
<p><strong>Feuding with Drake turned the ‘Not Like Us’ performer into hip-hop’s hottest artist. Now he will take music’s biggest stage in New Orleans—for free.</strong></p>



<p><strong><abbr>T</abbr>he effects of last summer’s rap feud</strong>&nbsp;between&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kendrick-lamar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kendrick Lamar</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/drake/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Drake</a>&nbsp;continue to reverberate through the music industry, and the careers of its two combatants. This month,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/01/15/drake-sues-universal-music-group-for-defamation-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us/">Drake made headlines for bringing a defamation lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against Universal Music Group for its role in the back-and-forth, while Lamar prepares for the biggest gig of his life—headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl LIX on February 9.</p>



<p>It’s hard to imagine how the 37-year-old Lamar, who for much of his career has been seen as a critical darling with a cult-like following, would have been chosen by halftime show executive producer Jay-Z and his Roc Nation for music’s biggest stage were it not for the beef and the series of diss tracks it produced. “Not Like Us,” Lamar’s anthemic takedown of hip-hop’s best-selling artist, hit more than a billion streams on Spotify in 2024 and spent a record-setting 21 consecutive weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs chart.</p>



<p>“The feud between him and Drake made him bigger; there’s no one that can sit here and argue that,” says Antwan “Amadeus” Thompson Sr., a multi-platinum music producer. “But [the Super Bowl] is going to catapult [Lamar’s] career to a whole other level. And I think it’s very important that artists take advantage of this because all eyes will be on him.&#8221;</p>



<p>The exposure given to halftime performers, playing in front of more than 80,000 fans inside New Orleans’ Superdome and more than 100 million across the country on TV, is why the Super Bowl is considered the most prestigious gig on the music calendar.</p>



<p>Every artist on the planet wants to take that stage, even if it means performing for free.</p>



<p>And that’s exactly what they’re asked to do. As has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2016/02/05/why-coldplay-and-beyonce-wont-be-paid-for-their-super-bowl-halftime-gig/">the custom for halftime headliners</a>&nbsp;for many years, Lamar won’t be paid for his 12-to-14-minute performance, other than the negligible union-mandated minimum. (Last year’s headliner, Usher, reportedly received $671.)</p>



<p>The NFL and halftime presenting sponsor Apple Music do cover the cost of the production, which in many years stretches to more than $10 million for sets that don’t last longer than 15 minutes. Some recent artists have chosen to pay millions more from their own pockets to maximize the Super Bowl spectacle.</p>



<p>The tradeoff is well worth it. After last year’s show, Usher reportedly received a 550% bump in overall Spotify streams, similar to what other performers have experienced in recent years.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/08/04/fentys-fortune-rihanna-is-now-officially-a-billionaire/">Rihanna</a>, the headliner in 2023, snuck in a plug for her&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2024/06/04/rihanna-launching-fenty-hair-billionaire-pop-star-expands-beauty-empire/">Fenty Beauty</a>&nbsp;brand during her set that was worth an estimated $44 million in earned media.</p>



<p>Like many halftime performers before him, Lamar will ride the Super Bowl bump into a 19-stop stadium tour across North America this summer alongside SZA, who has already been announced as a guest star for the halftime show. The pair have two songs together, “Luther” and “Gloria,” on Lamar’s new album,&nbsp;<em>GNX</em>, which he surprise-released in December. In addition, a movie produced by Lamar and&nbsp;<em>South Park</em>&nbsp;creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone is set to debut in July, distributed by Paramount.</p>



<p>It all represents a major step-up for Lamar, a member of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2017/11/14/kendrick-lamar-conscious-capitalist-the-30-under-30-cover-interview/">Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2014</a>&nbsp;who has won 17 Grammy Awards but never headlined stadium-sized shows before. His first taste came in 2022, when he was given a two-minute spot during Super Bowl LVI’s halftime performance led by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, seen as a passing of the torch in West Coast rap.</p>



<p>Because Lamar is so closely identified with his hometown of Los Angeles, being chosen for this year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2024/09/09/nicki-minaj-and-others-seemingly-call-out-jay-z-for-picking-kendrick-lamar-for-super-bowl-over-lil-wayne-what-to-know/">a curious choice</a>. Since Jay-Z took on his role producing the halftime show in 2019, headlining artists have gotten younger, more diverse and more closely associated with the game’s host city. The obvious geographical choice in this case would have been New Orleans native and multi-platinum artist Lil Wayne.</p>



<p>“If I was Jay-Z, I would’ve absolutely gone with Lil Wayne,” says Thompson. He still believes a special guest appearance in the show is possible, but unlikely, in part because of Wayne’s allegiances to Drake, whom Wayne first discovered and signed to his Young Money label in 2008.</p>



<p>Yet Thompson admits that Lamar is unquestionably “the hottest artist in hip-hop” right now, and in the wake of the devastation left by January’s wildfire in Los Angeles, his selection suddenly has greater significance. One of the things fans admire about Lamar is that he raps about and advocates for substantive issues, whether it’s mental health or uniting the gangs in Los Angeles. Lamar’s music has a level of meaning and depth that are rare to see from a stage as big as the Super Bowl.</p>



<p>“He’s been the one to take stands during difficult times and talk about things that a lot of artists wouldn’t touch on,” says Thompson.</p>



<p>Jasmine Young, who serves as director of the Warner Music/Blavatnik Music Center at Howard University and previously worked on marketing campaigns at Def Jam records, agrees that the Super Bowl will boost Lamar’s career but adds that the NFL also stands to benefit from his cultural resonance just as much as he will benefit from its massive global audience.</p>



<p>“Nowadays people use hip-hop to sell their brands,” says Young. “You really can’t sell your brand without hip-hop.”</p>



<p>It’s a sentiment that echoes Lamar’s own words when he was announced for this year’s show back in September. “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date,” Lamar said. “And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one.”</p>


Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show

Why Kendrick Lamar Won’t Get Paid For The Super Bowl Halftime Show


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>CBS, Nickelodeon and other channels owned by Paramount will soon go dark on YouTube TV, as negotiations continue for both companies after they failed to reach a contract renewal to distribute Paramount’s channels on the streaming service.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Facts</h2>



<p>YouTube&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/youtube-tv-and-paramount-programming-update/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;Wednesday that all Paramount content on the streaming service—including CBS, CBS Sports, MTV and Nickelodeon, among other channels—will become “unavailable” as early as Thursday.</p>



<p>Users will be offered an $8 credit if Paramount’s content is unavailable for an “extended period,” YouTube TV said.</p>



<p>Paramount—which launched a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.keepparamount.com/youtubetv/facts" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">separate website</a>&nbsp;for the dispute—claims YouTube TV is “attempting to pressure” the company toward “unfavorable and one-sided terms” in a new contract, alleging YouTube TV is “prioritizing their own interests over a fair agreement.”</p>



<p>Paramount said the company made a “series of offers” to YouTube TV, including an unspecified “comprehensive deal,” though YouTube TV says they are still “actively negotiating.”</p>



<p>Neither Paramount nor YouTube TV immediately responded to requests for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What Paramount Channels Will Be Affected?</h2>



<p>About 23 of Paramount’s networks would be pulled from YouTube TV, including CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, TV Land, Paramount Network, CMT, VH1 and BET, among others (Paramount has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.keepparamount.com/youtubetv/channels" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">list of affected channels</a>&nbsp;by ZIP code). CBS News affiliates will also go dark, Paramount said, including Atlanta’s WUPA, Boston’s WSBK, KTXA in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, New York’s WLNY, Philadelphia’s WPSG, Pittsburgh’s WPCW, Sacramento’s KMAX, San Francisco’s KPYX, Seattle’s KSTW and Tampa Bay’s WTOG. YouTube TV warned users subscribed to Paramount’s Paramount+, SHOWTIME and BET+ will also be unable to access content, including any recorded shows.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Big Number</h2>



<p>More than 8 million. That’s how many subscribers YouTube TV had as of Feb. 6, 2024,&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/2024-letter-from-neal/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. That&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/2024-letter-from-neal/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;makes YouTube TV the largest internet-based pay-for-TV service in the U.S. ahead of DirecTV Stream and Fubo.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Background</h2>



<p>YouTube TV’s latest contract dispute follows the service&#8217;s latest price hike, after the company pushed the price tag for its basic package by $10 to $82.99 per month in January. Disney-owned channels went dark on YouTube TV in December 2021, after both companies failed to complete contract negotiations before a deadline. The channels—ABC, ESPN and National Geographic, among others—went dark for about three days before YouTube TV and Disney reached an agreement, which included YouTube TV&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/19/media/youtube-tv-disney-deal-reach-deal/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">lowering</a>&nbsp;its monthly subscription rate. NBCUniversal had a&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/nbcu-youtube-tv-reach-deal-1235079414/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">similar dispute</a>&nbsp;with YouTube TV in October 2021, briefly threatening a blackout of NBC’s channels like NBC Sports and USA Network before the two companies reached an agreement before a deadline.</p>



<p></p>


Los Angeles Economy

Paramount Channels—CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV—Will Go Dark On YouTube TV: Here’s What To Know


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan announced on Thursday that they have ended discussions on a merger that would have created one of the largest automakers in the world after the two companies failed to reach an agreement on the structure of the deal.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Both companies&nbsp;<a href="https://global.honda/en/investors/library/filings/filings2025021304/main/0/link/CY2025_20250213_TSEfling_2_e_1.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">issued</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://global.nissannews.com/en/releases/250213-00-e" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statements</a>&nbsp;announcing the termination of the talks and said the decision was made to “prioritize speed of decision-making and execution of business measures” in a market that is being shaken by electric vehicles.</p>



<p>The statements pointed to a key disagreement between the two automakers over Honda’s proposal to change the structure of the deal, which was first announced in December.</p>



<p>Instead of establishing a joint holding company, Honda’s changed proposal called for Nissan to become its subsidiary “through a share exchange.”</p>



<p>Despite calling off the merger, the companies said they still intend to collaborate under a strategic partnership “aimed at the era of intelligence and electrified vehicles,” which was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/IR/TSE/ASSETS/2024/PDF/20240315_tse_e.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">first announced</a>&nbsp;in March last year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-have-the-markets-reacted-to-the-merger-cancellation">How Have The Markets Reacted To The Merger Cancellation?</h2>



<p>The price of Honda Motors’ Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed shares rose 2.14% to $9.30 (¥1,434) on Thursday, while Nissan’s shares fell to $2.70 (¥415), down 0.35%.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-about-mitsubishi">What About Mitsubishi?</h2>



<p>Mitsubishi, in which Nissan is the largest shareholder with a 24% stake,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/newsroom/newsrelease/2024/20241223_1.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;in December that it had agreed with both Honda and Nissan to explore the possibility of participating or being involved in the merger. However, following Thursday’s announcement, Mitsubishi said it has also agreed to terminate its memorandum of understanding with the two companies “regarding the consideration of the structure for a tripartite collaboration.” However, like the other two automakers, Mitsubishi intends to collaborate under a EV and self-driving vehicle—focused “strategic partnership.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>The merger talks were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2024/12/17/honda-and-nissan-in-merger-talks-amid-efforts-to-boost-ev-offerings-report-says/%5C">first reported</a>&nbsp;in mid-December and confirmed by the two companies a week later.&nbsp;<a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Honda-and-Nissan-to-begin-merger-talks-amid-EV-competition" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">According to</a>&nbsp;Nikkei, increased pressure in the EV market from competitors like Tesla and Chinese carmakers like BYD has been a key driving force behind the deal. The merger talks, however, stagnated quickly as Honda expressed concerns about Nissan’s financial health. In the first half the ongoing financial year for Nissan, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/IR/FINANCIAL_RESULTS/ASSETS/DATA/2024/20242nd_presentation_423_e.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;a 94% drop in net income. When Nissan&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-06/nissan-searching-for-new-partner-with-honda-deal-set-to-collapse" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;failed to present a turnaround plan, Honda offered to alter the deal and acquire the company instead—a move Nissan strongly opposed.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2024/12/17/honda-and-nissan-in-merger-talks-amid-efforts-to-boost-ev-offerings-report-says/">Honda And Nissan In Merger Talks Amid Efforts To Boost EV Offerings, Report Says</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/12/18/nissan-shares-surge-23-after-report-of-merger-talks-with-honda/">Nissan Shares Surge 24% After Reports Of Merger Talks With Honda</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


Nissan, Honda Agree to Study EV, Intelligence Partnership

Honda And Nissan Call Off Merger Talks

Google apps 2018

Google Calendar Cuts Pride Month, Black History Month And More Observances—Here Are All The Companies Rolling Back DEI


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Billionaire and government efficiency czar Elon Musk said at a virtual summit last week, which was published online Saturday, that he’s not interested in buying TikTok, despite earlier reports suggesting China was interested in selling the app to the Tesla executive.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Musk spoke at the&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/QVbRG2J1Saw?feature=shared" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">WELT Economic Summit</a>&nbsp;on Jan. 28, a German conference held by the media conglomerate AxelSpringer, stating he has not placed a bid to buy the app and is “not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok.”</p>



<p>“I don’t have any plans for what would I do if I had TikTok,” Musk said, suggesting he could evaluate how harmful or productive the app’s algorithms are.</p>



<p>Musk compared acquiring TikTok to his purchase of Twitter, now called X, stating he felt the Twitter purchase was important because he wanted to “preserve freedom of speech,” but he said he’s not sure if that same logic applies to TikTok because the only reasons he sees for a potential acquisition would be economic.</p>



<p>Musk, however, has previously voiced opposition to a TikTok ban in&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1781387457193230338" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multiple</a>&nbsp;social media&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880975630646612254" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">posts</a>, calling it contrary to freedom of speech.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Did China Want Musk To Buy Tiktok?</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/china-discusses-sale-of-tiktok-us-to-musk-as-one-possible-option" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/china-officials-internally-discuss-option-of-tiktok-sale-to-musk-bac0a224" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;reported in January Chinese officials had discussed the possibility of selling TikTok to Musk to avoid a ban in the United States. China had discussed a potential sale to Musk as a way to work with the then-incoming Trump administration, and one idea floated included Musk’s X taking ownership of TikTok, Bloomberg reported. TikTok, however, denied these reports, with a spokesperson telling&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/tiktok-elon-musk-sale-china-pure-fiction-1236273557/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multiple</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://fortune.com/2025/01/14/elon-musk-buying-tiktok-pure-fiction/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">outlets</a>&nbsp;the idea of a Musk sale is “pure fiction.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What’s Going On With Tiktok—and When Could It Be Banned?</h2>



<p>The United States is still seeking to broker a deal with China that lets the app continue to be used in the United States ahead of the ban’s extension deadline in April. After TikTok&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/01/20/tiktok-ban-live-updates-trump-halts-ban-for-75-days-after-ceo-attends-inauguration/">briefly went dark</a>&nbsp;for more than 12 hours in January, the app returned with a message thanking Trump for his efforts—before he took office—because he had promised to extend the ban deadline. Trump signed an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/application-of-protecting-americans-from-foreign-adversary-controlled-applications-act-to-tiktok/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">executive order</a>&nbsp;on his first day in office extending the deadline for ByteDance to divest from the app by 75 days. Trump has since suggested the U.S. and China could jointly own TikTok, though he has also advocated for a “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-vance-tiktok-deal-0e3b8bc1" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">bidding war</a>.” Several parties have expressed interest in purchasing TikTok, including “Shark Tank” judge and investor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/kevin-oleary-says-he-will-love-to-do-a-tiktok-deal-but-law-prevents-its-acquisition.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Kevin O’Leary</a>, who said he put $20 billion “on the table” alongside billionaire and Project Liberty nonprofit founder Frank McCourt. YouTube’s most-followed star&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/business/mr-beast-buy-tiktok-ceo/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">MrBeast</a>, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has also expressed interest in buying TikTok as part of a group of investors led by Jesse Tinsley, founder and CEO of Employer.com. Trump has also claimed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/trump-says-microsoft-is-talks-acquire-tiktok-2025-01-28/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Microsoft</a>&nbsp;is in talks to purchase the app.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/26/these-billionaires-companies-and-investors-could-buy-tiktok-as-oracle-reportedly-weighs-deal-with-trump/">These Billionaires, Companies And Investors Could Buy TikTok—As Trump Eyes ‘Bidding War’ With Microsoft</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/01/14/heres-how-much-elon-musk-could-buy-tiktok-for-as-china-reportedly-eyes-deal/">Here’s How Much Elon Musk Could Buy TikTok For—As China Reportedly Eyes Deal</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 – Day Three

Elon Musk Says He Has No Plans To Buy TikTok


<p>On Wednesday morning, the X account of Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji posted a 10-second video of the bearded tycoon sitting in his home office with a piece of paper on which he had scribbled one word: $Tanzania. Dewji, who is CEO of the conglomerate METL Group and owner of a professional football team in Dar es Salaam, is a popular figure in Tanzania, with over 2.2 million followers on X (known previously as Twitter). His account posted several times on Wednesday morning promoting the token, including instructions on how to buy it.</p>



<p>But Dewji says he had no involvement in the project and that his X account has been hacked. The video purporting to be from Dewji is actually a deepfake: a video in which a person&#8217;s voice and body have been modified by AI to construct a false reality, typically for purposes of misinformation.</p>



<p>“my account has been hacked 😢,” Dewji wrote to&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>in a WhatsApp message on Wednesday afternoon at 1:18pm eastern time. Dewji adds that his team previously reported the hack to X and that he remains locked out of his account.</p>



<p>Even after several of his posts hawking $Tanzania were taken down, Dewji’s account continued to promote the scam. At 2:56pm eastern time, a&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/moodewji/status/1887228880143937595" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">post</a>&nbsp;promoting the cryptocurrency’s launch was shared. Then two minutes later, a second apparent deepfake&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/moodewji/status/1887229328951550180" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">posted</a>&nbsp;by Dewji’s account showed the tycoon in a new room, insisting that he hasn’t been hacked and holding up the same sheet of paper. “My name is Mohammed Dewji and I’m trying to verify myself. This is what you told me to write: Tanzania with the dollar sign,” the fake Dewji says. The post’s caption reads: “im not hacked i hope i can verify myself that way $tanzania will be out in 2H.” That video has received over 30,000 views as of 10:09pm eastern time Wednesday. Two additional deepfakes of Dewji promoting the token were posted at&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/moodewji/status/1887251542794764314" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">4:26pm</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/moodewji/status/1887254899819487476" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">4:40pm</a>&nbsp;eastern. All of these videos were still active as of 10:09pm eastern time Wednesday. The hackers also modified Dewji’s account settings so that other users could not respond to his posts.</p>



<p>People with knowledge of AI scams would have been suspicious of the Dewji videos, in which the tycoon appears stilted and robotic. (In the first video, Dewji bizarrely insisted, “I am real”). But deepfake technology has advanced so quickly that less tech savvy consumers may be easily fooled. Deepfake content led to fraud losses of over $12 billion in 2023,&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/financial-services-industry-predictions/2024/deepfake-banking-fraud-risk-on-the-rise.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according to&nbsp;</a>Deloitte.</p>



<p>The Dewji case appears to have been no exception. Over just a few hours, investors put $1.48 million into the $Tanzania token, which was listed on the Solana blockchain,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/lookonchain/status/1887170085070217383/photo/1" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to Lookonchain, a blockchain analytics account, earlier today. The scammers appear to be the same people who hacked the X account of former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro two weeks ago and made off with $1.3 million,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1887177675518640353" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according&nbsp;</a>to ZachXBT, a scam victim now tracks crypto fraud.</p>



<p>X has become fertile ground for crypto scammers since Elon Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and slashed content moderation efforts. Many successful deepfakes even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cloudsek.com/knowledge-base/elon-musk-deepfakes-are-fueling-crypto-scams-a-dangerous-trend" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">show a fake Elon Musk promoting cryptocurrencies</a>. The backers of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2023/11/29/a-crypto-token-pretending-to-be-backed-by-elon-musk-is-running-riot-on-x/">a fake ‘X Token’</a>&nbsp;also have used Musk’s image and name in effort to swindle unsuspecting X users.</p>



<p>“I guess i need to invest more on cybersecurity,” Dewji wrote to&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>when asked if had any further comment.</p>



<p>X has not responded to a request for comment.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p><em>Story updated at 10:14pm on Wednesday to reflect additional deepfakes posted to Dewji’s X account.</em></p>


Key Speakers on Day Two of The Qatar Economic Forum

African Billionaire’s X Account Hacked By Crypto Scammers


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Shares of Google parent Alphabet sank in after hours trading Tuesday after the search engine giant’s fourth-quarter earnings&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001652044/000165204425000010/goog-20250204.htm" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>&nbsp;revealed slightly weaker quarterly revenues than Wall Street anticipated and predicted much higher spending in 2025 than expected.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Alphabet stock declined 7% to $193 in afternoon trading by 4:35 p.m. EST, equating to a roughly $180 billion loss of market value.</p>



<p>The dive came after Alphabet reported mixed Q4 earnings: Its $2.15 adjusted earnings per share exceeded consensus analyst forecasts of $2.12, while its $96.5 billion in revenue fell just short of estimates of $96.7 billion.</p>



<p>Perhaps most pressing for investors was the company reporting worse-than-expected revenue in its artificial intelligence heavy Google Cloud unit, bringing in $11.96 billion compared to forecasts of $12.19 billion, and guiding for $75 billion in 2025 capital expenditures, far above estimates of $58.8 billion.</p>



<p>Alphabet shares had closed normal trading up 2.5% at a record share price of $207.71.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Big Number</h2>



<p>$72.46 billion. That’s how much advertising revenue Alphabet brought in during 2024’s final three months, easily topping forecasts of $71.66 billion and shattering Q3 2024’s prior record of $65.85 billion.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Background</h2>



<p>Alphabet is an ad company at its core, with ads accounting for 75% of sales last quarter, including $54 billion from Google and $10 billion from its YouTube video platform. Google is a part of the generative AI arms race with its Gemini chatbot, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/01/24/meta-will-spend-record-60-billion-on-ai-this-year-zuckerberg-says-after-trump-announces-stargate-deal-with-openai/">joins</a>&nbsp;fellow Silicon Valley generative AI player Meta in forecasting much higher 2025 spending than Wall Street expected.</p>


gettyimages-1173599543-594×594

Google Stock Falters As Earnings Report Reveals Weaker-Than-Expected Cloud Sales


<p>When it comes to losing money, Boeing is an overperformer — of historic proportion. On Tuesday, the beleaguered plane maker announced a net loss of $3.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2024. That makes for a stunning $11.8 billion loss for the year, the second largest in Boeing history.</p>



<p>The lousy news is partly due to the disruption of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2024/10/25/boeing-strike-pension/">seven-week strike</a>&nbsp;by Boeing’s machinists that halted production of the company’s bestselling plane, the 737 Max. It’s also a result of chronic delays and cost overruns on key programs in Boeing’s defense division. And then there are the company’s seemingly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2024/02/17/boeing-737-max-workers/">endless struggles</a>&nbsp;to straighten out production problems with the 737 Max and 787.</p>



<p>Boeing’s financial losing streak now stretches six years, starting with the grounding of the 737 Max in 2019 following two deadly crashes. Its total losses since that time: a staggering $35.7 billion.</p>



<p>Fourth-quarter earnings season isn’t done yet, but Boeing’s dismal 2024 results are almost certain to bolster the company’s lead as the biggest loser in the S&amp;P 500 index since 2019, according to data from FactSet. Uber, which was running a close second to Boeing through 2023, is expected to report a profit for 2024, while third-place Carnival posted net income of $1.9 billion for 2024, reducing its total losses over the past six years to $21 billion.</p>



<p>Looking back over the past quarter century, Boeing ranks sixth among the titans of red ink on the S&amp;P 500. The ignominious No. 1: American International Group. Adjusting for inflation to 2024 dollars to compare apples to apples, the insurer lost an eye-popping $162 billion in 2008 and 2009, as its balance sheet imploded under heavy exposure to the collapse of the housing market amid the Great Recession. That’s over four times Boeing’s total inflation-adjusted loss so far of $39.4 billion. In second place is General Motors, which hemorrhaged an eye-watering $130 billion from 2005 through 2008 in 2024 dollars. It filed for bankruptcy the next year, reorganizing with $33 billion in financing from the U.S. and Canadian governments.https://embedly.forbes.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fdatawrapper.dwcdn.net%2FRghvw%2F2%2F&amp;display_name=Datawrapper&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fdatawrapper.dwcdn.net%2FRghvw%2F2%2F&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fdatawrapper.dwcdn.net%2FRghvw%2Fplain-s.png%3Fv%3D2&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=dwcdn</p>



<p>Where Boeing does rank No. 1: It’s lost the most money among the select group of 27 S&amp;P 500 members that have losing streaks of at least six consecutive years since 1999. In distant second place is the former parent company of the Texas electricity supplier TXU, which lost an inflation-adjusted $28.8 billion from 2010 through 2015, driving it into bankruptcy.</p>



<p>But Boeing is far down the leaderboard of the longest streaks of red ink in the S&amp;P 500. The industrial parts and repair company DEX lost money for 18 years in a row before turning profitable in 2019. SBA Communications and LiveNation are tied for second with 17-year runs of red ink that are thankfully over.</p>



<p>Despite Boeing’s dismal run, institutional investors have been willing to shore up the company’s finances thanks to the company’s fat order book of 5,595 planes, which should convert into billions in revenue if new CEO Kelly Ortberg can get its production lines humming smoothly again. The company raised $24 billion late last year through a sale of stock and convertible debt.</p>



<p>But don’t bet on Boeing’s losing streak ending in 2025. CFO Brian West told analysts on the company’s third-quarter conference call he expected the company to record negative cash flow for the full year.<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/"></a></p>


Boeing Union Says Talks Halted On Pensions And Pay Demands

Boeing Is One Of The 21st Century’s Most Unprofitable Companies


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Artificial intelligence startup OpenAI is in early discussions for a funding round that could value it at a whopping $340 billion, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-in-talks-for-huge-investment-round-valuing-it-up-to-340-billion-2a2d4327?mod=breakingnews" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a>, which would more than double its valuation amid competitive threats from up-and-coming Chinese AI firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/01/30/heres-how-much-ai-firm-deepseek-and-its-billionaire-founder-liang-wenfeng-are-worth/">DeepSeek</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>OpenAI is in the early stages of raising up to $40 billion in a new funding round, the Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter who noted discussions are still in flux and could fall through.</p>



<p>The funding round would value OpenAI at $340 billion, more than doubling its latest valuation of $157 billion, which was secured after the company raised $6.6 billion in October.</p>



<p>The Journal previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/softbank-in-talks-to-invest-up-to-25-billion-in-openai-03d653fc?mod=article_inline" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;that Japanese investment firm SoftBank would spearhead the funding round and contribute somewhere between $15 billion and $25 billion.</p>



<p>OpenAI did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-does-openai-s-valuation-compare-to-its-competitors">How Does Openai’s Valuation Compare To Its Competitors?</h2>



<p>OpenAI was valued at $157 billion as of October while the Elon Musk-owned xAI secured a roughly $50 billion valuation last fall. Amazon-backed AI startup Anthropic was valued at $18 billion and is reportedly in talks for a fundraise that would raise its valuation to $60 billion. DeepSeek is worth at least $1 billion, according to analysts who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/01/30/heres-how-much-ai-firm-deepseek-and-its-billionaire-founder-liang-wenfeng-are-worth/">spoke to Forbes</a>, though it could be worth far more despite the fact it generates little revenue as of today. Although they are not explicitly AI companies, Microsoft and Meta earmarked $80 billion and $65 billion, respectively, for AI in their current fiscal years,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-meta-ceos-defend-hefty-ai-spending-after-deepseek-stuns-tech-world-2025-01-30/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Reuters</a>&nbsp;reported.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>OpenAI has the highest valuation among all U.S. AI startups and more than quadrupled its value from 2023 to 2024. The nonprofit company generated $300 million in monthly revenue in August, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/technology/openai-chatgpt-investors-funding.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, which noted OpenAI expected $3.7 billion in annual sales for 2024. OpenAI is also at the forefront of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/01/21/oracle-stock-surges-ahead-of-500-billion-stargate-openai-trump-deal/">Project Stargate</a>, a Trump-backed AI infrastructure initiative also involving Oracle and Nvidia. The project seeks to construct several AI data centers across the country and establish hundreds of thousands of American jobs. However, the large bursts of money and funding behind OpenAI and other AI startups were thrown into question this week as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/01/27/trump-calls-deepseek-a-positive-development-but-wake-up-call-for-us-industries/">DeepSeek</a>&nbsp;surged in popularity and claimed it developed one of its AI models at a much cheaper cost than American startups. The Chinese startup claimed it spent $5.6 million on graphics processing units to train a model, though experts like Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon have remained skeptical of the figure, saying it disregards “substantial” additional costs that put toward the model’s development.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/10/02/openai-valued-at-157-billion-after-closing-66-billion-funding-round/">OpenAI Valued At $157 Billion After Closing $6.6 Billion Funding Round</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/01/30/heres-how-much-ai-firm-deepseek-and-its-billionaire-founder-liang-wenfeng-are-worth/">Here’s How Much AI Firm DeepSeek And Its Founder Are Worth</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


AI Illustrations

OpenAI Eyeing Funding Round That Would Double Its Value, Report Says


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>The Food and Drug Administration approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ “Journavx” on Thursday, greenlighting the non-opioid painkiller for treating moderate to severe pain in what the FDA considered the start of a new class of non-addictive medicines.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>The FDA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-novel-non-opioid-treatment-moderate-severe-acute-pain" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">approved</a>&nbsp;Journavx for adults with moderate to severe pain after expediting the drug’s development and review.</p>



<p>The painkiller, which has a lofty list price of $15.50 per pill, blocks pain signals before they reach the brain, unlike opioids that reduce pain by latching receptors to the brain and create the risk of addiction.</p>



<p>Acute pain that can be treated by Journavx has been often treated with analgesics that might contain opioids, according to the FDA.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-side-effects-of-journavx">What Are Side Effects Of Journavx?</h2>



<p>Journavx’s commonly reported side effects include nausea, rash, itching, headache, constipation and muscle spasms.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">What To Watch For</h2>



<p>Vertex plans to conduct a late-stage study of Journavx that could potentially lead to the drug being approved for chronic pain, which the FDA defines as pain that “persists for more than three months or pain that lasts more than one month beyond the normal healing time.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">Big Number</h2>



<p>$1 billion. That is how much Wall Street analysts have estimated the painkiller could produce in annual sales.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>Journavx’s approval marks a significant development in coming up with alternatives to opioids, which has been sought as opioid use has resulted in a wave of drug addictions and overdoses among the American public. Deaths involving opioids totaled 80,816 in 2021, nearly 11,000 more than 2020, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/202205.htm" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>. In 2020, an estimated 2.7 million people above the age of 11 had an&nbsp;<a href="https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/medications-to-treat-opioid-addiction/overview#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20an%20estimated%202.7,a%20prescription%20opioid%20use%20disorder.&amp;text=Overdose%20deaths%20involving%20opioids%20have,to%2080%2C411%20deaths%20in%202021." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opioid use disorder</a>&nbsp;in the past 12 months, according to the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/nonopioid-painkiller-fda-vertex-pharmaceuticals-b1dd4276fce3d88ff32e3062e95f408f" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">FDA approves painkiller designed to eliminate the risk of addiction associated with opioids</a>&nbsp;(AP)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/vertex-pain-drug-data-lumbosacral-radiculopathy-lsr-stock/736055/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Vertex ‘ends the year in pain’ as latest non-opioid drug data disappoint</a>&nbsp;(BioPharma Dive)</p>


Overhead view of senior Asian woman feeling sick, taking medicines in hand with a glass of water at home. Elderly and healthcare concept

FDA Approves Non-Opioid Painkiller With No Addiction Risk


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Australian animated television series “Bluey” was the most streamed title in 2024, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2025/top-streaming-tv-trends-2024-artey-awards/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Nielsen</a>, garnering over 55 billion minutes of watch time amid a surge in overall TV entertainment streaming among Americans last year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>“Bluey” was the top overall streaming title in 2024 and had 55.6 billion minutes watched on Disney+, with 43% of its viewing total coming from children aged two to 11.</p>



<p>“Grey’s Anatomy” and “Family Guy” were the runner-ups behind “Bluey,” generating 47.85 billion minutes and 42.44 billion minutes viewed, respectively.</p>



<p>Netflix’s fictional period drama “Bridgerton,” which released eight new episodes in May and June, led the pack of most-streamed original series in 2024 with 21.42 billion viewing minutes and was followed by reality romance series “Love Is Blind” (16.45 billion viewing minutes).</p>



<p>“Fallout,” the Prime Video series based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, was the most-viewed new streaming drama series last year (11.95 billion minutes) and ranked fifth among 2024’s streaming originals.</p>



<p>“Moana” was the most-watched streaming movie for the second year in a row, generating 13.03 billion minutes to beat “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (11.72 billion minutes).</p>



<p>“American Nightmare,” a documentary based on the kidnapping story of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn, garnered 3.57 billion viewing minutes last year to become the most-viewed original, unscripted series in 2024.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">Surprising Fact</h2>



<p>While young children make up the core of the viewership of “Bluey,” the show gained a strong following of child-free adults in 2023, with viewers finding comfort in the show’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/02/08/bluey-adult-fandom-tiktok/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">simplicity</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/08/bluey-season-3-review/675020/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">narrative depth</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">Big Number</h2>



<p>12 trillion. That is how many minutes Americans spent streaming in 2024, according to Nielsen, which noted the figure equates to about 8.4 billion days or 23 million years. The figure marked a 10% increase from 2023.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>Streaming has become increasingly popular in the last five years. Streaming represented about 26% of Americans’ total time spent watching TV in May 2021, Nielsen reported, noting that number jumped to over 43% by Dec. 2024. The surge in streaming has managed to coincide with increasingly expensive streaming services that include Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video and others. Netflix is the most recent streaming service to announce a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/01/21/netflix-is-raising-its-prices---heres-what-to-know/">price hike</a>, revealing this month it will increase its ad-supported tier from $6.99 to $7.99, its standard tier from $15.49 to $17.99 and its premium tier from $22.99 to $24.99. Crackdowns on password sharing across multiple streaming platforms have contributed to subscriber growth for multiple platforms including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/08/20/netflix-stock-hits-record-high-first-since-2021-after-ads-password-crackdown/">Netflix</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2025/top-streaming-tv-trends-2024-artey-awards/#legacyaward" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Nielsen ARTEY Awards: 2024 Streaming Unwrapped</a>&nbsp;(Nielsen)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/07/05/netflix-streaming-twice-as-many-new-subscribers-first-half-2024-peacock-paramount-hbo-max/">This Streaming Service Has Scored Twice As Many New Users As Any Other In 2024</a> (Forbes)<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/"></a></p>


In this photo illustration, the video streaming apps Netflix

Here’s What Shows And Movies Dominated Streaming In 2024

#000000

MicroStrategy Isn’t Just A Giant Bitcoin Bet–It’s A Revolution In Corporate Finance


<p><strong>The seemingly overnight success of DeepSeek wiped billions of dollars from the fortunes of the world’s richest people—and catapulted the Chinese AI firm’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, into the three-comma-club.</strong></p>



<p><strong><abbr>On</abbr></strong> January 20, on the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, Chinese premier Li Qiang held a meeting with experts to consult on the Chinese government’s policies for the year ahead. It was a low-key event that got little attention outside of China. One of the few people to speak at the gathering was Liang Wenfeng, a bespectacled hedge fund founder and AI entrepreneur who was then little-known outside the country. That was also the day his firm DeepSeek launched its latest model, R1, and claimed it rivals OpenAI’s latest reasoning model.</p>



<p>Within a week, DeepSeek’s app had rocketed to the top of app stores in the United States, dethroning those of its competitors including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude and turning&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/01/28/deepseek-trump-silicon-valley/">Liang and his AI firm into household names.</a></p>



<p>The best-known AI startups in the U.S. are worth tens of billions of dollars—ranging from $50 billion for Elon Musk’s xAI to $157 billion for OpenAI—and have raised huge sums from the world’s most prominent investors, including Microsoft, Amazon and Silicon Valley’s top venture capital shops. Unlike its U.S. competitors, DeepSeek appears to have no external investors outside of Liang and his three cofounders. According to Chinese corporate records, Liang owns about 84% of the Hangzhou-based firm, which he founded in 2023 and financed with funds from High-Flyer Capital Management, the quantitative trading hedge fund he cofounded in 2015.</p>



<p>How much is Liang’s open-source AI model worth?&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;spoke to five analysts and investors who offered a range of potential valuations, but the three who provided a specific number agreed DeepSeek is worth at least $1 billion—and potentially far more, despite the fact that it doesn’t yet generate much revenue. Right now, DeepSeek has one paid product: developer access to its models. Its reasoning model costs $2.19 per million output tokens (on average 750,000 words), far less than OpenAI’s $60. That low price could simply be to undercut larger competitors OpenAI and Anthropic to capture market share, but&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;estimates that DeepSeek generates around $6 million in annualized revenue per million paying users, using estimates of a typical user’s token usage from investment firm D.A. Davidson.</p>



<p>Apply that to a revenue multiple of 65 (somewhere between that of Anthropic and Chinese open-source AI startup 01.AI, which raised outside capital in late 2023), and DeepSeek would need around 3 million paying users to reach a billion-dollar valuation. More than 3.6 million people downloaded DeepSeek’s app in its first two weeks, per&nbsp;<a href="https://appfigures.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Appfigures</a>&nbsp;data. William Blair partner and software analyst Arjun Bhatia thinks that less than 10% of that number are paying users—but also says the multiple should be applied to DeepSeek’s user count a year or two from now.</p>



<p>Regardless of DeepSeek’s exact revenue,&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>estimates it’s worth at least $1 billion—in part because state-of-the-art models like DeepSeek’s are often valued at their “blue-sky potential” rather than as a multiple of revenue, according to tech investor and Corpora.ai CEO Mel Morris. DeepSeek is arguably in the “top five AI labs in the world right now,” says D.A. Davidson analyst Alexander Platt, adding that it should be worth more to “account for the research horsepower there which isn’t necessarily monetizable.”</p>



<p>Bhatia says $1 billion “seems like a very low number” even after the “China discount” (due to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/01/29/its-the-new-tiktok-national-security-concerns-spike-over-chinas-deepseek/">geopolitical uncertainty since DeepSeek</a>&nbsp;is a Chinese company), while Morris pegs DeepSeek’s value at $10 billion. “There might even be an annoyance factor where someone might actually be prepared to pay that just to take them out of the picture,” he says.</p>



<p>There’s also the case of DeepSeek’s Chinese competitors—none of which seem to have achieved performance as good as DeepSeek’s, but all of which external investors have valued at $1 billion or more in various funding rounds. DeepSeek hasn’t raised VC funding in part because Liang believes VCs want to “exit and hope to commercialize products as soon as possible,” which didn’t align with DeepSeek’s research priorities, he told Chinese tech outlet&nbsp;<a href="https://36kr.com/p/2272896094586500" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">36Kr</a>&nbsp;in 2023.</p>



<p>On top of that, Liang also owns at least 76% of High-Flyer, which has $8 billion in assets according to financial data provider Preqin.&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;values High-Flyer at $240 million, with Liang’s stake worth about $180 million. (Chinese corporate records also show that he owns 85% of another High-Flyer entity that was first registered in 2015 and manages 65 of the firm’s 503 active funds, meaning his equity in the firm could be even higher.) Put it all together and Liang is likely worth at least $1 billion, making him the latest founder to mint a fortune from AI.</p>



<p>Not that he likely cares much. “An exciting thing cannot be measured purely by how much it is worth,” Liang told 36Kr, speaking of DeepSeek and adding how he’d been interested in testing the limits of computing power since 2012. “It’s like buying a piano for the home. On one hand, you can afford to buy it; on the other, it’s because there’s a group of people eager to make music with it.” Liang and his firm, which are likely closed due to Chinese New Year, did not yet return&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;requests for comment.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>Liang was born in 1985 and grew up in the port city of Zhanjiang in southern China. The son of a primary school teacher, he studied artificial intelligence at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and got a bachelor’s in electronic engineering in 2006 and a master’s in information and communication engineering four years later.</p>



<p>While he was still in graduate school, he started exploring how to fully automate trading on China’s domestic stock market. In 2013 he founded his first investment firm, Hangzhou Jacobi—named for German mathematician Carl Jacobi—with his college classmate Xu Jin. Two years later the pair cofounded High-Flyer with another classmate, and the trio used math and AI techniques to build a hedge fund.</p>



<p>At that point, Liang already had 100 graphics processing units—the high-tech chips that help train AI models—powering High-Flyer’s investment decisions. By 2019, High-Flyer had become one of the largest and best-performing quantitative trading firms in China, and Liang spent nearly $30 million expanding that footprint to 1,100 chips and building his own facilities to house them. He also doubled down on AI, setting up a separate company—Hangzhou High-Flyer AI—to research AI algorithms and their applications and expanded High-Flyer overseas, setting up a fund registered in Hong Kong. The firm has a similar structure to most hedge funds, charging 2% of assets in annual management fees and 20% of profits for its “enhanced funds” while charging a higher profit fee for investors in its quantitative hedging and Hong Kong-based funds.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>In 2021, as High-Flyer reached a peak of around $14 billion in assets under management—generating an estimated windfall of more than $200 million in management fees for the firm—Liang spent another $155 million to buy 10,000 of Nvidia’s A100 chips. In a 2021 pitch deck for High-Flyer viewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>, the firm revealed it spent 60% of its research funding on its AI lab. That investment came after one of High-Flyer’s best years in 2020, when one of the firm’s earliest and flagship funds—targeting the Chinese CSI 500 stock index—outperformed the index by 50%, posting an annual return of 71% thanks to its use of an AI-powered prediction model that forecast which stocks would perform better. A graph of the firm’s history in the deck showed an upwards-sloping line with a picture of a rocket next to the year 2020, noting that High-Flyer was “looking towards the future.”</p>



<p>But the funds’ performance started to decline in late 2021, partly due to its AI mistiming trades on the market. High-Flyer closed new subscriptions to its funds in November that year and an executive&nbsp;<a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzIyODEyNDYzMw==&amp;mid=2652893685&amp;idx=2&amp;sn=48fb607900a0cd0b92b9f77d13fbd896&amp;chksm=f3bde343c4ca6a55dcadefcd1e14a750c57be6abc0141e3e1cbb4f6621efbea0840b55146c52&amp;mpshare=1&amp;scene=1&amp;srcid=1228RDEIcbOkF7CpIhYTab5Y&amp;sharer_sharetime=1640735749412&amp;sharer_shareid=05f29d8d151ab4a2abdd858f51710915&amp;exportkey=AdyMXnj1zOaCX7ywVQTgWTw%3D&amp;pass_ticket=%2B6O04yXGbvxmVc2FZX6bnXZNOGdOTeNJnOiTSk5AmsxZnNMwtfQ0Tu9th7nfYFwq&amp;wx_header=0#rd" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">apologized</a>&nbsp;on social media for the poor returns a month later. The firm then put about $55 million of its own cash into its funds in January 2022, and by the end of the year it had recovered, with High-Flyer’s three main funds posting returns higher than 15% compared to a more than 20% loss for the broader market in 2022.</p>



<p>Then came DeepSeek. In April 2023 the firm announced in a post on its WeChat account—titled “High-Flyer’s New Journey”—that it had established a new firm named DeepSeek to build an artificial general intelligence (AGI) model. Liang funded DeepSeek himself, in part with High-Flyer proceeds, and enlisted his team of mostly new grads from top Chinese universities. Liang was driven by his curiosity to push the boundaries of what AI can do, and not necessarily profit, he&nbsp;<a href="https://36kr.com/p/2272896094586500" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told</a>&nbsp;36Kr in 2023.</p>



<p>Around that time, perhaps realizing DeepSeek’s potential and amid the Chinese government’s regulatory crackdown on quantitative trading, Liang started to scale down High-Flyer to focus on the new firm. In October 2023, a High-Flyer representative&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cls.cn/detail/1498506" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told Chinese financial outlet Cailianshe</a>&nbsp;that High-Flyer’s business would be divided into two units—artificial intelligence research and the hedge fund—which would be “managed by two parallel companies under the same controller,” a reference to Liang. High-Flyer also reduced its scale to about $6 billion in assets under management at the time.</p>



<p>Last year, as DeepSeek built out its models, High-Flyer adjusted its strategies and abandoned its market-neutral products, which pick both long and short positions on stocks, focusing only on long positions instead. The firm is still active—it invested $35 million of its own cash into its funds in February 2024 and its assets appear to have ticked up again—but its performance last year was middling. Out of 65 High-Flyer funds that report financials, 36 of them showed losses of up to 6% in value in 2024 while another 29 posted gains up to nearly 18%, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sohu.com/a/843673666_120702" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Chinese financial data firm Tonghuashun.</a></p>



<p>Now, all the attention is on DeepSeek. That’s largely thanks to its claims that it trained its V3 model, released in December, with far fewer resources than the much larger OpenAI—$6 million vs. $100 million for GPT-4—and with less sophisticated chips, though the GPT-4 number could include chip and personnel costs. (A few differences in the structure of DeepSeek’s model makes it smaller, and therefore cheaper, while losing minimal accuracy: akin to writing numbers with fewer decimal places, reading in whole phrases at a time instead of word-by-word, and creating a system that divides the model’s knowledge among “experts,” only a few of which need to be active at a time.) On top of that, it claims that its reasoning model R1, released in January, can rival OpenAI’s “o1” model on tasks like coding and solving complex math problems. Notably, unlike those of OpenAI, DeepSeek’s models are open-source, meaning anybody can access the code for free.</p>



<p>DeepSeek made “what was once thought to be such a capital intensive process much less capital intensive,” says William Blair’s Bhatia.</p>



<p>For now, DeepSeek’s valuation is a moving and yet-unproven target. It will depend on whether its models continue to be as efficient and advanced going forward and at scale. Plus, with users inputting information into DeepSeek’s models that is “more sensitive, from a national security standpoint, than anything that ever will appear on TikTok,” it’s unclear how much of the global market DeepSeek will be able to tap into, per Chris Franzek, who leads financial firm Stout’s valuation services. (One of DeepSeek’s Chinese competitors, Zhipu AI, was added to a U.S. Department of Commerce list of foreign companies considered to be a national security risk on January 16, subjecting it to export controls.) Also crucial is how aggressively Liang—who reportedly started DeepSeek without big plans for commercialization—decides to pursue plans for profits.</p>



<p>“What we are thinking now is that we can share most of our training results publicly, so that we can integrate it with commercialization,” Liang <a href="https://36kr.com/p/2272896094586500" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> in 2023. “We hope that more people, even a small app, can use the big model at a low cost, rather than having the technology be monopolized by a few people and companies.”</p>



<p>Giacomo Tognini is a Staff Writer on the Wealth team at Forbes, covering billionaires and their wealth. He joined Forbes in 2019 and lives in New York. He&#8217;s&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2022/03/05/a-guide-to-all-the-outrageous-mansions-and-estates-owned-by-sanctioned-russian-billionaires/">investigated the hidden offshore wealth of Russian oligarchs</a>,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2023/02/28/exclusive-new-investigation-reveals-gautam-adanis-older-brother-vinod-adani-as-key-player-in-adani-groups-biggest-deals/?sh=6b7b93a67dea">billions of dollars in assets held offshore by a member of the Adani family and the Adani Group</a>, and the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2023/06/14/binance-sec-cz-guangying-chen/?sh=42cbcf962a94">maze of corporate structures and secretive inner circle of crypto giant Binance.</a>&nbsp;His reporting has also led him to a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-connor/?sh=4c2cb3625d5b">Dayton, Ohio-based real estate investor with the best returns in the country</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2020/10/07/meet-the-new-billionaire-who-dropped-out-of-high-school-and-flies-fighter-jets-for-fun/?sh=794d14f114c2">a fighter-jet-flying payments entrepreneur in New Jersey.</a>&nbsp;Tognini&#8217;s work has been cited in U.S. Department of Justice seizure warrants, U.S. congressional letters and in Indian Supreme Court filings, and he was a part of the Russian Asset Tracker project that&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/russian-asset-tracker/">won the 2023 European Press Prize award.</a>&nbsp;Tognini graduated with a double major in political science and political economy from the University of California, Berkeley and a master&#8217;s in journalism from Columbia University. Follow Tognini for continued coverage of billionaires and investigations into offshore wealth. Send tips to gtognini@forbes.com or giacomo.na.tognini@proton.me.Read More</p>


Newly Launched Chinese AI App DeepSeek Causes U.S. Tech Stocks To Tumble, Amid Its Rapid Rise To #1 In Apple’s App Store

Here’s How Much AI Firm DeepSeek And Its Founder Are Worth


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received guidance to immediately stop working with the World Health Organization following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations agency—though the immediate stop to work surprised CDC staff, the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cdc-who-trump-548cf18b1c409c7d22e17311ccdfe1f6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Associated Press</a>&nbsp;and The Washington Post&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/27/trump-presidency-news/#link-PNY2UHHRDFBXFBRQW5IXX3ZW44" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Deputy Director for Global Health for the CDC John Nkengasong sent a memo to senior agency leaders Sunday advising them that agency staff who work with WHO should stop their collaborations and “await further guidance,” the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cdc-who-trump-548cf18b1c409c7d22e17311ccdfe1f6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Associated Press</a>&nbsp;reported Monday.</p>



<p>The Washington Post&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/27/trump-presidency-news/#link-PNY2UHHRDFBXFBRQW5IXX3ZW44" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;the memo said the direction applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means” whether virtually or in person and prevents CDC staff from going to WHO offices.</p>



<p>On his first day back in office, Trump signed an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">executive order</a>&nbsp;that began the process of withdrawing from WHO, citing “the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic” and that it demands “unfairly onerous payments” from the U.S.</p>



<p>It is legal from Trump to withdraw the U.S. from WHO, but the U.S. must give “a one-year notice” and meet its financial obligations to the agency for that fiscal year, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/80th-congress/session-2/c80s2ch469.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">joint resolution</a>&nbsp;from 1948, and there is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/01/21/trump-withdrawal-world-health-organization/#A5TWCZYCWRDLVD7QKHYMTW76UU-4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">debate</a>&nbsp;around whether it requires congressional approval, as well.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">Crucial Quote</h2>



<p>Trump’s order directed the secretary of state and director of the Office of Management and Budget to pause the future transfer of funds and support to WHO and “recall and reassign” personnel working with WHO, but Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert who works with WHO,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cdc-who-trump-548cf18b1c409c7d22e17311ccdfe1f6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told the AP</a>&nbsp;“people thought there would be a slow withdrawal,” adding: “This has really caught everyone with their pants down.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>This is not the first time Trump tried to withdraw from WHO. In July 2020, he took steps to leave in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,&nbsp;<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/29/politics/donald-trump-world-health-organization/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">saying</a>&nbsp;at the time the organization “failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms” and that the U.S. would redirect “funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent global public health needs,” CNN reported. The decision was met with criticism from Democrats and then-presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would reverse the decision if elected, which his&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-who-support-006ed181e016afa55d4cea30af236227" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">administration did</a>. The WHO is a United Nations agency that works on global efforts to expand health coverage and improve global health. Any country in the United Nations is able to join WHO by accepting its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Constitution</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-contra">Contra</h2>



<p>At a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, Trump hinted that he would consider rejoining WHO, saying “maybe we would consider doing it again … maybe we would have to clean it up a bit,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-floats-reversing-decision-to-leave-who/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Politico</a>&nbsp;reported.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">Tangent</h2>



<p>The executive order starting the process to withdraw from WHO was one of many Trump signed on his first day back in office. He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/01/21/trumps-executive-orders-here-are-all-his-big-day-one-actions-on-immigration-energy-tiktok-and-more/">also signed</a>&nbsp;executive orders ordering mass deportations of anyone in the U.S. illegally, creating the Department of Government Efficiency, eliminating governmental programs on diversity, equity and inclusion, and more.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/cdc-who-trump-548cf18b1c409c7d22e17311ccdfe1f6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CDC ordered to stop working with WHO immediately, upending expectations of an extended withdrawal</a>&nbsp;(Associated Press)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/01/21/trumps-executive-orders-here-are-all-his-big-day-one-actions-on-immigration-energy-tiktok-and-more/">Trump’s Executive Orders: Here Are All His Big Day-One Actions On Immigration, Energy, TikTok And More</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-floats-reversing-decision-to-leave-who/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Trump floats reversing decision to leave WHO</a>&nbsp;(Politico)</p>



<p></p>


U.S. President Trump Seeks U.S. Withdrawal From World Health Organization

CDC Ordered To Stop Working With WHO Immediately


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>The “doomsday clock,” a scientist-curated measure of how close human civilization may be to total collapse, ticked one second closer to “midnight” with just 89 seconds to go, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday, with artificial intelligence joining the ranks of the most high-priority concerns to humanity.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit that warns of consequences caused by scientific and technological advances, listed AI among other concerns including climate change, nuclear weapons, war in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the spread of misinformation among the chief problems threatening humanity.</p>



<p>This year, the&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">organization warned</a>&nbsp;of several threats spurred by artificial intelligence, including the use of AI in military operations and the use of AI to “spread false or inauthentic information across the internet,” which it said can also make misinformation hard to detect.</p>



<p>Two years ago, the last time the clock was pushed forward, AI was not listed among chief concerns in a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/press-release-doomsday-clock-set-at-90-seconds-to-midnight/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">press release</a>, though last year, the organization&nbsp;<a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/story/2024-doomsday-clock-announcement-90-seconds-to-midnight-apocalypse" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">identified AI</a>&nbsp;as a growing, but not yet existential, threat.</p>



<p>The organization also condemned global political leaders for subverting elections, aiding the “spread of lies and conspiracy theories,” discounting science and suppressing free speech and human rights.</p>



<p>The one-second tick closer to midnight should be considered an “indication of extreme danger,” the nonprofit said, calling on political leaders to take action to quell nuclear risk, climate change and the spread of biological diseases.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>The clock, which was first set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, is not intended to be a prediction of when the world will end, but is instead a metaphor to spark conversation and action about threats to humanity, the&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">organization has said</a>. Conceived just two years after the world’s first nuclear detonations by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project, a research project led during World War II to create nuclear weapons,&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the doomsday clock</a>&nbsp;was initially used to measure the threat nuclear weapons posed to society. Each year, the organization determines whether or not the clock’s hands will move, and it can move forward, backward or stay the same. The clock hasn’t&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">moved backward</a>&nbsp;since 2010, when scientists moved it from five minutes to midnight to six minutes to midnight following a United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. Since then, the clock has steadily moved closer to midnight, with its largest jump occurring in 2015, when scientists moved the clock from five minutes to midnight to three minutes to midnight, citing “unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals.” During President Donald Trump’s first term, the organization moved the clock closer to midnight three times, partially&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Final-2017-Clock-Statement.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">blaming him</a>&nbsp;because he had “made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">Crucial Quote</h2>



<p>“The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here,” the organization said in its&nbsp;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">press release</a>, adding the world “depends on immediate action.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/28/science/doomsday-clock-2025-time-wellness/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Doomsday Clock reveals how close humanity may be to total annihilation</a>&nbsp;(CNN)</p>



<p><a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight</a>&nbsp;(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)</p>


Author: Forbes

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