Squawk Pod

@squawkpod · Podcast

Latest segments

• Musk's Senate tweet, 2026-10-30
  Presses Isaacson on political blowback risk
  Pushes Isaacson on the risk Musk's political spending creates for Tesla, Starlink and himself if Democrats sweep. He says Musk is driven by conviction, not calculus, and agrees with Kernen that a big Democratic sweep would bring retaliatory investigations.
• Musk's Senate tweet, 2026-10-30
  Reads the tweet through the biography
  Brings Walter Isaacson on to read Musk's overnight tweet as a return to politics, with Isaacson saying Musk told him he was too far out front last time and is now spending twice as much more quietly on get-out-the-vote and targeted ads. Stays inside the tweet and the biography.
• Musk's Senate tweet, 2026-10-30
  Weighs Musk's Senate and filibuster warnings
  Picks up Musk's morning tweet urging Republicans to hold the Senate and debates whether his filibuster and court-stacking warnings hold up. A separate political story from the merger talk, handled as opinion and argument.
• Binance's $6.3B heist, 2026-10-30
  Adds Binance's response to the hack
  Reports the heist as the largest crypto hack ever and adds Binance's on-the-record response: deposits unaffected, withdrawals expected back in about 48 hours, all losses covered. Also puts TRM Labs' attribution and the market reaction on the record.
• Times ties Peltola to Dan Sullivan…, 2026-10-29
  Predicts 50 or 51 GOP Senate seats
  Sununu works through the Senate map and lands on the Alaska ballot story: he credits the New York Times report, says Peltola's campaign put the other Dan Sullivan on the ballot, and now thinks the real Sullivan could win. Predicts 50 or 51 Republican seats.
• Fed holds at 3.75-4%, 2026-10-29
  Forecasts a December hike on data
  Cohn, asked whether December brings a hike, calls the decision data dependent but says the data will lead to one. A guest's forecast on the same question the card already tracks, with no new document or figure.
• Fed holds at 3.75-4%, 2026-10-29
  Adds Daco and Feroli critiques plus futures
  Liesman's readout of the October hold adds two named on-the-record critiques, Daco and Feroli, and the futures pricing that followed: 85 percent for December, 66 percent for March. It also flags Warsh's 'family fight' line as a sign of more board dissension ahead.
• Detroit misses hybrid boom, 2026-10-28
  Reports GM's Michigan hybrid plant plans
  Reports that GM will build hybrid versions of the Chevy Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia at a Michigan plant, with factory investment announced but no timing. A concrete follow to the record-low share story, then drifts into the hosts' own cars.
• French debt contagion, 2026-10-28
  Walks through the causes of French unrest
  Volker runs through the causes of the French unrest - crumbling university facilities, a permanent-contract job market that keeps employers from hiring, immigration, prices, energy - and reads the politics: the unrest favors the far right, and Le Pen is best placed for next spring's election.
• Israeli election, final week, 2026-10-28
  Details Netanyahu's blocked Iran strike plan
  Volker walks through the post-election path: Netanyahu likely gets the first nod to form a government, coalition talks could run months, and he says Netanyahu wanted a new Iran strike before the vote but was blocked inside Israel, with the court saying no. He expects Trump to set the agenda after the U.S. midterms.
• California's Proposition 40 Wealth Tax, 2026-10-28
  Compares French and California wealth concentration
  Zucman, pressed on France, puts wealth concentration on the record: France's 500 richest hold wealth equal to 35 percent of GDP, California's 250 billionaires hold 50 percent of state GDP, equal to the income of 20 million families. The hosts counter that wealth creation is not zero-sum.
• California's Proposition 40 Wealth Tax, 2026-10-28
  Warns three million lose Medicaid if Prop 40 fails
  Zucman puts a number on the stakes: three million Californians lose Medicaid if Prop 40 fails, and he says Newsom concedes there is no plan B. Rauh counters with the cost of covering undocumented immigrants and the state's balance sheet.
• California's Proposition 40 Wealth Tax, 2026-10-28
  Disputes the fiscal-emergency premise with budget figures
  Rauh, in the debate, disputes the fiscal-emergency premise behind Proposition 40 with budget figures: Medi-Cal funding up 123 percent since 2019, general fund spending up 79 percent over seven years. Zucman answers that three million Californians lose coverage if it fails.
• California's Proposition 40 Wealth Tax, 2026-10-28
  Debates the exodus myth and opposition spending
  The Zucman-Rauh debate proper: Zucman argues the tax is popular and the feared exodus is a myth, Rauh cites prediction markets at 25 to 30 percent and warns founders take jobs with them. Adds the size of the opposition spending and Zucman's claim that no billionaire managed to leave before the January 1 snapshot.
• California's Proposition 40 Wealth Tax, 2026-10-28
  Sets up the debate and Brin's $100 million
  Sets up the Proposition 40 debate: the 5% billionaire tax, the November 3 ballot date, and Sergey Brin's $100 million to the opposition. Introduces Zucman, an architect of the plan, against Rauh, who says it will drive capital out of California.
• Israeli election, final week, 2026-10-28
  Reports the partial Knesset seat count
  Reports the partial count: Netanyahu's bloc at 55 seats, Eisenkot's at 50, neither near the 120-seat majority, with exit polls wrong and final results at least a day out. Notes the coalition math and the possibility of another vote.
• Meta's $95B raise, 2026-10-27
  Runs the block on Meta's upsized raise
  Runs the news block on Meta's raise: NVIDIA commits $3 billion directly, the offering is upsized to $97.5 billion with $25 billion of common at $625 a share, and the chip partnership widens to Muse and Vera Rubin.
• Anthropic's IPO filing, 2026-10-27
  Walks the S-1 balance sheet and commitments
  Walks the S-1's balance sheet: $112.4 billion in cash plus $19 billion in short-term investments, more than Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA or Amazon, against $587 billion in long-term compute, lease and fixed commitments plus $245 billion from new and amended agreements. Also flags roughly two dozen lockup dates and a Q3 amendment still to come.
• Starlink throttled for Ukraine, 2026-10-26
  Works through the Starlink and Starshield confusion
  Minton Beddoes works through the Starlink-versus-Starshield confusion and says the speeds were cut last week and restored over the weekend, reportedly after the White House called Musk. She reads it as Europe being at Musk's mercy without its own satellite or rocket capability.
• French debt contagion, 2026-10-26
  Interviews the editor on the French protests
  Interviews The Economist's editor-in-chief on the second straight weekend of French protests. She pushes back on Elon Musk's migration framing and says the man arrested for the Limoges town hall fire was a white man in his 30s, not a migrant.