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Elon Musk laughing
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X Factor

Elon Musk wins no matter which presidential candidate does

All the 2024 election chaos has been good for X. (We’ll see whether it translates into profit.)

Rani Molla

No matter what happens with democracy and the upcoming presidential election, Elon Musk wins. That’s because despite all that the billionaire has done to drive users away, news still happens on his social media platform X, née Twitter.

Case in point: Joe Biden, the president of the United States who Musk has been actively campaigning against, both on the site and with $45 million a month in real-world money, announced yesterday that he was no longer running for president on X. As of Monday morning, his post had more than 360 million views, while most of his other recent posts are in the single digit millions.

Musk celebrated the exposure, tweeting “White House aides learned Biden was dropping out by reading 𝕏.”

(Of course, all that traffic needs to eventually turn into revenue and then profit, which is a thing the company has struggled with lately.)

Donald Trump, who has more than twice the number followers of both the Biden and POTUS accounts, hasn’t posted on X in nearly a year. Even after Musk reinstated his account, Trump has said he would stick with his own social media platform, Truth Social, where he’s obligated to wait six hours before posting elsewhere.

During the Republican National Convention last week, X CEO Linda Yaccarino noted the high volume of traffic the event drew to X. US traffic to X was up 11% the week of the RNC compared to a week earlier, according to data from Similarweb. (The timeframe of that week also included the failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life.) Traffic for Truth Social, owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, was up nearly 200%. Of course, X is much bigger than Truth — X saw more than 100 times the traffic Truth did during the week of the RNC.

Next month’s Democratic National Convention will likely be a boon to X as well, with Democrats set to roll out several big-name speeches — likely Harris, her VP pick, and potentially Biden and Obama.

Of course, there are bigger questions out there like whether a social media platform owned by a highly partisan billionaire that’s filled with hateful rhetoric and armies of subsidized bots should be the de facto place for public discourse on the future of democracy.

As New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker put it on The Daily podcast this morning, “When we first saw the online message the first reaction we had was, is this real or is this a fake. We didn't hit the done button till we confirmed with two White House officials that it was for real, because we didn’t expect that if he was going to do it, it would be just like that on an online posting.”

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Max Knoblauch

Paramount doesn’t improve its offer for Warner Bros., leaving its fate to a long-shot shareholder appeal

Paramount Skydance on Thursday reaffirmed its $30-per-share offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, again stating that it believes the offer to be superior to rival Netflix’s.

In a press release, Paramount said its last amendment to the offer — which included a $40.4 billion personal guarantee from Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison — “cured every issue raised by WBD.”

The problem: Warner Bros.’ board on Wednesday unanimously voted to reject that offer, its sixth rejection of a Paramount takeover and second rejection of this specific $30-per-share bid. Warner’s board stated that it believes Paramount’s offer to be inferior to Netflix’s due in part to an “extraordinary amount of debt financing” and lower effective termination fees should the deal not clear the regulatory process.

By not improving the bid, Paramount is effectively leaving the deal in the hands of Warner Bros.’ shareholders, who will have to weigh the bids and the multiple rejections. Event contracts show a moderate boost in Parmount’s odds to end up in control of WBD on Thursday morning, jumping to 31% as of 9:30 a.m. ET, up from 27% at 9:00 a.m. ET.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

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Max Knoblauch

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board tells shareholders to turn down Paramount’s “inadequate” hostile bid

Warner Bros. Discovery has told shareholders to reject Paramount’s hostile takeover bid, with the company releasing a statement early Wednesday urging shareholders to take the Netflix offer on the table. WBD’s board of directors said the outcome of the Netflix deal is “extraordinary by any measure.”

Paramount’s offer, in contrast, was described in the letter as “illusory,” providing “inadequate value,” and likely to impose “numerous, significant risks and costs on WBD.” The board said Paramount has “misled WBD shareholders that its proposed transaction has a ‘full backstop’ from the Ellison family,” and the board also outlined that it doesn’t believe there is a “material difference in regulatory risk between the PSKY offer and the Netflix merger.”

WBD shares dipped in the minutes leading up to the market close on Tuesday after news leaked that its management was preparing to encourage shareholders to reject Paramount’s bid, and shares of the HBO parent were down at $28.66, off 0.83% from yesterday’s close, as of 7:56 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Netflix was ticking higher, up around 1.7%, and Paramount Skydance was modestly in the red, down 1%.

Several outlets have reported that Jared Kushner’s firm would back out of the group that had been assembled to help finance the Paramount bid. Confirming this withdrawal, a spokesperson for the firm helmed by the president’s son-in-law told NBC News that “the dynamics ​of the investment have changed significantly ​since we initially became ​involved ​in October.”

Analysts this month have said that a renewed bidding war for Warner Bros. seems “inevitable” given the antitrust concerns surrounding Netflix’s potential acquisition. President Trump on Tuesday appeared to distance himself from speculation around his closeness to Paramount’s owners, posting on Truth Social, “If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!”

Warner’s attempt to influence its shareholders could fuel a higher bid from Paramount in the coming weeks — shareholders currently have until January 8 to decide whether to accept the current offer.

Exclusive | Warner Preparing to Tell Shareholders to Reject Paramount Offer

Exclusive | Warner Preparing to Tell Shareholders to Reject Paramount Offer

Paramount’s offer, in contrast, was described in the letter as “illusory,” providing “inadequate value,” and likely to impose “numerous, significant risks and costs on WBD.” The board said Paramount has “misled WBD shareholders that its proposed transaction has a ‘full backstop’ from the Ellison family,” and the board also outlined that it doesn’t believe there is a “material difference in regulatory risk between the PSKY offer and the Netflix merger.”

WBD shares dipped in the minutes leading up to the market close on Tuesday after news leaked that its management was preparing to encourage shareholders to reject Paramount’s bid, and shares of the HBO parent were down at $28.66, off 0.83% from yesterday’s close, as of 7:56 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Netflix was ticking higher, up around 1.7%, and Paramount Skydance was modestly in the red, down 1%.

Several outlets have reported that Jared Kushner’s firm would back out of the group that had been assembled to help finance the Paramount bid. Confirming this withdrawal, a spokesperson for the firm helmed by the president’s son-in-law told NBC News that “the dynamics ​of the investment have changed significantly ​since we initially became ​involved ​in October.”

Analysts this month have said that a renewed bidding war for Warner Bros. seems “inevitable” given the antitrust concerns surrounding Netflix’s potential acquisition. President Trump on Tuesday appeared to distance himself from speculation around his closeness to Paramount’s owners, posting on Truth Social, “If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!”

Warner’s attempt to influence its shareholders could fuel a higher bid from Paramount in the coming weeks — shareholders currently have until January 8 to decide whether to accept the current offer.

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Jon Keegan

Senators open investigation into data centers’ effect on consumer utility bills

As Big Tech builds more and more massive data centers in small towns around the country, the public is starting to ask questions about whether they are to blame for rising utility bills.

Today Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent letters to the CEOs of some of the biggest builders of data centers: Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix.

The senators wrote:

“Utility companies have spent billions of dollars updating the electrical grid to accommodate the unprecedented energy demands of AI data centers and appear to recoup the costs by raising residential utility bills. Through these utility price increases, American families bankroll the electricity costs of trillion-dollar tech companies.”

Electricity prices in the US are indeed up, rising 6.2% since last year. A recent Bloomberg analysis found that ratepayers within 50 miles of data centers saw rates increase up to 276% over the past five years.

The companies have until January 12, 2026, to respond to the senators.

Senator Warren, Lawmakers Open Investigation into Big Tech Data Centers’ Role in Driving Up Families’ Utility Costs | U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

Senator Warren, Lawmakers Open Investigation into Big Tech Data Centers’ Role in Driving Up Families’ Utility Costs | U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

The senators wrote:

“Utility companies have spent billions of dollars updating the electrical grid to accommodate the unprecedented energy demands of AI data centers and appear to recoup the costs by raising residential utility bills. Through these utility price increases, American families bankroll the electricity costs of trillion-dollar tech companies.”

Electricity prices in the US are indeed up, rising 6.2% since last year. A recent Bloomberg analysis found that ratepayers within 50 miles of data centers saw rates increase up to 276% over the past five years.

The companies have until January 12, 2026, to respond to the senators.

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Hyunsoo Rim

TIME names the “Architects of AI” as its Person of the Year for 2025

TIME just announced its Person of the Year… and it’s not a single person.  

The magazine selected the “Architects of AI” as its 2025 honoree, spotlighting the executives and engineers behind the year’s AI boom. One of the two covers features eight tech leaders perched on a steel beam — recreating the iconic “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photo from 1932 — including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, AMD’s Lisa Su, xAI’s Elon Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the center, whose chips power many of today’s AI models.

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Why the Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year

Why the Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year
Western Auctioneer with Two Fingers up and Gavel in Hand

As investors pick sides in Netflix vs. Paramount, analysts say a renewed Warner Bros. bidding war looks inevitable

Analysts at Bloomberg on Wednesday said Paramount’s WBD hostile takeover offer could go as high as $35 per share.

Max Knoblauch12/10/25

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