Tech Billionaires Lose $108 Billion Amid DeepSeek-Led AI Selloff

In a dramatic turn of events, global tech billionaires lost a staggering $108 billion on Monday following a market plunge triggered by Chinese AI developer DeepSeek. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.1% and the S&P 500 dropped 1.5% as investors reeled from DeepSeek’s sudden rise to prominence with its free chatbot app, DeepSeek R1. Nvidia Corp. co-founder Jensen Huang saw a 20% drop in his fortune, losing $20.1 billion, while Oracle’s Larry Ellison suffered a $22.6 billion hit.
DeepSeek’s unexpected entry into the AI landscape, reportedly developed with just $5.6 million, challenged the Silicon Valley narrative that massive capital spending is essential for AI innovation. The startup’s app topped global download charts over the weekend but faced outages and signup restrictions due to overwhelming demand. The disruption fueled investor concerns, particularly given the vast capital investments by giants like Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft, whose combined AI-related spending is expected to reach $200 billion by 2025.
Despite the turmoil, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos emerged unscathed, with Zuckerberg’s wealth rising by $4.3 billion. Analysts attributed part of the AI market upheaval to questions about DeepSeek’s ability to bypass Western reliance on high-end GPUs, despite U.S. export controls. According to Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, Chinese labs like DeepSeek reportedly possess tens of thousands of advanced Nvidia H100 chips, a key factor in their rapid AI advancements.
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