Trump Accounts Launch: Brad Gerstner 7/6/26

Summary

Squawk Pod Summary

Episode: Trump Accounts Launch: Brad Gerstner
Date: July 6, 2026
Hosts: Becky Quick, Joe Kernan, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Special Guest: Brad Gerstner (Altimeter Capital CEO, Invest America Founder)

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Overview

This episode centers on the official launch of “Trump Accounts” — investment vehicles for children under 18, as part of the Invest America initiative, aimed at broadening direct citizen ownership and financial literacy for the next generation. The show includes exclusive insights from architect Brad Gerstner, reactions to a major SpaceX donation, debate over the mechanics and philosophy of the program, and commentary on artificial intelligence, markets, and recent celebrity news.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Trump Accounts – Launch & Impact

[01:47–11:00] Opening News & Context

• President Trump marked the nation’s 250th birthday (July 4th) with a speech focusing on patriotism, achievements, and warning against communism.

  • Quote: “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. … It’s the enemy of July 4, 1776.” (President Trump, 02:25)

• “Trump Accounts” officially launched: Each child under 18 receives an investment account seeded by public and private donations.

SpaceX & Major Philanthropic Gifts

• Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX COO) gave a “transformative, extraordinary gift” — 2 million shares of SpaceX distributed to 2 million children via Trump Accounts. (Gerstner, 13:10 & 15:13)

  • Quote: “This is not a program. This is a platform. It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country.” (Brad Gerstner, 15:59)

• Other CEOs & Companies: Michael Dell, Ryan McInerney among those joining the CEO Council, pledging large contributions.

Broader Purpose

• Discussion of the American Dream, wealth-building, and fostering early, direct participation in capitalism.

  • Quote: “Every child a shareholder in the upside of America.” (Gerstner, 15:52)

• The initiative includes features for easy gifting via QR codes, Apple Pay, debit, and Venmo.

• Intended to reach beyond large corporations—“every small business, local restaurant, every medium and large business can participate.” (Gerstner, 17:17)

Implementation & Logistics

• Every child under two receives $1,000 in S&P 500 funds; money compounds over time.

• Push for 70 million accounts, auto-created by the Social Security Administration for all children under 18.

  • Quote: “These are individual private accounts... where they own the best companies. They own Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, and Walmart." (Gerstner, 19:44)

• Any cash contributions automatically swept into diversified index funds. Stock gifts (like SpaceX) remain as stock, per new Treasury Department rules.

  • Quote: “Only shares gifted into the accounts can remain as shares. Any cash... has to be going into those index funds.” (Gerstner, 21:48)

• Emphasis on convenience: “It’s as easy as double-clicking Apple Pay... You can Venmo money into the accounts.” (Gerstner, 19:34)

Philanthropy vs. Socialism

• Clear distinction:
  • Voluntary philanthropic gifts to directly benefit citizens versus government-mandated seizures or slush funds.
  • “We didn’t fight a war 250 years ago to break free from the tyranny of taxation, to have somebody just show up and take 50% of your company, but if they want to voluntarily give 1%, 2%, 5% of their shares...[that’s different].” (Gerstner, 32:49)

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Market & Political Reaction

[11:00–15:13, 13:10–13:33]

• Hosts enthusiastically frame the Trump Accounts as a new chapter in financial literacy, wealth-building, and “getting everyone a stake in capitalism.”

• Joe Kernan: "If you get everyone involved with a stake in capitalism… I think this is for financial literacy and just to have some skin in the game." (13:33)

• Some skepticism and curiosity about legal mechanics—how Treasury permitted individual stock gifting, and how compounding will compare to vehicles like 529s.

  • 529 accounts are owned mostly by the wealthiest; Trump Accounts seen as a Main Street empowerment tool. (Gerstner, 19:06)

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AI, Markets, and Big Tech

[23:08–37:49] Gerstner on Silicon Valley Trends and Competition

AI Market Growth

• Revenue growth from firms like Anthropic and OpenAI is “the fastest… in the history of technology.”

  • “In $125 trillion global economy, if you take 5% of knowledge work… that’s going to be, you know, hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.” (Gerstner, 29:41)

• US AI models must stay ahead of China — bipartisan regulatory support and coordinated business investment are lauded.

Tech Copying & “Stealing” Debate

• Reacting to Alex Karp’s comments that big LLM providers are “stealing” corporate IP.
  • Gerstner’s take: Silicon Valley has always had competition and product copying; it's not necessarily theft.
    • Notable quote: “Remember when Apple built iOS, they also built a mail app… and a browser app called Safari to compete with Google… I don’t think that’s stealing. I think the history of Silicon Valley is a history of competition like that.” (Gerstner, 27:56)

On IPO Timelines

• Anthropic expected to go public this fall; speculation OpenAI could delay for a $1T+ valuation.
  • “I’ve never seen revenue growth like it. I’ve never seen this short a path to the public markets.” (Gerstner, 31:47)

Open Source vs. Closed Models

• Argues for both open and closed source models, and a level playing field vis-à-vis China.

On Philanthropy Models for AI Companies

• Sam Altman’s proposal to donate 5% of OpenAI to Americans is commended (if voluntary and individually distributed).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Every child a shareholder in the upside of America.” (Gerstner, 15:52)
• “It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country.” (Gerstner, 15:59)
• “America is the most giving country on the planet.” (Gerstner, 17:17)
• “We didn’t fight a war 250 years ago to break free from the tyranny of taxation, to have somebody just show up and take 50% of your company, but if they want to voluntarily give 1%, 2%, 5% of their shares… I would support that.” (Gerstner, 32:49)
• “We make it really easy to add money to these accounts. Every account has a QR code… Apple pay or use a debit card…” (Gerstner, 17:38)
• “We do not want [China’s models] distilling our models, taking our IP and then competing… for free, the way they dumped steel.” (Gerstner, 25:43)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic / Segment | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:47–02:52 | President Trump's July 4th speech & focus on threats to liberty | | 09:44–10:07 | Gwynne Shotwell’s SpaceX gift announcement | | 11:00–13:33 | Trump Accounts context and CEO philanthropic commitment | | 13:33–15:13 | Platform mechanics, Main Street focus | | 15:13–19:44 | Gerstner breaks down program details, fundraising, logistics | | 19:44–21:48 | How accounts work, contrast with 529s, legal mechanics | | 21:48–23:08 | Treasury, gifting process & transformative philanthropy | | 23:08–29:07 | AI landscape: business, ethics, and geopolitics | | 29:07–31:44 | Gerstner on AI revenue, IPO expectations | | 32:24–33:50 | Model for broad AI prosperity shares | | 34:01–35:38 | Philanthropy vs. government-directed social wealth | | 36:04–37:49 | Gerstner on the competitive AI field & America’s global edge |

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Additional News Highlights

• Sports: US soccer star’s red card reversed after Trump’s intervention with FIFA; World Cup betting volumes at all-time highs.
• Celebrity News: Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s “royal” wedding at Madison Square Garden; Adam Sandler officiates.
• Market Trends: AI-driven growth boosting stock market, especially semiconductors.

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Conclusion

This episode captures a transformative moment in American financial policy—the birth of universal child investment accounts seeded by major philanthropies and business leaders. Through insightful dialogue, the hosts and Brad Gerstner explore the initiative’s potential to make every American a stakeholder, the mechanics ensuring inclusivity and scalability, and the broader philosophical debate between direct philanthropy and state ownership. The show also dips into ongoing AI trends, regulatory challenges, and the latest business and celebrity headlines, providing both depth and energy in classic Squawk Pod style.

Transcript

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

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[Becky Quick]

It was amazing.

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[Becky Quick]

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[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, Trump accounts savings vehicles for kids officially launched on America's 250th July 4th September celebration. One of the orchestrators, Silicon Valley investor Brad Gerstner.

[Brad Gerstner]

This is not a program. This is a platform. It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

A template to bring the American dream back down to Earth.

[Brad Gerstner]

Gwynne Shotwell's gift this morning, an extraordinary gift. Two million shares of SpaceX to 2 million kids they'll hold in their accounts over the course of the next 10 to 20 years.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Plus the rest of today's news that got us squawking red card drama.

[Joe Kernan]

Well, let's try and win.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And an affair to remember, a royal

[Becky Quick]

wedding in New York city.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's Monday, July 6, 2026. Squawkpod begins right now.

[Becky Quick]

Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Squawkbox right here on cnbc. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. On I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Becky Quick]

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

[President Donald Trump]

Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl harbor, or even 9, 11. We're not going to let this happen to us. It's the enemy of the Constitution. Above all, it's the enemy of July 4, 1776

[Joe Kernan]

US stalker star soccer forward Fuller and Balgon is going to be available to play in the team's round of 16 match tonight against Belgium after FIFA suspended a red card it was given last Wednesday. It came after President Trump reportedly asked the soccer organization to review. He was given the penalty for what appeared to be an accidental foul stepping on a player from Bosnia, Mississippi. Now confirming that President Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino about the penalty, an official said the US Government provided additional evidence to FIFA on Truth Social. President Trump wrote in his words, thank you to FIFA for doing what was right in reversing a great injustice. The Belgian Football association said in its words it was astonished by the reversal. European soccer's governing body is expected to comment later today.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

We're also learning more about high interest and wagering on the World Cup. Dune analytics says that Kalshi saw more than $31 billion in notional trading volume last month. That's up more than 70% from May. Polymarkets International event contract Exchange set a record high in monthly volume in June. That reversed a downtrend that was seen in April and in May. CNBC and Kalshee have a commercial relationship that includes commercial or customer acquisition and a minority investment. Today's big calcium market is The United States vs. Belgium game, which takes place tonight at 8:00pm Eastern Time. Users see the United States with a 52% chance of advancing vs. 48% for Belgium. Belgium's an excellent team, ranked number nine in the world and it has beat the United States team in the past.

[Joe Kernan]

I've watched a lot and I got a little bit disillusioned watching France and Paraguay because it was such a great game in terms of the defense that Paraguay put up. And I didn't think that was a penalty either. And then, you know, you give it to Mbappe or whatever, I knew of course he's gonna and then they win that way. And it's like, okay, France moves on after and I was surprised. Paraguay just took it all in stride. That's the way it works. I guess. It can be a penalty kick.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

I will say we were watching 90

[Joe Kernan]

minutes of watching that and a penalty kick determines it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Yeah, and we watched the Cape Verde versus that was an unbelievable game down to the end. The idea that Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, whatever you call it, could have potentially taken out the team that Messi's on for this whole thing. I mean that was maybe the best game that I've Seen through the entire world.

[Joe Kernan]

And, and yesterday was amazing.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Mexico.

[Joe Kernan]

I can't believe I'm saying no. Norway.

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Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Norway upset.

[Joe Kernan]

It's Brazil. That guy, he looks like. I mean, he looks like he's got spiking. I mean, he looks like a Viking. And he scored both goals or at least scored two.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Two goals.

[Joe Kernan]

Two of the goals. Yeah. Two minutes. That was. That was a really phenomenal match as well in Brazil. You know, they. They can't. They can't even. I think they're in shock. And then tonight, I, I'm glad the guy's playing. We need. We need the guy. But I, you know, it's. It just in the original foul.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Fortunate. How the entire.

[Joe Kernan]

I know the original foul was not a foul.

[Brad Gerstner]

The red card, right?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

It shouldn't have been a red card. No, that was the.

[Joe Kernan]

So. But then this has never been done where. 1962 or something.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

I was gonna say there is precedent, but way, way back.

[Joe Kernan]

Well, let's try and win, you know, let's. Now that we got the. Got the guy back, win. I. I don't think we should be, you know, sulking around. Oh, God, you know, we're getting an advantage. Go try and win, you know. No, no. If you win the whole world or if you get to the court, if you get that quarterfinals and then go beyond that, it's like higher pressure to win, for sure. People love a winner and, you know, so now that you got this, got him back, hopefully he scores three goals tonight.

[Becky Quick]

Buzzed around luxury giant LVMH this morning. This follows the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at New York's Madison Square Garden over the long weekend. The couple reported to have worn Christian Dior Haute Couture because that couture, Dior is one of the famous brands owned by lvmh, along with others like Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. The couple's shoes coming from Christian Louboutin. This with Swift saying that Swift said to have worn jewelry from Cartier. Comedian Adam Sandler apparently was the surprise officiant at the ceremony. Wedding. Wedding planner. You know, the.

[Joe Kernan]

The whole.

[Becky Quick]

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

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

That would be the hope, right?

[Becky Quick]

I've always thought to myself, how could you even do a wedding inside the garden? What would that look like? They must have taken over the garden at least for three days, given the load in maybe even four days. Think about the cost of that is kind of an extraordinary, extraordinary thing.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

One way to prevent cameras from getting

[Becky Quick]

in there, though, but cameras everywhere on the outside. I mean, they shot everybody coming in and out of the wedding and all of that. So a royal wedding in New York City.

[Joe Kernan]

Initially I was thinking if I had my choice where to get married at, like msg, it'd be like dead last. But I guess if it's going to be a spectacle, then, then it was a big wedding.

[Becky Quick]

Thousand thousand plus people.

[Joe Kernan]

Right?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

I thought it might be a head fake that they just.

[Joe Kernan]

I know that's pretend to be implying.

[Becky Quick]

Tease will be next.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Coming up on Squawk pod, the big SpaceX donation. Shares from COO Gwynne Shotwell to the Trump accounts newly launched and an extended conversation with the Silicon Valley veteran and investor who helped make these accounts happen, Brad Gerstner.

[Brad Gerstner]

Remember when Apple built iOS, they also built a mail app and a calendaring app and a browser app called Safari to compete with Google. They built a lot of apps of their own. And I'm certain that OpenAI and Anthropic are going to build some apps of their own.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Is it stealing? It depends on who you ask.

[Brad Gerstner]

I don't think that's stealing. I think the history of Silicon Valley is a history of competition like that.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We'll be right back.

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[President Donald Trump]

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[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

welcome back. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Before the long holiday weekend, our Joe Kernan sat down with President Trump to discuss a range of issues like today's launch of Trump accounts investment vehicles for American children under 18. Here's part of that conversation.

[Joe Kernan]

Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire?

[President Donald Trump]

I haven't. I know I wrote him a note. I said, congratulations, very good. I have a very good relationship with Elon. Elon and I had a little dispute because he backed me 100%. He liked me, still likes me. But I did a little thing called the electric mandate. We're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have an electric car, where your beautiful son standing over there is mandated to have an electric car if he wants gas generated or gasoline generated or a hybrid. And I made so many speeches and Elon was there for many of them. And I'd always say we will not have the electric mandate. But when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that. And I can understand it. But he's doing good.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah, he's moved on. Do you think, have you talked to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about or donating SpaceX stock to Trump accounts?

[President Donald Trump]

Well, I think that he will do that. Micron, which is a great company, that did it. Michael Dell is fantastic guy. He did 6 million 250.

[Joe Kernan]

And that was part of my conversation with President Trump last Thursday. Earlier this morning, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell posting on X, writing, my husband and I are honored and thrilled to participate in the Invest America program and gift a share of our SpaceX stock to a Trump account for each of more than 2 million children across our great nation. And later this morning, we're going to speak at length with Altimeter Capital CEO and founder of Invest America, Brad Gerstner. There's bell ringing, there's all the NASDAQ button pushing, all kinds of things happening from the White House I think this morning as well.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

I will say it's a great plan to do this again from the investment tool perspective from financial literacy for kids, from the idea that you're teaching them to save, from the idea that this is a long term retirement account that you can set up for them. I don't see any downside at all to this. And it's a great opportunity.

[Joe Kernan]

I think it's just a, at a time where just shockingly we're questioning capitalism versus socialism, that if you get everyone involved with a stake in capitalism, other than just transfer payment, whatever we've done in the past. I think this is for financial literacy and just to have some skin in the game and to have something, when you turn 18, actually have some, something built up, I think it's great.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

And to encourage long term investing because

[Becky Quick]

you're stuck in it. I mean, that's the whole point of it. Which is, which is the point and a half. We're going to talk to Brad a little bit later. Also understand how Gwen and others may or may not donate. There's a whole question about that, which is a separate issue about how they're doing that given the way the law is is written. It'd be fascinating just to understand how the treasury, because we reported that the treasury was debating this, but they had come down back then on the side that they, that the statute didn't allow them to do it and now they're doing it. So trying to understand how that happens is going to be interesting. Trump accounts are kicking off on Saturday, July 4th, and our next guest was instrumental in making it happen. Want to bring in Altimeter Capital founder and CEO Brad Gerstner. He is a founder of Invest America. Congratulations to you. I know we've been talking about this for a very, very long time and it is now official. It is real. And not only is it real, Brad, but one of the major transformations is something you've been working on behind the scenes for the past couple of months that led to Gwynne Shotwell's donation over the weekend. Yeah.

[Brad Gerstner]

Incredible to be here, Andrew. Thanks for having me. You know, I remember coming on Squawk box three or four years ago when we first started talking about this. And of course last July 4th, the President signed the Invest America act into law as part of the big beautiful bill that created an investment account for every child at birth. You know, every child gets on their phone a little share of Microsoft and Nvidia, etc. That started on Saturday. You can gift into these accounts every child forevermore born into this country under the age of two is going to get $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 that can compound for their lifetime. If you start with $1,000, as you know, and that is matched and you add just $10 a week, that's $50,000 for every child at 18. This makes real the promise of the American dream. Not for some, but for everybody. Every child a shareholder in the upside of America. So today is a big celebration. We're going to have the first ever, first ever joint bell ringing by the NASDAQ and NYSE and the first ever remote bell ringing from the oval office at 9:30 Eastern Time. So it's a great celebration. We got incredible CEOs from Michael Dell to Ryan McInerney and across the spectrum who've joined the Invest America CEO Council who are giving huge contributions of their own. And of course you mentioned Gwynne Shotwell's gift this morning, an extraordinary gift. 2 million shares of SpaceX to 2 million kids they'll hold in their accounts over the course of the the next 10 to 20 years. And when they're 18, they can hold on to the shares of Space X or sell those shares. But it shows the flexibility of this platform. This is not a program, this is a platform. It is the largest unlock of direct philanthropy in the history of the country.

[Becky Quick]

One of the things you've been working on, I know tirelessly behind the scenes also is, is trying not just to get individuals to donate, but to get companies to match. Where are you in that? I know a whole number of big companies have signed on thus far, but where do you see this going over the Next, call it 12 months?

[Brad Gerstner]

It's incredible, the outpouring of support. You know, I've said many times America is the most giving country on the planet. And the last year has definitely affirmed my belief in that. The President asked Michael Dell and I to go out and raise $100 billion for these Trump accounts. And we're well on our way. We've already have commitments of tens of billions of dollars into these accounts. And I would say across corporate America, across the Business Roundtable, across the S&P 500, our hit rate must be over 90%. Everybody wants to participate in this. But here's the key. This is not just about the largest companies in America. You know, take altimeter. We have 36 employees at altimeter. We have about 85 kids of those employees and we're going to donate to every one of those kids accounts. This is for every small business, every local restaurant, every landscaper, every contractor, every medium sized business and every large business. We make it really easy to add money to these accounts. Every account has a QR code associated with it. All you have to do is Apple pay or use a debit card and you can transfer money into any of these accounts. And so we hope that, you know, working with the Small Business association and, and many others, that we're going to expand this and it's already starting to take off among not only the largest companies in America, which of course, you know all the incredible names right from Nvidia to Salesforce, from Dell to, to iHeart, but to all businesses in America.

[Becky Quick]

A Brad, there was a question I think that was raised about, you know, for a family that's thinking about putting their own money into these accounts, I think is a big part of this to get the sort of compounding effect of it longer term. You know, should you put money into, you know, if you, if you only had a choice between this and a 529 account or you're thinking about funding your 401k, how should people at home think about that?

[Brad Gerstner]

Yeah, well, first, Andrew, we have about 16.8 million 529 accounts in America and 90 plus percent of those are with people in the top 10% of income. So 529 accounts, which is a college saving account is perfectly good. But the fact of the matter is it does not fulfill the President's Main street agenda. The Main street agenda is for the 75% of families that today feel like they're left out and left behind, like the American dream is escaping them. We're going to get every single one of those families into the game. Right? And so I hope that over the course of the next few months we're going to be auto creating with the Social Security Administration 70 million accounts for every kid under the age of 18 so that we can get this money into those accounts and get it compounding. And for moms and dads, here's what I would say to you. You know, even we've done lots of studies, all cohorts of Americans want to see their kids do better. If it's $5, if it's 10 bucks, it's as easy as double clicking Apple pay on your phone. Most families have this. You can venmo money into the accounts. We want to make it frictionless for friends and family and parents to contribute a few bucks at a time into these accounts. Every time money hits these accounts, Andrew, it's automatically swept the next day into the S&P 500. So they will be fully invested in the greatest companies in America, compounding in the upside of America, true direct ownership. This is not a government program. These are individual private accounts for 70 million Americans. Hopefully over the course of the next few months where they own the best companies, they own Nvidia and Microsoft and Apple and Walmart, et cetera. And so we're well on our way. Today's a big celebration, a big milestone and you know, hopefully we'll, we'll see a lot of people get on board.

[Becky Quick]

One more on on Trump accounts And then we want to get your sense on the markets and AI and everything else. But you know, the thing that you'd been working on the past couple of months to try to get, you know, big investors like a Gwyne Shotwell, the President mentioned last week that he thinks potentially Elon Musk could donate SpaceX shares as well into these funds. And then the individual who receives those would then be what would hold on to that actual stock itself. I wanted to understand how that happened. And I asked because I know there was a big debate inside the Treasury Department about whether the big beautiful bill technically allowed for it. The language in that bill said that eligible investments were strictly, quote, any mutual fund or exchange traded fund. And the idea, I think was to make sure that those investments were quote, unquote, diversified. There is this other catch all language and maybe that's what they're leaning on. But I'm sure you've been reading all that language and I know there's debate about it. So wanted to understand it.

[Brad Gerstner]

Yeah, no, it's a great question. The last thing anybody wants is crony capitalism. We don't want the government picking and choosing stocks. Which is why the legislation required that any cash into the accounts automatically swept into the S&P 500. But the legislature gave broad authority to a whole group of of categories which included gifting. So only shares gifted into the accounts can remain as shares. Any cash that comes to the account has to be going into those index funds. And so if you look at the broad exclusionary language the 538 accounts established, it basically said these have to be treated like 408 accounts. IRA accounts, except for were otherwise determined by the Treasury Secretary and the Treasury Secretary. Obviously, IRA accounts never contemplated gifts from folks like Michael Dell or Gwynne Shotwell. So we had to come up with a set of rules. The Treasury Department promulgated those rules. The President tweeted about it last week. I was very happy. I'm telling you, the idea that Warren Buffett could give a share of Berkshire Hathaway to every kid in America, that Elon Musk could give shares of SpaceX, that Sergey Brin could give shares of Google, this idea will unlike unlock transformative philanthropy and get everybody into the game. It's all upside for the kids of America. So I'm thrilled we're heading down this path.

[Becky Quick]

Also wanted to get your thoughts, Brad though, on where we are in the AI, if we call it cycle boom, what you want to describe it as, but I wanted to get your reaction, really more than Anything to Alex Karp's comments on our air last week, which I know have caused a lot of conversation in the Valley. He said that he believes that a lot of CEOs, corporate CEOs around the country are upset with some of the big LLMs. Anthropic OpenAI thinks they're overcharging, thinks they're stealing from them.

[I]

These people are livid. They're like, I am paying for tokens that create no value. These people are stealing the weights and alpha of my business. And they're creating a wealth tax that does not help the poor. It just punishes. Starts with the billionaires. Every single person at this table is going to be paying a wealth tax only to punish us. And the reason for it is because these models have been completely over irresponsibly overselled. And the sell is it's dangerous for everyone. Which is why I can give it to all your adversaries, but I can't give it to the Department of War or I can't safely give it to an enterprise in this country without being certain that the alpha that business could transfer to this model tomorrow.

[Becky Quick]

I know you've been, you know, an advocate and an investor in these big businesses, so wanted to get your view on it.

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I'm a huge fan of Alex and I think Alex made some really good points. But I would say this. You know, follow the money. The revenue growth of these companies is the fastest revenue growth we've ever seen in the history of technology that continues unabated in May, in June and into July. So if they're really upset with the companies, then I don't think they would be using the product. So two things can be simultaneously true. Alex is right. It's really important that we support open source models in the US So for those companies that want the choice of open weights and open models and controlling, you know, that part of the stack, they're able to do that. But for the vast majority of companies, they want the best and the best. Frontier models, the American thoroughbred models, right, are going to be OpenAI and anthropic and X, you know, with Elon, maybe Gemini in the mix, et cetera. And so we want the thoroughbreds to run, we want those models to do great. I give huge credit to the White House, Secretary Besant, Howard Lutnick, etc. When they disabled Fable, we went through a process, we got it back online quickly. We need Americans models, both open source and closed source, running as fast as we can because the preeminent race is the race with China. We must stay ahead of China for both economic and national security reasons. And I think we found a good balance here. But I don't think it's either or, Andrew. It's both. We need to support American open source models, both the models out of Nvidia, which are terrific. We've got Misha and the team at Reflection that are building some great things and our closed source models. And I think insofar as Chinese open source models are concerned, we just want to make them play by the same set of rules. We do not want them distilling our models taking our IP and then competing against us for free the way that they dumped steel on the United States. Make everybody play by the same set of rules. I'm confident if we do that America's models will win. And I think that we're in a pretty good position right now coming out of the recent discussions.

[Becky Quick]

So I think part of the question, and by the way, some of the all in guys raised this over the weekend as well, is it's not necessarily fully about whether China steals our ip, which I think is a big question, but whether the models themselves are stealing IP from corporate America. So the big example is figma, for example. This is a company that partnered with Anthropic. One of the board members from somebody who worked with Anthropic was on the board of figma. And Anthropic goes into the design world with, with Claude Design. Just two or three days beforehand, the board member leaves Anthropic or leaves figma. Figma had no idea. And I think the argument is that companies like a figma that even partner with an Anthropic or what have you or others that are partnering may ultimately lose their business because the large language models will effectively try to take it.

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, again, I think we got to be pretty careful with the verbs and the language that we're using. Right.

[Joe Kernan]

Did.

[Brad Gerstner]

Did Meta Stories rip off Snapchat? Right. The history of Silicon Valley is replete with examples of competitors copying other products that others have and then they have to win the game on the field. I would, you know, I've talked to Dylan about this at Figma, you know, and if Figma had a choice to make, they can use the model or not use the model. I think some companies will say, listen, we're going to go open source because we don't want to have any interaction with these companies. But make no mistake about it, AI platforms are horizontal. They're not going to be confined to a narrow little area of applications. They're going to build their own applications. Remember when Apple built iOS, they also built a mail app and a calendaring app and a browser app called Safari to compete with Google. They built a lot of apps of their own. And I'm certain that OpenAI and Anthropic are going to build some apps of their own. Some of those will be competitive, some of those will be novel. I don't think that's stealing. I think the history of Silicon Valley is a history of competition like that. I would never want companies that we're invested in, you know, to be, you know, milking somebody for all their information, getting, you know, their product IP and then. And then going out and deploying that. I don't think that's what happened here, but I understand the concern.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-host commentary)]

Hey, Brad, do you see any end in sight in the growth expectations for AI at this point? You know, there's two camps. One that says, no, this is here, it's for real, and it's going to continue like that. The other is, look, AI is here, but you may not see the earnings continue to grow in some of these other companies around it. Explain which camp you're in and why.

[Brad Gerstner]

Yeah, well, I mean, listen, the question coming into this year, Becky, and Remember, we had two 25% drawdowns in AI data center semiconductor stocks over the last 18 months over this question. Would the AI revenue justify the investment in CapEx, the extraordinary $1.2 trillion annual investment in CapEx that we're seeing? People came into this year very nervous. In fact, on my podcast, my partner and I, Bill Gurley, were on opposite sides of this debate. I thought that the revenues would show up, but we didn't know. In January this year, we saw Anthropics revenues with Opus 4.8 beginning to take off, and then they went totally parabolic. That lit the fuse on the market with the Sox up 80% this year. On the back of that revenue growth out of Anthropic, it's the single most important thing in the market. If you told me three months from now, all of a sudden, anthropic's revenue or OpenAI's revenue stopped or stopped growing, that would be a real problem. Not just for them, for the entire AI trade in the market. I don't see that. I don't expect that to continue. We're still very, very early. Let me. You know, in $125 trillion global economy, if you take 5% of that knowledge work, 5 to 10% of that knowledge work, and you use AI to empower it, make it more productive. That's going to be, you know, hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. If you look at the trajectory that Anthropic is on, I think it could be as high as 100 billion of revenue by the end of the year. There's lots of talk obviously about IPOs for both of these companies. And so I think there's extraordinary growth ahead. I think it's terrific for America. By the way, this is the single most important contributor to the GDP growth of the United States of America this year. It's contributing over 100 basis points of our GDP growth. Very important for us to see this continue. But listen, trust but verify. You got to see those revenues rolling in. They got to continue to build great products. I think there are a couple more models already being trained. And in cue, let's call these the post Mythos models that we trained starting in September on Vera Rubin. And so we're going to 10x the amount of compute that we use to train these models. We're going to dramatically improve the chips we use to train these models. We're going to stay ahead of China. And when we do that, we're going to have more and more products that are incredibly useful to both consumers like us, but also to enterprises.

[Becky Quick]

Hey, Brad, you know the expectation this fall is that Anthropic will go public. There has been some talk that OpenAI could delay an offering into 27 with the hope of a trillion dollar valuation. Where do you you stand on what that schedule looks like and the calculus behind it?

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I'm kind of laughing. Andrew, think about this. We're talking about delaying an IPO for a company that launched its product three years ago and is already at a trillion dollars in valuation. So I hardly consider that a delay. These guys are both on a rocket ship timeline. I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen revenue growth like it. I've never seen this short a path to the public markets. But my sense is this. I want to see. I've been pushing these companies from a very early place. I would love to see them get into the public markets. We need this value creation to be shared with all of America. By the way, I would love to see them voluntarily contribute some shares like Gwynne Shotwell did this morning.

[Becky Quick]

Would you prefer that? What do you think about Sam Altman's plan to, to donate effectively 5% of the entire company to the country in some way?

[Brad Gerstner]

All right, listen. Shared prosperity. Shared prosperity in our economic future is absolutely central not only to my vision of the future, his vision of the future, but most importantly, the President, the White House's vision of the future. We have to spread this out. It can't be. 10% of people own the capital. Get the compounding and the upside. One way to do that. And I said last week on cnbc, two conditions in my mind have to be met. Number one, it has to be voluntary. I totally disagree with Bernie's suggestion that you're just going to take 50% of these companies or 25% of these companies. We didn't, we didn't fight a war 250 years ago to break free from, from the tyranny of taxation, to have somebody just show up and take 50% of your company, but if they want to voluntarily give 1%, 2%, 5% of their shares. And then the second piece for me, I don't like the idea of a government slush fund. This administration might do something great with it. Future administrations may put it to a purpose that a lot of America disagrees with. So from my perspective, voluntary, and then distribute it directly into citizen accounts. There should be citizen ownership in the upside of America. And so I would support that. I've talked with Sam about it. I've talked with Elon about it, I've talked with Dario about it. I think that the future will include some version of that, but it needs to be really beneficial to all Americans.

[Becky Quick]

What do you think? Some people look at that and say, well, this is, this is socialistic. This, this approach for the government to be taking these stakes in the businesses, even if it's distributed ultimately to individuals.

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I take, I have a very different view. So let's, let's look at two case studies. One, intel, intel was really struggling as a, as a company. The US Government smartly said we need to rebuild our entire semiconductor stack here in America. Not dependent exclusively on Taiwan. They invested dollars and got shares in return. It's been a massive success for the federal government. So that is an arm's length transaction between the government and intel that I would totally support separately.

[Becky Quick]

But that's, there's a, there's a state cap called state capital capitalism. I don't know what you described it, but that, it's different than the approach that we've taken thus far.

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, you know, listen, I do not believe the government should be in the business of shaking down companies taking shares like Bernie is suggesting suggesting, and then putting them into some slush fund for the government. That is totally a socialist idea. We are anti that idea. I don't care if that idea is being proposed by a Republican or a Democrat. I'm totally against that idea. But the idea of philanthropy, Michael Dell giving $6.25 billion.

[Becky Quick]

I agree with you.

[Brad Gerstner]

Susan and Sam is suggesting the exact same thing. A philanthropic contribution to Dario philanthropic or an Elon or Gwen philanthropic contribution that firmly lands in a different category to benefit all citizens that I'm pushing for. That is the direction I think we're headed with this White House. I don't think we're going to follow the path that's being suggested by Democratic socialists, that we just go start taking shares from America's most successful companies and doing whatever we want with it. That would be a disaster for America.

[Becky Quick]

One other big question you mentioned. We talked about Anthropic and OpenAI. You mentioned what XI is doing, what Elon is doing, and then you mentioned Google and Gemini sort of as a, as a fourth. I'm curious where you think XI really lands, where you think Gemini lands. And then one you didn't mention. But there's been a lot of reporting that suggests that they're still struggling, which is Metta, how do you, how do you stack, rank the situation?

[Brad Gerstner]

Well, I mean, listen, it's very clear if you just look at the revenue numbers that are coming out of these companies, it's Anthropic and OpenAI that are leading the pack. They are the thoroughbreds at the moment. But remember, the largest compute stack in the world is now going to be, you know, controlled by Elon. He struck incredible deals with Anthropic and Google and Reflection and others. Really smart, generated terrific amount of revenue. He's the best in the world at standing up AI data centers. And now he can leverage that for the benefit of training his own models. And he made a really smart acquisition, the 50, $60 billion acquisition of cursor, led by an incredible founder in Michael. So I think they have a real shot as you look forward, using that compute to build a frontier model. And the more competition, the better. Obviously you can never count Google out. They are the, the original pioneer here. They have plenty of compute. They have all the money in the world. You know, I'm surprised that, that, you know, frankly, they haven't seen more traction here as of late, but I think that they'll be on the hunt. And then we saw a lot of Facebook last week, again, a double down on their commitment to compute. They in fact said, we're going to do what Elon did. We're going to sell our compute to others. So that's amortizing the cost like AWS did, which I think is a really smart business decision. But I think they're going to stay in the hunt as well and train their own models. So think about this, Andrew. Here we are three and a half years, you know, into the launch of ChatGPT. America has four or five incredible Frontier models. We've got Reflection and Nvidia on the open source side. We got the best semiconductor compute stack in the world and we've got a regulatory environment that's letting our thoroughbreds run. That is the magic formula for this country. It's going to drive both GDP growth, but it's also going to make sure that we stay ahead in the global AI race.

[Becky Quick]

Brad want to thank you for your time this morning. Want to thank you and congratulate you on trump accounts. Thanks. Thank you.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We'll be right back.

[Keith Landsford]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Landsford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get podcasts Thursday, July 16 CNBC Sport and Boardroom Join Fanatics Fest for Game plan groundbreaking ideas shaping the future of sports and entertainment. Request your invite@cnbc events.com gameplan

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

and that is Squawk Pod for today. Thanks for starting your week with us here on the podcast. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern to get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears. Please follow Squawkpod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.

[Becky Quick]

We are clear. Thanks guys.

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