Marc Lipschultz, Blue Owl co-CEO, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the interest rate environment, state of the economy, President Trump's attempted firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, broadening access to private markets in retirement plans, and more. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/42d859g
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Questions asked in this interview
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0:32When you think about where interest rates are today, you think about the Lisa Cook situation, you think about the tariff situation — are you surprised that this is where we are?
1:42Or do you say, 'I don't know, I want to wait it out'?
2:10And so does that suggest — what does that suggest?
2:44And do you think it will appear in rates at some point or in the market?
3:04And so you don't think — you think all of this other stuff is noise to you?
3:27I mean, is that something that you would say, 'Well, I don't like this, and I'm worried about Fed independence'?
4:12So you're not willing — you're not ready to sell $284 billion worth of Treasuries because of angst about this situation?
4:57Is this a dangerous thing? What is this to you?
6:07I'm not suggesting that's going to happen from you, but from others — you just don't know, right?
Welcome back to Squawk Box. Joining us right now with a look at the interest rate environment, President Trump's executive order aiming to broaden access to private markets in retirement plans, and so much more. We've got a lot to talk about with this gentleman, Marc Lipschultz here, co-CEO of Blue Owl Capital. I can't even believe this number. Now this is crazy. We've known you a long time now — $284 billion in assets under management, sir.
Let's talk. Let's do interest rates real quick. And then I want to get to sort of the larger private markets situation, because I think we are going through almost a generational change in financial markets potentially. When you think about where interest rates are today, you think about the Lisa Cook situation, you think about the tariff situation — are you surprised that this is where we are?
So I'm thankful to be in the business we're in, where we do, as you know, products that are intended to be durable to whatever rate path we're on. So at some level, this sort of, let me call it, generally speaking, higher for longer — I'm not surprised about it at all. You know, we've seen this, and we talked about this the last time we were together. When we just look at the fundamentals: number one, just the cost structure for American businesses, businesses in general. Well, certainly inflation is well off its peak. It's not gone. And number two, like, what's a normal cost of capital? Part of this is relative to what we had — this long distorted period of time where rates were zero. That's not normal. Having, you know, Treasury rates in the four-something range is rather normal.
Given everything you know from your own portfolio in terms of how businesses are doing, do you look and say Jay Powell is too late and he really needs to cut interest rates? Or do you say, 'I don't know, I want to wait it out'?
The reality is we have about 400 companies now that we lend capital to — almost all here in the US. All reasonable indicators and business is good. I mean, the last quarter's performance, on average, we had businesses performing basically double-digit growth.
Look, I'm thankful that I don't have to forecast the rate, as I said. So I don't know the right path. I have a lot of confidence in the Fed, and I have a lot of confidence that we'll get there. But I don't know if it needs to go lower sooner. I do say this with confidence: we're in a world where we're going to be in, I think, higher rates overall for longer, number one. And number two, there's a lot of exogenous variables that make it awfully hard to say the answer to.
Look, at the moment it does not. Obviously, at the end of the day, I think we have incredibly durable markets, and I have a lot of confidence in those markets, I really do. And we have a really durable economy at the moment.
Lipschultz, M. (2025, September 3). We're going to be in a higher rate environment for longer, says Blue Owl co-CEO Marc Lipschultz [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023141/
MLA
Marc Lipschultz. "We're going to be in a higher rate environment for longer, says Blue Owl co-CEO Marc Lipschultz." CNBC Television, 3 Sep. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023141/.
BibTeX
@misc{lipschultz2025_3023141,
author = {Marc Lipschultz},
title = {We're going to be in a higher rate environment for longer, says Blue Owl co-CEO Marc Lipschultz},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023141/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
