Alphabet logo is seen in this illustration taken September 18, 2025.
Image: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing
Wake up to the shifts shaping the future.
From boardroom shakeups and billion-dollar bets to the latest tech breakthroughs rewriting the rules, The Company Brief is your front-row seat to the stories moving markets and mindsets.
We cut through the noise so you can stay ahead of the curve, one bold business move at a time.
Paramount sweetens Warner Bros bid with offer to pay Netflix break-up cost
Paramount Skydance has enhanced its Warner Bros Discovery bid by offering shareholders extra cash for each quarter the deal fails to close after this year and agreeing to cover the breakup fee the HBO owner would owe Netflix if it walked away. Even though Paramount did not raise its per-share offer, the sweeteners mark the company's latest attempt to woo Warner Bros shareholders in its prolonged battle with Netflix for control of some of the world's most prized TV and film assets. Paramount said on Tuesday that it has offered shareholders a 25-cent-per-share "ticking fee", amounting to about $650 million in cash each quarter from early 2027 until the Warner Bros deal closes, signalling confidence that the transaction will be completed relatively quickly.
Two co-founders of Elon Musk's xAI resign
xAI co-founders Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba have resigned from the artificial intelligence firm they started with billionaire Elon Musk less than three years ago, they said in social media posts. The exits are the latest in an exodus from xAI that leaves the firm with half of its 12 co-founders. The Financial Times reported that Ba's resignation followed tensions within its technical team over demands to improve its AI model performance as Musk pushes to catch up to rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Ba did not immediately respond to a request for comment via X messaging on the FT report. Ba and Wu did not say in their posts on X why they were resigning or detail their next plans, but thanked Musk.
Alphabet sells rare 100-year bond to fund AI expansion as spending surges
Alphabet sold a rare 100-year bond, a memo from the lead manager showed, part of a $31.51 billion global bond raise, as artificial intelligence-driven spending sparks a surge in borrowing at U.S. tech giants. Alphabet's sale of the century bond is the tech industry's first since Motorola's issuance that dates back to 1997, according to LSEG data. "You have an extraordinary time period that we're living through now with the change in technology," said Jason Granet, chief investment officer at BNY. "Today it comes with a 100-year debt issuance out of Google ... That's representative and indicative of a lot of the capital spending, a lot of the investment that's going through in markets and technology." The company sold $7.53 billion worth of sterling bonds in a five-part deal, according to the final term sheet seen by Reuters. The 100-year tranche raised 1 billion pounds and comes with a 6.125% interest rate.