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Business Archive

Archives for December 2025

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Meta acquires ‘general-purpose’ AI agent startup Manus.

Zuckerberg’s 2025 AI spending spree now includes snagging Manus and autonomous bots that turn “advanced AI capabilities into scalable, reliable systems that can carry out end-to-end work in real-world settings.”

As we wait for agent reality to match agent hype, Manus says it plans to expand on its existing subscriptions via Meta’s platforms in the future.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Nvidia pays a reported $20 billion for most of the AI chip startup Groq.

CNBC reports Nvidia isn’t buying all of Groq, which has inference AI tech that IBM’s CEO recently told us “looks like it’ll be 10x cheaper” than GPUs.

Nvidia’s getting a non-exclusive license, and members of the team, like Google TPU creator and Groq CEO Jonathan Ross, and former Autonomic CEO Sunny Madra.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Former FTX US exec Brett Harrison raises $35 million for a “perpetual futures” exchange.

I don’t know what “AX, the financial industry’s first centralized exchange for perpetual futures on traditional asset classes,” is, but I do recognize Harrison.

He was once touting FTX Stocks, and later mentioned by the FDIC for statements about the insurance status of customers’ accounts that it considered “false and misleading,” before everything went boom.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
WBD has received Paramount’s amended offer.

The new offer has a personal guarantee from Larry Ellison. WBD says it will now review it.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
An update: Larry Ellison will guarantee his big boy’s offer.

Last week, we talked about how Warner Bros. — quite reasonably! — had some agita about David Ellison’s bid for the company. Well, what do you know, David’s daddy is going to personally guarantee the offer. Also, since the last time we talked, Jared Kushner backed out of the nepo baby bid.

Chipwrecked: Can Nvidia avoid the crash?

Nvidia has built an empire on circular deals for chips. Can anything knock it down?

Elizabeth Lopatto
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Meredith Haggerty
AI advocates worry David Sacks’ aggression undermines the industry’s hopes.

The administration’s top AI adviser championed Trump’s executive order preempting states from regulating the industry, but alienated everyone from kids’ safety groups to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Insiders worry that the Musk-aligned investor doesn’t understand how Washington works.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Siri, play “Hate to Say I Told You So” by The Hives.

Bari Weiss killed a 60 Minutes story on CECOT, the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has been deporting people. A senior correspondent noted that the story had been cleared by Standards and Practices, as well as the company’s lawyers, calling the decision “political.”

Why does this seem familiar? I feel like maybe someone predicted this?

A screenshot from my Oct. 7th story: “Managing requires certain kinds of soft skills, ones I am not confident you possess. They weren’t necessary in your cushy Wall Street Journal op-ed job, or your cushier New York Times op-ed job. They were barely required at the publication you invented, The Free Press. So now you’re the head honcho at CBS News. Let’s say you decide to skip levels to directly edit a 60 Minutes story. It doesn’t even have to be a controversial story to make all hell break loose — because you have neither the credibility nor the relationships required to take this kind of work on. And what’s more, you’ve got a news division composed exclusively of ambitious piranhas below you — not your handpicked cronies, like Tyler “I wish to see Hollywood virgins” Cowen. These people have decades in television, and you have a newsletter and a history of throwing your colleagues under the bus.”
Who owns Trump Mobile?Who owns Trump Mobile?
Dominic Preston
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Sony is buying Snoopy, Charlie Brown.

Good grief, is the Peanuts franchise really worth $457 million in 2025?

‘All chaos and panic’: Nilay answers your burning Decoder questions
Play

The year AI exploded — and everybody has thoughts about it.

Kate Cox and Nick Statt
The ChatGPT app store is hereThe ChatGPT app store is here
Richard Lawler
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Even Jared Kushner thinks the Paramount WB bid sucks.

He’s withdrawn financial backing from the bid, which may leave it floundering, and the Warner Bros. board has recommended shareholders reject the hostile offer. It looks like everyone involved is beginning to realize what The Verge’s own Liz Lopatto pointed out yesterday: “What Paramount is doing doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Update: The Warner Bros. board has recommended rejecting the Paramount bid.