9AM HOUR: Meta-State AGs Settlement, Nvidia Earnings Countdown, Fed's Preferred Inflation Gauge Rises 8/26/26

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**Jim Cramer** (0:53)
It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:01)
Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer and David Faber at Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. It's an important day, Nvidia tonight, Salesforce crowd strike.
Pre-market is gone red. The front end yield is bouncing on inflation data that runs a little hot. Headline PCE 3.7, it's a tenth more than expected. Energy, though, remains subdued. Rent near 86 on continued hopes for an Iran-Oman plan to open up lanes in Hormuz. Our road map begins with Bill Gates delivering an AI warning as investors await a key test for the AI trade, and that is Nvidia after the bell.

**David Faber** (1:36)
CEO Jensen Wong is going to join Jim, by the way, on Mad Money tonight.
Looking forward to that. Plus a growing executive exodus at OpenAI, the company's data center chief departing ahead of its highly anticipated, well, we don't know when it's going publicized, so let's just give it a rest here. It will not be till next year, right? Anthropics, the one we're waiting for. We're also monitoring Mark Walter's, TWG Global fighting back against claims of fraud with a press release out this morning saying, there is no victim and no one's been harmed. We're going to have more on that fascinating saga.

**Jim Cramer** (2:13)
Okay, and Meta agrees to, they just agreed to settle with 49 of the EG states. It's really important because it's for an amount that I think is very reasonable. 12.6 billion.
It's 7% we're going to have to pay now.
It's funny because the law fees are almost bigger.

**David Faber** (2:30)
So I'm sorry, what is the number?

**Jim Cramer** (2:32)
12.6 billion.

**David Faber** (2:33)
That's for all, that's, and this settles the litigation with all states?

**Jim Cramer** (2:37)
No, it's still, there's still Florida, because there's an ongoing lawsuit. But this is the California case.

**David Faber** (2:44)
This is the California case that was in court not long ago. We talked to Rob Bonta, the AG, about it last week.

**Jim Cramer** (2:50)
Yeah, there's been two weeks, it's been two weeks of trial. I thought that they were, the trial was not going well for Meta, but it looks like that the states are willing to settle. The states, this is a really important call, because the states have unlimited firepower and there was a 1.5 trillion dollar number floating around. I don't think anyone really believes we're more than 200 billion. But this is substantial. Now, Meta's been, people don't really care for Meta stock, and I understand that.
It's been the worst performer of all these. But I would say that this is a much better deal than anyone thought. There's a possibility that could be as high as 18 Now, there's also, TikTok's involved, they haven't settled yet, YouTube hasn't settled yet. But the out-of-pocket exposure on a 10-year basis of 12.6 billion, it's a rounding.

**Carl Quintanilla** (3:35)
Yeah, although some of the AGs were saying that it wasn't so much about the damages as it was about the remedies. Do we know anything about that?

**Jim Cramer** (3:42)
The remedies are well within, it could impact maybe a percent of Meta because it has to do with how much time kids spend. And kids do not spend a long time on Meta. They do spend, on Instagram, Facebook, they do spend more on YouTube, they do spend more on TikTok. So it's probably gonna be more impactful for those. The fact that the stock is only up 3% is fanciful because this is probably the biggest existential threat that they faced. And I don't think anyone thought 12.6. So some people thought it didn't.

**David Faber** (4:13)