Trump Accounts Launch: Brad Gerstner 7/6/26

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0:36Visualize your trades in a new light on Thinkorswim Desktop with robust charting and analysis tools all while you uncover new opportunities with up-to-the-minute market news and insights Thinkorswim is available on desktop, web, and mobile to meet you where you are. It's built by the trading obsessed to help you trade brilliantly. Learn more at Schwab.com slash trading. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Trump accounts savings vehicles for kids officially launched on America's 250th July 4th celebration. One of the orchestrators, Silicon Valley investor Brad Gerstner.

1:17This is not a program. This is a platform. It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country. A template to bring the American dream back down to Earth. Gwen Shotwell's gift this morning, an extraordinary gift. Two million shares of SpaceX to two million kids. They'll hold in their accounts over the course of the next 10 to 20 years. Plus the rest of today's news that got us squawking. Red card drama. Well, let's try and win. And an affair to remember. A royal wedding in New York City. It's Monday, July 6th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one.

2:00Cue it, please. Good morning, everyone. 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 Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. President Trump marking the nation's 250th birthday over the weekend in a speech on the National Mall that was delayed nearly two hours by some bad weather. the president mixed appeals to patriotism with some of his themes from the campaign trail, calling for new voting restrictions and a listing of achievements. On Friday, the president delivered a similar speech from Mount Rushmore, where he warned that communism is a threat to American liberty.

2:40Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9-11. We're not going to let this happen to us. It's the enemy of the Constitution. Above all, it's the enemy of July 4th, 1776. 76. U.S. soccer, star soccer forward Fuller and Balogun is going to be available to play in the team's round of 16 match tonight against Belgium after FIFA suspended a red card. It was given last Wednesday. It came after President Trump reportedly asked the soccer organization to review the red card. He was given the penalty for what appeared to be an accidental foul stepping on a player from Bosnia.

3:36MS now confirming that President Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino about the penalty. An official said the U.S. government provided additional evidence to FIFA on true social. President Trump wrote in his words, thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice. The Belgian Football Association said in its words it was astonished by the reversal. European soccer's governing body is expected to comment later today. We're also learning more about high interest in wagering on the World Cup. Dune Analytics says the Calci saw more than$31 billion in notional trading volume last month.

4:19That's up more than 70 percent from May. PolyMarket's international event contract exchange set a record high in monthly volume in June. That reversed a downtrend that was seen in April and in May. CNBC and Calci have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment. Today's big Calci market is the United States versus Belgium game, which takes place tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Users see the United States with a 52 percent chance of advancing versus 48 percent for Belgium. Belgium's an excellent team, ranked number nine in the world, and it has beat the United States team in the past.

4:59I've watched a lot. I got a little bit disillusioned watching France and Paraguay because it was such a great game in terms of the defense that Paraguay put up. And I didn't think that was a penalty either. And then, you know, you give it to Mbappe or whatever. Of course he's going to win. And then they win that way. And it's like, OK, France moves on. And I was surprised. Paraguay just took it all in stride. That's the way it works, I guess. It can be a penalty kick. I will say we were watching. 90 minutes of watching that, and a penalty kick determines it. Yeah. And we watched the Cape Verde versus Argentina game.

5:39That was an unbelievable game down to the end. The idea that Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, whatever you call it, could have potentially taken out the team that Messi's on for this whole thing. I mean, that was maybe the best game that I've seen through the entire world. And yesterday was amazing. I can't believe I'm saying, no, Norway. Oh, Norway upsetting. It's Brazil. That guy, he looks like, I mean, he looks like he's got this Viking. I mean, he looks like a Viking. And he scored both goals, or at least scored two. Two of the goals. Two minutes. Yeah, two minutes. That was a really phenomenal match as well.

6:18in Brazil, you know, they can't they can't even I think they're in shock. And then tonight, I'm glad the guy's playing. We need the guy but, you know, and the original foul I know, the original foul was not a foul. The red card. Right, it shouldn't have been a red card. No. But then, this has never been done where it's in 1962 I was going to say, there was precedent, but way, way back. Well, let's try and win. Now that we got the guy back, win. I don't think we should be sulking around, oh, God, we're getting an event. Go try and win. If you win the whole world or if you get to the quarterfinals and then go beyond that, it's like people love a winner.

7:10And, you know, now that you got this, got him back, hopefully he scores three goals tonight. Buzz around luxury giant LVMH this morning. This follows the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey at New York's Madison Square Garden over the long weekend. The couple reported to have worn Christian Dior haute couture because that couture. Dior is one of the famous brands owned by LVMH, along with others like Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. The couple's shoes coming from Christian Louboutin with Swift saying that Swift said to have worn jewelry from Cartier. Comedian Adam Sandler apparently was the surprise officiant at the ceremony.

7:54Wedding wedding planner. You know, the whole the whole thing, despite not wedding, wedding singer. Why did I call wedding planner? Despite celebrity star power on hand, that included, by the way, Bradley Cooper, Karla Klaas, Steven Spielberg. We have yet to see any official photos from inside the venue, though there are a lot of A.I. pictures. I don't know if you've seen. And then maybe friend of the show, Adam Aaron, I don't know if you saw, seems to have posted a whole thing about the wedding and then seemed to have taken it down with all sorts of interesting description about what they had done to transform the inside of the garden with pink carpets and all sorts of flowing things, apparently you never really realized you were, it was done so well, supposedly, that you wouldn't even know you were inside the garden, which is pretty amazing.

8:46That would be the hope, right? Well, I've always thought to myself, how could you even do a wedding inside the garden? What would that look like? They must have taken over the garden at least for three days, given the load in, maybe even four days think about the cost of that um is kind of an extraordinary extraordinary thing one way to prevent cameras from getting in there though uh but cameras everywhere on the outside i mean they they they they they shot everybody coming in and out of the wedding and uh and all that so a royal wedding in new york city initially i was thinking if i had my choice where to get married at like msg would be like dead last but i guess if you get if it's going to be a spectacle than you.

9:30It was a big wedding. A thousand by a thousand plus people. I thought it might be a head fake that they just pretend to be there somewhere else.

9:42Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, the big SpaceX donation, shares from COO Gwynne Shotwell to the Trump accounts newly launched, and an extended conversation with a Silicon Valley veteran and investor who helped make these accounts happen, Brad Gerstner. Remember, when Apple built iOS, they also built a mail app and a calendaring app and a browser app called Safari to compete with Google. They built a lot of apps of their own, and I'm certain that OpenAI and Anthropic are going to build some apps of their own. Is it stealing? It depends on who you ask. I don't think that's stealing.

10:18I think the history of Silicon Valley is a history of competition like that. We'll be right back. trading at schwab is now powered by ameritrade unlocking the power of thinkorswim the award-winning trading platforms loaded with features that let you dive deeper into the market visualize your trades in a new light on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools all while you uncover new opportunities with up-to-the-minute market news and insights thinkorswim is available on desktop web and mobile to meet you where you are it's built by the trading obsessed to help you trade brilliantly.

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11:59Welcome back. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Before the long holiday weekend, our Joe Kernan sat down with President Trump to discuss a range of issues, like today's launch of Trump Accounts, investment vehicles for American children under 18. Here's part of that conversation. Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire? I haven't. No, I wrote him a note. I said, congratulations. Very good. I have a very good relationship with Elon. Elon and I had a little dispute because he backed me 100 percent. He liked me. He still likes me. But I did a little thing called the electric mandate.

12:36We're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have an electric car, where your beautiful son standing over there is mandated to have an electric car. if he wants gas-generated or gasoline-generated or a hybrid. And I made so many speeches, and Elon was there for many of them, and I'd always say, we will not have the electric band-aid. But when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that, and I can understand it, but he's doing good. He's moved on. Do you think, if you talk to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about, or donating SpaceX stock to Trump accounts?

13:15Well, I think that he will do that. Micron, which is a great company, that's still did it. Michael Tell is a fantastic guy. He did$6 ,250 ,000. And that was part of my conversation with President Trump last Thursday. Earlier this morning, SpaceX President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, posting on X, writing, my husband and I are honored and thrilled to participate in the Invest America program and gift a share of our SpaceX stock to a Trump account for each of more than 2 million children across our great nation. And later this morning, we're going to speak at length with Altimeter Capital CEO and founder of Invest America, Brad Gerstner.

14:00There's bell ringing, there's NASDAQ button pushing, all kinds of things happening from the White House, I think, this morning as well. I mean, I will say it's a great plan to do this. Again, from the investment tool perspective, from financial literacy for kids, from the idea that you're teaching them to save, from the idea that this is a long-term retirement account that you can set up for them, I don't see any downside at all to this. And it's a great opportunity. I think it's just at a time where it just shockingly we're questioning capitalism versus socialism, that if you get everyone involved with the stake in capitalism, other than just transfer pay or whatever we've done in the past, I think this is for financial literacy and just to have some skin in the game and to have something when you turn 18, actually have something built up.

15:01I think it's great. And to encourage long term investing because you're stuck in it. I mean, that's the whole point of it, which is which is the point and a half. Right. We're going to talk to Brad a little bit later. Also understand how Gwen and others may or may not donate. There's a whole question about that, which is a separate issue about how they're doing that, given the way the law is is written. And it'd be fascinating just to understand how the Treasury, because we reported that the Treasury was debating this, but they had come down back then on the side that they that the statute didn't allow them to do it.

15:35And now they're doing it. So trying to understand how that happens is going to be interesting.

15:42Trump accounts are kicking off on Saturday, July 4th. And our next guest was instrumental in making it happen. I want to bring in Altimeter Capital founder and CEO, Brad Gerstner. He is a founder of Invest America. Congratulations to you. I know we've been talking about this for a very, very long time and it is now official. It is real. And not only is it real, Brad, but one of the major transformations is something you've been working on behind the scenes for the past couple of months that led to Gwen Shotwell's donation over the weekend. Yeah, incredible to be here, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

16:15You know, I remember coming on Squawk Box three or four years ago when we first started talking about this. And, of course, last July 4th, the president signed the Invest America Act into law as part of the big, beautiful bill that created an investment account for every child at birth. You know, every child gets on their phone a little share of Microsoft and NVIDIA, etc. That started on Saturday. You can gift into these accounts. every child forevermore born into this country under the age of two is going to get a thousand dollars invested in the S &P 500 that can compound for their lifetime.

16:48If you start with a thousand dollars as you know and that is matched and you add just ten dollars a week that's fifty thousand dollars for every child at 18. This makes real the promise of the American dream not for some but for everybody. Every child a shareholder in the upside of America. So today is a big celebration. We're going to have the first ever, first ever joint bell ringing by the NASDAQ and NYSE and the first ever remote bell ringing from the Oval Office at 930 Eastern Time. So it's a great celebration. We've got incredible CEOs from Michael Dell to Ryan McInerney and across the spectrum who've joined the Invest America CEO Council who are giving huge contributions of their own.

17:28And of course, you mentioned Gwen Shotwell's gift this morning, an extraordinary gift. Two million shares of SpaceX to two million kids that they'll hold in their accounts over the course of the next 10 to 20 years. And when they're 18, they can hold on to the shares of SpaceX or sell those shares. But it shows the flexibility of this platform. This is not a program. This is a platform. It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country. One of the things you've been working on, I know tirelessly behind the scenes also, is trying not just to get individuals to donate, but to get companies to match.

18:07Where are you in that? I know a whole number of big companies have signed on thus far. But where do you see this going over the next, call it, 12 months? It's incredible, the outpouring of support. You know, I've said many times, America is the most giving country on the planet. and the last year has definitely affirmed my belief in that. The president asked Michael Dell and I to go out and raise$100 billion for these Trump accounts. And we're well on our way. We've already have commitments of tens of billions of dollars into these accounts. And I would say across corporate America, across the business round table, across the S &P 500, our hit rate must be over 90%.

18:46Everybody wants to participate in this. But here's the key. This is not just about the largest companies in America. You know, take Altimeter. We have 36 employees at Altimeter. We have about 85 kids of those employees and we're going to donate to every one of those kids accounts. This is for every small business, every local restaurant, every landscaper, every contractor, every medium sized business and every large business. We make it really easy to add money to these accounts. Every account has a QR code associated with it. All you have to do is Apple Pay or use a debit card, and you can transfer money into any of these accounts.

19:22And so we hope that, you know, working with the Small Business Association and many others, that we're going to expand this. And it's already starting to take off among not only the largest companies in America, which, of course, you know all the incredible names, right, from NVIDIA to Salesforce, from Dell to iHeart, but to all businesses in America. Yeah. Hey, Brad, there was a question I think that was raised about, you know, for a family that's thinking about putting their own money into these accounts, which I think is a big part of this to get the sort of compounding effective at longer term.

19:54You know, should you put money into, you know, if you if you only had a choice between this and a 529 account or you're thinking about funding your 401k, how should should people at home think about that? Yeah. Well, first, Andrew, we have about 16.8 million 529 accounts in America. And 90 plus percent of those are with people in the top 10 percent of income. So 529 accounts, which is a college saving account, is perfectly good. But the fact of the matter is it does not fulfill the president's Main Street agenda. The Main Street agenda is for the 75 percent of families that today feel like they're left out and left behind, like the American dream is escaping them.

20:33We're going to get every single one of those families into the game. right and so I hope that over the course of the next few months we're going to be auto creating with the social security administration 70 million accounts for every kid under the age of 18 so that we can get this money into those accounts and and get it compounding and for moms and dads here's what I would say to you you know even we've done lots of studies all cohorts of Americans want to see their kids do better if it's five dollars if it's ten bucks it's as easy as double clicking Apple Pay on your phone. Most families have this.

21:07You can Venmo money into the accounts. We want to make it frictionless for friends and family and parents to contribute a few bucks at a time into these accounts. Every time money hits these accounts, Andrew, it's automatically swept the next day into the S &P 500. So they will be fully invested in the greatest companies in America, compounding in the upside of America, true direct ownership. This is not a government program. These are individual private accounts for 70 million Americans, hopefully over the course of the next few months where they own the best companies. They own NVIDIA and Microsoft and Apple and Walmart, et cetera.

21:43And so we're well on our way. Today's a big celebration, a big milestone. And, you know, hopefully we'll we'll see a lot of people get on board. One more on Trump accounts, and then we want to get your sense on the markets and AI and everything else. But, you know, the thing that you've been working on the past couple of months to try to get, you know, big investors like a Gwen Shotwell. The president mentioned last week that he thinks potentially Elon Musk could donate SpaceX shares as well into these funds. And then the individual who receives those would then be what would hold on to this, that actual stock itself.

22:20I want to understand how that happened. And I ask because I know there was a big debate inside the Treasury Department about whether the big, beautiful bill technically allowed for it. The language in that bill said that eligible investments were strictly, quote, any mutual fund or exchange traded fund. And the idea, I think, was to make sure that those investments were, quote, unquote, diversified. There is this other catch all language and maybe that's what they're leaning on. But I'm sure you've been reading all that language and I know there's debate about it. So I wanted to understand it.

22:48Yeah, no, it's a great question. The last thing anybody wants is crony capitalism. We don't want the government picking and choosing stocks, which is why the legislation required that any cash into the accounts automatically swept into the S &P 500. But the legislature gave broad authority to a whole group of categories, which included gifting. So only shares gifted into the accounts can remain as shares. Any cash that comes to the account has to be going into those index funds. And so if you look at the broad exclusionary language, the 530A accounts established, it basically said these have to be treated like 408A accounts, IRA accounts, except were otherwise determined by the Treasury Secretary.

23:33And the Treasury Secretary, obviously, IRA accounts never contemplated gifts from folks like Michael Dell or Gwen Shotwell. So we had to come up with a set of rules. The Treasury Department promulgated those rules. The president tweeted about it last week. I was very happy. I'm telling you, the idea that Warren Buffett could give a share of Berkshire Hathaway to every kid in America, that Elon Musk could give shares of SpaceX, that Sergey Brin could give shares of Google, this idea will unlock transformative philanthropy and get everybody into the game. It's all upside for the kids of America.

24:05So I'm thrilled we're heading down this path. Also wanted to get your thoughts, Brad, though, on where we are in the AI, if we call it cycle boom, what you want to describe it as. But I wanted to get your reaction really more than anything to Alex Karp's comments on our air last week, which I know have caused a lot of conversation in the Valley. He said that he believes that a lot of CEOs, corporate CEOs around the country are upset with some of the big LLMs and anthropic open AI, thinks they're overcharging, thinks they're stealing from them. These people are livid. They're like, I am paying for tokens that create no value.

24:46These people are stealing the weights and alpha of my business, and they're creating a wealth tax that does not help the poor. It just punishes, starts with the billionaires. Every single person at this table is going to be paying a wealth tax only to punish us. And the reason for it is because these models have been completely over, irresponsibly overselled. And the sell is it's dangerous for everyone, which is why I can give it to all your adversaries. But I can't give it to the Department of War or I can't safely give it to an enterprise in this country without being certain that the alpha of that business could transfer to this model tomorrow.