Oil prices, PepsiCo earnings, SpaceX’s rough ride and more in Morning Squawk

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Happy Thursday. We’re releasing our exclusive America’s Top States for Business study this morning. Fun fact: It’s the 20th year of the study.

S&P 500 futures are higher this morning after another losing day for the index.

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

President Donald Trump’s comments about the war with Iran continue to put markets on edge. Trump said yesterday that he was “not sure” if he wanted to make a deal with Tehran, hours before the U.S. launched another round of strikes.

Here’s what to know:

• U.S. Central Command said Wednesday’s round of strikes hit roughly 90 Iranian military targets.
• Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One overnight, Trump said Tehran called to make a deal following the strikes.
• The president appeared to downplay Iran’s nuclear threat yesterday and said U.S. troops would not be needed on the ground.
• Oil prices popped after the resumption of strikes and are higher again this morning.
• Energy prices were a topic of discussion at the Federal Reserve’s June meeting, according to minutes released yesterday which showed officials were divided on the path for interest rates.
• Blue-chip stocks took a particularly large hit in yesterday’s session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping more than 1%. But the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite was able to buck the downtrend as traders bet recently volatility around memory stocks didn’t signal fundamental trouble.
• Follow live market updates here.

OpenAI said it will publicly release the GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna models today.

As CNBC’s Ashley Capoot writes, the announcement comes two weeks after the startup limited the rollout at the U.S. government’s request. The company previously allowed only a select group or organizations whose participation was known to the government to access to the ChatGPT-5.6 series models.

Don’t miss OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” at 10 a.m. ET. Watch live on CNBC or CNBC+.

Shares of Levi Strauss are more than 4% lower before the bell despite better-than-expected results for the company’s second quarter yesterday. The denim maker also hiked its guidance and dividend.

CEO Michelle Gass told CNBC that Levi’s demand remains “healthy” and that key consumer segments are showing “strength.” About two-thirds of the quarter’s sales growth was attributable to units rather than just higher prices, she said.

Elsewhere on the earnings front: PepsiCo reported mixed quarterly results this morning as penny pitching continues to weigh on its North American business. The company said international demand helped to offset some of its struggles. Don’t miss CEO Ramon Laguarta on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” at 9:30 a.m. ET.

A New York federal appeals court last night denied Trump’s bid to prevent E. Jean Carroll from receiving more than $5 million tied to a jury verdict that held the president civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.

Hours earlier, a federal judge in the state granted Carroll’s request to receive the $5 million plus interest. Trump’s lawyers had encouraged Judge Lewis Kaplan to not disperse the nearly $5.8 million from funds Trump deposited with the court, but Kaplan cited language in the parties’ agreement calling for the money to be given to Carroll if the Supreme Court denies Trump’s appeal request, which it did last week.

Meanwhile, Trump announced yesterday that he is making a long-shot push for the Supreme Court to rehear his controversial birthright citizenship case. He also lost an appeals court bid to put his name back on the Kennedy Center.

SpaceX again closed yesterday’s trading session below its debut trading price. As CNBC’s Lora Kolodny notes, it’s the stock’s second rough day in a row after its entrance into the Nasdaq-100.

The slide comes despite a salvo of bullish calls from Wall Street analysts at banks like Morgan Stanley and UBS following SpaceX’s inclusion in the index. But a small minority of firms took less enthusiastic stances.

Still, some analysts are betting that SpaceX will be able to build data centers in space. Companies such as Broadcom, AMD and Nvidia are all currently involved in the orbital data center space race.

CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported yesterday about Blue Origin’s first outside funding round. Here are the big numbers, according to people familiar with the matter:

• Approximate amount being raised: $10 billion
• New valuation for company after raise: $130 billion

— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger, Chloe Taylor, Spencer Kimball, Lee Ying Shan, Jeff Cox, Sean Conlon, Tobias Burns, Ashley Capoot, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Amelia Lucas, Dan Mangan, Lora Kolodny and Deena Zaidi contributed to this report.

Luke Fountain assisted in the production of this newsletter. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.