Meta Chief Joel Kaplan, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Speak with Becky Quick on "Squawk Box"
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- Category: Haute This Issue
- Published on Wednesday, 21 January 2026 17:56
- Written by Squawk Box
CNBC's Becky Quick sat down with Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where they discussed Super Intelligence, AI Risks, Rewards, China and Enterprise AI.
Interview with Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan
KAPLAN ON PERSONAL SUPER INTELLIGENCE
JOEL KAPLAN: Our ambition is to build personal super intelligence, which means putting super intelligence in the hands of everyone. We've got a platform that serves 3.5 billion people every day. So, we have some real advantages there. And we are spending a lot of money to build the massive data center and power infrastructure necessary to bring that vision to fruition.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Speaks with CNBC’s Becky Quick on "Squawk Box"
KAPLAN ON META AI ADVANTAGE
KAPLAN: We bring a lot of advantages to the race. Like I said, we've got the 3.5 billion people using it. We've got a real lead on wearables, which we think is going to be the next computing technology that actually brings that personal super intelligence to bear. Because glasses, the partnership we have with Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses, lets you, lets the AI see what you see, hear what you hear, talk to you throughout the day. So, we think that's the right form factor to bring AI to people. We've got some work to do to catch up on the frontier with our models and I think we're going to get there this year.
KAPLAN ON POLITICAL ADVANTAGE
KAPLAN: We've had the advantage that President Bush, excuse me, President Trump, since he came into office, has been really focused on maintaining American leadership in AI and making sure that we win the AI race against China. And that means clearing away the barriers to innovation, whether that's data center and energy permitting, whether that's just making sure that we can make the investments with confidence that we need in this infrastructure. And so we've had that advantage, and that's been a big support for us as we've made these investments.
KAPLAN ON EU REGULLATION
KAPLAN: They've been a huge ally in pushing back on some of the discriminatory regulation that we've seen come out of Europe, and that's been very helpful to us and other American companies. You know, there have been lots of discussions about tariffs over the last year. So far, we've been able to manage and ensure that we can continue to grow our business and offer consumers and small businesses throughout Europe the advantages our platforms offer. And you know, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to continue going forward.
KAPLAN ON CHINA BATTLE
KAPLAN: We're an American company that serves the world, and we're an American company that's investing massively in AI and AI infrastructure, and we're aligned with the administration in the US that it's very important that we win this battle against China. It's the most critical battle that we'll have over the coming years for both our national and economic security, but that's a that's a battle that not only the US, but all of the Western democracies have a stake in. So, we think it's really important that we progress on this together with our friends and allies around the world.
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Interview with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
BENIOFF ON 2026 OUTLOOK
MARC BENIOFF: Cash flow this year is gonna be $15 billion. We're one of the largest cash producing companies in the world, and you know, we're gonna do more than 41 billion in revenue this year. But it's not enough, because if you don't produce a large language model, you're evidently not in in fashion right now.
BENIOFF ON SALESFORCE DIFFERENTIATOR
BENIOFF: We're the only ones who can deliver really, at the four core levels of enterprise AI. First of all, the data, you know, our data assets are amazing. We'll do more than $10 billion in data assets this year. That includes products like MuleSoft, Informatica, our own Data 360, these are products that are federated and integrated, that harmonize your data, which is critical. You don't have your data right, you're not going to get your AI right. That's one- number one in AI. And then two, all of our killer apps are now all aware of that data layer.
BENIOFF ON RUNNING LIKE HELL
BENIOFF: I just feel like we're running like hell. This is the number one thing - we got to go as fast as we can. Over the last three years, when we saw these large language models, we knew we can rewrite all of our software to include them, just like we have included the Google data centers and the Amazon data centers, or, you know, databases, or you know, key hard disks and other key infrastructure, we can bring all this stuff together and deliver incredible solution for our customers.
BENIOFF ON AI RISKS
BENIOFF: We talked, we talked about how social media was kind of out of control, that there were a lot of kids who were being damaged, and bad things were happening all over the world because social media was fully unregulated, and now you're kind of seeing that play out again with artificial intelligence. This year, you really saw something pretty horrific, which is these AI models became suicide coaches.
BENIOFF: I can't imagine anything worse than that. So, it can't be just growth at any cost. There has to be some regulation.
Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla Speaks with Sara Eisen on "Squawk on the Street"
CNBC's "Squawk Box" Anchors Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin as well as "Squawk on the Street" & "Money Movers" Co-Anchor Sara Eisen will be live again in Davos tomorrow, Thursday, January 22. See guest list below.
Guests for tomorrow, Thursday, January 22, include: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI CEO, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, Christian Ulbrich, JLL CEO & President, Bret Taylor, Sierra Co-Founder & CEO, Carl Eschenbach, Workday CEO, Will.i.Am, Philanthropist & Entertainer, Charles Scharf, Wells Fargo CEO, Mike Fries, Liberty Global CEO, Paul Hudson, Sanofi CEO, Michael Dell, Dell Technologies Chairman & CEO, Laura Alber, Williams-Sonoma CEO & President, Jamie Salter, Authentic Brands CEO.
