Additional funding for the post office to other elements of support that might potentially encourage mcconnell to call the senate back as well. But that will be a bridge we will find out more about later yeah, will they have a relief bill as people look to get relief and extension that they have been waiting for for, you know, several weeks now since it last expired. Over to you, john. Interesting what the president was just saying. Drawing a distinction between universal mail in ballots, which he opposes, and absentee ballots which he has cast himself and is in favor of saying he does not favor slowing down the mail. He wants to speed up the mail, of course. The house wants to question a lot of that and well see if that happens thank you, it is 8 00 a. M. At apple headquarters in coopertino, california, its 11 00 a. M. On wall street and squawk alley is live good morning, what a week it is, can you believe were starting this monday at levels for the markets that we were prepandemic. The s p just a few points from the alltime closing high. Indeed, some of the big pieces of news to chew on, the last few weeks in august are the least liquid of the year when you get 13 f filings from the likes of berkshire, the airlines, gold, you get high profile news from goldman looking from 3600 year end and there will be stuff to work on yes, and a looming tesla stock slip we will be talking a bit more about that we also have invidia earnings. That stock is up nearly 6 we have seen a strong move in the semis overall over the last few days which many investors will have questions about apple is down fractionally i know you were talking with jim kram cramer about it this morning mic microsoft, alphabet, all of those higher this morning. Yeah, it is yeah, also that leads to. Go ahead, d go ahead, carl. You respond to him first and then i want to point out one other. Just, to johns point about jim watching some of the share prices he has now a slate of names that he argues need to, or possibly could, split. After we got the apple news and tesla, and well see how much that democracitizes these names. You could argue they have gotten a little expensive for the retail investor. Right, and not that it really creates any new wealth, but it is the psychological effort, right . I also just wanted to point out rackspace. I know you mentioned this earlier in but potentially in talks with amazon. They only went public a month ago. 21 a share below its indicated rank, 15 up today, amazon looking at it. So i think we can look at that as well. So we will begin with tesla. You mentioned that Morgan Stanley upgrading the stock to equal weight you can see that shares of tesla are up more than 7 in todays session. The analyst behind that call, Morgan Stanleys adam jonas joins us now good morning and thank you for bying with us. You were on just last month defending your targets, so why do you turn . Yeah, you have to stay flexible with tesla, right the message here is if youre going to buy tesla at the old target or the new target today, it has to be more than cars. More than cars times price and the pathways are on model supply and software service. It is clearly not enough to get to the price today, but we found 60 billion by working with our tech colleagues on the idea of tesla announcing technologies that put them in position to be a large, if not dominant third Party Battery supplier the battery is not mature. This is an arms race for talent and amongst all of elons benefits that he has right now, the one that is most valuable and on display right now is that the best people in the world want to work for elon. The best people in batteries, chemistry, software, rockets, they dont want to work for a 1970s little bit by bit evolutionary they want to take it up a knock and go one or two in magnitude forward. Yeah, so youre giving the Company Create for its battery business but you know this comes ahead of battery day. The price has some of that baked in what are you expected on september 22nd for that big event. There is a lot here right now. It is pretty tough, and you have to remain flexible, open minded, and maybe beyond ten years, you have to keep up with this. So yeah our message is that the tesla stock deserves to have batteries as a business in the price. But for me to justify it or to have double upgraded, i would need to find 300 billion in market cap and the global Battery Industry multiplied by two i have to give tesla a market share. You have a license investors have a license to do that and it could not have been in the spirit of the call that my battery team was making at the time we have only given them about 11 of that market you have discounted it more upside if you wish im trying to figure out what these things on one hand you upgrade to legal weight, right and your price target is like 23 below where i stock is trading today. What does equal weight mean under those circumstances and what does it mean for an investors position clearly, i was i department have a chance to ask the question on the last call, but it is even elon thought it was overpriced in pay im going to guess and boil it down here is how i think about it third Party Battery supply is worth maybe 120 a share we gave him about 210 million. If you want to get to 2,000, lets say, for batteries alone you need to add another, you know, probably closer to 10 Million Units of batteries, right . 10 Million Units in addition to the three, four, or five million. So you dont want to double count. At that point youre giving them almost 100 market share of the Battery Market by 2030 or a very, very large share if you want to extend beyond that pip dont know what to tell you. I could have come up here what are the chances i could say i gave tesla 100 market share, been able to do that, and you guys say great call, makes a lot of sense at some point even at this point Something Else is discounted in here we heard a lot of stuff, but it is even more than this im sure youre aware of some of the colleagues that gm could spin off into a stand alone unit what would it mean if tesla faced a well capitalized, well known competitor that was a pure play, would anything change . Elon knows if theyre not investing in batteries soon, they will be soon. They have to go to a full infrastructure giving their carr bon footprint. You mentioned the legacy, etc. They wont die easily and they will probably have a little survivalship after words that is one of the reasons why he is taking as much as he can now to put as much into the ground as possible before apple and all of these other start ups in their kind of feasting and poaching all of these tesla executives, right . It is elevating in the short term, but it is also a strategy. He is trying to suck all of the air out of the room right now. Adam, on those tech competitors, you talk about them in the past. You identified them. Why don you think theyre not there now. You look at toyota, they still dont make a single ev we think after battery day, if it does what we think it does, it will be a wake up call and you will get a bunch of announcements. A 100 million Battery Program again, how could theyre going to have to do that maybe theyre waiting and to give tesla credit, you could say it is copy catticatting, right but theyre maturing the cost and the infrastructure to their point where you can draft on it. It might be a leap forward, and a lot of it is just talent if you look back at any of these industries going back centuries, you get the best result for the worlds smartest people. Things that people thought was possible the others taste it. They feel it, they can just the pieces have not come together if we put our gm hat on. Once you get a truck made in america, with the capability that we think it has, we think it might be too late that clock is ticking. A quick question, yes or no, do you think well get a million mile battery in september . Yes okay, well certain i will be watching adam, thank you for being with us adam jonas from Morgan Stanley talent and capital might get you a trillion dollar market cap. Why facebook is joining epic ormes in the critique t a ofhepp ste. Pnc knows business keeps moving. And whether we connect over the phone, online, or face to face, were here to help utilizing our resources as one of the nations largest banks and a local approach with a focus on customized insights. So youre ready for today. Welcome back, the conversation with apple and epic games continues today. Kara swisher, welcome back, good to see you good to see you apple is a good one to start with it is one thing when congressional hill regulators question the company, but it is another when they go up against a game as popular as epics, what is your tame . I think it is a big deal. It is important if has an ownership stake by ten cent. But i think it is really important when you talk about the others that have complained about it this is a takeoff on the apple ad theyre using if is super effecti effective. I think people think about the games and not about apple. They have to handle it very carefully and do something about it very quickly. Once you start fortnite others will join and be outspoken under the protection of Something Like fortnite do you think it stops at gaming no, i dont think people want this it is a duopoly here there are only two choices should they be treated like a utility . On the plus side they create a very safe environment. Those are things that we dont want to lose either. We dont want an anything goes atmosphere it has to be thoughtfully thought about. Whether or not they will be able to take the fees they have been taking opinion. Friday i got home and my 12yearold wanted to tell me all about this fight between epic and apple and i was like i have been talking about it all day it rises to that level in the culture. I had to show him the original ad so he got it, but this is potentially a tlot to apples model. This is interesting to me because apple was just fighting a similar battle with qualcomm to what point do you get to charge a digital toll for other peoples work. It was licensing fees for, you know, phones that other people came up with but were enabled by their technology in apples case it was distributing other technology. In this case apple is in favor of the toll. How should it be litigated if you remember net flix had a big fight over it. Lets not leave out google there is two Companies Involved here they run a duopoly and you have to think about its not just about the money, the business plan, and the data. One of the things that i hear is the ability to contact and market to and these are their customers. The same thing on amazon and who is their customer when youre a thirdparty seller its the same thread of who owns in customer. How should they be able to pay, what choice does the customer have, and can they get discounts if one Company Wants to do it and the other doesnt. That is at the heart of capitalism to me and it is really going to be this is a big issue for apple and google who cracks first . Can epic games and other developers really afford to battle apple apple on the flip side, how long can it afford to risk its reputation do you think it is risking its own reputation here . I think it will crack first i know they backed out on the basecamp thing nobody likes your decisions, but i think the area they have to start giving on is data. I think fees are one part of that, but it is a Bigger Picture of who controls the customer, who has respects with the customer i think apple would be smart in this environment, i suspect they will be the ones to back down. It will be only after epic everyone is going to pile on now here because it is disgrunt disgruntlement the president and wilbur ross br broadening their development they dont have a lot of exposure here. It is just going to be Social Security to funny, i think others did come to the United States and brace trump i remember when he did it. I think it will be i think they have a lot of exposure hire. I think it is just part of the same thing the things they need to be focused on artificial intelligence, proliferation. It may be important, but its not where the real game is, it is somewhere else, and it is typical with this administrat N Administration this is shiny and not the most important thing. I am not sure it matters here. The idea of targeting them under mining the Trump Administrations case. It is not like they have an app where people are dancing and singing. This is orders going through u. S. Businesses or ordering things from chinese manufacturers. Like of course there is data that is changing hands there they will have information about what is being manufactured in that country what is the case for banning alibaba aside from a big Chinese Company and we want to give them a hard time. I think it feels like what is interesting is a Global Supply chain i was just online and they were talking about, an indian conglomerate, the idea of regional supply chains he said it off hand and then we had a long discussion about the high of regional supply chains in this case a lot of companies do business in china, and they facility that. Do you want to undo the entire Global Supply chain and what will you are place it with i think that is the biggest question bigger than the noise here it is an attempt to attempt to poke the Chinese Government but it seems the prong way to push for me im with you and a potential ban would be confusing here they had a campaign, do you buy into the argument that the pans will have an opposite effect theyre trying to create their own operating system do you think they need to . Do they news u. S. Gold standard firms . The march is happening across the globe. I think the way we combat is we have innovation here in the country to dominate if it is ag, ai, this is a back ward looking situation to fix something that is already finished. You know what i mean we have to focus on what is next and what is port that is where i would focus more looking at chinese impact, not just around the world, but with the military and things like that you have to find a way to become more powerful in the areas of the future rather than be arguing about this, which is going to just, you know, muck up it seems like it needs to go elsewhere it is an obvious thing. An eye opening look i dont know why they get on the phone, but they did. I want today go right to him i know him really well, and i have talked to him many, many times and the coo did such a persuasive essay and they were and it is sectly alleges of racial bias i thought the most striking part besides some of what he said he was trying, you know, he was trying to say they were pretty empty words. It is sort of too little, too late what i was struck by is have you looked at your management page it had three guys on it. I think it was just processing that it was three guys on the management page and they were not even trying to pretend or were aware of the fact that but were projecting a public facing idea and he didnt even know it that was what was amazing. The minute i put it up in the column, they put up another page that was very diverse. That is what this story is about. The lack of realization of what is happening on the ground i have had that happen, too, they dont realize who they had up for their board of directors and then they realize they dont have any women on it how much credit do you give silverman for taking your call, acknowledging the missteps that were taken, and giving them a chance to hold them accountable. Yeah, fine. I dont know, why should he not take my call a lot of founders would not take your call that is true, i do think he did, but that is sometimes a way to deflect they talk about it very clearly. All of this is just table setting. I think that was his quote action will count and the changes in the company he is aware of it now and i think he feels that he has to do something and what that is defends. This is a hit to him for a leader i think he has to get a board that pushes back they talked about a silent board. These founders that have control, between him and his other founder, i believe they have complete control of the company. Lets get some boards accountable here they are the ones that should hold the ceos feet to the fire even if they have complete domination there are some people that i know have backbone and to lets see something from the board. You know what, kara you know what really gob smacks me about this one is that ben silverman, himself, comes across as not that kind of ster stereotypical jock ceo their whole Business Case is all about gender and geographic diversity. The midwestern woman at the core of their users are very diverse. Thats what im saying, and they had female ceo. There are other women who they had in leadership positions they were not showing on the web page and they were not treating so great. They had the orders and they still missed it up i have a list of women and people of color longer than my left arm that left there thats what im saying, their company was supposed to be about diversity, specifically gender diversity and they had people in house, and a lot of Companies Say they cant find the talent they had the talent and the youre 100 , its about retention and promotion. And i remember when i met them for the first time they were it was all guys telling me about women online. And how they use pinterest it was really it is a real problem. Retention and promotion. Getting them in the door is not the same thing as getting them to stay and making sure theyre felt heard im sure i will get hundreds of tweets this is not good you dont leave out the voices of all kinds of people that can help you on a product used by all kinds of people. Like the idea that a bunch of white guys should run the business it is oo reala really complex i jo john a woman of colorful that works there said you dont have to be a k cup to be a bro. You dont have to look like that its how you manage the company. He was great, i think he is really disturbed by this, but you know i dont apt swant a sun collins response here. A lot of people that work at pinterest are hard working people that deserve better not just the coo, but everyone throughout the organization. We dont hear from him, too often, interesting to get his remarks through you, kara. We covered a lot of ground, thank you so much. Now with european markets just closing, take a look at some of the big stories. They are selling off as unienavirus cases surge in some cotrs setting up potential for new travel restrictions. Were back in a second we love our new home. Theres so much space. We have a guestroom now. But, we have aunts. Youre slouching again, ted. Expired, expired. Expired. Thanks, aunt bonnie. Its a lot of house. I hope you can keep it clean. At least geico makes bundling our home and Car Insurance easy. Which helps us save a lot of money oh, teddy. Did you get my friend request . Uh, ill have to check. doorbell ringing aunt jonis here for bundling made easy, go to geico. Com. Hello . For bundling made easy, go to geico. Com. music anncr give customers access to precisely what they want, when they need it the most. With adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. Adyen. Business. Not boundaries. Welcome back, everybody. Im sue herera Michelle Obama will be a highlighted speaker tonight as the curtained National Democratic convention gets under way using video remotes. Bernie sanders will also speak cnbc will live stream that beginning at 9 00 p. M. Eastern time tonight an Emergency Declaration for id signed for iowa where a storm blew through causing a lot of damage and the president of portugal helped rescue two girls where their kayak turned over. He is often seen at the beach near his home and he is known to be a strong swimmer thank goodness he was there. Well be back in a minute. Lets get to the ylan mui the democrats are holding a Conference Call right now to talk about coming back to washington at the end of the week they want to vote on a bill that would reverse the recent cuts and restore the level of service that would be coming at the beginning of the year. Theyre also calling on the postmaster to testify on a hearing. It is not just about the election, but also about the economy. Think about the impact on the Health Care Center they delivered 1. 2 billion and almost all of the meds from the va the pandemic is showing how important the post office is to ecommerce as well. The volume of shipping and packages that usps has jumped 53. 6 in its Third Quarter from a year ago as we all ordered everything online. Marketing mail is down 37. 2 sending the post office into a deeper financial hole. And that is why Major Companies like am zon, cvs, e bay, and etsy are calling on congress to help stabilize the post office and the effort has bipartisan support and the bill was introduced by Susan Collins and Dianne Feinstein they were cosponsors from both sides of the aisle as well they are calling on the chamber to return to education to try to vote on this legislation but right knew snow she is faci uphu uphill battle in that effort pls ill there be an impact on apestock or is 2 trillion inevitable that is next mainly because of where we are as a nation, with our debt that the government has, and the value of the dollar and how the value continues to drop. I just thought itd be wise to have a hard asset that could be passed down. One of the reasons i bought gold was because i want to create an inheritance for my children and my grandchildren. I was born and raised on this ranch. I married young, just a fabulous man that im still married to 56 years later. We have two daughters, 13 grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. I feel like that gold and silver, its a tangible, handson inheritance. Whereas your dollar is backed by nothing, its just paper. In 2008, what i had dropped to half and gold went up. Of course nothing is without risk and that being said, i feel that by diversifying with Precious Metals that i am covering my bases. You need a whole basket full of different ways of preserving wealth or creating wealth. So gold and silvers a way of doing that. So i went back on the gold standard. laughing ive youve bought gold in the past or would like to learn more about why physical gold should be an important part of your portfolio, pick up the phone and call to receive the complete guide to buying gold which will provide you important, neverseenbefore facts you should know about making gold, silver and platinum purchases. With nearly two decades in business, over a billion dollars in transactions, and more than a half a million clients worldwide, us money reserve is one of the most dependable gold distributors in america. Apple is facing a challenge from epic games. It is so important to as much ass margins. Where do you think about apple having most of its cake and investors eating it, too, here what about maintaining revenues . Tom, have we got you yes, good morning so the opportunity for apple is to maintain the 30 take rate. The challenge for apple having watching the House Judiciary Committee is this one of the few items with bipartisan support. There is concern that they have too much spluinfluence on consu blooi lives. It is not clear to me that there is bipartisan support for a great solution like a 10 flat fee or a 20 flat fee, or a graduated flat fee that is something that were monitoring, but theyre circling the wagons on apple from a regulatory standpoint. Why dont they charge rent . Give apps a choice play a flat fee for rent to be in the app store, but you dont get to use our tools, you have to follow security protocols, maybe they still make a good amount of money that way absolutely. So apple stands to make a lot of among as long as they continue to charge some sort of rent. The question is what is a fair level if charges 30 for year one, 15 for year two and after. So a fair mod toll stagger subscription apps. I want to talk about another risk do you think this is priced in especially as the Trump Administration looks to restrict Something Like we chat access . Yes, thank you deidre if you look at the committee, there was an exchange among the ceos and i do think the risk for apple is significant when you think about, give or take, 15 of their sales are to chinese consumers and the products for the most part are assembled in china. It is hard to say if it is currently priced in or not today apple stock trading away from that 2 trillion mark. Good to have you meanwhile, Governor Cuomo saying new york city gyms able to reopen on august 24th at 33 capacity masks at all times indoors Planet Fitness was up briefly, we will monitor that presser in just a moment. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. Wyou say the customersg a waymaklets talk data. S. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you switch up your wireless data whenever. I accept 5g, everybodys talking about it. How do i get it . Everyone gets 5g with our new data options at no extra cost. Thats good. Next item corner offices for everyone. Just have to make more corners in this building. Chad. Your wireless. Your rules. Only with Xfinity Mobile. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Switch and save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus, get 400 off when you preorder the new Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. Now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. All with no commissions. Stocks by the slice from fidelity. Get your slice today. And then found the home of my dreams. But my home of my dreams needed some work sofi was the first lender that even offered a personal loan. I didnt even know that was an option. The personal loan let us renovate our Single Family house into a multiunit home. And i get to live in this Beautiful House with this beautiful kitchen and its all thanks to sofi. Good morning, mr. Sun. Good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. Im gonna grow big and strong. Yes, you are. Im gonna get this place all clean. Ill give you a hand. And im gonna put lisa on crutches wait, what . Said shes gonna need crutches. She fell pretty hard. You might want to clean that up, girl. Excuse us. When owning a Small Business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. And im gonna eh, eh, eh. Donny, no. Oh. Our next guest closing 1. 6 billion of a buy out he joins us now to talk about tech mna in this environment of International Partners good morning. The area is security. Well talk about that in a bit first i want to go more broad on this what has been the most challenging difference getting a deal done in this environment . Well, look, covid equals uncertainty in this time uncertainty makes it very difficult to get to a deal because parties need to agree on what the future may look like. I think that has been the biggest challenge in that uncertainty. You see that, i think they are off 30 or so this year for the Broader Market thats just the sign of the impact of covid. I think this deal started off, looked like it was going to be around 1. 9 billion. Ended up at 1. 6. What accounted for the difference its office tough in times of uncertainty to close a deal like this it would have been easy for either side to walk away but in the end it was the right deal for shareholders and for the board and the right deal for us. The prize was worth it fundamentally, the company is better off private it was the right deal for us i think thats reflected in the price. Going deeper on the area which is security, sort of enterprise, network of thing, i suppose. How do you project the value of its technology and the partnerships that you have to engineer during the period where it is private to make this pay off for you . Thats a great question Companies Like forescout have technology to address that in terms of partnerships, we already have Great Channel partnerships and relationships i think the most important is with large complicated customers. Can we be the Solution Provider for them its the type of decision our customers make i wonder if you think that some of these work from home plays or even the Big Tech Companies despite increased antitrust scrutiny are being opportunistic especially when some of these firms are able to raise money at very low rates. Are you surprised by the number of deals do you think there should be more well, when i said mna volumes are off, i think tech is showing this period its resilient its still thriving and growing. On the tech side of advent, we have signed and closed five deals just since covid i think you have seen that across the industry where tech, both strategics as well as private equity is continuing to grow its share of overall deal volumes. I think that trend will continue in part because you just mentioned these are thriving businesses that the raise money for, sell stock to raise money debt or equity i think those trends will continue we see even today american x express taking out cabbage fintech is hot robin hood is in the headlines again and getting a lot of traction despite the system problems they had a few months ago. Do you see a difference by industry, by area. Certain hot areas perhaps mna is likely to go through tech is continuing to gain share and within tech theres some sectors that are thriving everything around collaboration, work from home, connectivity or really super charged businesses. We see it across broad landscape. What we focus on is less the sub sector and more the opportunity. Were looking from businesses that we think we can help drive or accelerate to go build tomorrows juggernauts in tech we continue to see that across a number of sub sectors within technology i think that trend will continue when we step back and asked ourselves the question of what does covid mean, there were five major themes in tech we have been pursuing and we decided theyre not only still true but more true. I think the trends will accelerate because of covid. Finally, i want to ask you about the weirdest mma story of this time which is tiktok which appears to be, perhaps, getting taken out by a u. S. Name perhaps microsoft, perhaps not security at the root of that potential transaction. What do you think for the mna landscape that potential transaction means . Its such a complicated situation at multiple levels, as you point out. Its hard to forecast exact implications but first Cyber Security matters i think people have woken up you think about threats, pandemic is probably the first on that list a massive cyber attack is near the top of that list i think we will see increased focus across political and economic institutions around Cyber Security i think tiktok is just one example of that here in the u. S. One we will continue to talk about. Bryan taylor, just took forescout private. 1. 6 billion transaction today thanks for being with us on squawk alley thank you very much appreciate the time. Meantime, watch mcdonalds today. Former ceo firing back at the fast food giant. His attorneys say the companys lawsuit accusing him of fraud and trying to claw back an estimated 42 million of his comp was quote meritless and misleading mcdonalds giving statement to cnbc saying it stands by its complaint both the factual assertions and the court in which it was filed well watch that continuing battle the stock which was 124 back in march now at a postcovid high around 208 lot of that driven by the international reopenings and the strength of drive through in the u. S. Which is kramer this morning puts the giants, in the food business, with the leg ups with the mom and pops in this country. Lets get to the judge and the half thank you. Welcome to the halftime report. Front and center, unstoppable apple. The stock closing in on 2 trillion in market cap even as the controversy over the companys app store intensifies. Is the stocks record run enough to keep the tech trade powering on well debate that with our Investment Committee today 33. 86 is the number to watch were at 33. 84 well keep