Connect with us

Published

on

U.S. President Donald Trump signs the funding bill to end the U.S. government shutdown, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Nov. 12, 2025.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

1. Opening time

President Donald Trump ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history last night, signing into law a short-term funding bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier in the evening that funds the government through January.

Here’s what to know:

  • While the deal does not include the extension of enhanced Obamacare tax credits that Democrats wanted, it does include a guarantee from Republicans that the Senate will vote on a health care bill of Democrats’ choosing next month.
  • The agreement also ensures funding for food stamps, the reversal of shutdown-related layoffs and backpay for government employees.
  • As he signed the legislation ending the 43-day shutdown, Trump said “people were hurt so badly” and that “we can never let this happen again.” He blamed Democrats for the closure, saying “Republicans never wanted a shutdown.”
  • Earlier on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said key inflation and labor data for October may never be released because of the shutdown. Without these reports, Leavitt said Federal Reserve policymakers will be “flying blind at a critical period.”
  • The Department of Transportation also halted the flight cuts it imposed last week as disruptions to air travel eased. The cancellations would have risen from 6% to 10% on Friday.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to its first-ever close above 48,000 yesterday as Wall Street hoped that the shutdown’s end was imminent.
  • Follow live markets updates here.

2. Testing the magic

A shot of Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

RandomEye Photography | Twenty20

Mickey Mouse may be joining Pluto in the dog house. Disney missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates for the fiscal fourth quarter this morning, sending shares down more than 4% in premarket trading.

While the company’s Disney+ streaming service grew, the entertainment giant was hampered by its linear TV business and its its theatrical film slate. But Disney’s quarterly earnings came in higher than analysts anticipated.

“Overall we’re leaving the year with a lot of momentum,” Disney CFO Hugh Johnston told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning, referring to the company’s streaming and experience businesses.

3. Personnel matters

U.S. President Donald Trump and Lisa Cook, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve

Annabelle Gordon | Reuters | Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Mark your calendar: The Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Jan. 21. The court in October allowed Cook to keep her job while the case plays out.

Meanwhile, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic announced yesterday that he will leave his position when his term expires in February. Bostic, the first Black and openly gay regional Fed president, said in a statement that he was proud of efforts “to turn the lofty goal of an economy that works for everyone into more of a reality.”

4. Inside the AFP business

Jgi/jamie Grill | Tetra Images | Getty Images

Get Morning Squawk directly in your inbox

5. Electric slide

Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Anthropic announced yesterday that it plans to spend $50 billion to build out infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence. As CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos notes, the move makes the technology company a major U.S. player in physical AI infrastructure. The project will start with custom data centers in Texas and New York and is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction positions.

But there’s growing political backlash to the AI industry’s data centers, with voters angry over rising electricity prices. Abigail Spanberger, who won last week’s governor race in Virginia, promised to make the industry pay “their fair share” of higher costs.

The Daily Dividend

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 20,000 documents obtained from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s estate yesterday, among which were emails referencing Trump. The president has denied knowing about Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls and young women and has never been charged with wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House would vote next week on releasing files related to Epstein.

I know how dirty donald is

Jeffrey Epstein in a 2018 email thread

CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Jeff Cox, Emily Wilkins, Sean Conlon, Lillian Rizzo, Scott Zamost, Paige Tortorelli, Melissa Lee, MacKenzie Sigalos and Spencer Kimball contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.

Continue Reading

Technology

AI startup Cursor raises $2.3 billion funding round at $29.3 billion valuation

Published

on

By

AI startup Cursor raises .3 billion funding round at .3 billion valuation

Emilija Manevska | Moment | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence startup Cursor on Thursday announced it has closed a $2.3 billion funding round at a $29.3 billion post-money valuation, nearly triple what it was worth as of its last raise in June.

Tune in at 4:30 p.m. ET as Cursor CEO Michael Truell joins “Closing Bell: Overtime” to discuss the funding round. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.

Cursor built a popular AI coding tool that helps software developers generate, edit and review code. Its parent company, Anysphere, is an applied research lab that was founded in 2022.

Cursor is one of just a handful of AI startups, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence and Thinking Machines, that are valued at over $10 billion.

Investors including Accel, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, Coatue, Nvidia and Google participated in its latest funding round, according to a blog post.

“This funding will allow us to invest deeply in our research and build Cursor’s next magical moments,” Cursor said.

Read more CNBC tech news

Since the tool first launched in 2023, Cursor said it has crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue and swelled to more than 300 employees.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the company his “favorite enterprise AI service” in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October.

The company said its in-house models generate more code than “almost” any other large language models in the world.

The coding tool market has grown more crowded in recent months as it’s proved to be a lucrative AI use case. Cursor competes with companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Cognition, which acquired the AI coding startup Windsurf in July.

OpenAI approached Anysphere earlier this year about potentially purchasing Cursor, but the deal failed to gain traction, as CNBC previously reported. OpenAI was also briefly in talks to acquire Windsurf before ultimately introducing its own coding tool called Codex in May.

In September, Anthropic said its coding tool Claude Code has already generated more than $500 million in run-rate revenue for the company since its full launch in May. As of July, Windsurf was generating $82 million in annual recurring revenue, Cognition said in a blog post at the time.

“Internally, we often talk about how high the ceiling is for how great Cursor can become, and how much work still remains to get there,” Cursor said.

WATCH: Every engineer is being turbocharged by AI, says Macroscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour

Every engineer is being turbocharged by AI, says Macroscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour

Continue Reading

Technology

Verizon chairman Mark Bertolini says the board ‘needed to act’ to revive company

Published

on

By

Verizon chairman Mark Bertolini says the board 'needed to act' to revive company

Mark Bertolini on new role as Verizon chairman: Losing 30% share over the last 8 years is an issue

Verizon chairman Mark Bertolini said Thursday that the company’s new CEO, former PayPal boss Dan Schulman, is working to revive Verizon from its period of share losses under former CEO Hans Vestberg.

Bertolini, who is also the Oscar Health CEO and who was named Verizon chairman last month, told CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” that the company needs to “do something different” as it undergoes its leadership change.

“Verizon has gone from number one in market cap, bond ratings and market share to number three. And the network isn’t as differentiated as it used to be, in large part because everybody’s been spending money to put these 5G networks in place,” Bertolini said. “So losing 30% share over the last eight years is an issue, and we have to do something different.”

In October, the company announced Schulman would be replacing Vestberg, who had led the company since 2018. In a statement at the time, Schulman said Verizon was at a “critical juncture” and that he believed the company had a “clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory.”

Schulman previously led PayPal through significant revenue growth and has served on Verizon’s board of directors since 2018.

Vestberg is remaining on the the board of directors until the 2026 annual meeting and serving as a special advisor through Oct. 4, 2026.

Bertolini said Thursday that Schulman is evaluating underlying cost structures and other aspects of the company to ensure its success.

“We believe that once we have that plan in place, we’ll have a good story,” Bertolini said. “The Street reacted early on that there’s going to be a price war; I think it’s less about price war than the value of what we’re offering to people through the product.”

Bertolini added that Schulman will be revealing his plan for turning around the company “sooner rather than later.”

“The board needed to act, and we acted,” Bertolini said.

Continue Reading

Technology

Musk’s xAI raises $15 billion in latest funding round

Published

on

By

Musk's xAI raises  billion in latest funding round

Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe.

Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $15 billion from investors, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.

The funding adds another $5 billion to the $10 billion round CNBC reported on in September that valued the startup at $200 billion. Sources told CNBC that a lot of the money will fund graphic processing units that underpin large language models.

Artificial intelligence startups have reached sky high valuations in recent months as they raise massive amounts of capital to power seemingly endless demand for foundational models.

In September, AI startup Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round that roughly tripled its valuation from March. Sam Altman’s OpenAI in October closed a $6.6 billion share sale at a $500 billion valuation.

Last last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s massive pay package worth nearly $1 trillion, and voted on a proposal for the company to invest in xAI.

Brandon Ehrhart, general counsel at Tesla, said there were more votes for than against, but noted the abstentions and said the company is considering next steps on the issue.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Continue Reading

Trending