U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Ireland to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on September 13, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
A rift appears to be brewing between the AI CEO and US President Donald Trump. After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other CEOs called for a slowdown in AI development, President Trump unleashed a barrage of social media posts slamming calls for tighter regulation.
However, it seems that President Trump’s statements will not stop the warnings. Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez joined the chorus on Monday, saying AI models are becoming “the most powerful cyberweapons” ever created because they can find and exploit vulnerabilities at scale.
What you need to know today
After changing the names of geographic locations, government departments, and buildings, it was only a matter of time before Trump rebranded himself. In his words, the US president is now a “hoax buster.”
Mr. Trump bestowed that title on himself, defying calls from some of the industry’s most prominent executives to slow down the development of cutting-edge AI models.
In a flurry of posts on Truth Social, the US president called fears that AI will take over the world a “misinformation” and said the only country that would be happy about it is China.
He even called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, where he put him on speakerphone.
“I’m telling you, this is all made up,” Trump said, according to a video posted on social media by an attendee. “Data centers are a great thing, they enrich people, they enrich our state.”
Interestingly, China also rejected demands to slow development on Monday, with the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson saying that “fear-mongering, confrontation and competition will only disrupt the global AI governance process.”
China called for accelerating the construction of AI security risk prevention and management systems, with New Minister Chen Yi of the Ministry of State Security calling for “sound and orderly” development of the technology.
But that didn’t stop AI leaders from sounding the alarm. On Monday, the CEO of AI company Kohia told CNBC’s podcast “The Tech Download” that AI models are becoming “the most powerful cyber weapon” ever created.
“I think these models are the most powerful cyberweapons ever created and that we’ve seen. They’re phenomenal at finding and exploiting vulnerabilities at scale,” Gomez said.
All of these developments sent AI stocks down overnight, with Micron, Intel, Marvell Technology, and Applied Materials each down more than 4%, and Nvidia down about 3%. The U.S. listing of South Korean memory maker SK Hynix fell 7%.
oil and yield
Oil prices continued to rise as traders grappled with the closure of Saudi Arabia’s vital east-west pipeline, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures rising 1.34% to $101.39 per barrel and international benchmark Brent rising 1.02% to $105.68.
WTI futures and Brent prices both rose in early trading in Asia.
U.S. Treasury yields also rose, hitting multi-year highs on Monday as expectations grew that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates at its Wednesday meeting.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note reached 5.014%, the highest level since October 2023, but has since pared its rise and is currently trading at 4.987%. It was hovering around 5% on Tuesday.
The latest inflation report is well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with fund futures traders pricing in about a 92% chance of a rate hike, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.
Although a rate hike seems almost certain, it is unclear how wide it will be and whether it will be a rare one-off hike or whether there may be more hikes in the future.
— Lim Huijie
And finally…
Cadbury reduced supply chain lead times for key chocolate bar ingredients by two months in one move
American snack giant Mondelez International will reduce supply chain lead times for key ingredients used in Cadbury chocolate by at least two months.
The company on Friday opened a $22 million facility in Shah Alam, Malaysia, to locally produce chocolate crumb, an ingredient that contributes to the taste and texture of Cadbury’s chocolate products, rather than importing it from Australia or South Africa.
He said the new facility will reduce import and transportation costs to support increased sales volumes across Southeast Asia in the coming years.
— Jenny Lee
