WHEN: Today, Thursday, December 11, 2025
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET) today, Thursday, December 11. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/12/11/disney-ceo-on-1-billion-investment-in-openai-this-is-a-good-investment-for-the-company.html, https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/12/11/disneys-openai-licensing-deal-is-not-a-threat-to-creators-says-ceo-bob-iger.html, and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/12/11/bog-iger-on-google-cease-and-desist-letter-we-have-been-aggresive-at-protecting-our-ip.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
DAVID FABER: Of course, this morning at 9:00am ET, Disney and OpenAI announcing what they’re calling a landmark agreement to bring the beloved characters from Disney’s brands to Sora, of course, the short-term – the short form video platform of OpenAI. And as we have been promoting all morning, we are now joined by Disney’s CEO Bob Iger, along with OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman. And, Sam, very happy to have you on the program I believe for what’s the first time.
SAM ALTMAN: Happy to be here.
FABER: Bob, you and I have done this a few times. I want to start with you, if I can, Bob. Just, first of all, why are you doing this deal, and what led to it?
BOB IGER: Well, this is a great opportunity for the company to enable consumers to engage with our characters on what is probably the most modern of technology and media platforms today. And it not only gives consumers or users an opportunity to do so, but it also is significant because, in this deal, OpenAI is both respecting and valuing our creativity, both our characters, but also those that have created those characters. So, it gives us an opportunity really to play a part in what is really a breathtaking, breathtaking growth in essentially AI and new forms of media and entertainment.
FABER: Does it represent any risks for you? When I think about it, I know the voices of actors are not going to be a part of this. It’s going to be the images, Bob. But, that said, your own Imagineers, those who’ve created obviously these untold stories for you that have made the company it is, do they look at this announcement and worry at some point people who are manipulating short-term video using your characters are going to replace them?
IGER: Well, first of all, what we’re doing here is, we’re licensing about 200 characters for users of Sora to create their own basically videos using Sora and those characters. We are not including name and likeness, nor are we including character voices. And so, in reality, this does not in any way represent a threat to the creators at all, in fact, the opposite. I think it honors them and respects them, in part because there’s a license fee associated with it. The other thing it does is, it enables us to be comfortable that OpenAI is putting guardrails essentially around how these are used, so that really there’s nothing for us to be concerned about from a consumer perspective, meaning this will be a safe environment and a safe way for consumers to engage with our characters in a new way. And so, and, also, let’s be mindful of the fact that these are 30-second videos.
FABER: Right.
IGER: So we’re not talking about creating either shorts or movies, for that matter. And we know, because we have seen a significant amount of growth in consumption of short form video, we also think this is an era where almost everybody can be a creator of sorts. And we have seen that in breathtaking fashion on other platforms. And this is a way for us as a company really to provide experiences to particularly younger audiences engaging with our characters in new ways.
FABER: Yes. Sam, obviously, Sora’s success has been significant. It’s one of the reasons you cite for all the compute that you need to continue to build, given the usage rates there. How do you view it? Do you expect that it’s in fact going to lead to more activity on the platform, the ability to use these characters?
ALTMAN: Yes, we hear so much from users about how much they love Disney’s characters. Disney, I think, is the greatest storytelling company in the world, bar none, and people really want to connect with Disney characters and express creativity in new ways. And we are confident from everything we have heard from our users that they’re going to respond very well to be able to do this. And I hope that it’ll unleash a sort of a whole new way that people use this technology and a new model for the companies making the technology and rights holders to sort of responsibly figure out how to get this done together.
FABER: Can you expand on that? What do you mean when you say unleashed a new wave, Sam?
ALTMAN: I, one thing we found again and again is that we have underestimated the amount of latent creativity in the world, that, if you lower the effort, skill, time required to create new things, people very quickly are able to bring ideas to life and make new kinds of entertainment, art, code, all sorts of things, with this new tool of AI. And if we can enable people to do that and give them more flexibility like with these 200 Disney characters, I don’t know exactly what we’re going to see, but I think people will come up with amazing kinds of ideas.
FABER: Right. And, to that point, and I know Sara is very concerned here about the princesses. There are going to be guardrails around the usage, is that right, Sam?
ALTMAN: Yes. Again, Disney is a great partner for us for this because they’re, they have been so willing to work out how this new world is going to work together. But there will, of course, be guardrails. It’s very important that we enable Disney to set and evolve those guardrails over time. But they will, they will, of course, be in there.
FABER: Bob, is the deal exclusive, or is it possible for you to go out and sign a similar deal with other short, short form video or companies that provide that ability?
IGER: This is a three-year license agreement, and there is exclusivity at basically the beginning of the three-year agreement. So, yes, it is partially exclusive.
FABER: So, for the first year, for example, I would guess, something along those lines?
IGER: That would be a good guess.
FABER: Now, why did you decide to invest a billion dollars in OpenAI along with this deal?
IGER: Well, obviously, we have been mindful of the significant growth in AI to begin with and extremely impressed with the progress that Sam and OpenAI have made. And that includes, by the way, as I said earlier, their agreement to both honor and value and respect our content. And we want to participate in what Sam is creating and what his team is creating. We think this is a good investment for the company. It’s kind of a way in of sorts for us to appreciate even more what is obviously something that has significance in terms of the long-term impact on our business.
FABER: And there are warrants that came along with it. And I guess you’re not giving us any specifics, though, in terms of where those are struck. Is that correct?
IGER: That’s correct.
ALTMAN: I think that’s correct.
FABER: OK. Bob, at the same time you announced this deal, you, I reported on a cease-and-desist letter that was sent to Google. I would imagine that’s not a coincidence in terms of the timing. I’m curious as to what your conversations have been like with other platforms, including Google, and why you chose to make that move today.
IGER: Well, we have been aggressive at protecting our IP, and we have gone after other companies that have not honored our IP, not respected our IP, not valued it. And this is another example of us doing just that. We have been in conversation with Google, basically expressing our concerns about this. And, ultimately, because we didn’t really make any progress, the conversations didn’t bear fruit, we felt we had no choice but to send them a cease-and-desist.
FABER: And, Sam, on that same note, did your conversations with Bob and your reaching a deal here come out of conversations around IP? Or can you give us some sense as to how we got here?
ALTMAN: We always have wanted to respect IP. When we launched Sora initially, we had a lot of blocks in place, but we knew that, if there was one company that we wanted to start partnering with, Disney was the obvious one. And so we have had a long discussion going with Disney, and we found them to be a sort of open-minded partner as this technology has evolved. And it was very clear to us that we really wanted to find a deal to do here.
FABER: Is it possible you will sign similar deals with other companies as well?
ALTMAN: The demand for Disney characters in particular from our users is sort of off the charts, so I won’t rule out anything in the future, but we think this alone is going to be a wonderful start for what our customers want to do when it comes to putting themselves in that one lightsaber scene from, lightsaber fight in Star Wars or making like a Buzz Lightyear custom birthday video for their kid. I think this is going to be, like, quite a big deal for our users, and then we can reevaluate from there.
FABER: You’re, yes, so you’re, I just want to understand. Sort of you’re looking at, obviously, what people are doing, and you’re seeing them interact with these Disney characters on a frequent basis. I guess that’s what I’m hearing, right, Sam?
ALTMAN: Well, they’d like to be interacting. There’s desire to do it.
FABER: They would like to be.
ALTMAN: They haven’t been able to yet, yes.
FABER: They’d like to be. When does this start, by the way?
ALTMAN: I don’t know if we have the launch date yet, but we will try to get it in there as soon as we can.
FABER: And, OK. And, Bob, in terms of the use of Sora videos on the Disney+ platform, which is also a part of the announcement, can you give us some sense as to how you’re envisioning that or how that would work?
IGER: Well we have wanted for a long time to have what we will call user-generated content on our platform. In this case, it will be user prompted Sora-generated content. And we will be licensing AI Sora tools in order to do that. Initially, what we will do is, we will curate some of the videos that have been created on the Sora platform and put them onto Disney+, which we think is a great way to increase engagement with our Disney+ users, particularly the younger users.
FABER: So, what—
IGER: And we’re going to do that as soon as we possibly can.
FABER: Right. So there will be, I don’t know, some sort of a tile or something that I can access as a Disney+ user to look at what people have been creating that you guys have decided is worthy of showcasing?
IGER: Yes, and then ultimately to enable users to prompt Sora to create what they want to create on our platform, yes. That’s a big step for us.
FABER: Sam, I’d love to come to you, if I can, as well.
IGER: There you go, David. You see, if you—
FABER: Yes, what am I looking at? Wait. What was I looking at?
IGER: David, you look at some of the—
FABER: Yes.
IGER: Well, you will put it up very quickly. But there you go. There’s a case of someone who wants to have a race against Lightning McQueen from “Cars.” This is what I think Sam’s ultimate fantasy is, which is ultimately to hold the lightsaber himself.
ALTMAN: That would be cool.
IGER: That’s surfing with Stitch.
FABER: Is it, so it’s, Bob, it is inclusive of most of the Disney characters that we know well, and, obviously because they range far and wide at this point between Star Wars and Marvel, not to mention The Simpsons. I mean, it goes all over the place. It’s not just Mickey Mouse.
IGER: There are many characters here, and I think there’s almost a character for everybody in this set, and I think it’s going to be really fun and interesting to see what people do with them. And, again, it’s a great step for us. We have always been forward-thinking when it comes to applying technology to both engage with consumers at a closer and higher level to improve our business, to essentially create new experiences in general. We were the first to license television shows and movies to the iTunes platform back in 2005 and 2006, as an example. And this is a step in, another step in essentially that direction, which is to get on board with what is clearly an incredibly impactful and profound wave in terms of change in our society and certainly change in our industry.
FABER: Yes. I asked this a bit earlier, but I just want to come back to it. I mean, I’m curious, Bob, what you think the reaction is in your company itself and amongst those who are your creators of animated IP. I mean, are they going to view this positively, do you think? And, if so, why?
IGER: Well, they should. Our goal is in using AI is to continue to honor, respect, value the creative community in general. And we don’t believe that, in this case, it does anything but that, really, again, because we’re not using name and likeness. We’re not using character voices. That’s certainly an example of that. And, again, the fact that we’re getting paid for this recognizes the value that’s been created, really, in this case, over decades. Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, as a for instance. It’s kind of extraordinary when you think about that a character that was created almost 100 years ago is going to end up on the Sora platform. And I think that speaks volumes not just about the value of the character and the interest that people still have in that character, but the fact that the that users will be able to engage with a character that they have loved for so many years, so many decades in really modern and I think pretty enjoyable ways.
FABER: Yes. No, it is interesting. Of course, “Steamboat Willie” was kind of a short of its own, about eight minutes’ long, obviously a lot longer than 30 seconds, but nonetheless not particularly long. Sam, I wanted to come to you on some broader issues in the time that we have here as well. You’re going to exit the year, I believe, with about 1.9 gigawatts of compute. You have said, I believe, publicly around a $20 billion annual revenue rate. Does a deal like this help you think about an increase in terms of revenues and/or your need for compute?
ALTMAN: Yes. I mean, we expect this to drive incremental revenue and also just delightful services for our users. We have a lot of other things that we expect will drive incremental revenue, but the only way we can deliver on that is with more compute. So we will continue to build out compute. We will try to do a big multiple on that 1.9 gigawatts over the course of the next year. And we will keep going from there.
FABER: Yes. We have been talking a lot about Oracle this morning, of course. And so much of the investment perspective on that company comes back to your own and your ability to make good on the $300 billion commitment you have made in terms of buying compute from them. Why are you confident, because others certainly are at least questioning, in your ability to meet that obligation over these next five years, Sam?
ALTMAN: The value that we see people getting from this technology and thus their willingness to pay already today, to say nothing of the models that we have coming in the coming months and years, makes us confident that we will be able to significantly ramp revenue. It’s obviously unusual to be growing this fast at this kind of scale, but it is what we see in our current data, the model’s ability to do really increasingly valuable economic work in larger and larger chunks. I think you will start to see this with our next model and then more with the next one, the one after that. We are confident we can continue to drive the revenue growth to meet this compute ramp. Without the compute ramp, of course, we can’t drive the revenue growth, but we see way more reasons to be optimistic than reasons to be pessimistic. Of course, we will continue to be responsible and, of course, we will adjust our plans if, as necessary if something happens that’s not what we expect. But, given what we see right now, the demand in the market is pretty extreme. And the overhang of what these models are capable of that the world has not yet figured out how to build into their workflows is also quite significant.
FABER: Right. I do wonder, though, specific to Sora and the discussion we’re having, it’s more expensive for you, right, I mean, requires more compute, I would assume. Are you losing more money on every Sora or video than on a simple query? And do you start charging in a significant way, particularly given you’re going to be paying a licensing fee as well to Disney?
ALTMAN: We do charge today for Sora generations beyond some included free ones. And I’m sure we will continue to evolve the business model there. But users have not indicated any lack of willingness to pay for generating videos that they love. In fact, if anything, it’s, that’s, there’s been much more of that than we initially expected. So, yes, it’s more expensive, but people pay much more and expect to pay much more than they do for an image.
FABER: And you see price elasticity there in terms of what you can charge?
ALTMAN: It seems like it.
SARA EISEN: I have always wanted to be a Disney princess.
ALTMAN: There you go.
EISEN: Sam, it’s Sara. There we go. Thanks for the solution. Look, as you know, in the market, it’s gone from very optimistic to a little more scrutiny on the AI trade. I know you’re not public, but there are questions. For instance, following up on the revenue question, can you tell us a little bit about trends in ChatGPT since Gemini 3 was launched by Google and outperformed a lot of the OpenAI models?
ALTMAN: Gemini 3 has had less of an impact on our metrics than maybe we feared. We will very soon launch a new model that we’re quite excited about, as well as a handful of other features in response to their launch. We have twice before seen a competitive threat. And I believe that, when a competitive threat happens, you want to focus on it, deal with it quickly. We call that a code red, sort of a six-or-eight-week focus period, and then you deal with whatever you’re going to deal with and get back to a position of clear leadership and move on.
EISEN: Yes.
ALTMAN: So, that’s what we’re doing with Gemini. This is a pretty standard thing for us. I expect we will exit it by January in a very strong position.
EISEN: Yes, because that’s sort of the question now, is, it’s obviously becoming a very competitive race, both technologically and for market share. So, how do you expect the sort of market share battle to play out, both on the consumer side and the enterprise side?
ALTMAN: On the consumer side, there’s no company I would want to trade positions with. I – it will clearly be competitive, but I love where we are relative to anybody else. I think ChatGPT is the by far market share leader. And with these upcoming launches, I expect that distance to increase, not decrease. I expect our market share to go up. The enterprise side is still earlier. We intend to go in there, but we have a lot of work in front of us, and it won’t be easy. The set of services we want to offer finally has, I think, come into clarity, and the models are getting strong enough that I think enterprises can really transform. But that will be one of the big stories of 2026, is the companies competing for that. Again, I love the position we’re in, and I think our strength in consumer is going to really translate, and we’re going to try our hardest to go win enterprise.
FABER: And, Sam, to those who say, well, simply looking at it on a cost per token, per dollar, per watt, to quote Satya Nadella, one of your partners, you guys are not going to be able to beat Alphabet, how do you respond?
ALTMAN: We expect to beat Alphabet. We’re incredibly excited about our upcoming chip.
FABER: Your upcoming chip.
ALTMAN: Yes.
FABER: When do you expect to actually be deploying that?
ALTMAN: I, as soon as I said that, I realized you were going to ask me. We’re not ready to talk about that part yet, but we will talk about it. And we are very focused on having the cheapest cost per token in the industry at the highest level of intelligence.
FABER: Yes. Bob, I know you have been listening here. And I’m curious as to how you viewed the landscape as well in terms of who you wanted to partner with and whether ChatGPT was always sort of the number one target.
IGER: Sam and I first met actually when I was retired from Disney in 2022. And he gave me a bit of a road map of where OpenAI and AI was going. And everything that he predicted has come true a lot faster actually than he thought would unfold or would happen when we met in 2022. So, we have been extremely impressed with OpenAI’s growth and what Sam and his team have been able to achieve. And, of course, on top of that was their appreciation for our content and their willingness to license it and their willingness to help us protect it and to protect value. So, we’re very excited about what we see. We also think there are great opportunities for our company to license other product from OpenAI to make our company more efficient, to grow the top line, to essentially accomplish a lot of what we feel we need to accomplish in the years ahead.
FABER: Yes. Well, you say you’re going to become a major customer of OpenAI. What does that mean, Bob?
IGER: Again, we think there are a lot of opportunities here beyond Sora to license product from OpenAI. And we intend to do just that.
FABER: And as you view—
ALTMAN: We appreciate that.
FABER: As you view this significant change in terms of the ability of people to create content, Bob, from your standpoint, I mean, don’t you still see it as a significant threat over time to Disney and the use obviously—
IGER: Well, look—
FABER: Of short-term videos and the time people spend with them?
IGER: It’s interesting, David. We have always viewed technological advance as opportunity, not threat. First of all, you can’t do anything about it. No human generation has ever stood in the way of technological advance, and we don’t intend to try. And so we have always felt that, if it’s going to happen, including disruption of our current business models, then we should get on board and figure out how we advantage our company and our shareholders by moving forward with a sense of optimism and a sense and being aggressive about it. I, someone once said to me that creativity is the new productivity, and I think you’re starting to see that more and more. And Sam alluded to it earlier when he talked about just people liking to create, enjoy the creative process themselves, whether they’re creating short form videos or all sorts of other things that this technology enables. So it’s going to happen regardless. And we’d rather participate in the rather dramatic growth, rather than just watching it happen and essentially being disrupted by it. So we think this is actually a way for us to be part of these developments, as opposed to be harmed by them.
FABER: Yes. Interesting listening to you. Of course, it takes me in part to what I have been covering nonstop, which is the fight over Warner Bros. Discovery, Bob. And one of the key arguments from an antitrust perspective that Netflix will make is that we’re not just streaming. Streaming is not just us and HBO and Disney+. It includes Sora and Instagram and TikTok and so many other platforms. How do you view that?
IGER: Well, one thing I’m, it’s nice to be an observer and not a participant in this. You know, eight years ago, we announced a deal with Rupert Murdoch to buy a number of the assets of 20th Century Fox at that point. And we were actually, in many respects, when you look at what’s going on, and we were ahead of the game, so to speak, in that we saw the coming wave of streaming. Already, it had begun. And we were going into that business, and we felt we needed not only more volume in terms of content, but more quality, more quality IP, franchises and brands, and also more talent. And so thinking of what the world could become, we jumped on board back then. And we’re certainly glad we have, because now the companies are fully integrated and with it came control of Hulu. And that obviously has been very significant and will continue to be in terms of our growth of streaming. So that’s one, in effect, position that we’re taking, is kind of looking at what we did and now looking at what others have determined they must do in order to succeed going forward. We don’t, so we don’t have skin in the game, so to speak, here—
FABER: No.
IGER: Except, if I were looking at this – if I were looking at this—
FABER: But you have got a view. You definitely have a view. Yes.
IGER: Well, I think if I were a regulator looking at this combination, I’d look at a few things. First of all, I would look at what the impact is on the consumer. Will one company end up with pricing leverage that might be considered a negative or damaging to the consumer? And with a significant amount of streaming subscriptions across the world, really, does that ultimately give Netflix pricing leverage over the consumer that it might not necessarily be healthy? Additionally, I’d look at what the impact might be on what I will call the creative community, but also on the ecosystem of television and films, particularly motion pictures. These movie theaters, which obviously run our films worldwide, operate with relatively thin margins. And they require not only volume, but they require interaction with these films and these movie companies that give them the ability to monetize successfully. That’s a very, very important global business. And I think it’s, we have been certainly participating in it in a very big way.
FABER: Yes.
IGER: We have had, I think, 33 billion-dollar films in the last 20 years. And we, so we’re mindful of protecting the health of that business. It’s very important to the, what I will call the media ecosystem globally.
FABER: Well, what I’m hearing you say, it certainly sounds like you would prefer Paramount as the owner of Warner Bros., rather than Netflix. Will you make that case to regulators at all in terms of this process?
IGER: We haven’t determined whether we will take a position or not. But I was, I was suggesting what regulators should be looking at.
FABER: OK. And do you view Netflix as a more serious competitor then if they should prevail here?
IGER: I’d rather not say anything more than I have said.
FABER: OK. Well, we’re coming to the end of this time and certainly appreciate it. But, Sam, let me, let me sort of end with you in terms of what we can expect. You mentioned, obviously, we’re going to get the latest version of ChatGPT I guess any day now. Anything you want to preview in terms of what we might anticipate?
ALTMAN: Bob said something earlier about how this has gone faster than we thought. And I was reflecting on today is actually our 10-year anniversary from when we announced OpenAI. And we have got some incredible new models, in particular, models that can really do the sort of valuable, difficult knowledge work tasks that we think can significantly accelerate the economy. And I think that will be one of the defining characteristics of our new model, maybe the defining characteristic. And the fact that we can actually seriously be sitting here 10 years from when we started to the day talking about a model that can do significant chunks of the knowledge work that the world needs and make things more efficient and faster and better, that is pretty remarkable. So, again, lots of good things about the new model, but that will probably be the dominant one.
FABER: Bob, I just wanted to come back to something as sort of we end here on the cease-and-desist letter to Alphabet. What are your expectations there in terms of what you may hear back or whether you would undertake litigation to defend your IP?
IGER: Well, the ball is in their court, so to speak. We have to see how they react to it. We have engaged with other companies in this regard. Character.AI was one. And when we warned them of this, of the concerns that we had about it, they took our IP down. And so we didn’t have to go beyond, beyond that. We will see how Google reacts to it.
FABER: And, finally, Sam, if I could just end with you, we talk about OpenAI so often, but we can never put up a chart. We can never reference a conference call. You’re not a public company. But I do wonder, because of how important you are to the overall ecosystem, do you ever think about publicly sharing what your revenue projections are in the way that a public company would at this point, even though I know you’re not, just because it would give us all a guidepost in terms of understanding what’s going on with the growth that you have referenced?
ALTMAN: I have thought about that. I mean, it feels a little strange to do that as a private company. But I get the reasons. And we’re not anywhere close to a decision to do that, but I’m not opposed to it either. I don’t know what all of the legal complexities would be there, but I assume we could do it in some way. And I think it might help contextualize why we do some of the things that we do. And, unfortunately, a lot of what we share with investors manages to leak out anyway. So we might.
FABER: All right. Well, if you choose to, feel free to join us to do it.
ALTMAN: I will give you a call.
FABER: Yes, I appreciate it. Bob Iger, Sam Altman, thank you both for taking the time today. Very much appreciate it.
IGER: Thanks, David.
ALTMAN: Thank you.