It’s too early to know how DeepSeek’s apparent breakthrough on artificial intelligence will change the public markets, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told CNBC on Tuesday. Appearing on ” Halftime Report ,” Cuban said he has had a large portion of his investment portfolio in cash because of concern about tariffs and other policy uncertainty, and that Monday’s steep sell-off for markets was not enough to move him off the sidelines. “When yesterday hit, I certainly took a look and said, ‘Okay, is now the time to dive in and is this just an aberration.’ And I just don’t get that feel,” Cuban said. Cuban’s comments came one day after stocks tied to AI fell sharply, with chip giant Nvidia dropping nearly 17% and suffering the biggest ever one-day decline in market value by any public company. The sell-off came as investors grappled with the emergence of a new AI model from DeepSeek , which has touted its ability to build a cheaper and more efficient version of other popular AI programs. Nvidia and some other popular AI trades were rebounding on Tuesday , but Cuban said it was too soon to jump in and call the sell-off overblown. “I think there’s so much uncertainty still on DeepSeek. Is the information we got in terms of their cost to create the models accurate? It’s still too early to tell,” Cuban said. Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks who made his fortune as a software and internet startup founder during the dot-com boom, said the potential for cheaper AI models was good news for smaller companies. But he said the lack of recent initial public offerings of newer tech companies makes it difficult for everyday investors to take advantage of that. “I think what really changes is it’s not just a race to raise as much money as you can in order to be a player,” he said.
