A leaked transcript of a closed-door meeting between investors and DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has sparked intense online debate, pushing the hashtag “Liang Wenfeng meeting notes leaked, America gets a free advantage” to the top of Weibo’s trending topics. The remarks exposed Liang’s views on the gap between China and the US and the company’s reliance on Nvidia chips. After raising about US$7 billion in its first funding round in June, DeepSeek launched a second round of fundraising in July ahead of a potential A-share initial public offering (IPO). However, Bloomberg reported on 25 July, citing people familiar with the matter, that DeepSeek had suspended the fundraising, partly due to Liang’s frustration over the leak. On 22 July, Chinese technology self-media outlet Elsewhere published a WeChat article titled “A Transcript of Liang Wenfeng’s Four-Hour Meeting with Investors”, featuring quotations from an online discussion held in May. The article spread rapidly, being shared more than 100,000 times on WeChat within a day. Feng Ji, founder of Game Science and producer of Black Myth: Wukong, reposted it, calling DeepSeek “a Chinese story of greatness through inclusiveness, and strength through freedom from desire”. Chinese financial media outlet ChinaVenture struck a sceptical tone, noting that many excerpts lacked context. The National Business Daily, citing an investor, reported the transcript was authentic, with the