Tim Cook ‘Sleeps With One Eye Open’ After CIA Taiwan Warning, But Do Prediction Markets Agree He Should Be Worried?

Daragh Thomas

Fri, February 27, 2026 at 7:30 AM GMT+9 3 min read

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Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook sat in a classified CIA briefing in Silicon Valley in 2023 and was told China could move on Taiwan as early as 2027.

He later told officials he now “slept with one eye open.”

Prediction markets suggest he’s not the only one paying attention. A **Polymarket **contract asking “Will China invade Taiwan by end of 2026?” is priced at 10% with over $9 million in volume.

A separate contract on a military clash between the two, which traders view as a precursor to full invasion, sits at 14%.

Cook wasn’t alone in the room.

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Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) CEO Lisa Su were also there, according to a New York Times investigation published Tuesday.

The meeting was arranged after then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo grew frustrated that Silicon Valley wouldn’t stop sourcing chips from a war zone.

90% Of The World’s Best Chips, One Island

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (NYSE:TSM) fabricates roughly 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Every iPhone. Every Nvidia GPU. Every AMD processor.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it “the single biggest point of single failure” in the global economy at Davos last month.

A confidential industry report reviewed by the Times estimated losing Taiwan’s chip supply would hit U.S. GDP by $2.5 trillion. A separate Bloomberg Economics analysis put the global cost of a full conflict at over $10 trillion.

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$640 Billion In Investment, Zero Change In The Math

The U.S. still produces roughly 10% of the world’s chips, the same share it held before the CHIPS Act passed.

Biden threw $52 billion in subsidies at domestic manufacturing. Trump followed with a 25% tariff on advanced chip imports in January.

Together they’ve catalyzed over $640 billion in announced semiconductor investment across 30 states.

None of it has changed the dependency.

Global production grew right alongside it.

Taiwan’s government still quietly requires TSM to keep its most advanced processes on the island, and Nvidia’s first “American-made” AI chip had to fly back to Taiwan for completion.

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What It Means Ahead Of NVDA Earnings

Nvidia reports Wednesday after the bell. The entire AI capex thesis runs through TSM fabrication in Taiwan.

Story Continues  

TSM is trading at an all-time high of $386, pricing in smooth execution rather than geopolitical tail risk. The market, for now, is betting on business as usual.

Polymarket disagrees, or at least hedges.

For anyone holding NVDA, AAPL, AMD, or TSM through 2027, the most important variable in the AI trade may not be margins or demand. It may be a 100-mile strait in the Western Pacific.

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This article Tim Cook ‘Sleeps With One Eye Open’ After CIA Taiwan Warning, But Do Prediction Markets Agree He Should Be Worried? originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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