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TOPSHOT – People look at a BYD Seagull car by Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD Auto at the Bangkok International Motor Show in Nonthaburi on March 27, 2024. (Photo by Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP) (Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images)

Lillian Suwanrumpha | Afp | Getty Images

The European Union is expected to reveal its tariff rate plan for Chinese electric vehicles this week, as the bloc cracks down on low-priced, subsidized imports.

The EU has a standard 10% duty on imported EVs, but is set to provisionally raise those fees for Chinese EVs starting July 4.

Citi analysts on Monday said the tariff rate could be “hiked to ~25-30% from 10% currently, while our risk scenario (40% probability) envisages a hike in the tariff rate to 30-50%.”

Anthony Sassine, senior investment strategist at KraneShares, on Tuesday said he expects the tariff rates to be “between 10% and 20%” but “could see this being on the higher end of the 20%” after the European Parliament elections last week.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, saw her party – the European People’s Party – gaining seats on Sunday. Von der Leyen has pushed for a “de-risking” approach from Beijing.

Potential EU tariffs on Chinese EVs won't have much impact, strategist says

The European Commission first launched an investigation in October into subsidies given to EV makers in China. The EU alleged such subsidized imports “posed an economic threat to the EU’s EV industry.”

“But the Chinese manufacturers are so efficient, are so ahead of the curve, that tariffs like this – I don’t think will impact too much the pricing here. They will still be more competitive than their EU counterparts,” Sassine told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday.

China’s EV industry has boomed thanks to incentives and support from the Chinese government, raising overcapacity concerns from authorities in the U.S. and Europe.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in March warned China could flood the U.S. electric-vehicle market with its offerings, after President Joe Biden raised similar concerns. The U.S. already announced stiff new tariffs in May. The Biden administration hiked tariffs on Chinese EV imports to 100%, up from 25%.

Turkey reportedly announced on June 8 that it will impose an additional 40% tariff on imports of vehicles from China.

Expanding in Europe

Last month, Chinese EV makers including Xpeng and BYD showcased their models in Europe while Nio opened a new showroom in Amsterdam, despite the ongoing EU probe.

BYD announced in December that it will build a new factory in Hungary while Chery in April entered a joint venture with Spain’s Ebro-EV Motors to develop new EVs.

Cedomir Nestorovic, professor of geopolitics at ESSEC Business School, said “scores of Chinese manufacturers are now scouting the EU.”

They “will avoid, or they will try to avoid, all kinds of tariffs,” Nestorovic told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.

Chinese EV manufacturers are now 'scouting' the EU, professor says

“We’re seeing the Chinese automakers actually setting up factories in Europe. Nio, also, is looking at Hungary. So there are options here, and I’m sure there’s back channels happening here,” said KraneShares’ Sassine.

“I think with Europe, it’s not going to be a big deal. In the U.S., it’s a different story,” said Sassine.

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OpenAI says it will use Google’s cloud for ChatGPT

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OpenAI says it will use Google's cloud for ChatGPT

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to members of the media as he arrives at a lodge for the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference on July 8, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images News | Getty Images

OpenAI said Wednesday that it expects to use Google’s cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence assistant.

The reach for additional capacity aligns with OpenAI’s desire for more computing power to meet heavy demand after initially relying exclusively on Microsoft for cloud capacity. The two companies’ relations have evolved since then, with Microsoft naming OpenAI as a competitor last year.

Both companies sell AI tools for developers and offer subscriptions to companies.

OpenAI has added Google to a list of suppliers, specifying that ChatGPT and its application programming interface will use the Google Cloud Platform, as well as Microsoft, CoreWeave and Oracle.

The announcement amounts to a win for Google, whose cloud unit is younger and smaller than Amazon‘s and Microsoft‘s. Google also has cloud business with Anthropic, which was established by former OpenAI executives.

The Google infrastructure will run in the U.S., Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

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Last year, Oracle announced that it was partnering with Microsoft and OpenAl “to extend the Microsoft Azure Al platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure” to give OpenAI additional computing power. In March, OpenAI committed to a cloud agreement with CoreWeave in a five-year deal worth nearly $12 billion.

Microsoft said in January that it had agreed to move to a model of providing the right of first refusal anytime OpenAI needs more computing resources, rather than being its exclusive vendor across the board. Microsoft continues to hold the exclusive on OpenAI’s programming interfaces.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, said in April that the startup, which draws on Nvidia graphics processing units to power its large language models, was facing capacity constraints.

“if anyone has GPU capacity in 100k chunks we can get asap please call!” he wrote in an X post at the time.

Reuters reported in June that OpenAI was planning to bring on cloud capacity from Google.

WATCH: ChatGPT’s growth has been unassailed and looks set to continue: Altimeter’s Apoorv Agrawal

ChatGPT's growth has been unassailed and looks set to continue: Altimeter's Apoorv Agrawal

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Tesla’s change in bylaws to limit shareholder lawsuits slammed by New York state officials

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Tesla's change in bylaws to limit shareholder lawsuits slammed by New York state officials

Elon Musk interviews on CNBC from the Tesla Headquarters in Texas.

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In May, Tesla changed its corporate bylaws in a way that would require investors to own 3% of the stock, today worth about $30 billion, in order to file a derivative lawsuit against the company for breach of fiduciary duties. Authorities in New York State are now asking Tesla to delete the bylaw entirely.

Overseers of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which owns about 0.1% of Tesla’s shares, submitted a formal proxy proposal and letter to the company on July 11, and shared it with CNBC on Wednesday. They say that Elon Musk’s automaker engaged in a “bait-and-switch” to convince shareholders to approve an incorporation move from Delaware to Texas in June 2024.

Musk made the move after a judge in Delaware voided the $56 billion pay package that the CEO, also the world’s richest person, was granted by Tesla in 2018, the largest compensation plan in public company history. In getting shareholders to approve the change in its state of incorporation, Tesla said that stakeholders’ rights “are substantially equivalent” under the laws of Delaware and Texas.

On May 14, almost a year after Tesla’s move, Texas changed its law to allow corporations in the state to require 3% ownership before being able to carry forth a shareholder derivative suit.

“The very next day, Tesla’s board amended the Company’s bylaws to the maximum allowable 3% ownership threshold, effectively insulating the Company’s directors and officers from accountability to shareholders,” the New York letter says. The letter was signed by Gianna McCarthy, a director of corporate governance with the retirement fund, on behalf of the fund and New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Only three institutions currently own at least 3% of Tesla’s outstanding shares.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The New York fund overseers wrote that derivative actions are “the last resort for shareholders to enforce their rights” when company directors or officers violate their fiduciary obligations, and called Tesla’s decision on the matter “egregious.”

In an email to CNBC, DiNapoli said Tesla “deceived shareholders” in assuring them that their rights would remain the same in Texas.

“These actions violate basic tenets of good corporate governance and must be reversed,” he wrote.

WATCH: What to know about the renewed executive churn under Elon Musk

What to know about the renewed executive churn under Elon Musk

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Peter Thiel just bought a big stake in Tom Lee’s ether company and the shares are surging

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Peter Thiel just bought a big stake in Tom Lee's ether company and the shares are surging

Peter Thiel, president and founder of Clarium Capital Management LLC, holds hundred dollars bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Florida, U.S., on Thursday, April 7, 2022. 

Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

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Bitmine (BMNR) 1-month

The current wave of interest in Ethereum and related assets follows an announcement by Robinhood that it will enable trading of tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across Europe, and a groundswell of interest in stablecoins throughout June following Circle’s wildly successful IPO and ongoing progress in Congress on the Senate’s proposed stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act.

The price of ether itself also continued its rally, up more than 4% Wednesday. The coin has doubled in price in the past three months.

Thiel is a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager best known as a cofounder of both PayPal and Palantir and an early investor in Facebook. Founders Fund was an investor in Tagomi, the crypto brokerage acquired by Coinbase in 2020, and Polymarket, the prediction market built on Ethereum.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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