Year-end inventory of the top ten global financial hotspots in 2025: the first year of the collapse of the capital order — US asset beliefs were shaken, and AI valuation moved from “dreams” to “debt” assessments

Looking back at 2025, this is bound to be a historic watershed in the reshaping of order in global capital markets amid severe shocks. This year, the “American exception theory” faced a crisis of disillusionment in the political game between the boomerang effect of “equal tariffs” and the White House's push against the Federal Reserve. The 43-day federal government shutdown further plunged the market into an unprecedented “data fog.” At the same time, the AI revolution has entered the deep-water zone. From the “algorithm equality” set off by DeepSeek to the “wave of AI debt” carried by tech giants, to the anxiety of the global supply chain stealing memory chips, the game between technological progress and return on capital is becoming more and more thrilling. Under the sharp collision of macro-narrative and micro-transformation, the asset price logic was fundamentally reversed: gold and silver staged an epic boom amid credit instability, yet Bitcoin was plagued by macroeconomic headwinds in a scandal-free context, while Tesla and the streaming media giant sought valuation reconstruction in a battle of survival.

Standing at the intersection of the collapse of the old order and the emergence of a new pattern, the Zhitong Finance App has sorted out the top ten key events that will shake up the global capital market in 2025 and revisited this annual drama involving the redistribution of wealth and power changes.

1. “Equal tariffs” triggered a sharp shock in “American exceptionalism”, and global assets entered a “bipolar resilience” game year

On April 2, 2025, the US government launched a comprehensive “equal tariff” policy with the intention of reshaping the global supply chain, but it unexpectedly triggered severe market turmoil and raised deep questions about the long-term dominance of the “American exception theory.” This policy, such as a “boomerang,” is devouring the US economy. The S&P 500 index fell sharply by 4.84% on April 3, the NASDAQ plummeted 5.97%, and the Dow Jones fell 3.98%. The three major indices all recorded their biggest one-day decline since June 2020. From April 3 to 4, US stocks fell sharply for 2 consecutive days, and the total market value evaporated by about 6 trillion US dollars, which is equivalent to Germany's total annual GDP. This shock not only pierced the myth that US stocks would “always rise,” but also sparked discussions in international public opinion about the disillusionment of “America's exceptionalism” and the return of the “east rising to the west” rhetoric.

Furthermore, the “American exception theory” faced serious challenges in 2025, also due to market concerns that federal debt will continue to rise and stubborn inflation will limit the Fed's policy space. The performance of markets such as Europe and Japan surpassed that of US stocks. Global capital allocation showed the most significant diversification trend in ten years, and investors began to re-evaluate risk premiums on US assets. Compared to America's internal difficulties, Eastern economies such as China have shown greater resilience. Faced with the impact of US tariffs of up to 84% on China, China's economic growth rate in the first quarter of 2025 still exceeded expectations, and the adaptability of the industrial chain and the effectiveness of policy support were verified. The global trade pattern did not stagnate due to America's unilateral actions; on the contrary, it accelerated diversification of the industrial chain and deepening regional cooperation.

However, later, as the tariff war cooled down, the explosive profit implementation of artificial intelligence technology, and the liquidity support initiated by the Federal Reserve under inflationary pressure, US stocks showed amazing “resilience” after the severe shock. The three major indices rebounded strongly and reached record highs. Although this backlash has cooled down the “east rises west” theory, “American exceptionalism” is no longer able to return to the era of blind worship in the past. Behind the double-digit increase in US stocks is record volatility and a “roller coaster” psychological reshaping, which fully reveals the long-term erosion of the foundations of US stocks by policy uncertainty.

It is worth mentioning that economic and trade relations between China and the US have had ups and downs during the year. At the beginning of October, the two sides reached an agreement to suspend additional tariffs for a period of one year. This half-year tariff game has come to an end. Looking ahead, the extension of tariffs on November 10, 2026 will be a major potential event affecting the global market and US stocks. The core logic is directly related to whether trade frictions escalate, maintain the status quo, or ease.

2. The White House forces the Federal Reserve: Trump bombards slow interest rate cuts and is preparing early nominations to overwrite Powell

In 2025, after Trump was re-elected as US president, the power game between the White House and the Federal Reserve escalated to an open “all-out war,” which became one of the most impactful financial events of the year. The core conflict focuses on differences in monetary policy paths: Trump repeatedly bombarded Federal Reserve Chairman Powell as “stubborn” and “extremely incompetent” on social platforms, accusing him of cutting interest rates “too late and too little.” Although the Federal Reserve cut interest rate three times in a row in the second half of the year to reduce the benchmark interest rate to 3.5%-3.75%, Trump still argues that it should be reduced to less than 1% to stimulate the economy and the real estate market. The strong performance of the US GDP annualized growth rate of 4.3% in the third quarter strengthened the Fed's internal cautious attitude towards further interest rate cuts, while the Trump administration saw this as an opportunity to cut interest rates, believing that maintaining high interest rates was artificially suppressing market performance.

To weaken Powell's influence, Trump adopted an “fictitious” strategy: Powell's term ended in May 2026, but Trump began planning to nominate a successor early in the summer of 2025. This move may be aimed at establishing a “shadow leadership” loyal to the White House within the Federal Reserve, and in fact overrides the remainder of Powell's term. The election criteria emphasize the positions of “absolute loyalty” and “interest rate cutters”. Trump's December 23 post defined a “litmus test”: anyone who disagrees with the idea of “cutting interest rates when the economy is good” is absolutely ineligible to become the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Popular candidates include White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Walsh, and current director Christopher Waller. Among them, Hassett has publicly criticized the US for falling behind in interest rate cuts.

Looking ahead to when Powell's term expires in May 2026, the three popular candidates, Hassett, Walsh, and Waller, have a clear position: Hassett is a “political interventionist” representative. Although he has a close relationship with Trump and has publicly criticized interest rate cuts, his chances of winning in the gaming market have dropped significantly from a peak of over 80% to 51%. The market is concerned that its excessive politicization tendencies may cause turmoil in the bond market; Waller stood out with his “data prudent” positioning and maintained interest rates in July as the central opposition force that actively promoted interest rate cuts within the Federal Reserve. The voting records and the formation of Wall Street's popularity Resonance is seen as a potential guarantee for the stability of risky assets; Walsh triggered a market game with an “experimental reform” attitude, and the uncertainty of his policy stance polarized market expectations.

The final candidate will depend on Trump's trade-off between compromising policy independence and the Federal Reserve's internal balance of power. The end result of this critical personnel change will be the central observation point for global financial markets to assess the risk of US policy uncertainty.

3. AI Valuation Reconstruction: The DeepSeek Miracle and the Counterattack of Google's Ecosystem

The global AI industry experienced a disruptive restructuring of valuation logic in 2025, becoming the most strategic technological transformation event of the year. This transformation starts with the “algorithm equality revolution” led by the Chinese company DeepSeek — through multi-token prediction optimization and sparse hybrid expert model architecture innovation, its next-generation model reduced inference costs to less than 10% of similar products in Silicon Valley, and verified for the first time that algorithm optimization can partially replace dependence on top GPUs. This breakthrough made “using high-performance AI at a cost of 1,000 yuan” a reality, completely shook OpenAI's industry consensus on “expensive model = only path”. It also triggered a sharp drop in Nvidia's stock price, the market capitalization evaporated by hundreds of billions of dollars, and the market began to re-examine the true value of the computing power monopoly.

Faced with the impact of algorithm efficiency, US tech giants quickly launched an “infrastructure defense war”: Microsoft restarted the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant project, Amazon increased its data center land reserves, and Meta accelerated the construction of a million-chip computing power cluster. The essence of this competition is a “electricity+land” dual monopoly experiment — despite improvements in algorithm efficiency, training the next generation of super-intelligent models still requires an absolute advantage in physical resources, and giants are trying to consolidate their leading position through scale barriers in energy and infrastructure.

In the midst of this transformation, Google counterattacked with a vertically integrated ecosystem. In the second quarter, Google launched the Gemini 2.0 series to directly target DeepSeek R1 in terms of token cost and inference efficiency. Relying on self-developed TPU chips to reduce costs throughout the entire link from chip to model to application, building a core moat to cope with the impact of low prices. By the fourth quarter, with the introduction of Gemini 3 and the adoption of TPU chips by more major manufacturers, Google's stock price exploded in late November, with a market capitalization approaching 4 trillion US dollars. The AI market changed from Nvidia's sole company to a “Google+Nvidia” dual-technology system coexistence pattern. More importantly, Google deeply embedded AI into multi-billion user scenarios such as search, Android, and Workspace, and relied on a huge user base to achieve rapid monetization of AI investment, and verified the ultimate advantage of “model-computing-power-terminal” full-stack integration.

Looking forward to the future, the AI industry is shifting from extensive estimation of “computational power scale+model parameter quantity” to a three-dimensional evaluation system of “algorithm efficiency+ecological penetration rate+data moat”. DeepSeek has proven the possibility of technology sinking, while Google has verified the ultimate advantage of full-stack integration — as algorithms become increasingly convergent, “full-stack players” with the autonomy of the underlying chip and top-level application ecosystem will become the biggest reap.

4. In 2025, a “wave of core grabbing” broke out in the global memory chip market, and the AI-driven structural shortage became the focus

In 2025, the global storage market faced the most severe structural imbalance in history. Although the impact of the overall industry was less extensive than in 2021, driven by the explosive growth in demand for AI computing power, the battle for production capacity in the high-end memory chip sector suddenly escalated, and price fluctuations peaked in nearly five years. The underlying logic of this transformation has completely shifted from traditional “consumer electronics demand driven” to structural shortages caused by “AI computing power demand”. The industrial chain restructuring effect is profoundly reshaping the global technology industry pattern — every step from chip design and manufacturing to terminal application is undergoing value revaluation and strategic adjustments. The impact dimension far exceeds simple price fluctuations, and has become a key variable defining the competitiveness of the technology industry in the next ten years.

The reason for this “core rush” is the “siphon effect” of AI computing power on storage. 2025 can be called the peak year for AI infrastructure construction. AI servers require more than 30 times more memory than traditional servers. To meet the needs of companies such as Nvidia, the three storage giants Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are converting large DRAM production capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Although the manufacturer once planned to completely stop production of DDR4 in the second half of 2025, Samsung and SK Hynix decided to extend DDR4 supply until the end of 2026 in the third quarter due to soaring market prices and strong demand from traditional industries. Despite this, since almost all of the new production capacity is invested in HBM and DDR5, the effective supply of traditional general-purpose chips is still seriously insufficient, causing the PC, automobile and other industries to face continued high cost pressure.

Judging from the development context, this storage crisis has experienced a drastic evolution from a “structural shortage” to a “global premium.” In the first half of 2025, driven by the initial expansion of AI infrastructure, memory chip prices began a moderate upward trajectory in April. However, in the second half of the year, as the HBM (high-bandwidth memory) capacity gap completely exploded, the market directly switched to a “boom” mode from September to October.

Since production capacity is almost monopolized by AI demand, cloud giants such as Google and Microsoft have even sent supply chain specialists to be stationed at Samsung and SK Hynix factories in South Korea to “closely monitor production” to prevent order delays. As of December, the annual contract increase for core DRAM products has exceeded 100%; under extreme supply and demand imbalances, the unit price of some high-end high-capacity memory modules (such as 256GB DDR5) used in AI servers has doubled, and their premium level in some spot channels has reached the retail price of the RTX 5090, the top flagship graphics card during the same period.

There are three main reasons why the 2025 “core rush” is so severe. The first is the bottleneck in expanding production. Even if manufacturers are willing to expand production, the construction cycle for infrastructure such as semiconductor clean rooms is long, and they face a shortage of engineering resources. The release of production capacity is seriously limited, and they fall into the “volume and price game.” Second, inventory was exhausted. By the end of the third quarter of 2025, global DRAM inventories fell to a record low of 3.3 weeks, which is comparable to the extreme crisis level in 2018. Third, demand resonates. In 2025, all Apple iPhones were upgraded with storage upgrades, compounding the data center replacement cycle, and multi-dimensional demand exploded simultaneously, further exacerbating the chip shortage.

This “wave of core grabbing” has had a multifaceted impact on the industry. On the terminal side, major PC manufacturers such as Dell and HP have issued warnings and will adjust product configurations or repricing to deal with cost pressure. Looking ahead, in terms of the market landscape, this “supercycle” is expected to continue until the end of 2026 or even 2027.

5. The global capital market was surprised by a “wave of AI debt”, and market concerns about the AI bubble erupted

In 2025, the global capital market ushered in a landmark “wave of AI debt”. This year, the scale of global technology corporate bond issuance set a new record. As of the first week of December 2025, global technology companies issued a total of $428.3 billion in bonds during the year, a record high, according to Dealogic data. Among them, the issuance scale of US corporate bonds reached 341.8 billion US dollars, accounting for a large portion of the global total.

What is particularly remarkable is that in the fourth quarter alone, Meta (META.US), Google (GOOGL.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), and ORCL.US (ORCL.US) intensively issued about $90 billion to $120 billion in new bonds; among them, Meta broke the record for the highest single loan in technology company history by issuing a single $30 billion bond.

The rise of the “AI debt wave” stemmed from capital expenditure caused by demand for AI infrastructure far exceeding corporate cash flow. To build large-scale data centers, procure high-end GPUs, and upgrade power systems, the annual capital expenditure of tech giants soared to about 400 billion US dollars. Despite the company's lucrative profits, the immediate investment in AI infrastructure exceeds internal operating cash flow, and in order to maintain the pace of expansion without exhausting cash reserves, they are turning to the bond market one after another. At the same time, inflation will cool down in 2025, and the interest rate environment will be relatively stable, and companies hope to use this to lock in lower capital costs.

However, large-scale borrowing also poses many risks. By the end of September 2025, the median debt-to-EBITDA ratio of large technology companies had risen to 0.4, close to double the 2020 level, indicating that debt grew much faster than profit growth. Market concerns about high leverage are evident in credit default swaps (CDS). For example, Oracle's 5-year CDS spread has almost doubled to 142.48 basis points in the past two months, and the market questions the sustainability of its crazy borrowing model to build data centers. Even developers related to AI data centers are issuing high-yield “junk bonds” to raise capital, further increasing the overall risk of the market.

The “wave of AI debt” has sparked a fierce clash of public opinion, and market concerns about the AI bubble have erupted. Critics point out that AI investment is growing exponentially, but the ability to cash out is increasing linearly. If returns fall short of expectations, huge debt will crush the balance sheet. Investors' attitude changed from blind pursuit to strict screening. In the fourth quarter, the stock prices of companies such as Oracle fluctuated greatly due to debt concerns, and investors sold companies that borrowed on a large scale but were unable to prove profitable growth. Furthermore, the supply of technology bonds is huge, accounting for 10% of the US corporate bond market, which significantly squeezes the financing space of utilities such as energy and electricity. This has not only led to a widening of financing spreads in the traditional infrastructure industry, but has also raised the overall credit cost of the corporate bond market at the macro level, and tightened the financing environment for the whole society in disguise.

In 2025, AI investment changed from “dream-driven” to “debt-driven”. Although active capital markets supported the rapid iteration of AI technology, the risk of excessive borrowing and leverage was as high as the sword of Damocles. The market generally anticipates that 2026 will be the key “filing year”. Whether AI projects can generate sufficient cash flow to repay debts will determine whether the bubble lands smoothly or eventually bursts.

6. The “Data Fog” Under the Phantom of the Shutdown: The Beginning and End of the 2025 US Federal Government Shutdown

In 2025, the US federal government went through the longest 43-day shutdown in history. This crisis not only led to a large-scale shutdown of federal services, but also created a “data fog” due to supply cuts in key economic data, causing the Federal Reserve and financial markets to fall into a “blind flight” situation.

The crisis began on October 1, 2025, the first day of fiscal year 2026. The core conflict stems from serious differences between the two parties in the 119th Congress on issues such as the level of federal spending, the withdrawal of foreign aid, and health insurance benefits. The shutdown continued until November 12, breaking the 35-day record for 2018-2019. About 800,000 federal employees have been sacked, 700,000 are working without pay, and the National Institute of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nutritional allowance programs for women and children have all been impacted. More seriously, the shutdown of agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis caused the supply of core economic data to be cut off: non-farm payrolls and CPI reports in October and early November were postponed or cancelled, some data was permanently missing due to the inability to be collected retroactively, and the November data was difficult to interpret due to lack of comparison.

Federal Reserve Chairman Powell likened this plight to “driving in thick fog,” and was forced to slow down the pace of decision-making and carry out “preventive interest rate cuts” in the absence of accurate data. Financial markets, on the other hand, have experienced sharp fluctuations due to the information vacuum. Investors are highly sensitive to policy uncertainty, and risk aversion is heating up.

Eventually, the House of Representatives passed the temporary funding bill, and the crisis ended on November 12 after the President signed it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this shutdown led to a loss of 1.0%-2.0% of GDP growth in the fourth quarter. Although inflation fell to 2.7% and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.6% when the December data was restored, public confidence in the functioning of the government declined markedly, and nearly 47% of adults thought the economy was “bad.”

Looking ahead, the “data black hole” of the 43-day US government shutdown in 2025 will continue to impact the 2026 economic forecast. Seasonal adjustments lost their anchor due to missing October-November data, and the authenticity of economic growth in January 2026 is questionable; due to deterioration in sampling integrity, the annual revised data is unstable, and the Federal Reserve is forced to rely on private data to piece together the economic panorama, and policy guidelines are frequently revised. The forecast model drifted due to chaotic GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2025, and prudent corporate investment plans triggered defensive layoffs and recruitment freezes, exacerbating economic weakness in the first half of 2026. Statistical institutions' trust deficit intensified, and the market had doubts about the authority of official data. When inflation fell back to the target range in February 2026, the financial market reacted lukewarm, and concerns that the data was a “statistical illusion.” This “blind spot effect” directly boosted the global market's risk premium on dollar assets in the first half of 2026.

7. Historic inflection point? Bitcoin showed its first “scandal-free” annual decline, and bulls were caught off guard

In 2025, Bitcoin ushered in a historic turning point — against the backdrop of no major exchange thunderstorms or hacking incidents, the whole year was bounded by a record high of $126,000, down 6.6% from the opening price of $93,600 at the beginning of the year, falling 30.7% from the peak to $87,400 on December 26, becoming a key inflection point in the transformation from “speculative assets” to “macro-risk assets”, and is regarded by the market as a landmark event in the deep integration of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance.

In the first half of 2025, prices soared due to expectations of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut and the massive inflow of funds from Bitcoin spot ETF institutions. In October, it hit a record high of 126,000 US dollars. The market was immersed in an “eternal bull market” carnival, and institutions predicted that 2026 would reach 200,000 US dollars. However, the market suddenly reversed in late October. The unscandalous decline was driven entirely by macroeconomic factors: the bursting of the AI technology stock valuation bubble triggered a wave of risky asset sell-offs, with Bitcoin bearing the brunt of the “liquidity leader”; a systemic flash crash in the crypto market on October 10 led to multiple liquidations of 19 billion US dollars in leveraged positions, triggering deleveraged stampedness; “new whale” institutions and retail investors who entered the market at a high level collectively panicked and stopped losing when prices fell back to the $84,000-85,000 range.

As of December 26, Bitcoin fell to $85,000, and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index fell to 20 (extreme fear), the coldest reading since the 2020 pandemic. Although institutions such as MicroStrategy insisted on “buying on dips,” the net ETF outflow of $4 billion in December intensified downward pressure.

The landmark significance of this decline is narrative restructuring: in the past, Bitcoin's collapse was mostly accompanied by scandals such as FTX and Luna, but 2025 proved that its fluctuations were deeply tied to macro-liquidity such as the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy and technology stock valuations, and became an integral part of the global financial system. Although 94.3% of the total supply volume (about 19.8 million units) has been discovered, the story of tight supply still exists, but it is no longer possible to offset the macro-sales pressure. Investors realized for the first time that in a year with perfect regulations and no major scandals, Bitcoin would still record its worst quarterly performance in three years due to mediocre macroeconomic fundamentals, and completely lose its “independent safe-haven asset” aura.

This historic inflection point marks a fundamental shift in cryptocurrency valuation logic — from “coin infighting” to macro-risk resonance, becoming a core observation point for evaluating the degree of integration between digital assets and traditional finance, and has had a profound impact on global capital allocation logic.

8. Interest rate cuts+crisis spawned an epic bull market in precious metals: silver recorded a historic surge in 2025, and the impact of gold on 4,900 US dollars was blocked

After experiencing strong annual gains in 2025, the global precious metals market experienced severe shocks on December 29. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium showed extreme differentiation, making it the most strategic asset allocation event of the year.

Gold's performance was characterized by high volatility. After falling below the 4,500 US dollars/ounce mark on the same day, spot gold fluctuated repeatedly in the 4503-4550 US dollar range, with an intraday decline of about 0.65%. Despite the short-term correction, institutions such as Goldman Sachs maintain a long-term bullish view, believing that continued gold purchases by global central banks will drive the price of gold to hit the target of 4,900 US dollars and continue the strong annual increase of more than 70%.

Silver became the craziest variety of the day, staging a “roller coaster” market. Spot silver dived rapidly after breaking through the $80 mark for the first time. The intraday decline reached 5%, and the half-day fluctuation was as high as 9%. After hitting a record high of $84 in the intraday period, it fell straight back to $78.3-78.4, and finally closed at $76 per ounce. Silver rose more than 170% this year, the best performance since 1979, with a cumulative increase of 25% for six consecutive trading days — the biggest six-day increase since records began in 1950. What is more noteworthy is that the market value of silver briefly surpassed Nvidia to become the second largest asset in the world, indicating that capital is undergoing a deep rotation from technology stocks to physical commodities.

Platinum and palladium, on the other hand, experienced significant pullbacks, which were dominated by profit settlement sentiment. Platinum followed adjustments in the precious metals sector. The latest price was 2346-2,484 US dollars/ounce, falling by more than 4% during the day. Previously, it reached a record high driven by industrial demand and risk aversion. Palladium became the variety with the biggest decline of the day. The spot price fell nearly 10% to 1730-1770 US dollars/ounce. After a cumulative increase of about 100% in 2025, it fell from a high level due to the easing of geopolitical expectations and profit exits.

The core drivers of this round of markets stem from macroeconomic resonance and structural changes in demand. The expansion of US government debt and frequent government shutdowns have raised US dollar credit concerns. The Federal Reserve began a cycle of interest rate cuts in mid-September and cut interest rates by a total of 75 basis points, reducing the opportunity cost of gold while stimulating safe-haven demand. The Middle East conflict, repeated Russian-Ukrainian situations, and the Venezuelan crisis continue to strengthen the appeal of precious metals. The demand side presents a “dual-core drive”: Baiyin benefits from the conductive metal gaps in AI data centers, photovoltaics and electric vehicles; platinum benefits from increased demand for hydrogen catalysts to offset the decline in fuel vehicles. Global central banks have strategically increased their gold holdings and diversified assets in China's emerging markets, forming long-term support for gold prices.

It is worth noting that the Guangzhou Futures Exchange has adjusted palladium and platinum trading restrictions to deal with liquidity pressure. Although analysts are wary of short-term pullback risks, most investment banks believe that the bull market cycle is not over — this epic outbreak not only restructured the logic of global asset allocation, but also became a key weather vane for evaluating the evolution of the monetary system and geo-risk pricing in the post-pandemic era.

9. The final battle of streaming media: Netflix and Paramount bid for Warner for 100 billion dollars to rewrite the power pattern in Hollywood

In 2025, Hollywood staged a “century shuffle” merger and acquisition war, and Warner Bros. Exploration (WBD.US) became the core target of the competition between Netflix (NFLX.US) and Paramount Sky Dance (PSKY.US.US). This 100 billion dollar game not only rewrote the media industry pattern, but also triggered deep intervention by the US political community and regulators, making it the most strategic commercial event of the year.

At the beginning of the year, Warner planned to split into two streaming and cable TV companies due to long-term debt pressure and low stock prices, but the strategy changed abruptly in October, and the board of directors announced the opening of a full sale, officially kicking off the merger and acquisition. On December 5, Netflix secured Warner's core assets with $82.7 billion (including debt), and obtained top IPs such as “Harry Potter” and “Power Game,” and achieved a leapfrog transformation from pure streaming media to a vertically integrated media giant. The transaction logic is to complement the content production chain and strengthen the competitiveness of the IP matrix.

However, Paramount Sky Dance immediately launched a “hostile takeover” operation. On December 8, it proposed an all-cash hostile takeover offer of US$108.4 billion. The price of US$30 per share was about US$18 billion higher than the Netflix plan, and it received an irrevocable personal guarantee of US$40.4 billion from Oracle founder Larry Ellison to enhance financing stability. Despite the higher price, Warner's board of directors is still inclined to support the Netflix agreement and warned that the Paramount plan has higher regulatory risks and a $5.8 billion cancellation fee cost.

Currently, Paramount continues to revise the offer, and Warner's board of directors maintains its recommendation for Netflix, but the final results are expected to be delayed until 2026. Looking ahead, from the end of 2025 to 2026, the Warner takeover case evolved into a complex game intertwined with “business wars between giants,” “shareholder uprisings,” and “White House wrestling.” To counter Warner's doubts about Paramount's ability to finance, Oracle founder Larry Ellison signed a US$40.4 billion “personal irrevocable guarantee” on December 22, 2025 to dispel “no money to pay” concerns. The market expects that if Warner shareholders continue to falter in Q1 2026, Paramount may raise the price to $35 per share.

Despite Paramount's higher cash price, Warner's board of directors recommended Netflix's $82.7 billion plan, believing that it would only acquire core high-quality assets, which would allow shareholders to continue to hold shares in “Discovery Global” after the spin-off, with better long-term value. Furthermore, Warner has signed a $5.8 billion liquidated damages agreement with Netflix, setting a cost barrier to Paramount's acquisition.

In the first half of 2026, Warner Bros. Exploration will break out in a shareholder voting war due to differences of opinion between the board of directors and majority shareholders. Paramount plans to launch an “agent challenge” in May to try to change board members to push for the acquisition. Meanwhile, the Trump administration stepped in, and the Justice Department was wary of Netflix's annexation of HBO, while Paramount promised to reform CNN, it might receive more lenient scrutiny. No matter who wins, Warner's “Big Teardown” has been decided, Discovery Global will go public independently, and the winner will receive Hollywood's “Crown Pearl”, opening the “Big Three” era of global streaming.

10. Tesla (TSLA.US) “Musk Reversal”: A Thrilling Leap from a Car Company to an AI Empire

In 2025, the global field of new energy vehicles and artificial intelligence ushered in a historic turning point — Tesla completed the valuation transformation from a “traditional electric vehicle company” to a “general artificial intelligence (AGI) giant” under the leadership of founder Elon Musk. This transformation, known by the industry as a “Musk reversal,” not only reshaped the fate of the company, but also redefined the interactive logic of technology and capital.

At the beginning of the year, Musk's controversial move was deeply involved in politics, which sparked strong backlash in the core market. Consumers in California and parts of Europe switched to competition due to brand politics. Tesla sales declined for a while, and registrations in the German market plummeted 39% year over year. Meanwhile, the company's management structure was drastically adjusted: Omead Afshar, the head of the North American and European business, left office, and Musk personally took over core functions in an attempt to deal with the crisis through organizational restructuring.

In mid-year, Tesla's autonomous driving technology ushered in an explosion of commercialization. The FSD V13/V14 version is becoming more mature in North America, and has begun large-scale testing and pre-regulated implementation in the European and Chinese markets; as the smart driving threshold is lowered, the global subscription rate has risen significantly. In Austin, Texas, Tesla officially launched the Robotaxi commercial operation, and a driverless fleet of Model Y and Cybercab prototypes began providing services. Its operating cost per mile is rapidly approaching the ultimate goal of $0.2-0.3 set by Musk, showing the potential to disrupt traditional public transportation systems. More importantly, Wall Street has fully adopted the SOTP (classification summation) valuation model, treating Robotaxi as an independent high-margin business. Its potential value has been raised to hundreds of billions of dollars, accounting for half of Tesla's overall valuation.

At the same time, the humanoid robot Optimus has entered the “1000-unit” factory measurement stage and independently carries out handling and sorting tasks on the production line. Wall Street then restructured its valuation framework to see it as an AI company with millions of potential 'labor units'. Optimus's mass production expectations contributed more than $300 billion to Tesla's future asset valuation, making it the second-largest valuation engine after Robotaxi. Musk stated bluntly at the earnings conference: “In 2026, Optimus will produce more than all robotics companies in the world combined.”

At the end of the year, with the Delaware Supreme Court resuming the sky-high compensation package, the risk of Musk's possible divestment of the AI business was completely eliminated. The ruling was interpreted by the capital market as a “lifelong contract” between Musk and Tesla. Stimulated by this favorable trend, institutional investors collectively turned: Goldman Sachs raised the target price to $395, and Baird gave an aggressive prediction of $548.

This transformation is clearly confirmed in the market capitalization structure: by the end of 2025, the market value contribution of the traditional automobile manufacturing business had fallen to less than 40%; instead, high-profit software services (FSD fully automated driving subscriptions) and highly imaginative future assets (humanoid robot Optimus, Megapack energy business) together accounted for a historic 60% share. Although automobile gross profit is being squeezed by the price war, the capital market is more concerned about the long-term potential of its “AI+ energy” ecosystem. As analyst Baird said, “Tesla is no longer an automobile company, but is building the first self-evolving ecosystem in human history through robotic assets (vehicles, Optimus) in the physical world and AI brains (FSD) in the digital world.”