Anthropic’s Fight & The AI Job Revolution 3/11/26

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0:58Andrew Yang:Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The technology story that won't quit, Anthropic, has a new friend in its fight against the Pentagon, Microsoft. Will this change how big companies handle Trump 2.0? I actually think this could be one of those watershed moments where we actually say, you know what? Standing up for your values in an environment where you're not supposed to is actually going to help this company. And the AI trade in the markets also driving the jobs picture. Andrew Yang on the risks to early careers. The easiest people to fire are the people you haven't hired yet.

1:40What the market volatility has the world's wealthiest ready to buy are Robert Frank on the portfolio stuffers of the moment. In this environment where markets are sort of trading around this range, put it into something that's just come to market like this Francis Bacon or that Carrar GT that, you know, is kind of a once in a generation thing that comes up for auction. Now's the time to buy it. Plus. Then there was the delete button. The rest of today's news that got us squawking. It is Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1, cue it please. Good morning everybody.

2:21Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And we're paying close attention right now to energy. Multiple reports say the International Energy Agency proposing what could be its largest ever release of crude reserves to try to moderate prices that have jumped because of the straights of Hormuz. And it's effectively, of course, at this point, it's basically closed. The IAEA is 32 countries set to decide on a possible release today. Now, WTI coming off of its biggest daily loss in four years, it fell nearly 12 percent, but had dropped much more earlier in the day.

3:01And then there was the delete button. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the following on X. He said that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. That post then vanished, though, within minutes. The White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, telling reporters that the Navy had not guided any vessels. Can you explain why the Energy Secretary posted and then appeared to have deleted a post on X saying that the U.S. Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz? Yes, I was made aware of this post. I haven't had a chance to talk to the energy secretary about it directly.

3:39However, I know the post was taken down pretty quickly, and I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time, though, of course, that's an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time. Department of Energy spokesperson said, quote, a video clip was deleted from Secretary of Rights official X account after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff. Meantime, on Truth Social, President Trump threatening more military action if Iran places mines in the Strait of Hormuz. In a mid-afternoon post, the President said the U.S.

4:15had destroyed a number of inactive mine-laying ships. And earlier this morning, the U.S. maritime trade operation said three vessels off Iran's coast had been struck by projectiles, including one in the Straits of Hormuz, that caused a fire on board and forced the crew to evacuate. What is really happening over there? Well, it would just be a bad, if they mine the streets, it's, they've got plenty of minds to do it with them. But if they did, it's. But can we talk about this? I mean, it would take months to be able to be able to clear. What about this deleted post, which has whipsawed the entire market?

4:51It whipsawed it, but it, you know, went from 119 to 88 the day before. That's just incorrect information. And the other thing I would say with the president himself posting that there aren't any mines out there. But if Iran put any mines out there, they better get them out of there. It's just confusing information. And I guess that's what happens in a wartime scenario. But the market trades off of every word that is posted anywhere on any of these areas. That's the volatility that you're watching. Meanwhile, Axios reporting, the White House has asked Israel not to carry out further military strikes on Iran's energy facilities.

5:29Among the reasons said to be given by the Trump administration, the strikes could harm the Iranian public. President Trump wants to work with Iran's oil sector after the war and Iran could decide to target other countries' energy assets in the Gulf. Tehran has been covered in clouds of black smoke in the past few days following airstrikes on energy facilities, raising the possibility of health problems for the Iranian public. And the GOP is very sensitive to the higher oil and higher energy and midterms and affordability and everything else. That's why the question's been whether this would actually, how long this would ultimately last.

6:09That is the question. And excursion is one thing. I don't know. I mean, that's a strange word to use. Excursion. Others, though, are saying initially what, four to six weeks was the plan, and we're well ahead of that. So I don't know. What does that mean? Two to four weeks, if you're well ahead of it. But as some of the guests we spoke with yesterday pointed out, it takes two sides to decide to deescalate. Right. And once this has been put out there, we don't know exactly where it's going to go. I think what the White House spokesperson, a spokeswoman, was saying there yesterday was the idea of what surrender is, the idea of what the end looks like is, in her mind, at least the president's mind, a one-sided scenario, Meaning that he can walk, we can walk when we feel like we're done.

6:58Yeah. And you see all the scuttlebutt today is that Israel and Netanyahu want something. Well, they're not going to be done. And this is completely different. We talked to him about this. They want regime change. And we've talked to a number of guests now who have talked about a genuine divergence, potentially, at some point in this. It's splayed out, if you will. splayed out on the cover of all the newspapers that Israel and the United States want different things for an endgame. And Republican Senator Tom Tillis sticking to his plan to block President Trump's pick to lead the Federal Reserve after Jay Powell until the Department of Justice resolves a criminal investigation into Jay Powell.

7:39Tillis sat down with former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and told reporters that he's impressed with Warsh's skills, But he said he wouldn't still budge. He wouldn't budge on this, his idea that he will not vote to advance Warsh or any other candidate through the Senate Banking Committee without a resolution of the Powell probe. That probe is based on congressional testimony that Powell gave about renovations to the Fed. Powell says that he's being targeted for not cutting interest rates like President Trump wants.

8:10Microsoft making what in this environment arguably is a very unusual move. It is backing Anthropic and its AI startups fight with the Pentagon, which is more broadly with the Trump administration. In a court filing, Microsoft, in what's called an amicus brief, which is a friend of the court effectively, saying a judge should issue a temporary restraining order that would block the Defense Department's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk for all existing contracts. Without an order, Microsoft warning that it and other companies would have to act quickly to change existing product and contract configurations used by the Pentagon.

8:51In November, Microsoft announced plans to invest up to$5 billion in Anthropic. It's worth noting a couple things here. There's about 130 developers in Silicon Valley that have also filed a friend of the court, amicus brief in support of Anthropic. No other major tech company has done such a thing. I mean, we talk about, you know, I always talk about CEO silence. This is a very interesting situation because Microsoft happens to be one of the biggest government contractors in the country. So when you start to think about what true retribution looks like and also truly standing up looks like when you actually care about what you're doing, they have more to lose, interestingly, than just about anybody else.

9:38Even more interesting, Amazon, which happens to be one of the earliest investors in Anthropic, in apparently, reportedly in a meeting with Pete Hegseth, Andy Jassy, did not support Anthropic. And arguably, you could make the argument that he and other companies like his have been scared about standing up to this administration. So this is fascinating that the biggest government, one of the biggest government contractors. Now, arguably, I'm imagining that part of the sort of calculus to do such a thing is that Microsoft says we're in everybody's business, meaning we are so locked in to the government.

10:21It is going to be very hard for Pete Hegseth or for the president to say, well, now we're going to rip Microsoft out of all of our systems because that would be supremely painful. But I've talked about how I think this legal case is somewhat open and shut. And I think you're going to see, I think this could be a watershed in terms of others that are going to come forward. It's probably going to be a tempest in a T-Piles. It's not going to happen. And companies also are going to realize there, but for the grace of God, go us. What happens with Palantino? In other words, if you let it happen to Anthropic, maybe you don't want to say anything, but you know down the road it could come back.

10:55Political considerations could be better. I think, by the way, it's a bullion. Did you read this? This is a fascinating piece. This guy goes back to, I don't know, 100 years to a similar situation about a weapons system in the UK. And they did a similar thing, ended up missing out on one of the biggest moves, cut off their nose to spite their face, and the whole good for China. That's what they're saying. If you take one of the top companies, Anthropic, in developing things, and you basically make it much more difficult for them to advance and to do business. I mean, it could be in anything they want to do.

11:32In an arms race. Which is basically where we are with AI. Basically an arms race. I don't think it's going to happen, though. I think eventually that Pete Higgs said this is going to stand out. That would be my guess. My guess is at some point there's going to be a resolution that's reached. Palantir uses Maven software that is operated by Anthropic. You start to think through the implications of what that would mean. You know, who's not been silent on this? Elon Musk, who's a competitor, obviously, of Anthropic. He said, is there a more hypocritical company than Anthropic is something that he posted on X in the last 15 hours.

12:04But he has been trolling. He's been trolling Anthropic. So has Sam Altman, who moved to be very opportunistic by stepping in and picking this up. So they're top competitors. So Sam, I have a slightly different view of, because Sam's actually was on our air. The Pentagon needs AI models. They need AI partners. This is clear and I think Anthropic and others have said they understand that as well. I don't personally think the Pentagon should be threatening DPA against these companies, but I also think that companies that choose to work with the Pentagon, as long as it is going to comply with legal protections and the few red lines that the field that we have, I think we share with Anthropic and that other companies also independently agree with, I think it is important to do that.

12:49I've been, for all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company and I think they really do care about safety and I've been happy that they've been supporting our warfighters. I'm not sure where this is going to go. And publicly actually supportive of Anthropic and if you actually go and look at the deal that he brokered, which I've suggested is so unusual because it basically is the same deal and which is, to me, it is demonstrative of how political the decision was by this administration and Pete Hegseth and the Treasury Department and every other piece of this government that's now decided they want to do this.

13:26Sam Altman had to apologize because he said it looked like they were being very opportunistic, which it did. They signed the same deal a day later. No question. But at the same time, I think if you go look at what Sam has said repeatedly, he is not trolling Anthropic. He's not been supportive in the context of clearly trying to get a deal, too. By the way, I think it's actually good for the government to have multiple deals. The idea that you're exclusive to one of these services or the other is not a great idea. What was the initial anger that the Defense Department or Department of War gleaned from Anthropic and the Maduro raid?

14:03Was there a complaint from Anthropic that their AI was used and they said we don't want it used? They asked the question about whether it was used. Right, and where was that? Palantir. Right, and that was where... And Palantir said, yes, this is used. And what you had was you had Emile Michael get very frustrated and angry, A, that Anthropoc was asking the question, B, that maybe Palantir was providing the answer, arguing that that was classified information that Anthropoc shouldn't know one way or the other. All right, so that kind of started. But it's just the relationship between Emile Michael and Dario is broken.

14:40But the internal memo and the dictator and Bennington, that was stupid. That was stupid, but it doesn't take away from the original. It's also by a frustrated leader. It feels like they're getting shut down. But it does have the, you know, they mentioned the word woke about 100 times here. It does have the perception of having a lot of ex-Biden. I don't know. Not wanting to be involved with the mass surveillance of the United States citizens does not seem like woke. Well, that's only one of the autonomous weapons parties. Well, that's what, whether it's right or wrong, it is to Pete Hegseth and to defend some of us.

15:11That might be, but the reason why that doesn't seem to be true, actually, why that is actually just a false idea. Then what are they meant? Then why don't they? The reason it's a false idea is they were willing to accept virtually, as I said, the exact same term from OpenAI. But OpenAI didn't say, you know, I'm not going to bend my knee to a dictator. You're saying because of the memo? I know, but I just think all of it in total puts a target. But that's the problem. The politics are the problem. That is the problem. I got it, but I understand it. But what I think is arguably even a bigger problem is the fact that an Amazon or some of these other companies don't feel comfortable to stand up and say this is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

15:56And you have a company like Microsoft who happens to do that. So I'm giving some credit this morning to Microsoft for actually being willing to stand up and say what they actually believe. By the way, the other thing that's been fascinating is a lot of engineers want to now go work for Anthropik. You said that the other day. You're seeing it move up the charts. You're seeing companies. By the way, companies want to work with a company that's willing to stand up for its values. So is it not going to hurt it, you think, in the long term? I think it's possible it doesn't hurt it in the long term.

16:27I actually think this could be one of those watershed moments where we actually say, you know what? standing up for your values in an environment where you're not supposed to is actually going to help this company. And that's what this company was sort of built on. It was a company that left OpenAI. The founders left OpenAI because they wanted to build a company that they thought was genuinely values-based. And guess what? They've actually stood up for them. They have not bent. And I think there's a lot of value to that. And by the way, now Microsoft's doing it too. But their software was integrated into Carp's Palantir.

17:01and was used for targeting and things, too. It's like these are all degrees of gray. A hundred percent. And that's why it's so interesting to see a company come out and say, let's try to reach a different deal. Well, it's not that. I mean, you've seen a lot of people on Anthropik's side. A lot of people on... By the way, there is a possibility. Others have even speculated, unfortunately, that this terrible tragedy where these kids were targeted, that it might have been on a list that was either generated, approved by, or something through the anthropic system. Meaning, you do now have AI. That's what I mean.

17:42We don't know. Creating, identifying different targets. You need to make a mistake. Yeah. It may be. But by the way, it may also be a good example of what Dario has been saying. That it's not ready. It's not ready. It may not be ready for prime time to be used, especially for autonomous weapons and autonomous decisions, meaning forgetting about people in the loop. He's basically saying if there's no people in the loop, this doesn't work. And you may have a military that's not doing that. By the way, you have a military that clearly is saying it doesn't want that on one side and yet is willing to accept that by using open AI.

18:19Explain that. Well, it wasn't targeted. We're not sure exactly what happened. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, the generational shift in jobs due to artificial intelligence. Serial entrepreneur and sometime politician Andrew Yang is our guest.

18:37Andrew Yang:What, four years ago, what would we tell young people for a secure career, learn to code? And now the opposite of that is true.

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20:08This is Squawk Pod. Stand, Andrew, bye. Three, two, one, up in Andrew. Cue his mic. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Osorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. Joining us right now is Andrew Yang. He's the founder and CEO of Noble Mobile, a former Democratic candidate, president and New York City's mayor. He's also the author of Hey, Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks, which debuted last month. Good morning to you. You've got the book right here. We've got about a million things to talk to you about AI. We want to talk about New York. We want to talk about taxes. Where do you want to start this morning?

20:44Andrew Yang:I just came from an AI conference out west, and holy cow, They said to me that what we're going to see in the next six months outstrips what we've seen in the last 10 years because the rate of change is on a hockey stick and heading up. And I got to say, I'm pretty up to date on this stuff. And it blew my mind on some of the stuff I was seeing. In terms of what? What did you see? Well, there was one company that is selling autonomous coding for enterprises to big businesses. And their revenue is up 100-fold in the last 12 months. So if that continues, it's going to eat a lot of the tech budgets from major corporates that used to go to humans.

21:19Andrew Yang:And so you're seeing the employment of recent computer science graduates fall off a cliff from a lot of programs. If you rewind, what, four years ago, what would we tell young people for a secure career, learn to code? And now the opposite of that is true. It's unbelievable. So where are you on jobs long term? Look, Dario Amadei, the CEO of Anthropic, laid it out very clearly, and he's been doing so repeatedly, saying we're going to automate away up to 50 percent of entry level white collar jobs in the next several years. And I believe him. The easiest people to fire are the people you haven't hired yet, which, again, is why you see the hiring of recent college graduates heading down.

22:00Andrew Yang:And the underemployment rate, over 50 percent. The unemployment rate among college graduates is now the same or higher than non-college graduates for the first time in history. How do we fix that? I mean, you're a guy with big ideas. Universal basic income was one of yours. How do we fix this entire issue? Check it out. Check it out. You tend to tax things that you want to discourage and you want less of. And we're going to be in a position where we want to shore up labor in every quarter, in every organization and environment. We should actually try to stop taxing labor because it's the agents instead.

22:35Yes, exactly, Becky.

22:37Andrew Yang:And by the way, Dario Amade, the second half of his statement, he said, we're going to automate away the white collar jobs and you should tax us. And since when does the CEO of a major company raise his hand and say, hey, tax me in mind? because he sees the writing on the wall and he knows that there's this massive backlash coming their way. It's an interesting idea. How would you do it? And there's going to be an argument. Dario may be on one side, but I imagine some of the other big tech companies are going to say, please don't tax us. We need this to sort of reach some kind of escape velocity first.