Following reports that Chinese AI up-start DeepSeek is suffering from repeated website crashes and cybersecurity concerns, Navellier&Associates discussed suspicions that DeepSeek was simply launched as a big short-selling opportunity on the Navellier Market Buzz podcast on Monday.

The conversation cited the use of several distractions, including DeepSeek's U.S. popularity surge being timed on the weekend of the NFL playoffs, a popular event in the U.S. Since its initial ascent, DeepSeek has taken the AI sector by storm, with AI stalwarts like NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO), and others falling sharply.

Louis Navellier commented on DeepSeek's appeal, stating, "The narrative about DeepSeek is that this upstart Chinese company can do what OpenAI and ChatGPT can do a lot quicker and more efficiently; and it looks like it was done just to hit the market." He also added that the app "isn't working" as further proof of this theory.

Also discussed was the history of DeepSeek, whose founder, Liang Wenfang, originally achieved success through High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund. Through his success, Wenfang pursued artificial intelligence capacity and created DeepSeek.

A final point of the theory is that shorting stocks is illegal in the Chinese market, unlike on Wall Street. This suggests that DeepSeek was a "pr-blitz" created to "short the market, cover it, and make a bunch of money." Short sellers profit from stock price declines.

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