Tech Letter Archives - Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Good News for Meta Holders

Investors should rejoice after hearing the great news from Meta (META) management.

This year has started off with a bang.

The stock price will be the outsized winner of the new staffing policy.

Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg is targeting Meta's low performers. In an internal memo announcing staff cuts, the CEO told employees to prepare for an "intense year."

Zuckerberg is bringing the heat by announcing a fresh round of cuts aimed at managing low performers.

All those H1-B foreign workers making half a salary are probably on the cutting board unable to justify a half salary.

Meta has been widely known to aggressively add from the H1-B transfer portal to snap up Indian workers for a fraction of the cost of an American national.

Along with the H1-B workers, there will be a 100% removal of the fact-checking division.

Zuckerberg announced that he would do away with “fact-checking” all together and luckily, he will not need that entire division to tell me what the Menlo Park, California truth is anymore.

The company reportedly plans to exit roughly 5% of the lowest performers. Meta said it plans to backfill the roles with existing staff members.

Meta said U.S. employees impacted by the cuts would be notified by February 10.

Zuckerberg has also announced that he is trashing the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) hiring trend which is surprising since it diametrically opposes what Meta has stood for in the past.

It is arguable that Meta has never stood for anything, but it pays to play on the right team when they are in charge of the government and the ultimate control of how businesses operate.

It's the latest round of cuts in Zuckerberg's self-proclaimed efficiency drive.

In 2023, the CEO declared a "year of efficiency" at Meta, announcing plans to eliminate 10,000 positions and flatten the company's structure to remove some layers of middle management.

In 2022, the company laid off another 11,000 employees, or roughly 13% of its workforce.

Zuckerberg’s $1 million donation to Former President Donald Trump post-election is ironic given that Meta’s Zuckerberg banned the former President from his platform.

Trump was also banned on Twitter when the platform was led by Jack Dorsey.

Without getting too political, what does this all mean?

It will result in higher profits in the short-term and remember that labor is the costliest line item.

Zuckerberg is forging his own cut expenses at all costs strategy to appease shareholders.

I have lamented the lack of profit drivers available for big tech and projects like Meta’s VR goggles have been a total failure.

When I was at the store and tried on the VR goggles myself, my head got dizzy and my eyes started to burn.

It is hard to believe that the product was allowed to go into the public without more quality control or testing.

Zuckerberg will rest his case on ultimate “efficiency” this year and I can easily see over half of Meta’s staff jettisoned in 2025.

It’s not a good time to search for a job in Silicon Valley, because there are more firings than ever before.

It’s also not the greatest time to live in the state of California, and this to me is Zuckerberg’s initial steps to leave the state with his money, influence, company, and technology just like many before him.

He might just keep his enormous Lake Tahoe lake house for a vacation or 2.

Buy dips in Meta stock before earnings and harvest what the state of California has to offer.

January 17, 2025 - Quote of the Day

Tech Letter

“The ancient Egyptians were amazing, but if aliens built the pyramids, they would've left behind a computer or something.” – Said CEO and Founder of Tesla Elon Musk

January 15, 2025

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 15, 2025
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(TIKTOK COULD GET BANNED)
(CHINA), (TSLA)

January 15, 2025

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 15, 2025
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(TIKTOK COULD GET BANNED)
(CHINA), (TSLA)

Tiktok Could Get Banned

Tech Letter

I must admit that in 2025, the velocity of change to technology, human communication, business, politics, and society has gone from breakneck speed to lightning speed.

The type of speed is unsettling to many who aren’t willing to bend their lives and every twist and turn. That type of adaptability and awareness is hard to find in many people.

What is this about?

The Chinese are suddenly considering selling social media app TikTok to Elon Musk and the app is also facing a Sunday blanket ban in the United States.

Yes, the very Elon Musk who has successfully sold at least 2 or 4 Teslas to every coastal Democrat then only to become their arch-enemy number 1 after those purchases.

If Musk gets his grubby little fingers on TikTok, he will possess a de-facto media monopoly on the whole world.

X.com is the biggest source of information in the United States, Japan, and many other countries rich or poor.

This acquisition would also madly accelerate the death of legacy media which lost half their audience last year, because of the decrease in content quality.

TikTok is the app that consumers under 30 use, meaning that Musk would now be able to spread his influence even deeper to the younger crowd. None of this cohort even knows what cable TV is or what is on it.

Imagine how many job losses to digital shops on TikTok – perhaps in the 100s of thousands alone if the app gets banned. They are mostly mom-and-pop shops selling small goods and their audience will go to 0 if the app is removed. Think about a college kid selling bouncy balls on this platform - many shops are entirely run on TikTok. This would be another win for the billionaires and a crushing blow to America’s youth.

The Supreme Court could shortly ban TikTok in the United States and the Chinese are debating on whether the least bad option is to sell it to Musk.

Musk already owns and operates the Shanghai Gigafactory.

TikTok’s US operations could be valued at around $80 billion.

Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in 2022 and is still paying off sizable loans, but in hindsight, the $44 billion price is a huge bargain in 2025 valuation terms.

On a practical level, spinning off TikTok’s US business would be highly complex, affecting shareholders in China as well as the US.

In one of the greatest trades of all time, Musk turned a $250 million investment into the Trump Campaign and applied his leverage on X.com to catapult Tesla’s stock from $600 billion of market cap to $1.3 trillion today.

The almost $700 billion increase in market cap shows no signs of slowing down and if Musk is able to grab TikTok, then watch out, I believe Tesla will be a $2 trillion stock by the summer of 2026.

The German American Venture Capitalist Peter Theil famously said to never bet against Musk no matter what, and those words couldn’t ring truer today.

Buy the dip in any meaningful Tesla weakness and as X.com starts to build clout, I believe Musk will also take his social media platforms public reaping another massive payday in the many billions. Musk owning TikTok would supercharge the asset appreciation in his digital media empire.

January 15, 2025 - Quote of the Day

Tech Letter

“I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.” – Said Elon Musk

January 13, 2025

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 13, 2025
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(APPLE DROPS THE BALL)
(AAPL), (SAMSUNG), (CHINA)

Apple Drops The Ball

Tech Letter

Not only is Apple losing its edge, but they are failing miserably against the Chinese.

China, with its state-supported behemoths, is the bully on the playground and Apple can’t too diddlysquat.

Apple has been selling the same product for the past 13 years and the last iterations have been underwhelming, to say the least.

People don’t want to upgrade forcing them to elongate the refresh cycle.

It’s now so bad that Apple even ceded a 5% market share in the final quarter last year to Chinese competition.

Apple is also very late in integrating AI features signaling that Apple’s software game is behind the times and mediocre at best.

Apple risks falling behind quickly and the Chinese have really nailed the consumer tech and muscled into this industry.

They are poised to dominate EVs and smartphones and other value-added tech in the upcoming years.

They plan to seize the moment and squeeze American companies out of the way for good.

Samsung also has been going through a disastrous downcycle after their Android flagship phone peaked a few years ago.

This new trajectory is a slippery slope and if Apple goes on the cost-cutting path, there will be little talent left to innovate out of this problem.

The iPhone slipped a point to 18% worldwide market share in 2024.

Apple marked a 2% sales decline for the full year, at a time when the wider market grew 4% globally.

China’s smartphone makers are all developing their own in-house AI tools and agents, including services that can perform tasks on a user’s behalf.

Samsung also gave up its share to faster-growing Android device makers from China, led by Xiaomi and Vivo. Apple marked a 2% sales decline for the full year.

The situation paints a picture of the non-Chinese smartphone markets in a world of hurt.

I believe that Apple and Samsung have nobody to blame, but themselves as those years of forced technological know-how transfer are coming back to bite them where it hurts.

My friends’ kids have these new Chinese smartphones and I can tell you that I was surprised about how good they perform.

They are run on Android, which is very different from IoS, but they are premium.

German car companies are also feeling this bitter pill as Chinese companies have taken their own technology and implemented it in a more affordable way.

In aggregate, this latest news is a bad omen for Apple’s earnings season.

They are barely jumping over a lower bar and that will keep happening until something major is revamped in the product lineup.

I believe any steep sell-off would be a nice opportunity to execute a short-term trade, but those years of buying and holding Apple until eternity are gone.

Readers must really nitpick what this company is doing because management presides over a dull model and their China business is falling apart as we speak all while they helped the local Chinese competition over many years take market share with forced technological transfers.

Not a good look and things could get worse as we move deeper into the year.

January 10, 2025

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 10, 2025
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(NVIDIA GETS PUT IN PLACE)
(NVDA)

Nvidia Gets Put In Place

Tech Letter

It is uncommon when private tech companies lash out at the government like they are some kind of whipping boy.

Silicon Valley is so successful - they don’t need to target government policy.

Anger comes in many forms but openly criticizing the government could get you in some hot water in places like China.

Just look at Alibaba founder Jack Ma who was taken out to pasture by the Chinese communist party.

Criticism is usually reserved in Silicon Valley because subsidies and relationships are preserved to fight another day.

Nvidia finally felt it was time to let loose on the disastrous Biden Administration as the chip company gets dragged into politics just like almost everything else in American society.

Nvidia viciously criticized new chip export restrictions that are expected to be announced soon, saying the White House was trying to undercut the incoming Trump administration by imposing last-minute rules.

It’s is arguable that many strategic moves the current administration executes are to stymy the next administration.

Private tech companies are just collateral damage and Nvidia is finding that out the hard way.

The looming changes would cap the sale of US artificial intelligence chips on both a country and company basis — a move that would more tightly limit exports to most of the world.

The extreme ‘country cap’ policy will affect mainstream computers in countries around the world, doing nothing to promote national security but rather pushing the world to alternative technologies.

Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of a surge in AI spending over the past two years, helping turn the once-niche company into the world’s most valuable chipmaker. Its shares nearly tripled last year, following a 239% gain in 2023.

Speaking at the CES conference in Las Vegas this week, Huang said he expected Trump to bring less regulation.

I can now say with more certainty that tech stocks appear to be in a bubble and it doesn’t help that an obstructionist government is putting in limits to how much they can sell abroad.

Globalization has accelerated to some extreme that many people and businesses are still having a tough time wrapping their minds around what happened.

Putting a cap on the number of AI chips Nvidia can export will just gift the advantage to another competitor.

The Chinese have never played by the rules with their state subsidies and stealing of intellectual property.

These are several hallmarks of their national heavyweights.

Hamstringing Nvidia is the worst thing the US government could do minus shutting them down completely.

In general, the amount of bureaucratic nonsense, dysfunction, red tape, and needless saber-rattling is starting to hit the bottom line of Silicon Valley.

This could all bring forward a selloff from this tech bubble we are currently in.

Granted, I will acknowledge that the federal government isn’t only targeting the tech sector and the inefficiencies run across a wide swath of the U.S. economy system.

But that doesn’t make it better.

We are priced to the point where AI is guaranteed to become our savior and I would say to hold on because we are nowhere near certainty and there are very few use cases of all this AI data center investment.

We are trading at highs and the government going after Silicon Valley will hasten a sharp selloff in expensive tech stocks.

Don’t play with fire or you’ll be burned.