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Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his security detail depart the company’s local office in Washington, January 27, 2023.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is planning to launch an artificial intelligence startup that would go head-to-head with OpenAI, the Financial Times reported Friday.

Musk — the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter — has been building a team of researchers and engineers and has been in conversation with multiple investors, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. He has also reportedly been recruiting from other top AI firms, including Alphabet-owned DeepMind.

“It’s real and they are excited about it,” a source familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

Musk has secured thousands of Nvidia GPU processors, according to the report. Those chips are an integral part of building a large language model, or LLM, to compete with OpenAI’s GPT. Musk said he was acquiring the processors for his companies in a Twitter Spaces interview with the BBC this week.

“It seems like everyone and their dog is buying GPUs at this point,” Musk said. “Twitter and Tesla are certainly buying GPUs.”

Musk was once a major financial backer at OpenAI, committing $1 billion over multiple years, according to an earlier report from Semafor. But Musk backed out of his financial and operational commitments to the artificial intelligence firm at the same time OpenAI added a for-profit business segment. Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI shortly after Musk ruptured with the group and, earlier this year, committed to a new multibillion-dollar investment.

Musk has publicly questioned ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s approach. In March, Musk signed an open letter calling for an immediate, six-month-long halt on any research on AI models more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT-4. He has said AI is “one of the biggest risks to the future of civilization.”

Musk’s reported venture could become the latest entrant to an increasingly crowded space. Beyond Microsoft and Google, Amazon announced Thursday that it’s entering the generative AI space.

Musk did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Read more at the Financial Times.

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Xiaomi shares see biggest drop since April after fatal EV crash sparks safety concerns

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Xiaomi shares see biggest drop since April after fatal EV crash sparks safety concerns

A Xiaomi electric car SU7 in a store in Yichang, Hubei Province, China on July 19, 2025.

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi saw its shares fall over 5% on Monday, following reports that the doors of one of its electric vehicles failed to open after a fiery crash in China that left one person dead.

The stock slid as much as 8.7% in Hong Kong, marking its steepest drop since April, before paring losses after images and video of a burning Xiaomi SU7 sedan in Chengdu circulated on Chinese social media.

Video and eyewitness accounts showed bystanders trying but failing to open the doors of the burning car to rescue an occupant. Personnel at the scene eventually used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze, local reports said.

Chengdu police said the crash occurred after the SU7 collided with another sedan, killing a 31-year-old male driver who was suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.

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Xiaomi, which manufactures consumer electronics, software and electric vehicles, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The latest incident follows a fatal SU7 crash earlier this year that raised questions about the vehicle’s smart driving features and sent Xiaomi’s shares tumbling.

The crash could also intensify scrutiny on electronic door handles, a design popularized by Tesla and now common in modern EVs. 

Unlike mechanical models, electronic door handles rely on sensors and electricity and may fail during a fire or power outage.

China is considering a ban on such electric door handles to address safety risks linked to the feature, state-backed media reported in late September.

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation into about 174,000 Tesla Model Y vehicles after reports of door handle failures.

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Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in ‘highly exceptional’ move

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Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in 'highly exceptional' move

A close-up view of the Nexperia plant sign in Newport, Wales on April 1, 2022.

Matthew Horwood | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The Dutch government has taken control of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned semiconductor maker based in the Netherlands, in an extraordinary move to ensure a sufficient supply of its chips remains available in Europe amid rising global trade tensions.

Nexperia, a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology, specializes in the high-volume production of chips used in automotive, consumer electronics and other industries, making it vital for maintaining Europe’s technological supply chains. 

On Sunday evening, the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs revealed that it had invoked the “Goods Availability Act” on the company in September in order “to prevent a situation in which the goods produced by Nexperia (finished and semi-finished products) would become unavailable in an emergency.”

Following the announcement from the Hague, Wingtech plunged its maximum daily limit of 10% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The Goods Availability Act allows the Hague to intervene in private companies to ensure the availability of critical goods in preparation for emergency situations, and its use comes amid escalations in the U.S.-China trade war.

The government statement said the “highly exceptional” move had been made after the ministry had observed “recent and acute signals of serious governance shortcomings and actions” within Nexperia.

“These signals posed a threat to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities. Losing these capabilities could pose a risk to Dutch and European economic security,” it said, identifying automotives as particularly vulnerable.

Governance changes

In a corporate filing dated Oct.13, lodged with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Wingtech confirmed Nexperia was under temporary external management and had been asked to suspend changes to the company’s assets, business or personnel for up to a year, according to a Google translation.

Wingtech chairman Zhang Xuezheng had been immediately suspended from his roles as executive director of Nexperia Holdings and non-executive director of Nexperia after the ministerial order, according to the filing.

The filing added that Nexperia’s daily operations will continue, with the impact of the measures not yet quantifiable.

“The Dutch government’s decision to freeze Nexperia’s global operations under the pretext of ‘national security’ constitutes excessive intervention driven by geopolitical bias, rather than a fact-based risk assessment,” Wingtech said in a deleted WeChat post, which was archived and translated by Chinese policy blog Pekingnology.

It added that since it acquired Nexperia in 2019, Wingtech “has strictly abided by the laws and regulations of all jurisdictions where it operates, maintaining transparent operations and sound governance,” and employs “thousands of local staff” through R&D and manufacturing sites in the Netherlands, Germany and Britain.

A spokesperson from Nexperia told CNBC that the company had no further comments, but that it “complies with all existing laws and regulations, export controls and sanctions regimes,” and remained in regular contact with relevant authorities.

The Netherlands’ move comes after Beijing tightened its restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and magnets Thursday, which could impact Europe’s automotive industry. 

The move could also further strain trade relations between China and the Netherlands, following years of restrictions on Dutch company ASML’s exports of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.

In 2023, the Netherlands had also investigated Nexperia’s proposed acquisition of chip firm startup Nowi, though the deal was later approved.

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Navan sets price range for IPO, expects market cap of up to $6.5 billion

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Navan sets price range for IPO, expects market cap of up to .5 billion

FILE PHOTO: Ariel Cohen during a panel at DLD Munich Conference 2020, Europe’s big innovation conference, Alte Kongresshalle, Munich.

Picture Alliance for DLD | Hubert Burda Media | AP

Navan, a developer of corporate travel and expense software, expects its market cap to be as high as $6.5 billion in its IPO, according to an updated regulatory filing on Friday.

The company said it anticipates selling shares at $24 to $26 each. Its valuation in that range would be about $3 billion less than where private investors valued Navan in 2022, when the company announced a $300 million funding round.

CoreWeave, Circle and Figma have led a resurgence in tech IPOs in 2025 after a drought that lasted about three years. Navan filed its original prospectus on Sept. 19, with plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NAVN.”

Last week, the U.S. government entered a shutdown that has substantially reduced operations inside of agencies including the SEC. In August, the agency said its electronic filing system, EDGAR, “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”

Cerebras, which makes artificial intelligence chips, withdrew its registration for an IPO days after the shutdown began.

Navan CEO Ariel Cohen and technology chief Ilan Twig started the company under the name TripActions in 2015. It’s based in Palo Alto, California, and had around 3,400 employees at the end of July.

For the July quarter, Navan recorded a $38.6 million net loss on $172 million in revenue, which was up about 29% year over year. Competitors include Expensify, Oracle and SAP. Expensify stock closed at $1.64on Friday, down from its $27 IPO price in 2021.

Navan ranked 39th on CNBC’s 2025 Disruptor 50 list, after also appearing in 2024.

WATCH: Brex CEO on Navan partnership

We developed 'best in class' enterprise travel expense solution, says Brex CEO on Navan partnership

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