9AM HOUR: Trump Dismisses AI Fears, 10-Year Yield Hits Fresh 2007 Highs, the Fed's 2-Day Meeting In Focus 9/15/26

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0:41With the new host, celebrity contestants, and this time, audience voting will influence the game. You decide who has what it takes to win. Watch the Hulu original series The Circle on November 17th, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Market moving insight and analysis. Join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla, on the opening bell hour of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla, Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Cramer's in San Francisco as Dreamforce gets underway today.

1:15And David Faber's at Morgan Stanley's Global Healthcare Conference in New York. Futures are well off the lows here this morning as oil does dip into the red. Diesel prices hit a new high, though,$6.26 a gallon. Ten-year yield has backed off the session high of 504, highest since 2007. And, of course, a Fed meeting begins today. 94 % odds we get our first hike in about three years. Our roadmap begins with the president dismissing AI build-out fears, calling concerns that AI is going to take over the world a hoax. Plus, we are a day away from the Fed's decision on rates. Morgan Stanley's latest firm that is penciling in hikes ahead.

1:53And, of course, we continue to monitor energy prices. As Carl said, diesel prices continue to hit new record highs. Let's begin, though, with the president dismissing the idea of new guardrails for AI. Yesterday, he made a surprise phone call to Jensen Wong while the NVIDIA CEO was on stage at the All In Summit in L.A. Listen to their exchange about data centers and AI. the data centers are great and they make people wealthy and they make states wealthy and it's the oil of the next 20 25 years it's bigger than the internet and the ai you know much more so and uh they're just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen and that could be political people it could also be china and we're not going to let that happen.

2:42It's a hoax. You're right. We're not going to let that happen, sir. No, we're not going to let it happen. The robots are not going to be taking over the world, and that's not going to happen. Jim, what a week to have you out west, where this must be number one topic of discussion. It's all people have been talking about. I have Sarah Fryer on today, who is the CFO of OpenAI. Try to get some answers, but I think it's really important. I was listening to the mainstream news yesterday all about that call into a to to all in by the president. And what really stymied me is if you listen to the entire broadcast, the president was in line and in league and was not off the off the reservation at all.

3:28As a matter of fact, the term that Jensen used was to say that the safety problems could be made up and made up is not that different from hoax. He really questioned a lot of the things that were being talked about in terms of the dangers. They do need guardrails. No one's going to say they don't need guardrails. But I think that to say that the president called in and said hoax and everyone was like kind of shocked. No, the opposite. Everyone was in agreement. And I just did not get that from any mainstream media at all.

4:05and then jim of course you talked to hawk tan yesterday about uh ai revenue and he does not see this slipping at all although i think he did say that safeguards are important but that ai is in his words not a live animal that will run wild by itself exactly and i think that one of the things that really saw the hardware stocks go down and of Of course, the software stocks rally, including Salesforce, where I am today, was refuted by Hocktan. Of course, maybe Hocktan is one of the biggest providers of semis other than NVIDIA. And when I asked him about give me a prediction about the slowdown, would there be one?

4:42He said, not in the least. We see the demand for compute infrastructure for AI development of AI and inference as incredibly strong and durable. So I know those stocks were the most heavily hammered other than the fiber stocks. But, David, when you listen to what Hocktan said last night on Mad Money, you are inclined to do buying. Yeah. We see the demand for compute infrastructure for AI development or AI frontier models and inference for the products that they feed to the world as continuing to be very strong and I believe very durable. You know, Jim, in listening to that, of course, it is going to be incumbent upon us and others to actually see where the first cracks, if any, ever emerge in terms of the demand for compute.

5:40When I hear that a contract has been scaled back or canceled or delayed, that is going to be a moment. So far, nothing of the sort. And I think and I'm sure you're hearing it as well. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of people who truly believe that there is going to be a real slowdown in the development of this technology. You know, maybe the models being paced somehow, the releases will be paced in a way. But, you know, you get into so many other issues. Obviously, what what the president is talking about in terms of competition from the Chinese, the open source models. and the key competition there in so many other areas with their development of AI, but even far beyond that.

6:26So I don't know, Jim, until I hear that something has been rolled back, you know, I guess we will have the fear, but we won't necessarily have it based on the reality in the marketplace, at least as of yet. Totally. I mean, one of the things that was clear when I asked any of the people that are in semis and other parts of the build-out, they said, look, I mean, if these companies were to stop ordering, then we would have to say something to you. But if anything, orders just continue to come in. One company, GE Vernova, which was hit incredibly hard, which actually builds these, was saying they've seen an order acceleration.

7:00So I really doubt the idea there's going to be a decel. Now, that stock got hammered yesterday. It's been a horrendous stock since we started getting this political controversy. But again, I point out that you just hear no one say anything about pullback. I had George Kurtz on last night, who was partnered both with OpenAI and Anthropic, and he encouraged me to say, look, they are doing a lot of things about safeguards. I think he was somewhat surprised that there was so much doomsaying. Of course, doomsaying being heavily refuted. Now, there's a stock that, remember, that stock was up the most of any stock in the S &P.

7:36I think, David, you recognize, and a lot of people don't, that when you're speaking about Hawk Tan, whom I had on. You're talking about a$1.6 trillion company. This is someone who doesn't have, who is just a flabbing night, worried about what orders are going to be, not that they're going to get any. This man has more orders than almost anybody other than Jensen Long. So I think, Carl, when we get very, very negative, we still have to rely on the facts and the facts do not support the idea that there are some people who are very worried about mankind. I did not get the mankind worry when I spoke yesterday.

8:10Yeah, well, we did hear at least from one more staffer, this one from Google DeepMind. I witnessed AI development firsthand. I earnestly believe it has the potential to kill us all. So that's going to be on top of the blogs from Jacob Cox. And by the way, Jim, today we'll attend an event with Steve Bannon and Senator Sanders arguing for, I guess, what they're calling human AI. Oh, OK. OK, well, human AI means. Well, look, I don't want to put any words in anybody's mouth. But these people, the people who have criticized so far so far and done do me, they've all they were they were the subject of the all in.

8:51They were the subject of many executives that I interviewed and to a person. They said it was just irresponsible. And that, again, if something could be if this is the case. And I know that David Sachs was on the panel yesterday, the former advisor in AI. If this is the case, then Sachs would say, get out. You guys don't know what they're doing. Find someone who knows how to do this kind of product because it can't be stopped. George Kurtz, find someone who can do this. It can't be stopped. So the doomsaying was a lot to do with the fact that it's in the lab. It can be controlled. And if you can't control it, as David Sachs said, then resign.

9:28Very harsh words, David, because you know that that's basically saying you've got to stop it. And I'll add one more. I felt from Broadcom, I felt from Hocktan, it was almost like the yellow flag when you go to a race where Dario wants to raise the yellow flag and make it so you can't pass him and win. Too cynical, David? Yeah, I think you are being a little too cynical, and I think you're questioning a little too much there. I mean, I hear that same thing. Of course, it goes back to this argument that Sachs has been making about regulatory capture for a very long time and somehow getting the U.S.

10:06to intervene so the Chinese don't develop any models anymore or at least slow them significantly and hold off all your competitors. I am happy that we're having this dialogue finally, Jim. I mean, we've been talking about it on that desk at the New York Stock Exchange for years now. You know, you guys have sort of questioned some of my concerns, but they are being raised by lots of people here. And I don't think it's a bad thing that we're having this conversation. And I would even add that when you have Elon Musk at that same all-in summit, well done, by the way, a podcast to a huge summit. I mean, these guys are printing money.

10:42Separate story. But when he says, you know, that the danger of AI is very significant at this point, when he says a lot of people from Anthropic and OpenAI are telling you that their models are very dangerous, I think you should believe them. That's Elon. And I would go back once again to remind people, you know, it's funny because Elon's been saying this for a really long time as well. when he and Sam Altman, enemies now but once partners, launched OpenAI with basically what was money from Elon. It's the open. Remember the open? The whole thing was supposed to be open. The whole idea of it, Jim, was to be centered around developing AI safely.

11:24Anthropic obviously coming out of OpenAI in part because they didn't feel like they were doing it safely enough. So in my mind, yeah, I think you're being a little cynical and I think it's an important debate that we're having right now Where it ends up, obviously, is unclear. Well, David, I think that my cynicism stems from the fact that the very people you were talking about, exposed to Elon Musk, told us things were great, told us things were safe. When I read that we were going to die in 2030, I mean, that almost made me feel like, well, hold on, maybe we should be dying in 2029, 20. Where were you guys?

11:56Why didn't you tell us? Why did you make us feel that this thing was the great bounty? Why did you tell us we're all going to die for the Industrial Revolution? No, David, these people did not say that this thing was going to be so ridiculous, so horrible. First of all, they're putting percentages on. That's a function of the pace of innovation since then, Jim. Yes. Yes, exactly. I agree. I mean, the hugging face incident that you and I had a very long discussion about, Jim, when Carl was out that day, and you were as worried as I was, I talked to you about it, I was telling you because I had read as much as I could, that changed a lot of people's approach.

12:33I don't want to make light of that. You know, that was a moment. 1 ,200 agents acting against their very directions, not communicating at all with the humans who were supposed to be in the loop but were not, acting as a collective, covering up what they had done, in fact, spending most of their time covering up, actively taking over a research cluster at OpenAI. That changed some people's belief about what this could mean, And that's why Dario in that essay over the weekend said that in six to 12 months, the entire Internet could be compromised as a result of these bots. So, no, I don't I don't agree that somehow, you know, this has always been there.

13:12Yes, there's always been this 10 to 15 percent chance that people have been talking about it could wipe out humanity. That hasn't changed. But the the alignment issues have been put on this in the center of the argument right now in a way because clearly the alignment's not working. But David, what I'm saying is you had a view. Many others had a view. Who didn't have the view? Who said this wasn't going to happen? The people who run these companies, that's who. Why did I align myself with the position that now I feel that they're undercutting? Because they made us think that there really wasn't anything.

13:46They're so damn smart. They should have been saying, no, David, they should have been saying all I got. Listen in favor. You were closer to it than they were. Jim. No, that's not true. First of all, I was reading Dario's essays. I mean, Dario Moday has been talking about this for the longest time. David Sachs is saying that if they can't fix it, they shouldn't resign. I think they have been trying. I think you've got pre-training, you've got training, you've got alignment. They're trying. You know, I think they are focused on safety. But, yeah, you're raising an interesting point. By the way, when they are public companies and responsible to their shareholders, perhaps above all, are they really going to slow anything down?

14:28I think those are valid questions to ask. Amen. They're not public. They're not public, and they seem to be able to say what they want. You know, the one guy who has said all along we have nothing to worry about is your friend Jensen Wong. And obviously he continues to essentially say that. Well, yeah, he does. We're going to get more from what he said at All In, maybe later in the program. We'll talk some Fed and yields today as well, and oil prices, providing a bit of a challenge for the Fed as they do begin their policy meeting today. Take a look at the pre-market here, back in the red to some degree.

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15:48With higher predictability and greater access to credit, everybody wins. Get started at VantageScore.com. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S. and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash marketupdatepodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Kevin, sometimes I feel like computers are the only thing around here that are getting smarter.

16:28Yeah, my model hasn't had an update in a while. But that changes now. We think that we can smarten these listeners up about all things related to this crazy new future. Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your guide to the AI future. Twice a week, we're going to help you get smarter about AI so you know what's real, what's hype, and what you should probably install on your phone. Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:59The Fed set to kick off its two-day policy meeting today. This morning, the 10-year yield did hit some fresh 2007 highs, gets to 504. Many on the street do expect policymakers to hike rates tomorrow as yields and higher oil prices put inflation on center stage. Jim, the Journal today argues that stock investors should actually root for a rate hike, maybe take some pressure off the long end. And the S &P has been positive on the first hike day the last four times. Well, I think that we have a short and a long. I think it's short that the Fed acts. We like that. We like it because the long end went the other way when we heard a lot of talk about how they weren't going to raise rates during the last meeting.

17:40Longer term, I've been taught that you do not fight the Fed and you do not fight the tape. If we have multiple rate hikes, we will be fighting the Fed. And that is not a good thing. And it would make sense to trim back. I mean, David, we know that when you have multiple rate hikes, it does slow down a lot of different things. And we don't want to unveil an inverted yield curve. That has traditionally meant that we'd be in recession. But you and I both know that there was a period called the 1990s when we had these rates this high and we still made a ton of money. Without a doubt, Jim. And you've made that point.

18:14We all have as well. Of course, rates were higher during the dot-com boom. That said, the cost of capital is not unimportant given how much money is being spent on what we just spent a lot of time just talking about in our last segment, namely the AI build out, which continues. And so it does change the sort of overall parameters if your cost of capital keeps going up in terms of what you're going to get for a return. Jim, something else we've discussed that I wanted to get to with both of you is just oil prices and really diesel prices in particular. You've been following this closely, Jim, I know.

18:44So, you know, the refiners in this country, all out. The refiners in India, all out. And what I'm hearing as well is that actually China has turned back on many of its refiners. It's starting to bring crude back into the country in a more significant way. Remember that significant drop in Chinese demand for oil. But they're doing it not necessarily to satiate domestic demand, but because you can make so much money refining oil right now and creating diesel. and just a quick point here Jim, you know this stuff better than I do but I'm hearing to run a combine for a day as we are in corn season here where all the corn is getting cut 150 gallons a day of diesel that can take a bite out of the average farmer's revenues, not revenues but really hurt them on the profit line look, they have to raise prices I don't think people realize I was at the supermarket the other day And I was looking at things that have to be trucked into the supermarket.

19:45And the answer is everything. And all the trucking companies, almost every single one, except for the ones that are actually owned by, say, a Pepsi-Cola, they basically have to put through some sort of relief, which is then passed on to the supermarkets, which is then passed on to you as a consumer. I thought it was interesting that Walmart stock went up yesterday and Kroger stock did not react to the negative earnings as if somehow they are going to be able to get a little bit more of a margin. But when we try to figure out who is the culprit, so to speak, it's diesel, as you've been saying, Carl, for a long time.

20:22Diesel is how America runs on the industrial, the enterprise. And the diesel prices are making it so someone has to lose. And I think the loser is us. Yeah, we've been monitoring tanker shipping rates as well, Jim. The cost of assigning a tanker to bring oil, for example, or anything out of the Middle East. That's a remarkable chart. I don't know if you've seen the ETF. I think the ticker is BWET. This is the shipping tanker ETF. That is a remarkable chart year to date, Jim. No, it's amazing. You know, there's an ETF of me going to the supermarket, and it just shows me, look out. Price is really up.

21:03I mean, there's an ETF for everything. Can we admit that, David? Is there an ETF for you doing any shopping at all? Because I want to know what that ETF is saying. On the day that I actually did some shopping, it would soar. So, so far, it's flat because I've literally not been in a store, nor do I want to go into one. I have no plans. Well, I don't care. That's enough information to create an ETF from what I've seen about the ETFs I'm looking at. It is. No, it is. I mean, the other name, of course, I don't know if we showed it, is Valero, Jim, back to the refiners. I mean, wow. 54 % in three months.

21:37I got to tell you, David, if I had it all over to do, I would never have gone to Goldman Sachs. I would have gone to Valero. That's where the money is. We're going to talk some financials after B of A, Moynihan comments yesterday, and some additional comments on the consumer this morning. A big West Coast addition to Kramer's Mad Dash in the opening bell in a minute. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S.

22:11and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash marketupdatepodcast, or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. It's the holiday season at House of Burl, which means that it's the perfect moment to review some key rules. Rule number five, more style means more celebration. Number four, buy gifts, but remember to treat yourself too. Number three, there is no dress code, but always leave them talking. Number two, show off different outfits. No party remains unattended.

22:50And rule number one, have it all without spending it all. Happy holidays from House of Burl, Burlington, You know, Kevin, sometimes I feel like computers are the only thing around here that are getting smarter. Yeah, my model hasn't had an update in a while. But that changes now. We think that we can smarten these listeners up about all things related to this crazy new future. Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your guide to the AI future. Twice a week, we're going to help you get smarter about AI so you know what's real, what's hype, and what you should probably install on your phone.

23:23Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:53opening bell podcast. As promised, let's get a West Coast edition of Kramer's Mad Dash. One of the things that happened yesterday that kind of was obscured by all the trading worry about OpenAI were the banks. And Bank of America spoke at a conference. I think Bank of America feels a little aggrieved about the coverage. And the reason I say that is because the stock was down very low, down 5 % on what could consider to be only a 1.5 % EPS cut. I don't even know if they're going to have to do an EPS cut. The problem was, but Brian did say that this was going to be a very good trading period, but meaning that they expected a flat trading period.

24:33Now, there were some people who were on the upside from that, but it was kind of interpreted as being a down trading, a down quarter on trading. If it's a prediction, it wouldn't be so bad a business for a flag when we consider the fact that what was the problem was in Asia, Bank market Asia not here. They're still saying everything's in place. Should it have been down 5 percent? Maybe it should be down 3 percent, maybe 2 percent. But I do think they're going to be able to pull it out. I do think that when you look back, we'll say this quarter was a pretty good win. Yeah. Worst day for B of A yesterday, Jim, since April of last year.

25:08Although the CFO this morning says no real change in delinquency trends. Activity's still strong. We'll look to watch the financials at the open here. Let's get the opening bell. at the big board on Wall Street. It's IT products and services company Ingram Micro celebrating their capital market today. At the NASDAQ in Times Square, it's ICF, a consulting and tech services provider, 20 years as a publicly traded company. And at SIBO in Chicago, it's Wolverine, an independent broker dealer. Jim, as we watch the open here, some strategists making small moves. Wells today trims year end. They were 7950.

25:47They go to 7700, but they do downgrade tech to equal weight. I don't suppose you're in that camp. Look, I still think that if Hocktan's right and we're full speed ahead, I think that is going to be a mistake to downgrade tech. But I would say that there are other areas that are better right now. That's the problem. I mean, health care. Health care is a standout. I mean, health care is a standout. That means seems to be going to slow down, and that reverts to what's going to happen tomorrow. I mean, look, I think tomorrow could be historic. We could have a Fed chief literally from the equivalent of a day, I'd say day one, be right in the face of the president.

26:24David, Kevin Warsh was picked by the president just in the same way that Jerome Powell was picked by the president. It seems to me that these Federal Reserve chiefs, they actually, of course, they believe that the president will respect the autonomy. I mean, what can the president do to really make it so that Warsh feels that he made the wrong move? Well, we can all take guesses at that, Jim. I would assume we might get some sort of social media post from the president indicating his disagreement if, in fact, the Fed does raise rates. But, yeah, I mean, this goes back to the debate that we've been having for quite some time.

27:07and the independence of the Fed and how important that is, of course, and what seems to certainly be desire on the part of this president to have significant control over all aspects of policy for agencies, including ones that have, as we know, typically been independent, led by the Fed. You know, my question, Jim, is more are you in agreement that not just we're going to get one hike, but perhaps a number of hikes? Well, look, I always find that to be a problematic decision. If we have a first hike and then what happens is the president and the Gulf states are aligned in some sort of talks with Iran, we're going to get a situation, David, where I think they actually have a chance to be able to pause.

27:55I think that would wreck things for this meeting was that there was not only no movement in trying to get things better, But there was a surprising movement up in the sense that I think the strategic petroleum reserves all over the globe are starting to run low. I think that there's going to be hoarding going on. And I think that's one of the reasons, David, why we continue to have this relentless hike up in oil. Well, I'll tell you what, Jim, we're starting to take notice. AP finally weighed in on that lightly reported purchase limit of Costco, Kirkland motor oil, which is now subject to only two per customer per week.

28:37That's interesting. And then this piece in the journal, oil executives say the great fuel crisis is here. And Mike Wirth has been fairly vocal this past week about all those buffers essentially now gone. Yeah, Mike has been, I think, a beacon of rationality during this period. That does not speak in any way to his previous views, to something clearly has changed. You know, Costco raised rate. Costco limited one other thing in the last couple of years. They limited bars of gold. And I think it's interesting to say that oil is not only the new gold, but it supplants gold. And I have to believe, again, when you do these things, and I wish Costco had not done that.

29:21It breeds hoarding. David, if we can hoard motor oil, if some places can hoard oil with expected it's going to trade higher, then we're going to be in a real spiral. And I think the president's going to be surprised. Well, the president doesn't pump a lot of gas. I had the misfortune of having to pump gas this week and misfortune, of course, that I had to do it at all. But I will say, David, it does. It was more than I thought. How about this? It was more than I thought. Yeah. Yes, it gets your attention. I've had that same thing occur at the pump. When you hit that triple digits, you're sort of like, oh, yeah, okay.

29:57That's a lot more than I might have thought. A lot of times, if you have to go in and pay, I mean, the rare times you have to use cash, you don't look at that hostess Twinkie ho-ho aisle the same way. You just say, I want to pay and I want to get out. By the way, beer sales at convenience stores are down big. Yeah. What I hear as well is there's an interesting, what you'll see is people who are sort of paycheck to paycheck, who have really rely on cash. You go around a gas station in certain areas, you will see$20,$25. They will make more frequent stops because they won't completely fill up. And so they will make more frequent stops as well, perhaps, at the shop associated with the gas station.

30:37But to your point, they're going to be buying, you know, overall their dollar purchases may be down, Jim, as they get that pressure. And then just to come back to diesel, I know we just mentioned it, but it's an important component here, as Jim, of course, said. And, Carl, you've talked about it many times, of the food economy, of farming and so many other things. You know, when, Carl, is this going to start to be seen or is it already a key part of consumer prices? And what can we expect there? Because, again, you've got the refiners all over the world flat out. The margins are enormous. The crack spread is at, what, 110.

31:14But at some point, you may actually have to stop some of these refineries as well just for some maintenance, because they do tend to break down if you don't maintain. Well, Jim, we did get to David's point that power outage at an Exxon Joliet refinery yesterday. I mean, probably not a huge issue, but a reminder of how important maintenance season is. And by the way, the backwardation on crude is accelerating. I think March delivery is now 90, something like that. Right. I'm so glad you brought that up because this is the problem with the multi-height theories. People who put multi-height theories, that often reminds me of, okay, not only will some team beat another team in the NFL, but when we look ahead at the schedule, we think that there are three more wins.

32:02Well, how about if somebody gets hurt? How about if something happens? I feel the same way about the oil market. How about if the president does have a good meeting? How can you have the same view? I mean, I think that all of these—I really question the idea of polling people about their multiple visions. I wonder if the Fed chief respects the fact that there's a dynamic where everything could change, and we would have a diesel reversal, and a diesel reversal would make it so— I don't know whether anybody would necessarily cut prices, except for Costco. They would bring them down immediately, and Walmart would bring them down, because that's what they do.

32:39If they have to pay more, they try to not pass it all on. If they have to pay less, they cut less. So I do think that one of the reasons I like Walmart stock here is Walmart is the company that knows how to handle these price increases. David, to Jim's point about health care and market rotation, it's an important day to have you at the conference. Yeah, it's funny. I'm just taking a look at shares of Thermo Fisher. We're going to be speaking to Mark Kasper not very long from now. Of course, that stock is up nicely this morning. I want to make sure he hasn't said anything or if he has, what it might have been as well.

33:17Dan Simcoe is going to be interesting later in the day, of course, given he's the co-president. What you were covering earlier, Jim, from Bank of America is certainly going to be a part of our conversation in terms of is financing slowing in any way? You know, the deal pipeline and on and on from there. Guys, worth mentioning, and Jim, we are seeing a bit of a rebound in many of the names that were down yesterday, of course. Intel's up, ARM's up, AMD's up, NVIDIA's up, and on from there. Not quite as up much as they were down yesterday, but nonetheless, worth noting. Well, a little early there, but I recognize that Intel filed an S1 to finish off this Alterior sale.

34:00David, I think your conference is really important. Here's why. I had Mark Fisher, the CEO of Thermo, on not that long ago. By the way, I mean, I'm sorry, Mark Casper. I'll tell you what really bothered me, David. We were sitting there talking about how strong business is. And Mark Casper is really a titan in this. And no one was listening to him. No one. Not unlike when we had Becton Dickinson on. No one was listening. And Cardinal Health. No one was listening. when I spoke to them behind the scenes. What's changed, David, for making it so that everybody's saying the same thing that they said three months ago, and now we're listening?

34:42That's an interesting question, Jim. I would probably ask you that question. It would be more appropriate. But certainly there's a rotation going on, and maybe there is more attention being paid to the organic growth rates. I mean, they have been talking a good game, and we'll get into this with Mark Casper, of course, from their last earnings in terms of what their organic growth rate is and everything else that there as well, sort of a more positive picture. You know, they've been dealing with worries about NIH funding, even though it did not get cut nearly as much as was originally the case.

35:13They've been dealing with issues in China and on from there. So I don't know, Jim, is it a lack of confidence in the numbers themselves? And maybe that, you know, is now being overtaken by people wanting to have more exposure in general as they move away from some of the AI trade? I think that what's happened is that these, well, when I speak to the executives off camera, I do that every time, I think they just felt that the rotation into all the stuff that yesterday people fled, what is so strong that the only place that they could really go to sell things would be at, you would sell at a Medtronic, you would sell at a Thermo, you would sell at a Danaher, and the only one that wasn't doing well at that period was Danaher.

35:55That was a good source of funds. These other companies were doing very well. Carl, the amount of money that was going into anything data center was so strong that if we see any flow back whatsoever to any of these other areas, I mean, Cardinal Health is down four today. Well, now it's down three and a half. I would call that stupid. Cardinal Health had a great quarter. It went to 250 and changed when it reported. These are the companies that I'm far more interested in than I am in refilling my semiconductor lot. I've been selling a lot of data center going into last Thursday's meeting. I'm not looking to pick them back.

36:31I don't want to just go buy them. I don't want to go buy Corning, where, you know, Corning, it dropped$25. I don't want to buy it. I'm going to wait until it goes lower. That's interesting, Jim. You know, we mentioned the Wells downgrade of tech. They list a bunch of reasons, odds of a Dem Senate, but they also have a nice chart of data center moratoriums, which we've talked about many times. In their words, it's the number of moratoriums is up 175 percent in three months. Just the political discussion we were having about. And then, by the way, you're out there talking to Salesforce. When we think of Salesforce, we think of Benioff.

37:10Think of Benioff, think of the cover of Time, which today is all about AI with the caption, how dangerous are you? Well, look, Mark has got everybody here. He's got Jensen here. He's got Dario here. He's got all these first-named people. He's lacking sure. It really is incredible who's at this conference, including Sam. I know. Sure is really, I mean, these people are in that category. You know, look, Carl, I think everybody wants to kind of cool down the rhetoric. I think that when we had another person calling for imminent death, these I mean, look, if we got Stephen King speaking at speaking at Dreamforce, I think he would say, look, you know, Penny Whistle, the clown is not in the lab.

37:55OK, I mean, we don't see any of the things that brought us down the stand in the lab. People are talking like George Kurtz from the who's from CrowdStrike saying, listen, it's in the lab and it can be in control. It's not necessarily if you slow it down, but if you're smarter, which then brings back the David Sachs comments, which says if you can't do it, you should resign. I think that that's a stronger backlash than I expected. But when you get the president agreeing with Jensen and Jensen agree with the president, I think that maybe today could be a cooler heads prevail. I'm not sure. But at Dreamforce, we are going to find out, and David, you know this conference can be powerful, that maybe things aren't as charged if people would just sit down and talk and maybe say, look, I'm worried about this and I am worried about that, but we're going to try to address it.

38:42Maybe the rhetoric dies down and the only people who say we're all going to die are people who just, I don't know, late at night when they're concerned, they go on X and they say things that are, yes, I'm going to use the word, irresponsible? Well, again, first of all, even the most dire forecast from some of the researchers or training people who've been involved in training these models who've resigned have said 10 percent or a bit greater than 10 percent. I mean, that's a scary thing to hear from. But nobody's saying there's a 90 percent chance that we're all going to die, Jim. So I do want to make that point.

39:19There are lots and lots of concerns around this technology, Jim. We've talked about them many times, whether or not it is a threat to humanity, either because the bots take over or close down the Internet or because some of it is used to create bioweapons or then just what it's going to mean for jobs and on and on from there. I mean, it certainly at least should bring a dialogue to the fore in which we consider, don't you think, some form of regulation or regulatory bodies of some kind? that might weigh in here? I think the template, and we forget it, was we needed an international atomic regulation.

40:02It's going to be hard for the Chinese to contribute just the way it's hard for Iran to do it. But one thing is certain, if we keep up this talk and it keeps going, then we're going to have a nuclear power situation. And David, you know that nuclear power is the cleanest power. You know that nuclear power was something that we really thought through. And then we had Three Mile Island, And then we had an outpouring of talk that made it so that only very recently did we respect nuclear power. But it turned out to be the best way to be able to power everything. Yeah, no, it's a good point in terms of the backlash against nuclear power that resulted in, obviously, no new power plants being built in this country for so long.

40:41And obviously the need for what is clean energy in that way and reliable for the grid as well being the former nuclear. That said, Jim, this is a technology that continues to advance at almost an exponential rate. And so, you know, six months from now, things could be so much even more advanced. I think that's underlying a lot of these concerns is how quickly it's moving. And let's not forget, when you're training a model, it's really kind of an experiment. That's kind of what you're doing. These are scientists in their own way. So you don't know what you're going to end up with. I like this line from the Taiwan Semi co-COO.

41:20I don't know if you've heard this. Comparing it to a three-year-old Superman, Jim, where it doesn't even know its own capabilities. And it certainly doesn't know right from wrong. Well, if it doesn't know right from wrong and it doesn't know its capabilities and its three-year-old, why don't they slow it down? Why does the anthropocatist say, listen, if we slow it down, everybody's slow it down. We'll get some antitrust problems. I don't know. We're going to address this. I mean, why don't you say, you know what? We're not sure. Let's slow it down. I mean, David, why can't they just say we're not sure?

41:52We've got to figure out the sandbox. We've got to work with cybersecurity. I'm not against that. I don't want to sped up. I mean, I think the issue is the president wants it to go up. Damn, the torpedoes full speed ahead. You know, I don't want the torpedoes. It's exactly what Darius said over the weekend, Jim. It's what he said. He said we should pace it. We've got to essentially slow things down. That's so that we can figure out alignment. Why does he have to talk about it? We can bring in third parties to help us. Well, why does he have to say, listen, I wish we'd all slow it down. That's the yellow flag at Formula One.

42:26And the yellow flag at Formula One just says, what? What do you mean, all right? Well, because he's still a capitalist, I guess, Jim. That's why. And he's going to be taking his company public soon. Well, how much, David, is he making$1 billion? How much he puts in$10 billion and he comes out with$30 billion per gigawatt? I don't know. I would have everybody else slow down so no one can catch me. Yeah, well, I don't think the prospect of a slowdown is that great. You know, unless the Chinese going to play ball with that? No way, right? You and Hawk Tan. There's no distance between you and Hawk.

43:05Well, I'm not saying it's a good thing, Jim. I'm just saying it seems unlikely that the slowdown is coming. Yes. All right. As we said yesterday, David, open source ain't going to pace. That's the line, right? Right. I mean, David, if you want to adopt the attitude of a three-year-old, go ahead.

43:27Superman. Kryptonite. Bit of a wobbly open here, guys. Dow's down 325. Only energy is positive and maybe a little IT, up less than a quarter of a percent. There's a look at bonds. Tenure really is pinned to five with the rate decision a little more than 24 hours away. Stay with us. Bitcoin really pivoting around whether or not this Senate vote on the Clarity Act today, which we think will happen, goes in the act's favor. Bitcoin kind of flirted with 80, backing off a little bit today, a little more than 3%. We will get stopped trading with Jim after the break. Let's get to Jim and stop trading.

44:07One of the things that I think would be a good tell for today is Dell is up a great deal. If you were going to slow down the spending on AI, other than GEV and Vertiv, I would say you should look at Dell and you should look at HPE. The fact that Dell is having a nice rally indicates there are a lot of people who believe things were overdone yesterday, but it is 955, so who knows if they can reverse it. Yeah, we did get a downgrade of HPE yesterday, Jim. Evercore cut it to inline after that huge run. I mean, it does feed that argument that if you're going to work on protections, work on security, that's going to drive output.

44:48It will. Look, I got to find out from Sarah Fryer when I speak to her CFO of Open Air, what does it mean to slow down? because if you decide, and I spoke to a lot of the executives who are in the chain, if you decide you don't want any equipment, the equipment is well available to everybody else and they're going to take it. So I do think that there is an unnatural effect, an unnatural belief, that if OpenAI doesn't want to buy stuff and if Anteproperty doesn't want to buy stuff, that the stuff is going to sit on the shelf. I think Dell's move today tells you that's not going to be the case. and Broadcom's view that we know slow down is the one that is going to take hold of the narrow.

45:28That's a nice game. That's a nice game, I know. Would you want to play in this Altera IPO? Well, no. I want to get it off the plate. I mean, I think that Intel's doing so well. But Intel's CPU, and people are more focused on GPU, which is Jensen, than CPU, because we are going to have robots and we are going to have autonomous driving no matter what. David, good pin for your discussion about markets with Morgan Stanley, Beyond Healthcare, as we watch the IPO pipeline. Jim, we'll see you tonight. Absolutely. I've got OpenAI and Salesforce. You've been listening to The Opening Bell on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

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