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- Trump unveils 25% auto tariff, effective from Apr. 3
Trump unveils 25% auto tariff, effective from Apr. 3
Bay Area Times
March 27, 2025
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Top stories today:
- Trump unveils 25% auto tariff, effective from Apr. 3
- Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-Omni-7B debuts as new multimodal AI model
- OpenAI said to be finalizing $40B SoftBank-led funding
- Mercury’s valuation 2x’d to $3.5B in $300M round led by Sequoia
- Pat Gelsinger, former Intel CEO, jumps to VC with Playground Global
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Trump unveils 25% auto tariff, effective from Apr. 3
The U.S. imported $24.8B in cars from Germany in 2024—likely the hardest hit by the new tariff:
~25% of Porsche and Mercedes’ projected 2026 operating earnings could be wiped out.
Fully assembled vehicles are the initial target.
May 3: automobile parts including engines and transmissions will also come under the tariff.
GM, Ford, Toyota, and others saw a dip in their share prices.
Tesla has emerged as a clear winner from the tariff update.
“We will now assess this announcement, together with other measures,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
More EU, Canada tariffs if they work against U.S., Trump warned.
BOXABL is the tech construction company bringing assembly line automation to the housing industry. With their patented technology and 53 patent filings, BOXABL believes they have the potential to disrupt a massive and outdated trillion-dollar building construction market. And they just reserved the ticker symbol BXBL on Nasdaq!
Most houses take seven months to complete. BOXABL can put one out of the assembly line every four hours, including electrical, HVAC, and plumbing! Now, the company is raising funds and has made shares available to the public, but the round is closing soon on StartEngine.
Currently, shares are being offered at $0.80 per share. With a $1,000 minimum investment, you can join 40,000 investors to help solve the housing crisis.
Time is running out to invest in BOXABL on StartEngine. The opportunity to invest in BOXABL on StartEngine will close on March 29th. The offering will remain open on DealMaker after that.
Reserving a Nasdaq ticker does not guarantee a future listing on Nasdaq or indicate that BOXABL meets any of Nasdaq’s listing criteria to do so.
*Sponsored by BOXABL ($50,000 contracted). Prospective investors should review the offering materials for details, including all risk factors, before making an investment decision. Any investment involves significant risks, including the potential loss of the total investment. This advertisement is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC. This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. Please read the offering circular before investing in BOXABL.
3. Alibaba releases Qwen2.5-Omni-7B, new open-weight multimodal AI model
Qwen2.5-Omni-7B is competing with Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro and outpacing Qwen2-Audio and Qwen2.5-VL on benchmarks, per Alibaba:
Deployable on edge devices including mobile phones and laptops.
AI agents with voice support can be a key use case.
Apache License 2.0.
Available through Hugging Face and GitHub and accessible via Qwen Chat and ModelScope.
4. OpenAI said to be finalizing $40B SoftBank-led funding
