People are shopping at a Tesla store in Shanghai, China, on Feb. 17, 2024.
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
News of electric car giant Tesla’s progress toward rolling out its advanced driver-assistance feature in China isn’t as groundbreaking as investors are treating it, according to a top tech investor.
Mark Hawtin, GAM Investment Management’s investment director focused on investing in disruptive growth and technology stocks, told CNBC’ “Squawk Box Europe” Thursday that such expectations were misleading — not least because Tesla’s Full Self Driving service doesn’t offer full autonomous driving.
“We should say what they’re doing — everyone’s talking about this full self-driving capability,” Hawtin told CNBC. “What they’re going to be able to do in China is what they already do in the U.S. or U.K., which is sort of this assisted-driver capability.”
On Monday, shares of Tesla rose sharply, notching their best day since March 2021, after it passed a significant milestone toward the launch of FSD in China. Local Chinese authorities removed restrictions on its cars after passing the country’s data security requirements, Tesla said Sunday.
This raised expectations that Tesla’s FSD would soon be available in China. Tesla shares are up 6.7% in the last five trading days, largely on the back of buzz surrounding its roadmap to bringing FSD to China — plus, comments from CEO Elon Musk about plans to start production of more affordable models in early 2025.
But Hawtin said that the company’s so-called Full Self Driving service lacks the qualities that would make it an example of truly self-driving technology.
“It’s by no means autonomous driving yet,” he told CNBC. He thinks that a version of Tesla FSD capable of “true autonomy” is still five to 10 years away.
Hawtin said that Tesla’s reported deal with China’s Baidu is a bigger short-term win for Baidu than Tesla, adding that competition is intense in China with names like BYD, Huawei, Xpeng, Li Auto, and Xiaomi all supplying technology capable of Level 2 autonomy.
Tesla reportedly scored a deal with Baidu that would allow Musk’s firm to tap into Baidu’s mapping service license, a key requirement for offering FSD on Chinese public roads, per Reuters.
Tesla was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Full Self Driving, or FSD, is an upgrade to Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistant. Tesla doesn’t yet make or sell cars capable of full autonomous driving. It sells “Level 2” driver-assistance systems, marketed under the brand name FSD.
“Level 3” assisted driving, otherwise known as “conditional automation,” entails systems that handle all aspects of driving, but a driver still must be present, according to the SAE standards-setting organization.
Tesla has offered its FSD technology in China for years, but with a restricted feature set that limits it to operations like automated lane changing.
GAM does not own shares of Tesla, and Hawtin said he doesn’t personally own shares either.
– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 21, 2025 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Last week on Wall Street, two forces dragged stocks lower: a set of high-stakes numbers from Nvidia and the U.S. jobs report that landed with more heat than expected. But the leaves that remained after hot tea scalded investors seemed to augur good tidings.
Even though Nvidia’s third-quarter results easily breezed past Wall Street’s estimates, they couldn’t quell worries about lofty valuations and an unsustainable bubble inflating in the artificial intelligence sector. The “Magnificent Seven” cohort — save Alphabet — had a losing week.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics added to the pressure. September payrolls rose far more than economists expected, prompting investors to pare back their bets of a December interest rate cut. The timing didn’t help matters, as the report had been delayed and hit just as markets were already on edge.
On Friday, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said that he sees “room” for the central bank to lower interest rates, describing current policy as “modestly restrictive.” His comments caused traders to increase their bets on a December cut to around 70%, up from 44.4% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
And despite a broad sell-off in AI stocks last week, Alphabet shares bucked the trend. Investors seemed impressed by its new AI model, Gemini 3, and hopeful that its development of custom chips could rival Nvidia’s in the long run.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly’s ascent into the $1 trillion valuation club served as a reminder that market leadership doesn’t belong to tech alone. In a market defined by narrow concentration, any sign of broadening strength is a welcome change.
Diversification, even within AI’s sprawling ecosystem, might be exactly what this market needs now.
Qube Holdings receives takeover proposal from Macquarie. The asset management firm has put forth a non-binding proposal to acquire Qube Holdings, an Australian logistics company, at an enterprise value of 11.6 billion Australian dollars ($7.49 billion).
Bessent doesn’t see a U.S. recession in 2026. “We have set the table for a very strong, noninflationary growth economy,” the U.S. Treasury secretary said Sunday in an interview on “Meet the Press.” However, he acknowledged that some sectors have been struggling.
Singapore inflation creeps up. The country’s consumer price index for October rose 1.2% year on year, the highest since August 2024 and surpassing the 0.9% estimate in a Reuters poll of economists. Core inflation also increased a higher-than-expected 1.2%.
[PRO] Opportunities in China’s tech sector. Despite a trade truce between the U.S. and China, ongoing tensions mean both will focus on homegrown technology, analysts say. Here are the Chinese tech firms that Wall Street banks are keeping an eye on.
And finally…
A picture taken on December 8, 2014 in Abidjan shows a Chinese shoe dealer in a transaction at Adjamene’s market.
Chinese business dealings in Africa, once dominated by state-owned enterprises, are now increasingly shifting toward consumer products from the private sector.
Chinese investments in Africa’s resource-intensive sectors have declined by roughly 40% since their 2015 peak, according to Rhodium Group China Cross-Border Monitor released on Nov. 18 this year. Meanwhile, China’s exports to Africa have surged by 28% year on year over the first three quarters of 2025, the report said.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 21, 2025 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Last week on Wall Street, two forces dragged stocks lower: a set of high-stakes numbers from Nvidia and the U.S. jobs report that landed with more heat than expected. But the leaves that remained after hot tea scalded investors seemed to augur good tidings.
Even though Nvidia’s third-quarter results easily breezed past Wall Street’s estimates, they couldn’t quell worries about lofty valuations and an unsustainable bubble inflating in the artificial intelligence sector. The “Magnificent Seven” cohort — save Alphabet — had a losing week.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics added to the pressure. September payrolls rose far more than economists expected, prompting investors to pare back their bets of a December interest rate cut. The timing didn’t help matters, as the report had been delayed and hit just as markets were already on edge.
On Friday, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said that he sees “room” for the central bank to lower interest rates, describing current policy as “modestly restrictive.” His comments caused traders to increase their bets on a December cut to around 70%, up from 44.4% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
And despite a broad sell-off in AI stocks last week, Alphabet shares bucked the trend. Investors seemed impressed by its new AI model, Gemini 3, and hopeful that its development of custom chips could rival Nvidia’s in the long run.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly’s ascent into the $1 trillion valuation club served as a reminder that market leadership doesn’t belong to tech alone. In a market defined by narrow concentration, any sign of broadening strength is a welcome change.
Diversification, even within AI’s sprawling ecosystem, might be exactly what this market needs now.
What you need to know today
And finally…
The Beijing music venue DDC was one of the latest to have to cancel a performance by a Japanese artist on Nov. 20, 2025, in the wake of escalating bilateral tensions.
China’s escalating dispute with Japan reinforces Beijing’s growing economic influence — and penchant for abrupt actions that can create uncertainty for businesses.
Hours before Japanese jazz quintet The Blend was due to perform in Beijing on Thursday, a plainclothesman walked into the DDC music club during a sound check. Then, “the owner of the live house came to me and said: ‘The police has told me tonight is canceled,'” said Christian Petersen-Clausen, a music agent.
— Evelyn Cheng
Correction: This report has been updated to correct the spelling of Eli Lilly.
Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed that people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to a legal filing that was released on Friday.
The social media giant was alleged to have initiated the study, dubbed Project Mercury, in late 2019 as a way to help it “explore the impact that our apps have on polarization, news consumption, well-being, and daily social interactions,” according to the legal brief, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The filing contains newly unredacted information pertaining to Meta.
The newly released legal brief is related to high-profile multidistrict litigation from a variety of plaintiffs, such as school districts, parents and state attorneys general against social media companies like Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snap and TikTok.
The plaintiffs claim that these businesses were aware that their respective platforms caused various mental health-related harms to children and young adults, but failed to take action and instead misled educators and authorities, among several allegations.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens—like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with controls to manage their teens’ experiences.”
A Google spokesperson said in a statement that “These lawsuits fundamentally misunderstand how YouTube works and the allegations are simply not true.”
“YouTube is a streaming service where people come to watch everything from live sports to podcasts to their favorite creators, primarily on TV screens, not a social network where people go to catch up with friends,” the Google spokesperson said. “We’ve also developed dedicated tools for young people, guided by child safety experts, that give families control.”
Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 2019 Meta research was based on a random sample of consumers who stopped their Facebook and Instagram usage for a month, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit alleged that Meta was disappointed that the initial tests of the study showed that people who stopped using Facebook “for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison.”
Meta allegedly chose not to “sound the alarm,” but instead stopped the research, the lawsuit said.
“The company never publicly disclosed the results of its deactivation study,” according to the suit. “Instead, Meta lied to Congress about what it knew.”
The lawsuit cites an unnamed Meta employee who allegedly said, “If the results are bad and we don’t publish and they leak, is it going to look like tobacco companies doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves?”
Stone, in a series of social media posts, pushed back on the lawsuit’s implication that Meta shuttered the internal research after it allegedly showed a causal relationship between its apps and adverse mental-health effects.
Stone characterized the 2019 study as flawed and said it was the reason that the company expressed disappointment. The study, Stone said, merely found that “people who believed using Facebook was bad for them felt better when they stopped using it.”
“This is a confirmation of other public research (“deactivation studies”) out there that demonstrates the same effect,” Stone said in a separate post. “It makes intuitive sense but it doesn’t show anything about the actual effect of using the platform.”
