Raphael Stevens

Bonobos co-founder and former CEO Andy Dunn is out with a new book, “Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind.”
In the book, the 43-year-old entrepreneur opens up about his diagnosis of bipolar disorder and his struggles to stay healthy while leading the hot, venture-backed menswear start-up.
Walmart acquired Bonobos for $310 million in 2017 and recently launched a new brand, Bonobos Fielder, that’s sold on the retailer’s website and in some stores.

Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing Your Mind

Andy Dunn’s start-up, Bonobos, was being courted for an acquisition by retail giant Walmart. It was a thrilling process, but the co-founder and former CEO of the online menswear brand knew it was time to disclose his secret: He had bipolar disorder.
In his new book, “Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind,” the 43-year-old entrepreneur opens up about how his personal life fell apart shortly before Walmart’s $310 million acquisition of Bonobos in 2017 came together. He shares some of the lowest points, including his stay in a psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital in New York City and assault charges from a severe manic episode when he struck his then girlfriend and her mother. The charges were later dismissed as Dunn sought treatment and repaired the relationship with his girlfriend, Manuela, who he later married.

Dunn joined Walmart after telling the retailer about the episodes and his efforts to get better with therapy and medication. He oversaw Walmart’s growing collection of brands that started online and contributed to the company’s push into the digital world.
Dunn left Walmart in 2020 and has founded a social media start-up, Pumpkin Pie. Its app, which has been described as a “Tinder for friendship,” is set to launch later this year.
Early this year, Walmart launched a new, lower-priced extension of the Bonobos brand, Bonobos Fielder. It marked the first time that Walmart’s website and some stores sold apparel under the Bonobos name — part of the company’s broader strategy to launch its own fashion-forward apparel lines and sell more general merchandise.
Dunn spoke to CNBC from his home in Chicago. His comments were edited for brevity and clarity.

Andy Dunn, Author
Courtesy of Brian McConkey

You could have devoted the book to advice about entrepreneurship, or Bonobos’ acquisition by Walmart. Why did you decide to write a book about your mental health struggles?

It was a great conversation with my editor, before he was officially my editor. He put it in a candid way, which was in a turndown email: “If Andy wants to write a chest thumping, self-congratulatory memoir about entrepreneurial success, I’m not interested. But if he wants to do an unvarnished story about mental illness, told through the lens of an entrepreneur, then that could be a really exciting project.”
And I was like, yes, that’s what I want to do. That’s the person I want to work with.
What made you ready to relive some of the parts of your past?
Four years of therapy, twice a week, and having really done the work to process and metabolize and rebuild myself after this devastating psychotic break in 2016. And all the strength of loved ones around me
It’s never over with this diagnosis, but I thought I had a unique opportunity to share how I got through at least some really challenging days. I didn’t want to waste that.

Andy Dunn credits his family, including his wife, Manuela, for helping him to get healthy. He said the birth of his son, Isaiah, has also helped him stay grounded.
Courtesy of Andy Dunn

In the book, you mentioned another accomplished entrepreneur who had a very public battle with mental health, Tony Hsieh of Zappos. Why do you think mental health has been such a taboo topic in the business world, and really, in the world of entrepreneurship?
Tony’s case is so sad and tragic in its own right. Here’s a person who wrote a book called “Delivering Happiness,” who built a company rooted in a joyous energy. Zappos was long known and studied for its culture. He was known to be the life of the party and someone who did so much for the community in Las Vegas.
He was a hero to me. And then, obviously, he had been privately suffering.
I think that’s a part of the typical entrepreneur archetype, someone who’s got that — a brilliant, charismatic spirit. And it’s expected, right? You got to show up with that every day, and that’s inhuman to expect out of anyone.
The pandemic has started a broader conversation about mental health. What role can the business world and employers play in trying to improve access to care and fight the stigma?
The first thing is creating a safe environment for disclosure, so that people can share what they’re dealing with. It’s incumbent upon leaders to role model that behavior to show their teams that it’s safe for them to come forward.
Step two is building community around it. I’ve gotten a chance to speak to a bunch of companies in the last few weeks. I loved my conversation with [tech company] Carta because they already have a neurodiversity employee resource group.
The third part is really investing in the care that people need. Regular medical insurance isn’t getting the job done in terms of the ability to find mental health professionals. Reimbursement rates are often too low.
The only way for that to change is for there to be investment.
The contrasts in the book were really striking. You’re staying in a psychiatric ward and then soon after, you’re in talks to do a deal with Walmart. What was it like when you heard Walmart was interested in buying Bonobos?
I had gone from thinking that we would do a private equity transaction where we stayed on the independent path towards IPO, to spending time with the team at Walmart, particularly Marc Lore [Walmart’s then-e-commerce chief] and [CEO] Doug McMillon and really falling in love with the opportunity to be a part of the digital transformation of the Fortune One company.
As I went from being like, “independent to the moon’ to ‘joining forces with Walmart would be incredible,’ we got to a part of the deal process where the background checks were coming up. It was time I thought where I had to disclose it [my diagnosis and arrest record]. I didn’t want to try to hide it.

Andy Dunn attends a launch party at a Bonobos store on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in 2016. After operating as digital only, the direct-to-consumer start-up opened brick-and-mortar locations called “guideshops,” where customers could try on clothing and order it straight to their doors.
Daniel Boczarski | Getty Images

You helped birth the direct-to-consumer movement in many ways. But a lot of those companies have not become independent, profitable businesses. What do you think is the future of the DTC model?
The pure-play internet model is hard. Direct-to-consumer founders — and I was one of them — kind of fall too in love with the direct-to-consumer potential of their brands, but ignore the parts of the legacy retail world that are still alive and well.
Pure-play internet models are just fundamentally challenged on long-term profitability. It’s important to have humility as a direct-to-consumer founder and be aware that even if the e-commerce side of the house is growing really quickly, there’s still a lot of revenue going through traditional brick-and-mortar.
How have you ultimately found a better balance between your drive for success and your desire to stay healthy?
My son, Isaiah, is a big part of it. He’s 20 months old, and he doesn’t care about my success. He cares about himself and I think it’s a beautiful thing. I felt so self-involved for so long. Building a company can be a self-absorbed endeavor.
The way I would describe it is going from being in the center of the solar system to being a planet that orbits him. It just creates a fundamentally different worldview.

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More than 360,000 people left California in 2021, in what some are calling “The California Exodus” — many leaving for states like Texas, Arizona and Washington.
And a rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country altogether and are instead heading south of the border. Many are seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle in Mexico.

California continuously ranks high as one of the country’s most expensive states to live in. The median asking price for a home in California is about $797,470 — only 25% of the state’s households could afford that in the fourth quarter of 2021. 
California’s population growth has been declining for more than 30 years now. But thanks to the rise in remote work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, those trends have accelerated. The ability to work anywhere has 62% of Americans considering moving to a new country.  
However, there are some setbacks. Many critics argue that Americans are driving up the cost of housing for locals and pricing them out of the market.
Watch the video to learn more about the impact of this migration trend.

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David Simon, the chief executive officer of the biggest shopping mall owner in the country, wants to create a new type of annual shopping extravaganza.
This event, dubbed “National Outlet Shopping Day” by Simon Property Group, is meant for people seeking out deep discounts, David Simon said. Think Amazon Prime Day, but for retail outlet centers.
The first iteration runs this weekend at the real estate owner’s 90 premium outlets and Mills-branded outlet properties in the U.S.

David Simon, chairman and chief executive officer of Simon Property Group
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

David Simon, the chief executive officer of the biggest shopping mall owner in the country, wants to create a new type of annual shopping extravaganza as consumers are increasingly feeling the pinch of inflation just about everywhere they go.
Think Amazon Prime Day, but for retail outlet centers.

This event, dubbed “National Outlet Shopping Day” by Simon Property Group, is meant for people seeking out deep discounts on everything from new clothes and sneakers to sunglasses and luggage, Simon told CNBC in a recent Zoom interview.
The first iteration runs this weekend at the real estate owner’s 90 premium outlets and Mills-branded outlet properties in the U.S. About 300 retailers from J.Crew to Banana Republic to Puma will be taking part by offering deals exclusively at those locations, according to Simon Property. It’s one way that the mall owner is working with its tenants to lure cash-strapped consumers out to shop as budgets are squeezed and retailers are more competitive for shoppers’ dollars.
Retailers from Target to Gap have seen their inventory levels balloon as backlogged merchandise arrives from overseas at the same time consumers are shifting their spending away from so-called pandemic categories such as sweatpants and office furniture.
CNBC spoke with Simon, as well as Gary Duncan, president of Simon Property’s Premium Outlets and its Mills business, and Mikael Thygesen, chief marketing officer, about this weekend’s event, the state of the retail industry and the American consumer.
The conversation below has been edited down for clarity and brevity.

Simon Property Group’s Sawgrass Mills outlet center in Sunrise, Florida.
Source: Simon Property Group

Why did Simon Property Group create this shopping holiday and decide to run it over this weekend?
Simon: The idea was in the works in early 2019. And then we couldn’t quite get it all together. We were going to do it in 2020, and Covid killed our plan. So we’ve always wanted to do this.
The genesis really was to give back to the consumer in terms of our special promotions and deals. But also to reinforce the Simon outlets have great brands. And we want them to be top of mind. We’re going to do this annually — and with some of the inflationary pressures this couldn’t come at a better time.
Thygesen: We’ve timed it between the traditional promotional windows, so Memorial Day is over and back-to-school hasn’t started.
What has the reception been like from your retail tenants to participate with discounts and other incentives to lure people to come out and shop?
Simon: We have 300 retailers, but I hope next year we’ll have 1,000. We expect to build on it each and every year. And obviously it’s our day, but we welcome participation from any outlet owner that wants to participate.
How have your outlet centers been performing relative to Simon Property Group’s namesake shopping malls, particularly against this backdrop of red-hot inflation and with more consumers seeking out savings?
Simon: We’ve been really, really pleased with our full-price business. Our outlet business has been extremely steady and growing as well. We have outlets that are in major tourist markets — Desert Hills, Sawgrass Mills — and we’re starting to see them reach record [sales] again because we see more than domestic tourism coming back. I’m starting to see international tourism come back.
Frankly, I think the U.S. is where the action is. We’ve got a lot of great things going on in this country. I think you’re going to see sourcing come back. Look at Intel, their commitment. Tesla. You go down the list, less reliance on China. And we’re seeing this from international retailers that want to grow in the U.S. and are saying this is the better place to be.
We’re seeing a lot of retailers figuring out how to manage extra inventory right now. Are you seeing any of them looking to offload those goods through their outlet businesses?
Duncan: What we saw earlier in the year and even for the better part of 2021 was that tenants didn’t have enough product because they had supply chain issues that were coming from Asia — in the apparel and footwear categories, certainly. And that has largely been eliminated.
Now, people are spending, but they’re cautious about where they’re spending and they want to have their money go further. The outlets are going to continue to be a very valuable resource for them and for us. But we have not heard anything about retailers having a big glut of inventory. We are doing some pop-up stores with certain guys that do have that problem, but I don’t see it being widespread.
Simon: I’ll reinforce what Gary says: It’s really selective here and there. And it’s more bets on what’s going on now. You see it from a lot mall retailers if you’re [in the business of] dressing up, jewelry, and have the event stuff, you’re doing really well. Remember when we thought the early 2020s were going to be for going out with friends? It didn’t quite happen. It’s happening this year.
If retailers have a little excess inventory — because as Gary said, the consumer is a little more cautious — that’s actually good for the outlet business. We’ll see if that really transpires, but it hasn’t been, by any means, widespread.
What other changing consumer behaviors are you observing?
Simon: We’re very sensitive to what the consumer is going through, and so we want to figure out how to stretch their dollars. There’s also a shift toward dressing up. We’re seeing really good demand on that front.
Clearly, the higher-income consumer hasn’t changed their behavior. The ones with low incomes are under pressure, and that’s what we’re focused on. That consumer is of concern, and we’re trying to figure out how to help.

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A run in QuantumScape’s stock at the end of 2020 gave the solid-state battery maker an eye-popping $54 billion valuation.
The hype that surrounded the company at that time appears to have all but dried up.
Investors may have moved on, but the auto industry is still watching.

A solid-state battery development lab for QuantumScape.
QuantumScape

The electric vehicle space has seen a handful of impressive stock market debuts in recent years, but battery start-up QuantumScape’s first few weeks of trading were remarkable even by EV stock standards.  
QuantumScape, which was founded in 2010, went public via a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Its stock soared 49% in its first day of trading in November 2020 and had surged to a high of $131.67 by Dec. 22 — a gain of over 400% in less than a month.

That run gave QuantumScape an eye-popping $54 billion valuation, fueled by investors’ excitement over the company’s solid-state battery technology, so called because it does away with the flammable liquid or gel electrolyte found in today’s lithium-ion batteries. What’s more, it didn’t hurt that auto giant Volkswagen was a major investor, or that Bill Gates had also taken a stake.
But the hype that surrounded the company in late 2020 appears to have all but dried up, with the once red-hot stock shedding about 92% of its value from that record high.
QuantumScape is standing by the lofty claims it made in 2020 and says its batteries are still on track to go into production in a few years. But the company faces a long, cash-intensive road of testing ahead. Competition is only intensifying, and Wall Street is still waiting.

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Investors may have moved on, but the auto industry is still watching: In addition to Volkswagen, QuantumScape said it now has three other automaker partners who have signed on to test the company’s batteries. So far, those carmakers are unnamed.

A little piece of flexible ceramic

It’s not hard to see why automakers are so interested in solid-state battery technology. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are generally quite reliable, but their size, weight and recharging times make them less than ideal for electric vehicles. And while EV fires are rare, they tend to be intense and difficult to put out, in part because lithium-ion batteries can burn for hours.

The batteries that QuantumScape is working to develop are called “solid state” because they don’t need the liquid or gel electrolyte found inside existing batteries. A solid-state battery pack can be smaller and lighter than a lithium-ion battery pack of similar capacity, and the absence of liquid inside makes them less likely to catch fire.
In December 2020, QuantumScape CEO Jagdeep Singh promised a reliable solid-state battery, at scale, by roughly the middle of the decade. Here are some of the claims he made during a livestreamed presentation of early test results:

QuantumScape’s batteries could recharge from zero to 80% of capacity in just 15 minutes, about half the time required by most lithium-ion EV batteries.
An EV using the company’s batteries would have up to 80% more range than one powered by current lithium-ion batteries, with similar weight.
QuantumScape’s battery cells were “capable of lasting hundreds of thousands of miles” in a wide range of temperatures, including as cold as minus 22 Fahrenheit.

“If QuantumScape can get this technology into mass production, it holds the potential to transform the industry,” said Stan Whittingham, co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery and winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry, in a QuantumScape press release.
It seemed almost too good to be true. Researchers had been tinkering with solid-state batteries for decades, without success.
Inventors faced a key challenge. Such batteries were prone to failure because of dendrites — needle-like structures that form inside, often in a matter of weeks, that can short circuit them and end their life.
QuantumScape’s key innovation is a separator made of a proprietary flexible ceramic material that resists dendrites and can’t catch fire. If it works as intended, solid-state batteries should be able to survive for as long as a typical lithium-ion battery while maintaining all the hoped for benefits.
QuantumScape is still at least a few years away from being able to mass produce its batteries. But in lab testing, its technology appears to work.
In that 2020 livestream test that sent the company’s stock soaring, QuantumScape said a tiny prototype of its battery held up for over 800 cycles of charging and draining — roughly the number that an EV’s battery would endure over its lifetime.
But that test battery was a scaled-down version, and sizing up to a battery that’s ready for use in electric vehicles has been a slow process.
QuantumScape was able to repeat that 800-cycle test twice last year with slightly scaled-up batteries. A larger one made it through 500 cycles in a round of testing earlier this year. But the company is still a few more development rounds away from achieving a full-size prototype.

‘Sample’ road map

The steps needed to get QuantumScape’s batteries ready for on-the-road use will take at least two years — and likely more — to complete.
Once the current prototype meets the 800-cycle test threshold, the company will need to build and test an “A sample” battery that’s nearly full size, but still not quite what it plans to eventually mass produce.
Singh told CNBC in an April interview that the A sample product will be ready this year to be sent to Volkswagen and the company’s other automotive partners for testing.
Then comes the “B sample,” similar to its predecessor but manufactured on a prototype assembly line, with tooling that is similar to, but smaller and simpler than, the machines that QuantumScape plans to use on its eventual full-speed production line.
“The purpose of the A sample is for the customer to be able to validate that the battery can actually work as it’s supposed to work,” Singh said. “The purpose of the B sample is to then take that battery and use it to make test cars.”
The last step would be a final prototype, a C sample, to be made for the full-scale assembly line. Singh said he currently expects QuantumScape to deliver C samples in 2024 or 2025.
But even those first test cars won’t be ready for the road, Singh said. Instead, they’ll be an important milestone for the company and its automaker partners. Afterward, test cars built using those C sample batteries will be ready for production.  
Those rounds of development, production and testing will require significant amounts of cash.
Singh said he is confident that QuantumScape has enough cash — about $1.3 billion as of the end of March — to be able to deliver those C sample batteries to its automotive partners for testing. But it’ll need to raise more money to build a factory big enough to supply automakers at scale.
By then, it may have competition.
Toyota has said it’s working to develop its own solid-state batteries in-house, and at least one other start-up — Colorado-based Solid Power, backed by BMW and Ford Motor — is on track to begin manufacturing its own solid-state versions around the same time.
Raising the amount of cash needed for a factory would be challenging to do in the current economic environment, but Singh thinks raising that money won’t be difficult once investors have had the chance to drive test vehicles powered by QuantumScape batteries.
“The good news about the U.S. capital markets is that if you can demonstrate that you have something real and that the market opportunity is really large, then there’s a lot of capital available,” Singh said.

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Chris Stirewalt, who was fired by Fox News last year, said he will testify Monday at the House select committee’s next hearing about the pro-Trump Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Stirewalt came under fire from Donald Trump and his supporters after the Fox News political desk was the first to call Arizona for Joe Biden in November 2020.
Fox News aired two hours commercial-free of right-wing commentary from Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity during Thursday night’s hearing.

Former U.S President Donald Trump is seen on video during the hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022. 
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

A former Fox News political editor who was fired by the cable network last year said Friday that he will testify Monday at the House select committee’s next hearing about the pro-Trump Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Chris Stirewalt made the announcement on the NewsNation cable network, where he is the political editor. He said he couldn’t discuss what the testimony would be about.

His announcement came the morning after the committee’s first public hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when hundreds of followers of then-President Donald Trump busted through doors and windows to invade the Capitol and delay Congress’ confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

The next hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET Monday and there are five more hearings planned after that. Fox News didn’t carry the hearing live Thursday night as other news and broadcast networks did. Instead, Fox aired two hours of commercial-free programming from right-wing commentators Tucker Carlson, who dismissed the hearing as “propaganda,” and Sean Hannity.
While Fox News did air live images from the hearing, Carlson and others spoke over it, and the camera often focused on the audience and not the footage of the attack on the Capitol. During the hearing, the committee displayed texts from Hannity to then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany outlining a post-riot “playbook” for Trump.
Stirewalt came under fire from Trump and his supporters after the Fox News political desk was the first to call Arizona for Biden in November 2020. The state had a recent track record for voting for Republican presidential candidates, so the call stunned the political world and all but confirmed Trump would lose the 2020 election.
Stirewalt was fired in January 2021. Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News’ parent company, told The Washington Post that Stirewalt’s dismissal “had nothing to do with the correct Arizona call by the Fox decision desk.”

After Fox fired him, Stirewalt, without mentioning Fox News, said media “hype men” helped push the false narrative that the election was stolen from Trump.

“The rebellion on the populist right against the results of the 2020 election was partly a cynical, knowing effort by political operators and their hype men in the media to steal an election or at least get rich trying,” he wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. “But it was also the tragic consequence of the informational malnourishment so badly afflicting the nation.”
Representatives for Fox News and the select committee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
 — CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger and Brian Schwartz contributed to this report.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday warned investors that stock of some newer companies that saw smashing success during the pandemic are continuing to come down, and this may just be the beginning.
“If you find yourself asking, how low can it go? The answer is almost always lower,” the “Mad Money” host said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday warned investors that stock of some newer companies that saw smashing success during the pandemic are continuing to come down, and this may just be the beginning.
“When your stock doesn’t have any dividend support and doesn’t have a reasonable valuation versus earnings — assuming it even has earnings — there’s no floor in this market. If you find yourself asking, how low can it go? The answer is almost always lower,” the “Mad Money” host said.

“Never confuse a big decline with a bottom. They are not synonymous,” he added.
Stocks fell on Friday after the May consumer price index showed hotter-than-expected inflation numbers.
Among the stocks that fell today were Stitch Fix and DocuSign, which Cramer highlighted as two names that illustrate his warning against investing in former high-flyers.
Shares of Stitch Fix, which saw a boom during the pandemic as consumers shifted to online shopping, fell 18% on Friday, after the company announced layoffs on Thursday and said it expects revenue to decrease in the fourth quarter. 
The company reached a new 52-week low of $6.18 earlier in the day, down from its 52-week high of $64.52 reached roughly a year earlier.

DocuSign, another pandemic winner, saw its stock plummet 24% after it missed Wall Street expectations on revenue and earnings in its latest quarter.
The firm also reached a new 52-week low earlier in the day at $64.30, far below its 52-week high of $314.76 reached last August.
“These newer stocks, the ones that were coined in the last three, four, five years, they’ve been insanely expensive before the peak … maybe even before they came public, so as their business deteriorates, they can fall very, very far before they find any kind of support,” Cramer said.
He added that despite DocuSign’s hard fall, he still doesn’t think the stock is cheap enough to be a buy. As for Stitch Fix, the stock is untouchable until the company’s core business stabilizes, he said. 
“We don’t care where these former market darlings have been. … We only care where they’re going,” he added.
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Travelers were required to show proof of a negative test a day before flying to the U.S.
The travel industry had repeatedly urged the administration to drop the testing requirement.
The change takes effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.

The Biden administration will drop the Covid-19 testing requirement for inbound air travelers from abroad on Sunday, ending one of the longest-running travel restrictions of the pandemic.
The rule, put in place by the Trump administration in early 2021 and later tightened by the Biden administration, most recently required inbound travelers, including U.S. citizens, to show proof of a negative Covid test a day before boarding U.S.-bound flights. Travelers entering the U.S. at land border crossings were exempt.

The change takes effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.
Airlines and others in the travel industry had repeatedly pushed the administration to drop the requirement, arguing it was hurting demand for international trips. The travel industry has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told an industry conference last week that he met with politicians in Washington, D.C., to discuss the testing requirement, a rule he called “nonsensical.”
“We’re really frustrated,” he said.
Other countries, including the U.K., had previously abandoned Covid testing entry rules.

“The Biden administration is to be commended for this action, which will welcome back visitors from around the world and accelerate the recovery of the U.S. travel industry,” Roger Dow, president of the U.S. Travel Association, said in a statement. “International inbound travel is vitally important to businesses and workers across the country who have struggled to regain losses from this valuable sector.”
For its part, the Travel Technology Association’s vice president of government relations, Mike Liptak, said in a statement that travel and tourism are key to the economic recovery from the pandemic. Nick Calio, CEO of Airlines for America, the lobbying group for the largest U.S. carriers, said the industry looks “forward to continuing to work with the Administration to prioritize the safety and wellbeing of the traveling public and to ensure that air travel policies are guided by science.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will reassess the decision in 90 days, according to a senior Biden administration official.
“If there is a need to reinstate a pre-departure testing requirement — including due to a new, concerning variant — CDC will not hesitate to act,” the official said.
The travel industry clashed with both the Biden and Trump administrations throughout the pandemic over rules aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19, including a strict ban on most foreign visitors into the U.S., which was eventually lifted in November. Most noncitizen visitors to the U.S. will still have to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination before flying to the U.S., a White House spokesman said.
Separately, in April, a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down another contentious rule that aimed to curb the spread of Covid-19: the Biden administration’s federal mandate that travelers wear masks on planes and other forms of public transportation. The Department of Justice has appealed the ruling.
— CNBC’s Thomas Franck contributed to this article.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday that several tech firms that went public in recent years are beginning to realize their missteps, and he warned investors to take their dollars elsewhere.
“The companies out here in San Francisco have only just begun to realize that they overexpanded and, in many cases, some of these companies should never have come public,” the “Mad Money” host said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday that several tech firms that went public in recent years are beginning to realize their missteps, and he warned investors to take their dollars elsewhere.
“The companies out here in San Francisco have only just begun to realize that they overexpanded and, in many cases, some of these companies should never have come public,” the “Mad Money” host said.

“Especially for the most bogus companies that were invented in the last three years, I say they should never have come public, but in many cases they shouldn’t even exist. Harsh? Maybe, but I’m trying to help you preserve your capital,” he said.
Cramer’s comments come after he spent a week in San Francisco interviewing tech leaders. He said Thursday that several told him that there are impending layoffs across Silicon Valley and some companies plan to relocate outside of California.
Looking to next week, Cramer said he has his eye on the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday that will reveal the magnitude of the next interest rate hike.
“If they do act more aggressively, will the market welcome that news, or will we get another sell-off? We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.
Cramer also previewed next week’s slate of earnings and investor meetings. All earnings and revenue estimates are courtesy of FactSet.

Monday: Oracle

Q4 2022 earnings release after the close; conference call at 5 p.m. ET
Projected EPS: $1.37 
Projected revenue: $11.61 billion

Cramer said he expects a tour de force conference call. If the stock goes down afterward, “we know that tech is sunk and the depths are not yet plumbed,” he said.
Tuesday: Affirm, DuPont
Affirm

Cramer said the meeting should shed some light on the state of the buy now, pay later business.
DuPont

“If [CEO Ed Breen] says we’re going into a recession, I want to know how long,” Cramer said.
Thursday: Kroger, Adobe, Honeywell
Kroger

Q1 2022 earnings release at TBD time; conference call at 10 a.m. ET
Projected EPS: $1.29
Projected revenue; $43.85 billion

Cramer said that investors shouldn’t bet against the grocery company despite soaring food inflation.
Adobe

Q2 2022 earnings release after the close; conference call at 5 p.m. ET
Projected EPS: $3.31
Projected revenue: $4.35 billion

“Adobe is a terrific long-term growth story, so if it gets hit you actually might want to buy some on weakness, but don’t count on it to turn around anytime soon,” he said.
Honeywell

Cramer said he doesn’t plan to buy shares of Honeywell for the Charitable Trust, but would consider it if the stock plummets.
Friday: Centene

“I want to hear about whether the company is continuing in the tradition of the late [former CEO] Michael Neidorff, the man who created this health-care powerhouse,” Cramer said.
Disclosure: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Honeywell.

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