Watch CNBC's full one-on-one interview with Citadel founder Ken Griffin

Citadel CEO and founder Ken Griffin dominates the financial world. His firm, Citadel's recent $16 billion record profit, a crowning victory, making it the top-earning hedge fund in history. I'm Sara Eisen, and I sit down exclusively with Griffin to hear his thoughts on everything from the markets to artificial intelligence to the future of education.

Inflation probably comes down over the months ahead. The negative to this story, again, we're seeing higher prices at the gasoline pump. And unfortunately, gasoline is one of those things that you buy every week for most American families. AI is going to have a very uneven impact across the economy. In certain areas, for example, call centers, generative AI is going to be transformative.

I think a lot of people are wondering if you're still backing Ron DeSantis.

I don't know what happened in the DeSantis administration in Florida. The future of America is our children. It's our kids. And if we can't educate the next generation of American students to be successful, our country's over. Either secure the border or make sure that people who come here can support their families, find entry-level employment, and build careers.

This is CNBC Leaders with Ken Griffin.

It's been a really good year for the market, particularly with the backdrop of higher real interest rates. So if you look at both the yield on the 10-year bond and, more importantly, the real yield, for example, in the five-year TIPS bonds, we've seen, again, an increase in real rates and nominal rates, and yet the stock market's been resilient. So that's a really interesting year to see the resiliency of our stock market against this backdrop that would usually be very challenging for equities.

Think it can continue?

I'm a bit anxious that this rally can continue. Obviously, one of the big drivers of the rally has been the just frenzy over generative AI, which has powered many of the Big Tech stocks. I'd like to believe that this rally has legs. I'm a bit anxious we're sort of in the seventh or eighth inning of this rally.

Well, part of it has been the soft-landing story. Are you a buyer of that? The fact that we just haven't gone into recession despite 525 basis points of tightening.

So it takes about a year to two years for an interest rate hike to work its way through the economy. It's not instantaneous. We're now at the point where we're going to see the impact of these hikes really start to play out. We're seeing the job market starting to weaken. There's been a number of news stories in recent weeks about how companies are willing to pull back with their pay for starting roles. We're seeing signs that consumers have had enough in terms of price increases, that they're starting to walk away from products where they're trying to push through price increases. So there's signs here that we're heading very quickly into, hopefully, the soft landing, potentially a more difficult scenario moving into mid- to late next year in terms of an actual recession.

Sounds like that's what you're expecting, a recession.

Look, my personal view is that the United States economy is enjoying a tremendous amount of unanticipated stimulus from Washington still. The federal deficit this year is going to total almost 6 percent of GDP. It is completely unsustainable. But it has been yet another shot of adrenaline into the economy that our fiscal largesse continues to push the economy forward, but leaving an ever, ever-bigger bill for future generations.

Do you think it also complicates the Fed's job a little bit? We're still getting these numbers. Inflation has come down a lot, but looks to be sticky.

Well, I mean, he's in a no-win situation. Powell. Powell is, right, because monetary tightening can only do so much to offset fiscal stimulus. And in some sense, it's like he's showing up at a fight with both of his hands tied behind his back because D.C. is just on a different agenda than he is. He's trying to prudently slow the economy, bring inflation back down, and really engineer the hopeful soft landing. And at the same time, whether it's the Inflation Reduction Act or other programs that have increased spending, we keep stimulating the economy out of D.C.

So you're worried about all the fiscal spending? Do you think that the market is starting to worry about that?

Absolutely. And let's just take a step back. At the start of the year, people thought that the deficit was going to be roughly 3% of GDP. And of note, it's double that. It's six. It's almost six. Where we have full employment, full employment in this country, things don't get much better. And we still can't keep our fiscal house in order. And now the CBO has put out their projections that for the next several years we're going to run deficits of roughly 5 percent. The fixed income markets are getting nervous. It's an unsustainable path.

You think there's going to be an issue with demand for all the issuance?

Well, one of the questions is, is this rise in real yields that we've seen over the last few months really attributable to the Fed tightening or fiscal? Is it fiscal? Is it the market's fearful about the magnitude of supply? And to be clear, the possibility of credit risk. We had the U.S. government downgraded by Fitch a few months ago.

You think that was the right call?

If it wakes up our politicians in Washington, absolutely the right call.

I'm not sure it's doing that.

Well, it starts somewhere, right? At some point, we're talking about it today, right? In fact, you're curious about this. This is the start of how we actually make policy happen in America, is we start to talk about the issues. And this issue is now coming back front and center. We haven't talked about deficits in America in a very long time. But now with debt-to-GDP about 120% near historic highs, with deficit spending that we haven't seen before in recent history outside the pandemic, this topic is becoming front and center again in the minds of Wall Street.

So do you think we're looking at sort of persistently higher level of yields because of this?

So there's no doubt that this will cause us to have higher real yields, all else being equal, for years to come. There's no doubt about it. What does that mean? That means fewer construction projects. That means less investment in companies. That means that consumers will be more hesitant to buy goods and services. Higher real yields crowd out needed investment that we have in our economy.

What does it mean for the overall investing landscape for the equity market?

So for the equity market, it's a headwind. And that's what we spoke about earlier, why you're anxious. Right? Are we in the seventh or eighth inning? Because we now have this headwind of higher real yields starting to come through the economy.

Even if the Federal Reserve stops raising rates and even starts to cut into next year?

So I think that there's a small chance of one more increase later this year. They're going to look at data like today. They're going to think about this very long and hard: do we have to raise one more time? But let's say we're pretty close to the end of this rate cycle. How fast they can cut rates comes down to how fast inflation breaks. Now, the good news is, is base effects mean that inflation probably comes down over the months ahead. The negative to this story: again, we're seeing higher prices at the gasoline pump. And unfortunately, gasoline is one of those things that you buy every week for most American families. And when you see higher gasoline prices, inflation becomes better anchored in your mind.

And that's a problem for the economy.

So you don't see it coming down to the Fed's target? Two percent?

No. No, it will be at two if we're in a real recession.

Which, it sounds like, you don't expect in the next year or so.

I'm hoping not. But if we get to two, that's actually a very bad state of the world right now.

So you think the Fed will have to stay at these levels or even higher into next year?

Look, here's the conundrum. The Fed's publicly said we're aiming for two. It's probably not worth the cost of getting to two. The Fed should stay on its talking points. It's the central bank. It wants to inspire confidence that they are protecting the value of our currency and the purchasing power of the American consumer. But at the same time, you don't want to take the economy off a cliff for the difference between the interest rate or inflation rate of two and three-quarter percent and two. It's not worth the cost. So they're going to have to walk that fine line. I think we'll see them talk about a long-term target of two more and more as we head into the mid-twos. In other words, they're going to make it clear they're going to get to two, but they're not going to do it immediately.

And they're going to make that trade-off: full employment versus hitting their target.

They don't want to burn it down. Do you have confidence in Powell?

I think Powell's done a pretty damn good job. He's had a horrible hand to play, right? We've had the pandemic, supply chain shocks, massive fiscal stimulus, and he's supposed to try to achieve price stability? That's a no-win scenario.

And coming up, I know you have strong views, especially on Chair Gensler's regulatory agenda.

Too busy, too many rules, too much change, too much haste.

Ken, you mentioned A.I. as as something that has captivated investors so far this year. I'm wondering how you're thinking about how transformative it's going to be.

So I believe that generative A.I., which is what people think about today when they say A.I., is going to have a very uneven impact across the economy. In certain areas, for example, call centers, generative AI is going to be transformative. You'll dial a phone number, you'll get a human-sounding voice on the other side that can respond to your questions and handle your matters, all done from a data center. No people. No people. We're going to see a lot of relatively rote or repetitive activity fully automated by what generative AI will bring to the table. We're going to see real changes in productivity in certain sectors of the economy. In fact, right now the strike in Hollywood really revolves around the impact that generative AI has on the number of people that you need to produce a movie.

You see it in the same way for software engineers. We already use generative AI in coding at Citadel, and it's probably improved the productivity of our software engineers by five to 10%. Now, what's that mean? That means that we need five to 10% fewer software engineers. Now, fortunately, we're growing fast enough that we'll take that productivity gain and not have to change headcount, but other firms will reduce the size of their software engineering team. So we're seeing these impacts start to ripple through the economy. Big picture, though, for most of the economy, this is another productivity tool that simply makes us better at our job, much like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel did 20-some years ago.

There's no doubt we're more efficient because of email. In fact, it's just part of life. And generative AI is going to have the same part-of-life aspect for most of us in how we do our work day in and day out.

Is it a big investment theme for you?

It's a theme for us, but more importantly for us, we're thinking how to use this toolkit to make our firm more productive and more successful. There's very few public opportunities to invest in generative AI. In fact, this is one of the challenges that we have today in our public capital markets, is there are fewer companies that are publicly traded today than 20 years ago. There's roughly 1,200 unicorns, according to CNBC Television. Those are companies that would usually have been public companies. They're not today. Some of this has been the backdrop. It's been a harder environment to go public. But some of this is the backdrop that we've made it less attractive to be public.

What do you mean?

Well, the SEC has, over the last 20-some years, put in place an ever-increasing number of burdens and costs on public companies. It's making our public markets less attractive as a home in which companies live and where their shares are owned. And I think this is a tragic mistake that we're making on behalf of American investors, because for the average family, they don't have a chance to invest in the startups or the midsize companies that become the Apples of today. I mean, people forget Apple went public at a very modest valuation. People have had their entire retirements defined by being an early investor in Apple or Amazon or Microsoft. By making our public markets less attractive for issuance, we're taking those stories away from the American investor.

I know you have strong views, especially on Chair Gensler's regulatory agenda. 22 rule changes that he's passed and more than double that in terms of proposal changes. What's your take?

Too busy. Too many rules, too busy, too many rules, too much change, too much haste. So Chairman Gensler may be coming from a good place on many of these rules, but if you don't do the homework about what are the real problems and how do you effectively solve those problems, you can end up creating an onslaught of legislation that actually destroys value for the American public, for American corporations and American investors.

Which ones? Are you talking climate disclosure rules, AI? Well, take climate disclosure.

For a public company, how are they ever supposed to compile this information? Now, if you compile the information, it turns out you don't have it right, which will often be the case with a new rule. How many billions of dollars are they going to spend defending themselves from plaintiffs' lawyers who are going to have a field day on the back of this issue? I mean, Chairman Gensler, I appreciate you have an interest in climate, but advocate for a carbon tax. Advocate for something that's easy, simple, straightforward, and effective to implement. I don't get it.

Have you talked to him about this?

I haven't talked about climate change on that issue, but we've been very actively involved in the regulatory process. We comment on virtually all the rules that impact our capital markets. We believe that by running one of the world's largest hedge funds and one of the world's largest market makers, we have a very unique vantage point of appreciating how liquidity is created. And liquidity is so important because one of the drivers of our capital markets is capital formation. Right. That's how we create these incredible stories like NVIDIA. They can raise capital in our public markets and they create exits for venture-capital-backed firms which encourages more VC in America. So we have a really powerful vantage point to comment on these rules and they do allow public comment.

I mean, he would say they take that all into account.

Well, that's what they say. And unfortunately, we haven't seen that yet.

Coming up.

This idea that you could immigrate to America and then cannot be employed is utterly mind-blowing. Either secure the border or make sure that people who come here can support their families, find entry-level employment and build careers.

We've been talking, Ken, a lot about the political landscape and bringing in leaders to address some of the priorities that you have, like education and the deficit. I think a lot of people are wondering if you're still backing Ron DeSantis. You did publicly, but haven't spoken about it in a while.

Well, I think if we go back, though, to what's important to me, education, I think education is important to almost every family in America. Ron DeSantis, on the topic of education, has done a great job in Florida. There's a foot fault in the last few months that I don't really care for. But overall, he's done a really good job of expanding access to charter schools in Florida. And making it very clear in Florida, we're going to focus on phonics and reading and mathematics. And we're going to keep ourselves outside of the culture wars that have consumed way too much airtime, in my opinion, in way too many classrooms across the United States.

So you backed him on the "Don't Say Gay" bill in Florida.

Well, so the first version of "Don't Say Gay," which was to keep the dialogue around sex out of the classroom for kindergarten through third grade, I think he got that right. And in fact, one of my closest friends is one of the largest supporters of gay rights in the United States. And I specifically asked him about this legislation. I was very curious, what would he say about this given his lifetime commitment to fighting for gay rights? And he felt the same way that I do, which is kindergarten children, they're interested in baseball and butterflies. We don't need to be exploring what sexual gender they identify with when they're five years old. Now, I said there was a misstep. The expansion of that legislation through high school, I think, was a grave mistake.

I think as children age, these issues become very, I mean, they become very real. It's part of the passage into adulthood. And to have access to your teacher as a resource to discuss and debate these issues I think is incredibly important. And I have a huge, huge belief in the importance of freedom of speech. And any legislation that curtails freedom of speech in this context with an adolescent student I think is a mistake.

What about going after Disney?

Like, from my heart, Ron won that war out of the gate. He should have spiked the football and walked off the field, and it should have ended there. The ongoing battle with Disney, I think, is pointless. In fact, it doesn't reflect well on the ethos of Florida. You know, the mayor of Miami-Dade is a Democrat. She's really exceptional. And you know what she talks about with me? How can we make this a great state to do business in? Ron needs to stay on that talking point. And in his words and in his actions, make it clear to the entire United States of America, Florida is open to companies that want to create jobs, that want to create innovation, that want to build a future in our nation. And the fight with Disney runs counter to that narrative.

Absolutely. So do you support him for presidency?

So we're now through the first debate. And I'll tell you what, I'm still on the sidelines as to who to support in this election cycle. I'm still on the sidelines. And in fact, it probably doesn't matter. Donald Trump has been made the martyr by the legal system. He's right now the runaway favorite in the Republican primary. And interestingly enough, there's no real contender against Joe Biden, who, with all due respect, it's time for him to enjoy retirement.

Biden.

Biden.

You've also called Trump a three-time loser.

Look, if I had my dream, we'd have a great Republican candidate in the primary who was younger, of a different generation, with a different tone for America. And we'd have a younger person on the Democratic side in the primary who would have his message for our country. And we'd have a debate around ideas and principles and policies to make this a great nation. We're not having that dialogue right now. And that's really concerning to me.

So you're still on the sidelines listening to the debates. How are you assessing? How are you making that decision? What sort of issues are you listening for? Because it's not really clear what DeSantis' campaign strategy is.

I don't know his strategy. I'm in the same camp you are. It's not clear to me what voter base he's intending to appeal to. Factually, one of the best first-term governors in the history of the United States. Florida, under his leadership, crushed it during the pandemic. They've had just tremendous success. The last few months have been different. And sometimes success goes to people's heads. Sometimes success means that the ecosystem that you live in changes. People no longer give you good feedback about the pros and cons of your policies. I don't know what happened in the DeSantis administration in Florida. I do know first-term governor, just a phenomenal job. But that hasn't been how this last few months has played out.

So which one do you worry more about, Trump or Biden?

I, you know, who do I worry more about?

Sounds like you're not a fan of either.

Both men have had important roles in American government. With Trump, we did beat the pandemic. And to his credit, a number of issues of national security, both defense and economically, he put front and center on the table. In fact, those issues have almost consumed both parties at this point in time in terms of debate. But he did a lot of good things as president, but there are dark sides to that moment in American history too. I think it's time for him to move on. With Joe Biden, I don't know if the American voter wants to be deciding the president for 2026 and 2027 in the general election. And it may not be Joe Biden, given his health. So do you really want to go vote for Joe Biden when you know deep down there's a really damn good chance he won't finish those four years as president?

That's a very unusual place for the American voter to be in, making that decision to cast a ballot for somebody.

I did want to ask you about China because I know you've been expanding the firm in Asia and I think in China as well. There are questions about whether China's investable right now, given some of the geopolitical issues, the economy weakening, the debt problems. What do you think?

So we're at a moment in time where the two great superpowers of the world are far more distant from one another than they should be. We spoke earlier about the need for us to get our fiscal house in order. China has been a large buyer of U.S. Treasuries over the years. Foreign countries fund our fiscal irresponsibility. We can't be in a geopolitical crisis with the Middle East, with China, with other countries that fund our debt unless we're going to put our fiscal house in order. Now, to be clear, my first choice is to reduce dependency upon foreign capital to fund America. And we can get there by having better policies that encourage growth and productivity and higher real incomes for American families.

That's what the focus should be. But until we get there, we cannot destroy our relationships with those countries around the world that fund our economy. It's just, this is not the way to go.

Are you investing in China?

We do invest in China. We've invested in that region for 30-some years. And there are some just incredible entrepreneurs in China. I mean, people who have been game-changing, both in their economy and signaling to us in the West things that can be done. I mean, look at the incredible success that Alibaba had in payments. That's changed payments all over the world. And for emerging markets, it's been an absolute home run in giving local merchants the ability to more readily sell their goods at a much lower cost point to their consumers. So a lot of really good things have come out of China's entrepreneurs. And I really do hope that we see, and this has been the trend, Xi continue to encourage that level of innovation within their economy.

But there are questions about that. And now there are questions about just the economy in general and whether they're facing something more serious on the debt side, credit event.

So they have challenges. Both of our countries have challenges. Both of our countries are dealing with an aging population. Their demographics are far more challenging than ours. He has to lead a nation that has had a one-child policy for a very long period of time, which means that there are far fewer workers to support an ever-increasing number of retirees. Our country, because of immigration, doesn't suffer the same challenge to the same magnitude. Now, on that topic, though, it's really important that the immigrants who are coming to America get into the workforce as fast as possible. This idea that you could immigrate to America and then cannot be employed is utterly mind-blowing. Either secure the border or make sure that people who come here can support their families, find entry-level employment, and build careers.

And if they build careers in America and they create value in America, that will help us deal with the retirement bill that we have coming due. And you and I both know the power of immigrants to this country has been profound. Almost half of all the companies in Silicon Valley were started by people who immigrated to the United States.

Coming up, Dumb Money comes out this week, and you are played. There's a character that is Ken Griffin. This is about the GameStop saga. First of all, have you seen the movie?

I will absolutely see it.

So you're expanding Citadel—we talked about in Asia a little bit—also expanding it here in New York, in South Florida. Talk to me a little bit about the decisions that you're making when it comes to real estate, because you're in building mode.

We are in building mode, but I think real estate is part of how we make sure that our teams have the best opportunity to collaborate together. The focus on New York, the focus on Miami, these are two cities in the United States that have a really important value proposition for young graduates from college. They want to be in New York City. They want to be in Miami. They want to be in these vibrant cities where they can be with friends, have a really good experience at work, and have a great life outside of work. And that's pulled us towards Miami, towards New York, from other cities in America, where the quality of life has deteriorated over the last several years on the back of a variety of issues that came out of the pandemic.

Chicago. Chicago in particular.

You were worried about safety.

Safety in Chicago wasn't a worry; it was a reality. I had four colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I had a colleague stabbed a few hundred feet from our front door of our office. I've had groups of kids rioting outside of our building and throwing shopping carts and items on passing cars. You can't run a world-class financial institution in a city where anarchy exists. I mean, the building I live in in Chicago had 25 bullet holes in the ground floor. The store, the Dior store across the street, they'd drive a van through to help facilitate robbing it. That's anarchy. That's not crime. It's anarchy. You blame the local politicians? Well, local—the governor, the mayor—100%. The buck stops on their desk.

When you're elected Governor of Illinois, you're elected to keep the peace, and he failed to do so.

You think it's a better situation now in New York?

I think New York and Chicago are completely different today. 100%. New York, New York's at an interesting pivot point. Right now, things have clearly gotten worse, but I'll give Mayor Adams credit. There's a focus on fixing the problem, and there's an embracing of the importance of fixing the problem, in contrast to what I saw from J.B. Pritzker and Lori Lightfoot, which was, in some sense, just an acceptance of the issue and almost a willingness to support that chaos and anarchy by reducing the ability for the men and women who served in the police department to just maintain safety on the streets. I mean, in Chicago, there was a game. It was a game. Could you hit somebody hard enough to knock them out cold on Michigan Avenue?

That's terrifying.

That's terrifying. And you lost a third of the retailers in what McKinsey described as one of the five greatest shopping districts in the world.

It's also a reflection, the buildings, of your strong views on people being at work. Folks at Citadel, they work in the office five days a week. And there are still CEOs that I talk to that are having trouble bringing their people back, especially in the technology sector, and that aren't requiring it.

You know, at this point, we've been back together for two years. People that don't want to be together have long since left. So I can't really use us as a talking point or model for how other businesses should run. Because today, the people who are at Citadel have self-selected to being part of a community, which means that we have conference rooms full of people debating ideas, and we have in-person mentorship. And we have 100,000 college applicants. Wow. We have 100,000 men and women from the best universities in the United States and around the world who want to be in person. They want a career. They don't want a job. They want a career. They value mentorship. They value human engagement.

And they're going to prosper with us. So I'm actually very optimistic about the generation that's coming into the job market today, that they have so much personal ambition to not only get ahead in life, but I give this generation credit. They want to leave a positive impact on the world that they're a part of.

Being in person, but also, I think what would help—that you are now the top-earning hedge fund in history, surpassed Bridgewater last year, having another strong year year-to-date. I think the numbers are up almost 11 percent, outperforming other hedge funds. What—what is the—what is the secret sauce?

Well, I think that you talked about one of them already, which is our team works together. In a business where the flow of information and the debate and dialogue that goes around ideas happens in person, is a firm that's very well positioned from a competitive advantage perspective.

And it's multi-strategy, which a lot of people don't understand.

Yes, it's a catch-all phrase today. We trade equities—good old-fashioned stock picking. We trade fixed-income securities, bonds, and currencies, and we trade commodities. That's what we do at Citadel day in and day out. We also lend money to corporate America and to companies around the world. So that's the pinnacle—not the pinnacle, but the foundation upon which we run the business. And then Citadel Securities is one of the largest market makers in the world. So we provide liquidity to retail and institutional investors across a broad array of products. And that team working together is a big part of our success story.

Is there a strategy or an asset class that you're particularly excited about right now? I know commodities were a big hit last year, for instance.

Commodities have been really interesting for the last couple of years. And as the world undergoes an energy transformation, there are going to be a number of moments where the pricing of commodities will be in new territory. And firms that do better research, that have better insight, will be better positioned to take advantage of those moments in time to allocate capital more thoughtfully and more efficiently. So we're very excited about commodities. I'm really excited today about the fact that Arm is going public. Hopefully, this opens the floodgates to more of the unicorns going public, where a lot of value creation opportunities exist for investors in our public markets. So today is a really important day.

I hope this deal goes exceedingly well, both for Arm, for SoftBank, for the underwriters, and for the investment community as a whole.

Which is not to say that you would invest or tell people to invest in Arm, just the idea that we have opened the floodgates.

Yes, 100%. You know, one of the great things—why is the United States so much stronger than most of the Western world? It's that vibrancy in our capital markets, from, from whether it's the investor at home to your largest mutual funds like Fidelity making independent judgments on the prospects for the businesses that will define the future of our country. And our capital markets is where these—this debate of ideas comes to rest in the form of liquidity and price formation. That's what happens in our capital markets. And it's the reason why, after the Great Financial Crisis, it's one of the key reasons the United States was able to put that dark moment behind us so quickly. In contrast to Europe, it's also

part of the culture that encourages so much new enterprise formation. We could talk about great American technology stories. It's a much more difficult conversation if we were in Europe to have. They don't have the Microsofts, the NVIDIAs, the Facebooks of the world. They don't have a culture of risk-takers that has been so important to job creation and improving the quality of our lives here in America, or for that matter, around the world.

Dumb Money comes out this week, and you are played. There's a character that is Ken Griffin. This is about the GameStop saga. First of all, have you seen the movie?

I have yet to see the movie. It was the GameStop saga. 'Saga' is the operative word.

You lived through that. You've talked a lot about it. There's reports that you're not happy with your portrayal in the movie. Is that true?

I haven't seen the movie, so I can't really comment on that. I have a small vignette, according to one of my friends who saw it, about 90 seconds of film time. Look, it's a story. I hope they produced a great movie. I will absolutely see it. And I hope that it has a lot of important lessons for American investors in it. You know, you want to be part of making the call on the right business that's going to be defining tomorrow. You want to be the investor in NVIDIA. You want to be the investor in Apple when Jobs returned. You don't want to be the investor in a speculative bubble that eventually bursts. That's not where you want to be.

GameStop or AMC?

GameStop, AMC. That's—I mean, the amount of money lost there by people who didn't have that money to lose is really sad.

But there's also some questions about whether you're taking legal action, anything like that, against the movie?

We're not doing... I have other things to do with my life.

But I know you're upset about the actor who played you.

Nick Offerman?

Yeah, you were hoping for...

I mean, like, look, if I could get Daniel Craig, you know, I'd prefer that. But, you know, Nick works great.

Ken, please stay with us, if you would, because we want to talk to you more. We want to talk about why we're here today at Success Academy with the woman who is in charge and the founder of this place. The founder of Citadel has set his sights on the classroom, Ken Griffin, reimagining how students achieve academic success, not just at his alma mater, Harvard, but in high schools like this one. Eva, first of all, thank you for having us here today. I know Ken is a big believer and a big fan of your work and what you've built here. So for those that aren't familiar with Success Academy, tell us about what it is.

Sure. We opened five weeks ago with 21,500 students, kindergarten through 12th grade. 94% of our students are Black and Brown. 16% are special needs. About 82% live below the poverty line. And yet, we are educating them up to a very, very high standard. In fact, our kids outperform kids in the affluent suburbs on the state tests, on AP exams. We have a six-year record of 100% of our graduates going to four-year colleges.

I mean, the track record's amazing. Ken, how did you get involved with Success?

So I've been involved with Robin Hood in New York for years. And Robin Hood's been a big fan of charter schools in New York City and of Success in particular. And then Dan Loeb, who runs Third Point, is certainly part of the Eva fan club. And he made a real point to making sure that I came to learn more about just literally the miracle that happens here at Success Academies.

What are the takeaways more broadly, Eva, about what you're doing here and how to scale that and broaden that across America where, I mean, you've seen some of these new statistics? It's not good, and especially post-COVID, eighth-grade reading is at a two-decade low. I think math is at a three-decade low. What do we take from this?

Well, I think we have to take a step back and fundamentally rethink the service of education. We are not getting the basics right in America, even though we spend more money on education than any country around the globe. Take something like reading. For 20 years, we canceled phonics. Any educator worth their salt knows that an evidence-based program is essential. We're not teaching kids to count in kindergarten anymore. That's very, very basic. The problem is really one of political will. It's not one of, 'We don't know how to educate children.' We actually do know how to educate children. We're just not giving them what they are entitled to and deserve. And I think it has major implications for America's global competitiveness.

It is a tremendous drag on our system when we have poorly educated kids, and we don't really want a society, I hope not, where we have educational haves and have-nots.

So, enter Ken Griffin. You've funded Harvard, Miami-Dade, Success Academy. Clearly, education is one of your key priorities. Why?

Well, let's take a huge step back. You and I will spend our days talking about ARM and Microsoft and NVIDIA. That's not the future of America. The future of America is our children. It's our kids. And if we can't educate the next generation of American students to be successful, our country's over. We talked earlier about the size of the federal deficit. If we can't profoundly change productivity in America, we can't make the promises that we've made to the baby boomers, our retirees, and those who really do have a hardship in life. We need to radically improve education K through 12 in high school. And we spoke about political will. Let's be clear. We need the voter to make this an issue. But I'm so pleased to support what Eva does here at Success Academies because she shows us a different way.

She takes kids who come from the sob story that unions use in trying to justify their poor results in public schools, and she proves them wrong. Not just a little wrong, enormously wrong. And the kids here, they're remarkable.

Billionaire, philanthropist, headline maker, Ken Griffin is frank as ever about the markets, regulations, and the hype around technology. This has been CNBC Television. Thanks for watching.