• China has imposed tariffs on some US goods in response to Trump's trade plan.
• Chinese authorities also announced a probe into Google and put two companies on its "unreliable entities list."
• Experts warn US tariffs on China may raise prices for electronics and other goods.

China hit back at President Donald Trump's trade plan on Tuesday morning with two tiers of tariffs on American goods.

China's Ministry of Finance said it would impose a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and some vehicles.

The announcement comes days after Trump said he would put a 10% tariff on all Chinese imported products, building on his campaign promise of a robust tariff policy.

In a statement announcing China's tariffs, the Ministry of Finance said the US' moves violate World Trade Organization rules.

"It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also disrupts the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the US," the statement said. The tariffs will go into effect on February 10.

Chinese authorities also announced a probe into Google and put PVH Corp — the holding company for Calvin Klein — and Illumina, a US biotech firm, on its "unreliable entities list."

The State Administration for Market Regulation said in its announcement that Google violated antitrust laws. The regulator did not provide further details.

Meanwhile, China's commerce ministry said PVH and Illumina took "discriminatory measures against Chinese companies" and "seriously damaged" the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese firms.

None of the companies immediately responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Separately, China's Commerce Ministry and its customs administration announced export controls on strategic metals and minerals, including tungsten-related materials and bismuth-related materials, to "safeguard national security interests."

The US needs to 'solve its own fentanyl issue'

Trump has said his tariffs are a mechanism to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for what he views as their role in the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US.

The president said China is "sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada" and worsening the fentanyl crisis in the US. He suggested a 60% tariff on China on the 2024 campaign trail.

China has said fentanyl is the US' own problem and that Beijing would challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization.

"The US needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way instead of threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

Vishnu Varathan, Mizuho's head of macro research for Asia excluding Japan, wrote in a Tuesday note that China's tariff move "ups the ante on an escalatory tit-for-tat trade conflict" if Trump lifts tariffs.

Trump has also placed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — but later delayed the measures until March after reaching agreements to strengthen border protections with Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbam and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Cutting a deal with China may be harder.

"The overarching geo-economic dimensions to US-China trade means that resolution will be far more fraught than is the case with Mexico and Canada," Varathan wrote.

Trump's approach to trade with China echoes his first term in office. Throughout 2018 and 2019, the president placed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products, including tech equipment and plastics. In 2019, China responded by placing 10% retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion of US imports.

Some lawmakers and billionaires have urged the president to rethink his tariff plan, saying that it will cost small businesses and American consumers.

China is a major producer of US electronics, and it's likely that cellphones, laptops, and other devices could become more expensive.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Executives are increasingly fielding analyst questions about the business impact of DeepSeek.
• Business Insider is keeping a running tally of CEOs who have talked about DeepSeek on earnings calls.
• In spite of the market disruption, the early outlook is generally optimistic about the tech.

If there was a bingo card for company earnings calls this quarter, DeepSeek would deserve its own square.

Stock market surprises have a way of echoing through subsequent earnings calls, and the impact of DeepSeek is reverberating on Wall Street.

On recent analyst calls, executives have increasingly fielded questions about the Chinese AI upstart and what its more cost-effective model means for their businesses.

The name DeepSeek was mentioned in at least nine earnings calls last week, according to an AlphaSense search, with only a single mention prior to the company's bombshell announcement about its AI models. That number has grown as major tech companies including Alphabet, AMD, Palantir, and Amazon report their earnings.

But in spite of the market disruption that saw wild swings in Big Tech share prices, the early outlook is generally optimistic about the tech.

Here's what business leaders are telling analysts:

Airbnb

Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky, said AI and low-cost models like DeepSeek will have a "profound impact on travel."

In a fourth-quarter earnings call on February 13, Chesky said that it will use AI to improve its customer service and transform Airbnb's search engine into a "travel and living concierge."

"I think it's a really exciting time in the space because you've seen like with DeepSeek and more competition with models is models are getting cheaper or nearly free, they're getting faster, and they're getting more intelligent and for all this purpose, starting to get commoditized," he said to investors.

He added that the best platforms and applications moving forward would be those that "most accrue the value from AI," and Airbnb would be the travel platform that does that.

ARM

DeepSeek is "great for the industry," said Rene Haas, the CEO of ARM, on the chipmaker's February 5 earnings call.

"It drives efficiency, it lowers the cost. And by doing that, it expands the demand for overall compute. So, just from a general standpoint, it's a good thing," he said.

Haas referenced the controversy over how DeepSeek created its latest model — OpenAI is investigating whether the company trained on the Microsoft-backed company's technology. Haas called DeepSeek's approach "creative."

He also compared the product to Grace Blackwell architecture, highlighting that while Nvidia's product is "wonderful," it couldn't go in a cellphone, earbuds, or other smaller electronics that ARM targets.

"When you think about the application to ARM, given the fact that AI workloads will need to run everywhere and lower-cost inference, a more efficient inference makes it easier to run these applications in areas where power is constrained," Haas said.

AMD

Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, said DeepSeek is driving innovation that's "good for AI adoption" in an earnings call on February 4.

"The fact that there are new ways to bring about training and inference capabilities with less infrastructure actually is a good thing, because it allows us to continue to deploy AI compute and broader application space and more adoption," Su said.

She added that AMD is a "big believer" in open source.

"And from that standpoint, having open source models, looking at the rate and pace of adoption there, I think, is pretty amazing," Su said. "And that is how we expect things to go."

Google

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai said in an earnings call on February 4 that DeepSeek had done "very good work."

"Look, I think there's been a lot of observations on DeepSeek. First of all, I think a tremendous team," he said to investors. "I think they've done very, very good work."

He said that for Google, it had "always been obvious" that frontier models could be made to be more efficient over time.

But he downplayed DeepSeek's threat, saying that he thinks Google's Gemini model is the "Pareto frontier of cost, performance, and latency."

He added that Google's recent 2.0 Flash Thinking models are "some of the most efficient models out there, including comparing to DeepSeek's V3 and R1."

Palantir Technologies

Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir Technologies, fielded a question about DeepSeek during the company's earnings call on February 3. He said DeepSeek demonstrated that AI models are "commoditizing."

"But I think the real lesson, the more profound one, is that we are at war with China," Sankar said, adding, "We are in an AI arms race."

He also criticized the explanation that "the Chinese just copy and we're the only innovators," an apparent reference to reports that DeepSeek may have copied OpenAI.

He said the engineering in DeepSeek's R1 model was "exquisite" and that "the optimizations that they've done are really impressive."

"We have to wake up with the respect for our adversary and realize that we are competing," Sankar said, adding, "We have to realize that the AI race is winner take all."

"The time to mobilize has come," he said.

Apple

An analyst asked Apple CEO Tim Cook for his perspective on the "DeepSeek situation" during the company's quarterly earnings call on January 30.

"In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing," Cook said. "That's what you see in that model."

The CEO said he thought the company's "tight integration of silicon and software" would continue to serve them well.

"From a CapEx point of view, we've always taken a very prudent, deliberative approach to our expenditure, and we continue to leverage a hybrid model, which I think continues to serve as well," Cook said, referring to Apple's AI strategy.

Meta

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged DeepSeek as a "new competitor" during an earnings call on January 29. An investor asked him about the competitive dynamic in the open-source field.

"In light of some of the recent news, you know, the new competitor, DeepSeek from China, I think it's also one of the things that we're talking about, is there's going to be an open-source standard globally, and I think for our own national advantage, it's important that it's an American standard," Zuckerberg said to investors.

He added that the emergence of DeepSeek has "only strengthened our conviction that this is the right thing for us to be focused on."

Later in the call, he said that DeepSeek did "a number of novel things" to train its model fast and cheaply, which Meta was "still digesting." He added that DeepSeek has made advances that Meta hopes to implement in its systems.

Microsoft

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella mentioned DeepSeek twice in his prepared remarks during an earnings call on January 29.

He said that the Copilot+ PC laptops, which Microsoft has called the "fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built," would soon be able to run DeepSeek's R1 distilled models locally.

When asked about DeepSeek by an investor, he said, "I think DeepSeek has had some real innovations. And that is some of the things that even OpenAI found in o1."

IBM

IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna fielded a DeepSeek question during an earnings call on January 29.

When asked about what implications DeepSeek could have for IBM or the industry at large, Krishna said, "Look, DeepSeek, I think, was a point of validation."

"We have been very vocal for about a year that smaller models and more reasonable training times are going to be essential for enterprise deployment of large language models," he said.

The tech giant's chief added that IBM has been going "down that journey" itself "for more than a year" and that it has seen "as much as 30 times reduction in inference costs" with those approaches.

"As other people begin to follow that route, we think that this is incredibly good for our enterprise clients," Krishna said.

AT&T

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the newer, lower-cost AI "is going to open up and facilitate new applications and business models."

"This is a seminal technology cycle," Stankey said on January 27 of generative AI. "It's going to be every bit as big as the founding of the Internet when it's all said and done."

Stankey added that new breakthroughs like DeepSeek that use less processing capacity, consume less power, work more effectively in particular domains, or can be run on local devices instead of in the cloud will ultimately lead to new applications and business models.

"We're all going to have to stay on our game to make sure we use it effectively so none of us are in a disadvantaged position relative to our competitors on cost-structure effectiveness," he said.

Corning

Wendell Weeks, CEO of glassmaker Corning, which produces fiber optics that are increasingly critical in high-speed networking, said the technical community has been watching DeepSeek for the last few months.

"What's super important to understand is that we need dramatic improvement in training and inference cost to make GenAI into a highly sustainable business model, and more importantly, the productivity driver that we all hope it will be," he said.

"All of us in the space are counting on many more innovations to come," he continued, adding that AI models of the future will continue to need improvements in computation and communication technologies.

Flex

Revathi Advaithi, CEO of mid-cap datacenter company Flex, acknowledged "a lot of noise this week," but said DeepSeek itself doesn't represent anything new in terms of demand for AI infrastructure.

"At the end of the day, compute density is still a big deal," she said. "We think lower cost in applications like DeepSeek is a good thing for the industry as a whole because it's going to drive a stronger growth in terms of the market itself."

In addition, Advaithi said lower barriers to entry could spur more widespread innovation in AI, driving additional demand for infrastructure providers like Flex.

"We haven't seen enough growth from non-Mag Seven companies and we'll start to see a lot more of that," she said. "It actually accelerates the move towards AI."

Amazon

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Thursday that leaders at the company "were impressed with what DeepSeek has done."

Different AI models will challenge and pass each other when it comes to capabilities, he said on Amazon's earnings call.

"Different customers are going to use different models for different types of workloads," Jassy said. "You're going to provide as many leading frontier models as possible for customers to choose from."

He also said that DeepSeek's cheaper costs aren't a problem for the industry. When technologies become less expensive, some people say "that somehow it's going to lead to less total spend in technology," he said.

"We have never seen that to be the case," Jassy added.

• DeepSeek may have used OpenAI's models to train its own AI model, says a White House advisor.
• The Chinese startup's R1 model sparked market panic due to its efficient performance.
• OpenAI has also faced scrutiny over training practices and copyright lawsuits from media firms.

DeepSeek may have used OpenAI to create its Silicon Valley-shaking model, a top White House advisor said on Tuesday.

David Sacks, the White House's artificial intelligence and crypto czar, told Fox News "it's possible" that the Chinese AI startup engaged in intellectual property theft from OpenAI.

Sacks highlighted an AI training technique called distillation, in which a company uses information from an existing AI model to create a new model. Here, the bigger, more complex model — which is considered to be the "teacher model" — transfers much of its learnings to the smaller "student model."

"They can essentially mimic the reasoning process that they learn from the parent model and they can suck the knowledge out of the parent model," Sacks said.

DeepSeek's R1 model appears to match many of the capabilities of rival models but with much less compute — the expensive component powering AI. That sparked a stock market panic earlier this week, wiping hundreds of billions of dollars in value from companies selling AI chips, such as Nvidia.

"There's substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI's models. I don't think OpenAI is very happy about this," Sacks said, without citing specific evidence.

He said companies would take steps to prevent distillation.

"That would definitely slow down some of these copycat models," said the former venture capital investor and tech executive.

OpenAI has also faced scrutiny for its training practices. The company is facing several lawsuits over copyright infringement, including from media organizations like The New York Times.

OpenAI has its own model distillation offering. This allows smaller models to create their own datasets for distillation using OpenAI's API.

However, the company's terms of service prohibit users from "copying" any of its services or using its models to build rival ones.

Microsoft and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. DeepSeek did not respond to a request for comment, made on the Lunar New Year.

• The International Fact-Checking Network warned of Meta's move to crowdsourced fact-checking.
• A group of 71 fact checkers said the change is "a step backward" for accuracy.
• The group proposed crowdsourcing in conjunction with professionals, a "new model."

The fact-checking group that has worked with Meta for years wrote Mark Zuckerberg an open letter on Thursday, warning him about the company's move toward crowdsourced moderation in the US.

"Fact-checking is essential to maintaining shared realities and evidence-based discussion, both in the United States and globally," wrote the International Fact-Checking Network, part of the nonprofit media organization Poynter Institute.

As of 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, 71 organizations from across the world had signed the letter. Poynter is updating its post as the list of organizations grows.

The group said Meta's decision, announced Tuesday, to replace third-party fact-checkers with crowdsourced moderation on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the US "is a step backward for those who want to see an internet that prioritizes accurate and trustworthy information."

Meta told the IFCN about the end of its partnership less than an hour before publishing the post about the switch, Business Insider reported. The change could have serious financial repercussions for the fact-checking organizations that rely on Meta for revenue.

The organization said Meta has fact-checking partnerships in more than 100 countries.

"If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places," IFCN wrote. Meta has not announced plans to end the fact-checking program globally.

Meta said it plans to build a crowdsourced moderation system this year similar to the community notes used by Elon Musk's X, where people can weigh in on posts ranging from the serious to the mundane. Musk laid off hundreds of X's trust and safety workers after he bought the company in 2022, and X has since been slow to act on some misinformation, BI previously reported.

IFCN wrote that community notes could be used in conjunction with professional fact-checkers, a "new model" for collaboration.

"The need for this is great: If people believe social media platforms are full of scams and hoaxes, they won't want to spend time there or do business on them," IFCN wrote.

Nearly 3.3 billion people used a Meta product every day in September, according to the company's most recent financials — more than 40% of the world's population.

Ad insiders who spoke to BI this week said they didn't expect the changes to hurt the company's business. Meta has more than a fifth of the US digital ad market — in second place behind Google, per data from BI's sister company EMARKETER.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

• FBI identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar as the suspect in the New Orleans truck attack.
• Jabbar, now deceased, was a US citizen from Texas and had a criminal record.
• At least 15 people were confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified the suspect in Wednesday's deadly attack in New Orleans as Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

The agency said Jabbar, who was confirmed dead after a shootout with police, was a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas. His actions are being investigated as a terrorist attack.

At least 15 people are confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured, after the suspect drove a truck into crowds on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day. Two police officers were shot but are in stable condition.

The FBI said an ISIS flag, as well as weapons and a "potential" improvised explosive device, were found in the Ford F-150 pick-up truck Jabbar used.

It added other IEDs were found in the French Quarter, and the agency is investigating Jabbar's potential connection to terrorist organizations.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News that "multiple individuals" were involved, and that they had rented a house from Airbnb.

"There was a house fire in New Orleans this morning that was connected to this event where we believe the IEDs were being made," she added.

President Joe Biden said in a press conference that, hours before the attack, Jabbar had posted videos "inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill."

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005.

The first was for theft of $50-$500. The other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan said in a press conference that the FBI does not believe Jabbar acted alone. She did not specify how many additional suspects the agency is investigating.

"We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates," Duncan said. "We're asking anyone who has information, video, or pictures to provide it to the FBI."

She later added that Jabbar was an Army veteran, and the FBI believes he was honorably discharged.

US military spokespersons told media on Wednesday evening that Jabbar had served in the Army from 2007 to 2015, during which he was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010.

He filled information technology and human resource roles at the time and was later an information technology specialist in the Army Reserve from 2016 until 2020. He left the military as a staff sergeant.

Jabbar also graduated from Georgia State University in 2017 after studying information technology, per an online résumé reviewed by CNN.

Sean Keenan, a freelance journalist for The New York Times, reported that he had interviewed Jabbar in 2015 for Georgia State University's newspaper. Jabbar told Keenan that he had difficulty adjusting back to civilian life — particularly with getting used to non-military speech.

"You may have a lot of skills and training from the Army," Jabbar was quoted as saying in the article. "But you may not be able to speak the language to really translate it and be understood when you apply for a civilian job."

Jabbar had also complained that bureaucracy in the Department of Veteran Affairs meant he might not receive his benefits if he made small mistakes on his paperwork.

Based on Jabbar's resume, CNN reported that he worked at Deloitte and Accenture, two of the biggest consultancies. A Deloitte spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that he worked in a "staff-level role" since his 2021 hiring.

"We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm," the Deloitte statement said. "Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation."

Accenture did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Jabbar also held a real estate license in Texas from 2019 to 2023. He took classes in real estate from 2018 to 2021, per the Texas Real Estate Commission.

Citing court documents, CNN reported he had been divorced twice, although The New York Times reported him as having only separated from his second wife.

His second wife had a temporary restraining order against him granted in 2020, per CNN.

According to the Times, Jabbar was divorced from his first wife in 2012, who has forbidden their two daughters from seeing him. Dwayne Marsh, her new husband, said that in recent months he had started acting strangely.

Jabbar's brother, Abdur, told the outlet that Jabbar had grown up as a Christian but converted to Islam many years ago.

"What he did does not represent Islam," the brother said. "This is more some type of radicalization, not religion."

Chris Pousson, a retired Air Force veteran who went to school with Jabbar and reconnected with him in 2015, told the outlet that he remembered Jabbar as "quiet, reserved, and really, really smart."

Jabbar was always polite and well-dressed, he said, and although he noticed Jabbar writing increasingly religious posts on Facebook around 2015, the latest news is "a complete 180 from the quiet, reserved person I knew."

Turo, a carsharing company, confirmed to BI that Jabbar used a truck rented through its app to carry out the attack and that it is "actively partnering with the FBI."

"We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation," a Turo spokesperson said.

The attack comes ahead of three major events in New Orleans, including the college football Sugar Bowl game, which was scheduled for January 1. Officials said it has been postponed 24 hours.

The city also has its annual Mardi Gras festivities starting on January 6 and the 59th Super Bowl scheduled for February 9.

• Guido Gabrielli is leaving restaurant tech company Otter after five years, per a company email viewed by BI.
• Otter's new head is Ashvin Kumar, who most recently worked at fintech Affirm.
• Otter is a nearly $70 million a year business, Travis Kalanick wrote in an email to staff.

One of Travis Kalanick's key businesses just named a new leader, according to a company email reviewed by Business Insider.

Guido Gabrielli is leaving Otter, the restaurant tech arm of City Storage Systems, per the company email sent by Kalanick.

He is replaced by entrepreneur Ashvin Kumar, who comes from Affirm.

Gabrielli is "moving on to a new chapter in his career of substance," Kalanick wrote about Otter's head, who joined the company from Uber. "He has been a part of CSS since the early days, with us for 5 years and has taken Otter from a scrappy upstart to the almost $70mm/yr business it is today."

Otter's global businesses include order management for platforms such as DoorDash, a virtual-menu arm, a revenue-recapture business that claws back money owed to restaurants, and a point-of-sale system. In early May, Gabrielli told Otter staff that the company had 100,000 restaurants paying for at least one service, BI previously reported.

The company's technology is used by customers of CSS's other arm, CloudKitchens, which renovates warehouses into ghost-kitchen facilities for mom-and-pop restaurateurs and big companies such as Chick-fil-A.

Otter has, at times, struggled with glitchy software and customer support. Last year, a CloudKitchens operator invited to speak at an all-hands meeting complained about the system, BI previously reported. In response, Gabrielli sent a Slack message to the full company promising better customer service.

Otter has also seen some personnel stumbles. The company ran a controversial sales boot camp that went off the rails before it was shut down last year, BI reported. And, like many peers, Otter has cut staff in multiple layoff rounds after the pandemic.

Kumar comes from Affirm, where he was a vice president working on special projects. Before his stint at the fintech company, he founded the social auction app Tophatter, which shut down in 2022.

"I've known Ashvin since the late 2000's Silicon Valley entrepreneur community. I couldn't be more excited about having him take the helm," Kalanick wrote in the company email.

In fall 2021, Kalanick raised $850 million for CSS from investors, including Microsoft, at a $15 billion valuation. Since then, the company has faced similar headwinds to the rest of the tech and real-estate industries, including higher interest rates and slower customer-demand growth than during the pandemic boom.

Through CSS, Kalanick wants to reinvent the business of food, just as he upended transportation by cofounding Uber.

BI reached out to Gabrielli, Kumar, and a representative for CSS about the leadership change. None responded to the request for comment, sent outside normal business hours.

Do you have a CSS story to share? Reach out to this reporter using a nonwork phone on Signal and Telegram at 646 768 1627.

• A bankruptcy judge ruled that The Onion cannot buy Alex Jones' Infowars.
• The judge said the auction was flawed and may have "left a lot of money on the table."
• The Onion said it will continue trying to buy Infowars.

A Texas bankruptcy judge ruled that The Onion's bid for Alex Jones's Infowars cannot go forward.

Last month, after the purchase was announced, Judge Christopher Lopez of the Southern District of Texas' US Bankruptcy Court voiced discomfort about the auction for the site, including the fact that offers weren't shared between rival bidders.

"Nobody should feel comfortable with the results of the auction," Lopez said at the time, after designated backup bidder First American United Companies — a company affiliated with Jones's supplement business — requested a hearing.

After the sale was put on hold, Lopez heard testimony at a hearing Monday. He ruled on Tuesday night that while all parties acted in good faith, the closed auction for Infowars did not bring the highest possible bids for the website.

"I don't really care who wins," Lopez said.

A lower purchase price for Infowars means less money to Jones' creditors, including families from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, who won a significant defamation lawsuit against him.

The process "simply did not maximize value in any way, based upon the record before me," Lopez said during his judgment on Tuesday.

He later added, "It's clear the trustee left a lot of money on the table, or the potential for a lot of money on the table."

The Onion initially prevailed at auction despite the fact that its cash bid was less than First American United Companies' bid $3.5 million for Infowars.

However, as part of The Onion's bid — which it tendered in partnership with some Sandy Hook families — the families opted to give up their profits from the sale to make money on the reimagined website under The Onion, according to Reuters. This made it a better offer than First American United's in the eyes of bankruptcy trustee Christopher Murray because it would mean more money for Jones's other creditors.

The judge sent the sale process back to Murray. "I'm not asking for your answers today," he told Murray.

Leila Brillson, The Onion's chief marketing officer, said in a statement after the ruling that the company will continue trying to buy Infowars.

"We appreciate that the court repeatedly recognized The Onion acted in good faith, but are disappointed that everyone was sent back to the drawing board with no winner, and no clear path forward for any bidder," Brillson said.

Jones was forced to liquidate his assets after losing a roughly $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School for repeatedly claiming the mass shooting was a government hoax.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Connecticut families, said in a statement that the group is disappointed by the judge's verdict.

"These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused," Mattei said.

As the Jones-affiliated company contested the auction, Elon Musk's X also became a part of Monday's proceedings, with lawyers for the social network asking the judge to block the transfer of Jones's and Infowars' X accounts to The Onion, arguing they were owned by X, according to Bloomberg.

The Onion CEO Ben Collins previously said he intended to turn Infowars into an "alt-media" parody hub.

• South Korean officials found that children's clothes from Temu and AliExpress contained toxic substances.
• Many fashion brands use toxic chemicals like PFAS and phthalates, which have come under increasing scrutiny.
• Consumers face less risk getting sick from these ingredients in clothing than textile plant workers do.

Editor's note: This list was first published in August 2022 and has been updated to reflect recent developments.

Chinese fast-fashion companies are coming under renewed scrutiny for toxic chemicals, a problem that has plagued the fashion industry globally.

On Friday, Korean officials said they tested 26 pieces of children's winter wear from Temu, AliExpress, and Shein and found that seven contained toxic substances like phthalate plasticizers, lead, and cadmium. 

A children's jacket from Temu contained 622 times the legal limit for phthalate plasticizers, a chemical compound that makes plastics more flexible. Spokespeople for AliExpress and Temu said the products were removed, while a Shein spokesperson said the tested products were in compliance with regulations. 

This is not the first time South Korea has found toxic chemicals in items from Chinese fast-fashion brands. In August, the Seoul Metropolitan Government found phthalates in some pairs of shoes, with one particular pair containing 229 times the legal limit. The same investigation revealed that sandal insoles sold by Temu contained 11 times more lead than legally permissible.

And in an earlier investigation in May, Seoul officials said that they tested a pair of Shein shoes, and found that it contained 428 times the permitted levels of phthalates, according to the AFP.

Experts said that many large clothing brands like Lululemon, Old Navy, and REI have been found to contain toxic chemicals in their clothes. While these chemicals are used at relatively low levels, exposure to toxic substances over time can elevate a person's risks of serious health conditions, such as asthma and kidney damage.

"It's not just people are exposed to one on a regular day," Alexandra McNair Quinn, a chemical sustainability consultant and founder of Fashion FWD, a nonprofit educating consumers about toxic chemicals in clothes, told BI in 2022. "It's the accumulation of all of these exposures in a regular day can be very harmful."

Why chemicals are so pervasive in fashion

The use of chemicals like PFAS and lead is "fairly common" within the fashion industry, Marty Mulvihill, a general partner with Safer Made, a venture capital fund that invests in firms reducing exposure to harmful chemicals.

Yoga pants and gym leggings sold by Lululemon and Old Navy contained PFAS, according to testing done by consumer health activist blog Mamavation. Outdoor apparel brands Columbia, REI, and L.L. Bean received either a D or F grading for PFAS by Fashion FWD, a non-profit educating consumers about toxic chemicals in clothes.

(In 2022, REI and L. L. Bean reiterated their commitment to product safety in statements to BI. Columbia, Lululemon, Old Navy, and Shein did not respond to BI's requests for comment at the time.)

A 2012 sample of clothes from popular retailers detected phthalates in 31 garments, and lead had been found in baby bibs sold in Walmart and Babies R Us, BI previously reported.

Quinn said manufacturers can add these chemicals to make them waterproof or stain-resistant, and soften ink on screen prints. Lead is sometimes found in low-cost pigments and inks, as well as zippers, and chromium can make leather more pliable.

Exposure to toxic chemicals builds up over time 

Exposure to substances like lead and phthalates may directly harm people manufacturing clothes more than consumers, said Scott Echols in 2022. Echols is a senior director at the ZDHC Foundation, which works with companies to limit their chemical footprint.

The sustainable fashion analytics firm Common Objective estimated in 2018 that 27 million people working in fashion supply chains worldwide might suffer from work-related illnesses or diseases, including skin and respiratory conditions.

Plus, the exposure to toxic chemicals builds up over time, Quinn said. Not only are these chemicals in clothing, they exist in our food, water, makeup, and personal care products. 

"PFAS don't just go away, they're around for very, very long time and they're very harmful to the environment and to human health," Quinn said. "The government needs to develop a preventative approach where products don't go on the market until they're proven safe."

How to spot chemicals in clothes, including lead, flame retardants, and 'forever chemicals'

Quinn told BI that toxic chemicals used to make clothes include: 

• Chromium, used in leather products that can weaken the immune system and lead to liver and kidney damage.
• Phthalates, which are used to soften the ink on screen prints. BI's Andrea Michelson reported phthalates has been linked to early deaths in American adults, especially due to heart disease, and can disrupt the body's hormones. 
• Brominated flame retardants, which are sometimes found in children's pajamas to protect them from house fires. These chemicals, which are banned in Europe, can change thyroid functions and shift the way the body processes fats and carbs. Researchers are studying whether a link exists between flame retardant exposure and ADHD, BI previously reported.
• PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," are a group of lab-grown chemicals that don't break down in the environment and are linked to a host of health conditions like liver damage, asthma, and chronic kidney disease. The substance is water resistant and can be found in waterproof or stain-resistant gear, Quinn said.
• Lead, a low-cost pigment or sometimes used as a cheap metal for zippers. Significant childhood lead exposure can lead to long-term developmental problems.

How to avoid chemicals in clothes

Washing new clothing is an important step in reducing residual substances, including potential toxins. Use hot water if the clothes' instructions allow it.

To avoid purchasing clothing with PFAS, check your label for materials like Gore-Tex or Teflon, which could signal that the chemicals were used in the fabric. But the bigger concern is how those clothes affect the world around us.

"The biggest issue associated with consumer products isn't necessarily the direct exposure that we get from the products, but what gets released into the environment when those products are produced," Jamie DeWitt, the director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center at Oregon State University, told BI in 2019.

In 2023, Laura Hardman, then the director of the Ocean Wise Plastic Initiative at the Ocean Wise Plastic Lab in Vancouver, Canada, told BI that she buys clothing made from natural fibers and dyes for her and her child. 

"A lot of people make sure their babies' clothes are organic, cotton, and made with child-friendly dyes, but they're not aware of their own clothing. Your baby is probably sucking on your clothes more than she's sucking on hers," said Hardman, who now works with Dubai-based consultancy Sustainability Excellence. 

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have plans for DOGE, and Workday sees an opportunity.
• Workday aims to capitalize on federal agencies' shift from on-premises to cloud systems, its CEO said.
• The federal government, the largest US employer, could face layoffs under DOGE's agenda.

As Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy gear up to try to reshape large swaths of the federal government, one big software player sees an opportunity.

Workday, the human-resources-software company that workers love to hate, is embedded in more than half of Fortune 500 companies. The $72 billion company has been building up its government customer base, from Oklahoma's Tulsa County to the US Department of Energy. In 2022, Workday was approved to work with the federal government.

Now that Musk and Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency is set to advise President-elect Donald Trump on rescinding regulations and cutting administrative costs, Workday and other government vendors could stand to benefit.

On Workday's Tuesday earnings call, CEO Carl Eschenbach addressed an analyst's question about how DOGE could impact Workday's business.

Eschenbach said more than 80% of the federal government's HR systems were physically housed on local servers, what's called "on-premises." Companies and organizations have been steadily migrating from on-premises servers to the cloud for cost savings, better security, and efficiency, among other benefits.

"Postelection and with DOGE coming out, people are absolutely looking to drive more economies of scale and more efficiency. And I can tell you supporting these on-premises, antiquated systems is not a way to do that," Eschenbach said.

Eschenbach added that federal agencies were at an "inflection point" and ready to move to the cloud — and Workday has a government-focused product to sell them.

"We think this will only be a tailwind for us as we think about the federal government business going forward," he said.

Workday said in May that it would work with the Department of Energy and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"These are critical wins for us and it's actually driving demand for us in the federal government as people recognize Workday is really pushing hard into that market," Eschenbach said on Tuesday's call.

In the last quarter, Workday brought in $2.2 billion in revenue — a 16% increase from last year. The company doesn't break out revenue by customer type. Workday's stock is up 14% in the past year.

The company didn't respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours.

Last week, Musk and Ramaswamy named several of DOGE's targets in a Wall Street Journal opinion column: work-from-home arrangements, Planned Parenthood, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and general head count, among others.

"DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions," the pair wrote.

The federal government is the largest employer in the US, with a workforce of more than 2 million Americans, so the group's suggestions could have wide-ranging implications.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that notable Silicon Valley figures — including the Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, the investor Marc Andreessen, the hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, and the former Uber CEO turned food-tech entrepreneur Travis Kalanick — had been involved in DOGE's early planning.

• On Wednesday, Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors in a massive bribery scheme.
• The charges have spurred an investor revolt and at least one customer to back out of major deals.
• Adani is the 2nd-richest person in India, behind Mukesh Ambani.

Gautam Adani, the second-richest person in India, is facing bribery charges in the US and business tumult globally.

Adani is the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate with businesses spanning energy, mining, ports, and airports. The Adani Group owns India's largest commercial port and has a controlling stake in Mumbai's international airport.

On Wednesday, New York prosecutors said Adani executives paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to the Indian government and hid them from US investors. The Adani Group called the allegations "baseless." 

The charges wiped out billions from Adani's and his brother's paper fortunes. Shares of companies related to Adani, including his flagship Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., crashed 20% in the first two hours of trade on Thursday, wiping out more than $30 billion.

The charges led to immediate business fallout. Following the news, Adani Green Energy canceled plans to raise $600 million in US dollar-denominated bonds, the company said in a statement to the National Stock Exchange of India. On Thursday, Kenya's president canceled deals with the Adani Group for its main airport and for power line construction. 

A short seller's report sent stocks down

The indictment isn't the first serious bout of trouble for Adani.

A 2023 report by Hindenburg Research, an investment-research firm and short seller, sent Adani's wealth on a downward spiral. In the report, which Hindenburg said took two years to compile, the short-seller accused the Adani Group of a "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme." Adani companies' stocks tumbled but later recovered.

The Adani Group has said it was exploring legal action against Hindenburg and released a 413-page report which said that Hindenburg's claims were "nothing but a lie." It called Hindenburg's document a "malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed facts relating to baseless and discredited allegations." 

Hindenburg criticized the group's response, saying it failed to address many of its questions.

Adani Group did not ultimately sue Hindenburg over the report.

From diamond sorter to tycoon

Adani was born in Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in 1962. He dropped out of university after his second year studying commerce, according to Silicon India. He then turned to the diamond industry, first as a sorter and then as a trader in Mumbai.

After his brother purchased a plastic company, Adani started working with him and began importing PVC. In 1988, he set up Adani Enterprises.

Today, the Adani Group comprises 10 listed companies with a combined 46,000 employees.

The billionaire is a key ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has inked infrastructure and other deals with Adani's companies. Bloomberg deemed Modi "the foundation of the tycoon's empire."

• Nvidia beat forecasts again in its third-quarter results on Wednesday.
• CEO Jensen Huang said more Blackwell chips will be delivered this quarter than previously estimated.
• One analyst says some investors are concerned about a possible slowdown in future growth.

Nvidia delivered another strong set of quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, beating estimates. Here's what analysts are saying about the world's most valuable company.

Wedbush analysts, including Dan Ives, issued another typically bullish note on Thursday:

"In another earnings performance for the ages Nvidia delivered a $2 billion top-line beat with $35 billion of sales showing a $5 billion sequential increase driven by flagship data center sales. We would characterize results as another earnings press release from Nvidia that should be framed and hung in the Louvre given these eye popping results and unprecedented growth from the Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia.

"The LeBron of chip releases, next generation Blackwell appears to ramping even faster than expected with NO overheating issues and appears to be on a massive demand trajectory ahead of the Street that our Wedbush Global Tech Team is tracking very closely throughout the Asia supply chain."

Konstantin Oldenburger at CMC Markets said Nvidia had exceeded forecasts again, but some question marks remained.

"What stuck in people's minds was the possibility of a slowdown in future growth. The gross margin, which previously only knew one direction — up — to a whopping 75% of revenue, is expected to fall to 'only' 73% in the current quarter.

"Even if the competition can only dream of such figures, investors, who have been accustomed to success, now fear an end to Nvidia's growth story. Whether the fear is justified will become clear when the new chip generation Blackwell is delivered in the coming months," he wrote.

Deutsche Bank analysts said the results drew a "tepid reaction" because its guidance "failed to match some of the loftiest expectations."

They wrote in a note that third-quarter sales came in at $35.1 billion, above the $33.2 billion estimate. However, the fourth-quarter sales guidance was $37.5 billion "was 'only' a touch above the average analyst estimate of $37.1 billion."

"Overall it was deemed to be a slightly underwhelming outcome," they added.

Dan Coatsworth at AJ Bell said Nvidia had again posted blockbuster growth. "What's troubled investors this time was a quarter-on-quarter decline in gross margins, with guidance for them to fall further in the coming quarter, and weaker than expected forward guidance for revenue.

"Investors have enjoyed stellar share price gains from Nvidia over the past two years and that's made them think it is invincible. In reality, a small decline in margins is not a reason to panic, particularly when they are still over 70% which many companies could only dream of. Nvidia is confident margins will rebound as production volumes ramp up for its Blackwell chips."

HSBC analysts wrote in a note that they expect "significant" earnings upside for the 2026 financial year despite gross margin pressure.

Stephen Yiu, who manages the $1.4 billion London-based Blue Whale growth fund, invested 10% of the fund — the limit for any one stock. He told Bloomberg TV he wished he could have bought more Nvidia stock because he's so bullish on AI infrastructure.

"We need to believe in how AI is going to change the world in terms of our day-to-day," he said. "Nvidia remains the center of that AI transformation."

• Russia's central bank has been hiking its key interest rate to combat inflation.
• Top central banker Elvira Nabiullina says the fight is almost over, with inflation expected to slow.
• Business leaders have slammed Russia's increasing interest rate, saying it restricted their growth.

A key Russian official said an economic turnaround is on the horizon.

Russia's top central banker, Elvira Nabiullina, told the government yesterday that the country is approaching a "turning point" for inflation and interest rates, Moscow-based RBC Group reported.

Nabiullina told the State Duma that inflation should slow, though she did not specify when that would happen. Inflation hit 9.8% in September.

"We believe that our policy will reduce inflation to 4.5 to 5% next year, and then stabilize it near 4%. As it slows down, we will consider a gradual reduction in the key rate. If there are no additional external shocks, the reduction will begin next year," she said.

She indicated that credit activity is slowing because of the higher rate but said some industries have continued borrowing.

Earlier this month, local officials and business leaders shared pessimistic economic outlooks for the coming year at an economic forum.

Soaring prices and a difficult outlook on the ground

Nabiullina's comments come as the war in Ukraine approaches its three-year anniversary and inflation in Russia hits sky-high levels.

Last month, to tame prices, Russia's central bank hiked its key interest rate to a record high of 21%. The bank said earlier this month that it could hike the key rate again at its next meeting in December.

The government continues to spend big on defense. In September, Russia hiked its 2025 national defense state spending by 25%, to over $145 billion, signaling its resolve to continue its war in Ukraine.

For ordinary Russians, the effects of inflation are being felt on the ground level. The cost of staples like butter and potatoes is up over 25% each this year.

The country is also seeing shortages in the workforce and a population crisis.

And while Nabiullina's comments this week indicate a positive change is near, other leaders in Russia have expressed a gloomier economic outlook.

Andrei Klepach, the chief economist at the state-run development entity VEB.RF, predicted that, in the best case, economic growth would fall from an estimated 2.5% to around 2% in 2025. He also downgraded Russia's fixed capital investment growth from 1.9% to 1%, blaming the central bank's key rate.

Alexander Shokhin, the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said high interest rates were forcing companies to delay investments.