In the latest twist in Warner Bros. Discovery’s high-stakes bidding war, Netflix announced Thursday that it would not increase its counteroffers for its studio and streaming assets, effectively clearing the way for Paramount Skydance’s revised bid to take center stage.
This comes after WBD’s board of directors determined earlier this week that Paramount’s revised all-cash offer of $30 to $31 per share was the better offer to acquire the entire company.
The WBD board said in a statement Thursday that Netflix has four business days to revise its bid, taking into account Paramount’s superior proposal.
Investors seem to prefer clarity over courtship. Netflix stock rose more than 10% in after-hours trading, while Paramount stock rose as much as 5%. However, WBD stock fell 1.39%.
WBD CEO David Zaslav expressed enthusiasm about the combined company’s potential Thursday, saying Paramount’s merger agreement will create “tremendous value” for shareholders once the board formally adopts the agreement. Translation: The trade train is on board.
On the artificial intelligence front, it has proven difficult to captivate the market.
Nvidia stock fell more than 5%, pushing the Nasdaq Composite Index down more than 1%. The S&P 500 also ended lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained just above flatline.
The withdrawal comes despite Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s reassurances on Thursday that the market was “getting it wrong” over concerns that AI agents could cannibalize the enterprise software industry. He made the comments following the chip designer’s explosive earnings report.
For now, clarity is driving media share, but maintaining confidence in AI is proving difficult.
—CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo, Alex Sherman, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this article.
What you need to know today
Democrats plan to force a vote on Iran’s war powers next week, party leaders announced Thursday, as President Donald Trump undertakes a massive military buildup in the region. The resolution would require the administration to seek approval from Congress before taking any further action in Iran.
Anthropic CEO Amodei fired back, saying the company “couldn’t in good conscience” allow the Pentagon to use its model unrestricted in all legitimate use cases, following tense negotiations with the Pentagon in recent weeks.
U.S. markets fell on Thursday after the latest earnings results from Nvidia and Salesforce failed to assuage investor skepticism surrounding AI. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose just above the flatline. The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed flat, with most major exchanges ending the day higher.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund uses Anthropic’s Claude AI to screen investments for potential reputational and ethical risks. Norway’s $2 trillion oil fund began using AI models in its daily operations for the first time in November 2024. Since then, the AI model has become “an important tool in monitoring ESG risks across the portfolio,” the spokesperson said.
(PRO) A stock that can be expected to make a profit if Big Tech builds its own power plant. US President Donald Trump said in Tuesday’s State of the Union address that big tech companies will need to power their own energy-hungry data centers. If that happens, these stocks could benefit.
And finally…
AI trading concept. 3D rendering
Blackjack 3D | E+ | Getty Images
As AI shocks software companies, what’s in store for India’s IT giants?
Indian IT stocks are facing their steepest monthly decline since the 2008 global financial crisis, with the Nifty IT index set to fall 20% this month as concerns about AI-driven disruption weigh on software stocks globally.
However, India’s IT industry leaders argue that the introduction of AI is a “huge opportunity”.
But unlike in the US, where debate is still ongoing between the “illogical” concerns about AI and the potential collapse of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, experts told me that AI will not render Indian companies providing IT services irrelevant. However, the margins will shrink.
— Priyanka Salve
