Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig vpi-corp.com. NS
Answer
vpi-corp.com. 5 NS ns73.domaincontrol.com.
vpi-corp.com. 5 NS ns74.domaincontrol.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0