Trump’s Greenland considerations, Nvidia’s China demand, xAI’s latest funding round and more in Morning Squawk

Happy Wednesday. Guests at my home will be pleased to know that I, despite personal fascination, live outside the delivery radius of this shower water beer.

Stock futures are little changed this morning. The market is coming off another winning session.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Yesterday, the White House said President Donald Trump is considering using the U.S. military to acquire Greenland. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNBC that Trump is weighing “a range of options,” including the use of armed forces.

Here’s what to know:

• European leaders have rebuked Trump’s repeated calls for Greenland to became part of the U.S. They wrote in a statement yesterday that “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
• Trump has said the U.S. needs Greenland for its strategic location from a national security perspective. The arctic island also boasts untapped mineral resources, but is staring down a slowing economy.
• The White House’s intensifying focus on Greenland comes just days after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and ousted President Nicolas Maduro. Prediction market traders have been ramping up bets on whether the Trump administration could intervene in Greenland.
• Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said yesterday that he would introduce a resolution blocking the U.S. from invading Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory.
• Meanwhile, oil prices fell after Trump announced yesterday that Venezuela’s interim authorities would hand over between 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S. The South American country’s bonds have emerged as the hot trade on Wall Street this week despite clear risks.

Speaking of semiconductors: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said yesterday that there is “very high” demand in China for its H200 artificial intelligence chips. He said the company has restarted production of the chips and is ironing out final details on export licenses with the U.S. government, which has signal it would approve them.

Speaking at the CES conference in Las Vegas, Huang said any H200 sales would be on top of Nvidia’s $500 billion two-year forecast that it shared last year. Huang has previously estimated that the Chinese market could be worth $50 billion per year.

Elsewhere at the conference, AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC that AI hasn’t slowed hiring at her company. Su said that AMD, a Nvidia competitor, is instead placing priority on candidates who “truly embrace” the technology.

The Warner Bros. Discovery board isn’t changing its mind. WBD board members this morning unanimously shot down Paramount Skydance’s hostile takeover plan — again.

The board said it still believed Paramount’s offer was “inferior” to Netflix’s $72 billion deal. Paramount has “repeatedly failed to submit the best proposal” despite feedback from the WBD board, it added.

WBD board chairman Samuel Di Piazza told CNBC this morning that the Netflix deal has “compelling value, a clear path to closing and protections for our shareholders if something stops the close.” Paramount did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

xAI said it raised $20 billion in a new funding round, blowing past its prior target of $15 billion. As CNBC’s Lora Kolodny reports, the Elon Musk-led startup received investments from firms including Nvidia, Cisco, Fidelity and Baron Capital Group.

Musk’s xAI now operates X, the social platform also owned by the Tesla CEO, following a merger last year. The company has recently faced international regulatory probes after its Grok chatbot generated sexualized images of children and intimate images of adults without their consent. However, xAI also won a contract with the Department of Defense, which uses Grok in its AI agents platform.

What do Coach, Uniqlo and Ralph Lauren have in common? Coffee shops. CNBC’s Ryan Baker explains why these clothing retailers are turning to cappuccinos to draw consumers.

CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger, Sam Meredith, Dan Mangan, Justin Papp, Chloe Taylor, Yun Li, Sean Conlon, Arjun Kharpal, Spencer Kimball, Kif Leswing, Ashley Capoot, Samantha Subin, Jonathan Vanian, Lora Kolodny, Darla Mercado and Ryan Baker contributed to this report. Josephine Rozelle edited this edition.