Power Lunch - Nasdaq rallies to end week 5/8/26

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Morgan Stanley's Michael Gapen joins with his economic read. Strategy CEO Phong Le discusses the company's bitcoin plan.    And more and more Americans are working multiple jobs—what does it mean for the economic outlook? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome, markets are still on pace to end the week on a high note, both the S&P and the NASDAQ tracking for another record close. Welcome to Power Lunch. I'm Kelly Evans alongside Steve Leasman. Brian will be back on Monday. Chips and memory powering the charge with Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Micron all hitting new intraday highs. But as the sector extends its blistering run, are these names getting dangerously overbought? We'll talk about that ahead. Plus international markets sharply upperforming the U.S. Taiwan, a bit of a bit of a bit of 50% year today, while South Korea is up 90% since January. So we're asking Tim Seymour, is there still money to be made overseas?

Or shall we say, pesos, jocs, and rubles? And strategy making a strategic shift signaling it's moving away from it to never-sale Bitcoin approach. CEO Fongli, he joins us exclusively later this hour. Let's begin with news out of Washington. Megan Kinsella has the latest from the White House, Megan, as we watch stocks stuttering here a bit. Hey, Kelly, we've just learned in the last few minutes that the Trump administration is going to appeal that latest court ruling that seeks to knock down the next portion of his tariff agenda. So just in the last couple of minutes, the administration filing that appeal, sending the case

to the court of appeals for the federal circuit. And remember, this was the Court of International Trade ruling late last night, two to one, that the president's Section 122 tariffs, as they're known, were unlawful. These are the tariffs that were essentially the replacement for the AEPA tariffs. after the Supreme Court ruled in February that the president could not go that direction to impose global 10% across the board tariffs, then he used this new statute. But CIT found last night that this one also could not apply to get these tariffs in place. I will say, Kelly, this one is a pretty narrow ruling. It only applies to the plaintiffs in the case, two small businesses as well as the state of Washington. That means that even while this appeal is ongoing, the tariff does remain in place for most

importers for now. We could see more court cases filed to try to get a broader injunction For now, the tariff is in place while the administration appeals this up. Kelly. All right. And we're waiting to see, Megan, if there would be any news flow on the Iran front. But it sounds like nothing new since we last spoke. Not since we last spoke. Could move any moment. Both of these stories playing out at the same time. We did hear the president speak earlier today. He did not mention Iran. So the latest we have, stills from Secretary of State Marker Rubio. The U.S. is in a waiting position at this point, waiting to see Iran respond to their peace proposal.

Megan, there is a wire headline here, Trump on Iran. This is a two o'clock. Talks are continuing on ending this major conflict, is all he's saying. I don't know if that moves the ball at all. Probably just since I've been with you guys. I don't know where he's speaking or to whom he is speaking, but. The last we knew was the Mother's Day, the Mother's Day event was where he was making some remarks, including to go by Adele as he was thanking Michael and Susan and those shares were popping too.

So, Megan, I assume that's where this is coming from, but as always, keep us posted. and Kisela is over at the White House. Shares of Intel are surging after the company reportedly struck a deal with Apple. Let's turn back to Christina Partsenevelas for those details with Intel shares, Christina, up about 15%. Yeah, Apple and Intel have just reached this preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some of Apple's chips. This is according to the Wall Street Journal. Intel is not commenting right now. Apple's not commenting. But according to that, report negotiations have reportedly been going on for more than a year.

It's still unclear which Apple products Intel would make chips for, but investors have been expecting Apple to show up as one of Intel's foundry customers by the end of this year. This rumor has been milling about for quite some time, so we just can't ignore it, especially when the stock moves. Most likely, though, it could be for Mac chip computers. An iPhone chip win would be much bigger or a much bigger deal for Intel. That's been Taiwan Semiconductor's territory for a long time. The key issue, though, is capacity. TSM's advanced manufacturing processes are effectively sold out because AI chips are just taking priority. Apple CEO Tim Cook has flagged chip shortages on the last two earnings call, so Apple is definitely looking for more chip supply.

If Intel can take even a small slice, likely starting with Mac chips, it would be a major credibility boost for Intel's founder of business, also why the share price is climbed. And for TSM, it's not necessarily bad news. Apple is a massive customer, but one of the lowest margin at scale if Apple shifts. a little bit of volume elsewhere, TSM can actually redirect some of that capacity towards higher-paying AI customers. For Intel, though, this is the biggest validation yet of CEO Liputans Foundry Strategy. Add this to the Nvidia Partnership, the Elon Musk-Therap deal, and a U.S. government that converted nearly $9 billion in chipsack grants into Intel stock. Intel, potentially, is three marquee customers and Washington backing its manufacturing ambitions.

No wonder the share price is up 113 percent in one. one month. And 240% this year. Wild. Christina, thank you very much, Christina, parts and evelace. Let's bring in our all-star panel to discuss Marianne Bartels as chief investment strategist at Sanctuary Wealth. Michael Gapen is chief economist at Morgan Stanley. They're both on set with us. Welcome. I guess, Michael, we can just start with today's biggest news, which was this much better than expected jobs report. We haven't really been paying a lot of attention to the labor market. I'm just curious what your response is. We've been looking for the labor market to pick up a little bit.

we thought demand for labor would be a little better this year. And I think we're getting signs of that. This was the second straight month of job gains, which, by the way, we haven't seen for a year. So two consecutive increases. The run rate is still lower than normal, but that's largely an immigration story. I think the good news here is that labor demand looks like it's picked up a bit, but the labor market didn't tighten in a way that might lead you to believe there's inflationary pressures behind it. So I think it's a very good report from the perspective of the economy and the Fed, who says activities doing a little bit better, that allows us to be patient, stay where we are, and maybe lean against inflation.

So average hourly earnings, you know, fairly modest, not showing an uptick, the unemployment rate actually nudged a little bit higher. So even with those strong job gains, the labor market didn't tighten a lot. So I think that's good news on balance. Steve, what do you think? Well, I want to ask Michael about the underuse. utilization rate, the U6 ticking up a couple months in a row now. It's been higher in the past. And then I thought the wage number was actually a little weak at 0.2. So, and I don't want to

emphasize the negative here because I'll take over 100,000 in this current environment. I think those are good numbers. But how much concern do you have when you look at some of those negative factors? Yeah, so this is where I'm saying. I think the report was mixed overall. So I think the headline employment number, a very solid number. But yes, there are other areas of soft in there, it's certainly clear that inflation will be eating into purchasing power over the next few months, whether you look at that on an average hourly earnings basis or kind of a payroll proxy that takes into account additional hours worked. And so participation is a little soft. The employment to population ratio has been trending down. But I think what we are looking at is

a lot of that, we think, is driven by demographics, just the aging of the population. That's when on participation, that's weighing on employment to population. There's some issues, I think, with young employment as well. But when you look at the prime working age, that looks really good in terms of high employment to population, high participation. So I think we're focused on that. So I'm willing to let some of the other soft spots slide, given what we're seeing with prime age workers.

Marianne, the stock worker doesn't care about any of this stuff, right? No, they care about earnings. Not paying attention to the macro data. They're looking at earnings and earnings. earnings are great, and there's all this investment in AI. Should we just be ignoring it as stock investors? Well, you never want to ignore everything. And the one thing I learned when I took economics is that the economy is never fully balanced. There's always something a little bit out of whack. But the earnings are spectacular. Only three or six months ago, we were talking about

all the cap-back spend that were coming from the hyperscalers, and would that turn into revenue and earnings? Well, here we are. after they reported earnings jumped dramatically. So they are turning this large Quebec spend down into the bottom line earnings. And that's why we're sitting at record all-time highs here in the market. This reminds me, Kelly, when I used to drive a truck in the city, in college to make money. I used to deliver alcohol around the city. And the guy told me the way to drive a truck in New York City is don't use your side view mirrors.

If you can't see him this way, it's like that's how we're driving. the stock market, right? We're not looking left, not looking right. Just look straight ahead, and those straight ahead is, is AI, is powering this economy, powering the stock market, powering earnings, and it's okay. Do you see, are you concerned at all about what's happening with gas prices and some of the retail companies and some of the consumer-facing companies? Well, certainly hurts our pocketbook, right? I can't spend on some of the things that I want to spend on. No, that's one of the things I'm watching very closely, is can the consumer continue to spend in this environment with gasoline prices above four.

And so far the data is showing that the consumer has the ability to spend, but the higher end is still stronger than the lower income level. So we still have that disparity, but it really hasn't had a major negative impact or shock to the consumer. And as we know, the consumer drives GDP. So that's another positive for the markets. Michael, we were talking to Greg, last hour, about kind of this two-track, the AI boom, and whether it's going to broaden out. He was actually a little bit

skeptical that it's going to kind of contribute to a much more balanced, going back to see much more balanced economy where there's kind of gains experience throughout. Do you have any data or take on that? So I think initially, I think that take is correct, that the expansion in the U.S. is being narrowly driven by AI-related spending in upper-income households. So I think the answer to that is ultimately down the road, does AI deliver the types of productivity and output gains we expect without significant displacement in the labor market? If it does, and that's what I think ultimately will happen, then I think you can get some more broad-based sharing. But for now, I would agree with Marianne, that oil is basically neutralizing stimulus in the one big, beautiful

bill for households. So the average refund is up about $320 per refund. And if, If gas averages around 360 a gallon for the rest of the year, which seems completely feasible at this point, then you've basically neutralized that. Man, let's say I was living in a cave. No news coming in. I came out and I had some money to invest. Is it too late now to get on board with the AI, I think? No, it's not. So my thesis, Steve, has been, is that we're in a secular market driven by technology with semiconductors, the leader. That's been a thesis I've had for quite some time. And I still continue to see that. Now, semiconductors are getting extended. I'd love to see them pull back.

They're get, you know, because now they're going vertical. But if I take a look at the market over the next three years, four years, I think the S&P can hit $10,000 to $13,000, still driven by technology. So it's not too late. And what about this idea, which I have a lot of sympathy for what Greg's talking about, that if AI soaks up all the investment, then you have a decline or a lack of investment in other parts of the economy. That may be the issue, but every time we have new technology, we have new changes within the economy and even changes that we probably don't even understand yet.

I think we're going to create jobs with AI that we can't even fathom now. I mean, probably one of the biggest shocks to me is that you can become an influencer and become a millionaire. I never knew that was going to be a job. And so I think there's going to be job creation. The amount of content that you have to create to stay in the, it's exhausting, but yes, to your point. Michael, Diane Swank in the last hour talked about rate hikes. I know you guys are not on board with rate cuts for 26 and you push them off into 27, which is like saying into the never Neverland. But in any event, that said, could you see a situation where the Federal Reserve under Fed Chair designee, I guess is the correct term? Now, did you know that? Kevin Warsh,

where he could be hiking rates? Yeah, I think there's, yeah, you can construct scenarios, right? So obviously, you need core inflation to be firming, not just steady, it needs to be firming. So you could get there in a, what I'll call an oil shock price premium store. Oil is just elevated for a long time. So you get the second round effects on core that most of us economists think are not coming. Inflation expectations are also part of this story. You're five of two percent or better. And I think to your last point coming out of a cave and seeing how well the U.S. economy is doing, there's an animal spirit's upside where all the demand for AI buildout, strong spending from upper income consumers kind of fuels the demand side of the story. So it's possible. I don't

think it's likely, but that's, I think, what you need to get hikes from the Fed. Marian, part of the theme of driving this truck and not looking at the side view, Mary, is you don't care. And the stock market doesn't seem to care, that no cuts are coming and that the 10-year remains elevated at 435 or so. And that's not a problem. No, it's not a problem, because when we look at technology companies, they're not as interest rate sensitive. They're not as oil sensitive. That's not where it's driving their bottom line. And I think that's what the market is more focused on. You also like Ron B. I do. Tell us about that. So that is an And not too late on that one either. Definitely not too late on that one. So for investors that want to have

access to SpaceX through an ETF, the ticker symbol is Ron B. Ron Barron, just everybody knows. Yes. Not Burgundy, but yeah. So it has about a 7% position in SpaceX. Its largest position happens to be Tesla, which is another company that I happen to like. But I think what's happened to some other vehicles, their NAV value has gotten way above where the stock prices. This is an ETF where the NAV value has not gone a little whackadoo. And that's going to be a huge... Before we end the segment, we need to advise people not to drive

without looking at their side of humor. That's a metaphor, folks. I was going to say, especially if they're driving an alcohol truck, but you were just delivering it, I know. It's just, yeah. Guys, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. A sanctuary wealth, Michael Gapen of Morgan Stanley. Time now for the bond report with a bold bet on treasuries today. Double lines Jeffrey Gunlock telling Bloomberg that he's making, what he acknowledges, is a highly unlikely bet that the U.S. may one day restructure its debt. He says he's shifting some higher coupon treasuries and certain portfolios into lower coupon ones of the same maturity in case the government and a future scenario could slash interest payments across existing. bonds. This comes a few weeks after former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the U.S. needs a

backup plan to avoid a Treasury market collapse, warning the fallout could be vicious. Coming up. What do you think of that? I think we're, these warnings need to be heard, but the fact that gun locks putting money behind them. That's like, that's like stocking up on tuna in your, in your bomb shelter. The doomsday scenario. You're right. I don't think that's going to happen. And he's taking a hit on that, right? Because he's cashing in his higher coupon notes for lower coupon. I don't want that money. I want to be safe.

I live through a cram down in Russia, and it's not a pleasant thing. And I doubt, I think people are looking at the wrong numbers. I think you look at debt to GDP as one number, but look at debt coverage ratio in America or the wealth of America. I think people are a little bit too excited by the 100% debt to GDP. $110 trillion of wealth. I think if they buy the treasuries, we're going to be. going to be fine. Coming up, what happened to the never-sell Bitcoin plan for strategy? We'll ask the CEO of one of the largest Bitcoin holders in the market about their change after the break.

The world's largest crypto treasury company, surprising investors a little bit this week, suggesting they could abandon their longstanding never-sell Bitcoin approach and instead actively manage holdings to maximize the value of its Bitcoin per share. The stock is up. It's up 4% today and on pace for its fifth positive week in a row, although it's about 60% below its 52-week high from July of last year. Let's bring in an exclusive interview, Fong Lee, he is the CEO of Strategy. Fong, it's great to have you back here. Welcome. Thanks for having me again. And describe, in your words, this change in strategy from never selling Bitcoin to managing the Bitcoin. What is it price per share? Bitcoin per share, yeah. Okay, thank you. What is the philosophy behind this? change? The biggest change that's happened to the company, and I would argue to Bitcoin and perhaps

the financial markets in the last year, has been the advent of digital credit, which is stretch. We've raised $8.5 billion in 10 months. And with that, we look at optionality, we look at our strategy, and we say now, let's look at the Bitcoin and see if it can provide us value from time to time to sell it. And ultimately, I believe in math over ideology, and at the point where selling Bitcoin versus selling equity to pay a dividend is better for our Bitcoin per share and for our common shareholders, we'll do it. So strategy, I'm sorry, stretch is a perpetual preferred stock with an 11.5% yield that's paid monthly. So is what you're saying that you're selling some of your Bitcoin holdings in order to pay this yield? We will sell our Bitcoin to pay the yield where it's

accreative to our shareholders, and that's defined as accretive to Bitcoin per share. And at times when it's accretive are when the book value of our company is trading below the price or the price is trading below the book value, right? Or MNAV is below right now 1.22. So that's just for stretch in particular? That's just for stretch, but we'll also look at selling Bitcoin, for example, to capture tax gains, right, defer tax gains or tax losses in this particular case also. What about strategy more broadly? You have a billion and a half in terms of your outstanding dividend obligation and you have about 18 months of dividend coverage. Is that right at current levels?

That's right. And then we also have behind that about $60 billion worth of Bitcoin to cover our dividends also. Go ahead, Steve. Talk about the concept of liquidity with me for a second. liquidity some people define as the idea that I can buy or sell an asset and not affect the price. That's not true for strategy, right? When you guys announce you're going to possibly sell Bitcoin, you're the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, as I understand it. So do you feel like you have the liquidity for this or the flexibility that you need for this strategy, or are you constrained by what happens when strategy sells Bitcoin? Bitcoin trades north of $60 billion a day, right?

And if our entire annual dividend is $1.5 billion that we have to pay, right, on daily basis, we're talking percentage points or basis points of the Bitcoin liquidity. What you saw, for example, is the last couple of weeks we didn't buy any Bitcoin and Bitcoin price went up. So I don't think we're, although we're a big player of overall Bitcoin, we own almost 4%. On a daily basis, I don't think we're driving the price up or down and we're not a big part of liquidity isn't an issue for us. And do you believe that there's any reason to question dividend coverage either for stretch or for core strategy at this point? Right now, our leverage

is right around 10 to 15%. Our amplification is about 35%. Right. And if you compare that to typical companies, we would be rated just based on those KPI as an investment grade stock. So I don't see that being an issue right now, and we manage it very closely. We look at the equity. We look at the debt and we try to manage our liberation amplification level, very thoughtfully. Quick question that's been floated this idea, would you hive off the software part of the business? Is that something you thought about? Not really. The software business is a small, I would say a non-material part of our business, about $500 million in revenue and grew 11% in the first quarter,

so it's doing well. But it's neither a distraction nor an important asset in our overall business. So you feel pretty good about this, right? We asked you some tough questions, and you feel pretty good about this strategy. It's going to be a good one for the company. Yeah, I mean, look at what's happened to our equity holders since we entered this strategy almost six years ago.

All right, we've outperformed Bitcoin by about 50%. So Bitcoin's been up 40%. We've been up 60%. So we've clearly been positive to our equity holders. And now if you look at our preferred holders, somebody who otherwise couldn't get access to yield is getting 11.5% paid monthly in cash, tax deferred. So I think we're providing an important service to Bitcoin to common equity holders

and our preferred holders. And they're all quite happy right now. All right. Well, thanks for joining us, fondly. Yeah, really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, coming up, can you coin this chart? There's your hint.

We'll reveal him. Get into why the street isn't liking what it saw in the earnings report of this mystery chart company. Let's stay with us. Take a look at our mystery chart. It was Coinbase and shares are moving higher by 2% this afternoon after initially dropping 4% at the open. This after the crypto exchange reported a surprise first quarter loss and lower than expected revenue, as declines in, yes, crypto prices weighed on their key revenue drivers. Our next guest has a hold on the stock warned investors last week.

A crypto El Nino was likely going to negatively impact the quarter, joining us on set to break it all down. Dan Dole of his senior fintech equity research analyst at Mazuho, welcome. Thank you. So is winter over? In other words, is that why the shares are up now? Or is winter coming? Right, because I hear Mike Novogratz and other bulls saying the lows from the quarter are in now,

we're moving higher, and if so, none of that really matters, or maybe it does, but what do you think about that? Yeah, I think a lot of the crypto enthusiasts are always calling the bottom, but they always call the bottom, so I wouldn't read too much into that. I don't think it's over yet. I think eventually it will be over. You probably need rates to come down, really, for crypto winter to be over. But, you know, I think the stock is up because it was a bad year for them. It was a bad year for every crypto stock. And if you look under the hood, no pun intended here, there are some good things as well, right? Like they have record participation in prediction markets. Like some of it gets obscured by low prices and low volatility, but the underlying trends are actually not as bad as meets the eye. Strategy and Coinbase both make money from the trade of Bitcoin. Is that correct?

Coinbase does. Coinbase does. Strategy does it. So for strategy, the price has to. go up for them to make money. Correct. And Coinbase, though, has, but then again, there's not a whole lot of volume increase when it's not moving. Well, and activities often correlated to when it goes higher. When it goes higher. So when it, you know, did they say as price has dropped, did people just back off? Is that why they and Robin Hood and all the others have experienced this decline? Correct. Correct. There's two things happening. First, when prices drop, there's less participation. There's like user fatigue, right? They kind of get burned and they stay away. And the other, so the other thing is they just don't make as much,

money on the volumes when prices drop. That's the real reason. If you're bearish, not bearish, you're neutral on Coinbase, but you're not convinced that the crypto winter is over. If it's not over, is that a problem for strategy? Or does Bitcoin just have to stay above its average holding price? They have, I think, over $2 billion of cash that they can, you know, reserved on the side to pay the dividends. So Bitcoin has to be down a lot and a lot more and over a very prolonged period of time, for strategy to be in real trouble. So for now, things are good. We have a buy on them.

Interesting. If you want to make money in crypto, are these companies the way to make money, or do you think if you're high on crypto, just own crypto? Yes. But if you believe in Bitcoin, you should own Bitcoin, right?

But in general, that's the safest way. But if you, like, I should have a good answer for you. If you like crypto and you want to make money in crypto, So you can actually invest in some of the companies that are like infrastructure for crypto. For example, Bitco, which is the largest non-bank or custodian for, so they actually, they're picks and shovels. Or you want to invest in like figure, which uses blockchain to make helox more efficient. So the derivatives are actually more interesting than the straight out, let's call it, like, crypto casinos. And what about this clarity bill?

How much is that going to matter? are we going to be in a place where you can make a yield on any of these assets? It's not great for the industry. It's actually not as bad for Circle. It's not great for the industry because a big lure for people to keep park their money in crypto is those rewards or kind of, let's call it the unregulated money market. But for Circle itself, we've seen the USDC token. We've seen usage go up pretty dramatically.

I mean, we upgraded from a sale from an underperform to neutral on, for example, prediction markets like polymarket is letting you settle only with USC. So that's a huge theme this year. Didn't realize that. So if I think clarity is going to pass, do I buy Circle? Circle is, I would say if clarity is going to pass, it might actually hurt Circle near term, but because the use cases of Stablecoin and USDC is gaining share, I wouldn't say buy, we have a neutral, but it's not affecting Circle as badly as people think it is. If it's only, for crypto, what is it for FinTech? I was going to say La Niña.

Yeah. For FinTech, it's not great. For FinTech, it's not great. But it, because it drags down a lot, like, for example, like Robin Hood, which crypto is only 20%, right? So, but they do get dragged by the El Nino in crypto. So that's why, you know, some of the other names that are unaffected, like a firm, the lenders, we've talked about this, even SOFI.

They are doing, you know, or even some of the legacy names. like global payments or FISA, they've nothing to do with crypto. So we say, like, why not just go legacy payments or go. That's funny, because this year it's the revenge of the old economy in many ways. And here it's the revenge of the old financial system to a small extent. Yeah, and they're AI proof too, right? You still, when you crave coffee, you're still going to swipe your card. It's great for Visa.

It's great for MasterCard. It's great for FISA, GPN. Why not? All right, Dan. Thanks very much. That's Dan Dahliv, Missouho, Senior, FinTech Equity Research Analyst and coming up, did Anthropics' new mythos model just bring more attention to a danger we already knew about?

Hussong will join us to help answer that, and that's after the break. Two of the biggest power players in AI making headlines today, Kate Rooney, she's one of the big power players in AI. She has the latest from Elon Musk's legal battle with Open AI, but we begin with Husson and new reporting on growing cybersecurity concerns surrounding Anthropics' powerful model mythos. you. Yeah, hey, thanks, Steve. So Anthropics Mythos model set off something close to panic last month. Banks, tech giants, and even governments, all scrambling over fears that a new era of AI-enabled cyber attacks had arrived. But cybersecurity experts told me that that era, it's already here. Multiple AI researchers have been able to reproduce many of Mythos's most alarming results. This is

finding previously unknown vulnerabilities in crucial software programs using older, widely available AI models. That technique, it's called orchestration, which is coordinating cheaper models to work together. So here's what's notable, Steve. Anthropic doesn't dispute this. In fact, the company told me it's been warning of this for months, pointing out that an older version of cloud already found more than 500 high severity vulnerabilities. What Anthropic says is different about mythos is the next step, autonomously exploiting those vulnerabilities with little human input. But U.S. adversaries in Russia, China, and North Korea already know how to use AI to find and exploit those weaknesses, experts told CNBC. JPMorgan-Macon Chase CEO, Jamie Diamond, may have said it best.

AI, he said, is first making companies more vulnerable before it makes them safer. For the full story, go to CnBC.com. Yeah, and certainly if adversaries were going to have these tools, we should have them too and get companies ready. Hugh, thanks very much, Hugh, son. Kate, what's going on in the Musk-Altonin open AI? trial. Hey, so Kelly, we got some dramatic new details this week from witnesses in this lawsuit. We had Greg Brockman earlier in the week. He took the stand. He's Open AI's president. And one of the co-founders, his stake we found out this week is now worth about $30 billion. That is despite not donating, he said, to the original nonprofit, which is at the center of this lawsuit. Lawyers for Elon Musk

grilled him about his personal wealth. And then his ambition, including a journal entry, asking, financially, he said, what will take me to $1 billion? Musk's lawyers have tried to frame that as a big motive to try to turn OpenAI into a for-profit. And then, guys, we got Mira Miradi on the stand. She's the former CTO of Open AI. She shared some details about that fateful weekend that Sam Altman was fired by the board back in 20203 in one text exchange. It's really gone viral over the last week.

Altman peppering Maradi for some more details, saying at one point, can you indicate directionally? It says good or bad. He says Saty Nadella there, Microsoft CEO and others are anxious. She responds and just says directionally very bad. We did learn opening eyes board. Also considered at one point over that weekend merging Anthropic, as you guys were just talking about, making CEO of that company, Dario Amadeh. He would have been CEO of both companies that, of course, did not end up happening. But Maradi testified that Altman was also dishonest at times and undermined her when she was at that company. We also heard from Chivon Zillis, a close man. Musk advisor, she testified that he at one point offered Sam Altman a Tesla board seat and then tried to poach some top talent from Open AI. Musk, the backdrop here, he did start OpenAIs, co-founded that company, alleges that he was essentially tricked by executives when they pivoted to a for-profit. Open AI denies that. We do expect to hear from Sam Altman. We're going to hear his side of the story. And Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, will get their testimony. We're expecting that

next week as well as closing arguments, guys. He's, you know, when she says directionally, very bad and he just goes, okay. I can't imagine. That's kind of gotten viral. That's like the response of the year. Yeah. Okay. Directionally very bad. Kate, thank you very much. Kate Rooney. Let's get to Angelica Peoples now for the CNBC News Update. Angelica? Good afternoon, Kelly. ABC is accusing the FCC of violating its First Amendment rights over the agency's

scrutiny of the view. According to a new filing, the broadcaster claims that regulators had a, quote, chilling effect on free speech by trying to punish political content. They disagree within the agency's efforts to enforce an equal airtime requirement for political candidates. The move by ABC is the most aggressive defense from any TV network toward the Trump administration. The United States is arranging a return flight for the American passengers who are currently stranded on the Dutch cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak. According to the Department of State, the agency has been in touch with the 17th, Americans on board and are prepared to fly them home as soon as that ship arrives in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Canvas system used by thousands of schools and universities is back online after a cyber attack created chaos for students and teachers. A hacking group claimed responsibility for the attack on the platform that is used to manage grades, notes, and assignments. The group claims that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide have been impacted, including my alma mater, guys. Back over to you. All right, Angelica, thank you very much. Coming up, more and more Americans are working multiple jobs. Is it a benign sign of the changing economy or something more concerning? We'll ask Sharon Epperson about that next.

Business employment data showing that millions of Americans are working more than one job, a trend called income stacking. It's become popular among Gen Z workers. The question today is, is it a sign of employers hiring more workers or consumers under greater financial stress? Who has the answer? Sharon Epperson has the answer. Well, you know, it's interesting that people are unable to just work one job, either because they need more income or because they want to be able to pivot. We're seeing layoff fears driving this trend.

We're seeing people who are saying that there's just a change in the labor market and also just the inflation concerns about rising prices. And all of that is contributing to what we're calling income stacking. That is having one primary job, but not relying on that single paycheck, adding a freelance, freelance work or a sidehold. hustle to that, and we're seeing about 8.4 million people doing that. Five point two percent of workers, according to the latest jobs data, are workers who have multiple jobs. Is that up? Is that down? Where's that going? The trend that we're seeing, it is definitely higher than it has been since the pandemic. During the pandemic, we saw a drop off in people holding multiple jobs. Now we're seeing that start to rise back up to levels that we saw before the coronavirus pandemic. But what we're seeing

is also people being able to juggle more jobs because of platforms that allow them to do it easily, whether that is being an Uber driver or DoorDash or Upwork for freelance work, TaskRabbit for odd jobs, and then there are all the influencers that are out there. So social media is also creating another revenue stream for all the content creators. To what extent could this be a situation? And I think all of these factors look like they're playing into this. but we've lost this contingent of immigrant workers. Exactly.

And I don't know the extent to which they filled some of these jobs that are now filled by people who are doing either some part-time work or multiple job holders. We did speak to an economist at Carnegie Mellon University who shared the same sentiment, that because we're seeing workers that are disappearing from the workforce because of the immigrant situation, we are seeing perhaps more people going into different jobs, taking on more jobs. But the other issue that we're seeing is just a culture change in terms of wanting to be able to be able to pivot and change careers because you're concerned that the job you have now that is your steady job may not always be there. So a lot of people want to be ready

and they're creating, you know, they're taking on other jobs part time to do that. What's the cultural fallout from this? In other words, if I'm the boss, how comfortable I am with you doing a couple jobs, especially maybe one from a competitor. Yeah. It varies. It varies from employer to employer, but the career experts we talk to and the human resource consultants that we talked to said, hey, employers need to understand that people are going to do this. And so if you're policing them, they're just going to hide it anyway. So better to just say, we're open to it, just to make sure you disclose it. So it's like, if you don't want me to work two jobs, show me the money. Exactly. Very good, Sharon. Thank you so much. Sharon Epperson.

And be sure to scan the QR code here for more from Sharon in her Money 101 newsletter. Coming up, we're going to go global and take a look at another mystery chart here that's up more than 15% this week for an ETF of an entire country stock index. Take a guess, the answer after the break. In NASDAQ looking to close positive for yet the sixth straight week, they're not the only markets on the move. South Korea's Cosby, best week since 2008. In fact, it has leapfrogged Canada to become the seventh largest stock market on the planet. In Japan, the Niki surged past 62,000 for the first time this week. And in China, the Shenzhen is trading at its highest level in more than a decade. Joining us now, someone who knows about these global trends, Tim Seymour, fast money trader and CIO of Seymour asset management.

Tim, it's great to have you back. And any reason to temper the enthusiasm at this point? Other than it's been so extraordinary if you look at the Caspi and obviously the linkage to the memory trade, but it's, you know, we're a, 200% over a year after doing almost nothing for a couple years before that. And so that's the reason to temper. The question is, what do you do with some of these trades here? You can make an argument that Samsung is by far the cheapest mega-cap tech stock in the world just went over a trillion dollars, had eight times the earnings power in the first quarter of 26 that they did a year ago. So I think there's still a lot left. It's the same debate we're having about memory here.

Tim, are you like strutting when you walk down the street? Is the top of your hair a little higher than normal? You've been the international guy forever. And now it's like your moment in the sun here. You've been out there for, is this at the beginning of something that's going to be around for a bit and the change that I think you've been calling for a while? Or is it a blip that you want to just be careful about? I'm definitely, you're going to be strutten around in the bench on Central Park on May 12, by the way. That is true. That is true. And I will. And I just think the argument for international equity

tier is one where valuations, they were always cheap, dividend yields were always better. But the re-rating that's based on not only corporate governance, but structural market reforms are there. But you can make an argument. Taiwan, semi, and Samsung are two the most important companies in the world and their emerging market companies. And so in terms of international equities more broadly, they're bringing up, EM is bringing up, EM's finally at all-time highs. The argument on just why you would be investing outside the United States

is some of the same most exciting innovation themes that you want exposure to with U.S. companies. Some of the rest of the global world is very much bringing that trade here. So you ask, is this question, is it a trade or is it an investment after 11 or 12 years of underperformance, I would make an argument that the AQUI All World XUS is going to be, these are long-term trades,

and I think we're only early in the relative rally back. I think the top of your hair is a little higher, but more importantly, here's what I'm wondering about. Is this a negative U.S. trade, or is it a trade that says the U.S. is very highly valued, I can get better value over here,

or are there people who are concerned about some of the things happening in this country economically that they're saying, I'm better off overseas? I think the crowding out of the tech trade was something that was a U.S. story that was the exceptionalism we talk about. This isn't about negative U.S. This is people are waking up and realizing they're underway international. I run Idevo. If it's an international ETF, it focuses on actually delivering yield. And the story for international equities are that you have fantastic valuations, probably better dividend yields, and a lot of people just kind of forgotten that they're supposed to be that much more allocated to their home countries. I would say a year ago around tariff turmoil,

you were seeing a lot of foreign investors become more market weight in their own markets instead of overweight the U.S. This is not a bashed the U.S. trade. It's a story of relative underperformance for a long time that has turned. Kim, I've never been to an economic financial conference where the economists haven't said that Americans are underweight foreign assets. Give us a place where you think it's not fully value yet where this train could eventually head to. Yeah, we've talked about Brazil and Japan. Sorry, we talked about Korea. I like Brazil.

Look at the EWZ if you want to just own the country, but we have a fiscal re-rating. We arguably have more right-leaning politics coming in. We have a currency that has, I think, been a fiscal adjustment, and we know the resource trade, but there's a consumer trade there. There's even a technology trade there. There you go. Tim Banks.

Appreciate it very much. Thank you. Tim Seymour. More power lunch after the break. World Cup, just over a month away. If you're planning on catching a match, you better be prepared to pay up. One of the opening round matches between Portugal and Colombia, June 27 in Miami, has reseal tickets averaging $2,500.

That's more than the average get-in price for the 2025 Super Bowl, which was just over $2,100, Steve. It's a huge sport out there, and we don't necessarily pay it enough attention, but it's a great thing that is coming to America. We had somebody in the 1 o'clock hour we talked to, rate hikes. Yes, Diane's spot. And then Michael Gapen, no rate hikes. Correct.

Where are you? I'm a spot. I'm with Gapen. I'm with Gapen. I'm no rate hikes. No rate hikes. I think I'm there, too. I don't see, I think Kevin wants to not raise rates, but I'll tell you this.

He will if he has to. If he's going to get it under control and he feels like you've got a hike rate to get under control, he's going to do it. And he has committee members who would support him on that. That's a great point. See, it's been great to have you here. Thanks so much. Pleasure to be here.

Steve Leesman. Thanks for watching Power Lunch. Closing bell starts right.