Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe Edition

Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) A Chinese company founded by Alice Huang, the woman at the center of a controversy dogging Nvidia, procured smuggled AI chips that were installed at a Shanghai data center with links to Megaspeed, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.

(2) The Justice Department is probing Alice Huang, the woman US officials suspect as a possible spy targeting the ousted head of Nvidia Corp., over whether entities linked to her were involved in efforts to smuggle products made by Super Micro Computer Inc. to China, according to a person familiar with the matter.

(3) The fall of Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has removed the industry’s most prominent opponent of US chip controls, setting up a showdown over potential new curbs that could accelerate China’s drive for semiconductor self-sufficiency.

(4) While Nvidia’s board hunts for someone to permanently replace founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang, it’s counting on Colette Kress — the company’s chief financial officer of 13 years and a longtime technology executive — to steady the ship.

(5) At the end, Jensen Huang looked broken and shattered, his legendary energy depleted. After weeks spent denying the allegations of infidelity and fighting to remain in his job as Nvidia Corp.’s chief executive officer, his surrender late Wednesday night was unconditional.

(6) Microsoft is struggling to restore access to its flagship software and end an outage that has paralyzed government offices, traders and businesses globally.

(7) A Chinese artificial intelligence model was used in recent hacks that disabled refrigerators in French supermarkets, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.

(8) Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said progress had been made during a meeting with US envoys in Ireland, hailing a prisoner swap deal and a decision to include Europeans in the next round of peace talks with Russia.

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Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) While Nvidia’s board hunts for someone to permanently replace founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang, it’s counting on Colette Kress — the company’s chief financial officer of 13 years and a longtime technology executive — to steady the ship.

(2) At the end, Jensen Huang looked broken and shattered, his legendary energy depleted. After weeks spent denying the allegations of infidelity and fighting to remain in his job as Nvidia Corp.’s chief executive officer, his surrender late Wednesday night was unconditional.

(3) Anthropic’s initial public offering has drawn about six times the orders for the shares available, according to people familiar with the matter, as interest increases for potentially the biggest first-time share sale ever.

(4) A Chinese artificial intelligence model was used in recent hacks that disabled refrigerators in French supermarkets, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.

(5) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said progress had been made during a meeting with US envoys in Ireland, hailing a prisoner swap deal and a decision to include Europeans in the next round of peace talks with Russia.

(6) The European Union is set to approve over a hundred new sanctions on Russia targeting banks, energy firms and tankers illegally moving Russia’s oil, according to people familiar with the matter.

(7) The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a left-leaning bill that would increase the tax burden on the wealthy, and risks toppling Prime Minister Rob Jetten’s coalition.

(8) Thousands of Berlin’s dentists trusted a pension fund. The story of its €1.2 billion downfall includes risky investments, a Ferrari and a luxury yacht.

Podcast Conversation: How Much Is That Leather Jacket Worth Now?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) Nvidia's board has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements for Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang following reports of multiple extramarital affairs, including one with a woman who is reportedly suspected of spying for China, a person familiar with the situation said.

(2) The suspected Chinese spy at the heart of a scandal that threatens to take down Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has returned to her home country, people familiar with the matter said.

(3) Xi Jinping’s third summit of the year with Donald Trump is going off script before their meetings even get underway, as the spy allegations engulfing Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang reopen old rifts.

(4) David Cameron, the former prime minister who led Britain’s unsuccessful campaign to stay in the European Union, warned Prime Minister Andy Burnham against seeking to rejoin the bloc, arguing that it would undermine talks for closer ties.

(5) The parties in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling coalition rolled back some planned social-spending cuts and delayed new taxes, clearing the way for a deal on Germany’s 2027 budget.

(6) Thousands of schools in Europe were targeted by bomb threats, leading to evacuations and adding to the recent disruption across the continent that grounded planes and saw supermarket fridges hacked.

(7) Democrats padded their US Senate majority with a surprise win by Scott Colom, a district attorney who ousted Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in a reliably Republican state that President Donald Trump won by more than 22 percentage points in 2024.
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Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) World leaders head to Turkey today for the UN's COP31 climate conference amid growing concern over extreme and erratic weather. This year is on course to become the hottest in modern history and a record-breaking El Niño is amplifying global warming.

(2) Across Europe, governments, industries and citizens are in a second major energy crisis in less than five years, having never fully recovered from the first — 2022’s brutal gas price shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

(3) CoreWeave eased fears about its debt-laden business during a high-stakes quarterly report, indicating that sales growth remains strong despite challenges facing the data center industry.

(4) Andy Burnham’s government won’t accept so-called dynamic alignment of the UK’s financial services rules with those of the European Union, a stance that raises questions about the premier’s wider ambitions for closer ties.

(5) British police have arrested a US Army soldier on suspicion of being involved in a Russian espionage operation in a case that involved both UK and American authorities.

(6) Secretary of State Marco Rubio touted a productive first day of US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine to end their war, now in its fifth year, saying that President Donald Trump’s administration and Europe have the same goals in mind.

(7) A hotter than expected US inflation print has traders around the world ramping up bets on rate hikes. A US Core CPI rose by 0.3% last month, topping estimates.

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Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) Nvidia’s general counsel intervened in a US government probe of suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International, questioning whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining an executive from the Singapore-based firm who’s now at the heart of a scandal threatening Jensen Huang.

(2) Though it’s not uncommon to see cultlike tech CEOs who obsess over details, Huang is in a class of his own. He has led the business since its very beginning 33 years ago, the longest such run in Silicon Valley. And even as Nvidia grew into one of the world’s most powerful companies — with a stock return of more than 700,000% — there’s still no one designated to potentially replace him.

(3) Anthropic sent out and retracted a filing that appeared to show it was aiming to raise as much as $69.3 billion ⁠through an initial public offering, Reuters said.

(4) President Donald Trump said further strikes on Iran wouldn’t be necessary but the US remains “locked and loaded,” an indication that he’s winding down the conflict after Republicans’ midterm elections loss underscored its deep unpopularity.

(5) Russian and Ukrainian envoys will discuss territorial issues and proposals for ceasefire monitoring in the United Arab Emirates this week, according to a senior US official, as a new round of negotiations to end the war gets underway.

(6) Insurers are taking steps to limit their exposure to the risk of losses tied to a wave of street protests in cities across Europe.

(7) China’s trade surplus ballooned to just over $1 trillion for the year despite the biggest surge in imports since 2021, with an increasingly lopsided relationship with the European Union accounting for nearly a third of the overall imbalance.

(8) Taiwan's people are coming to grips with the growing risk that Beijing poses to the status quo and quietly preparing for an invasion, according to interviews with two dozen individuals from different walks of life, ranging from an excavator operator to a diplomat. Paradoxically, this possibility is often coupled with the inability to imagine it might actually happen.

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