DeepSeek Upends AI Industry; Trump Vows 'Much Bigger' Tariffs

Published Jan 28, 2025, 10:46 AM

On today's podcast:

1) DeepSeek Shows China Playbook to Deal an Even Bigger Shock to US

2) World’s Richest People Lose $108 Billion After DeepSeek Selloff

3) Trump Vows Tariffs ‘Much Bigger’ Than 2.5% and on Key Areas

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today.

Karen, we begin with the Chinese artificial intelligence startup that royal the global markets and led to the biggest one day individual stock sell off in history. For the latest on Deep Seek, let's bring in Bloomberg's John Tucker.

John Nathan, the Deep Seek frenzy e raised five hundred and eighty nine billion dollars from Invidious market cap, the largest route in market history. The stock plunge seventeen percent. The techa A Nastak tumbled nearly three percent. Jordan Klin is managing director at Mazouoho Securities.

It's a beginning of probably a consolidation phase and some profit taking.

For sure.

Deep Seek is sparking fear over US tech dominance. Aaron Kennon of Clear Harbor Asset Management sees it this way.

We're seeing what I would call sort of the gradual commoditizing of artificial intelligence.

Deep Seek's low cost approach has reignited concerns that big US companies have poured too much money into developing artificial intelligence and Victoria Fernandez of Crossmarked Global Investment weigh in.

Obviously, the tech game can turn on a dime.

We've seen it over the last twenty four hours. I do think that the US is probably still a little bit of head.

Deep Seek even drew praise from Nvidia. In Vidia set in a statement that deep Sex model is an excellent AI advancement, and deep See's progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have found a way to work around US semiconductor export bands, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources. The latest AI model of deep Seek, it's called Uri, is now at the top of Apple's App Store rankings, and being in the spotlight all of a sudden also does bring problems. The companies had to limit signups due to large scale malicious attacks on its services, and even this morning the company reports degraded performance. In this morning, Nathan and Karen in videos shares we should point out they're up five percent.

All right, John, thank you well. The Deepseak sell off on Wall Street also hit the world's elite, and we get that story with Bloomberg's Gino Cervetti.

The world's five hundred richest people lost to combined one hundred eight billion on Monday. Billionaires whose fortunes are linked to artificial intelligence were the biggest losers, and Vidio's CEO Jensen Wang saw his fortune fall more than twenty billion dollars, or a twenty percent drop. Oracle co founder Larry Ellison's twenty two point six billion dollar loss was larger in absolute terms, but represented twelve percent of his fortune. Dell's Michael Dell lost at thirteen billion. Soaring valuations for so called AI hyperscalers including Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft have generated billions in wealth for their owners since open Ai unveiled chat GPT in November of twenty twenty two. These companies have spent huge sums to develop and run AI systems by hoarding top of the line semiconductors and the energy supplies needed to run them. Gina Cervetti Bloomberg Radio.

All right, Gina, thank you.

One of deep Seek's biggest competitors in the US could be open Ai, and in a post on x the company CEO Sam Aldman said deep seeks are one is an impressive model. He added quote we will obviously deliver much better models, and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor end quote. Meanwhile, we caught up with tech investor Cathy Wood to get her reaction about Deep Seek.

I think what it's telling us is the cost of innovation is collapsing, which it has been doing. I mean, the cost of AI training is dropping before this seventy five percent per year, the cost for inference eighty five to ninety percent. I think it throws the weight more towards inference chips from training chips, and so in Vidia's highly exalted and deservedly so in the training chip space.

Our Investments CEO Kathy Would made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this morning in London.

On Nathan.

President Trump also weighing in on deep Seek.

The release of Deepseek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win because we have the greatest scientists in the world.

And Trump also sees deep Seek's apparent breakthrough as good because quote, you don't have to spend as much money.

Thank care.

And the President's also weighing in on the future of another Chinese company, TikTok, he told reporters on air Force one that Microsoft is in talks to acquire the hugely popular app.

I think somebody's going to buy it, pay a lot of money, have a lot of jobs, keep a platform.

Open, and having to be very secure.

If I don't sign that, it closes.

Following the President's comments, Microsoft declined to comment on the company's involvement in any possible deal Well Nathan.

President Trump is also laying out more details on his tariff plans. At a speech to House Republicans at his direlt golf club, the President said he plans to impose duties on computer chips, pharmaceuticals, and metals to encourage foreign production in the US.

We want them to come back, and we don't want to give them billions of dollars, like this ridiculous program that Biden has give everybody billions of dollars. They already have billions of dollars. They've got nothing but money.

Joe.

Later, the President told reporters he wants to enact across the board tariffs that are quote much bigger than two and a half percent. Trump was responding to a Financial Times report that is newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Besant supports starting with a global two and a half percent tariff rate, then raising it by the same amount each month and Karen.

President Trump also says he hopes House Republicans will pass legislation to complete the border wall and step up deportation efforts, while also extending his twenty seventeen tax cuts and boosting oil and gas production. But the President's leaving the details up to them.

Whether it's one bill, two bills, I don't care. Let these guys are going to work it out. They're going to work it out one way or the other. But the bottom line, the result is going to be the same. We want to have all of those benefits, and we want to keep people's taxes low and actually make them lower.

Following President Trump's speech, one GOP lawmaker called it not helpful that the President wouldn't be more specific. House Speaker Mike Johnson says lawmakers will spend much of their two day retreat behind closed doors to come up with a strategy.

Well. Nathan returned now to the latest developments in the Middle East. To Bloomberg News has learned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin nettan Yahoo, is planning to visit Washington next week to meet with President Trump. The sit down would come at a critical time, just weeks until the end of the first phase of the pause in fighting in Gaza. Skeptics have questioned whether the deal will hold through its second phase, which could ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war in Gaza. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Michael, Good Morning, Good morning, Karen.

After rain extinguished the last of the big Palisades fire in Los Angeles, the city is now allowing everybody to go back in to see what remains of their homes for the first time since the Palisades fire started in days after President Trump visited, Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass announced all evacuees can return.

Today is really about focusing on the recovery and getting people back home.

This woman says some residents advised there not to go back because there's nothing left.

It's a lot to lose everything that you've collected. I think over the last you know, your adult life and even your childhood.

The neighborhoods are only open to residents from six am to six pm because there is no power and some areas require a police escort to get in. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff have been ordered to cut off all communications with the World Health Organization. This comes following an executive order from President Trump last week. A CDC's deputy director sent the directive in an email, which which also said CDC staff to sign to work for the who are also being told not to come into the office. Peter Mayberduke is Access to Medicine's director at Public Citizen.

It's sometimes underappreciated how deeply the United States is involved in scientific collaboration internationally. There are more than seventy who collaborating centers in the United States. The United States pulls out, our new political competitors are waiting to fill that gap.

Maybordew Can Other experts say the sudden stoppage is a surprise and will set back work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of certain viruses in Africa. The MTA next month will begin releasing monthly review collection figures from New York City's new congestion pricing toll as. The transit agency plans to borrow five hundred million dollars of short term debt that the tolling program will ultimately repay. ZIPATL, the MTA's deputy Chief Financial officers said the authority will release at its Finance Committee meeting that it is so much collected so far in pricing revenue that the agency collected in January. New York City's congestion pricing program is the first in the nation in charges most motorist nine dollars when they interparts in Manhattan Global News twenty four hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now, Michael Barn, this is Bloomberg, Karen.

Sorry, Malcolm Barr, thank you.

Time now for the Bloomberg Sports Update brought to you if I try stayed out. Eagre's John stash Hour, John good Nortek.

Good morning, Karen. If you score one hundred and forty three points in an NBA game, you're going to win the next did that Saturday. It was the most points they had scored in a non overtime game in forty five years. Two nights later, again at the Garden, they scored one hundred and forty three points, again beat Memphis by thirty seven, seven nicks and double figures. Michael Bridges the high mand with twenty eight nixt rolling four straight wins sixteen to the last twenty two, and the Celtics lost at home to Houston. Amen Thompson thirty three points for the Rockets at a game when he shot out the buzzer niterion, only a game behind Boston first second place in the East. Cleveland's in first cans for thirty seven and nine. They beat Detroit. The Nets lost at Barkleys to Sacramento one ten to ninety six for Brooklyn. That's seven losses in a row, twelve the last thirteen. Miami won in double overtime without Jimmy Butler, suspended for a third time. He walked out of practice after learning he wasn't going to start the game. Certainly appears Butler's gonna get traded before the deadline. Devils lost four to at Philadelphia. Nothing like overtime in indoor partially simulated golf Tiger Woods. His team beat Rory McElroy's team in TGL. Aaron Glenn introduced as the new coach of the Jets. Here was his message to his team to any players.

That's here.

Now put your seatbelts on and get ready for the ride.

Put your seatbelt zone and get ready for the ride.

Listen.

There are going to be some challenges, but what challenges this becomes opportunity gets opportunity.

But here's what I do know. We're the freaking New York jit so.

Who haven't made the playoffs in fifteen years. Gland was vague when asked about whether Aaron Rodgers will return. John stashiell Er Bloomberg Sports, Kearny Meek.

Coast to Coast on Bloomberg Radio nationwide on Serious Exam and.

Around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the Bloomberg Business app.

This is Bloomberg Daybreak.

Good morning.

I'm Nathan Hager. It was the biggest single day drop for one American company and it is thanks to an AI startup in China. Nvidia plunged seventeen percent yesterday, wiping away five hundred and eighty nine billion dollars in market value on concern about deep seek and it's in competitive AI model with less advanced chips for more. Ark Investment Management CEO Kathy Wood joined Bloomberg Stephen, Carol and Lizzie burden in our London bureau. Let's listen to that conversation.

Now, big question, you buying the dip.

Well, we're fully invested and we're very comfortable being fully invaded.

I think our confidence in the.

Bull market broadening out has increased in the last few days. So sure the megacaps we think will continue to do well. Maybe in Vidia there are some questions about its exalted position.

In the training chip market.

We think inference is going to become more important with these new reasoning models, and that is a more competitive part of the market.

But we think that what's happening here is the.

Collapse in the cost of innovation.

Deep seek is adding to it. It has been happening though.

AI training costs have been dropping, led by Nvidia seventy five percent per year, and AI inference costs have been dropping eighty five to ninety percent per year. Deep seek is just putting those very rapid declines into.

A bit of overdrive here.

So I wonder, if you see in Vidia falling much further, is this an attractive price to be buying it?

Do you think?

Well, we own it in some of our portfolios. We are not buying the dip yet.

We do want to learn more about deep seek and more about how the market or the demand for inference chips might outpace those for training chips. We think the whole area is going to be vibrant. We just think there might be a little bit more of an adjustment to this new reality.

Where you say that what deep seek shows is kind of that you can do more with less kap X. Who do you think that's going to motivate in the US most as Donald Trump is kind of saying, who's going to be best.

At doing more with less?

Well, anyone using AI. We are focused on the productivity gains for knowledge workers, which are going to be mass that's the biggest impact of AI. But if we're looking at sectors and spaces generally where this acceleration and innovation is going to be meaningful, we think autonomous mobility, so robotaxis. We think that's going to scale from essentially nothing now to an eight to ten trillion dollar global opportunity including China. But the sleeper here is healthcare, and we're seeing the convergence of sequencing technologies, all kinds of sequencing technologies, artificial intelligence, and then gene editing technologies like Crisper cast nine.

That combination we believe is going to cure disease.

It's already curing disease, sickle cell disease and beta thlocemia. That's Chrisper therapeutics. But we think they're aiming now for type one and type two diabetes. That would be a category killer, you know, So think about that curing disease, AI helping us decode the secrets of life, death health.

Those are two areas where regulation plays a big part. You've spoken about your optimism about deregulation under Donald Trump. Do you think those are two areas we should expect to see big deregulation about what technology can get involved in.

Yes, I think in both safety first and I think anyone moving into this market or these markets would agree with that. So sensible regulation. But in the US, the robotaxi field is regulated by fifty states. We think that will change to one regulator, the federal government. After all, transportation does cross states, so that makes sense. In the healthcare realm, that is where the thicket of regulations has really strangled the industry. And even more than the outright regulations, it was the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission not allowing mergers and acquisitions and therefore not allowing strategic buyers, big biotech companies, not allowing them to buy the smaller companies, so that we had price discovery. Now we're going to see price discovery. How much are these companies that are curing disease worth to these large strategic buyers now and saying that I don't necessarily want our companies to be taken out. We think they have miles to go, but we do want price discovery back in the market.

Where you talk about your excitement about autonomous vehicles. Of course your biggest holding is Tesla, I think yes, And we've callt elon Musk's first earnings call tomorrow since Trump's returned to the White House January.

Typically a call that's a look ahead. What do you need to hear from Mosque?

We need to hear a continuation of we're about to launch our autonomous driving system. I mean, in effect, they've launched it. I have a full self driving I know it's not allowed here in the UK or in Europe. But the improvements you feel safe, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, way more really has broken through a lot of barriers. I feel even though a Waymo vehicle is not safer than a human driven vehicle, it.

Knows its roads.

It's narrow roads, meaning there are narrow territories.

I think Tesla is going to go national. That's going to be and we'll.

Be able to do so because it has effectively seven.

Million robots roaming the roads.

Right now, I have two of them, a Y and A three, and they're learning all about Connecticut and Florida worlddes So it has a huge competitive advantage in terms of proprietary data that nobody else has about the roads, not only in the US, but in many places around the world.

Do you worry that Elon Musk is taking on too much? If he's got his new job in the US government, he's got sharp developments coming in Tesla, lots going on with US other businesses as well. Is he spreading himself too thin?

If you look at the way Elon Musk behaves as a CEO, he's a sharpshooter.

He looks for pain points and he solves those right.

And he's for example, right now, where was in twenty eighteen, where was the biggest pain point? It was manufacturing the Model three, Scaling the Model three. He slept famously on the factory floor. He's not doing that anymore. He's not on the factory floor now, it's all about autonomous. He is the first what we would call CEO who really understands the convergence among technologies taking place right now, really catalyzed by artificial intelligence each one of his businesses. And he also understands how critically important proprietary data is. And think about this, Each of those companies is generating proprietary data that no one else has.

Well, maybe you should out to his plate. Should he buy us TikTok Ah?

Yes?

I mean, I know there have been rumors about that and about the government.

Sharing half, and that's kind.

Of anathema to the United States, you know, the government getting involved like this.

I'd be surprised if that happens.

But I will also say the Trump administration is full of surprises.

It certainly is, and we're only a weekend to it. You're here with us in London and we're delighted to see you.

What has you in London?

What opportunities are you excited about when you come to the UK? Is this a good place to put your money?

Well, we have launched three funds. Our Europe has launched three funds here.

One is our.

Flagship that is focused on all five innovation platforms, so robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, multiomic sequencing and blockchain technology. So that's the flagship AARKK a special one for Europe which we do not have in the US because of overlaps with other funds, but we have an AI and robotics fund and that is ARKI. We think this convergence of robotics and AI is going to lead to humanoid robots and not just millions of them, but perhaps billions of them longer term, which is going to be a key productivity driver in both the home right now, we're not paid for house cleaning, Let's get a robot. Let's pay a robot to do it. And in the manufacturing plants around the world.

Kathy, the Prime Minister was in the building earlier. Kris Starmer, you're exactly the sort of person that he wants to meet because he wants investments going into those sorts of businesses in this country. Have you spoken to him, what sort of device would you be giving him if he's trying to grow the economy.

Well, half the solution is understanding the problem and just making that statement suggests to me that he's saying, why hasn't this happened? And I also over the weekend heard one of the finance ministers, or maybe the Finance Minister say the same thing. This is a mantra, and I think it has been catalyzed by artificial intelligence as well.

If you think about the UK, you produced two.

Of the most important AI companies in the world, Deep Mind, which Alphabet now owns, an arm which off Bank primarily owns.

By all rights, you should.

Be developing a deep venture capital pool here, feeding startups and nourishing them and deepening your listed equity markets. And so I think that's what they're going to do, which is fantastic. It's fantastic for the UK.

Absolutely, they taught very ambitiously the UK leadership, but so too do the European government's leadership, and Donald Trump, as you say, is very passionate about deregulation. So yes, everybody's on the same page, but it is a race. Is the UK keeping up enough with the EU and the US when it comes to deregulation for you to be really confident, Kathy putting your money here.

I think that.

Europe is more tied up in regulatory nuts than the UK is, and in fact, some of our companies Palenteer has been very vocal, for example, and we think that's one of the most important AI platform companies out there. Alex Krp, the CEO, has said, I am pulling employees out of Europe because you know, we're running into all of these obstacles that could really harm us. You know, being hit by a four percent fine four percent of revenue and that's global revenue or seven percent of revenue I heard recently.

That's crazy.

So I think Europe is going to be held back until it gets its regulatory act together. I think the UK is more more progressive from a regulatory point of view.

And as I said, I really believe that half the solution. The fact that your.

Prime Minister, your Finance Minister in the same week are saying, you know, we've got to figure this out. I think that's a very good thing for the UK.

This is Bloombergy Daybreak, your morning pond podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond.

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