Trump’s Iran deadline, the Altman-Musk feud, Novo’s Wegovy pill and more in Morning Squawk

Good morning, and congratulations to everyone who had the Michigan Wolverines winning their March Madness bracket.

Stock futures are lower this morning after all three major averages closed Monday’s session higher.

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

Hopes for a ceasefire deal are fading with less than 12 hours to go until President Donald Trump’s 8 p.m. ET deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Here’s what to know:

• Trump said yesterday that the latest ceasefire proposal is “not good enough,” though he called it a “very significant step.”
• He also reiterated his threats of widescale U.S. attacks on Iran’s power plants and bridges if the country doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by this evening.
• Oil prices are continuing their march higher today, with the key maritime passageway still effectively closed.
• Wall Street’s Citrini Research said yesterday that it sent an analyst to Oman’s Musandam Peninsula for a firsthand look at traffic through the Strait. Here’s what the analyst saw.
• Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 200 points this morning as investors grew pessimistic about the prospects of a U.S.-Iran deal before Trump’s deadline.
• Follow live market updates here.

Shares of Universal Music Group are up more than 10% after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square this morning offered to buy the company in a cash and stock deal worth roughly 55.8 billion euros, or $64.4 billion.

The activist investor’s proposal equates to a total deal value of 30.4 euros per share, a nearly 80% premium to UMG’s closing share price on April 2. Under the terms of the proposal, the Dutch company would form a newly merged firm with Pershing and list on the New York Stock Exchange — something Ackman has previously pushed for.

Ackman said in a statement that UMG’s stock price has “languished” due to issues “unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.” Before today’s announcement, shares of UMG had fallen 23% this year.

With less than a month to go before OpenAI and Elon Musk head to trial, the AI company is going on offense. 

OpenAI sent a letter to the attorneys general of Delaware and California yesterday, asking them to investigate Musk’s “improper and anti-competitive behavior.” The letter accuses the Tesla CEO — who co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 before leaving three years later — of “coordinating his efforts” with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

It’s not the first time OpenAI has acknowledged Musk’s potential impact on its business. Since Musk sued OpenAI in 2024, the AI firm has warned investors that he could make “deliberately outlandish, attention-grabbing claims” ahead of the trial. Jury selection is set to kick off later this month.

Shares of Broadcom are 3% higher before the bell after the chipmaker disclosed new deals with Google and Anthropic yesterday — a sign of the continued demand for the infrastructure needed to power the artificial intelligence boom.

In the new deal with Google, Broadcom agreed to produce future versions of the tech giant’s AI chips. The company will also give Anthropic access to about 3.5 gigawatts worth of computing capacity, expanding its ongoing agreement with Google and the AI startup.

Anthropic said in a Monday blog post about the deal that its annualized revenue has topped $30 billion, up from roughly $9 billion at the end of last year.

Novo Nordisk has seen explosive demand for its Wegovy pill in the three months since launching the treatment option. As CNBC’s Annika Kim Constantino reports, that surge is largely being driven by a new wave of patients.

The Wegovy pill — which in January became the first GLP-1 pill for obesity — is not only cheaper than its injection counterpart. It also doesn’t involve needles, which are a key barrier for some patients. “There are a handful of patients that don’t want to be stung by the needle in the case of a vial and syringe, or stung by the price,” Jamey Millar, Novo’s head of U.S. operations, told CNBC last week. “We’re appealing to both.” 

Still, surging demand for the Wegovy pill hasn’t translated to a surge in Novo’s stock price. The Danish drugmaker is still battling Eli Lilly for market share in the obesity space, and Lilly just last week received U.S. approval for its own GLP-1 pill.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon listed several “significant” challenges for his bank in his annual shareholder letter published yesterday. Among those were geopolitics, AI and turmoil in private markets, but Dimon took particular issue with what he characterized as “poor bank regulations.”

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han, Sean Conlon, Kevin Breuninger, Megan Cassella, Anniek Bao, Sam Meredith, Yun Li, April Roach, Ashley Capoot, Kate Rooney, Jordan Novet, Annika Kim Constantino and Sara Salinas contributed to this report. Terri Cullen edited this edition.