You okay . Yes. You have this. Im told your husband had it, too. Im sorry. Andrew had it. Everybody had it. Andrew had it. Tag, youre it. I dont feel that bad. Yes, exactly. Some people, you get sent home. If im going home, someone has to send me home. Its jobs friday. Im okay. Im in omaha. I need to be here. Theres a big bubble between us. Plus i need to show off my haircut. Retrofitting of the toupe. Astrazeneca rejecting the offer from pfizer of 106 billion. The uk government says the final decision will be up to shareholders even though its already pushing pfizer to commit to keeping jobs in britain. Pfizer also adding more cash to the mix, upping it from 30 to 32 . And the company hit previously hit over 99, now its theyre rejecting the second offer as well. And in an attempt to get the British Government on board, pfizer ceo ian read, sent Prime MinisterDavid Cameron a letter promising a new Research Center in cambridge and 20 of the large groups work force would be in britain. Pfizer will wait for astrazenecas board to respond. Shares of the dow component at this point, as you can see im surprised he didnt send a letter to president obama about what hes going to do. Are the british going to say no thanks . Why would you have to talk someone into that makes no sense. Those are big tax dollars. This is not over. This is just the beginning. But it will be well see if we get additional offers. The more pfizer ups the bid, the more we talk tax inversion and how they want to avoid what they feel is a tax burden thats too high in this country. I know the deal. Was roger here yesterday negotiating this on his blackberry the whole time . Evercore and astrazeneca. I dont know whether he was. I would certainly allow him to have his privacy in those matters and probably wouldnt bring it up on national tv like that. Youre a very discreet man. I am today. We have a lot to talk about, guy, this morning. Well get back to becky at Berkshire Hathaway, this weekend coming up. Of course, its jobs friday. These are the numbers to beat, economists predicting 215,000 jobs were added to the economy in april. Thats up from 192,000 in march. And the employment rate now expected to fall to 6. 6 . Economists expect average hourly wages ticked up 0. 2 . Its going to be a very important number. Well bring you the live data from the Labor Department at 8 30 a. M. Eastern time. Lets also take a quick look at futures. Of course these things may change the second we get that number at 8 30. Right now, it looks like things are trending up. Dow looks like it would open 10 points higher, the nasdaq up over 4 points and the s p 500 up 2 points. Europe, see whats happening there. A mixed picture. The ftse up slightly. The cac is off slightly. And the dax i would call that basically flat. Also, a few big earnings reports out before the opening bell this morning. Heres whats going on. Oil joint chevron, pharmacy chain css caremark. Also getting stuff from estee lauder and Energy Infrastructure country transcanada. Last night, expedia posting betterthanexpected First Quarter earnings and revenue. They said they sold more hotel stays than airline tickets. Also food giant kraft topping expectations with its First Quarter results, revenue coming in slightly below consensus views. In the meantime, we have to get back to becky quick. She has a lot of amazing stuff that happened overnight. Miss quick, how are you . I like her hair. Can i say that . Thank you very much. Is she doing something joe had a haircut. You didnt have a haircut. You got a haircut. I didnt have shes doing something. Let me see both guys. Turn sideways. Let me check the side cuts. Look to the side. This way. Oh, looks good, boys. I like it. I like it. Becky, i have its all about the hair. I have a selfie. I took my first selfie yesterday. He was dressed, though. Are you kidding me . While he was getting your haircut. Yes. He was trying to prove its real. I was trying to prove its real. Lets see. Can we see it . Yep, there it is. Theres my oh, thats great. How is that a selfie . A selfie in the mirror . Yes, a selfie in the mirror. Thats cool. Then i say only you have clothes on. Let me guess. Im not only the haircut president im also a klein the. Immediately people sent in you cant really see if thats a scissors or a glue gun or a stapler. It proved nothing to anyone. But after all these years, after 20 years its shorter, not longer. It is shorter now but they think i put on a different toupe. He says he polled it before. Hes polled it before. Are you going to go there . She just went there. I said my hair. He goes, that, too. Im in omaha. There are all kinds of people. People who are piling into omaha for the annual Shareholder Meeting this weekend because this is a really big event. Theres Something Like 35,000, 38,000 people expected to come in. We ran into Warren Buffett yesterday. He says he is expecting a good showing again this year. Last year there were about 35,000 people attending. This year he thinks hell get 38,000 people based on the number of ticket requests. We caught up with him yesterday when he was coming back from his lunch. This was his typical healthy diet of mcdonalds. He had a big mac and fries inside. We could smell it. It was that. We did ask him about the topic on everybodys mind, cocacola. There was a story in todays wall street journal that suggested that cocacola heard that and the management may not be doling out those shares and options as quickly as originally planned. Do you know anything about that . I wouldnt be surprised. Theyre going to look at it, certainly. With us abstaining with a fair amount of no votes. What they authorized at this meeting the other day, they dont have to do. They can spread it over a longer period of time. Well see what they do. But theyve listened to shareholders before. Maybe theyll listen again. Have you talked to muhtar kent about the vote. No, ive talked to no one about it. Not even the director. No, not even my hon, Howard Buffett. He voted in favor of the equity plan like the rest of the board did. Thats the same plan Warren Buffett abstained from voting on. Berkshire hathaway has 9. 1 of the shares outstanding that no vote was championed by David Winters. He complained that the equity plan was too excessive. Winters will be joining us later in the show. Make sure you stick around for that, too. It looks like he may get his way, even though he didnt win the vote. We got the chance to talk to Warren Buffett about those lousy First Quarter gdp numbers we got earlier this week. We asked him if he was surprised by that . Not very surprised we saw in january and february things fairly slow, which many certainly in some cases it was attributable to weather in our own case, others it may not have been. Its gotten stronger since then. If you have two months out of the three where things seam to be stag nan the, the three months arent going to be that good. When you say its gotten better since then, do you think were on pace to have a 3 gdp for the year . Im really no good at that. It seems more like it was going into the end of the year. Buffett had a lot of interesting things to say, talking to us about housing and berkshires Capital Spending plans for the year. More on that coming up later in the program. It all leads us up to the annual Shareholder Meeting this weekend. Our big show on monday comes when we are joined live by Warren Buffett, charlie hmongmu. As well as bill gates. That all starts at 6 00 a. M. Monday morning. Were continuing our coverage this morning, cnbcs list of the 25 most influential people over the past quarter century. We sat down with the former mayor of new york city, mike bloomberg, one of our icons, rebels and leaders on making the list. We talked about his impressive legacy and on bloombergs news practices, controversial in china. Congratulations on being part of the cnbc 25. Im honored. To think about the Inflection Point of when you started bloomberg lp, what you thought it would be today. I dont think i dont think anybody that starts a Company Really has time to think about that. Because at the beginning the question is can you make the payroll next week . Will anybody buy your product . How do you find a lawyer and an accountant. Can you afford the rent . Should you take a big enough place for growth, something you can afford now . I suppose people have walter mitty dreams of being a big empire. I dont really remember doing that. People keep saying do you miss being mayor . I dont think back and i dont fantasize for the future. Tomorrow is going to be the best day of my life. I know it. Ive always believed that. But i dont think about the day after tomorrow. Over the past year, theres been questions about the journalism going on in china and whether the company in its effort to grow has muzzled some of the antigovernment i would stand up for the quality ive always been phenomenally proud of the job matt winkler, i think we have 2300, 2,500 journalists do. In china they have rules about what you can publish. We follow the rules if you dont follow the rules, youre not in the country. Every newspaper, television station, Computer System, follows the rules. If youre in london, england, there are a different set of rules. You, for example, cant report on an ongoing trial in london. Thats what it is. It doesnt have anything to do with what we write. We write the stories we think are interesting and we distribute them where they are allowed to be distributed. Well hear more from mayor bloomberg throughout the program. He talks to us about wall street, some of the credibility issues, capitalism, joe, youll enjoy this and also his views on High Frequency trading. Well bring you that throughout the rest of the program. Im sure our views on capitalism are in sync. Very much in sync. Im sure. Hes very smart. Very much in sync. His views on High Frequency may surprise you. Well tease you there a little bit. Yes. Im a little bit i dont think its a huge im not going to spend the rest of my life think about High Frequency trading, although im kind of with cramer, if someone is making billions of dollars, theyre not really if theyre not providing liquidity, just sort of you know the fish that swim around on the sharks, if youre cleaning the sharks gills while cleaning their food, thats called symbiosis. You and the mayor can debate this. He thinks its good . He may come out on the other side. Thats the tease. I would have before. Because spreads have narrowed so much. I dont think its prohibitively expensive at this point to make trades. If youre going to buy apple for two or three years and it costs a penny more on the day that you buy it, then again, it adds up and its money thats like a tax. What are they delivering to you . Hey, joe. Yes, becky. Is it mutually are they helping you . Is it a symbiotic relationship. I know they talk about how it helps liquidity. I said if its not helping liquidity, the little fish that are in the sharks, theyre not cleaning the gills. Do sharks even have gills . I do want to hear what he has to say. Becky, you know how nice lacy is. Shes trying to help my throat but she brings me these things. I tried one and its like so disgusting. Its a berts bees natural throat drops. Those are harsh. Give me some of the usual not natural. Lacy is giving you something to help your throat and youre complaining. Im not complaining. Its foul. I took it out. Who owns burts bees . I think its owned by color rockies. You need hot tea and lemon or at least hot water and lemon. I was drinking hot water and lemon for a month. Theres lemon over on the cart. You can get that. Andrew is picking on me, too. Hes going to win the arguments because i cant really talk. Take your shots, andrew, when you can get them. Yesterday i had no voice at all at home. I have my dogs. Theyd be barking and running. Id go stop, ba irking, stop barking. They look at me like whats wrong with him . This is like halls. It has a eucalyptus, menthol. No, it doesnt. I want a halls. I have to spit this out. Im sorry. It is not good. I hope you feel better t. Makes less about your throat bothering you. Anyway, coming up, the executive shuffle at ford, alan mulally on his way out, mark fields on his way in. Who better than auto nations mark jackson to give us his take on the ford transition. Thats coming up next. It was an historic week for cnbc. We rang the closing bell right here at cnbc headquarters as well as revealing the top 25 list. We celebrated with guests like jack welch, Warren Buffett, sandy weill. You can relive it all, squawk. Cnb cnbc. Com. Check it out. It was annan credible week right here. Plus we had the market alltime high. I am gratified at least in this case you were able to celebrate an alltime high as obviously the wealth disparity grows. We know who owns all the assets. In general, its not something to celebrate when the wealth class is actually worth more. But in this case, because of cnbc, youre able to say that its good that the market is at an alltime high. This is a positive thing. I would say it anyway. The first new high of the year, andrew. Id celebrate both cases. Pickety had a pity party. Were all wearing black. Another new high. Time now for the executive edge. Ford Ceo Alan Mulally will be stepping down july 1st after a successful eightrun year at the automaker. Mike jackson, chairman and ceo of autonation is our guest. And it shook up the auto world a little when mulally was retiring. Thank god its not you, mike. Those would be seismictype tremors. Tell us about the quarter. Much better than your peers, right . Joe, good morning. You sound terrible. I admire your dedication in being there. Jobs friday. This morning were giving our april sales. For us it was an extremely good month. We retailed 25,500 new vehicles. Thats a 14 increase over prior year. Led by our premium luxury improvement of 22 and a particularly strong month for the asians, plus 18. For the industry, also a good month, plus 8 with a selling rate of over 16 million. Now, joe, this is the First Time Since 2007 that the industry has had two months in a row above 16. With the terrible start to the year, or to the winter, we really needed it. We got it. Were off and running to 16 Million Units for this year. Yes, thats what were going to need, mike, especially after that 0. 1 gdp. You are a person that probably has an opinion about whether that is an outlier, could be revised up, a total aberration, we could get a better second, third and Fourth Quarter by some being front end, whatever you call it. You didnt get it in this case, youll hopefully get it on the back end. Is that what you think . No question, joe, all the evidence was in that this was an epic winter in many parts of the country, its still snowing. Thats not over. That was very disruptive to the economy. The way i think about it is the First Quarter of the gdp number is an outlier, throw it out. On a rolling 12month basis we could see 3 gdp growth. You might not get it for this year because you lost the First Quarter. If you take a rolling 12 months it will come in at plus 3 . You know, mike, a lot of things that ceos do are getting a company just into shape where it cant necessarily run itself but when youve groomed someone like fields to come in, do you see faces with any trepidation at all being a big customer of ford . This is the way youre supposed to do it, right . You know, mark fields has seen it all, has done it all. He is fully prepared to take over the leadership at Ford Motor Company. I go back, lets talk about alan for a second. My view, joe, the industry should pass a hat and build a statue to alan. I first met with him shortly after he arrived in 06. We met in World Headquarters on a cold, dark saturday. We were just about the only two people in the building. I said, hey, where is everybody . He put that kansas smile of his on his face and he says, well, not everybody understands were going broke. So he brought a sense of urgency to ford that was desperately needed. And you know, i take an issue like detroits overproduction during that period and i said to alan, this is slow motion suicide. It has to stop. And within a nanosecond he said, mike, it will. This is an issue i fought with other executives in detroit almost to shouting matches and never got anywhere and alan understood it from the first moment. And you know, that sense of urgency that he brought meant that when the day of reckoning did come, Ford Motor Company did not need a bailout. And it showed that detroit in principle was worth saving, that there was hope that it was not a hopeless situation. And then his testimony in congress where he made the case why his competitors should receive assistance, really was for the sake of the industry and for the sake of america, and thats really true leadership. Just to conclude this story if i go all the way back to that first meeting, one of the things that alan did say was that he was very impressed with the talent within Ford Motor Company, particularly mark fields. This was all the way back in 06. He said basically the team i need to turn around Ford Motor Company is here. So not only did he turn around ford with his team. Hes done a fantastic job of mentoring mark fields, to the executive mark is today. I have no trepidation. I have nothing but confidence and excitement about the future of Ford Motor Company. I salute alan. A lot of boards, fords loss will be the gain for im sure blue chip boards, where mulally will end up. A lot of people underestimate alan because hes so affable and friendly and always smiling. Beyond that, he has a rigor and dis