Gary Cohn on the Shutdown & AI’s Impact on the Labor Market 10/29/25

Summary

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Squawk Pod — October 29, 2025

Episode: Gary Cohn on the Shutdown & AI’s Impact on the Labor Market

Hosts: Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Guests: Gary Cohn (IBM Vice Chair, former National Economic Council Director), Robert Frank, Christina Partsinevelos

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the state of the U.S. economy amid an ongoing government shutdown, explosive growth in tech company valuations (notably Nvidia), and the controversial impact of AI on the labor market. The discussion is further enriched by conversations about class division, the New York mayoral race, and shifting attitudes toward corporate layoffs. Featuring Gary Cohn, the conversation deftly weaves together macro trends, corporate strategy, and personal insights from top economic minds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trillion-Dollar Tech Era & Nvidia’s Meteoric Rise (04:00–09:55)

• Nvidia’s Market Cap: Nvidia hits a $5 trillion market cap in early trading, having recently expanded partnerships and investments (notably with Nokia, Palantir, Oracle, Uber, and the US Department of Energy). The company expects $500 billion in GPU sales by the end of 2026 and is beginning to produce Blackwell AI chips domestically in Arizona in addition to Taiwan.
• Broader Impact: Apple fluctuates above $4 trillion, showcasing the rapid acceleration of tech megacaps. The hosts marvel at how quickly the narrative has shifted from $1 trillion to $5 trillion companies.
• Quote:

  “When they're partnering with everybody and building themselves into the infrastructure of everything that matters... once you put your equipment into these things, it's really hard to get it out.”
  – Becky Quick [09:01]

2. Economic Division, Shutdown Politics, and Class Rifts (09:55–12:00, 16:08–17:40)

• Class Tensions & Civil War Rhetoric: The group references Ray Dalio’s warnings about a coming "civil war"—not geographically, but between classes and economic strata.

  “The class struggle... not between the north and south... let them eat cake, guillotine, Gotham type stuff.”
  – Gary Cohn [05:37]

• Shutdown Stalemate:
  • The government has been closed for a month, with major effects on federal workers and farmers.
  • Cohn argues the deadlock is a side effect of the "resist mentality," where opposition persists in the face of strong economic numbers.
• K-Shaped Recovery: The hosts debate whether today’s economic divergence is truly unprecedented or part of a broader historical trend.

  “The dichotomy between the two... is as wide as has ever been.”
  – Joe Kernen [17:38]

3. Corporate Layoffs, AI, and Labor Market Evolution (14:02–15:39, 18:44–25:46, 41:05–44:13)

• Layoff Cycle: Current round of corporate earnings are paired with significant layoffs (over 160,000 jobs in just a few weeks), especially in logistics (UPS), consumer goods (Nestle), and big tech.
• AI’s Real Role:
  • The narrative that AI is causing layoffs is often exaggerated; much is a correction after COVID-era overhiring, as explained by Perplexity and CoreWeave CEOs 41:37.
  • Nonetheless, AI’s evolution does threaten routine jobs, especially coding and HR functions.
• Productivity & Market Cap: To justify high valuations, tech companies must deliver on productivity, which likely translates to fewer workers.
• Quote:

  “The only way to make your quarterly numbers work is to squeeze some cost out. And it feels like the cost that people are squeezing out right now is labor cost.”
  – Gary Cohn [19:19] “The skill and uniqueness of writing code is going to become an obsolete skill in our near term... the code assist programs are so good.”
  – Gary Cohn [23:34] “We haven’t gotten AI to sort of being the revenue producer... yet. We've got it to be the cost-saver.”
  – Gary Cohn [24:28]

• Transition to Quantum & General AI:
  • Quantum computing will catalyze a shift in AI from cost-saving to revenue-generating, accelerating the evolution.
  • “When we get into the quantum space, AI will go from the cost saver to the revenue creator.”
    – Gary Cohn [24:39]

4. Shutdown Endgame: Government Workers, Air Traffic Controllers & TSA (25:46–27:48)

• Shutdowns tend to end when essential workers (like air traffic controllers or TSA) refuse to work—the “pain point” that pressures Congress to act.
• Proposed bills to keep key workers paid during shutdowns may prolong stalemates by removing pressure points.

5. The New York Mayoral Race & Class/Wealth Dynamics (35:41–40:58)

• Billionaire Spending:
  • The race pits billionaire donations ($40M+) to anti-Mamdani PACs against a smaller, grassroots war chest.
  • Notable donors discussed: Joe Gebbia (Airbnb), Bill Ackman (hedge fund), Lauder family (Estée Lauder), Dan Loeb, John Hess, Steve Wynn, Alice Walton.
• Class Messaging: Mamdani leverages the anti-billionaire sentiment, using the PAC money as political fuel.

  “He is actually prided himself on the number of billionaires who are giving to Cuomo... they've given more than I'm going to tax them.”
  – Robert Frank [37:55]

• Tax Policy & Exodus: Debate over real impact of high earners leaving New York—"algebraically," even small outflows can devastate city revenues.
  • “Whenever I see something like that... polymarkets at 99%. So if someone is fixing that, then it’s self-fulfilling.”
    – Gary Cohn [40:28]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Corporate Layoffs:

  “It's the natural cycle... not for the people that are losing their jobs.”
  – Joe Kernen & Gary Cohn [21:42]

• On AI and the Future of Work:

  “The HR bot’s going to be able to take care of 95% of what that person needs.”
  – Gary Cohn [23:19]

• On the Political Left and “Guardrails”:

  “You have to hope that he would govern, right, with guardrails... that means we're dependent on the city council, the state legislator, and the governor to be guardrails.”
  – Joe Kernen [29:08]

• On Economic Division:

  “Why are they cutting jobs?”
  – Christina Partsinevelos [44:13]

• On Billionaires and NYC Politics:

  “New York is doing better right now than I’ve ever seen... and that's what they're trying to protect.”
  – Robert Frank [02:04], [38:33]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 04:00–09:55 | Nvidia and Trillion-Dollar Tech Companies | | 15:39–18:44 | Gary Cohn on Economic Divisions and the Shutdown | | 18:44–25:46 | Layoffs, Labor Market, and the Impact of AI/Automation | | 25:46–27:48 | How Government Shutdowns End: TSA & Air Traffic Control | | 35:41–40:58 | New York Mayoral Race: Money, Messaging, and Class | | 41:05–44:13 | Are AI Layoffs Real? CEOs Sound Off | | 23:34 | The Fate of Jobs in Coding and HR with AI | | 37:55 | Mamdani's Messaging & the Billionaire Backlash | | 24:39 | Quantum Computing and the Next Leap for AI |

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode is marked by rapid-fire banter, policy insight, and a blend of analytic skepticism and humor—especially in Gary Cohn's and Joe Kernen's exchanges. The conversation feels urgent, reflecting the high stakes and looming transitions for the American economy and workforce.

Listeners are left with both a sense of awe at technological advancement (Nvidia, AI) and apprehension at its consequences: from government paralysis and class divisions to the seismic changes awaiting the labor market. The episode serves as a timely reminder that seismic technological, political, and economic trends are colliding in 2025—and nobody, not even the show’s seasoned hosts and guests, has all the answers.

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Transcript

[Becky Quick]

At JANICE Henderson Investors we believe working together is the way to work better.

[Joe Kernan]

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[Becky Quick]

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[Joe Kernan]

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[Becky Quick]

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[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

How will you shape the future of the technology sector with confidence? Tech is at an AI powered inflection point, facing innovation cycles that accelerate every day.

[EY Announcer]

EY brings a full spectrum of services.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That help enterprise giants manage fragmented data. Telcos minimize disruption and media companies monetize connected experiences.

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In a world where every company is a tech company, EY delivers real outcomes to those that build the systems on which enterprises run. EY shape the future with confidence.

[Joe Kernan]

Bring in show music, please.

[Cameron Costa]

This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, a conversation with Gary Cohn, National Economic Council director. In President Trump's first administration, Cohn weighs in on the state of our economy.

[Joe Kernan]

Overall corporate earnings, they continue to be very strong, but when you look at how corporates are getting there, it's also interesting. We've seen probably more layoffs in this round of corporate earnings than we've seen in a long period of time.

[Cameron Costa]

Indeed, layoffs, layoffs, layoffs. This tech earnings season, Christina Parts and Nevilles reports on AI's role in tech's labor market.

[Christina Parts]

Top CEOs were telling us something completely different about what's driving these cuts and.

[Cameron Costa]

The mayoral election that's captured national attention from billionaires. Even Robert Frank reports on the money flowing for and more commonly against New York mayoral camp candidate Zoran Mamdani.

[Robert Frank]

New York is doing better right now than I've ever seen. And that's what they're trying to protect.

[Cameron Costa]

Those conversations plus $5 trillion with a T in Nvidia's sightline.

[Becky Quick]

It feels like so recently we were trying to figure out who would be the first company to go above $1 trillion.

[Cameron Costa]

It's Wednesday, October 29, and Squawk Pod begins right now.

[Joe Kernan]

Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1. Fewer please.

[Becky Quick]

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 and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Andrew, welcome back.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thank you. It's nice to see you. I've been, I feel like I've been seeing you every day, but never really boxes.

[Gary Cohn]

You were never really gone.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Not gone long enough for you?

[Gary Cohn]

But yes, if you want to wear that stupid jacket, you can Wear I just do it here. If you want to. If you want to. Oh, that's my gift. That's my gift. That's my, I'm too old to, to, to, to, to worry about these, these trivial things when I'm at, when I'm.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

At, When you're sitting at the table.

[Gary Cohn]

But you would like to wear it. You would like to.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I always like.

[Gary Cohn]

I, I like when I sit in.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And I wear a suit because it.

[Becky Quick]

It has been 14 years he's been yelling at you nuts.

[Gary Cohn]

35, 30 total armor.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's what it is for me. It's like armor for me.

[Gary Cohn]

It's like you think it's constricting, constricting. And I turn into a different person. Unfortunately, people like that person more than. So maybe I don't, I don't know. Seriously, if you, and you got the.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Pocket square, well, you can do.

[Gary Cohn]

You got more beautiful suits, you've got.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The more fashion oriented things. Peak lapels and you can do different color shirts.

[Gary Cohn]

Peak lapels, different color shirts.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You know, there's a lot of options.

[Becky Quick]

Take it and run with it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I may, oh my goodness.

[Gary Cohn]

I don't know if I'm in a position because last time you want to do that, the guy running the place said you couldn't do it. Remember he wanted to have the.

[Becky Quick]

Wasn't that under your goading?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah. Goes into voting.

[Becky Quick]

Well, is this how things actually work around here? Yeah. Let's take a look at how the.

[Gary Cohn]

US I like what you're. That's.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

Now, hey now check this out. Nvidia's market cap actually crossing the 5 trillion mark in early trading this morning. We're going to have more on that in just a moment. But the key number to watch on this is $205.76 a share. If it stays above that level, it will open above 5 trillion. And you're right, Joe. It was just, it feels like so recently we were trying to figure out who would be the first company to go above $1 trillion.

[Gary Cohn]

Above a trillion. And I was, it was Apple. I think we were saying.

[Becky Quick]

How many years ago was this?

[Gary Cohn]

It was, I don't know. They all merged together. That where's the beef ad was 40 years ago. So I don't know anymore. I don't try to figure out when things.

[Becky Quick]

I remember having these conversations very recently with a lot of people.

[Gary Cohn]

We did. And the law of large numbers, you said, oh, what are we going to have a trillion dollar company? Yeah, we are. We're going to have a five company. Someone's going to be worth a trillion dollars. That could never be. I could never.

[Becky Quick]

Apple was above $4 trillion yesterday. It's not closing above that. But in the pre market this morning it's back above 4 trillion. So you've got three companies. Two above 4 trillion, one above $5 trillion.

[Gary Cohn]

And wow, here we have a guy in his 50s that's worth $1 trillion. Theoretically.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Gary Cohn]

Close.

[Becky Quick]

Elon Musk.

[Gary Cohn]

And once it happens to one, it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Happens to the rest.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah, well, no, no, concentrated within. But it could happen again.

[Becky Quick]

7, 10 companies happen in a vacuum.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah, it depends. Of course the civil war will probably prevent more trillionaires from happening.

[Becky Quick]

Probably.

[Gary Cohn]

We're hearing about that more and more. I think Dalio is spouting that, that, that. That profit.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The civil war is coming.

[Gary Cohn]

Just the class struggle because of.

[Becky Quick]

Not between the north and south or.

[Gary Cohn]

The rest of the States and no between the head. Yeah, exactly. Like let them eat, take guillotine, Gotham type stuff. Mamdani.

[Becky Quick]

Look, it's true. And at a point where you've got the government shut down and that is.

[Gary Cohn]

Really no food stamps for you. But.

[Becky Quick]

Right.

[Gary Cohn]

Trillion dollars in the markets.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I just saw a video of Mondame on from I don't know what year. Horrible video where he literally says that he wants to. He wants the government to seize the means of production. Means of production. Like actually says it.

[Becky Quick]

Marxism.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Straight. Like actually says it.

[Gary Cohn]

Communism.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah. That's why it's interesting because you. I talk to people in New York and even people who are supportive of him say, oh Andrew, he's not really a socialist, he's a democratic socialist. And then when you see him say it, he says I'm a socialist. This is what you go, okay, actually Marxism.

[Gary Cohn]

If you go. I saw yesterday, a couple years ago, he said he's been watching the New York City police and their idf.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, I saw that too.

[Gary Cohn]

I mean he's, you know, he's young. Maybe he's better now, a couple years. It's coming. We might as well face it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I don't know if you saw. By the way, Bill, you know, made this argument yesterday that he thinks the poly market and all of these prediction markets, China can be manipulated. He's basically trying, he's trying to. He's trying to make the argument to people to go out and vote because he's saying, look, it's not a done deal because these, these market things are.

[Becky Quick]

How effective it is when billionaires look like they are trying to change the election.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, that's the other part that makes this super complicated.

[Gary Cohn]

There's a flurry of news from India over the last 24 hours. During a keynote presentation at the company's AI conference, CEO Jensen Huang said the company expects $500 billion in GPU sales through the end of 2026. Also said the company is now producing some of its Blackwell AI chips in Arizona. They were previously manufactured in Taiwan. And Nvidia announced it's working with the US Department of Energy to build seven new supercomputers. It's also working with Uber to build a fleet of self driving cars. And it's partnering with Eli Lilly to build a supercomputer and AI factory to help accelerate drug development and drug discovery. Separately, it announced it's taking a $1 billion stake in networking company Nokia and plans to use. Nokia plans to use that money to fund its AI ventures and other general corporate purposes. Okay, need to add that the two companies plan to work together to develop next generation 6G cellular technology. The stock sword of Nokia, it is pulling back a little bit this morning. Nvidia is also partnering with Cisco and T Mobile on 6G development. And it announced tie ups with Palantir and Oracle. What I was going to say was every time they announced they're going to spend money with someone in an investment, you can just. Andrew, you add the money. Becky's already looking at it because that's why I'm referencing you. Because you're looking at suit jackets to wear on set now. But every time they spend money somewhere, you just can just add that to their market cap, which is the crazy part, right? Just they're spending, okay, it's going to be billions or even trillions on this stuff. So just add it to our market cap. We're spending it. Why does their market cap go up.

[Becky Quick]

When they're partnering with everybody and building themselves into the infrastructure of everything that matters? That deal with Nokia is a pretty big one because it's going to get them into the cell, to the airwaves to go through some of these things. And once you put your equipment into these things, it's really hard to get it out.

[Gary Cohn]

I mean, how long was that reader that I just said? Because to summarize, everything Nvidia's doing, it.

[Becky Quick]

Takes that long, stocks that high. We're going to talk about it more with what we heard from President Trump, but the potential deal with China and the mention he made at Blackwell Chips yesterday, who knows if that actually happens? Nvidia Jensen Huang has been saying for a while that Nvidia is looking At China as basically zeroed out that business. If it turns out that the China business is not only not zeroed out, but they can ship more than the H20 chips, but also potentially Blackwell chips, that's huge news for the markets. I don't know what Congress is going to think about that, what some of the China hawks are going to say about it, but it is part of what is pushing Nvidia shares higher this morning.

[Gary Cohn]

Well, the deal, the framework of the deal is start buying soybeans again and do something with fentanyl.

[Becky Quick]

And give us rare earths.

[Gary Cohn]

And give us rare earths. But you do those three things and we take the tariffs off.

[Becky Quick]

We take the tariffs off. And by the way, you can have chips. So it's not just the trade deals that are happening here.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, and give us TikTok.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah. National security.

[Gary Cohn]

You okay? Art of the deal. You acknowledge that it's working here or is it Taco?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Let's see what the deal is.

[Becky Quick]

I've been trying to figure that out.

[Gary Cohn]

By default and I don't like saying Taco but I've moved the window so.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You could say he was, he's.

[Gary Cohn]

But is there a method to the madness? Is it brilliant look at the market.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It depends if you believe in, if you believe in tariffs ultimately. So that's like a long term question.

[Gary Cohn]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And then aren't any.

[Gary Cohn]

They're just, they're de minimis, they short.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The question is it was the threat.

[Gary Cohn]

Of those targets that got all these deals done and they never really happened.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You think these deals never happened?

[Gary Cohn]

No, the tariffs never really happened. The worst case scenario.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The worst case scenario never happened. But there are, there are. This goes back which we have billion dollars that's going to come in. So they are real.

[Gary Cohn]

Right. And there's really hasn't been inflationary yet.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, and that's that there are, look, you saw, you know, meat, furniture, this. There are things clothing there. There are real things that are impacting people that are going to cost more toys.

[Becky Quick]

If you look at any of the impact people are buying fewer toys.

[Gary Cohn]

But it hasn't, you know, it's been.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Gary Cohn]

Outlines.

[EY Announcer]

Not.

[Becky Quick]

It is not. Not that we've tamed inflation but even if with inflation at 3% it's hard to say that that is all from. From tariffs.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah, there's a lot of.

[Becky Quick]

It's coming from other places.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Now that I've been on the road. I want to tell you Starbucks, I.

[Becky Quick]

Know what you're going to tell me.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Just introduced a iced coffee drink with protein Protein.

[Becky Quick]

This is where.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Where you can get 29 grams of protein in your. And I've been drinking them everywhere I go and they're great. I have no affiliate code. I'm not an influencer. I'm just telling you it's. And there were people in line just to get the protein coffee and you're.

[Gary Cohn]

Not gagging it down?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, it was really tasty. I did the sugar free. The sugar free version. Because if you do the one with sugar.

[Gary Cohn]

So what is it?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

200. 200 calories?

[Gary Cohn]

200.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I thought it was pretty good.

[Gary Cohn]

And we talked about this before and I know it goes all the way back to the protein. Diets are high Now, Seinfeld, remember the fat free yogurt? And everybody kept eating it and they all got fat and then they had it tested and it was loaded with fat. It was. It's not true. 29 grams.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's what they say. I think.

[Gary Cohn]

So we need to test it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I haven't tested it. But what do we need?

[Gary Cohn]

Do we need Costanza to go to.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

A lab and find out? You think it tastes too good to really be 200 calories? I don't know. Maybe there's.

[Gary Cohn]

It's like the holy grail to find something.

[Becky Quick]

Look, everybody's trying to find protein. High protein diets are all the rage right now. There are some questions about protein powder. So if that's the right way to get at it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

This, I think, is through a sort of almost like a fairlife kind of milk situation.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah. The milk across the board is fair.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Life is a milk company that's owned by Coca Cola that has sort of super high levels of protein.

[Gary Cohn]

Is it a lactating product of some animal or.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yes, yes, it's real milk. It's real milk. Somehow they strain it or do something that I don't understand.

[Gary Cohn]

Oat milk is not freaking milk.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, no, it's not like that.

[Gary Cohn]

Well, it's not milk. Right. Didn't come from a lactate. Call it something else. Nvidia shares are.

[Becky Quick]

It doesn't sound as good. If you call it sludge.

[Robert Frank]

It's a little less appetizing.

[Gary Cohn]

I was going to say this yesterday. PEA based meat. P E, A P based meat is not meat. Call it something else. It's made from peas, right?

[Becky Quick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gary Cohn]

It's beyond meat because it's not meat. And the stock got what it deserved, I think. But I'm not commenting on valuation. They can go back up. I don't care. Matter to me.

[Joe Kernan]

Cheese will be next.

[Cameron Costa]

Next on Squawk. Pod. Once the National Economic Council director under President Trump, Gary Cohn is watching today's economy closely.

[Joe Kernan]

The cost of labor is not going down and the price that they can charge the ultimate consumer is not going up. The only way to make your quarterly numbers work is to squeeze some cost out. And it's feels like the cost that people are squeezing out right now is labor cost. If you could hear love, what would it sound like? Son, can we talk about your drinking? Yeah, Dad, I think we should helping those closest to you think about their excessive drinking. Maybe that's what love sounds like. [e-mail] An OHA initiative, Pandora makes it easy for you to find your favorite music. Discover new artists and genres by selecting any song or album and we'll make you a personalized station for free download on the Apple App Store or Google Play and enjoy the soundtrack to your life.

[EY Announcer]

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[Cameron Costa]

This is Squawk Pod with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Joe.

[Gary Cohn]

Join us now. IBM Vice Chair Gary Cohn. He served as director of the National Economic Council in President Trump's first term. Good to have you on.

[Joe Kernan]

Great to be here, Joe.

[Gary Cohn]

The I don't know where to start on this, Gary.

[Joe Kernan]

I'm back in. Andrew. It's great to be here. Great to be with all of you. You know, just complimenting Andrew on his book. I told him he needed a little more publicity.

[Gary Cohn]

We didn't really know.

[Joe Kernan]

We didn't really know it was out there.

[Gary Cohn]

Wait a minute.

[Joe Kernan]

Thanks.

[Gary Cohn]

Your book is out?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Not yet.

[Joe Kernan]

No. I'm joking.

[Gary Cohn]

You were in the first Trump administration and I guess it was widely talked about that if you agree with 70% of something, you don't want to sacrifice the perfect for the good. You had some issues, I think, and maybe in the second administration you're not part of it, but you're not necessarily a tariff guy or some of the things. But are you a little bit surprised that as well, as things are going, how divided everybody is, I'm shocked. I mean, the border's closed, the market's at new highs, we're getting these trade deals. GDP looks good, unemployment still low, inflation is, you know, I don't know.

[Becky Quick]

Benefits are about to end, government workers aren't getting paid. Yeah. Farmers are up in arms.

[Gary Cohn]

That's not Trump. None of that.

[Joe Kernan]

I can just let the two of you talk. This is perfect.

[Gary Cohn]

None of that is Trump. It's the other. It's, it's the side. In fact, it's resisting.

[Becky Quick]

Trump stops here. Buck stops here. You gotta look, I understand, I hate what the Democrats are doing here, but ultimately the government's been closed for a month and somebody's gotta figure this out and open it. Somebody's stepping in.

[Gary Cohn]

But that is, sorry, Gary, back over to you. That's a manifestation of what I'm saying about their whole resist mentality. That's why the government's shut down, because he's doing too well as we are.

[Joe Kernan]

I think you look at this in many ways as things are going well, but we're in this. Many people call this K shaped economy, right. We've got one, one leg going up.

[Gary Cohn]

Someone like, when has that not been true, that there's the high end consumer and the low end?

[Joe Kernan]

It's always been true.

[Gary Cohn]

I just, Is it worse?

[Joe Kernan]

I just think it's bigger and more divided today than it has been in a very long time between, you know, people that are doing well and have enormous amount of disposable income and are willing to spend money no matter what's going on in the economy. And then there's those as Becky and you were just talking about, those that literally work for the government today who are probably standing in line potentially at food banks to be able to put food on their tables. The dichotomy between the two of those is as wide as has ever been. Now, the government going back to work will help some of that. And there's a very interesting but strange phenomena when you're, you know, when you're a government that shuts down for four weeks and you don't pay your workers, the workers tend to cut back and they tend to make due over this four weeks. Then they get the four weeks of pay, pay back, and then they go out and spend it. So it's in a funny but true way, it ends up being stimulus for the economy. So when those workers get their four weeks of back pay, they'll put it into the economy and it will feel good during those Periods of times, as you point out, you know, if you look at overall corporate earnings, they continue to be very strong. But when you look at how corporates are getting there, it's also interesting. You know, we've seen probably more layoffs in this round of corporate earnings than we've seen in a long period of time. Over the last week And a half, two weeks, you've seen well over 160,000.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

Why?

[Becky Quick]

Why is that?

[Joe Kernan]

Well, I think it's a combination. But the 160,000, if you put it in relationship, the conversation you were having with Steve Liesman yesterday morning, where you were talking about, you know, the private payroll data looks like about 15,000 jobs a week. Well, 160,000 is 15,000. That's at least 10 weeks. We've lived out 10 weeks of people in the last few weeks.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Wow.

[Joe Kernan]

You go down the list, you know, ups top of list, close to 50,000. You know, that's purely a function of less trade, less foreign imports, less freight. So they're telling you this is less for. This has to do with trade. You're looking at Nestle. Nestle is in here at 16,000. Price of chocolate is really high and consumers are buying less chocolate. So, you know, the overall thought here, and we talked about this last time I was here, input prices are going up for US Companies. The cost of labor is not going down, and the price that they can charge the ultimate consumer is not going up. The only way to make your quarterly numbers work is to squeeze some cost out. And it feels like the cost that people are squeezing out right now is labor cost. And I said it to you guys about a month ago, and I think it's proving true in these numbers. We've seen 160, 170,000 layoffs in the quarter.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Policy question for you. Either you're Jay Powell or your President Trump, what do you do to fix that problem?

[Joe Kernan]

This is. Look, this is a tough problem, but I do think they're working towards fixing it slowly and surely. You know, getting a deal done with China, getting a deal done with Japan, getting a deal done with Canada. Those are all very helpful, you know, once you figure out where the final cost of goods is or the final input costs and these rare earth and a bunch of these commodity inputs, which is, you know, Japan, China, Canada. Though once you settle the price of those input costs down, I think manufacturers have a much better idea of what they can charge and what labor they can have. And right now, you know, we're pushing labor out of the equation. And look There's a bit of a, there's a bit of an AI reality in there and there's a huge AI.

[Gary Cohn]

Excuse me, you, you know how many times stocks have gone up when companies announce rationalization of operations or layoffs or whatever you want to call it. It used to happen all the time. You said, how do we fix this? Is this something that corporations have needed to do in pairing unproductive parts of their business? Can they actually, is this actually a net positive long term that this tariff cover is giving them reason to, to lay off people? It's a bad thing, but no, they're going to be leaner and meaner.

[Joe Kernan]

It's the natural cycle. It's the natural cycle.

[Gary Cohn]

I mean, I think not for the people that are losing their jobs.

[Joe Kernan]

Exactly right. If you're one of those people that's in the cycle, it doesn't feel very natural, it doesn't feel very fair. But if you think of the cycle we've had and so it starts with the COVID cycle. The COVID cycle. We had the exact opposite. Every company was hoarding workers. You know, everyone who came in and said, look, I can't hire good people, I can't get good people. Anyone I get, I'm retaining, I'm attracting. We came out of COVID with workers at an all time record high in companies. Companies were hoarding workers and they weren't going to let them go at any cost because heaven forbid they should need that incremental person. They couldn't get them back. We've gone from hoarding workers at the end of COVID and now, you know, three or four years later, we're to the point where we're going in the corporate world, we're going from hoarding workers to, we're going to, let's see how efficiently we can run. Let's have one less marginal worker than we need with the understanding that the environment is that I can hire back a marginal worker tomorrow if I really need that.

[Gary Cohn]

It's not AI yet.

[Joe Kernan]

There's a little bit of AI, but by the way, look, I'm not going to say is not part of this equation. It's a little bit of AI, but a lot of this is traditional workers. So, you know, that's right. 50,000 workers at United Parcel Service. That's not AI, that's, that's volume going.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

In terms of the piece of. When do you think that there's a tipping point for that?

[Joe Kernan]

I don't think there's a tipping point. I think there's an evolution Okay. I think you're going to see companies continue to embrace AI, continually figure out how to create a company wide enterprise solution that creates real synergistic cost outcome, cost savings outcomes. And as that happens, you will start to see companies, I don't know if they will necessarily get smaller, but they will definitely move people out of certain tasks that people hate to do.

[Becky Quick]

How fast is the evolution and how painful are we talking? Like watching the Wolfman.

[Joe Kernan]

We're starting, we're in it now, we're in the beginnings of the evolution now. But is it in the world of writing code? The skill and uniqueness of writing code is going to become an obsolete skill in our near term, near term future here. You know, the code assist programs are so good at writing code that instead of hiring thousands of the best engineers, you're going to hire hundreds of the best engineers and give them a tools to help them build it in the world of hr. The HR tools today and are so good that no one's ever building these huge departments and say, well, Every, for every 10 or 12 or 15 employees we hire, we have to hire another HR person. You don't. The HR bot's going to be able to take care of 95% of what that person needs. So there's going to be huge opportunity there. We're seeing that, we're seeing it in those are what I would consider sort of operations enterprises. They're making companies more efficient. We haven't gotten AI to sort of being the revenue producer. We've got it to be the cost center savings. I think AI as we move down this field and we're heading really quick, quickly into the quantum space. When we get into the quantum space, I will go from, you know, the cost saver to the revenue creator.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Because what, what happens then?

[Joe Kernan]

The machine actually can think. Machine actually goes from doing something that you've taught it to do because it's looked at the way you've done it and the machine says, oh, I know what to do here because I see the AG, I see the way you've done 100 times.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's AGI.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah. And then we go, then we, then we go to Quantum and Quantum says, no, it's not what you did in the past, it's which you did in the past, but you actually should have done this. We're going to add this on top. So maybe you did, you know, a net present value model, did a sum of the pieces. Oh, you didn't do it in the machine. And today I would do those two because you would tell it. That's. That's the mining one. If you had Quantum in there, they might go, oh, wait, I'm not sure those are the best answers. Let's do a discounted cash this. Do discounted free cash flow without you telling it, because it would know it's one of the. One of the tools.

[Gary Cohn]

Then we hit the singularity and then we live forever. But I'm going to keep going to church in the meantime.

[Joe Kernan]

You do that. I think that's a good place for you, Joe.

[Gary Cohn]

I think it's. I think it's important. Do you have an idea? What would you tell people to do about this? How do you think it ends, this shutdown? Some kind of backroom. That's what Schumer wants, a backroom deal.

[Joe Kernan]

Look, these shutdowns usually end. I think I'm going to talk about this in a minute. Usually end when government workers force it to end.

[Gary Cohn]

You saw the federal. The biggest federal union told the Democrats to vote for the co.

[Joe Kernan]

I got it. But you know what? That union's still showing up to work. If the air traffic controllers and TSA decides not to show up to work one weekend, the pressure on Republicans and Democrats will be very high to get their.

[Becky Quick]

Ted Cruz has a bill to pay the air traffic controllers, keep Americans flying, pay tsa. Is it a good thing to pass that bill or a bad thing? Because it means that there is not a pressure point to reopen the entire.

[Joe Kernan]

It's both. It's both. I think we all want to fly. We know that our economy demands us to fly. We're a. We're a country in transit all the time. So no one's going to stop flying knowing that reality. We need the tsa. We need the security at the airport to be secure. And even more importantly, we need the skies to be secure.

[Becky Quick]

It's just visible. It's the most visible and painful point for most Americans. But it's terrible to have the government.

[Joe Kernan]

That's been one of the forcing functions in the past to put the government back together.

[Becky Quick]

Right.

[Joe Kernan]

When the air traffic controllers did not show up, it forced Congress to settle, to reopen.

[Becky Quick]

To do their job.

[Joe Kernan]

To do their job.

[Becky Quick]

Right.

[Joe Kernan]

So, look, I see both sides of it. You know, in many respects, we need to keep travel safe. We need to keep skies open. We need to keep the economy going. But on the other hand, air traffic controllers and TSA probably have as much leverage as anyone at the table enforcing both sides together. So if we get a deal to keep TSA and air traffic Controllers open to me, that's signaling a much longer government shutdown.

[Gary Cohn]

You live in New York.

[Joe Kernan]

I do live in New York.

[Gary Cohn]

Excited?

[Joe Kernan]

I'm very excited.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah.

[Gary Cohn]

You know that you could probably get the top floor of a place in Coconut Grove for what you paid.

[Joe Kernan]

Would I have to be your neighbor, though?

[Gary Cohn]

No, I'm not down there.

[Joe Kernan]

So you're not in Coconut Grove. It.

[Gary Cohn]

No, you'd have to pay more to be my neighbor. You got to come to Sea Island.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

What do you actually think of the implication of this mayoral race and what.

[Gary Cohn]

That was my question.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah, I know. I know what you're trying to.

[Gary Cohn]

You know what, you're like all the Democrats trying to not talk about it.

[Joe Kernan]

No, I'm not.

[Gary Cohn]

Hakeem Jeffries, we had on 100 times, even the day he was on. He did it later that day, wouldn't tell us that he was going to do it.

[Joe Kernan]

No, I think you have to talk about it.

[Gary Cohn]

And shut down. Schumer's not talking about it.

[Joe Kernan]

You have to talk about it. So let's.

[Gary Cohn]

I say that just to get the Twitter stuff.

[Joe Kernan]

Let's peel this back one bit. So, A, there's certain things you say to run and get elected.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right?

[Joe Kernan]

You know, there's campaign rhetoric. So we all know there's campaign rhetoric. There's. There's. Every politician that's ever got elected in this country said X to get elected. The vast majority of them don't do X once they get elected. A, because they can't, or B, it's illegal, or C, they can't get support. Okay. It just. It's just the way it is. You know, there's no. There's no sort of guardrails on what you can say to get elected. That said, you have to hope that he would govern right, with guardrails. And there are some guardrails, but that means we're dependent on the city, the city council, the state legislator, and the governor to be guardrails. And I think a lot of us are hopeful that those are strong guardrails, but we're not positive that those are strong rails.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So the distinction actually is usually politicians say things that then they can't do. I think this is actually the opposite. Meaning he has said things in what he would try to describe as his prior life that now he is disavowing. And I'm not sure which version is the real version, and therefore what he actually will be doing. I think when you talk to most people in New York City, even those who are supporting him, and you Say, you know, do you believe he's a socialist? They say, no, no, no. He's actually a democratic socialist. He's not into these things. You don't understand.

[Gary Cohn]

And we've seen that movie before with Kamala.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And that's to me the more sort.

[Joe Kernan]

Of none of this complicated.

[Gary Cohn]

He should have got complicated part about this like that other guy where you can't get rid of that thing. He should have gotten a tattoo.

[Joe Kernan]

The guy in Virginia.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah, the guy like the guy in Maine. Oh, the Virginia guy is another guy that Democrats are not. Not yelling about.

[Joe Kernan]

The one thing we have a bit of data on, and New Jersey has data on it, New York has data on, doesn't take a lot of movement of certain families outside of these tax jurisdictions to change the algebraic equation really quickly. And it's one thing I try and have with some of the younger kids.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But here's the thing. I'm not sure and maybe you disagree. The people that I know that are against Mamdani all sort of.

[Gary Cohn]

The billionaire said, do you know anyone who isn't against.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Hold on. It's not. No, no. I know people who are for him and people are against him. But I would say those do not seem to be. Maybe you'll think I'm a Pollyanna about this upset per se about somehow being taxed, that that's not for them. The actual issue for them, the actual issue is policing and safety in the city is the prospect of anti Semitism. Is all of these other issues.

[Gary Cohn]

Check, check, check, check.

[Joe Kernan]

More than one thing can be true, Andrew. They can be upset about anti Semitism, they can be said about policing and they're going to be upset about taxing. The one thing you realize when you do any work on tax, and I spent a year plus of my life doing nothing but tax is when you talked about taxes to people, most of them are okay with it because they don't think it's them. It's always the other person.

[Gary Cohn]

Right.

[Joe Kernan]

What they haven't figured out. And look, I talk to my family members about this and I explained to them that it's them. You know, unfortunately, if you force out all the people earning, you know, decent to high end money and they're paying 15.8% marginal brackets for city and state and you're earning $100,000 to get the same amount of revenue, same amount of revenue in the city to give the same services, your tax has to probably be 100%. I'm not sure they can collect the same amount of money.

[Gary Cohn]

Right.

[Joe Kernan]

And that's it's an algebraic equation which I don't understand why kids don't understand it.

[Becky Quick]

David Tepper leaving New Jersey.

[Gary Cohn]

Yeah, I just took a perfect storm to get here with this guy. This should never have happened. It's the weird way elections work in this city, but this should have never happened. But the crazy thing is, is that he's been endorsed by a lot of mainstream Democrats. That's the crazy.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No.

[Becky Quick]

And Governor Hochul.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, I wouldn't say that.

[Gary Cohn]

Because you don't think it's weird we have a. Actually a communist that's going to be mayor of New York. You don't think that's bad?

[Robert Frank]

Perfect.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think it's an indictment of the Democratic Party that they're not stronger candidates.

[Gary Cohn]

That's true.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And when you look here, how do we get here?

[Gary Cohn]

And age. How do we get here?

[Robert Frank]

With this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

How do we get here? Because we had. Because Eric Adams a super flawed candidate. Cuomo was a super flawed candidate. And, and Mandami is super candidate, too, but in different ways. And that's how we got here.

[Gary Cohn]

We're going to write in Gary and.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We need to figure out a way to actually get better people to want to actually run down.

[Gary Cohn]

I don't know what's going to happen.

[Becky Quick]

Thank you, Gary.

[Gary Cohn]

Thanks, Gary.

[Joe Kernan]

Thanks, guys.

[Cameron Costa]

Still to come, more on two of today's biggest stories. First, the New York city mayoral race. CNBC's Robert Frank has the stats on billionaires and the millions they're pouring into defeating Zoran Mamdani.

[Robert Frank]

He has actually prided himself on the number of billionaires who are giving to Cuomo. And yesterday he was talking about, look, they've given more than I'm going to tax them.

[Cameron Costa]

Then the layoff story with Christina. Partner tech companies just are cutting tens.

[Christina Parts]

Of thousands of jobs and some of them, some of them are blaming AI.

[Cameron Costa]

More squawk pod right after this.

[Joe Kernan]

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[Gary Cohn]

Hmm.

[Joe Kernan]

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[Becky Quick]

You are watching SquawkBox right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Early voting underway right here in New York City for the mayor and some billionaires and companies are spending millions of dollars right now to try to defeat Zoram and Dami. Robert Frank at the table this morning to talk more about that and where we really are in this race.

[Robert Frank]

Yeah, it's really interesting and certainly a lot of money pouring into this race because you've got pro Cuomo and anti Momdani PACs raising over $40 million so far. Several billionaires and prominent New York families, some of them well known to this show, are among the biggest donors, according to campaign filings. Joe Gabbia, he's the co founder of Airbnb and the chief design officer for the White House. He has given the most since Mamdani's primary win back in June. Gabia gave a million dollars to a PAC called Fix the city and $1 million to one called defend. NYC. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who we've been talking about a lot this morning, gave over $1.2 billion to both groups just since October. The Louder family, heirs to the Estee Lauder companies, they have given over $2 million since August. John Hess, the former CEO of Hess Corp. Gave $500,000 in August, as did Steve Wynn. The casino mogul. At least five members of the Tisch family gave six figures along with hedge funders Dan Loeb and Ricky Sandler. Barry Diller just gave $250,000. That's on top of the 250 he gave back in April. And this was interesting. The world's richest woman, Alice Walton, gave $100,000 back in August even though she listed Bentonville, Arkansas as her current address. A PAC supporting mom Donnie, though, has raised about $2 million, including a gift from the daughter of late hedge fund billionaire Jim Simons. Now for the full list of the big donors in the New York race and what it could mean for the nation's largest real estate market, the tax base, everything else we've been talking about, you can sign up for the Inside wealth newsletter out tomorrow [e-mail] inside wealth.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Can I take Becky's question from earlier in the hour? Do you believe that the more the quote unquote billionaire class comes out and either donates money or speaks out publicly against mdami, that that is only like an endorsement for him among the people?

[Robert Frank]

That's certainly the way he's used it on the campaign trail. He is actually prided himself on the number of billionaires who are given to Cuomo. And he's yesterday he was talking about, look, they've given more than I'm going to tax them. Which of course is not true because this is $40 million. We're talking about $4 billion if he raises taxes on those making a million or more by 2%. But he certainly used it as a foil. Now, none of these people would speak on the record, but off the record they all say, look, no, this is not self interest that we're fighting for. We're fighting for New York, someone with experience, someone that's going to keep the city safe and keep this economic boom that we're seeing in New York right now where real estate back to the office. I mean, New York is doing better right now than I've ever seen you. And that's what they're trying to protect.

[Gary Cohn]

What, what Jim, what is the story there? So this Jim Simons daughter. Yeah. Late hedge fund billionaire giving how much to Mamdani. Is this a. Who is she? Abigail Disney? This is another Nepo baby that's never had to have a job.

[Robert Frank]

But people, they just use that. He was criticizing billionaires and the other side was saying, well, you're taking money from a daughter.

[Gary Cohn]

No, I know. Okay, but just explain it to me. How does someone benefiting from capitalism and whatever you think Jim Simons did. How is that person giving money to.

[Robert Frank]

Someone who wants all children agree with their parent around?

[Gary Cohn]

Does she have a lot, Abigail Disney Hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah. Yet.

[Gary Cohn]

Oh, no.

[Robert Frank]

Yet. You've got the Louder family who are also heirs and the Tisch family who are also heirs and the Walton family who are also heirs on the other side.

[Gary Cohn]

So it's on the normal side. Just because you're on the normal side and benefiting from this system we have in this country that enriched their, the people that actually did something.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Where do you land on this whole polymarket tweet from Bill Ackman where he effectively says out loud, maybe the quiet part could be manipulated. Some people believe that these prediction markets can be manipulated.

[Becky Quick]

Now we think that.

[Robert Frank]

Well, exactly.

[Gary Cohn]

It was only $1 million.

[Robert Frank]

Joe, Joe knows, I mean poly markets. Right. Until it's 1.5. Right. And then the other thing about if you do look at the polls, his lead is Mount Dani's lead is narrowing quite a bit. The latest lead is like 10 points. It had been 20 points recently. I think this could be a close election. We'll see. You do.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, you do that.

[Robert Frank]

It could be. I have no, I have no idea. But I'm saying if you look at.

[Gary Cohn]

The poll, it is a good point because whenever I see something like that and I go, well, or my son well, polymarkets at 99%. So if someone is fixing that, then that it's self fulfilling.

[Robert Frank]

Yeah, yeah.

[Becky Quick]

Are we finally rethinking all of this gambling that's taking place between this. The.

[Robert Frank]

One would hope.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We've heard one would hope.

[Becky Quick]

Gee, what do you think happens?

[Gary Cohn]

No, we're not.

[Robert Frank]

I mean, I do think I do. Between all the money coming into this race, the tensions, there will be a lot of, a lot of voting participation in this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, first that is true. Robert Frank with the lowdown on what's going on among the billionaires in New York.

[Robert Frank]

I did.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Meantime, here is the question of the morning. Are AI layoffs real or are they a scapegoat for what's going on in the employment picture in this country? Christina Parson Ellis joins us now with that story. Good morning.

[Christina Parts]

Good morning, Andrew. Amazon, Chegg, Microsoft, Metta, Salesforce, the list continues. Tech companies just are cutting tens of thousands of jobs and some of them, some of them are blaming AI. But at Nvidia's, GTC and DC yesterday, top CEOs were telling us something completely different about what's driving these cuts. For example, perplexity. CEO says the AI narrative is missing.

[Gary Cohn]

The point over hiring they did in the COVID era when they didn't actually need to.

[Joe Kernan]

That's the results of that are being seen now. So correlation doesn't imply causation. Like it's not because of AI that people are losing jobs.

[Christina Parts]

And coreweave's CEO Michael Entrachtor frames it as part of a bigger pattern that just happens in tech history.

[Joe Kernan]

During each technical revolution there is a rotation that occurs. And I think one of the roles for government is going to be to assist the the rotation that's required to retrain, to repurpose, to allow people to build careers.

[Christina Parts]

And CrouchStike CEO George Kurtz told me AI elevates workers into controllers, while AI will handle all of the grunt work. So essentially working alongside AI, that's what humans will do. The reality though is just more complicated. Amazon, we know, cut 14,000 jobs citing AI. Microsoft eliminated over 15,000 this year while investing about 80 billion in AI. Meta slashed 600 from its AI UN Salesforce cut 4,000. You get the point. All while record posting almost record profits. The CEOs at GTC aren't just buying the AI replacement story. Their own industry is pushing. They say companies are using AI as cover to finally correct years of bloated headcount and hiring mistakes. Guys.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay, so. Well, here's the thing. I think about Nvidia to $5 trillion. That's, that's a question about where we're all going. But the other piece of it on the employment side is for all of these companies and Nvidia and the like to get to these valuations, they have to create remarkable amounts of productivity. So if they're as successful as we all want them to be, it also means that maybe there's going to be folks who don't have jobs to ultimately pay for all of this.

[Christina Parts]

Yeah, well, to your point, they're going.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

To have a round trip idea.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Christina Parts]

It will cut jobs. You mean in order to lower costs so that they remain more productive and keep the margins, Is that what you're implying?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, so of course.

[Christina Parts]

But then videos case they have the money, right? They're spending like crazy. They're investing in intel, they're announcing $1 billion in Nokia. So I guess if you're an employee at Nvidia, which there's no job cuts, actually a poor example, you'd be wondering why would we be getting laid off the same for a lot of these other tech companies when Microsoft is to spending X amount of dollars on dealing with OAI or other firms like Nebbyist, for example, to build out data centers. Why are they cutting jobs?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Christina Parts and Ellis, thank you.

[Cameron Costa]

That's the podcast for today. Thank you for tuning in while we're still here and not replaced by AI Yet. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. All Human weekday mornings on cnbc starting at 6 Eastern. You can always get the best bits of that TV show right into your ears. If you follow Squawk Pod wherever you're listening now, we'll meet you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

[Robert Frank]

We are clear.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thanks, guys.

[Cameron Costa]

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[Joe Kernan]

So I was at a Chase Sapphire lounge and I saw a burger on the menu. I took a bite and I was blowing away. Took another bite and I was like, whoa, this is really special. And I couldn't figure out why. Was it the bun? Was it the sauce? The blend of meat? I want to find delicious things in places where you would never think it was going to be. I would do a layover for that burger.

[Cameron Costa]

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