Business

A “special committee” of Paramount’s board approved a rumored merger with Skydance Media, which will be announced Monday, according to Bloomberg. The news could signal the end of the dramatic Paramount merger saga that’s been going on for months.

Time to pop the champagne? Perhaps. At least put it on ice. Maybe hold the glasses for a bit, though. We’ve been here before.

Two former execs of a German AI data center company, Northern Data, say they were fired for raising concerns the company was “misrepresenting the strength of its financial condition,” in a wrongful termination lawsuit. Northern Data, which is backed by Tether, has been looking into an IPO in the US.

The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!

Hey, remember the guy who’s responsible for funding WeWork’s delusional business plan? Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is really into AI and he’s aiming to flood the area with money. His clearest targets are Nvidia chips and energy startups.

Weeks after negotiations between Skydance and Paramount’s parent company, National Amusements, ended without a deal, the New York Times reports not only have they restarted, but “the two sides have reached a preliminary deal to create a new Hollywood giant.”

This follows a report from CNBC that Warner Bros. Discovery or Comcast could also be interested and Bloomberg saying Paramount might sell BET for $1.6 billion.

Updated: Added new reporting of a preliminary deal.

It joins other media companies like News Corp, Axel Springer, The Financial Times, Vox Media, The Atlantic, and The Associated Press in licensing content for training AI models like ChatGPT.

Financial details for the deal have not been disclosed. Time COO Mark Howard says:

“This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing Time’s journalism to audiences globally.”

BuzzFeed sold off Complex earlier this year, and now it’s shopping around First We Feast, the network behind the hit hot wings show. Its initial ask was for over $70 million, according to Bloomberg. “After months of talks,” there’s still no buyer — and BuzzFeed urgently needs the cash.

Systems that support sales, service, and inventory for more than 15,000 dealerships have been shut off since June 19th in the wake of two separate cyberattacks.

After some dealers resorted to pen and paper to keep going amid reported negotiations between CDK and the BlackSuit ransomware group, Reuters reports restoration work has begun but that it may take “several days.”

Riding a valuation pumped up by generative AI and its chips that power many of the tools, Nvidia’s market cap has passed not only Apple but now Microsoft, too, at more than $3.3 trillion, as reported by Bloomberg.

The markets are still open, but the rise has been fast — Nvidia shares are up 160 percent in 2024, passing $2 trillion in February.

Prices are rising as Shein eyes IPOs in the UK and the US. The average price of a dress is up 28 percent in the US compared to a year ago, for example.

Despite labor violations and the overall secrecy of the company, business is booming for the fast fashion brand. We’ll see if shoppers mind the slightly higher prices.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk got his big compensation package approved yesterday, but how many really voted in favor? Well, it seems 1.78 billion shares voted in favor of Musk’s payday, while 529 million voted against — a 72 percent margin, excluding shares held by Musk and his brother Kimbal, as The New York Times reports. Musk took a victory lap on the mic at the shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas.

We don’t know exactly how often AI Overviews will appear in search, but early observations point to trouble for publishers.

A Press Gazette experiment found that AI Overviews appeared on nearly a quarter of top news-related Google searches, pushing down organic results. Some publishers are bracing for their Google traffic to trickle to zero. Others say it’s already happened.

Shein, the Chinese fast fashion company popular in the US, recorded $32.2 billion in sales. To give you a sense of scale, Zara’s sales came in at $28 billion, and H&M’s at $22 billion.

Under EU regulations, Shein will face more scrutiny alongside companies like Amazon. Shein is expected to go public in the US this year.

Dorsey donated 14 Bitcoins to Nostr’s anonymous founder in 2022. That founder is Giovanni Torres Parra, according to Business Insider. Parra is a devotee of “far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho,” who “claimed that Pepsi-Cola was flavored with stem cells of aborted fetuses.”