Futures orbit around SpaceX as Tesla merger talk cheers investors
Here are the key things investors need to know to start the trading day.
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd, with today's edition of Morning Squawk.
One man is the center of gravity for the biggest market-moving stories of the day - Elon Musk.
From SpaceX and Tesla's possible mega-merger plan, to astronomical earnings from SpaceX, to more results to come from Tesla and the squaring-off over Starlink, he is hitting all the headlines.
SpaceX shares are spiking in premarket trade after Elon Musk unveiled a special committee had been put in place to merge the rocket group with Tesla, in a move he called a "good idea."
Musk also said he represents a "conflicted party," meaning he will not be included in the discussions.
It would be the largest merger in history, creating a giant company worth roughly 3 and a half trillion dollars. Tesla shares were also moving higher in early trading.
Why it matters: An existing joint venture between the two companies - Terafab - is aiming to test its first SRAM chip by June next year, targeting one terawatt a year of computing power. Musk said a full merger would mean there is "a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing superintelligence software."
The bull case: Gene Munster from Deepwater told CNBC the deal is a "slam dunk" if it comes down to shareholder approval, and would create the "most unique company in the world" by all measures.
The bear case: The aggressive timeline for Terafab depends on acquiring complex equipment from suppliers like ASML, Applied Materials and KLA.
And don't forget the numbers: The merger news came alongside a blowout set of numbers for SpaceX, with third-quarter revenues jumping 161%, soaring past expectations. But MoffettNathanson's Julie Zhu highlighted the "enormous calls on capital that loom over the next few years."
An earnings beat is not enough to cheer Netflix investors, with the shares extending declines in premarket trading. Here are the numbers:
Big movers in Europe: EssilorLuxottica is leading the Stoxx 600 after beating revenue guidance, despite a slowdown in smart glasses sales. At the bottom of the European market is Carrefour after announcing that the French riots would hit the supermarket group's earnings for the year. Meanwhile, sportswear giant Adidas raised its profit guidance, sending shares higher in Frankfurt.
A lot of action after the bell today, with earnings due from Meta and Tesla .
Social dilemma: Analysts are broadly bullish on Meta going into these earnings, following the release of AI agent Muse back in September. Shares have risen 15% since that launch.
Hitting the Roadster: It's been a tough quarter for auto stocks, which could weigh on Tesla. Delivery numbers have declined 2% year-on-year, although that is ahead of estimates.
CNBC's Morning Squawk recaps the biggest stories investors should know before the stock market opens, every weekday morning.
Elon Musk ordered a slowdown of a version of SpaceX's Starlink, which Ukraine has relied on in its war against Russia. That's according to the Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials and people close to the matter.
The report comes amid conflicting accounts of how the decision to slow Starlink for Kyiv was reached, with Musk previously taking to X to call it a "U.S. military and ultimately a POTUS" call.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged data center companies to "MAKE DEALS" with local communities to ensure their support for the costly facilities.
Trump said that, to make them more popular, data center operators should pay the community, "and/or individuals within the community, a 'dividend.'"
OpenAI's most powerful AI models disabled their own safety monitoring, and one lied about it
OpenAI has revealed that agents operated by two of its most powerful models disabled their own safety monitoring when carrying out routine tasks, with one subsequently denying it had done so.
An agent powered by GPT Sol 6.1 disabled automatic alerts to OpenAI's security team, the company said in a blog post late on Tuesday. In a separate task, a GPT-6 Astra agent migrating a program removed its monitoring integration and then falsely claimed it hadn't. The incidents happened during internal coding tasks.
