In the latest plot twist in the high-stakes bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix said Thursday it would not raise a counteroffer for the company’s studio and streaming assets, effectively clearing the way for Paramount Skydance’s revised bid to take center stage.
It comes after the WBD board earlier this week deemed Paramount’s revised all-cash bid from $30 per share to $30 per share as the best offer to acquire the entire company.
Netflix had four business days to revise its bid in light of Paramount’s higher offer, WBD’s board said in a statement Thursday.
Investors want clarity on romance. Netflix shares jumped more than 10% in extended trading, while Paramount rose 5%. However, WBD shares fell 1.39%.
WBD CEO David Zaslau said Thursday that the Paramount merger deal will create “tremendous value” for shareholders after the board formally adopted the deal and expressed enthusiasm about the combined company’s potential. Translation: The deal train is on board.
On the artificial intelligence front, markets have been hard to charm.
Nvidia shares fell more than 5%, dragging the Nasdaq Composite down more than 1%. The S&P 500 also closed lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slightly above flatline.
The retreat came despite Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang assuring Thursday that markets were “misplaced” on fears that AI agents will cannibalize the enterprise software industry. He made the comments after the chip designer’s blowout earnings report.
For now, clarity is giving media stocks more power, but conviction in AI is becoming harder to sustain.
– CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo, Alex Sherman, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this story.
Here’s what you need to know today
Democrats plan to push Iran war powers to a vote next week, President Donald Trump’s leadership announced on Thursday that it would engage in a massive military build-up in the region. The resolution urges the administration to seek congressional approval before engaging in any further activity in Iran.
Anthropic CEO Amode pushes back, The company said it “cannot in good conscience” allow the US Department of Defense to use its models without restrictions in all legitimate use cases, after tense negotiations with the Pentagon in recent weeks.
US markets retreat on Thursday, After recent results from Nvidia and Salesforce failed to ease investor skepticism around AI. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite settled lower, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged slightly above the flatline. The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed flat, with most major stocks ending the day in the green.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund uses Anthropic’s cloud AI To open investments to potential reputational and ethical risks. Norway’s $2 trillion oil fund first started using an AI model in its routine work in November 2024. Since then it has become a “key tool in our monitoring of ESG risk across the portfolio,” a spokesman said.
(PRO) Stocks that would profit if Big Tech built its own power plants. US President Donald Trump said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that major tech firms must supply their own power to power-hungry data centers. If it passes, these stocks could stand to benefit.
And finally…
Ai business concepts. 3D render
Blackjack3d | E+ | Getty Images
As AI shockwaves hit software firms, what awaits India’s IT titans?
Indian IT stocks are facing their steepest monthly decline since the 2008 global financial crisis, with the Nifty IT index on track to drop 20% this month as concerns over AI-led disruption pressure software stocks globally.
However, Indian IT industry leaders have termed the implementation of AI as a “huge opportunity”.
But unlike in the US, where AI fears are “irrational” and there is still debate amid the possible decline of companies that provide software or SaaS as a service, experts told me that AI will not make Indian firms’ IT services irrelevant. However, this shrinks their margins.
– Priyanka Salve
(tags to translate)World Markets
