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Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday said it will engage in deal talks with Paramount Skydance under a 7-day waiver from Netflix. View More
In this articleWBDNFLXFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO5:0805:08Warner Bros. Discovery to initiate talks with Paramount Skydance for best and final offerSquawk Box Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday said it will reopen deal talks with Paramount Skydance under a seven-day waiver from Netflix to explore "deficiencies" in Paramount's offer to buy the entirety of WBD. The legacy media company has a pending transaction with Netflix for its streaming and studio businesses. Paramount launched a hostile tender offer straight to WBD shareholders at $30 per share after losing out to Netflix in a bidding war. "Netflix has provided WBD a limited waiver under the terms of WBD's merger agreement with Netflix, permitting WBD to engage in discussions with Paramount Skydance ("PSKY") (NASDAQ: PSKY) for a seven-day period ending on February 23, 2026 to seek clarity for WBD stockholders and provide PSKY the ability to make its best and final offer," Warner Bros. Discovery said in a release. "During this period, WBD will engage with PSKY to discuss the deficiencies that remain unresolved and clarify certain terms of PSKY's proposed merger agreement," it said. Paramount leadership has repeatedly said its $30 per share, all-cash offer is not its "best and final." Last week the company sweetened its offer with additional "enhancements," but stopped short of raising the per-share value. Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday that a senior Paramount representative informed a WBD board member that it would pay $31 per share if deal talks were to reopen. "Throughout the entire process, our sole focus has been on maximizing value and certainty for WBD shareholders," said WBD CEO David Zaslav in a statement. "Every step of the way, we have provided PSKY with clear direction on the deficiencies in their offers and opportunities to address them. We are engaging with PSKY now to determine whether they can deliver an actionable, binding proposal that provides superior value and certainty for WBD shareholders through their best and final offer."After the limited waiver period, Netflix will retain its matching rights provided by the merger agreement, WBD said. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told CNBC's Julia Boorstin on Tuesday the waiver was granted to give shareholders clarity. "Paramount had been making a ton of noise, flooding the zone with confusion for shareholders ... including floating all these hypothetical offers and talking directly to the shareholders and bypassing the Warner Bros. Discovery board," Sarandos said. "So we've given the opportunity to get those shareholders exactly what they deserve, which is complete clarity and certainty." Asked about Netflix's matching rights, Sarandos declined to comment on how high the company would push its own offer, which currently stands at $27.75 per share, all-cash for the streaming and studio assets. "I don't want to get into the hypotheticals," he said. "Let them make a move, and then we'll see where the next step takes us." watch nowVIDEO3:1103:11Netflix co-CEO: Paramount has been 'flooding the zone' and confusing Warner Bros. shareholdersClosing Bell: Overtime Paramount in a statement on Tuesday acknowledged WBD's earlier announcement, noting that it still believed its offer to be superior to the proposed Netflix deal. "Although the Board's actions are unusual, Paramount is nonetheless prepared to engage in good faith and constructive discussions," Paramount said.Still, Paramount said it will move forward with its tender offer as well as its intention to nominate directors to WBD's board during its annual meeting. WBD also on Tuesday announced a special meeting of shareholders will be held on March 20 and said its board continues to unanimously recommend the Netflix deal over Paramount's offer. Netflix said in a statement the shareholder meeting date marked an "important milestone for our transaction with WBD." "While we are confident that our transaction provides superior value and certainty, we recognize the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY's antics," Netflix said. "Accordingly, we granted WBD a narrow seven-day waiver of certain obligations under our merger agreement to allow them to engage with PSKY to fully and finally resolve this matter." Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery gained almost 3% Tuesday. Shares of Paramount gained about 5%. Raising regulatory concerns Either proposed purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery assets comes with regulatory questions. Media industry insiders and lawmakers have questioned whether Netflix's proposed deal would win approval as it would bring together two of the top streaming services and could result in higher prices for consumers. Netflix leadership has repeatedly said the company believes it would win regulatory approval for the deal because it would preserve jobs in a challenged media landscape rife with layoffs. Paramount has sounded the alarm to WBD shareholders, however, and argues its offer is not only better but would more easily garner government support. On the flipside, Paramount's offer has raised questions of foreign funding and antitrust considerations in bringing together two large portfolios of pay TV channels and two major film studios. Paramount's deal is financed in part by sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Qatar. Paramount has said those entities have agreed to forgo any governance rights. In its statement on Tuesday, Netflix called out the foreign funding, which it said it expects to come under scrutiny from international regulators, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Netflix said it also expects European authorities "to scrutinize the Middle Eastern investors in PSKY's consortium and to be skeptical of claims that they are purely passive investors."Given Europe's track record of antitrust enforcement, it's possible regulatory battles for either deal would be won or lost in that market. Of course, the question still looms of how President Donald Trump will view either transaction. Trump recently said he hadn't been involved in the process so far and didn't plan to be, though he has reportedly met with executives from each camp. "PSKY does not have a faster regulatory path," Sarandos told CNBC Tuesday. "I don't know why the Ellisons would insinuate they have some inside track into the Department of Justice, but I can assure you they don't. And in terms of our regulatory [position] in Europe and around the world, we are known entities and trusted entities with all the players in Europe." Netflix's statement on Tuesday "unsurprisingly points to a number of arguments Netflix believes it has in its favor," according to an analyst note from Raymond James on Tuesday, "including better prospects for approval, a clearer national security picture, and financial security." VIDEO15:4815:48Watch CNBC's full interview with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos
Berkshire Hathaway trimmed more of its Apple stake and began a new position in The New York Times in the fourth quarter, a new securities filing shows. View More
In this articleNYTAAPLBRK.AFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 4, 2024.CNBC Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway trimmed more of its Apple stake and began a new position in The New York Times in the fourth quarter, according to a new securities filing.The Omaha-based conglomerate disclosed that it pared its position in the iPhone maker by 4.3% to $61.96 billion, per data from InsiderScore. Even with the cut, Apple remains by far Berkshire's largest equity holding.Berkshire revealed that it trimmed its stake in Apple and started a stake in fellow "Magnificent Seven" name Alphabet in the third quarter. The conglomerate had also cut its equity holding of Apple in the second quarter of last year after slashing its stake by two-thirds in 2024.While Apple posted its third consecutive winning year in 2025, rising around 9%, it still underperformed the S&P 500, which gained more than 16% last year. The stock has been lagging even more this year, falling about 3%. In fact, it experienced its worst day since April 2025 just last week. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconApple shares, year-to-date It's unclear whether the moves were done by Buffett or investment managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. Buffett has viewed Apple as more of a consumer products company rather than a pure technology play, and the moves may reflect Buffett making the portfolio more easily manageable for his successor.In addition to the cut in its Apple holding, Berkshire disclosed a relatively small $351.7 million stake in The New York Times. The position is ranked 29th out of its 41 total positions. Berkshire Hathaway's Top 10 Holdings, as of the end of Q4TICKER NAME VALUE ($ BILLION) CHANGE IN NO. OF SHARES (%) AAPLApple61.96-4.3AXPAmerican Express56.09N/ABACBank of America28.45-8.9KOCoca-Cola27.96N/ACVXChevron19.846.6MCOMoody's12.6N/AOXYOccidental Petroleum10.89N/ACBChubb10.699.3KHCKraft Heinz7.9N/AGOOGLAlphabet5.59N/ASource: InsiderScore The fourth quarter marked the last quarterly period with Buffett at the helm of Berkshire, as Greg Abel â who had been serving as vice chairman of non-insurance operations at the company â took the reins as CEO at the start of the new year.Prior to Buffett's departure, structural changes were announced at the company, including one involving Combs. After resigning in December, the former Berkshire investment manager and Geico CEO joined JPMorgan Chase as head of its new Security and Resiliency Initiative in January. watch nowVIDEO3:0103:01Warren Buffett: Greg Abel should become Berkshire CEO at year-end2025 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting Buffett first announced at Berkshire's annual meeting last May that he was going to ask Berkshire's board to have Abel replace him. Though Buffett is no longer the chief executive, he remains chairman of the board.
Meta expands partnership with Nvidia in a deal likely worth tens of billions, for deploying millions of GPUs and new standalone CPUs in AI data centers View More
In this articleMETANVDAFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO1:0301:03Meta expands Nvidia partnership to deploy 'millions' more AI chips across U.S. data centersClosing Bell: Overtime Meta will use millions of Nvidia chips in its artificial intelligence data centers, including Nvidia's new standalone CPUs and next-generation Vera Rubin systems, in a sweeping new deal announced Tuesday.Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement that the expanded partnership continues his company's push "to deliver personal superintelligence to everyone in the world," a vision he announced in July.Financial terms of the deal were not provided.Shares of Meta and Nvidia climbed during extended trading on Tuesday. Advanced Micro Devices stock sank about 4% on the news.In January, Meta announced plans to spend up to $135 billion on AI in 2026. "The deal is certainly in the tens of billions of dollars," said chip analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies. "We do expect a good portion of Meta's capex to go toward this Nvidia build-out."The partnership is nothing new, as Meta has been using Nvidia graphics processing units for at least a decade, but the deal marks a significantly broader technology partnership between the two Silicon Valley-based giants. Standalone CPUs are the biggest new thing in the deal, with Meta becoming the first to deploy Nvidia's Grace central processing units as standalone chips in its data centers, as opposed to incorporated alongside GPUs in a server. Nvidia said it's the first large-scale deployment of Grace CPUs on their own."They're really designed to run those inference workloads, run those agentic workloads, as a companion to a Grace Blackwell/Vera Rubin rack," Bajarin said. "Meta doing this at scale is affirmation of the soup-to-nuts strategy that Nvidia's putting across both sets of infrastructure: CPU and GPU." The next-generation Vera CPUs are planned to be deployed by Meta in 2027. Read more CNBC tech newsSnap to launch creator subscriptions in push to diversify revenueAlibaba unveils Qwen3.5 as China's chatbot race shifts to AI agentsByteDance says it will add safeguards to Seedance 2.0 following Hollywood backlashAnthropic got an 11% user boost from its OpenAI-bashing Super Bowl ad, data shows The multiyear deal is part of Meta's overall commitment to spend $600 billion in the U.S. by 2028 on data centers and the infrastructure the facilities require.Meta has plans for 30 data centers, 26 of which will be based in the U.S. Its two largest AI data centers are under construction now: the Prometheus 1-gigawatt site in New Albany, Ohio, and the 5-gigawatt Hyperion site in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Also included in the deal is Nvidia's networking technology, Spectrum-X Ethernet switches, which are used to link GPUs together within large-scale AI data centers. Meta will also use Nvidia's security capabilities as part of AI features on WhatsApp.The social media giant doesn't solely rely on the top chipmaker. In November, Nvidia stock fell 4% on reports that Meta was considering using Google's tensor processing units in its data centers in 2027. Meta also develops in-house silicon processors and utilizes chips from AMD, which won a notable deal with OpenAI in October as AI giants seek a second source to Nvidia amid constrained supply.Nvidia's current Blackwell GPUs have been on back-order for months, and the next-generation Rubin GPUs recently went into production. With the deal, Meta has secured a healthy supply of both.Engineering teams from Nvidia and Meta will work together "in deep codesign to optimize and accelerate state-of-the-art AI models" for the social media giant. Meta has been developing a new frontier model dubbed Avocado as a successor to its Llama AI technology. The most recent version released last spring failed to excite developers, CNBC previously reported.Meta's stock has been on a roller coaster in recent months, and its AI strategy in particular has puzzled Wall Street. The stock saw its worst day in three years in October after the company announced ambitious AI spending, then popped 10% in January after reporting stronger-than-expected sales guidance.CNBC's Jonathan Vanian and Kristina Partsinevelos contributed to this report. watch nowVIDEO17:4417:44How Apple glassmaker Corning won a $6 billion AI infrastructure deal with MetaTech
The connection between weight loss drugs, jet fuel and the software sell-off explained. View More
This market reminds me of 2023, when a prominent Wall Street analyst went all in on the impact of GLP-1s. I'm not going to name the analyst â just too vicious â but the gist of the report was that airline stocks could be winners from the soaring popularity of weight-loss drugs. The thinking? Lighter passengers would lead to significant fuel savings. When that piece came out, I knew we had to sell anything ancillary to Eli Lilly , maker of blockbuster GLP-1 drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, and recognize that enough was enough for all except the stock of the drugmaker. Food stocks were considered because they were way too far down due to GLP-1 fears. The problem: These stocks could bounce, but they showed no growth. Even if the dividends were good â like at Conagra Brands â there simply wasn't enough upside. But to suggest that the ramifications meant good news for United or Delta was just too fanciful for words. We now find ourselves in the same spot with artificial intelligence. We are reading endless articles and research pieces about how we will not have to rely on current software, which can be obviated, or even on people (deadwood), as AI flourishes. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is the progenitor of much of this sentiment, which helps when you are trying to justify your company's $350 billion valuation. He's out there saying that Anthropic's code is writing code and writing code better than humans. First, I want to see it. Second, he has made so many outrageous predictions that he makes Elon Musk look like a mild-mannered Alexander Graham Bell. But he's got the mic and has managed to bring down the values of: Adobe , which can be improved upon by Anthropic for next to nothing; Workday , which can be custom made; ServiceNow , which is totally unnecessary because onboarding can be specific to an institution; and Salesforce , an expensive product that can be reproduced for a fraction of the cost. (We have a small position in Salesforce and believe in its AI-focused Agentforce, and don't think the whole suite is hurting.) Other than Adobe, which is expensive but very good, these companies are not sitting ducks. But they will end up having multiples like the food stocks, because people will presume no growth, and no growth means 16 times earnings, after you include stock-based compensation. Cybersecurity companies are losing out because new institutions and agencies can't be hacked. So why pay so much for Crowdstrike ? For this one, I am not even going to dignify Anthropic's challenge. Anthropic might talk about making AI agents safe and trustworthy, but if anyone thinks that it can match the full scope of CrowdStrike's security offerings, they don't know CrowdStrike or its CEO, George Kurtz. However, if you want to own Broadcom , Corning , GE Vernova , Sandisk , or Micron , you have to think about this. You have to think about this because OpenAI needs to raise money based on these norms, and Anthropic needs everyone to understand that Anthropic will rule the world, including your job, so you'd better get on board. It's gotten so outrageous that companies will get rid of Nvidia to, well, hire Nvidia, since these bone-crushing hyperscalers run on Nvidia. Rationality means little thought. You want to save money on jet fuel, don't you? I have given up defending any of these stocks for now; I will save it for the next monthly meeting on Feb. 27. Amazon will get a lot of business if it builds what it needs to, as will Microsoft and Alphabet . They know that if a couple of customers drop out, they can charge prices that are incredibly high and recoup all that free cash flow within a couple of years. Now, will it be a couple of years of pain? Depends. The cost of building a data center must come down, including for dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The total cost of ownership must be reasonable. There can be no shortages, and power must be unlimited. Can it all happen in two years? I don't know. Maybe all of these companies' CEOs have lost their minds. But I simply cannot believe that to be the case. I am sticking with them, arguing that they can see what I can see, but they can also see how the new debt can be serviced, and the thicket isn't impenetrable. And they won't be getting a bargain on jet fuel any time soon. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
The 10-year Treasury yield was little changed on Tuesday as investors looked ahead to more delayed data releases during the holiday-shortened trading week. View More
In this articleUS2YUS10YFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York on January 23, 2026. Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images The 10-year Treasury yield was relatively unchanged on Tuesday as investors looked ahead to more delayed data releases during the holiday-shortened trading week.The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose less than 1 basis point to 4.058%, while the 30-year Treasury bond yield fell 1 basis point to 4.689%. The 2-year Treasury note yield was more than 2 basis points higher at 3.439%.One basis point equals 0.01%, and yields move inversely to prices. The bond market was closed for Presidents' Day on Monday, and Tuesday is shaping up to be a quiet start to the week for investors, who are awaiting several economic data releases.Investors are anticipating the FOMC minutes on Wednesday, which they will parse for insights on the last interest rate decision and future monetary policy.They are also expecting more delayed economic data this week, including housing data for November and December on Wednesday, as well as December's personal consumption expenditures index on Friday, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge.Traders are currently pricing in a 92% chance of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged in a range between 3.5% and 3.75%, per the CME FedWatch Tool.
The Trump administration identified more than 40,000 borrowers eligible for federal student loan relief in January, a recent court filing shows. View More
Andreypopov | Istock | Getty Images The Trump administration has identified more than 40,000 borrowers eligible for federal student loan forgiveness in January, a recent court filing revealed.More than 10,800 of the borrowers who qualified for the debt cancellation were enrolled in the U.S. Department of Education's Income-Based Repayment Plan; another over 10,700 were in the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan; and 820 borrowers were enrolled in the Pay as You Earn Repayment Plan. Those three programs are all known as income-driven repayment plans. IDRs limit a borrower's monthly bill to a share of their discretionary income and cancel any remaining debt after a certain period, typically 20 or 25 years. Another 18,160 federal student loan borrowers had their debts cancelled in January through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the Education Department said in its recent court filing. Signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush, PSLF offers debt cancellation to those who've worked for 10 years at certain not-for-profit organizations or the federal government. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageParents with student debt face deadline to secure affordable repayment, forgivenessSecure 2.0 let employers pair emergency savings and 401(k)s, but few have done soHome sellers start getting lower prices at 70, research shows â here's whyAverage IRS tax refund is up 10.9% so far this season, early filing data showsEarly estimates point to lower Social Security COLA for 2027Senators call for longer Social Security Fairness Act lump-sum payment timelineHere's the inflation breakdown for January 2026 â in one chartAverage tax refund is up 22%, Bessent says â what filers can expect this seasonK-shaped economy looks like 'jaws of a crocodile,' economist says: Here's whyHow EPA 'endangerment finding' repeal could impact your walletMedical emergencies can lead to debt and bankruptcy â even for insured AmericansBigger tax refunds may be coming â but missing key forms could risk an auditHow Social Security Fairness Act payments may affect beneficiaries' taxesCredit card debt tops $1.28 trillion, consistent with 'K-shaped' economy: NY FedHow affordability led to a chasm between stock prices, consumer optimismStudent loan complaints at record high, CFPB finds, but agency omits detailsCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked The January numbers suggest the Trump administration is increasing its efforts to ease the financial burden of student loan debt.Amid a barrage of recent changes to the federal lending system and sweeping layoffs at the Education Department in March, many student loan holders have struggled to access the loan-forgiveness opportunities available under their borrowing terms. More than 42 million Americans hold student loans, with total outstanding debt exceeding $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service. Education Department officials agreed to share status updates on the processing of student loan discharges as part of an October settlement with the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers' union representing some 1.8 million members. The AFT sued the Trump administration last year, accusing officials of denying student loan borrowers their legal rights."Thanks to our lawsuit, 20,000 more teachers, nurses, firefighters and public service workers finally got their debt discharged," said AFT president Randi Weingarten. 'Golden emails' on student loan forgiveness The borrowers deemed eligible for IDR forgiveness in January have not yet had their debts discharged, Education Department officials said in the court filing. The department usually provides borrowers with a short period to opt out of the debt cancellation. "These people should be getting their notices in February," said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York."In fact, we have several clients who got the 'golden email' this month," Nierman said, referencing the term some borrowers use to describe the Education Department electronic message confirming their debt cancellation. Backlog remains for affordable repayment plans More than 626,000 federal student loan holders remain stuck in a backlog of applications for an affordable repayment plan, the Education Department reported. Many borrowers rely on IDR plans in order to afford their monthly payments, consumer advocates say.However, the Education Department has made progress on processing the applications: Approximately 734,000 requests were pending in December, compared with nearly 1.4 million in July. However, the PSLF buyback pileup continues to grow, with more than 86,520 borrowers in the queue in January, up from 83,370 in December and 80,210 in November. The buyback option allows borrowers pursuing PSLF to retroactively pay for any months they missed because of a forbearance or deferment, accelerating their timeline to forgiveness. The Education Department said in January it had approved 1,980 buyback applications.
The software analytics firm is the latest big business to migrate to South Florida as executives seek to transform the region into a hub for innovation. View More
In this articlePLTRFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, joins CNBC's âSquawk on the Streetâ on June 5, 2025. CNBC Palantir is relocating its headquarters to Miami from Denver, the company announced Tuesday in a post on social media platform X.The software analytics firm is the latest big business to migrate to South Florida as executives seek to transform the region into a hub for innovation. Palantir did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why it was moving.Florida, which offers a friendlier tax environment, has welcomed a wave of billionaires in recent years. The region is also gaining more executives as California deliberates over a 5% wealth tax on residents with a net worth exceeding $1 billion.Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly bought a mansion in Florida and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has established a base in Miami.Palantir, which was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 2003, previously moved to Denver in 2020. CEO Alex Karp has previously spoken out about the culture in Silicon Valley."Our company was founded in Silicon Valley," he wrote in a letter in 2020. "But we seem to share fewer and fewer of the technology sector's values and commitments."Major tech companies are also building bigger hubs in the region. ServiceNow said in September it would add more office space in West Palm Beach. Ken Griffin-run hedge fund Citadel is also based out of Miami.At the end of last year, Palantir said it had 4,429 full-time workers, with significant offices in Palo Alto, New York City, Washington, D.C., and London. Palantir also leases space in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, according to its website. watch nowVIDEO4:0404:04Palantir earnings âabsolutely blew away expectations,â says Moor Insightsâ Patrick MoorheadSquawk on the Street Read more CNBC tech newsSnap to launch creator subscriptions in push to diversify revenueAlibaba unveils Qwen3.5 as China's chatbot race shifts to AI agentsByteDance says it will add safeguards to Seedance 2.0 following Hollywood backlashAnthropic got an 11% user boost from its OpenAI-bashing Super Bowl ad, data shows