World Cup Bets, HUD Secretary, & an Unconventional IPO 6/10/26

16:42Brad Briner:I think maybe there's some ties that stand. Don't they? I don't know. I don't know enough about it.

16:48Leslie Picker:I thought you went to sudden death, too, and you wouldn't. I know.

16:52Brad Briner:Maybe it happened. I remember because you can see I'm still. I could have really used that.

16:59Leslie Picker:Here's what your problem is. The standard two-way money line is. I'm going to ask people if that's true. You bet a three-way money line. That's what happened. Yeah, I bet a three-way. A three-way money line, the market offers a third betting option, tie or draw. Three-way money lines strictly apply to regulation time only. So you're just a dumb better. You should have gone with the standard two-way money line.

17:18Brad Briner:I'm still, I could have used that. I could have used that$5.

17:23Leslie Picker:You've been missing it ever since.

17:25Brad Briner:I could have used it.

17:26Leslie Picker:Three-way money line means it ends in regulation. Yeah, three-way money line ends in regulation.

17:32Brad Briner:It was like user hair, probably.

17:35Leslie Picker:No, it really isn't three-way money line. That's the way it works. But not in the standard two-way money line.

17:39Brad Briner:Be aware. Yeah. Stupid soccer. I think they should be able to use their hands anyway. You can if you're the goalie. That's right. Well, if you can, it's just not fair. Cheese will be next.

17:53Leslie Picker:Coming up on Squawk Pod, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner joins us.

17:58Scott Turner:We've been very intentional about tearing down the regulatory environment and also encouraging local governments and state governments, take inventory of your regulation. What's crippling development?

18:09Leslie Picker:Homeownership Month, right after this break.

18:15Brad Briner:Bitcoin is often talked about as an investment, but it was built to be used. With Cash App, you can actually do that. Send Bitcoin instantly, pay at local Square businesses that accept it, or move it to your own wallet whenever you want. It works more like real money and less like something locked in an account. For a limited time, new customers can get$10 added to their balance. Just use code CASHAPP10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part. Send at least$5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners.

19:00Brad Briner:Bitcoin services provided by Block, Inc. brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app slash legal slash podcast.

19:10Leslie Picker:At Venture Global, we think about what can be done, not what's usually done. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

20:00Brad Briner:new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2024 and September 2025. Potential savings will vary.

20:09Leslie Picker:Welcome back to Squawk Pod today with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. It is National Home Ownership Month, and with high mortgage rates and millions of Americans priced out of the market, the Trump administration is working on plans to try and cut regulation and boost affordable housing. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner joins us this morning. And Secretary, thank you for being here.

20:32Scott Turner:Thank you, Becky. Great to be here.

20:33Leslie Picker:All right. Let's talk about the state of the American housing situation at this point. Where do things stand?

20:39Scott Turner:Well, as you alluded to, the president has been laser focused on bringing housing costs down and making homes more affordable for the American people. As I travel around the country, and I've been to over 40 unique cities already in the last 15 months, the number one thing I hear what's crippling our housing development is regulations, regulations on the state level, the local level and at the federal level. So we've been very intentional about tearing down the regulatory environment and also encouraging local governments and state governments, take inventory of your regulation. What's crippling development?

21:11Scott Turner:What's causing construction to be delayed? What's causing the cost of houses to go up? And so regulations is the number one thing. We just released our best practices report, our regulatory best practices report, which I encourage people to go look at to help cities and states say, hey, how can we ease the permanent process? How can we modernize our processes? How can we get rid of duplicative fees? When you look at regulation, it adds up about$100 ,000 per single family home. That's not sustainable. $100 ,000? $100 ,000. Think about this, Becky.

21:40Leslie Picker:That's more than just a few fees along the way.

21:42Scott Turner:It is. It's fees, it's zoned, and it's duplicative processes. The medium price of a home in America is about$426 ,000. $100 ,000 of that is in regulations and regulatory environment. If you take that away, it brings down the cost of a house or more Americans can afford to buy. So regulations taking that cost down, bring a supply up with lawyers to focus on.

22:04Leslie Picker:One of the biggest complaints that I remember hearing from under the Biden administration was that the any push for affordable housing required that you use union workers to go along with it. And some builders will complain and say that that was not something that was going to lead to affordable housing. How do you do this and still make sure that you're getting good paying jobs that are coming out of these things?

22:24Scott Turner:Well, if you think about in America, you know, America was built on the backs of hardworking people. I came out of development industry, construction industry. We need to increase our trades. And this is just a side note, increase our trades in America for welders, for plumbers, for builders in the construction industry. But these are great paying jobs. But again, because of the regulatory environment, all the fees go up, which makes the cost of building go up, which makes it harder to get good labor and good tradesmen. So when you tear down these regulations and you make it easier to build and easier to buy, job paying goes up.

22:58Scott Turner:The more people you need, it goes up as far as the trades. And so it's all really together. And when you take this regulatory environment down, costs go down, supply goes up and jobs are created.

23:10Leslie Picker:No question that regulatory overreach has impacted the cost of housing coming in, but it's also been impacted by fewer immigrants being allowed into the country to work in some of these trades. It's been impacted by the tariffs that have created higher prices for lumber and so forth. How do you comment?

23:26Scott Turner:Well, yeah, I'm a pushback on that from the immigration standpoint. We have enough American people to take American jobs.

23:31Leslie Picker:You know, when you look at a pretty good labor market, right? We have a relatively low unemployment rate. We do. We have the biggest complaint from small businesses is that they can't find the labor.

23:40Scott Turner:About 4.3 unemployment rate, which is good. You know, the market is very sustainable right now. But we have enough American people to take American jobs. When you look at tens of millions of people coming across our border unchecked, unvetted from a HUD standpoint.

23:54Leslie Picker:I'm not looking for unchecked immigration. No, I know that.

23:56Scott Turner:But from a HUD standpoint, from a housing standpoint, it makes the cost go up for housing. Houses for American people are taken by those that are not here legally. And so it all comes together. We have enough American people for the American job. So I don't really buy that.

24:11Leslie Picker:What about the idea of higher lumber prices and other issues that have come through from the tariffs? Because some of the builders we've had on the program.

24:16Scott Turner:Yeah, and I understand that. But the president's laser focus on that to bring those costs down as well. And the builders know it. You know, home sales have gone up the last, the highest they've been since December. And so I'm not concerned about that. Consumer confidence is high. Builders just need these regulations to come down. Mr.

24:32Brad Briner:Secretary, you like either one of the versions of the 21st century road to housing? Well, I mean, I understand the idea. It almost sounds like you're layering layering some new regulations, you know, with institutional ownership sort of. I guess they softened it in the House. Some of the precluding the not allowing them to do it. But the arguments were, yeah, it sounds good in a populist way. But a lot of institutions fund the housing and then you get, you know, it helps with people that are going to rent and it helps in the upkeep of a lot of a lot of places. Do you like everything about that law?

25:08Brad Briner:What's your perfect law?

25:10Scott Turner:The House and the Senate, you know, one thing I'm glad that they're working together to get a comprehensive bill, you know, as it pertains to housing. We've given our comments as it pertains to HUD in the road, the housing bill, things that will impact HUD. And so we've had great conversation with the leader, Mike Johnson, and with Senator Thune's team and Senator Tim Scott. I know they're all working very hard on this bill, which I'm glad about. The president is supportive of the bill. So I'm hopeful that in due time they'll get something across the finish line. I don't think that, you know, coming from the legislator, you're not going to like everything and every bill that comes to the House or the Senate.

25:44Scott Turner:But we have been involved in it from a HUD standpoint. But I'm looking forward to the final version.

25:49Leslie Picker:We have interest rates have picked up recently, and that's been a huge issue that the president's been concerned about. I think many people will look at affordability and say it's going to be more difficult if you don't lower interest rates. Where are you anticipating mortgage rates are going to be and what does it mean if we don't see a rate cut this year?

26:07Scott Turner:Well, you know, obviously, you know, that's my my lane of expertise as far as where the mortgage rates will be. I know they're humming around about six, three or six, four right now. But again, you know, since December, the high sale price of home sales have gone up. People buying houses, if you will. And so I think consumers. Yes, we all want the interest rates to go down, but people are still buying homes. I don't know what the Fed is going to do. Obviously, I want them to come down. The president wants them to come down for the American people. But the market has been on a sustainable run. It's been fluctuating.

26:39Scott Turner:But as I look at it, Becky, our market is strong. Economy is strong. The president is later focused on domestic poly and securing our homeland to make sure that the American people are safe. And I think the Americans trust that.

26:52Leslie Picker:What's your biggest concern when you look out there right now?

26:56Scott Turner:You know, my biggest concern is that the people get the right information, you know, because there's good things going on in our country from a policy standpoint. If you look at the working family tax cut or the one big, beautiful bill that was passed, those policies are going to bless the American people now and for the long term. When you look at the permanency of opportunity zones, which I've had a big role in leading opportunity zones, that's going to create long term sustainability and growth in our country. But the mainstream media doesn't talk about these things. And so people in our country, they're not getting all the correct information.

27:29Scott Turner:And that's a concern.

27:31Leslie Picker:The opportunity zones to make sure that investors will put money into these areas and spend to make sure that they're right. Right.

27:37Scott Turner:So Opportunity Zones thus far have raised about$100 billion in private money to go in some of the most distressed communities in our country, creating 400 ,000 new housing units, 500 ,000 new jobs, a million people lifted out of poverty. But the media doesn't talk about this, but that is really going on in America. And so I do the best thing I can to be an ambassador for these policies to share with the American people that good things are happening and just keep being steadfast and confident because great days are ahead.

28:07Leslie Picker:Secretary Turner, thank you. Thank you.

28:09Scott Turner:Thank you, babe.

28:12Leslie Picker:Next on Squawk Pod, we are two days away from SpaceX's IPO. IPOs can present a unique battleground where nonconformity can be either rewarded or punished. And as order books close today in about eight hours' time, we'll begin to get a sense of whether SpaceX's unique process has been a boon for the deal or a barrier. And the many winners of that IPO, if all goes well. The Ontario teachers put in$220 million seven years ago, and I think they're going to see a payoff of$11 billion. Brad Breiner, treasurer of North Carolina, on the state's pension's stake in Anthropic, OpenAI, and the eventual stake in SpaceX.

28:55Brad Briner:The innovation is fantastic and iconic in many cases. The question is whether the valuation is iconic too.

29:04Leslie Picker:Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

29:33Brad Briner:Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water, or parked under the stars. At Progressive, they get that you want to focus on the experience, not worry about the what-ifs. That's why they offer quality insurance designed for your ride, whether that's a boat, RV, or motorcycle. Adventure with confidence. Visit Progressive.com and see how easy it is to protect your favorite way to get away. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Not available in D.C. Prices vary based on how you buy

30:03Leslie Picker:When I need to impress someone with a gift I go straight to 1-800-Flowers There's a reason they've spent 50 years as the floral authority Every stem is hand-selected by a vetted florist And with same-day delivery nationwide 100 % satisfaction guaranteed That's why millions go to 1-800-Flowers To celebrate life's most important moments Order now for up to 40 % off Don't miss out on this limited time offer Act now and save up to 40 % at 1-800-Flowers.com slash SXM. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash SXM.

30:37Brad Briner:This is Squawk Pod. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Joe Kernan, along with Becky Quick. Andrew is off today, just two days now until SpaceX is expected to begin trading right here at the NASDAQ. Reuters says investor demand for the IPO currently stands at about$250 billion versus the$75 billion the company wants to raise. That's more an indication of how demand is tracking rather than a hard number. According to the report, long-only funds have submitted some sizable orders for the sale of shares.

31:12Leslie Picker:Elon Musk is taking his rocket company public in an unconventional way. Leslie Picker joins us with more on this. And Leslie, it seems like the buildup is growing every day as we get closer to that IPO. Yeah, every minute of every day, Becky, you're right. Elon Musk is doing the SpaceX IPO his way. Typically, you'd have a price range to market the deal. In this case, it's a fixed price of$135 per share. Usually, executives from an IPO-ing company would abide by a quiet period. Here, Elon Musk did a live stream over X with JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and SpaceX's CFO Brett Johnson. And he sat down with investor Gavin Baker for an interview that was published on X.

31:56Leslie Picker:And normally, retail allocation would be a mere sliver of the offering. But SpaceX is targeting about 30 % for individual investors. In terms of IPO conventions, they're really thrown out the window here. Some applaud Musk's simplification of the process and removal of the usual friction and gamesmanship involved. Others criticize it as risky and untested, especially since the$75 billion debut would be the largest of all time. Guys, remember Mark Zuckerberg when he famously showed up to the Facebook IPO Roadshow in 2012 wearing a casual hoodie and faced major Wall Street backlash over it, rankling some investors who saw it as immature and disrespectful.

32:42Leslie Picker:Institutional investors have learned a lot about and embraced tech culture in the ensuing 14 years. But IPOs can present a unique battleground where nonconformity can be either rewarded or punished. And as order books close today in about eight hours time, we'll begin to get a sense of whether SpaceX's unique process has been a boon for the deal or a barrier? Guys. I can't even imagine somebody giving a sideways glance at Zuckerberg or anybody else showing up in a hoodie today. We've come a long way.

33:14Brad Briner:John Fetterman. And there's actually, there's a FedEx commercial and several commercials about what a power play is in corporate America.

33:25Leslie Picker:And one of them is a guy in a hoodie.

33:28Brad Briner:And he looks They picked the actor they got, I guess.

33:32Leslie Picker:Looks like a slacker.

33:33Brad Briner:Yeah, and he says things like sick and cool, and everybody else looks at him like, you're such a tool. But you can. It is a flex.

33:42Leslie Picker:Did you say that?

33:43Brad Briner:A tool? I'm not very sure. Anyway.

33:46Leslie Picker:Leslie, thank you.

33:48Brad Briner:I think he wears it pretty well. I think he does too. Yeah. I still like the Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Zuckerberg better than the Mark Zuckerberg.

33:57Leslie Picker:You've been trained.

33:58Brad Briner:I have.

33:58Leslie Picker:By media. Joining us right now is a state treasurer whose portfolio holds stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI and who will be an owner of SpaceX once it joins key indexes. Right now, we want to bring in Brad Briner. He is North Carolina's state treasurer. And Brad, thank you very much for being with us today. We don't often think of state treasurers being the ones who are buying some of these big purchases in not yet publicly traded companies. How did you first get involved with OpenAI and Anthropic? Sure.

34:33Brad Briner:So I've been treasurer 18 months, and it's been an interesting journey so far. But the 25 years prior to that, I was in the investment business, running Mike Bloomberg's family office, among other things. So familiar with these companies from my time there, I saw the promise of the technology that underlies these for our country and for our state and wanted our state to benefit from their successes. So we looked for those stakes over the course of the last 18 months and have been successful in being able to invest in some of these iconic companies, but certainly not all of them.

35:04Leslie Picker:Yeah, let's talk about the amounts that you've invested. And I do think that your background managing money like this is a huge advantage. A lot of times you have elected officials who don't necessarily have that background. You own what in terms of open AI? I think it's about$40 million at cost that you put in. And then when it comes to Anthropic,$600 million? Correct.

35:28Brad Briner:We put in a quarter billion into Anthropic earlier this year. That is now worth a little bit over$600. We managed just about$200 billion for the people of North Carolina, the teachers and the firefighters and the police officers. And so we're trying to bring them world-class investment management, which they certainly haven't always had.

35:46Leslie Picker:And when you got involved with those companies, I mean, And should I read into it that you put$250 million into Anthropic versus$40 million into OpenAI, that you like what you saw with Anthropic better?

35:58Brad Briner:Well, certainly you can read that into it in part. But there's also serious capacity challenges in these companies. It's not a secret that they are world-leading innovation. It's not a secret to a lot of investors that there's likely substantial future gains in these positions as a result. So there are real capacity challenges in getting money to work in these companies in the private markets. So we fight that as well.

36:23Leslie Picker:Capacity, meaning you couldn't get enough access to it or or meaning. I'm sorry. Explain that a little. Correct.

36:30Brad Briner:Yeah. So we manage 200 billion dollars. And so trying to build a real position is challenging at that scale of money. And we're not the only investor trying to do that. So you're routinely trying to fight to get sufficient dollars to work into compelling investment situations in the pension world particularly. And so sometimes we get all we want, sometimes we don't. And that is partly reflected in the position size as well.

36:54Leslie Picker:Do you like one of the companies over the other? Are you just kind of scrambling at this point to get access to any of these hot properties?

37:02Brad Briner:Not any of them. We're pretty deliberate in the ones that we think are going to be great businesses and are reasonably priced. I think the innovation is fantastic and iconic in many cases. The question is whether the valuation is iconic, too. And so we have to factor that in in every decision we make. We saw an opportunity, Anthropic, which we thought was completely mispriced earlier this year. If you use that technology, you see how powerful it is. You were talking about Mythos earlier. And that is truly an amazing level of artificial intelligence. So we wanted to be involved in that.

37:34Leslie Picker:Could you not get access to SpaceX? Is that why you don't own it at this point?

37:38Brad Briner:We could. There's been a pricing issue that we've been concerned about for the last year or so with SpaceX. Again, Elon Musk, an amazing entrepreneur, incredible technology to launch business, Starlink, etc. But at some point, things are fully priced. We're trying to make a high single digit predictable rate of return for our retirees. And we've got to consider valuation when we do that. And so certainly SpaceX at$1.75 trillion is a big valuation. And so we will ultimately participate in SpaceX through our index positions and our public equity. But we don't have any on the private side.

38:14Leslie Picker:Does that mean are you a fan of them getting wrapped into the index at this point or not? There has been some controversy around that because the rules were changed to allow them into the index sooner than would have been happening otherwise.

38:28Brad Briner:Let me say it this way. I'm pretty impressed with S &P for not changing their rules. some real pressure to do so, and I appreciate them sticking to their discipline. I understand the scale of these companies and how important they are, but we rely on index rules for a reason. They represent the broad swath of the American economy, and they give us exposure to companies that meet certain criteria. And so changing them on a moment's notice to accommodate a single IPO is a little troubling, but I certainly understand why they've done it. But I do have a lot of respect for S &P to stick into their guns.

39:03Brad Briner:Yeah, that and a quarter will get them a cup of coffee that they did. We're at the NASDAQ. We're glad the NASDAQ went for it. But at least I am. I don't know. And my other question. So a year ago, when you decided not to participate in SpaceX, I think you said that it wasn't at one point seven five trillion. Did you turn down the opportunity to buy into SpaceX at like$500 billion? We didn't have that opportunity at scale, no. You didn't have an opportunity. What could you have? Did you have an opportunity to participate in SpaceX a year ago? At$5 or$10 million, sure. At$5 or$10 million, yes. on a$200 billion base, though we didn't think it was appropriately valued, and obviously we're wrong, but it certainly wouldn't have moved the needle at scale anyway.

39:57Brad Briner:Yeah, what was it valued at when you said no to the$5 or$10 million investment? I believe it was in the$700 billion range. Okay, yeah, that still would have been pretty good. Right, but Anthropics had been better. Yeah, that's true. It is always a relative business. That's right. You can't buy everything, I guess. In hindsight, it's 2020 and everything else. There was a time when Elon Musk didn't, I mean, do you remember he said it was all riding on one launch? That wasn't that long ago. Where if that launch hadn't worked, would there be a SpaceX at this point? I mean, his whole, I mean, talk about rolling the dice, that guy.

40:39Leslie Picker:He probably could have put some more money into it. I guess he could. To support it.

40:42Brad Briner:Yeah, but they're out of money. In a prior job, I got the pitch in 2011 for SpaceX, and we thought it was pretty fantastic. We had a small exposure that's become a very big exposure for a prior institution. That's funny.

40:57Leslie Picker:I was going to say the Ontario teachers put in$220 million seven years ago, and I think they're going to see a payoff of$11 billion at the IPO based on that. So being early has massive advantages. And I guess it's hard for oftentimes pension funds to get access to some of those things. It sounds like you are really trying to push and move the needle when it comes to that, though. We are.

41:21Brad Briner:There's scale challenges that are very real at what we're trying to manage. But it's also access premium, so to speak. Pension fund investors, appropriately so, are very public about what we do. And many of these private companies don't have any interest in that. So we're a little bit disadvantaged through that public disclosure. But, of course, these are public money. So we have to disclose things publicly, and we should, which leads us to having a challenge often in getting access to some of the most innovative companies in the private market. You just managed money for Mike? You were never part of any of his campaigns, were you?

41:56Brad Briner:No. I worked for Mike on the family office side for a dozen years. I had a fantastic experience. Maybe Mom Donnie's got a family office we don't know about at this point. Are you available? Maybe, but I'm pretty happy to be down here in North Carolina, let me tell you that. It's a good place to, oh my God. Yeah, you're not here anymore. Anyway. Not a New York Times Fair anymore either, Joe.

42:22Leslie Picker:That's Squawk Pod for today. Thank you for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross-Lorkin weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 a.m. Eastern. To get the smartest takes and analysis from that TV show right into your ears, Follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

42:45Brad Briner:We are clear. Thanks, guys.

42:57Leslie Picker:Everyone's talking about protein lately, but how do you actually get enough of it? Muscle milk. Muscle milk has a great tasting new formula with no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or added colors. It's high-quality, complete protein designed to support healthy muscles with fewer ingredients than the previous formula and 26 to 42 grams of protein. For when you're stuck in meetings or need a post-workout recovery. Available in chocolate, vanilla cream, cookies and cream, and strawberries and cream. Try the new great-tasting Muscle Milk today. Available in stores nationwide. Muscle Milk. Protein for all.