Paul Tudor Jones with an AI Outlook 5/7/26

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0:42Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones. We're kind of where we were in October, November of 99. And his takeaways from a tight circle of the biggest builders in AI. The opportunities. I bought more AI stocks. You did? Absolutely. And the guardrails needed. Last year, I would say 20 % of that room was in favor of government regulation. This year, it was 80%. Plus the rest of today's news that got us squawking. Big compute, big money. Anthropics, big rise. If you could keep that going for a couple of years, you'd be a trillion dollar revenue company.

1:34Think about just think about the sort of math of what that could look like. It is Thursday, May 7th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back your bye in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Andrew Ross-Sorkin. Joe is out today. Among our top stories this morning, energy prices in focus on optimism of a potential U.S.-Iran peace deal on oil. Oil right now is down by about 3.3 percent, WTI trading at 91.86. Brent is also trading lower even after yesterday's significant declines, a drop of about 7.8 percent.

2:22this morning. Brent is sitting right at$98 a barrel. The CDC says that the United States is closely monitoring U.S. travelers that were on a cruise ship that was hit by a Hantavirus outbreak. So far, it has claimed three lives. People in three states are being monitored for potential infections after traveling on a cruise ship at the center of the outbreak. The biggest issue here is with this human-to-human transmission of this Hantavirus, there's a one-to-eight-week incubation period. It's a long time. You can be contagious even before you are symptomatic. Anthropic giving some details about the monstrous growth it's seen recently at the company's developer conference, the company's CEO, Dario Amode, saying that revenue and usage increased 80-fold in the first quarter on an annualized basis.

3:12That's extraordinary. That is the reason we have had difficulties with compute, right? We've planned for anything from It only grows a little till it grows 10x. And yet we saw 80x. Amadei saying that Anthropic is working as fast as possible to provide more compute to users. And earlier in the day, the company announced a deal with Elon Musk's SpaceX to use all of the compute capacity at a giant SpaceX data center in Tennessee. Writing on X, Musk praised Anthropic and said he'd spent considerable time with senior company officials last week. He also said, quote, everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing.

3:48No one set off my evil detector. So long as they engage in critical self-examination, Claude will probably be good. And that's a bit of a turnaround for Elon as it relates to how I think he was thinking about Claude in the past. Clearly how he's thought about open AI in the past. But here he's doing a deal in part, by the way, separately, it should be noted that there has been some conversation that, you know, XAI is not using all of the compute and won't be using all of the compute that he's building. So there's sort of a balance there. A little balance back and forth. You're right, though. Those numbers, I was listening to that yesterday, too, with Darius.

4:29The idea of 80 times demand, I mean, that's just hard to get your head around. How could you possibly plan for that? How do you keep up with that? But where are the bottlenecks? How do you fix them? I mean, that's just hard to get your head around. Oh, if you could keep that going for a couple of years, you'd be a trillion dollar revenue company. Think about just think about the sort of math of what that could look like. Separately, in the partnership announcement, we should mention the company referred to itself as Space XAI. Musk later posted XAI will be dissolved as a separate company. So it will just be SpaceX AI, the AI products from SpaceX.

5:08So it is a mouthful. All right. In the meantime, the United States and China are reportedly considering starting an official dialogue on AI safety. The Wall Street Journal says that the issue could be on the agenda for President Trump's scheduled meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week. Officials are said to be interested in a series of ongoing conversations touching on the potential erratic behavior by AI systems, as well as autonomous military systems and non-state actors using open source technology to stage attacks. The United States previously engaged with China on AI under former President Biden.

5:46The journal notes that the current effort is being led by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. It's probably pretty important, too. We look at these things as the potential for nuclear weapons down the road. This is one thing we should definitely be talking with all parties and in particular China. Very much so. OK, GameStop, see Ryan Cohen saying his eBay account has been suspended. Cohen listed some personal items for sale, saying he was, quote, selling stuff on eBay to pay for eBay. shared a screenshot on X of a notice from eBay saying his account had been suspended, although listings from that account appear to still be available for sale so you can support his effort if you'd like.

6:28So it isn't clear right now if the account was actually suspended. Among the items on sale, if you're so interested on Cohen's eBay account, there's some sports cards, a GameStop hat, vintage video games, and a pair of socks. As a thank you gift with the purchase, buyers will get a hand-signed copy of the offer letter that he sent to eBay's board. Maybe I'll bid on it. The current high bid, by the way, on the pair of socks. Oh, no, I won't be. Sorry, I didn't realize what was going on here. A pair of socks, 14 ,000 bucks. above that. By the way, I wonder if this is a new account for him. I don't know if you notice the screenshot name is Ryan 5050, which is 50 % cash, 50 % stock, which is what he came on here and said the deal was.

7:20Of course, that doesn't account for the additional shares they'll have to issue and the debt that comes from that. But I wonder if that's a brand new account, how long that's been around. I don't know. 5050. It's a meme. It's everywhere. I don't know if You're seeing when you're when you're when your wife asks how you're going to pay for vacation. Fifty percent stock, 50 percent cash. There you go. That's the line of the day. Surging jet fuel prices reportedly causing some anxiety in the White House. The Wall Street Journal reporting that President Trump's advisers are worried that the higher costs will result in losses for Republicans in November's midterm elections.

7:56That article noting that former New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu recently told Treasury Secretary Scott Besson that airfares could surge if the Iran war doesn't end soon. And Sununu is now president of the industry trade group Airlines for America. Just yesterday, transportation secretary said airlines jet fuel costs in March jumped more than 50 percent compared to February. And we've had a couple of guests on, but I'm thinking of one in particular who suggested that some airlines may just stop flying certain routes over the summer if things get out of control. Was it Lufthansa? One of the German air carriers canceled thousands of flights.

8:38They were short term flights, short haul ones. The CEOs that we've talked to here, I'm thinking specifically of Jeff Kirby from United. when we asked him about it during earnings last week, said, look, right now it looks like they're okay. He does not think that the long haul flights will be canceled. It would probably be short haul ones that do. But if you get to the end of May and there hasn't been anything that's opened up, I think beginning of June, you're looking at about 23 to 27 days of fuel that they have for jet fuel in Europe. We've managed to avoid some of those issues now. If you get this 30 day pause, perhaps you get some ships that move through before that.

9:16But it's certainly something every single one of the airlines are watching very closely. Scary stuff. Cheese will be next. Don't go anywhere. Paul Tudor Jones is next on Squawk Pod. The hedge fund manager and founder of Tudor Investment is fresh off of an intimate conference with the leaders and builders of artificial intelligence. What he learned and what concerns him about AI. Do you think there's a 10 % chance that half of humanity could be wiped out in the next 20 years? And out of the 50 people there, five raised their hands. I was one of them. The other four were the people who actually built the models.

9:56So that was disconcerting. This year, that was 60-40. The answer was yes. That's next.

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10:57So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

11:25Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Today with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Andrew. Stand, Andrew, by in five seconds. Four, three, two, one. Up in Andrew. Two, please, Mike. Joining us now exclusively on the markets, the Fed, artificial intelligence, and so much more, legendary investor and billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones is here, of course, founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment Corporation. And he is also founder and board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, which is going to be holding its annual benefit in just a few days right here in New York.

12:03And we always love having you here. and so much to talk about in terms of the markets. We're at these record highs. It's a remarkable situation. I think in large part driven by AI. On the other end, we have the situation in the Middle East, which has been a question mark, but for whatever reason, at least the way the markets are thinking about it, maybe not as big a question mark as we might think. You just got back from a big AI conference that I think has your head spinning. I thought maybe you could help us understand. And I remember last year you were with us, I think right around this time, Right.

12:34When you had been to maybe the same conference. 50 years conference. And I think you had people, frankly, a little freaked out last year. Yeah, I would say I would say this one was was was really interesting. Some of the key takeaways. First, the good part. The good part is in two years with mRNA vaccines empowered by AI, tailor-made mRNA vaccines, probably 50 % of cancer cases can be cured for under$100 ,000. So that's the great side of this technology, right? 2030, probably robotics will be ubiquitous and we could be on the verge of the age of abundance. That's wonderful. I would say there were also two big attitudinal shifts last year.

13:32So this conference, it's small, it's about 50 people. It's the leading AI entrepreneurs, modelers, the people who are actually building the models, overseeing their deployment, people who are using AI in the fields of medicine, biotech, the whole nine yards. So you've got the best of the best in that room. The big attitudinal shift, I would say, is last year, I would say 20 percent of that room was in favor of government regulation. This year, it was 80 percent, including the head of one of the largest model companies who said, I can't believe we're not regulated. I can't believe that no government is regulating us.

14:20We need to be regulated. So there's been a big attitudinal shift. They obviously see something in the last 12 months. They see something. Yeah. That's the other side of that. To that point, and it's a really interesting conference because is very interactive, a lot of polling as we go through to see where everyone is. So last year, they asked the question, do you think there's a 10 % chance that half of humanity could be wiped out in the next 20 years? And out of the 50 people there, five raised their hands. I was one of them. The other four were the people who actually built the models. So that was disconcerting.

15:03This year, that was 60-40. The answer was yes, 60-40. So fewer people are concerned, but the ones who are include the ones who are. No, no, no. This year. Oh, this people more. Oh, yeah, no, this is scarier. Yeah, it's gone from 10 % to 60%. Oh. So that's not necessarily good. That's to put it polite. We did a simulation. We also did a simulation where we kind of walked forward the next few years in AI, And you had, so we kind of broke up into groups of three or four and you had, you had all the major tech companies represented. You had the U.S. military, U.S. government, Chinese government, Chinese military, the rest of the world, the general public.

15:52So, and then we just kind of started walking forward. What was the advent of AI going to bring? and I would say we did five rounds. After the second round, it got comedic. So I want to couch all this as then it got to be, well, what could be the more interesting or funny thing that we could do? However, what was really interesting was to see the interplay of all the tech companies, which I don't really know that world as well, but it was so funny to see the competition. But just to fast forward to the end, It ended with Earth-based AI, which was anthropic and open AI, against space-based AI. Which is Elon.

16:37Which was Elon and Hedib Sor met about that point in time. Those two were kind of in a war. But Earth-based AI got so tired of dealing with all the human personalities that it went rogue and wiped out all humanity. So that was, now it was a joke, right? It was comedic. But I'll tell you, I couldn't help but think about, remember that movie Wag the Dog? Yeah. So Wag the Dog, 1997. That was with Dustin Hoff and Robert De Niro. I think Robert De Niro played the president and he had an affair and then got in trouble and said, I'm going to go start a war so he can get reelected. And at the time, I don't know, I thought that's the dumbest thing.

17:21How could Hollywood even write that? And then, of course, now it's kind of like, okay, well, that's Politics 101. It's the starting of the playbook. Although it hasn't really helped Trump's approval ratings in any way, shape, or form. No, but I'm just saying life imitates art too often, right? So that simulation gave me pause. Then I'd say the one that I thought was the most interesting. So there was the question because there was a discussion about how is AI going to have an ethical and moral foundation? And one of the heads of one of the models said, you know, we're going to take the greatest human beings in history with the greatest wisdom.

18:08And that's probably going to use foundationally how we do it. We'll have Jesus Christ and we'll have Aristotle and Socrates and we'll have Gandhi and we'll have the greatest humans. And that's probably how that how these models are going to be able to talk to us when we have our own personal bots. And then someone said, OK, how many people in this room, how many people in this room believe you have a soul? No more definition than that. Out of the 50 people in that room, how many do you think said we have a soul? People have a soul. 48. I'm going to go low. Okay. What's your number? 10%. You're right.

18:47It was five. Five out of 45 said we have a soul now. And that's who's deciding the future of human beings. But just hold it. You have to realize these are the smartest scientists, mathematicians, physicists in the world who've risen to the top of their game. So how did they get there? They got there because they're pursuing the scientific method, right? They're always looking for the scientific answer. And so it's easy to see how they might be with such unbelievable telescopic focus on what they're doing. They're concerned about finding the answer to the greatest challenge that has ever faced humanity, which is artificial intelligence.

19:34Why is it concerning? is concerning because there's a misalignment, right? There's a misalignment between what they're doing, which is hell-bent on getting this answer, and the rest of society who has a variety of other societal values that are going to require maybe a different pace, a different speed, a different way of approaching it. When you say it, as soon as you said it, that's who's engineering how we're going to be, what this AI is that we're going to be dealing with. A little concerning if nobody thinks there's a soul, really. Again, judge not, lest ye be judged, for what judgment ye judge one day.

20:16Ye also should be judged, having said that. But you brought it up for a reason. Clearly, clearly, clearly, we need to regulate AI. We need to do it tomorrow. We're late already. We should have already done it. We need to do it, and we need to start with just the simplest thing, which is, we've got a watermark, all AI, so that we know the difference between what's human and authentic and what's algorithmically generated. I have so many questions. Just one follow-up on this, though, is earlier this week, we heard there could be an executive order by the White House that would actually regulate AI.

20:53Thank you, Lord. However, I was with Dario Amodei and Jamie Dimon earlier this week, and we talked about what kind of regulatory body you would want over the AI space, even though they've all said, please regulate me. I said, well, should there be an FDA for the models? They said, well, we really don't like the FDA. The FDA is not a good model for us because that could slow things down. We're competing against China. We like, you know, the National Transportation Bureau, for example, which sort of deals with stuff after there's a crash, right? So it's a very interesting thing that, yes, the industry says they want to be regulated, but in this race against China and everybody else, how you do it properly without slowing it down.

21:32I'm so tired about hearing competing with China. I swear I'm going to, if I hear it again, I'm going to throw up. That's not what we need to be worried about, right? They're just as interesting. Do we really think China wants to wipe out the United States? No, I don't think anyone thinks everyone wants what's best for their people. So we should be having a dialogue with them about AI safety. We should be having clearly within this country, we need to just think about the automobile. It was a tool, right? But over time, we developed speed limits and then traffic lights. And then we started making laws that criminalize vehicular manslaughter.

22:15This is a tool that needs, we're going to go through a codification of how we utilize and deal with it. First thing we got to do is we got to watermark the hell out of it. So we know, stop the deep fakes. Let's talk markets for a second. I want to know, you got back from this conference, and I want to know short-term, long-term, what you decided to do about it. I bought more AI stocks. You did? Absolutely. And what would you say you bought more AI stocks? Was that the big hyperscalers? Was that the semiconductor chips? So again, I'm a macro trader. So I just buy baskets. And what I would simply say is it's a crazy, crazy time.

22:57If I had to pick, you know I love always to find historical precedents. You can kind of look at the productivity miracle around the introduction of the PC, 81, 82, really 81, 77. See, I would kind of say 1977 when Apple dropped theirs was kind of like chat GBT, but it wasn't until Microsoft brought their PC in 81 when you got widespread commercial adoption. So chat GBT in 22, I kind of think Claude Code January of this year would be the equivalent of when Microsoft came out in 81. And then 95, we kind of look at when we finally allowed the Internet to be used for commercial purposes. I think that was May of 95 and then Windows 95 came in a few months later.

23:47Those were both the beginning of productivity miracles that lasted four to five and a half years. We're kind of, I'd say, 50 or 60 percent. If I had to pick a period, we've got another year or two to run. Because I remember we spoke about a year ago and you thought we were maybe in the fall of 99. I said it felt like 99. That was October last year. There was still 40 % to go. Yeah. And so that's my second favorite one, which is, again, we continue to feel like 99. And it's so funny if you kind of compare, if you look at multiples and earnings and everything, we're kind of where we were in October, November of 99.

24:33So whether you're looking at the productivity miracles and you want to look at it that way, where we've got another two years to run and 40 % to go, or you think, hmm, I'm going to go pick out a specific time where if I just even look at kind of price analogs and stuff, it feels more like, again, we're back to fourth quarter, nine, nine. You've got another ramp to go. You've still got more runway. What happens after that? Because it's going to be crazy. Yeah, you go back to 2001, you may have had 40 % more, but if you continued to ride it too far. Well, I mean, again, just imagine the stock market went up another 40%.

25:17The stock market of GDP is going to probably be, good Lord, 300, 350%. Wow. Something on a 17 vol instrument. You just know that there'll be some... It'll be one of those breathtaking kind of corrections. Or do you play the Berkshire card, which is, I mean, you know, Warren is still sitting on$380 billion of cash waiting for this, waiting for the moment. Yeah. I'd just be happy to sit on$300. No, I think, look, I think you've certainly got a runway. The reason I like 99 is, remember we had Y2K, and that was kind of holding the Fed back because everyone was afraid of that. Well, now we've got the election this fall, and you've got Kevin Warsh coming in as Fed chairman.

26:09Do I think he'll cut rates? No chance. But do I think he would raise rates before the election? Even though, good Lord, we've got a 6 % budget deficit. We're going to have a 1 % GDP spend just from the hyperscalers on infrastructure build out. You've got so much juice. So you would. You would raise him. Well, I'd be thinking about raising them. I'd want to see the data. But I mean, for sure, you'd be thinking about it. And I think he's going to be constrained before the election. So again, there's that kind of, you get that feeling again that we're 99 because those guys were, they were holding back because of Y2K, right?

26:48and things were just on the ramp. Right. I want to talk about the Robin Hood Foundation and what you guys are doing next week. But before I do that, I have a New York question for you. Yes. So there's a big debate. You probably saw your friend Ken Griffin. Yes. He's down in Florida and this Pieta Terror tax. But even more than that, the comments by the mayor. Yes. And he said, look, I'm going to start doing more in Miami. I'm going to build even more in Miami. He's upset about it. You care deeply about the city. And so I'm curious what your reaction is to all of this. I'm going to stay out of the politics and just simply say, Ken Griffin gave to Robin Hood the very first year we started raising money at the benefit, 1993.

27:35He's given every single year, including 2008, when if you'll remember, Citadel, we didn't know whether that was going to exist or not, right? And he stepped up that year and gave really generously. So that guy, if I just think about what he's given New York, he's probably given New York 100 years worth of that damn piet-a-tear tax, right, philanthropically. So I would simply say on behalf of all New Yorkers, thank you, Ken, for what you do. We want you here. And, I mean, and look, clearly, I don't care whether it's I don't care whether it's the left or the right, the idea of demonizing any individual for a societal issue.