who's the smartest banker overseas?

28:19There's always going to be Anna Boutin, always. Yeah, you've been a huge fan for such a long time. Not just because of the member-guess thing, because I'm not a member of any club, but she would be my guest if I was a member. Yes. One of the greatest conference in the world. She is one of the greatest conference in the world. Speaking of Anthropic, Jim, some reporting that they've been said to walk away from this Descartes purchase, which would have been about$6 billion. Yeah, I saw that. I said, I don't know. Dario Almendé is so smart. Who am I? That's part of the problem. He's also about Sam Walton with his trust.

28:53Sarah Fryer is there, and she's one of the smartest people I've ever met. Dario is one of the smartest people. These people are really smart. And I maybe overvalue intellect when I see it in business. And that's something I've always been, I think I've done wrong in my career. I say, well, that guy's a great intellect, but it has not necessarily turned into a great business person. Well, because markets are not 100 % in your control. I mean, the whole open source discussion we had has implications for their pricing power and revenue, doesn't it? Yes, it does. And I saw the, you know, the deals you can cut.

29:26Do you go for the$100 a month open AI? I think you've got to go for the$100 a month. I think it's amazing. I love speaking to my computer and asking stuff, and it's just really smart. I don't know. What am I going to say? It's like I have to spend a huge amount of time trying to look stuff up, or I just talk to it. It's a delight. How many times a day would you say you engage on a model? 50? Probably 100. 100 times a day? Yeah, probably 100. On things consequential and trivial? I mean, I got up at 3.30 a day to see what was going on, and immediately I went. There were a couple stories that I didn't really understand.

30:02And I go and I ask, and it's got everything. So you're asking to clarify things you've read elsewhere? Yes, I go to ChatGPT, and I go to Claude. And I just ChatGP, Claude. And if it's not happening, then I might go to one of the others. Gemini. I used to go to Gemini all the time. I don't. But I just find there are very few things. Like this morning, Bob writes this as a piece about OpenAI and what it's doing, the game changer, GPT-6. So then I go right in on that. I wasn't sure whether I've been as good as I'd like to be on these refiners. They really are doing amazing. I'm going on and I'm looking at the integration of Ansys and Synopsys.

30:39I'm doing Hinge. Is Hinge still doing well? And it's like, oh, my God, I've got to stop it. And, you know, I'm trying to integrate every bit of it into my life and trying to double-check everything before I say it. That's good. That's a real endorsement. I mean, you actually are repeated practical use is what you're all about. I just before I have an interview with Matt Murphy, and I'll tell you what I do try to resist. Give me 10 great questions from Matt Murphy. Because it's too easy. Yes, because that is the kiss of death. Because then you haven't learned the material. You have no facility with the material.

31:13Now you're talking about things we've heard out of Goldman Podcasts about cognitive decay, right? These reading skill levels we've seen out of Europe today. I was reading Stratechery, and whether I'm using the RAM part of my brain, or I'm using the DRAM, and I'm like, holy cow. And the first thing it says is, have you wandered? Has your mind wandered while you read through this prior? I said, yeah, I was thinking about Lissardo and a two-hitter. Sorry. I mean, yes, my mind wandered. I mean, I'm sorry. Maybe you should ask what Novartis should do about these trials. Did you know that four weeks ago, Narasimhan was being hailed as the genius in the business and how great the MS drug was?

31:53Today's the go to the game. How can you be in a business where anybody had a couple of string of defeats after this? I'm going to bet with him. I think he's a very, very smart man. I'm sorry, Dr. Narasimhan. He's a real doctor. By the way, Dr. Oz is a real doctor. I thought he was very impressive this morning. Why is Amgen down in sympathy? Okay, they're the same kind of product. Now, Amgen put out a press release that was very positive about a cancer drug, and I thought that maybe it shouldn't be down this much. I like Amgen very much. That's the worst S &P-er at the moment. I like Amgen. I think they're doing a lot of good things.

32:26Look, the guys who know how to buy, I think that Merck is the company that knows how to make great acquisitions. They've done acquisition after acquisition to stop being dependent on Keytruda, and they've done a magnificent job. I don't think that they get enough credit. They're one of the best Dow stocks of the year. Well, yes, but I'm saying that you don't hear Rob Davis' name enough as being great. Like, you just don't. I mean, you hear David Ricks all the time. Yes, that's true. Jim, today it's, you know, that software chip split very much alive as software is lagging pretty badly here this morning.

33:02This is because overnight, you know, yesterday we had an 8 % move in the Kospi semis. him. You know, they don't, Labor Day's not their holiday. And I think that people should recognize that this, all that you see here was yesterday. That was just, except for the president. So we're in catch-up mood. Yeah, we are. We're in catch-up mood, except for the president saying he's like an intel hero. Yeah. I mean, it was strange. Sitting on a hundred, what's his claim? That he's sitting on hundreds of billions of gains in stocks. Could he be doing, he should be careful not to do a pump and dump, where he's been talking positively about it, and then he decides, you know what, I'm going to unload 400 million shares of the American.

33:42You don't want him to do a pump and dump. He would not do it. He would not do that. He would never do a pump and dump. He's way too good. Well, we would eventually find out. He can't do it. He will not do a pump and dump. My prediction. He would not do that. Now, it's not a real pump and dump in terms of like a Wolf of Wall Street, but I would hate to see him cheering about it and then saying, okay, listen, we're filing to sell R9.9. That'd be a bummer. Speaking of tech, Jim, we're going to talk about Apple's event all day today in advance of tomorrow. Yes. What do you think? Are the big dynamics going to be around cost and pricing?

34:16Right. Oh, you asked me how I use it. I went in to the new one. I went into Astra and I said, design, tell me exactly what it's going to look like. And it's going to look like a small iPad. Oh, so you're asking it to predict tomorrow's future. Oh, absolutely. I said, just show me what it looks like. And it waited and probably, like, thought about it and read 23 different periodicals and came up with something in less than a minute that's exactly what it looks like, I believe. And I said, well, I'd pay$2 ,000 for that. And there you go. $2 ,000. You know the sticker shock that you'll get. I'm going to switch to T-Mobile and Costco.

34:56I'm not paying anything. I'm going to write to Costco. Yeah. They need some customer share at Costco. I do think that it was pretty amazing that it knew what it looked. Let's see what it really looks like. Right, right. But I said, factor in Ternus' background. Give me what it would look like in terms of the heft of it. And it just came up. And I said, well, this isn't possible, is it? Is it possible? That'll be interesting to go back and retroactively grade its predictions tomorrow. Although, you know what? Apple on event day is higher for the day, maybe a third of the time. Yeah, it's not. It's not dispositive.

35:31A lot of people get very excited. That's a big mistake. But maybe that's the reason why there's two negative notes today. On Apple. Yeah, saying, listen, don't get too excited. But as Zach Hodgkinson, if you saw what he just said, he spoke to his computer and wanted to know exactly what it would look like. And I'm telling you, if it's that, I'd buy it. It's so cool. Now, maybe it's not that. Maybe it should be that. But the fact is, how did it look that it summarized all of the articles? It read everything. Everything. It read everything. And at the same time, it was probably reading Moby Dick in his spare time, right?

36:04I mean, that's where, you know, when this blog post out of OpenAI, when he says that they're superhuman in their levels and their ability to break out, that makes sense, right? If it does everything else that well. No, Jensen said it could read Moby Dick in a second. I didn't ask it about, I said, I asked him, I said, well, how fast did we move up? And he said, one second. I said, that was funny. And he goes, yeah, laughing on the inside. Oh, my. Jensen is, I wish people knew how fabulous he is. And maybe that's why I'm somewhat taken. You know, I'm thinking about the same thing, about how powerful they are.

36:41And I am saying that the people on the side of this are some of the greatest people I've ever met. It makes it very difficult for me to be critical about this. Yes, I understand. If I see something that is not necessarily correct about NVIDIA, I'll get something within 15 minutes, and it will tell me what I could, you know, what would have been a more accurate... Usually, I was inarticul. And they don't say, listen, I know what the hell I'm talking about to some degree. But you have to understand that this is a company which watches the show, by the way, watches everything I do. I think it watches everything.

37:16and it's just very on point for you to be smarter. Most of the things they send me are, I think a better way to say it, or you need to learn this, or why don't you read this blog. If every company was NVIDIA, we would have a much more accurate medium. And why do you think they're not? Too much work? I mean, is it too much trouble? That's an interesting question. To try to wrangle the financial press? Well, maybe it is. You know, it's the same people the whole way. When the company was 200 billion, It's the same people. I just think that Jensen is, I remember Jensen first told me about these things.

37:51He said, you know, I put every conference call through it. And sometimes it is too long, didn't read. But they're the only company I've ever seen in investor relations that basically says, I want you to be better about my company. GE's done that. But people have to recognize at home what happens is that you're watching TV and you're getting on your phone, you're getting, you know, Jim, it would have been better had you said it. yeah, okay, it would have been better. And then you have to reassess and say, well, you know what, I thought I did a good job, but here's a good example. Right now, I think Disney has a really good, they're very good IR.

38:28But Disney stock is down a buck and a quarter. Maybe there's something going on. And if the down two bucks, if the video was down two bucks, you would hear there's a blog post that says that. And I just think people have to recognize that you're up here. You're frantically trying to figure out what the truth is, frantically. You're trying not to look frantic because you don't want to seem like you're just panicking. But at all times, when there's anything going on with NVIDIA, they shoot the media questions. Jim, you mentioned the box office, or studios at least. It has been a pretty good summer for North American box office.

39:03We think it's going to be about$4.8 billion. That would be an all-time high, not inflation-adjusted, probably best reflected in IMAX, which has just crushed the S &P so far this year. Good for Gelfand. Gelfand always stuck with it. I think he's a terrific guy. He's been, obviously, a frequent guest on CBC. But, you know, the discretionary income, Carl. There's so much of it. And you keep thinking, when is it going to run out? And it kind of brings us to, you know, the Telluride Film Festivals this week. And they did premiere this new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes from Nathan Fielder. Take a listen to at least the teaser.

39:43I don't have anything to deceive you on. Of course I'm not deceiving you. I'm engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you? There's no... There's no reason for me to do that. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay, good shot.

40:20You're being real right now? Always being real.

40:33Oh!

40:39Fielder's trademark is sustaining that tension through awkward silences and pauses. But you've got some experience with Holmes? Yeah, she only blinked once during that whole interview. Yeah, I had a really good fortune. There was a book that was written which talked about how Walgreens really got screwed. You're referring to Bad Blood? Yeah. No, no. Previous book. But Walgreens had this really great thing, and then I was subsequently able to find out that it didn't work for Walgreens, and I was able to confront her on that. I do think that you had to confront her. I mean, there was just too much that was not holding up.

41:13And the book is so, you know, the book by the teller, the journal. Carrie Rue. Carrie Rue, yeah. That was just extraordinary. Yeah, amazing reporting. Yeah, amazing. But, yeah, I confirmed some things, and I know it wasn't pleasant. I had had her on. I mean, it's very interesting because, like, you're all sensitive to how people view you. The first time she was on, I thought she was pretty good. And the second time I was on, I said, basically, she's a fraud. And people just said, you know, you can't call her a fraud. You said she was really good. Well, subsequently, the facts change. I'm not going to stick with the, hey, you know what?

41:47She's really good, even though I know she's a fraud. You don't do that. I know they're in last place, but they're fabulous. No, I'm not going to do that. And here, of course, it was criminal activity. But, of course, I'll watch that. By the way, I think that the box is ready. I think you now could have a box and you could have drops of blood and really start to figure out cancer. It's really happening. And it's a shame that, you know, it's going to happen. It's usually about timing of promises, not the promises themselves. Exactly right. But there's AI evidence that that can work. Similar documentaries being planned about Elon Musk.

42:22Alex Gibney's piece, I think, is at the Venice Film Festival. Interestingly, Jim, we didn't talk about the CyberCab event last week. Although there is news on SpaceX today, the waiting on the NDX for SpaceX is probably going to go to three and a half as these lockup expirations increase the flow. Oh, my. So we've got a real huge bump tomorrow. Yeah. And the market has been decidingly great on these because a lot of these, a lot of the holders were true believers. I would have thought that by this point you would have a big short position and it would, you know, they'd have to cover on the short.

42:57No, it's like full speed ahead. And I think that there's just a lot of people who said, you know what, I'm with Musk because Musk is the greatest business person of our lifetime. And the people who got in are thrilled. and they're not dumping. They're not taking a quick profit. Gotta hand it to them. I mean, so far it's been pretty good. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how the business case once again collides with his public persona and whether or not there's any degradation in value because of it. But that hasn't necessarily been the case, Jim. We don't know what it would have been if he hadn't been so outspoken on things.

43:32No, true. I mean, we do a fantasy draft tonight for Mad Money. And we were trying to figure out, Alex Karp, who is he and whether he is, and I don't want to say the people who came up because I don't want him on my fan side, but you have character issues. And they're influencing stocks. Palantir did choose Nebius as one of their partners today. That was incredible. Nebius up five. Nebius is a very liked outfit given the fact its history is not stellar, not bad either, but it's just like, wow, people like Nebius. That's interesting. Watch Bonds this morning. We mentioned the 10-year getting awfully close to 4.8.

44:10Hasn't actually closed for the week at 4.8 since late 23. Keep it in front of you. Yep. A little bit off of that for now. And, of course, we get PPI Thursday, CPI Friday, some buybacks, we think. Stay with us.

44:29Watching some laggards here at the open. We mentioned Amjim. But otherwise, some software names toward the bottom of the barrel today. Service now, Intuit, Workday, CRM Dash. Along with some travel, Jim. Expedia, booking, down about 4. Helmet. Do people think that Helmet was going up because she was going to buy them? Come on. That's crazy. Intuit, I had them one. They missed one line, but it was enough to kill the stock. We talked about it last week with David a little bit. Killed the stock. For now, Dow down about 4.90. We'll get to stop trading with Jim after the break.

45:02Let's get to Jim and stop trading. Yeah, look, I like data points and stocks that are down. J &J down six off of weakness in the drug group, nothing in particular J &J. The psych conference occurs this week starting the 15th and 19th in New Orleans, and they're going to reveal some documents about how capillitis is doing versus manias that are a problem and how great Spravato has been. So I really think that you ought to just say, listen, I'm going to buy some of that because they've got something for schizophrenia. There's nothing for schizophrenia. If this bravado can do that, and it's an amazing drug, it's an anti-suicide drug, that's a great opportunity.

45:40AAA balance sheet, 18 different compounds that I think could be bug must. No, you generally, you favor this name in times when tech's in some turmoil, and then you favor it when tech's not in turmoil. I just think it's just the greatest, it's one of the greatest companies in America. And you've got to be aware they have a new drug all done. And there's some great documents coming out about what they're doing with neuro. Nobody else is brave enough to take on Nero. I've got Matt Murphy on tonight from Marvell. The stock is down just a tad. I think people thought, well, maybe they should have gotten that contract that went to Qualcomm.

46:15That's got an unbelievable relationship with Amazon. We'll talk about that. He has an amazing relationship with Alphabet. And he's tremendous. This is the one that Jensen said, the next trillion-dollar company. I hope that doesn't mean Target back. Qualcomm now up only four versus 11. That was great. It's not a great day. Oil. Jim, we'll see you tonight. Yes, absolutely. Busy week. Mad Money, 6 p.m. Eastern Time. All opinions expressed by Squawk on the Street participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium.

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