FILE PHOTO: IBM is in advanced talks to acquire data infrastructure company Confluent for about $11 billion.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

What started as a fact-finding mission for Netflix culminated in one of the biggest media deals in the last decade and one that stands to reshape the global entertainment business landscape, people with direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters. Netflix announced on Friday it had reached a deal to buy Warner Bros Discovery’s TV, film studios and streaming division for $72 billion.

Although Netflix had publicly downplayed speculation about buying a major Hollywood studio as recently as October, the streaming pioneer threw its hat in the ring when Warner Bros Discovery kicked off an auction on October 21, after rejecting a trio of unsolicited offers from Paramount Skydance .

Initially motivated by curiosity about its business, Netflix executives quickly recognised the opportunity presented by Warner Bros, beyond the ability to offer the century-old studio’s deep catalog of movies and television shows to Netflix subscribers. Library titles are valuable to streaming services as these movies and shows can account for 80% of viewing, according to one person familiar with the business.

Warner Bros’ business units, particularly its theatrical distribution and promotion unit and its studio, were complementary to Netflix. The HBO Max streaming service also would benefit from insights learned years ago by streaming leader Netflix that would accelerate HBO’s growth, according to one person familiar with the situation. Netflix began flirting with the idea of acquiring the studio and streaming assets, another source familiar with the process told Reuters, after WBD announced plans in June to split into two publicly traded companies, separating its fading but cash-generating cable television networks from the legendary Warner Bros studios, HBO and the HBO Max streaming service.

Netflix and Warner Bros did not reply to requests for comment.

The work intensified this autumn, as Netflix began vying for the assets against Paramount and NBCUniversal’s parent company, Comcast.

Warner Bros kicked off the public auction in October, after Paramount submitted the first of three escalating offers for the media company in September. Sources familiar with the offer said Paramount aimed to pre-empt the planned separation because the split would undercut its ability to combine the traditional television networks businesses and increase the risk of being outbid for the studio by the likes of Netflix.

Around that time, banker JPMorgan Chase & Co was advising Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav to consider reversing the order of the planned spin, shedding the Discovery Global unit comprising the company’s cable television assets first. This would give the company more flexibility, including the option to sell the studio, streaming and content assets, which advisers believed would draw strong interest, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Executives for the streaming service and its advisory team, which included the investment banks Moelis & Company, Wells Fargo and the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, had been holding daily morning calls for the past two months, sources said. The group worked throughout Thanksgiving week, including multiple calls on Thanksgiving Day, to prepare a bid by the December 1 deadline.

Warner Bros’ board similarly convened every day for the last eight days leading up to the decision on Thursday, when Netflix presented the final offer that sources described as the only offer they considered binding and complete, sources familiar with the deliberations said.

The board favored Netflix’s deal, which would yield more immediate benefits over one by Comcast. The NBCUniversal parent proposed merging its entertainment division with Warner Bros Discovery, creating a much larger unit that would rival Walt Disney. But it would have taken years to execute, the sources said.

Comcast declined to comment.

Although Paramount raised its offer to $30 per share on Thursday for the entire company, for an equity value of $78 billion, according to sources familiar with the deal, the Warner Bros board had concerns about the financing, other sources said.

Paramount declined comment.

To reassure the seller over what is expected to be a significant regulatory review, Netflix put forward one of the largest breakup fees in M&A history of $5.8 billion, a sign of its belief it would win regulatory approval, the sources said. “No one lights $6 billion on fire without that conviction,” one of the sources said.

Until the moment late on Thursday night when Netflix learned its offer had been accepted, news that was greeted by clapping and cheering on a group call, one Netflix executive confided that they thought they had only a 50-50 chance.

Published – December 08, 2025 09:15 am IST

Paramount’s chief David Ellison is a major backer of Trump [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Work pressure might be simmering down worldwide as the holidays approach, but at OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman has declared “code red”. Mr. Altman, 40, stressed the need for the company to improve user experience with ChatGPT by enhancing its speed, reliability, ability to answer more questions, and its personalisation — even if that means holding back other products, according to a report. OpenAI in October reached a valuation of $500 billion, so what could have caused this urgent shift? One answer is Google, which in November introduced its “most intelligent model” yet: Gemini 3.

From a child who experimented with his Macintosh computer to announcing a partnership with Apple decades later, the CEO of one of the world’s most famous tech companies has always juggled both tech and business aspirations.

Samuel Harris Altman, born in Chicago on April 22, 1985, grew up with his younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, in a Jewish family. He lived in Missouri and studied computer science at Stanford University but dropped out in 2005, according to Forbes. Mr. Altman went on to co-found Loopt, a social mapping service designed to help people discover more about their location. He later sold Loopt and became closely involved with Y Combinator and had been the start-up launcher’s president between 2014 and 2019.

Though best known for his work in the generative AI space, Mr. Altman was active in the blockchain sector. He is a co-founder of Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project introduced in 2021 and launched in 2023 that aims to collect people’s biometric data in exchange for giving them an ID and some digital currency simply for “being human”.

Activists allege that the project was used to harvest biometric data without informed consent from people in poverty-struck regions, while Mr. Altman’s initiative was also publicly criticised by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Billionaire Elon Musk was part of the organisation but left its Board three years later over differences over how to operate the company. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022, Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI to leverage generative AI technology for its own products. The two companies — and their CEOs — gradually drifted apart as they became competitors.

Furthermore, Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman’s relationship has soured badly since 2018, with Mr. Musk suing OpenAI multiple times over alleged violations of business regulations, while the ChatGPT-maker claimed it was being harassed by the billionaire who now has his own AI company: xAI.

Ethical concerns

There were also internal conflicts. In November 2023, Mr. Altman was suddenly fired from OpenAI, with the company noting that “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board”. Soon, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Mr. Altman would join the software giant to lead its AI team. In a surprising turn, however, Mr. Altman returned as the CEO of OpenAI, with Board members Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever later being removed. The tech world keenly observed the chaotic series of events, which highlighted Mr. Altman’s influence over his peers. A string of employees left the company soon after, with former researcher Jan Leike claiming that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products”.

In the months following ChatGPT’s viral fame, Mr. Altman faced criticism over OpenAI’s approach to training its AI models, with authors and creators alleging that the company illegally scraped their copyrighted works, possibly from piracy databases, to feed AI models with high-quality information. The New York Times joined the fray as it sued OpenAI over alleged copyright infringements.

OpenAI and Mr. Altman are facing a lawsuit filed by two U.S. parents regarding a far more serious matter. Matthew and Maria Raine in August alleged that ChatGPT helped “coach” their 16-year-old son Adam Raine into dying by suicide. The Raine family said that ChatGPT taught their teenager about various self-harm and suicide methods that he later used to take his life, and that the chatbot reportedly discouraged the child from seeking human support. OpenAI expressed its sympathies and has since rolled out safety settings for children, but intends to defend ChatGPT. Mr. Altman, meanwhile, has defended user freedom for adult users of ChatGPT.

Concerns over child safety caused ripples even as OpenAI moved to redefine its non-profit structure. In October, the company announced that the non-profit was the OpenAI Foundation, while the for-profit was a public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC; the foundation controls the group and their mission is the same, says the company. Microsoft now holds around 27% of the OpenAI Group.

Mr. Altman married his partner Oliver Mulherin in January 2024, and announced the arrival of his son this year by sharing the baby’s photo on the Musk-owned social media platform X. While there were congratulatory messages, the comments on X were also teeming with anti-Semitic and homophobic hate speech.

Mr. Altman does not frequently post about his family on social media, but his personal life made headlines after a family member alleged that he sexually abused her for years when she was a child, and filed a lawsuit against him. In January, Mr. Altman issued a public statement denying all allegations, calling them “utterly untrue” and expressing concern about the woman’s well-being.

Uncertain future

ChatGPT recently turned three, with Mr. Altman claiming that the chatbot has more than 800 million weekly users. ChatGPT is unquestionably the chatbot that led the generative AI boom in 2023, with Microsoft and Google following with their own chatbot releases that felt rushed and spewed grave errors as a result of AI chatbot hallucination, shocking long-time customers of these legacy companies.

OpenAI greatly enjoyed its first-mover advantages, with Mr. Altman jetting around the globe to meet world leaders, discuss AI regulation, and explore expansion overseas.

However, Google’s sudden leap ahead presents a new threat for Mr. Altman, who previously exulted in his first-mover advantages. At over 25 years of age, Google is a behemoth that dominates multiple search and online technology markets and platforms. In other words, Google can likely bear larger losses for longer than OpenAI as it promotes top-of-the-line AI offerings and integrates them into products used by billions. Google announced last month that its AI Overviews has 2 billion users every month and that the Gemini app surpasses 650 million users per month.

According to the Internet search giant, its Gemini 3 Pro model beat OpenAI’s recently upgraded GPT-5.1 across a range of key AI benchmarks.

Little wonder, then, that Mr. Altman has reportedly declared “code red” at OpenAI.

Published – December 07, 2025 01:06 am IST