Jennifer Garner & Once Upon A Farm’s IPO 2/6/26

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1:06On today's episode, a market slide stabilizes, maybe, as Bitcoin bounces off its lows. What is it? Is it the Nasdaq? Is it gold? It's an asset. Total risk asset. And Jennifer Garner joins us from the big screen to big food. Once Upon a Farm IPOs today. Gosh, business is really leading social change. Could we have a business that's pushing social change and democratizing nutrition and making it accessible for more kids? On Capitol Hill, a standstill over DHS and ICE funding. How Democrats like Senator Chris Coons are trying to honor demands from constituents. I've gotten more calls from Delawareans in the last two weeks about this than anything in years.

1:56They want to see action. Plus, Elon Musk now worth more money than the next three richest people combined. Our Robert Frank goes inside wealth. Musk is, yes, on track to become the world's first trillionaire. It's Friday, February 6th, 2026, and Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1, cue it please.

2:51January 20th. The Nasdaq and the Nasdaq on 100 are both on pace for their worst week since April of last year. That's when we heard about the tariffs. There's been a lot of volatility and it has not been confined to the equity markets. We'll take a very quick look at what's been happening with Treasury markets, where yields stand right now. Ten-year yield is back down below 4.2 percent, 419. The two-year is down as well. It's below 3.5 percent at 347. And then gold and silver prices, which have been kind of marching to their own drum of volatility, are relatively more stable this morning. Gold has barely budged.

3:24It is below$5 ,000 an ounce at$4 ,903. Silver's off by about 3.5%, back below 75 cents at$73.96. But again, we have seen some huge movements here, and this is only the beginning of it. It's also been Bitcoin as well. Let's talk Bitcoin. Let's show you where Bitcoin sits right now. We're at$65 ,773. That's a bit better than where we had been yesterday. The cryptocurrency now coming off a 13 % drop yesterday at its worst 24-hour period since the middle of 2022. This morning, as we discussed,$65 ,000, maybe getting closer to$66 ,000. Bitcoin nearly breaking below the$60 ,000 mark yesterday, but that's where it seemed to bounce.

4:08And more tough news in the crypto sector after yesterday's closing bell. Bitcoin treasury company Strategy reported more than$12 billion fourth quarter loss. Bitcoin now well below Strategy's$76 ,000 average coin acquisition cost. And that's always been the big question. So the company's executive chairman, Michael Saylor, saying that Strategy has cash reserves to cover dividends and interest for more than two years. It's been a big turnaround. All of the gains that came in with the Trump administration and the gains in the currency, the cryptocurrency, have pulled back. It's now below that. But this was seen as a much more friendly administration to crypto.

4:45And people kind of thought that that would usher in higher prices across the board for Bitcoin and beyond. It was really gut-wrenching to watch yesterday. Got to the point where I was saying Bitcoin is probably not, and all of crypto, probably not big enough to take down everything. I don't think. Although it's worrisome. It's not systemic enough, I don't think. But then I thought of the Thai bot. And I thought about that. We had some currency problems in Cyprus, the island of Cyprus. So it doesn't take much. And if it's sort of a poster child for leverage and froth, it's definitely worrisome.

5:22Now, Katie Stockton said 60, or in the 60s. So that was where the charts were shown. Other people said, OK, we had, remember when it went to 20 ,000 and then it went to 1 ,500? Tom Lee kept saying it's going back to 20 ,000. Then it went to 65 ,000 and came back to 15 ,000. So 80 % pullbacks were not uncommon. But people recently, Pomp, others, Novograt, said the volatility is less, the institutional ownership is less. Maybe we don't get an 80 % drawdown. Maybe we get half that, a 40. Well, we got 50 so far because it was 125 and it was down to 63, 62, 61. So we got a 50. Yeah. Does it stop here?

6:07I have no idea. And then it comes back to the questions of Bitcoin always being seen as something that was a hedge against inflation, a hedge against currency. And that's been gone for a couple of months. Right, right. And what is it? Is it the NASDAQ? Is it gold? It's an asset. Total risk asset. Yeah. I mean, Bitcoin, people say it has no one here in value. They don't understand it at all. We understand all the AI and software companies, and we see that they're capable of not 50 percent, maybe, but they're capable of the rug being pulled out. And as this huge air power, I mean, Amazon, we're going to look at that because everybody is spending so much.

6:49Was Amazon also disappointing in terms of, I don't know, some growth somewhere? I think slightly. There were some numbers that were slightly. I do think it's back to the CapEx numbers. But I think it's a spending story. So much more than people had anticipated. In fact, Amazon shares, as Joe mentioned, are lower following those quarterly mixed results. The company raising its full year spending forecast to$200 billion as big tech ramps up investment in artificial intelligence. If you look at the big four spenders, I think together they are promising that they're going to spend$650 billion this year.

7:23And Amazon makes up a huge chunk of that. Elon Musk's net worth potentially blasting off to another world thanks to SpaceX. Robert Frank is here and he joins us with more. Good morning, Robert. Great to see you, Becky. Well, Elon Musk this week becoming the first person ever to top the$800 billion mark. He's now worth more than the next three richest people combined. That's Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Jeff Bezos. Most of his wealth used to come from Tesla, of course. Now two-thirds of that wealth comes from SpaceX. He owns about 43 % of that newly merged SpaceX and XAI company. That company was valued at$1.25 trillion as part of that deal.

8:06So Elon's stake is now worth about$540 billion in that company. Meanwhile, his stake in Tesla valued at a mere$300 billion. Musk has always said it's not about the money, but about the voting control. and here too, SpaceX is likely to get more of his focus because he currently controls about only 18 % of Tesla and he had about 80 % of the voting control at SpaceX. Even if he meets all the benchmarks in that new Tesla pay package, his Tesla vote will only be around 25 to 28%. Now, the Tesla board itself highlighting the risk that SpaceX will command more of Musk's attention now that accounts for more of his wealth.

8:50In the proxy, the board said, quote, because a majority of Musk's wealth is now derived from other business ventures, the compensation plan at Tesla is needed to prevent him from prioritizing those other ventures. Now, if SpaceX goes public this year with an even higher valuation, Musk is, yes, on track to become the world's first trillionaire, probably sometime this year. For more, sign up for the Inside Wealth newsletter at cbc.com slash inside wealth. It's funny, I wrote an article in 2024 saying that Musk would likely become the world's first trillionaire sometime in 2027. Wow. And everybody said, that's crazy.

9:32And it was actually going to be earlier than that. It's pretty impressive. And you know what they say, the first trillion is always the hardest. Just don't lose it. That's what Boone Pickens always said. First billion is the hardest. But then he wrote a book that was called that. But then it was about how to hold on to your billionaire status. And he didn't like to bet big. So it didn't work. I mean, it could be. I don't know what it could be. If you ask Ron Barron, he probably thinks it could be 10 trillion before Musk is done. And the interesting thing will be to watch what it means for Tesla shareholders, because not only is Musk now more incentivized by SpaceX because of the ownership, the wealth, more importantly, the voting control, which is what his issue has always been.

10:14but also because shareholders, if you're an Elon Musk fan as a retail investor, you only had one publicly traded company that you invested. Now you have a choice. By the way, for many of those investors, space and artificial intelligence is more exciting. That's what I was just going to say. It's not just for the investors that it's more exciting. I don't think Tesla necessarily stands a chance. Forget about the compensation plan because it's what he's most interested in. And Elon Musk has always drifted towards whatever interests him at the moment. I don't know that normal incentive structures will work for somebody like him.

10:49Not that he doesn't want them. I think control was a huge issue on all of these things. And I'm a big believer in setting up compensation plans that incentivize properly. But I think in his case, it's just where his interests take them. Exactly. And that's why that trillion-dollar compensation plan was not normal. Because they know that normal compensation was not going to do it. But this will be interesting to watch if these two companies remain separate. And there's some speculation they could eventually merge as well. I wonder that, too, if you just put everything together. The great debate, and we'll have it over and over again, is what is the fair taxation for Elon Musk if he's worth a trillion dollars?

11:28Well, remember, he paid$11 billion in taxes back in 2022. Yeah, that's where I was going, because Elizabeth Warren, again, was saying what we need are to get these bastard billionaires. You may not have said it that way, but like Elon Musk that don't pay taxes. Now, he paid$11 billion. If it's a zero-sum game and people are out a trillion because he has a trillion, and that trillion should have been spread out among millions of people, then I could see that. But if he is a wealth creator and generated tax revenue to the U.S. government, the South African import, whatever the heck he is, if he generated$11 billion of tax...

12:11Elizabeth Warren, in her wildest dreams, is not going to contribute$11 billion of revenue to the U.S. government. Yeah, and a lot of people will hold up the world's first trillionaire as a sign of inequality and unfairness. But what is his... But look at the amount of wealth he has also created. And all the other people that have paid taxes on that. That's right. All the people that are going to pay capital gains on their Tesla shit. That's right. But what is the fair amount? What should he be paying? What did you say? What is the fair amount that he should be paying? Oh, never mind. I thought you said something.

12:42Never mind. Never mind. Is your mind in the gutter again? No. No, I'm just wondering. I just sit next to you, so I know what you're saying. Did I say shih tzu? That's what I thought. Oh, no. I didn't say shih tzu. Although, shih tzu. I was watching the Emmys. Never mind. They say it constantly because of the name of the show. And they win because Schitt's Creek, Schitt's Creek, Schitt's Creek. S-C-H is how that's spelled. Schitt's Creek. Okay. It is seven. Thanks, Robert. But what would a progressive say Elon Musk should be paying? More. A lot more. Once Upon a Farm was co-founded by actor Jennifer Garner.

13:19She's going to be joining us in the next hour along with the company's CEO. I see those ads for her. She says, I think you probably know me better from another occupation. I have her another business. And I think she's talking about being an actor or an actress. But there's no way her acting career makes as much money as that Capital One. I was going to say the Capital One thing. That is such a... You know, it used to be... Bill was in a movie about a star doing a commercial over in Japan. Because that's a way Brad Pitt... They all used to do them over there. I think they still do. They do, but they do them here now, too.

13:57It's no longer... I mean, it's so lucrative to do that. Why would you do that? And, by the way, it's a pretty good gig. Samuel L. Samuel L. Jackson, who had been... It's a pretty good gig when you're a mom. You're going to have to travel and be on set for like six months at a time. I think he's been in, someone might have passed him, but he had been in the greatest box office cumulative total for movies. Jurassic Park and, you know, all the things that he was in. Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction, I was thinking, yeah. Someone might have. Marvel movies. Might have passed him. But still, he's going to do a Capital One.

14:27I would. What's in your wallet? You know what's in their wallet? A lot. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, an A-list IPO. Jennifer Garner's Once Upon a Farm hits the public markets today. She and her CEO, John Foraker, join Andrew on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He's calling you literally in between running lines. I mean, how does this work? Yeah. We've been on lots of leadership team meetings on Zoom, and she's sitting in hair and makeup for an hour and a half. And they're like, wait, you have to turn your camera off because we're getting too invested in these eyelashes going on.

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17:03You're listening to Squawk Pod. Andrew Ross Sorkin left the set briefly this morning, temporarily swapping the NASDAQ for the New York Stock Exchange to cover a particularly tasty IPO. Once upon a farm going public right here at the New York Stock Exchange today, The nutrition company pricing its IPO at$18 a share. That's right in the middle of the range. Joining us right now, first on CNBC, are the co-founders of the company, John Forker and Jennifer Gardner. And it's great to have you both here. What a big day. It's a very big day. Thank you. I want to talk about the company and everything, but you guys started on the same day at this company.

17:41How did that even happen? How did this whole thing happen? Go ahead, John. Okay. I met Cassandra Curtis. I had made my kids baby food. I did not like the process. I found it really messy and inconvenient and also confusing. Was I giving my kids the right nutrition? But there was nothing available in the grocery store that was fresh and organic and delicious. So I met Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz and they were the originals. And it was just like what you are doing is amazing. I saw that John Foraker was an angel investor, the first investor. He had run Annie's Organic, taken it public, sold it and was still running it at General Mills.

18:20And so I asked to meet with John. Should I keep going? Our conversation quickly turned from this would be the most amazing product out there for kids and babies to, gosh, business is really leading social change. Could we have a business that's pushing social change and democratizing nutrition and making it accessible for more kids? So when you guys first started this or got involved in this, did you think that this was going to be the outcome? No. What did you think the outcome was going to be? Because you had already done this. You've run this playbook before. We knew it was possible, obviously, and we thought it was a really big market opportunity that was out there.

18:59There's a lot of food that parents are not, their kids love, but parents are not happy necessarily about the ingredients or too much sugar, etc. And we just thought it was a big business opportunity. We never kind of envisioned this, although I'll say probably about five years ago, we really started saying, you know what? We started to say, wait a minute. This is turning into something pretty significant. we really could use an IPO someday as a launching pad to that next big chapter of the company's growth. And, you know, I'm sure people have come to you to try to buy the company rather than go public.

19:29I'm curious, though, how you think about that, because you ultimately took Andy's public and then sold it later. And I think I'm sure there's a lot of people that are watching this thinking, oh, maybe they'll go public and then they'll sell the company later. Yeah, there's there's been a lot of strategic interest in the business from the beginning. Ironically, even when it was the size of a lemonade stand at the very beginning. But, you know, I've come to come to really believe that, like, as a mission driven company, you know, our when we first got together that first week with our Cassandra, we wrote our mission, which is we exist to drive systemic change in childhood nutrition for happier health and more equitable world.

20:04And when you have a big mission like that and a big market opportunity, we just felt like that us doing it ourselves and driving that with a really strong company and culture was the right way to deliver against that. And that's really why I got involved and Jen got involved is we wanted to drive that change in the context of a really great business that's connecting with millions and millions of households and making their lives better. So for those folks who are watching this now, we're thinking, should we be investing in this company? What do you think the fair comp is? I'm sure that your bankers have sat with various spreadsheets showing you the other companies out there.

20:41But what do you think is the world with which they should look? The implied value is really about$720 million. Yeah, I wouldn't want to call out a specific comp because I really don't think there is anybody like us. We're a unique company in baby and kid nutrition. We have a big market opportunity. We're growing very fast, and I don't really think there is a comp. Our comp is ourselves, and we've got to continue to deliver great business results and social impact results. We hold ourselves to really high standards. We know we're shaping the future of food. We know we're parents' ally. We know we're feeding babies to big kids.

21:18And we're doing it all as the first public benefit corporation to go public focused on babies and kids. And by the way, I should just mention, you know, I think people sometimes, they see you as a spokesperson. But you are not just a spokesperson for this company. You were like intimately involved. And we were talking just off camera. Way too involved. Drive them all crazy. I was going to say, so you're oftentimes, you know, on set working on some project. And he's calling you literally in between running lines. I mean, how does this work? Yeah. We've been on lots of leadership team meetings on Zoom and she's sitting in hair and makeup for an hour and a half.

21:49They're like, wait, you have to turn your camera off because we're getting too invested in these eyelashes going on. How much do you think the success or sort of image of the company, though, is in your image? You know, I do think that I'm, you know, inextricably tied to Once Upon a Farm. is the thing that I'm the most proud of is that parents see me anywhere, you know, walking down the aisle of an airplane, and they're like, oh, my gosh, FarmerGen, we love your products. They've saved our lives. We're so grateful, and that's so gratifying and fun for me. But the main way people find out about our product is word of mouth.

22:23It's parent to parent and kid to kid. Right. So the company is growing at a fast clip but still losing money. So speak to that and speak to sort of what the line looks like as people are thinking about this as an investment? So on an adjusted EBITDA basis, we basically are running the company right about breakeven. We've got some non-cash charges that are related to derivatives and things like that that are going away at the IPO. But the company has a very strong gross margin structure, contribution margin structure. It's growing fast. We will be a very profitable company. We're very confident in that in the not-too-distant future.

22:57And how do you think about the competition right now? Because while you've been a pioneer in this space, there are a lot of folks who have taken notice of that and are saying, okay, we're going to start selling similar products. Yeah. So when we first launched this company, when we went across, we barnstoned across the country talking to retailers, we decided to take our first product, which are these cold-pressed pouches, and put them into dairy sets where Kid Yogurt is. And we are competing against all of the biggest companies in many of the biggest companies in the world. It's not easy to hold shelf space in dairy.

23:28So we've been competing like that forever, and there's always going to be maybe some big consumer package company or another emerging brand that'll come at us. We just have to be the most innovative and the most connected, driving the most growth for our retailers. In terms of supply chain, Mexico, South America, huge for you. How are you either weathering the tariff issue and thinking about that going forward? So we have a genius named Larry who has built a team inside our organization. And we source all over the world. We follow the seasons around the world because there's always going to be some issue that pops up, whether it's tariffs, whether it's climate or there's too much rain and it wipes out all the pineapples in one area.

24:09So we've been we've gotten very adept at building that supply chain so that we can be resilient in those kinds of with those kinds of challenges. So in terms of distribution. Yeah. What's sort of the who's working, what's working for you and what's not working for you? This is really cool because we have distribution and we're in 25 ,000 stores and it's all the way from Whole Foods to Walmart and everything in between. Whole Foods, Target, Costco, Walmart and who am I forgetting? Kroger. Kroger. They're kind of our big five. Yeah, and we so we have really strong distribution at those retailers and we perform in the top third of our categories in terms of velocity So they view us as a partner that's bringing these households into their chains Which is super important for them getting young families big big shopping baskets for them And so what we're gonna do is continue to build out the business over in our snacking area in dairy The other big initiative we have is putting baby coolers into the baby aisle Which is bringing fresh baby product into the baby aisle, which is very disruptive And then we're just going to take the brand around the store into other categories, very much like Annie's did, where we think we can be a mom's ally and dad's ally in the lunchbox.

25:20In terms of thinking about just the economy and the consumer today, this is considered a premium product. Fair enough. And so how do you sort of see maybe a tale of two cities here in the country? Yeah, it's surprising. People do think of us. We obviously are a premium product, no question about it. So upper third income, we've certainly way over indexed. But middle and bottom third income, we index right to the category. Our products are actually very accessible because we use price pack architecture, like going from a single to a four count to an eight count to a 12 count to drive our average unit price down.