Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Citadel Founder & CEO Ken Griffin on CNBC’s “Money Movers” (M-F, 11AM-12PM ET) today, Thursday, September 25. Following are links to video on CNBC.com:
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Griffin On State Of Economy
KEN GRIFFIN: If we came into the start of this year, people were optimistic about the stock market. I think there's been some, some unexpected policy volatility that has certainly made this a bit more of a roller coaster. But for corporate America, the weaker dollar is a is a real tailwind in terms of driving profitability. And then there is, there is, across the entire economy, a real surge in business investment taking place right now, and in artificial intelligence and other areas in the technology space that is helping to propel growth we saw in today's GDP number between consumer strength and business investment in the future, the American economy is doing it's doing pretty well right this minute.
Griffin On Job Numbers
GRIFFIN: If you think about when we when we were having the massive influx of illegal immigrants in the United States, many of those people were absorbed into the workforce. With that, with that illegal immigration having ended, the current jobs growth number, that will be a good number, might be as little as 30, 40,000 jobs. It'll be a very different number than what we used to look for five or six years ago.
Griffin On Labor Market
GRIFFIN: It's really hard to understand the exact pulse of labor market right here, right now, with so much happening on the front of the of the influx of illegal immigrants, the deportations by the administration, companies having in some sense ceased trying to labor horde like they did, pandemic and post pandemic, there's just a lot of moving parts at play right now. It's really hard to know precisely where are we at this minute when it comes to labor market, but we do know, we do know is that US population growth is much lower without the influx of immigrants, and that's going to bring our ability to create new jobs down.
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Griffin On Rate Cuts
GRIFFIN: I think the Fed, Fed is nervous about the labor market because we did see this decline in number of jobs being created, and in terms of balance of risks, they chose to focus on the unemployment side rather than on the inflation side.
GRIFFIN: I think they're going to cut one time more this year two on the outside.
Griffin On Inflation
GRIFFIN: Inflation next year, we predict is going to be somewhere in the mid-twos to 3% range. So that's certainly above the long run historical target of 2%.
SARA EISEN: That's not terrible.
GRIFFIN: As long as it stays there, it's not terrible. But what you don't want to do is you don't want to see the Fed lose credibility in their ability to manage inflation.
Griffin On Tariff Inflation
GRIFFIN: The belief is, is that the inflationary impulse from tariffs has only passed about 50% through the to the economy at this point.
EISEN: So you see it coming? Tariff inflation?
GRIFFIN: Oh it's still coming. It's still coming.
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Griffin On Apple
GRIFFIN: Do you think Apple’s not acting in its own self-interest?
EISEN: I'm sure. I'm sure it is.
GRIFFIN: And nothing against Tim Cook. I mean, Tim Cook's doing what he as CEO should do vis-a-vis his shareholders, but when the state becomes involved in picking winners and losers, there's only one way this game ends. All of us lose.
Griffin On Chips
GRIFFIN: The Chinese response to all this, well actually, we don't want your chips now.
EISEN: Right.
GRIFFIN: Right? Look how it backfires.
EISEN: You think that that's backfiring? You think that's dangerous? Why?
GRIFFIN: When China says, when China says, we're gonna double down,
EISEN: You want them to have our chips.
GRIFFIN: I'd much rather have them use American chips than Huawei become a real competitor, 100%. I'd rather see Nvidia chips used by every country in the world than to see Huawei take South America, Africa and Asia with it. I want to see American businesses win.
Griffin On Influx Capital Technology
GRIFFIN: Today, we have a similar flow of capital, both financial and intellectual capital, once again into technology. We're going to see products that emerge from this deluge of capital over the next year, five years, 15 years, that will again have a profound and positive impact on our life, but it's not clear yet who the true winners and losers are going to be. So, it's really hard to tell on any given deal, will this make so and so the long-term winner? I don't know, but what I do know is that, once again, in the United States, there's a huge focus on engaging in R&D and in putting corporate capital at risk to create products that will change the future of our lives.
Griffin On Job Impact From AI
GRIFFIN: Job impact, so obviously, we've created a tremendous number of jobs in building these data centers out now there are, there are other issues that go with this. For example, the price of power for the American consumer is going higher because the power demands from from AI facilities. So we're going to have to accelerate permitting for new utilities to build new power plants. But again, new power plants, more jobs. So we're seeing job creation right now. I don't think there's been much job loss yet due to AI. There's been in certain areas, you know, call centers are being really hit hard by this technology. But overall, we have not lost employment in the United States due to the rise of AI.
