Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, a breakthrough treatment for genetic deafness approved by the FDA and available for free. Regeneron CEO Len Schlifer celebrates and looks to the future.
About 40% of the kids we treated could hear a whisper. They went from nothing, a jet engine, and then they can hear a whisper. That's big news. It really is big news.
When you studied science, Joe and I studied it. This was science fiction, but this is now a science reality.
And tech investor and adviser to the president, David Sacks, joins us. The feud between his former colleagues Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Plus, getting over the government's beef with Anthropic.
If Anthropic's concern here is around this mass surveillance, I'm concerned about that, too. I'm a civil libertarian. I don't want the government to be using AI to control the population or to censor us or to surveil us. I'm still waiting for a phone call for Anthropic. My phone is open.
Plus, the New York mayor versus the hedge funder. It's not a $15 million second home.
Isn't it a quarter billion?
I think it was even more than that.
A blowout quarter for Intel and the soldier who placed a winning Polymarket bet on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro. Did he have inside information? It's Friday, finally, April 24th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now.
Good morning everybody. 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 Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And happy Friday everybody. We're at the end of the week. Shares of Intel are soaring. You've got earnings of 29 cents a share coming in that beat estimates of just a penny. This was after the company already lowered expectations for the quarter, said they weren't going to make it, and then they beat even what had been expected earlier before they cut those losses. Revenue came in at 13.6 billion. That was much better than the 12.4 billion that analysts expected. Second quarter guidance was much higher than Wall Street consensus as well. Intel saw the strongest growth in its data center business with revenue up 22% to 5.1 billion. That stock is now up more than 80% year to date as of yesterday's close, indicated up by 28%. A lot of what they talked about was the idea that there was demand for all these chips that they had written off. They thought they were basically worthless chips, but there is so much demand for chips right now that all of those things are now selling.
I just came up with Sherwin Williams. You know how they poured over the top of the globe. It's like AI is just every dog has his day. I mean, AI is the effects are so far and wide and real effects for Intel. Then that was on Fast Money. So I already thought about all these things.
Oh, that's right. I forgot you did Fast Money. I've gone back to thinking that maybe the CHIPS Act. Remember we thought they picked the wrong, they can't pick winners. Suddenly that grant that turned into equity. I mean it looks almost like it was smart, which makes me again think, you know, the Journal's hammering the Spirit Airlines idea of bailing them out. Trump last night said they got zero debt, stocks, and the company's hurt because of temporary higher oil prices. We take a big stake in it. It's a great company. We keep all the employees and we make a bunch of money. Well, that was the thought during COVID too when you got shut down. It was a temporary situation. It was a pandemic that forced it.
Can you get lulled into thinking that statism works and is... you are apparently?
No, that's I'm just asking. I have the knee-jerk response is that none of this is good, but then I see things working like this. Maybe you got, you know, if you got a CEO type president. I know people, you know, they always impugn his businesses, but he made billions of dollars and he's got buildings all over the world and golf courses and everything else. You know, they focus on casinos.
The CHIPS Act originally was under the Biden administration, right? But the CHIPS Act also did not come with grants that were turning into equity.
It turned into equity. Well, that's a good, that's better part of industrial. I don't know what to think, but I never would you have believed it. We saw AMD at 400 billion when for years it had, you know, for decades it had been an also-ran. I think AMD is still above Intel but it must be close after if it's up what was it up $20?
So but here's the question. Would you prefer to be investing in businesses that have gotten lucky or that are good? And that's the question. Honestly, when you look at the success of an Intel today, I don't think you can sit around honestly and look at yourself in the mirror and say, 'This is a company that is good.' You'd say they got a little lucky along the way. It wasn't that they somehow were brilliant managers.
That was the other thing I was saying. Where's Pat Gelsinger? And did he set it up for this or did the new guy come in and he was so amazing that he did this and is Gelsinger somewhere going or is he got a bunch of stock and he's... or is this just the idea that there is so much demand for chips right now that these outdated chips were...
No, I know that's what I said. AI is like Sherwin Williams.
Well, and this is by the way you could take Intel which people think is an also-ran or you could take Apple and you could say, you know, they didn't get into AI, they should have done all these things and yet they're the beneficiaries right now of this sort of wild moment where everybody's buying a desktop Mac for the first time in a bajillion years. And is that because they were good or because they were lucky?
And I will also say if you're using taxpayer dollars, what you're doing is not trying to get the smartest investment in things. What you are doing is trying to ensure that American industry sticks around and that we don't lose jobs because of temporary situations like the Spirit Airlines situation. I mean, do you think that the GM bailout was a good thing? I do during the 2008 financial crisis.
That's total. Yeah, that's I guess AMD 500. So, it's half 497, but today I think Intel goes above 400.
Yeah. Gain of another 28%.
Meanwhile, let's talk about what's going on in the...
Can we order in this morning with our profits? Can we get some stuff with our...
You want to go to Starbucks and get some stuff? Who gets that? Who gets these profits?
Goes back to Treasury, wouldn't it? Hopefully it'll just reduce the debt.
A US Army special forces soldier was arrested accused of using classified information to make bets that won him $400,000 on Polymarket ahead of the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro. The DOJ says the soldier, Ganon Ken Van Dijk, was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve. The soldier was charged separately by the CFTC in a civil complaint with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act. President Trump was asked about the arrest yesterday.
Was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn't get him?
It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office that Maduro would be removed and it sounds like he was involved in the operation.
That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team. It's a little like Pete Rose. Pete Rose that kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good. But he bet on his own team. I'll look into it.
I mean, I thought it did occur to me that he was betting on a successful outcome and he didn't know beforehand that it was going to be. So, I know this goes back to work, but this goes back to the idea, what is your fiduciary duty?
I don't see how these... in any of these instances, but I think in this case, this was the right case to bring because it was classified information. So argue that if it was information that he knew because he was walking down the street and he saw his neighbor doing something that's totally different. But because he was a soldier with classified...
If it had been a bust and a terrible, you know, god forbid it hadn't been so good and it didn't work, would he have lost the money?
But you can't use classified data.
But again, by the way, it's a wild trading. The whole thing is crazy. I don't know how...
Losing your money is not an excuse. It doesn't get you out of insider trading. There have been lots of people who have lost money involved in insider trading and they have still gone to...
But the insider trading part is what gets me. Like, classified is the reason this is such a strong case because it's classified information. But I was going back to the idea of if you called Ben Affleck's son to ask if he was going to the Super Bowl and he said no he's not and you bet information on that. Why is that classified information? You know, like that doesn't rise to the level of insider information that should be acted like did you do anything wrong by doing that? That's...
Well, but let me ask you, I can't speak to that one. The question is in any instance that you are a government official of any sort when you work for the government.
Yeah. By default. By the way, if you're a police officer and you know that there's going to be a sting operation about something or even if you know that there's going to be a parade and they're worried about something terrible happening and you bet on all of these things are gambling to me. These are not derivatives contracts that should be taken care of by a market. I mean, all of those issues are so stupid to say that this is a derivatives contract. It's not a derivatives contract. This is just gambling. Flat out gambling. And I don't think a government insider should be using any of that information. But the idea of...
But what I'm saying is there's the government side, but then you know, Steve over here, our great stage manager who operates, he can see the scripts beforehand, right? And if he decides he wants to bet on what's going to be in the script, I would argue to you that he has, in the same way that the government...
If we're talking about publicly traded stocks that we have information that may be in the market, I think that's one thing. It's just if the next word out of my mouth is going to be...
Yes, if he knows that the next thing says coming up the Dow under pressure and that he's bet on that because he has access to that as an employee. Again, this is where I think the whole market in some ways is a complicated situation.
It's a wild world. It's impossible to regulate.
I think we all agree. But so if you have inside information...
Sorry, you got inside information.
Yeah. About something that's gonna happen, but it could go either way, but you know it's going to happen. If you lose, you still can be prosecuted.
Success is not a measure of...
Just because you try to rob the store...
Doesn't mean and you fail doesn't mean you don't go to jail.
That would be even worse.
Citadel blasting New York's mayor Zohran Mamdani for singling out CEO Ken Griffin in a push for a new pied-à-terre tax in New York targeting wealthy non-resident homeowners.
When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today we're taxing the rich.
At issue is this social media video. It was filmed right outside of Griffin's New York residence in which the mayor unveiled that proposed tax on homes valued above $5 million when the owner's primary residence is outside of New York City. In a memo obtained by CNBC, Citadel said that targeting Griffin showed quote ignorance and disdain towards contributors to the city's economy. Citadel highlighted that its employees, including non-residents, have paid nearly $2.3 billion in New York City and state taxes over the past 5 years. And the memo pointed to the firm's planned redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue, a project expected to generate about 6,000 construction jobs and more than 15,000 permanent roles with spending to exceed $6 billion. And I think if you really read the memo carefully, there's a little bit of a threat in there that maybe they wouldn't necessarily do this. They didn't say it was done done. And this goes back to why I'm not sure where I land on the tax itself, because I don't think we know enough about even how the tax is structured, but the broader concept of not New York is open for business and we're thrilled that you're here and happy that you're contributing to the revenue base under this new plan and old plan, but we're not open for business and we don't want you here. And I think that sort of spirit is the distinction that I hope other people appreciate and maybe have some conversations with the mayor about.
Aren't we burying the lead here? I mean, it's not a $15 million second home.
No, it was a quarter billion.
I think it was even more than that.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that that's important to note how amazing this place must be. And again, I'm not saying I want to kill the guy. I'm saying I want to be the guy. I think it's awesome that you can have a play. And I've seen pictures of it, too. It looks unbelievable.
But the point is, if you have someone who has a pied-à-terre here, who maybe isn't a full-time resident, but by the way, you're not using any of the city services if you're not a full-time resident. You don't have kids in schools, you're not off, which is what Bill Ackman has pointed out. But if it means that he is not going to do this project that I think is supposed to create 6,000 part-time jobs and 14 or 15,000 full-time jobs, that is a serious impact to the city's welfare from this point.
But they picked the most expensive property probably on purpose.
But there's an element of like almost doxing to it, meaning you're standing in front of the building and I guess it's knowing where the building is and all of that, but still it's just...
It's in bad. I would argue to you approaching it that way is in bad taste. I think you...
This is the first time Mamdani's done something that you think might be...
I'm trying to be as I always tell you down the middle. I can go all different ways on these people and I'm just telling you I think that approach is not the right approach.
Tease will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, David Sacks, an original member of the so-called PayPal Mafia, co-host of the All-In Podcast, an investor in SpaceX, Palantir, Uber, Lyft, Meta, Airbnb, and so many more. He was brought into the Trump administration to advise on all things AI and crypto. And he's weighing in now on the government's complicated relationship with Anthropic.
We don't care what their personal views are. What we care about are the quality of their products. And we don't want the bias creeping into the products. As long as they keep the bias out, I don't think we have a problem with them. That would be woke AI.
Adviser to the president, David Sacks is right after this.
You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC with Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Joe.
Get right to our next guest, David Sacks, co-chair of the president's council of advisers on science and technologies. He's also co-founder and partner of Craft Ventures and a co-host of the All-In Podcast. Great to finally, we've had you on, but it's good to have you on again today, David. Thank you.
