Apple Said to End Electric Car Project Amid 2024 Stock Pullback, DOJ vs. UnitedHealth, Bitcoin $60K 2/28/24

David Faber (0:00)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Good Wednesday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Jim Cramer. We are live from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl is on assignment. Let's give you a look at futures. It's hump day for me and Jim. This is what we like to call it. Looks like we're gonna open lower.

What's going on? What happened?

Jim Cramer (0:28)

It's just that kind of death. It's desultory.

David Faber (0:31)

It's what?

Jim Cramer (0:31)

Desultory, as some say. There's really nothing. You know, this is the day that you and I are together, but we better be darn intellectual, because right now there is nothing that is earth moving that you and I have in front of us.

David Faber (0:41)

That is a great way to lead off the show. Keep all of our viewers.

Okay, he's got unbelievable stuff. Let's get to our roadmap this morning. It does start with Apple's EV about face, reportedly abandoning its decades long efforts to develop automobile, turning its focus to generative AI. Shares have underperformed so far this year.

Continued signs of a robust economy, healthy consumer spending, certainly one reason why. And Goldman's CEO thinks a soft landing is, quote, uncertain and the DOJ turning its focus to health insurance. It is launching an antitrust investigation of the giant, UNH.

Jim Cramer (1:21)

UNH is really under siege. It's a great American company. It's under siege like almost no other, between the hack and the justice department. Well, we'll talk about the hack.

David Faber (1:32)

That said, it's doing pretty well for a company under siege. But let's talk about another company that's done pretty darn well for a very long period of time. That is Apple. Of course, you've seen these published reports, any number of them, by the way, at this point.

And so we do believe it is the case that they are scrapping what's been that really decade long effort. I mean, I can't believe it's been that long since we first started hearing about it. Yeah, we're gonna build potentially an EV.

Sources have told Bloomberg that some of the employees on the project are gonna be transferred to the AI division, of course, generative AI becoming so important. Tim Cook saying as much recently, Jim. Give me your broader thoughts here and then we'll talk about Apple itself, which of course there continue to be some questions about in terms of at least the overall performance of the stock this year.

Jim Cramer (2:19)

Sure, I'm happy to go over that. Look, I think that they were making a major bet that they were gonna wait for major tech breakthrough, okay?

Like the RoboTaxi, but in the interim, they were thinking about the consumer and they could only feel like if you cruise the debacle that has been cruised and the fact that the 4AV, the level 4AV from Waymo has not been commercial, that they shouldn't do this, that the time is not ready for it and there may not be a time within the near future that is worth focusing on this. In other words, it's just not economic, it's not commercial, right? And that that was determinant. Now I think that we could sit back and say, well, why don't they wanna be in something that's not commercial? Well, I think that what they don't wanna do is be like Alphabet.

David Faber (3:07)

What does that mean?

Jim Cramer (3:08)

Be doing Waymo for how many years and not producing anything that is giving you a profit. I mean, Waymo, I've been in Waymo, I've been in Cruise.

I felt safe in Cruise and 10 days later they pulled it.

David Faber (3:23)

Right.

Jim Cramer (3:24)

Waymo, they were advertising that I could take a Waymo from the airport to a certain place a couple years ago and it didn't, geographically, it wasn't allowed to go to another place. And there's real constraints.

David Faber (3:38)

Driving has been a lot far further away than we might have anticipated. Even sitting at this desk five years ago when I remember talking about it with great enthusiasm and it was coming and it was coming. I can remember this conversation I had many years ago with Travis Kalanick of Uber telling me, oh yeah, looking down at New York, cause we were up in New York. It's all gonna be automobiles without drivers. We're not gonna need parking garages anymore. Hospital emergency room visits will be down sharply.

It will come though at some point, Jim.

Jim Cramer (4:09)

Apple is not a company that is focused on its stock price, but they are focused on whether something's commercial.