11AM Hour: NetApp CEO on Earnings, Garnering Support for Data Centers & CNBC Special Report: Stealing Anthropic's IP 9/3/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
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**SPEAKER_3** (0:35)
With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

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**SPEAKER_3** (0:44)
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**Carl Quintanilla** (0:53)
Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE SIPC.
Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker here at Post9 to the New York Stock Exchange. Sara Eisen is off today. Coming up this morning, call it AI's data center reputation problem. With public opposition rising, we're going to talk to the founder of one new group, try to change public opinion.

**Leslie Picker** (1:22)
Plus, AI demand lifting NetApp to a record quarter. CEO George Kurian joins us to discuss that company's outlook.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:29)
And how dark web hackers are stealing Anthropic and OpenAI's top models. CNBC investigates the role that China plays and just why it's so hard to police.

**Leslie Picker** (1:39)
Right now, though, let's take a look at the markets. The near recession high is right now the NASDAQ up about 0.8 percent thanks in large part to software today on some positive earnings from Snowflake and others. The S&P up about half a percent. Yields coming down a little bit to 4756 at this hour. We're seeing some stabilization thanks to some of those comments from Fed Governor Christopher Waller.

**Carl Quintanilla** (2:03)
Speaking of which, he did make comments on both inflation, productivity, rate policy this morning ahead of the upcoming Fed meeting. Let's get to Steve Leesman, talk about some notable comments going into CPI, Steve.

**Steve Leesman** (2:15)
Yeah, Carl, the comments from the Fed Governor raise additional doubts on whether or not there's going to be a hike at the September meeting. Waller in a speech this morning at a Reuters event saying he's finally seeing some signs of disinflation, that underlying inflation is better than core inflation and that he's not seeing additional price pressure coming from tariffs, energy or wages, though he still believes inflation risks are to the upside.
Waller showed himself to be firmly on the fence about whether to hike or to hold at the upcoming September meeting, saying the August inflation report coming next Friday would be decisive.

**SPEAKER_7** (2:57)
If there's continued progress towards our 2% goal, then I'm willing to hold, willing to support holding the policy rate at its current level. But if inflation comes in hot, I would consider a rate hike.

**Steve Leesman** (3:11)
The probability of a Fed rate hike at the September meeting declined to 50%.
You can see there from 61% before Waller spoke, it was helped by a slight decline in oil prices and by dovish comments yesterday by New York Fed President John Williams to CNBC. All of that followed unexpectedly hawkish comments, of course, by Kevin Warsh last week. That led many to price in a higher probability of a rate hike in September. But this kind of uncertainty may be a feature, not a bug of the Warsh era. At least we know where Waller stands on the upcoming report. Carl?

**Carl Quintanilla** (3:48)
Really interesting comments about playing the ball, not the Fed, and that you got to know where the Empire's strike zone is before you can gauge some of that. The other is that he doesn't seem to think that Besten's buyback will do very much, although he added he has the prerogative to do it.

**Steve Leesman** (4:07)
No, I can tell you from Jackson Hole on this latter point, Carl, that there were not good reviews of the Treasury Secretary's buybacks, both because of the concern about government intervention in the bond market, but also that they did not expect to be very effective.
On Waller's communications comments, he is going to be out there talking and many other Fed officials have been out there saying, look, they think it is their responsibility to talk to the markets and to explain their reaction function. They are not giving forward guidance as in a commitment of what to do. They are just saying how they react, where the strike zone is, as you say, when the ball comes in. And they are kind of defiant and really in disagreement with the Chairman about what it is they should be saying.