11AM Hour: FCC Chair, Former Treasury Sec. Jack Lew, The Challenges of Data Centers in Space 5/18/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

At Janice Henderson, we strive to deliver better outcomes through insight-led investing, innovation for clients, and a partnership approach that's core to our identity. I'm Jessica Liancini, Head of Fixed Income Client Portfolio Management. I'm passionate about my role in investments. It allows me to partner with our clients, simplify fixed income, and support them in achieving better outcomes for their clients.

Janice Henderson, investing in a brighter future together.

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

Dell PCs with Intel Inside are built for the moments you plan, and the ones you don't. They're for those all-night study sessions, the moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken, the times you're deep in your flow and can't be interrupted by an auto update. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to you, built with long-lasting battery so you're not scrambling for an outlet, and built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. Find technology built for the way you work at dell.com/dellpcs. Built for you.

Carl Quintanilla (1:07)

Good Monday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla along with Sara Eisen, live at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. And yes, we are proud to extend the Squawk on the Street brand to a third hour starting today.

Sara Eisen (1:19)

Of course, we will keep bringing you the most important news, biggest names in business this hour, including some big names today. FCC Chair, Brendan Carr joins us exclusively with SpaceX and Focus as we await the potential drop of its IPO perspectives in the coming days. This after the FCC just greenlit EchoStar's $40 billion spectrum sale to SpaceX and Elon Musk urges the agency to kill a multibillion dollar major rural internet subsidy program. We'll talk about all of that plus ABC and Disney.

Carl Quintanilla (1:49)

Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is with us amid renewed Middle East concerns for the global economy. The president warning the clock is ticking for Iran, fueling fears of an extension to the largest oil disruption in history.

Sara Eisen (2:01)

And after three weeks of court room drama, high stakes legal fighting between AI Ravels, Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Today, the jury gets a say. We're going to dig into what's really at stake here.

Carl Quintanilla (2:12)

As for markets, a split market at the moment, Dow's up 121 There has been some sense of the indices getting buffeted by various headlines regarding Iran, counterproposals would be truces, the VIX about 18 and a half, oil was lower and now higher once again, bring it back to 110 plus and WTI above 106 Let's kick off the hour and get the market set up with TD Bank US Vice Chair, Jeff Solomon who joins us here at Post Night. Happy Monday, Jay. Good to see you.

Jeff Solomon (2:40)

Good to see you too.

Carl Quintanilla (2:41)

Are we still just going to wait in this morass of would-be counterproposals and would-be negotiations?

Jeff Solomon (2:48)

Yeah.

The number one thing that's driving markets is what's going to happen in Iran, and then what's going to happen with energy prices. I think that's outweighs just about every other market factor at this moment. I think people will trade based on the news that's coming out, based on what's happening there on a daily basis. Yeah.

Carl Quintanilla (3:07)

Is the sense that oil inventories are getting low enough that if this were to go on for a few more weeks, there would be a reaction in the markets, in equities?

Jeff Solomon (3:15)

Well, I've made the case, I think here before, that I think this ends faster than anybody is anticipating, just because there's an economic incentive for both sides to kind of reach this. I think that's probably one of the things that hasn't been talked enough about in the Trump-Xi conference. I think this discussion that both sides actually have a lot of vested interest in bringing an off-ramp pretty quickly, because there's economic implications to both China and to the US and to the global economy. And so it doesn't really serve anybody's purposes for this to be going on much longer from an economic standpoint.

Sara Eisen (3:51)

Do you think that's what the market is telling you? Because if you think this is the number one factor that the market is teeing off of, market's been amazingly resilient and going higher.

Jeff Solomon (3:59)

Yeah, and that's what the market is telling us for sure. I mean, again, I still think there's a symmetric risk. The downside of it doesn't happen, right? But the market is 100% telling you this is going to end sooner rather than later.