Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig flex1.net. NS
Answer
flex1.net. 1 NS ns4.flex1.net.
flex1.net. 1 NS ns3.flex1.net.
flex1.net. 1 NS ns1.flex1.net.
flex1.net. 1 NS ns2.flex1.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.flex1.net. 1 A 165.140.122.2
ns2.flex1.net. 1 A 165.140.122.3
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0