Regeneron CEO on 23andMe & $275m in Margaritaville 6/11/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Your spits journey from DNA database to the drug pipeline? The story of what happens to bankrupt consumer DNA brand 23andMe. Regeneron CEO Len Schleifer tells us what he has planned should he win the bid. Our genetics predicts all the half a dozen or more indications that the pixin would work in to treat allergic diseases. And U.S. and China officials agree, in theory, to a trade deal in the making. And this is basically a framework. Detente, yeah. Plus, Elon Musk apologizes after railing against President Trump on X.

0:43And a tough vibe for the Margaritaville estate. Robert Frank reports on Jimmy Buffett's financial legacy and the millions caught in a legal battle. The irony here is he had a very detailed, well-constructed plan for this estate. And it still fell apart because of often the reason they fell apart, which is personalities. It's Wednesday, June 11th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1. 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. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan. Andrew is off today.

1:26Yesterday, you saw the markets up across the board. The Nasdaq has actually been up for now six sessions in a row. And you're talking about getting so much closer to those highs that had been set back in February. At this point, the Dow is down by less than 2 % from those highs. The Nasdaq, not far from it either. And even the Dow is less than about 5 % from the highs. So I think both sides had extra impetus in order to get things done because we both have our presidents behind us, pushing us to make sure we take care of our respective sides. The U.S. and China signaling success at this point after two days of high-level trade talks in London.

2:08Officials from both countries said they agreed on a framework to get a truce reached, what we saw last month come out of Geneva, to get that back on track. Commerce Secretary Lutnik telling reporters that the deal would remove restrictions on some Chinese exports of rare earth minerals, as well as some recent U.S. export restrictions on some high tech stuff. But we haven't heard further details yet. The deal will await final approval from President Trump and President Xi of China. When he was announcing it yesterday, he was, you know, as he does, he was very optimistic about it. But the Chinese people that were there were nodding and saying, yes, that's true.

2:49Yes, that's true. It is pointed out by some in different newspapers that the lack of clarity indicates, and actually, Blutnik said, the president, or we will remove sort of certain restrictions on exports. So some people are surmising that the president needs to instruct his negotiators exactly which exports he's willing to remove restrictions on. But it looks like it's going to get done. But then there's a lot of hard work that still needs to be done. This gets us to the position, this is basically a framework to say we will then look at trying to fix some of these trade issues. I mean, it does underscore the difficulty of when you combine these national security issues with the trade talks on some of these things, too.

3:41Because if you believe the rhetoric from what we've been listening to in the last several months and even the last several years from multiple administrations, the idea that you cannot export some of these semiconductors and other things because it would be seen as a threat to national security. All of a sudden, we're going to say, OK, that's not the case in some of these issues. For now, we are not going to decouple from China in terms of trade. You can't. Two largest economies in the world. But I can't say that will always be the case, given what happens in the next decade. It depends on whether you're a real hawk on China or more of a devil.

4:17I mean, it'd be good to be optimistic and half full and say, look, they need us. We need them. Eventually, maybe, you know, we've been hoping for so long that things would change about their whole system. And it never has. And everybody's got the Internet over there. Everybody's got social media. They're not the same. Not the same. Yeah, probably not the same. What's a Tiananmen? And look, there are all kinds of frustrations from allowing China into the WTO back in 2000 or whenever that happened, of them not playing by the rules and it not being enforced properly. Those are the frustrations that have been borne out over decades.

4:54And hawks would point to much worse things than just that. The theft of intellectual property. The spying. Spying, yes. Buying up farmland near Taiwan. I don't know what this is. I mean, there's even a huge debate that was played out in the Sunday newspapers in London about the idea of them being able to build a huge new embassy that's very closely and goes over some of the areas where the cables are laid for financial firms in that same area. And hacking. We know a lot of, you know, they're still coming from there. And, you know, there's a lot of things that, you know, China probably pointed what's going on in L.A.

5:32and said, we got the Uyghurs, but you do that. It's not comparable. It's not the same, at least in my view. But the markets, you might ask, wow, China trade deal, what's going on? Well, this gets us back again to where we were a month ago. It's all in the news, yeah. And we don't know details either. Right, and that's part of the big issue on this. Now, some of the Asian technology companies have traded higher on this. I think the potential for the relief on the exports has seen as something that's new, but you're right. We don't have the details, and we'll have to wait. That's a piece up for the year now, right?

6:06Yeah. Is it up for the year? Up for the year. It's up 20 % or so. Oh, from the start of the year, yeah. But we had those highs back in February that were still. Yeah, we did. back. NASDAQ is up another 130 points or something. Right. Yeah. Significant moves. Elon Musk, he's sorry. He's the closest I've ever seen to a public apology. You'd have to, you know, at some point, and I've tweeted things, I guess, sort of. I mean, I think long and hard. I don't really tweet much. But I've, you know, not at midnight, Not good. Not if there's any type of mental or anything involved. Not a good idea at that point.

6:54But expressing some regret over his public feud with President Trump. In a post on X earlier this morning, Musk said, I regret some of my posts about President at real Donald Trump last week. They went too far. Musk has removed some of the most inflammatory things he posted about the president, including an agreement with someone who said Trump should be impeached, and also saying the president's name appeared in the files about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Musk is gearing up for the launch of Tesla's robo-taxi service in Texas, don't forget. And last night he posted that rides were tentatively scheduled to begin on June 22nd.

7:34The president posts late at night sometimes, and there's some saucy language at times. just know that what you see that's the president's over so um let's just be i think it's i i don't even know how what that would be right look i have heard from people in i mean in the elon musk sphere who had been hoping for an apology who had been i think they're afraid to ask him for an apology because you ask him to do something he's very likely not to do it right i think this is the closest I've ever seen to a public apology that comes into. Well, what, what, if you were the 10th richest person in the world, would you apologize to anything?

8:22And then put you. No. Neither would I. If I was the richest, if I had like, I don't know, you know, I need how many, what is it? Eight, 10. How many figures is that? Was 100 billion or 200 billion? I don't even know. But if you had that, I don't. I just go back to that Geiger Capital thing. You know, like the differences. in seconds versus a million seconds. A lot of a trillion is back. I don't know how much. I wouldn't be groveling too much very often. But there's only one person that you probably ought to grovel to. Right. A leader of the free world. That's why this was so interesting. It caught so much attention from so many people.

8:59Los Angeles police making arrests after they began to enforce a new curfew for the city's downtown. Officials said that the curfew was necessary to prevent vandalism and theft by people looking to cause trouble in the midst of protests over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said that the area where people would be subject to arrest is a small fraction of the nearly 500 square miles that make up the city. Meantime, in an address last night, California Governor Gavin Newsom sharply criticized the White House's tactics. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here.

9:34Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. Newsom has asked a court to put an emergency stop to the military helping federal immigration agents. A judge set a hearing on that for tomorrow. Meantime, sources familiar with the planning of future operations tells NBC News that Immigration and Custom Enforcement is preparing to deploy its special response teams to five cities run by Democratic leaders. When you're in a hole what's that expression stop digging yeah keep working it double down that's gonna work democracies at risk you know I did see one great quote yesterday from one of the anchors out there I don't think it was a it was a national anchor but he goes he said that the vast majority is peaceful except so there are a few people that are having fun burning some cars watching some cars burn that's That's as bad as it.

10:34He literally used the term that, okay, some people are having some fun watching some cars burn. There have been businesses that have been looted. There have been fires downtown. We've seen it. I can show you 15 shots of some of the chaos and carnage. It just seems, I mean, even when we had Josh Shapiro on yesterday, he said, yeah, as a governor, I think we just should have asked him, would you have sent in the National Guard in Pennsylvania? It's a no-brainer. The cheese will be next. Coming up, Regeneron's$256 million bid for the bankrupt DNA testing site 23andMe. What CEO Dr. Len Schleifer is planning if he wins all that genetic data?

11:16What you need to do is get DNA and get health information, marry them, but strip out any personal identifier. Once you have that, we have shown that the more people you have, the more power you can ask questions about how our genes determine our health. SquawkPod will be right back with that exclusive interview, and you should stick around. If you ever spat in a tube to find out what percentage Southern Italian you are, this guy may one day have your DNA.

11:51Welcome back. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Becky Quick. Welcome back, everybody. The sale of bankrupt genetic testing company 23andMe has come under scrutiny for privacy and national security concerns. Congressman James Comer of Kentucky joined us yesterday ahead of his House Oversight Committee hearing and had this to say about the potential buyer of 23andMe. Regeneron has very close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. We're very concerned about that. We're not accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, but we know that they've had deals before in the past that were partially funded by Chinese Communist Party linked entities.

12:32So that's a concern. All right. Joining us right now is Regeneron's founder, chairman and CEO, Dr. Len Schleifer. Regeneron announced a$256 million deal to acquire 23andMe back in May. But 23andMe wants to reopen the bidding after receiving a$305 million offer from its co-founder and former CEO, Ann Wojcicki. All right, Len, first of all, thank you for joining us. I was surprised to hear this coming out of the congressman's mouth yesterday and kind of pushed back immediately. Like, wait a second, Regeneron, we know Len Schleifer, he comes in here, ties, close ties to the Communist Party. Joe and I were both like, what?

13:10Let's just get to, do you speak Mandarin, Leifer? Not a word. Not fluent. Not one word. Have you been to China? I've never been to China. You called immediately and said, what is he talking about? What is he talking about? Well, I think, you know, the honorable congressman from Kentucky and chair of the House Oversight Committee is trying to do his job and protect American in individuals' data from falling into the wrong hands. But as far as him saying that we have very close ties with the communist Chinese government, that's just categorically not true. I suspect he might have been given some wrong information by his staff.

13:47What deals have you done with China that could be construed into that? Yeah, so our main products are actually sold through non-Chinese companies who have businesses in China, like Sanofi sells our Dupix in China, Bayer sells our I.L.E. in China. So we don't actually have any direct business in China. We have done some licensing deals and some supplies agreements, things like that, like every other company does. But nothing that you would consider. You offered a therapeutic for a virus that originated in a lab in China. We did come up. That doesn't really constitute close. Maybe that is close ties to the C.P.

14:28I don't know whether the C.P. was. They create the disease and we create the cure. Yeah, exactly. So you do have ties. I don't think it exactly works that way. No, it's not. And, you know, as you know, well, that monoclonal antibody saved the president Trump's life. So it was a timely therapeutic. It was. That's a whole nother story. We could devote hours to it. Well, let's talk about 23andMe. I am somebody who has given my genetic material to 23andMe a long time ago, you know, 14, 15 years ago. I have concerns about what this means. Why do you want it? Right. So, look, we understand privacy concerns and individuals not wanting their DNA to fall into other people's hands for nefarious reasons or for no reason.

15:16You're entitled to manage your own DNA. On the other hand, I have a child with a genetic illness, and I would be happy if his genetics would be able to help other children like him or prevent disease in the future. And so there is this tension between doing world-class research with genetics, which Regeneron does. We have sequenced nearly three million individuals in a totally de-identified way. And so we're trying to balance absolutely respecting individuals' privacy, but moving forward in biotechnology and genetics research. As the consumer, I mean, look, I have a child with a rare genetic disease, too, and I'm all in favor of that.

15:56But as a consumer, I didn't give you the right to have my genetic material. Should there be an opt-in policy instead of an opt-out policy as it exists today? How do I know that you're going to protect my safety and my standards and my privacy? Yeah, you know, the details of the consent forms and what have you is something that the court is looking over very carefully. As far as if we were the winner, I think we have a long history of protecting people's genetic and other health information, and we take that extremely seriously. But once again, we're trying to set this balance. You know, there's a commission called the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.

16:35And actually, Eric Schmidt of Google fame is one of the commissioners. And they recognize that we're in a big competitive situation here. And biotechnology is critical to our national security, literally our physical security, our health security, our food security. And we have to make sure that we advance that in a way that's consistent with Americans' belief that individuals have the right to privacy. But why is it for sale? Why is my information for sale? Well, I don't think that of me saying, OK, I agree with you and I'll sign off and you can take. Yeah, I'm perfectly happy with people affirmatively signing off or not signing off, as the case may be, because I'd have different thoughts if it was a Chinese company.

17:19I wouldn't want you. I don't understand why Regeneron is even interested, except that it's 200. What is that? You find that in the couch at your fifty five billion dollar company. that was a company that was worth a lot more. Is this just an attractive price? Does it fit in with Regeneron's long-term business? We don't know if we're even going to win this. No, but if you did, I don't see it as some type of... Is it essential to us? Absolutely not. Does it do anything for you other than it's really cheap? No, well, we just don't want to buy things that are cheap, you know. We want to buy things that have value to us.

17:54Well, I mean, it's sort of you could... It might take a lot of dots to get to how it makes sense for Regeneron, right? No, I think that, remember, we have done more to use genetics to create new drugs, I think, than any other company in our industry. And we could do with more genetics, we could get more drugs faster. And so I think that is important. How would it work? Like, if you had this information, how would you kind of put it into your pipeline? What would you be going after first? Do you already have targets for drug potential candidates? Yeah, well, what the genetics actually would allow you to do, once we satisfied properly the privacy aspects of acquiring the DNA and de-identifying it so it can be utilized without knowing whose it is, what you need to do is get DNA and get health information, marry them, but strip out any personal identifier.

18:47Once you have that, we have shown that the more people you have, the more power you can ask questions about how our genes determine our health. And if you can figure that out, you can come up with drugs, as we have. Some of the biggest, most important drugs in the world have been predicted exactly like Tupixin. Our genetics predicts all the half a dozen or more indications that Tupixin would work in to treat allergic diseases. Like what? For allergic diseases? Yeah, allergic diseases like asthma, like eczema, like eosinophilic esophagitis and so forth. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The genetics provides you a lot of confidence on how to proceed, where to proceed.

19:31You are swaying me because I do know one of the huge arguments in the rare genetic disease community is if we could test children as they're born, Babies as they're born, that would be the key to trying to find cures, trying to find better identification and better treatment. Let me give you a fabulous example that will really get you on our side. If you imagine there are children, not that many, who are born, thankfully not that many, who are born profoundly deaf. And we now know it's because of a single gene mutation that they're profoundly deaf. Well, the scientists at Regeneron have actually, and we can show you maybe the next time we're here, we can show you a video of a child who never heard anything.

20:14And now it can communicate, talk, and understand because we put a gene back in their ear, back in their ear, and it restored hearing. That is a miracle. How does it go back into the genome, not just the ear? Yeah, you have to inject it. Do you get it to go, is it expressed in the kid's genome from there on out? No, no, no. It's just expressed in the... Just in the ear. In the inner ear. A single base pair or a stretch? No, we put in a whole gene. It's unbelievable that you can do this and you can make... Where is it? Where is it? How does it go? Where's the gene? We make the gene... And put it into what to go into the ear?

20:52Well, we put it into a clasmid. To an AAV virus that carries it. So it's an actual genetic editing. Yes. It's in a virus? It's not a virus that we use it. No associated virus. And you put it in, and it's remarkable how you can give a child the gift of hearing. I mean, you know, it's emotional just to think about it. And if that could be done for your child or my child, more complicated perhaps, or other children. You've swayed me. You've swayed me, and I go along with that. I do think you have to follow a very high standard. I trust you to do that. But there is a higher offer that's potentially out there for Manwojitsky.

21:32would you raise your bid? She's offering$305 million. Would you raise your bid for this? Is it worth more? We'll get a chance to see that when the auction reopens and can't talk about our strategy. Well, I think you can go up from there, Len. We'll see. But forgetting about the details of 23andMe, whether or not we get it or not, we're going to be in the genetics business, okay? We're going to use genetics in a compliant way, but we're going to use it to advance health security. And we've got to have a bigger conversation. You guys can lead it. We have got to stop attacking the pharmaceutical industry, the biotechnology industry.

22:10We've got to do something that at the same time satisfies affordability, which is really important. But also, we're going to lose the race. Remember, a long time ago, the United States made like 40 % of the chips. Now, you know, it dropped down to like 5 or 10%. We're the leaders of biotechnology. But the Chinese and others are investing heavily, and they're catching up or gonna pass us. And if we keep attacking this industry, instead of congratulating it and working with it and monitoring it, it's okay. It's okay that they held a hearing, that Comer and Lynch held a hearing to make sure people's private genetic information remains private.

22:53But we've got to force this industry to move forward, or we are in deep trouble. Yeah, I think you made a very cogent argument and one that definitely sways me. I would like to see more of what you guys are working on with this. Comer probably did mean 23andMe, I think. You could ask him that, but it couldn't be with General Ron. Exactly. And you don't want China getting 23andMe. I don't want China to have this information. We don't either. So we just won't shake hands because I'll get your DNA when I leave. No, the things you guys are working on when it comes to this, I think, are amazing. You're right, and there needs to be oversight of it.

23:34Can I ask you something out of left there, because I keep seeing it on Twitter. Do you think that mRNA vaccines, that proteins are made years after by the mRNA that was injected for the vaccine? I don't believe that. Isn't the half-life of messenger RNA like that? It's short. I doubt that. I'm not the world's expert. Is there any way it could be reverse transcribed into someone's genomes? You know what I mean? Like an RNA virus. I would doubt it. But I think that, you know, look, it's like anything else. It's not yes or no. There are issues with vaccines that if you don't design them right or you overstimulate the immune system, that can be a problem.

24:20We don't know the effect of the immune system. We've got to study them. On the other hand, dying of diseases. They saved our bacon, yeah. Dying is not such a great alternative. No. So polio, I remember. There's a lot of diseases. Look, I remember taking the polio vaccine in school. I mean, as a school kid. Ask Mitch McConnell. That's the thing. We have forgotten how fortunate we are to have made this progress. It's okay to have a conversation. Len, they're taking us away. Please come back. We're going to continue this conversation. Absolutely. Great to see both of you. Thanks, Dr. Schleiber. Up next on Squawk Pod, Island Attitude turned hostile.

24:57Robert Frank reports on the battle for Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. There's$85 million at stake, plus a little extra. $35 million in real estate,$15 million in private jet and airplane holdings, $11 million in fine art,$5 million in cars, so Jimmy liked his cars, and$2 million in musical instruments. The Empire of the Parrot Heads, right after this.

25:31This is Squawk Pod. Stand by Joe in three, two, there's Mike, Q. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Joe Kernan, along with Becky Quick. Andrew is off today. Some negative vibes. There should never be any negative vibes. Hanging over Margaritaville. That's the whole point. A battle is intensifying over the late Jimmy Buffett's estate and CNBC's wealth reporter Robert Frank joins us now with more. I would just say, I mean, margaritas are the greatest drink of the most popular drink. Were they popular as popular before or did that song actually make it even more popular? I think a little bit of both.

26:10He certainly did a great job commercializing the margarita through Margaritaville and everything else. And that is now the subject of this big battle because Jimmy Buffett's widow battling his longtime accountant over a trust estimated at over$275 million. Now, Jane Buffett, who married Jimmy back in 1977, is seeking to remove Rick Mosenter as her co-trustee of the marital trust. Now, when Jimmy Buffett died two years ago, most of his assets went into the trust. Those assets include$85 million in equity in the aforementioned Margaritaville, that's the Buffett-themed company that has 30 restaurants and bars, 20 hotels along with retirements, cruises, lots of communities there, $35 million in real estate,$15 million in private jet and airplane holdings, $11 million in fine art,$5 million in cars, so Jimmy liked his cars, and$2 million in musical instruments.

27:09Must have had a lot of guitars. Now, Jane Buffett says Mosenter has refused to give her financial details and has been, quote, openly hostile and adversarial. She says the$2 million a year in projected income from the trust marks a return of less than 1%. Now, Mosenter, for his part, he's filed his own lawsuit seeking to remove Jane, saying she has been, quote, completely uncooperative and needs to adjust her lifestyle to live on the mere$2 million a year. Now, a judge is ultimately going to decide whether either was going to stay or be replaced by a professional trustee, or maybe he'll just decide they need changes in attitudes, so to speak.