Crypto News: Deep look

Good morning. US officials question whether DeepSeek dodged chip restrictions. Mexico and Canada brace for Donald Trump's much-hyped tariffs. And you may want to stock up on avocados. Listen to the day's top stories.

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US officials are probing whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek dodged US export curbs on advanced Nvidia chips by buying them through third parties in Singapore, people familiar said. The performance of DeepSeek's recently released R1 chatbot, which suggests that China is further ahead in the AI race than previously believed, has prompted rivals to speculate whether it was built on the back of Western technology. Either way, the latest Bloomberg Markets Live survey found that investors see limited scope for it to dent the performance of the US's Magnificent Seven tech stocks.

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Donald Trump is poised to unleash his first wave of tariffs tomorrow, with Canada and Mexico in the crosshairs. They make unlikely targets, being the two biggest buyers of US goods, but his pledge had commodities markets on edge, prompting traders to buy gold as a haven. Speaking of geopolitical spats, top diplomat Marco Rubio said Trump's proposal to buy Greenland "is not a joke" because of the risk that China would use it to station resources that threaten American security.

Investigators recovered the black boxes of the American Airlines regional jet that collided with a military helicopter in Washington on Wednesday evening. As speculation about the cause of the crash swirled, an Army official told reporters that the Black Hawk helicopter was manned by an experienced three-person crew conducting a routine training flight over familiar territory, which may add to the renewed scrutiny of Washington's congested airspace.

American Air Plane Black Boxes Recovered: What We Know

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The parents of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried are looking at ways to secure a pardon for the onetime crypto billionaire, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Stanford Law School professors have been holding meetings with figures considered to be in Donald Trump's orbit about clemency for their 32-year-old son, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud. They may have been encouraged by the president's swift use of his pardon power for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

Leaders in Eastern Europe are breaking with EU and NATO consensus and offering Russian President Vladimir Putin convenient allies at a critical time. The nationalist lurch in Slovakia, Austria and Croatia throws into question support for Kyiv just as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is on the back foot following Trump's return to the White House.

In Corporate News

'Mario Kart' May Help Nintendo Rally Outlast Flight From AI Tech

Apple Forecast Cheers Investors After Mixed Holiday Results

Samsung's Chip Division Underwhelms in Costly AI Memory Race

Deep Dive: The Avocado Trade War

Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg

Americans' love of guacamole is about to be put to the test with Trump's plan to slap tariffs on the US's southern neighbor.

Mexico supplies upwards of 90% of the avocados Americans eat, and new levies on their import will make them more expensive. Prices are already up 14% from a year ago, according to researcher NielsenIQ. Super Bowl Sunday—by far the biggest day of the year for eating avocados in the US—is set to be a particularly sore spot.
Exacerbating the situation is that a drought in Mexico shrank the recent harvest and reduced the average size of the crop, meaning there are fewer of the large avocados that Americans prefer.

The Big Take

Deferred stock bonuses are one of Wall Street's favorite forms of compensation. The recipient is awarded shares, but can't cash them in until a later date—making it a gamble on the future value of the stock that works out better for some than others. Bloomberg analysis shows a $100,000 award at Goldman Sachs in 2022 would be worth $113,000 today, but the same at Bank of America would net less than $83,000.

Big Take Podcast

The Fight Over Uranium in the Navajo Nation

Opinion

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Apple described its latest results as its "best quarter ever," but that's only true if you stop reading near the top of the press release, Dave Lee writes. Overall revenue may have reached record levels, but big questions lurk about large parts of the iPhone maker's business.

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Before You Go

Joan Jett performs with Pat Smear, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana. Photographer: Chris Pizzello/AP Photo

A Nirvana reunion—fronted by St. Vincent, Kim Gordon and Joan Jett in the place of the late Kurt Cobain—was among the surprises at last night's FireAid benefit concert in Los Angeles. Green Day kicked off the show, which included sets by Joni Mitchell, Dr. Dre, the recently reunited No Doubt and Billie Eilish, and had raised more than $60 million for victims of the wildfires before it even started.

A Few More