Affirm’s Q4 & Big Tech in Court: Meta & Anthropic Rulings 8/28/26

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Bring in show music, please.

**Cameron Costa** (0:57)
This is Squawk Pod, and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode...
Big tech in the courtroom. Meta reached an $18 billion settlement in its social media addiction trial. And a judge ruled in favor of Anthropic, saying the government had illegally punished the company by labeling it a supply chain risk.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (1:18)
It was possible that maybe they would have had a stronger case if they had not made these public comments about their views about Anthropic's politics.

**Joe Kernen** (1:27)
I think the administration didn't like some of the comments Amodi made.

**Cameron Costa** (1:32)
And shares of FinTech Affirm are riding high after impressive quarterly and fiscal year results. CEO Max Levchin, also a co-founder of PayPal, says the consumer is strong, at least from where he's sitting.

**Max Levchin** (1:45)
There's still strong demands.
There's nothing profoundly wrong. Let me start with that. I do think that sustained pressure on prices isn't great in the long term, and so can't ignore that either.

**Cameron Costa** (1:59)
And then, MoreTech, the information editor-in-chief and CEO Jessica Lessin, and the next big thing in IPOs, Anthropic.

**Jessica Lessin** (2:07)
My colleagues at The Information are reporting prospectus right after Labor Day, most likely. I think we're looking at October.

**Cameron Costa** (2:15)
It is Friday, August 28th, and Squawk Pod begins right now.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:20)
Stand under by in 3, 2, 1, cue Andrew.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (2:26)
Good morning. Welcome to Squawk Box. Right here on CNBC on this Friday morning, we are live at the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin along with Joe Kernen. Becky is off today, but this is not just a summer Friday. It's an important summer Friday because of what we're going to probably be hearing from Kevin Horst today, and we'll see how equities move on the back of that.

**Joe Kernen** (2:47)
I won't ask you if you would raise in September because we're data dependent, and we don't know what the data between now and September will be, so I'm going to give you an out. Would you raise in September?

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (2:57)
I'm not sure, but I am sure about this, and I have been sure about this pretty much the whole time.

**Max Levchin** (3:03)
The day would win.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (3:05)
I will say it loud and I'll say it proud. San Francisco federal judge ruling for Anthropic in its fight against the Pentagon, the judge found the Defense Department violated the First Amendment by designating Anthropica supply chain risk based on a desire to make a public example out of the company. The designation came back in March after Anthropica asked for government assurances that its technology wouldn't be used for domestic mass surveillance for fully autonomous weapons. The case in Washington, DC., on the exact, or I don't know if it's the exact same, but very similar case, is ongoing, and there's a view that there was a friendlier judge in California, there may be a less friendly judge in Washington, but nonetheless, as you know, I have argued throughout this that a lot of the arguments that you made...

**Joe Kernen** (3:50)
Is this done or does this go further? The San Fransisco, okay, when you said San Fransisco, I said, well, San Fransisco, although it is out there where all these great things are happening, but...

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (4:00)
The question now is, how does the government decide to play this? So they could try to appeal this decision, they could try to wait for the other decision...

**Joe Kernen** (4:09)
To see.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (4:10)
And see, and then we'll see where it goes next, but I've always made the argument, and I will make it till the cows come home, that at the time, given that the government continues, and the judge made this point, continues to interact with Anthropic, continues to use mythos, continues to do all of the things, and also was vociferous publicly about their...