Verizon Celebrates 25 Years & ‘F1’ Races into Theaters 6/30/25
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This is SquawkPod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, Verizon turns 25 years old. CEO Hans Vestberg looks back at the journey and around at the rivals that keep his company on its toes. I wouldn't say that

I have one competitor, I have many. And how all that competition affects pricing for you, the customer. I think that historically the prices have actually gone up on the service fee. I think what we've seen a little bit on the wireless side has been a competition on promotions. Do you want the new phone? And that's where you've seen most of the competition the last couple of years.

And a dramatic weekend in the Senate for President Trump's agenda bill. Still a long way to go till that July 4th deadline, but CNBC's Emily Wilkins has the scoop. Before anything happens in the House, the Senate has to complete votes on dozens of amendments.

Plus, NYC mayoral primary winner Zoran Mamdani is calling out billionaires. And F1 with Brad Pitt sped past expectations opening weekend and gave Apple its first box office success. Famed Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who also brought Pirates of the Caribbean and Top Gun to success, joins us. "What's interesting about F1 is your teammate is also your competitor, so that creates great drama for us."

Start your engines. It's Monday, June 30th, 2025. And SquawkPod begins right now. Stand back, you buy in three, two, one. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to SquawkBox right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. Joe is off today. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the Nasdaq 100 all closed at record highs yesterday.

And the NASDAQ and the NASDAQ 100 are both on five-day winning streaks at this point, even before you see these gains this morning. If you're looking at tech just for, you know, this is the last day of the quarter. If you're looking at tech at this point, tech is on pace for its best quarter since the second quarter of 2020. Remember the second quarter of 2020 when all the technology stocks took off because everybody was working from home. You were using technology in so many new ways.

As we noted, again, final day of the second quarter. For the first half of the year, the Dow is actually up by 3%. The S&P and the Nasdaq both up by about 5% over that course. This all against the backdrop of what's happening in Washington. The Senate set to begin what's likely to be a long series of amendment votes on President Trump's tax and spending bill. Comes after a near constant weekend of work for lawmakers. Emily Wilkins joins us with the latest. And there was a lot of drama.

There was a lot of drama, Andrew, but at this point, the Senate could vote on that Trump mega bill as early as today. They are at that point, so long, of course, as they actually have 50 senators willing to vote. Yes, we'll see about that. As you mentioned, over the weekend, lots of drama, but the Senate did narrowly agree to proceed to the bill. Now, there were two senators who voted against that.

Republican senators, rather, Rand Paul and Tom Tillis. We knew that Rand Paul was opposed. Tillis was a bit of a surprise, but afterwards he did announce that he would no longer be seeking reelection and really went to the Senate floor, had a very fiery speech about how the bill would be hurting Americans on

Medicaid. Both of these guys are likely to vote no on final passage, meaning that the Senate can only lose one more vote before they're going to be in trouble. Now, an updated version of the bill released over the weekend did make several changes. Now, this includes keeping that $40,000 limit on state and local deductions, the SALT cap, but

but only until 2030. Medicaid cuts are back in the bill, including that cap on the provider taxes that states charge health care providers. And wind and solar got a huge hit. They're facing a very bleak outlook right now.

Projects have a shorter runway to qualify for tax credits. Plus, these industries are going to be subject to a potential additional tax unless these companies find ways to detangle their supply chains from China, which is very difficult to do in the current market.

Now, the version of the bill right now is expected to add $3.25 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And that could spell trouble in the House if the bill does wind up heading that way. Remember, the House Freedom Caucus had that agreement, and they tweeted last night that the Senate bill violates that.

And they say that, you know, they wanted to make sure spending is kept low. We'll have to get a better sense today exactly how deep those concerns run. But before anything happens in the House, the Senate has to complete votes on dozens of amendments that will be offered by Democrats and Republicans. That's going to start at 9 a.m. today. It could finish late today. It could go into Tuesday. But either way, when this gets through the Senate, if it does, the House is going to need to move very quickly to get this to Trump's desk by July 4th.

Guys, in terms just real quick of, well, who's who's on what side other senators we should be watching for, but also just to handicap the timing piece. Is it I mean, there are some people saying it's just impossible to get done before July 4th.

If everything goes right, they can get this done. If the Senate is able to say vote on this early Tuesday morning, House is able to vote Wednesday, Trump comes in, flips some of the no's and those on the fence to yes, this could actually get done. The fact of the matter though is that every really vote that we've seen up until this point, the message to lawmakers who aren't totally happy has been, well, we still have more steps to go, this bill is going to change, this bill is going to evolve.

We are now at the point where that's no longer an argument that GOP leaders can rely on to get their members to vote yes. And so if certain fiscal hawks, if certain moderates who are concerned about Medicaid really want to dig their heels in, now is the point that they can do it. And so yes, there's every chance that they miss the deadline, but there's also every chance that they make the deadline. I think it just depends how much those who oppose the bill right now are willing to really stand their ground and continue to vote no.

Emily, maybe it's not the fiscal hawks they have to worry about, though, at this point, maybe more the moderates. They got Ron Johnson to finally agree to yes, but he said that was because they agreed to phase out that 90 percent Medicaid match that was part of the extension of the population under the Affordable Care Act.

If he's happy with it, that could very well alienate people like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. And if that happens, if you have those two, Tom Tillis and Rand Paul, vote no, it's done.

But Becky, you are absolutely right. And that's going to be one of the very interesting things to see when they begin voting on amendments. We know one is going to be offered that deals with that federal and state match. There's a concern that if the states have to pay more, there are going to be fewer people who are going to be able to be on Medicaid. And so that's

one of the amendment votes to watch very closely today. But you're right. I mean, this has been the difficulty of getting this bill through the entire time that you have these fiscal hawks that are just so worried about the cost of the bill, the addition to the debt versus senators who say, look, we can't take away benefits from our constituents. And you're right. It's going to be very interesting to see what we're not totally done with this bill yet. We're expecting a new addition update of taxed

updating some provisions in this bill. And we have that amendment vote all to get through today before we're actually going to see what that final vote is. And there's definitely going to be a lot of arm twisting behind the scenes because no one's going to walk away fully happy on this one. Emily, before we go, Elon Musk, who's been out there as publicly as anybody this weekend, just pounding this bill. What kind of impact is that have having or not having having?

So at this point, obviously, Elon Musk has kind of shifted to a role where he's a little further away from government. But at the same point, he had really strong criticism for this bill, particularly those clean energy tax credits. He said that this bill funds the industries of the past, not the industries of the future.

And I think to a certain extent, maybe not so much Musk himself, but the fact that this opinion that he's putting out there is really widely shared by a lot of folks in the solar industry, in the wind industry. You saw the Chamber of Commerce come out with a statement. They widely support this bill. They love the tax provisions. And yet they're saying, hey, this stuff with wind and solar, it's not workable and it's working against our own interests because we need more electricity in this country. Why would we go ahead

and limit some of the energy sources that we could be tapping into here. So I think there is certainly concern from Musk, but that's also just a much, much wider concern in the industry right now within companies, within various groups saying, hey, these cuts to wind and solar could be really detrimental when it comes to the amount of energy the U.S. needs.

Emily, we want to thank you. Appreciate it. We'll be talking to you a lot more, I know. New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, he praised the Senate version of the bill after a SALT breakthrough. Mike Lawler had been the one who had been saying, no way, if we don't get our $40,000, we're not going to do it. But this sunsets the $40,000 in five years and caps it at $10,000, which, you know, we talked about it last week on Friday and heard a little bit from someone who was saying, look,

You should, it was Bradley Tusk, actually. I was trying to remember who it was. Bradley Tusk said he's been telling them they should just vote no because if you vote no, come January 1st, the cap's gone. There's no cap and there's nothing, no limits on any of it. He's a Democrat, though, so he's making a lot of progress. I mean, I don't know. I'm a New Yorker and people will disagree with what I would say.

I've always thought if you want to get rid of SALT on a philosophical basis, that may make sense. It's not like a crazy idea. I do understand the argument. I do totally. If you said, though, OK, we're going to do it over a 10-year period, and at the end of a decade, there will be no more SALT, and every state in America can figure out how they want to get their house in order over the next decade, that to me makes sense. By the way, that's sort of my philosophy about tariffs.

Well, it's been eight years since 2017, and I would argue that none of these state and local places have actually gotten their houses in order.

Right, but that's because there was always this idea that they were somehow going to undo all of these things as opposed to actually decide they were going to be permanent. I will say Mike Lawler's point on this is that they are putting back in the exemption for small businesses, basically. So that's the reason he's behind some of this. And I think we'll have to hear more about where this falls, how many people that affects versus how many it doesn't. But I think he was worried about lawyers and doctors and others who use this carve out getting an exemption.

Presumptive New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zoran Mamdani went on NBC's Meet the Press over the weekend, and his exchange with host Kristen Welker has been getting a lot of media attention, including on our own air.

I want to ask you about an issue that has divided some New Yorkers in recent weeks. You were recently asked about the term "globalize the intifada" if it makes you uncomfortable. In that moment, you did not condemn the phrase. Now, just so folks understand, it's a phrase that many people hear as a call to violence against Jews. There's been a lot of attention on this issue.

So I want to give you an opportunity to respond here and now. Do you condemn that phrase, globalize the intifada? That's not language that I use. The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead the city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights. And ultimately, that's what

is the foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that freedom and justice and safety are things that to have meaning have to be applied to all people. And that includes Israelis and Palestinians as well. But do you actually condemn it? I think that's the question and the outstanding issue that a number of people, both of the Jewish faith and beyond, have. Do you condemn that phase, globalize the intifada, which a lot of people hear as a call to violence against Jews? I've heard from many Jewish New Yorkers who have shared their concerns with me.

especially in light of the horrific attacks that we saw in Washington, D.C. and in Boulder, Colorado, about this moment of anti-Semitism in our country and in our city. And I've heard those fears and I've had those conversations. And ultimately, they are part and parcel of why in my campaign I've put forward a commitment to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800 percent.

I don't believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech in the manner, especially of that of Donald Trump, who has put one New Yorker in jail, who's just returned to his family, Mahmoud Khalil, for that very supposed crime of speech. Ultimately, what I think I need to show is that

the ability to not only talk about something, but to tackle it and to make clear that there's no room for antisemitism in this city. We have to root out that bigotry, and ultimately we do that through the actions, and that is the mayor I will be, one that protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do. But very people, quickly, for the people who care about the language and who feel really concerned by that phrase, why not just condemn it? My concern is...

To start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible takes me into a place similar to that of the president who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an op-ed, putting them in jail for protesting. Ultimately, it's not language that I use. It's language I understand there are concerns about. And what I will do is showcase my vision for the city through my words and my actions.

He also commented on billionaires, which got Wall Street buzzing. You are a self-described democratic socialist. Do you think that billionaires have a right to exist?

I don't think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality. And ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country. And I look forward to work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them. I'm Donnie, hoping to lead New York City, which tops the worldwide list of cities with the most billionaires.

I'd like to keep them here if possible. New York has 123 billionaires, according to Forbes. Its richest resident is former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who notably endorsed Mamdani's opponent, Andrew Cuomo, in last week's Democratic election, or at least the primaries there of all this. I don't know. I was also just separately, a couple of things, disturbed by the global pandemic.

What did he say that just made me crazy over the weekend? Did you see what he said? He didn't say globalize the infidel. Oh, yeah. Infidel, but he did say that he wouldn't condemn it. He was asked like three times by her. Right. Which is, you know, some people say is anti-Semitic. Some people say is anti-Zionist. Unfortunately, they get conflated either way. And so by default...

I would think you could... He wouldn't shoot down the speculation that he's an anti-Semite. Right. And I don't really understand why he didn't, unless he is. You know, there's been... If you go back and look at his history and some of the things he's said and some of the things his parents have said...

You know, forget about others. One hundred twenty three billionaires in this city. There's there's close to a million people who are Jewish is the largest population outside of Israel. And so I don't know. I don't know that that threw me. I was surprised to see that, too, because he said some things in the past. You would think when you're at this point that you would at least pivot and say, I am I'm.

absolutely not an anti-Semite. I want to make sure that Jewish people feel safe. He didn't take the opportunity to do that, which is shocking. The other thing I will say... Oh, go ahead. I thought he tried a little bit in his own way, but he could have easily said, and then tried to... Because I thought he was trying to turn it into this thing, well, I don't want to be like President Trump. He said, because I don't want to police speech. But, you know, there's a difference between policing speech, meaning, like, actually, like, taking... You know, putting people in jail over speech and being able to say, you know what? Not only would I not say this...

I condemn it. It's not something that I think should be said aloud. And he didn't take that opportunity. He was offered the opportunity multiple times. And I think there are people who look at that and go, what is going on here? Well, the other thing is President Trump kind of focused on this, too, this weekend. He said that he's a communist and he said that if he actually wins election next year, that Trump wins.

might seek to shut down federal funding for New York City, almost like he's done with Harvard and other places, and what that might mean for the city as a result. Bradley Tusk, again, referencing back to him, he was here on Friday. He said it's the best thing that could possibly happen for President Trump would be to have Mom Donnie win, because then he becomes this foil, kind of this punching bag. Best thing that could happen for President Trump and for Mom Donnie, he can just go back and forth at Trump. You have, again,

Just this thing that plays to the extremes of democratic party. He's clearly tapped into an issue in New York, which is affordability. And the affordability issue is real. It's not that it isn't real. The question is, what's the solution to the affordability problem?

I would argue it's not necessarily, you know, re-rent stabilizing things. It's actually creating some supply of housing in this city, changing so many of the crazy restrictions in this city so that you can't build. I mean, if we actually could actually build in this city, now, would you be able to solve the problem in three or four years? No. But over a decade, if you actually really built and went after it, you could do a lot.

And I just don't understand why, you know, Ezra Klein has this book, Abundance, and it's really about building and trying to almost take advantage of capitalism to some degree, not necessarily restricting prices, but it's

It's actually abundance meaning you have to create supply. You have to take some of the restrictions off. You have to let people build the subways without every last union trying to hold back and create these astronomical costs. And I don't think that's going to happen under this gentleman. Mom Donnie. That's not what he's looking for. So we'll see. Teas will be next.

Next on SquawkPod, Verizon turns 25. CEO Hans Vestberg has been at the helm for seven of those years, and he's looking to expand his reach. The regulation, of course, is preventing the consumer and wireless business to be global because historically there's no synergies in between different companies across the globe because of the regulation. I mean, you see that in Europe right now where you see more and more companies going to fewer and fewer markets.

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This is Squawk Pod from CNBC, today with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Welcome back, everybody. Verizon was created 25 years ago, believe it or not, in June of 2000 with the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. Today, it stands as one of the biggest wireless and broadband providers in the United States. And joining us right now with a real-time update on the company's business is Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. Hans, I have to say, I'm

On the one hand, I was like, oh, it's only 25 years old. On the other hand, I remember when you guys created, or when it was created, and when it took the name Verizon, trying to figure out what Verizon meant. I can't believe it's been 25 years since that day. No, a lot have happened in 25 years for sure, of course.

Verizon was created of a lot of mergers on the... It's a weird name. Why did you guys pick Verizon? So Verizon was a great innovation on my predecessor. It's sort of Veritas for truth and Horizon for looking forward. And then they put together a word that doesn't exist, Verizon. Uh,

Because all the real words have been taken already. Exactly. No, so I think it was my predecessor or just great leaders that put this together and moved Verizon to the top spot in this market and actually in the world when it comes to telecoms, which you're humble continuing the work they have done. But I

I also remember in 2000, I was just looking at 2000, I mean, remember you were doing still kilobits per second in both the wireline and the wireless networks. You hardly didn't send SMS by then, messages. They were not even feasible. So tremendous development. Today we cannot live without mobility and broadband. Of course, Verizon has invested enormously over these years.

That's kind of where the battle stands right now. Now that wireless companies have rolled out this 5G fixed wireless service, that's competing with broadband on a broader scale. And you've got cable companies, wireless providers, all of you guys kind of competing and lowering prices for consumers to win that business.

I think that historically the prices have actually gone up on the service fee. I think what we've seen a little bit on the wireless side has been a competition on promotions when you do want the new phone. And that's where you've seen most of the competition the last couple of years. But of course, it's very important to keep the sort of the levels of pricing up in order to continue to invest.

Since I became the CEO of Verizon, we have invested more than $200 billion in the United States of America. Oh, go ahead. The big question over the last 25 years is you could argue that you and some of the cable operators and others, you wouldn't like the word monopoly, but you own the train tracks, the railroads, if you will, and whether it was owning them even wirelessly, meaning you had the broadband. Or with the cable, with the bios. Yeah, the cable, you had the stuff in the ground.

The question is, in an era where you have SpaceX putting up satellites, where you have Amazon now putting up satellites with Kuiper, which is...

probably two or three years away from really being commercialized on a massive scale. How all of that changes? And there's been such huge investment made by so many folks. And it may be a multilayered thing. It may be in big cities, people use fiber because it's easier into the buildings. But in rural places, they use satellites. What does that do to the business long term? I think the satellite business is, as we see it, mostly complementary to what we're doing. In certain places that are very rural, we cannot...

We can neither do fiber or even wireless in some cases because electricity is not good enough there. So that's definitely a case. Then our use cases also with satellites, with vessels and things like that, that cannot be reached by traditional telecoms. So for me, they are more a partner to me than anything else. Then, of course, there are going to be fringes of competition. But if you go to a dense city like this,

satellite cannot work because of the density of it. So I think it's going to be more complimentary. And again, it's about to give the customers ubiquitous connectivity. Is it worth using your broadband for fixed line wireless? Because there is an argument to be made that over time, you may actually try to move the fixed line basically to the phone, that there's more money for you in being sort of purely wireless than

on a margin basis? - Yeah, I spend a lot of time on that, but I think about it like this, from the data center, wherever you have your data, it's a streaming service, whatever you have, until the edge of the network, everything is fiberized because that's where all the data goes. Then at the edge of the network, we decide if I use a mobile phone or if I use a fixed line or whatever. That's the future because there are different use cases,

different preferences with customers. So for me, it's the most important. That's what I did when I came into Verizon was to fiberize everything from the data center to the edge of the network, harmonize it, have redundancy. And then at the edge, we decided we have 4G phone, 5G phone, we have fiber, we have fixed-wise access, different type of access technology. If you're a big enterprise, you have different demands if you're a consumer. So

That's how I see the future of the world. How much are you spending to build out fiber to the last mile to the home for consumers? So right now we're building roughly 650,000 new passings a year. But of course, I have the pending acquisition of Frontier. When we combine that, it's going to be way more. And we're going to be actually with fiber in 31 states. How much is that in terms of CapEx? We never disclose exactly the CapEx because

We change a lot inside. We have been on a business as usual investment on $18 to $18.5 billion in the network every year.

There's the question that's been brought up recently just about whether you're losing more customers because you've raised prices when it comes to postpaid phone customers. In the first quarter, Verizon lost 289,000 of them. That matches the worst quarter on record for Verizon. What happened? I think that the first quarter, first of all, is usually a slower quarter from postpaid consumer. And we had some price increases that we had some churn. So it's actually...

It was sort of planned for us. But the difference was also that our prepaid was doing way better. Ultimately, I look at all customers in all customers group. You talk about consumers and I look at how many customers do I put on my platform that are profitable. That's really what we think about. And the prepaid business on the first quarter was the best quarter ever on prepaid.

It's a balance in between them, but ultimately we of course want to gain customers in all our segments because we're number one in all our wireless segments. Andrew brings up just how many more competitors you have at this point. Who do you consider your biggest competitors?

There are many that want to compete with us. If you're number one in basically everything you do, you have different competitors. I have different competitors on fiber, on fixed wireless access. I have different on wireless for government. I have different on the consumer, postpaid or prepaid. There are different customers, different brands that we're competing with. So I wouldn't say that I have one competitor. I have many. Okay, here's a question. You're mostly domestic business.

My business is global, but yes. But my question actually with the business to business piece is as these data centers go everywhere,

Does this act? There's been a long question about whether you really need to be global and whether you can be global, whether regulators would allow you to genuinely be global. What kind of costs you could take out of the business if it was a truly global business? I mean, I remember in the late 90s covering when there was, you know, questions about what Verizon and Vodafone would ultimately merge. This was in the UK. This is 25 years ago. We were sort of merged in the United States.

The regulation, of course, is preventing the consumer and wireless business to be global because historically there's no synergies in between different companies across the globe because of the regulation. I mean, you see that in Europe right now where you see more and more companies going to fewer and fewer markets. So you're right, it's hard to see actually. But the business of business, if you follow the large industry,

large enterprise customers, the large banks sitting around here. They want one provider in the world to supply them with private IP networks. And that we can do because we have different assets and we have different partners. Hans, I want to thank you for coming in. And again, I'm shocked it's only been 25 years, but then shocked it has been 25 years. Yeah, time flies.

Coming up on SquawkPod, F1 raced into theaters this weekend and producer Jerry Bruckheimer takes us into the passenger seat for an inside look at making the film with Apple director Joseph Kaczynski and Brad Pitt. Apple was the one who really leaned in because Joe and Brad wanted to make this for real. He wanted to be driving these cars. He didn't want to do any blue screen or the stuff that we normally do. We'll be right back.

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You're listening to SquawkPod. You're watching SquawkBox right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick, along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe is off today. Apple scoring its biggest ever opening weekend at the North American box office. The company's F1, the movie, starring Brad Pitt, debuting with more than $55 million in ticket sales. Apple had mixed success previously at the box office, but this type of opening weekend could go a long way towards helping the company recoup F1's more than $200 million.

million dollar production budget, then you oftentimes are supposed to double that when it comes to the marketing budget. So you could be. And they've done some heavy marketing on this. You can't go anywhere and not see it. Totally. But also, you

though? Internationally, I think it's up to about 144 million in total. So it's doing very, very well. Joining us right now is the man behind this film and so many others that you know. He is a legend, Jerry Bruckheimer. He's the producer of F1 and other legendary films like Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun. I mean, we could be here all morning long, Jerry, if I did the list. But it is so great to see you this morning, and we're thrilled to have you on the broadcast. Congratulations on the open.

Well, thank you. I'm really thrilled to be with you this morning. It's it's an amazing weekend for us to have this kind of success on a movie that is not a sequel. And it's it's a tough business. And the fact that we got this one open in a big way, it's Brad Pitt's biggest opening ever. So take us back to the beginning of this, because this was not a foregone conclusion. There was nothing preordained about the success of this film or even that would ever even be greenlit.

Well, what's interesting about it is our tracking was terrible. We were going to open to $30 million as we opened to $144 million, and that's as of yesterday. And I think it might even go up over last night. We weren't down as much as they thought we were going to be down on Sunday. But this is a four-year process for us to get this movie made. And the fact that F1 leaned in and said, yeah, please join us, be one of our teams. We were the 11th team on the grid. For anybody who doesn't know anybody,

thing about f1 there are 10 teams two drivers to each team we became the 11th team what's interesting about f1 is your teammate is also your competitor so that creates great drama for us and how did this film come about and how did you get to apple and i'm curious actually how you felt about being with apple as opposed to maybe one of the more traditional studios these days as we think about streamers and versus being uh you know in the theaters out of the theaters all that

Well, what happened is Joe Kaczynski, who directed Top Gun for us, came to me and said, I got this idea to do an F1 movie because he'd been watching Drive to Survive on Netflix. And they focus on the last place teams. So we figured that's an interesting entry into this world. So he had met

Lewis Hamilton, who is a seven-time world champion in F1, Sir Lewis Hamilton. And we had a conversation with him. We met him for lunch, and he said, "I'll help you with this movie," and became a producer on the film. Then we went to Brad Pitt and said, "Brad, here's what we have. Here's the idea. We have the same writer as Road Top Gun, Aaron Krueger." And then we pitched it to nine different studios. And Apple was the one who really leaned in because Joe and Brad wanted to make this for real.

He wanted to be driving these cars. He didn't want to do any blue screen or the stuff that we normally do. He wanted to do the right way. So what we did is we trained him and Damson Idris, who is the second lead in the movie, for four months to be able to drive one of these cars. They started on a road car. Then they went to open wheel cars. Then they went to F4 cars. Then F3, F2, and finally got into our car. Mercedes built the car for us.

along with Joe helping design it. We had 15 camera positions around the car. It's the most authentic looking movie about F1 racing ever made because Sony created a separate camera, a smaller camera for us than what we used in Top Gun. Also, Apple took their iPhone camera, enhanced it, and put it in two cars

in every single race, on the real races. So the authenticity and the speed that we captured is amazing. Well, that's what we got. How fast did Brad ever get and how scared were you? Well, Brad got to over 180 miles an hour. My happiest day was in Abu Dhabi when he climbed out of the car and he was finished. That was his unhappiest day. He wanted to keep going. He loved it.

Hey, Jerry, you mentioned that this wasn't a sequel. And you're right. It's really tough to bring out new ideas and get the studios to embrace it. And there's always a question of whether the audience will embrace it, too. Obviously, huge hit with this one. How long will it take to make a sequel to this? Because with Top Gun, it took 36 years. Well, let's hope it's less. It depends on the audience. If they keep coming, I think Brad will lean in and certainly we want to do it.

How do you think about streamers today versus the old school studios, all of whom are now attached to streamers, the consolidation, the back end, all of that, and whether the business is going to continue to thrive in the way it had in the past or we should think about it very differently?

Well, there's a revolution going on, obviously, in our business with the streamers leaning in. But we've been through this before. Look, the movie business was over after television came in many years ago. Nobody was going to go to the cinema. That was wrong. Then DVDs came in and VHSs. And then we were going to the end of the movie business. We're still alive. Streamers have come in, which is great for Hollywood because there's more audience.

content that we can create around the world with streamers, with studios. Look, there's so much content on the streamers, it keeps everybody busy. You can't all be in the theatrical business. We have to do both, and I do both.

Do you think long term, though, I mean, everybody's expecting consolidation and look, you've had enormous success. And I imagine every streamer still wants to be very much in business with you and pay you at the top end of every range that exists. But it seems like it's going to be harder and harder and harder for those who are not at your level or Brad Pitt's level. No, no.

Well, everybody has to start somewhere. And if you build a good reputation, it's a very small town. You do a good job. You create good content. We create more stars that way. You know, streaming can can create directors we want to work with, writers we want to work with and features. That's how the business grows. AI, you scared of it? You excited by it?

Look, we've had these things before to enhance our business, and it'll help us, that's for sure. I mean, just the fact that we can create things in a cheaper way, in a better way, that's good for our business. What does it mean for the actors and the other talent associated with it? They seem to be a little more concerned and afraid of it.

Well, there's protections built into the new contract to make sure that they're taken care of in the right way. And I think we want to do it the right way where you can't you can't create something that an actor doesn't want to do because of our agreements with SAG. Final question. I have kids who are 14 and eight, but the 14 year olds.

You know, getting them to sit through a full movie, two hours or more these days, is tough. I mean, I don't understand. Sometimes we'll be at home and I'll say, guys, watch a movie. Like, just sit and watch a movie. And of course, they're on their phone, you know, wanting to go through TikTok. I'm desperately trying to get them off. Do you think there's a shift in the way this next generation even thinks about film? I mean, I love film. I love a great TV show. I like seeing it on a big screen. I like going to a theater.

But it does seem that there's seem like there's something happening generationally. And I'm curious how you think about that and what you do about it. The film or the TV show has to be engaging and has to really capture their imagination and grab them right away. And we've done it in a really unique way with the speed of these cars. But we're great with speed.

all the bells and whistles. But this movie is emotional, it's funny, and it's romantic. It's got all those things that we love. It's great to be in an enclosed space with a group of people that are enjoying something, that are applauding, that are laughing. And we found on Sunday, we had a lot of families come to watch this movie with young kids, with older kids, because it engages them. It's exciting. It's like Rocky on steroids. It's really something that

I want to see in the movie theater on the biggest screen possible because it's so much fun. It puts you inside a world you'll never be a part of and shows you how it actually works. We're in the transportation business. We transport you to another place and another time. Jerry, it is a pleasure to have you on the broadcast. One of the great legends of our time. We appreciate you joining us. Congratulations on the film and congratulations.

I have to get my kids to one. I got kids in camp right now, so they can't see. Well, I think it's a reminder. The bells and whistles are great, but you have to have a great story. You have to have great character development. That's the story remains the same. Always, always. Thank you, Jerry.

That's the podcast for today. Thank you for tuning in as always. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 and going all the way until 9. To get the smartest takes and analysis from that TV show right into your ears, follow us here on Squawk Pod wherever you're listening now. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day. We are clear. Thanks, guys.

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