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CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker, speaks before the screening of First Lady Michelle Obama’s new CNN Film, We Will Rise: Michelle Obamas Mission to Educate Girls Around the World on October 11, 2016.
Cheriss May | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Jeff Zucker won’t be leaving WarnerMedia at the end of the year after all.

The WarnerMedia News and Sports chairman plans to stay at the company at least until the AT&T media division’s merger with Discovery closes, assuming it gains regulatory approval, according to people familiar with the matter. Zucker had previously said he planned to leave at the end of this year when his employment contract expires and reiterated he hadn’t changed his mind in May, after the announcement of the Discovery deal.

Zucker hasn’t said anything formally yet and hasn’t held discussions about a new role with Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav, who will take over as CEO of the new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. Zucker can’t legally discuss details of a position at a combined Warner Bros. Discovery because of so-called “gun jumping” regulations that don’t allow integration discussions before a merger’s completion.

A WarnerMedia spokesperson declined to comment.

Zucker has led CNN since 2013 and is one of the few executives to stay with WarnerMedia after AT&T acquired Time Warner in 2018. He has continued to direct the cable news network even after his promotion in 2019 that put him in charge of overseeing WarnerMedia sports.

Zucker has a reputation for being a close communicator with CNN employees and is widely respected by top talent at the network. He improved CNN’s ratings by focusing on President Donald Trump’s falsehoods and erratic behavior throughout his presidency. Zucker also expanded the news network’s primetime lineup with such shows as “Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown” and “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.” Last month, Zucker and digital head Andrew Morse spearheaded CNN’s announcement that it will debut a new streaming service, CNN+, in 2022.

Zucker has also drawn scrutiny for his relationship with Trump, stemming from the executive’s promotion of Trump as a reality star on NBC’s “The Apprentice,” and his decision not to punish anchor Chris Cuomo for participating in strategy calls regarding sexual misconduct allegations made against his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. New York Attorney General Letitia James said Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women and then retaliated against a former employee who complained publicly about his conduct in a report released this week. Andrew Cuomo denied the allegations on Tuesday.

Zucker may get a significant leadership role under Zaslav, who has known Zucker for nearly 30 years. Both men worked at NBC in the early 1990s and have maintained a close friendship.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Discovery CEO David Zaslav at Sun Valley: We’re not done making deals yet

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AMD shares drop 7% on disappointing data center revenue

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AMD shares drop 7% on disappointing data center revenue

Lisa Su, chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., during the AMD Advancing AI event in San Jose, California, on Dec. 6, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Advanced Micro Devices shares fell 7% on Wednesday after the chipmaker under-delivered on Wall Street’s estimates for its important data center business.

Shares traded at a 52-week low and were on pace for their worst session since October.

AMD reported better-than-expected results on the top and bottom lines, but it also reported data center sales of $3.86 billion. That reflected 69% growth from a year ago but fell short of the $4.14 billion in sales expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

The key unit, responsible for selling advanced chips for data centers, has benefited in recent years from growing demand for its graphics processing units, as megacap technology companies race to develop advanced artificial intelligence tools.

Data center revenue grew 94% for the full year to $12.6 billion, with $5 billion of those sales stemming from AMD’s AI-focused Instinct GPUs. The company is the second-largest producer for gaming after Nvidia, which has triumphed as the market leader in AI chips and ballooned in value to a nearly $3 trillion market value.

“We believe this places AMD on a steep long-term growth trajectory, led by the rapid scaling of our data center AI franchise from more than $5 billion of revenue in 2024 to tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue over the coming years,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said on the earnings call with analysts.

Several Wall Street firms trimmed their price targets on shares amid the disappointing data center results and expectations for a weak first half. Citi downgraded shares to neutral from a buy rating, while JPMorgan its target to $130 from $180. Bank of America’s Vivek Arya said the company has yet to “articulate how it can carve an important niche” relative to Nvidia.

Morgan Stanley highlighted AI expectations as the most significant pressure point, saying that “visibility likely needs to improve for the stock to find its footing.”

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Alphabet shares fall more than 7% on revenue miss, AI investment boost

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Alphabet shares fall more than 7% on revenue miss, AI investment boost

CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai in Warsaw, Poland on March 29, 2022.

Mateusz Wlodarczyk | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares dropped more than 7% on Wednesday after the search giant fell short of Wall Street’s fourth-quarter revenue expectations and announced big spending plans for its ongoing artificial intelligence buildout.

The stock headed for its worst session in more than a year.

The company topped earnings estimates by 2 cents per share. Revenue came in at $96.47 billion, behind the $96.56 billion expected by LSEG. Alphabet’s revenue grew 12% overall from a year ago, while its YouTube advertising business, search business and services segment slowed year over year.

Alphabet also said it plans to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures as it builds out its AI offerings and races against megacap rivals to build out data centers and new infrastructure. The figure was much higher than the $58.84 billion expected by Wall Street analysts, according to FactSet.

Finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said the higher expenses will help “support the growth of our business across Google Services, Google Cloud and Google DeepMind.” She also said the spending will go toward “technical infrastructure, primarily for servers, followed by data centers and networking.”

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The company expects capital expenditures to range between $16 billion and $18 billion. That was higher than the $14.3 billion estimate from FactSet.

JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth highlighted costs, capex and cloud revenue as the “culprits” for the stock’s post-earnings performance. Bernstein’s Mark Shmulik also noted that this is the third quarter that the stock move connects to Google’s cloud segment.

“If digital ad growth is akin to a long drive competition, then Google would be sitting comfortably here with strong Search and YouTube bombs down the fairway,” Shmulik said.

“But as the game shifts to the AI putting green, there’s little room for error with a slight cloud miss, a whopping CAPEX guide up to $75B for 2025, and lack of actionable operating leverage commentary leaves Google 3- putting for bogey,” he added.

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Teladoc Health to acquire Catapult Health in $65 million deal

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Teladoc Health to acquire Catapult Health in  million deal

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Teladoc Health on Wednesday announced it will acquire the preventative care company Catapult Health in an all-cash deal for $65 million.

Catapult offers an at-home wellness exam that allows members to check their blood pressure, collect a blood sample, log other screening information and meet virtually with a nurse practitioner. Teladoc, a virtual care platform, said the acquisition will help it improve its ability to detect health conditions early.

The company said Catapult will operate within its integrated care segment after the deal closes. At JPMorgan’s health-care conference in January, Teladoc said it is actively working to grow membership and use of services within its integrated care segment.

“Catapult Health’s capabilities will help advance our strategy in meaningful ways — from giving more members access to convenient and impactful wellness and preventative care, to unlocking greater value for our customers,” Teladoc CEO Chuck Divita said in a statement.

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Catapult generated around $30 million in trailing twelve-month revenue as of the third quarter of 2024, Teladoc said. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of this year.

Teladoc’s acquisition of Catapult comes after a tumultuous period for the company. When Teladoc acquired Livongo in 2020, the companies had a combined enterprise value of $37 billion. The stock has tumbled since then, and Teladoc’s market cap now sits under $2 billion.

In April, Teladoc announced the sudden departure of Jason Gorevic, who joined as CEO in 2009 and steered the company through the Livongo deal and the Covid-19 pandemic. Divita took over as chief executive in June and pledged to position the company for “long-term, sustainable success.”

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