A global rout in tech stocks began this morning, caused by a panic linked to the new Chinese AI platform DeepSeek.

• Investors worldwide stand to lose more than $1 trillion today because of the sudden fear that the market-sustaining AI spending boom might have been for nothing, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes.

Why it matters: The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks are heavily leveraged to hundreds of billions of dollars in planned AI investment. The entire market, in turn, hangs on their performance.

Catch up quick: Breakthroughs from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek have stunned Silicon Valley and could bring turbulence to Wall Street, as they were accomplished at a fraction of what the U.S. giants are spending and despite export bans on top-of-the-line chips.

• China's rapid advances suggest America's strategy of withholding technology from China might just be speeding up the evolution of its rival's AI know-how, Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes.

🚨 DeepSeek's rise is alarming Meta, which announced Friday that it plans $60 billion-$65 billion in capital investment this year as it scales up its own AI projects.

• It potentially could also be bad news for Nvidia, which designs the world's most advanced AI chips, because DeepSeek is proving that rapid advances are possible even with fewer and less sophisticated chips.
• Nvidia's stock fell almost 12 percent in pre-market trading Monday morning, implying a wipe-out of more than $400 billion in market capitalization once stocks open.

📱 DeepSeek hit No. 1 on Apple's App Store a week after the Jan. 20 release of its R1 model, which works along similar lines to OpenAI's o1.

• Presented with a complex challenge, it takes time to consider alternate approaches before picking the best solution — and it explains its chain of reasoning to users. These "reasoning" models are especially good at coding and math.

Just last month, another DeepSeek model, v3, stunned AI experts by providing performance comparable to OpenAI's and Anthropic's most advanced publicly available general models, as Axios told you.

• The kicker is that DeepSeek created and released its entirely open source project for about $6 million in training costs — "a joke of a budget," in one expert's words.

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• Go deeper: "DeepSeek Buzz Puts Tech Stocks on Track for $1 Trillion Wipeout ... 'AI dominance cannot be taken for granted'" (Bloomberg)

The departments under President Trump's command are moving with blazing speed to transform the federal bureaucracy into an army of loyalists, Axios' Zachary Basu and Dave Lawler write.

• Why it matters: The vast majority of federal workers are career employees, not political appointees. But the president has made clear he wants them all to board the Trump train.

"We're getting rid of all of the cancer ... caused by the Biden administration," Trump told reporters while signing a Day 1 executive order that stripped employment protections from civil servants.

• 🔎 The White House on Friday night fired about 17 inspectors general — independent agency watchdogs responsible for identifying fraud, waste and corruption.
• 🚫 DEI offices and programs have been shuttered across the government. Federal workers have been ordered to report colleagues who may seek to "disguise" DEI efforts by using "coded language."
• 🚔 Trump directed federal agencies to each identify "up to nine" major companies, universities or nonprofits to investigate over DEI practices.

There've been hundreds of staff removals or reassignments, including at the State Department, where far more career officers were asked to resign than in past administrations.

• Trump's National Security Council sent home around 160 staffers while officials conduct loyalty screenings.
• One of the administration's highest-profile firings so far was Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a branch of the U.S. military. She was accused of an "excessive focus" on DEI at the Coast Guard Academy.

Between the lines: Trump loyalists have also moved to centralize control around public messaging, particularly when it comes to public health.

• 🤫 HHS ordered an unprecedented "immediate pause" on all health reports and social media posts through at least the end of the month, leading scientists to cancel CDC meetings on the escalating bird flu outbreak.
• ⬟ The Pentagon ordered a global pause on all official social media posts until the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has promised a radical culture shakeup across the U.S. military.

The new administration is moving quickly on issues including LGBTQ and civil rights.

• 🛂 The State Department froze passport applications with "X" designated as the gender.
• ⚖️ DOJ ordered a freeze on civil rights litigation, and ordered federal prosecutors to investigate local and state officials in so-called "sanctuary cities."
• ❌ The Pentagon moved to abolish an office focused on curbing civilian deaths in combat operations.

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Tesla, Palantir and Robinhood have seen a big bump since the election of President Trump, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

• Tesla has the Elon Musk factor. Palantir is expected to see a significant uptick in government revenue. Robinhood should benefit from the deregulation of financial services in general, and crypto in particular.

Flashback: When all three companies hit 52-week highs on Nov. 6, the first full trading day after Election Day, the stocks seemed expensive.

• But look what they've done since then.

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OŚWIĘCIM, Poland — The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum today marks the 80th anniversary of Soviet forces liberating the German Nazi camp — the last major observance any notable number of survivors will be able to attend, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• Only a few dozen Holocaust survivors from Auschwitz remain — the youngest of the 7,000 who were liberated on Jan. 27, 1945. Advocates are racing to record their testimonies.

🌐 The big picture: The anniversary, which also commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday, comes amid rising antisemitism worldwide and on social media.

• Keep reading.

Today, elderly camp survivors — some wearing blue-and-white striped scarves that recall their prison uniforms — walked together to the Death Wall where prisoners were executed, including many Poles who resisted the occupation of their country.

• Today's commemorations ... Photo essay.

Context: More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease at Auschwitz, where most had been brought in freight wagons, packed like livestock, Reuters reports.

• Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered over 6 million Jews during the Holocaust across German-occupied Europe.

More photos from today.

Trump suddenly declared 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Colombia yesterday after the country rejected two deportation flights — before changing course just as quickly and claiming victory.

• The White House said Colombia's left-wing President Gustavo Petro quickly accepted "all" of Trump's terms.

Why it matters: The tariffs could have driven up coffee prices and severely damaged relations with a longtime U.S. partner. Instead, the episode serves as a warning to other countries who might consider crossing Trump.

What to watch: Trump claimed his administration would quickly deport "millions and millions" of "illegal aliens" with criminal records. But those millions simply don't exist, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Read our explainer.

Some of the most consequential moments of President Trump's second administration have come at his Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Sharpie in hand, executive orders at the ready ... and with one much less famous man in the frame.

• That man, bearing the binders and narrating what the president is about to sign, is Will Scharf of St. Louis.

🛬 He's the White House staff secretary — a powerful post that AP's Michelle L. Price describes as "air traffic control for the West Wing" — tracking the drafting and approval of memos and statements as they work their way to the president's desk, then out to the world.

• The staff secretary has nearly unparalleled visibility into the goings-on of the West Wing, and leads one of the least-known but most consequential teams in a well-functioning White House.
• Any piece of paper that a president touches goes through the StaffSec, whose office also prepares a president's nightly homework — reading to be ready for the next day.

🔎 Zoom in: Scharf, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law, was part of Trump's legal team in the election interference case brought by former special counsel Jack Smith.

• "Will Scharf is a brilliant legal mind who has extensive experience defending President Trump from the witch-hunts against him," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "Will is perfectly suited to help execute President Trump's agenda in this important role."

Keep reading.

American defender Naomi Girma is moving from the San Diego Wave to English club Chelsea for the first seven-figure transfer fee in women's soccer history — $1.1 million.

• Girma, 24, is one of the world's best defenders, and was a breakout star for the U.S. at the Paris Olympics.

💰By the numbers: This is the third time the record has been broken in one year, in an indication of the money now flowing into the women's game.

• Prior to 2022, the women's record was around one-quarter what Chelsea paid for Girma.

The men's record is $261 million, which Paris Saint-Germain paid Barcelona to sign Brazilian forward Neymar in 2017.

• More data.

Patrick Mahomes and his two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs knocked off the Buffalo Bills in a 32-29 thriller for the AFC championship last night, clinching their fifth Super Bowl trip in six years — and giving them a chance for a three-peat in New Orleans on Feb. 9.

They'll face the Philadelphia Eagles, who thrashed the Washington Commanders 55-23 for the NFC championship, with a three-touchdown performance from star running back Saquon Barkley.

🎲 In sportsbooks, the Chiefs opened as slight favorites — 1.5 points — over the Birds.

• More betting data ... Super Bowl lookahead ... Swift sidebar.