Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaking at the CNBC Invest In America Forum in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 15, 2025. Aaron Clamage | CNBC This is CNBC's Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox. Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day: 1. Tariff troubles 2. Lay off the layoffs People hold signs as they hold an "informational picket" over DOGE's reductions to the federal workforce outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building on March 19, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images A federal judge yesterday blocked Trump from firing federal workers during the government shutdown — at least for now. San Francisco U.S. District Court Judge Susan Yvonne Illston's temporary restraining order blocks the White House from taking any action to follow through with the layoffs and from firing other federal employees protected by the unions that filed the lawsuit. The ruling comes days after the Trump administration began sending out reduction-in-force notifications to more than 4,000 federal employees. Russell Vought, the White House's budget director, said yesterday that he expects more than 10,000 total cuts. There's still no end in sight for the shutdown, which is now on its 16th day. The Senate yesterday rejected stopgap funding bills for a ninth time. 3. On the move A United Airlines airplane is towed from a gate at Newark Liberty International Airport on August 10, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey. Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images United Airlines beat Wall Street's earnings expectations yesterday, but the carrier's stock slid in extended trading as investors focused on its weaker-than-expected revenue. United, which had a bumpy ride to start the year, forecast higher-than-expected earnings for the current quarter. We're also keeping an eye on Hewlett Packard Enterprise , whose shares tumbled more than 9% in today's premarket after the company gave a weak outlook for its 2026 fiscal year. On the other hand, Salesforce gained more than 5% on the heels of its upbeat forecast for 2030. 4. Rollouts and rebuttals Supercharged by the powerful M5 chip, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro delivers even more performance and takes the next big leap in AI for the Mac. Courtesy: Apple Inc. Apple unveiled new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro models yesterday, the latest releases after it revealed its new iPhone 17 and watch models last month. The new products all feature Apple's updated M5 chip, which the company says has four times the peak compute performance of its predecessor. On the software front, artificial intelligence startup Anthropic launched a smaller and cheaper AI model for all users, named Claude Haiku 4.5. Its competitor OpenAI, meanwhile, is facing criticism for its decision to allow content such as erotica on ChatGPT. CEO Sam Altman defended the move, saying yesterday that OpenAI is "not the elected moral police of the world." Get Morning Squawk directly in your inbox CNBC's Morning Squawk recaps the biggest stories investors should know before the stock market opens, every weekday morning. Subscribe here to get access today. 5. The road ahead A Tesla Model 3 at the company's store in Vallejo, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Legacy automakers are sounding the alarm on the electric vehicle business, but Tesla is staying largely quiet. While Tesla is the clear leader in the U.S. EV market, the company has given up market share amid rising competition and sliding brand value, CNBC's Lora Kolodny reports. The broader EV industry is also no longer benefitting from now-expired $7,500 tax credits that helped rev up consumer interest. With its quarterly earnings report due in next week, Wall Street is eager to see if Tesla — or its famously opinionated CEO Elon Musk — will report similar challenges as its competitors. The Daily Dividend With what feels like a new billion-dollar tech deal every day, it's hard to keep track of who's paying who for what. Here's the $1 trillion web of artificial intelligence deals, visualized. watch now