US President Donald Trump uses a cellphone aboard Marine One before it departs Leesburg Executive Airport in Leesburg, Virginia, on April 24, 2025. Trump is returning to the White House after attending a MAGA, Inc. dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, DC.
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The Trump Organization’s newly-announced smartphone will likely be made in China, experts say, despite claims that the device will be manufactured in the U.S.
Owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, the company on Monday announced the T1, a gold-colored device which it said would retail for $499. The smartphone will run Google’s Android operating system.
The Trump Organization says the phone will be “built in the United States” — but experts note the phone was likely designed and would be manufactured by a Chinese firm.
“There is no way the phone was designed from scratch and there is no way it is going to be assembled in the U.S. or completely manufactured in the U.S.,” Francisco Jeronimo, vice president at International Data Corporation, told CNBC on Tuesday. “That is completely impossible.”
Jeronimo suggested that the phone would likely be produced by a Chinese original device manufacturer (ODM) — a type of company that designs and manufacturers products based on the specifications of another firm.
“Despite being advertised as an American-made phone, it is likely that this device will be initially produced by a Chinese ODM,” Blake Przesmicki, an analyst at Counterpoint Research said in a note on Monday.
Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint Research added that “the U.S. does not have local manufacturing capabilities readily available.”
Smartphone manufacturing came into focus after Trump threatened tariffs on devices imported into the U.S. While those have yet to materialize, the American president has poured scrutiny on Apple‘s supply chain, urging the iPhone maker to manufacture its flagship handset in the U.S. The call is part of a broader desire from Trump to see more manufacturing of electronics be undertaken in the U.S.
Several experts have noted that manufacturing iPhones in the U.S. would be nearly impossible and would certainly raise the price of the product substantially. On top of that, getting large-scale manufacturing off the ground in the U.S. would take several years.
Phone will need foreign components
Even if some manufacturing of the device were done in the U.S., smartphone supply chains are global, and handset components come from several countries.
The Trump Organization’s T1 is no different. While no information has been revealed on particular components, the specifications could give a hint of what to expect.
The device will have a 6.8-inch AMOLED display, a kind of screen that is made primarily by South Korean firm Samsung. LG, another South Korean firm, also produces the screen, as does Chinese firm BOE.
For comparison, Apple’s top end iPhone 16 Pro Max, has a 6.9-inch display and starts at $1,199.
At T1’s $499 price point, the smartphone will likely use a processor from Taiwanese firm MediaTek, which would be manufactured in Taiwan. If the device were to contain a Qualcomm chip instead, that would also likely have to be made in Taiwan.
The phone’s advertised 50-megapixel camera will meanwhile require image sensing chips — a market that is dominated by Japanese firm Sony for smartphones. There are smaller players in China and elsewhere.
The device’s memory is one area that could use American technology, potentially from Micron, which manufactures its components in the U.S. But other players, like South Korea’s Samsung, could be potential suppliers.
“Even when there is local manufacturing available the company will have to rely on components that are being imported from outside the US,” Counterpoint Research’s Fieldhack said.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
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The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
Elon Musk meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House in Washington DC, USA on February 13, 2025.
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Tesla will open a showroom in Mumbai, India next week, marking the U.S. electric carmakers first official foray into the country.
The one and a half hour launch event for the Tesla “Experience Center” will take place on July 15 at the Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, according to an event invitation seen by CNBC.
Along with the showroom display, which will feature the company’s cars, Tesla is also likely to officially launch direct sales to Indian customers.
The automaker has had its eye on India for a while and now appears to have stepped up efforts to launch locally.
In April, Tesla boss Elon Musk spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss collaboration in areas including technology and innovation. That same month, the EV-maker’s finance chief said the company has been “very careful” in trying to figure out when to enter the market.
Tesla has no manufacturing operations in India, even though the country’s government is likely keen for the company to establish a factory. Instead the cars sold in India will need to be imported from Tesla’s other manufacturing locations in places like Shanghai, China, and Berlin, Germany.
As Tesla begins sales in India, it will come up against challenges from long-time Chinese rival BYD, as well as local player Tata Motors.
One potential challenge for Tesla comes by way of India’s import duties on electric vehicles, which stand at around 70%. India has tried to entice investment in the country by offering companies a reduced duty of 15% if they commit to invest $500 million and set up manufacturing locally.
HD Kumaraswamy, India’s minister for heavy industries, told reporters in June that Tesla is “not interested” in manufacturing in the country, according to a Reuters report.
Tesla is looking to recruit roles in Mumbai, job listings posted on LinkedIn . These include advisors working in showrooms, security, vehicle operators to collect data for its Autopilot feature and service technicians.
There are also roles being advertised in the Indian capital of New Delhi, including for store managers. It’s unclear if Tesla is planning to launch a showroom in the city.