Protein Goals, Cathie Wood, & A Geopolitical Nobel Prize 1/16/26

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Tech in 25 in the rearview mirror with Reddit trader favorite Kathy Wood of ARK Invest. What does last year teach us? We must assume that valuations are going to compress. A longtime Tesla bull, Kathy Wood is staying optimistic. The EV sales environment has been challenged, but the market is shifting its focus to the robo-taxi opportunity. And new year, new diet, the craze over high-protein eating, David Protein CEO Peter Rahal. It's the protein of a meal and the calories of the snack is the best way to think of it.

0:44Do you have to gag it down? No, you don't have to gag it down. Plus, a potential chips deal with Taiwan. The Nobel Peace Prize comes to the White House. And the brewing panic over a potential billionaire tax in California, our Robert Frank is on the case. The tech executives I talk to are certain it's going to pass because it's a tax that only applies to 200 people. It's Friday, January 16th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square.

1:24I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Davos haircut, right over there. Davos, high and tight. Looking fine. I need a haircut. Looking fine. I need a haircut that would last a month. I find that if I don't do a haircut that's tight enough, then it can go, then I need to come back two and a half weeks later. It's a judgment call, because the month-long haircut is something people will notice. The three-week haircut, you might get by with. Right, that's true. So you have to decide what... With looking like you're wearing a wig and it never changes? I've given up. I've given up.

1:58I mean, either I get it... You've got a haircut, though. I know. I know. Or I retrofitted my men's hair club membership or something. I don't know what they think. They just, they're haters. They just, they hate Trump, so they hate my hair. Meantime, the U.S. and Taiwan reaching a trade deal to build chips and chip factories on American soil. Taiwan tech companies will invest in at least$250 billion in production capacity in the U.S., and the Taiwanese government is going to guarantee$250 billion in credit. In exchange, the U.S. will limit President Trump's reciprocal tariffs on Taiwan to 15 percent and commit to zero reciprocal tariffs on generic drugs, aircraft parts, and some natural resources.

2:38Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick telling CNBC Taiwanese chips giant TMC, for example, could also be expanding its Arizona footprint as part of that deal. Lutnik also said that Taiwan-based chip companies that don't build plants in the U.S. are likely to face 100 percent tariffs. So a new move in the chip war, but also maybe in the larger geopolitical scheme with China. I imagine that's going to be part of the conversation we'll be having a lot next week in Davos. The Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Carino Machado. This is kind of a sideshow, presented her Nobel Peace Prize to President Trump in what she said was recognition for his commitments to the country's freedom.

3:22On social media following a meeting with Machado, the president thanked her and called the gift a gesture of mutual respect. President Trump has dismissed the idea of installing Machado as Venezuela's leader to replace ousted leader Nicolas Maduro. Mr. Trump had campaigned to win the Nobel Prize himself, citing some of his foreign policy achievements. The Norwegian Nobel Institute says that the prize cannot be transferred or shared. It's probably obvious that it did. Unclear. I read he accepted it. I read in your paper that it's not clear whether he accepted it. You can't. It's not. You need to have it awarded to you.

4:06I don't really know what it means. I mean, you can give the medal to whoever you want. But it doesn't mean they won the Nobel Prize. I saw it. I saw a lot of people with memes saying, here's a real president that won that actually won the Nobel Prize. My take on it was because of Trump and who he is, he will never win the Nobel Prize. And he probably should have. And because of Obama and who he was, he did win the Nobel Prize for doing absolutely nothing. So the whole the whole the whole prize itself has been. Now, I am going to stay off Twitter. I'll tell you why. Here's why. Because this is what's coming up next week in Davos.

4:44I don't think we've said anything about it. And I just, I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. We're going to, it's going to be, I'm going to interview you on Wednesday. If you don't like it, just keep it to yourself. If you do like it, you can send it in, but I'm not going to, I'm not responding to any, about hair, about Trump. You can send in some suggested questions. You guys, I'm certainly open to. And you won't see those either. I won't see those either. But that will be I think his big speech is Wednesday at two thirty. OK. Two thirty Davos. Yes. Right. Which is eight thirty East Coast.

5:20While we'd be broadcasting. Yes. And I will be with you. Right. Because I wouldn't miss it. But I may have to leave. But then I'm going to do it after that. OK. At some point. And you can offer questions, too. I probably won't answer some of your questions or I won't ask. I can imagine. But there will be, you know, there will be, I'm open to yours, whatever. Okay. Got to think about something. I think as a network we're going to put our heads together. Most likely, I think we should keep it to business and economics and things like that. You know, I don't know if I'll ask about Minnesota. You're going to ask about the Nobel Peace Prize?

5:56Yeah, Nobel Peace Prize. I may or may not. No, I don't know. You've got a few days to figure it out. I have a few days to figure it out. I can study on the plane. There you go. Study on the plane. There you go. Well, we are looking forward to it. It's part of our big coverage for next week. But obviously, the interview with the president of the United States, top of the list. Tech industry discovering a potential added penalty in the billionaire tax being floated out in California. Robert Frank looks very distraught. He joins us now with more. For you or your friend? Neither. This has become a big controversy on the Internet.

6:32This is all erupted around a provision of that California billionaire's tax that some say would penalize founders. So the tax, which could appear on the November ballot, would impose a 5 percent tax on the total wealth of people worth a billion dollars or more. But according to some tech founders and investors, those with super voting shares could actually face a supersized tax. So according to the bill, some say publicly traded shares will be valued at their public price, but non-publicly traded assets could be based on the voting shares, which could be far higher. So take Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

7:07They each own around 3 % of the shares of Alphabet, but they hold super voting shares that carry 10 votes each, giving them a combined majority of the voting shares. Those shares are valued altogether in the market at around$120 billion, which implies a tax of$6 billion. But if their super voting shares are considered non-public, since they don't technically trade as super voting shares, they could face, according to some, a tax of$60 billion each. Now, Gary Tan, the Y Combinator CEO, saying on X that this provision really gone viral here, it's proof that, quote, the wealth tax is poorly designed and designed to drive tech innovation out of California.

7:52Now, the professors who authored the tax told me, quote, this is false, as shown by a straightforward reading of the provision. Now, taxpayers with publicly traded stocks will be taxed, quote, based on the market value of their holdings. So they're saying, look, this is totally clear. There's no question about this. This is just propaganda on the other side. For more on the California wealth tax and how it could affect those who pay and the California economy, Sign up for the Inside Wealth newsletter at CNBC.com slash insidewealth, CNBC.com slash insidewealth. Obviously, these texts and tweets went viral in California because there are a lot of founders with these super voting shares.

8:36I'm sure if you told the IRS that those guys who designed it said that it wouldn't apply to you, that the IRS would definitely take your side. In California, it's the tax franchise board. Whatever. I'm sure they'd say, oh, oh, sorry. we don't if they can get it they're going to take it right if there's an interpretation that allows them to get the 60 and that's the question the authors say there's just no interpretation that allows it's very clear and this provision no interpretation what are we talking about uh applies only to publicly traded companies they're saying that because super voting shares aren't traded as super voting shares that it would apply i think that's a legal stretch but you're right Right.

9:15If there is any legal avenue to pursue it, the tax franchise board might pursue it. Now, the other question is, why would they, even with private companies, tax super voting as if it's separate from the economics? That's what I don't quite understand. And that's where you would get a bigger tax than the actual net worth of a person. What are the odds it goes through? We haven't seen any reliable poll yet. They're still gathering the signatures to actually get it on the ballot. So it hasn't been ensured that it's got a place on the ballot yet in November. So they're still going through that process.

9:48Once it's officially on the ballot, we'll start to get some polling. The tech executives I talk to are certain it's going to pass. They are. I'm not so sure, yes. Why are they so certain? Because it's a tax that only applies to 200 people, and everyone will be for that. Now, that's their argument. I'm a little dubious. Calci actually has some numbers showing that it's like 40 % likelihood of passing. And there's no mechanism, unlike so many other situations where people are obviously looking for exits, not exits of a state, but different ways to maneuver their wealth. There is no way out. Well, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

10:23No, they left. They left. No, but I'm saying there's no way to move something to a trust or to this or to that. My understanding was, for example, that real estate is not being taxed this way, for example, or certain assets are not so that technically if you decided to sell said shares and turn those shares into hard assets, for example, that they may not be taxed. I don't know how that would work. Yeah, I mean, there was reports that Larry Ellison sold his house in December. So I don't know if real estate is excluded, specifically excluded from this. I'll have to check into that. I hadn't heard that.

10:59But yeah, I'm sure that a lot of these trusts, there's the Larry Ellison Trust, which of course made a lot of headlines with the WBD deal. I don't know if that really gets you out of it because that could be counted as your net worth, even if that specific asset is outside the state, it's still your asset. And you're a tax resident of California. That's ultimately an insider. But we're going to hear a lot more about this. Very complex. And as soon as we get some polling, we're going to start reporting on that. And is your sense, one last thing, is your sense that if in fact this goes through and this wealth tax happens, do you think that even more people leave because they think it's going to happen again?

11:36Or do they think, oh, this was a one-time thing and now I don't need to worry about it again? What the opposition says is they say it's a one-time thing, but it's going to become repeated. And we've seen that with ballot taxes before. I think it's, even if it passes, it's going to be challenged in court. And I do think legally it's going to be tough for them to win. And that would be in a state court or a federal court? Both. Both. It could be challenged on constitutionality grounds in both state and the Supreme Court. So we're going to hear about it for a while. And that's why we're very grateful to have you with the updates.

12:10Thank you, guys. Thank you, Robert. Tees will be next. Up next on Squawk Pod, Tesla and Crypto Bowl, Kathy Wood, the CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, lays out her vision for opportunity in 2026 and beyond. Each of the five major platforms, robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, especially blockchain technology and multi-omic sequencing healthcare, those are all very deflationary in their impact.

12:44You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Andrew. Joining us right now on the markets, tech, crypto and her outlook for 2026. Kathy Wood is here, ARK Invest CEO and CIO. 2025 was quite a year both up and down and back again to some degree. When you look at some of the big holdings that you have, whether it be Tesla, maybe we get into crypto and everything else, where do you think things are headed? And to the extent that there were things that you were wrong about, frankly, in 25, what was the lesson? Sure. Well, great to see you. Happy New Year, Andrew, Becky and Joe.

13:30So, yes, last year, Morningstar in the Morningstar rankings, I think we had three of the top five or four of the top five were ARK funds top performing. Of course, we had two big corrections. We had the trade turmoil in April. That was an amazing buying opportunity. And what we do typically is concentrate towards our highest conviction names when we have an opportunity like that. We did that. Same with the same with the government shutdown. That was a little a little less severe. What did we learn? Well, you know, one of the things that we've learned over the last few years is we can see inflation coming down clearly.

14:18But in the reported numbers, it is stuck. And I think a lot of people are wondering, wait a minute, this market is near record high valuations. How can this be? This is a setup for a correction. And we're looking at other periods in history. If you if you look into the 90s, up to 97, I think it was. And in the 2000s, the early 2000s, we had very strong markets as the multiple moved down. So what does last year teach us? We must assume that valuations are going to compress. And we do. We do that in our bottom up analysis for every company. But we're pretty excited about the inflation outlook thanks to oil prices, housing prices big time.

15:09You see the homebuilders, KB Home, cutting its prices by 7 percent and others following. And productivity gains, unit labor costs coming down dramatically. I think on a year-over-year basis, they're up 1.2 percent. But the last quarter reported they were actually negative. So there are a lot of deflationary pressures. And the last one I'll cite is technology. Our focus is exclusively on technologically enabled innovation. And in each of the five major platforms, robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, especially blockchain technology and multi-omic sequencing healthcare. I saw the CEO of Bio.

15:53Very good. Those are all very deflationary in their impact. So pretty excited. We think the surprises are going to be on the low side of inflation expectations. Tesla has always been one of your big holdings. You know, in terms of just sales, obviously things have been challenged, but there's a lot of excitement about autonomy. There's a lot of excitement about the Optimus robot. What is your what is your sense of where things stand at Tesla right now? Yes, the EV sales environment has been challenged, but the market is shifting its focus to the robo-taxi opportunity. So we're moving from 15 percent gross margins in autos, the hardware, to more of a SaaS model where robo-taxis recurring revenue model is those margins are more in the 70s and 80s.

16:47And I think as analysts understand that that's where Tesla is going and they start building in the model for robo taxis, they see they see a tremendous opportunity. So it's been interesting to me to see upgrades even by some auto analysts now that they're beginning to understand that this is not an auto company. Maybe they're working with their tech analysts and understanding the stock a bit better. So when you think, though, about autonomous robotaxis and you think about robots, what does that look like? And is there an argument? Look, some of the critics would say, you know, cars aren't cars aren't working the way they're supposed to be working right now in terms of what's happening with the EV market.

17:35And and some of these other ambitious efforts are going to take a long time to get to a meaningful escape velocity. Well, we're keeping an eye on how quickly Tesla's footprint is expanding here. And it's expanding a lot faster, I think, than many people expected. And it's interesting to watch Waymo as well. We draw in Texas, we draw the footprint and they're competing with each other. Competition is a good thing. So I think this is actually going to happen faster than most analysts think in terms of the proliferation of robotaxis, especially if we get more federal legislation instead of just state by state.

18:21On the optimist robot side, there's a lot of excitement in robotics. That in the private markets has been a huge space this this past year. We look at an optimist robot. But our chief futurist, Brett Winton, working with Sam and Daniel, have concluded that an optimist robot is going to be 200 ,000 times more difficult to get working correctly relative to relative to a robo taxi. So you'll have you'll have waves of optimists improving with time. But full human is is going to be quite difficult. Nonetheless, the robots that we're seeing, you know, pick and pack and lifting things, they're starting to make waves.

19:09Should we talk about Bitcoin or we can talk about SpaceX? I mean, that's going to probably go public this year. What do you think it's going to go public at? Well, this next round is about eight hundred billion dollars, so a near doubling. And we wouldn't be surprised to see it become the first trillion dollar company. And especially now that there's a new opportunity, data centers in space to avoid all of the not in my backyard obstacles that Tesla and others are facing. So we're starting to do the modeling work on that. How realistic do you think that is? And what do you think the timeline for something like that is?

19:49I mean, I know Elon's Elon's talked about that, but then there's lots of people who have asked questions about just the practicality of making something like that work. Yes, we spent our last brainstorm on a good chunk of it on exactly that. And as I said, we're doing our modeling work. As with everything that Elon Musk does, he's going at this from a first principles point of view. He's not looking at how things are done on Earth. He's trying to figure out what's possible in space. So, as I said, we're doing our modeling work. We shall see. Before getting on to Bitcoin, Andrew, I want to compliment you on your book in 1929.

20:31I'm in April 29. And it's been fascinating for me to say, OK, wait a minute. Are we at all in a situation like that? I think maybe in the private markets we have been, you know, the whole idea, not literally, but of stock clubs back then. But it is fascinating, the Fed and the stock market and others wrestling with one another. I don't think we're in the same situation at all, but I wanted to compliment you, and I can't wait to finish the rest of the book. I hope you enjoy the rest of it, but you're right. There are what feels like parallels in certain ways, but hopefully there's other things that actually don't parallel at all.

21:12So Kathy has raised a point a lot that when you got more bullish on stable coins being maybe would supplant some of the uses of Bitcoin. And I mean, stable coins aren't going away. And that caused you, I think, to even slightly lower your very bullish forecast on Bitcoin. Can you just. Yes. Yes. Yes. That broadcast kind of propagated and everybody thought we were becoming negative on Bitcoin. Not at all. Stablecoins are usurping one of the roles that we thought Bitcoin would serve in emerging markets, especially. But on the other hand, if you really believe Bitcoin is like gold, digital gold, look at what just happened to gold.

21:59If you assume that Bitcoin is going to usurp a lot of gold's role as we get this intergenerational wealth transfer, then our price target net net, both for stable coins and gold, would actually be going up. We're holding it where it is. Our bull case at 1.5 million, base at 750. But I'll tell you what has happened to Bitcoin and all other crypto assets. There was a flash crash on October 10th, 1010. And from what we understand, you know, there were a lot of leveraged individuals, investors, others hurt. We think that it has washed out of the system. We actually think we have it on good sources that it has washed out of the system.

22:46That correction, it was about a twenty eight billion dollar hit. We think we're on the other side of that. And so we're seeing the crypto asset ecosystem stabilize. And it was a very good test, actually. Very good test. We didn't see Bitcoin go down 75, 80 percent like we have in other corrections. It went down 35 percent, which I know is not comfortable. But that's a victory in this market. And where do you land? I mean, we've been watching all sorts of folks come up with, you know, new treasury companies around Solana and Ethereum. and all sorts of other things. How much of that do you think could ultimately crowd out Bitcoin or not?

23:29No, no, I don't think so. I actually think that DATs are clarifying who the big three are out there. It's an interesting, whereas in the past you'd have a proliferation, you still do, of all kinds of assets and coins. From an institutional point of view, the DATs, primarily Bitcoin through strategy, Ether and Solana. We own BitMine and Soulmate. Those are focusing the institutional mind on the big three. And maybe we've got another one coming up in Hyperliquid. We will see. So I actually think it's doing the opposite than what we've seen happen in other or will do the opposite than what we've seen happen in past bull markets.

24:19Fair enough, Kathy. It is always good to talk to you. So glad to read the book. I appreciate that very much. Look forward to seeing you in person very soon. So thanks again. We'll talk to you soon. Still to come on Squawk Pod, the newest trend in health and nutrition in this world of GLP-1s, protein. The CEO of one of the hottest brands in the game, David Protein, joins us, Peter Rahal, on the special ingredient that makes it all work and where low-fat, high-protein food is going next. So we're using it in sports nutrition. The second best application is chocolate, cocoa butter, great substitute for cocoa butter, which we have big plans for, and then frying.

24:58Like french fries? French fries, potato chips, Dorito-type product.

25:07This is Squawk Pod. Up and Andrew. Q. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Andrew Osorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. The popularity of GLP-1 weight loss medications has drawn attention to possible muscle loss while on those drugs. That sparked an added focus on protein intake. And joining us right now is a guy who has been spending a lot of time on protein. Peter Rales here. He's the David Protein CEO. Also a founder and, I should say, created RxBars back in the day. I remember when you were on, how many years ago now? Gosh, seven years ago? Seven years ago, you had sold that to Kellogg quite successfully.

25:49You now have these bars, which are, by the way, flying off the shelves. It's a wild situation. I've become actually addicted to some of these bars. And for a period of time, I don't know if you want to say, you couldn't actually buy them. You'd run out. Yep. What do you buy them? You buy them on our website, Walmart, Target. Walmart or Target. But it's like, what's amazing about these bars, I don't need to promote it for you, is it's literally 28 grams of protein at only 150 calories a bar, which is like a shocking sort of situation. Is it like the Seinfeld yogurt that was supposedly low-fat and everybody gained like 80 pounds out there and they tested it and it was like, so this is really true?

26:30Yes, it's true. And it's like a protein scud missile. It's the protein of a meal and the calories of the snack is the best way to think of it. And that's a super valuable offer. You can, do you have to gag it? I'll get you, sir. No, you don't have to gag it down. Can I ask a crazy question? Is creatine ever an issue? Is that a problem that comes in with any of these things? I've had my doctor ask me just if I take protein supplements, which I don't, but he asked me if I took protein supplements because of some of the blood work that they saw. So creatine is no issue. I don't think there's much downside.