EU approves Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, clearing major hurdle
Microsoft logo is seen on a smartphone placed on displayed Activision Blizzard’s games character.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
European Union regulators on Monday approved Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of gaming firm Activision Blizzard, subject to remedies offered by the U.S. tech giant.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said that Microsoft offered remedies in the nascent area of cloud gaming that have staved off antitrust concerns. These remedies centered on allowing users to stream Activision games they purchase on any cloud streaming platform.
Europe’s green light is a huge win for Microsoft, after the U.K.’s top competition authority last month blocked the deal.
Regulators globally have been probing whether Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision could distort competition in the console and cloud gaming market. One area regulators questioned is whether Microsoft might take Activision games and keep them exclusively on the U.S. giant’s own platforms.
Activision is behind some of the biggest console and PC games in the world, including the Call of Duty franchise and World of Warcraft.
The EU decision comes after the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority last month blocked the deal over concerns that it would reduce competition in the nascent cloud gaming market. The CMA said that Microsoft would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s key games, such as Call of Duty, exclusive to its own cloud gaming platforms. The CMA nevertheless said the acquisition would not reduce competition in the console market.
Microsoft has faced opposition to the deal from regulators and some of its rivals, including PlayStation games console maker Sony.
Microsoft sought to allay the Commission’s concerns over making Activision games exclusive ahead of the EU decision. Microsoft President Brad Smith met with EU officials in February, after which the tech giant said it would bring Xbox PC games to Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. The chipmaker had reportedly expressed opposition to the acquisition takeover.
Microsoft offers remedies for cloud gaming
The Commission examined a number of areas around the deal, including the impact on competition in the console and fast-growing cloud gaming market.
Microsoft has broadly fallen behind with its Xbox in the latest generation of consoles versus Sony’s PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch. But the U.S. giant has staked its future in the market on so-called cloud gaming, a nascent part of the industry.
The EU Commission found that the Activision takeover would not reduce competition in the console market given Sony’s dominance with the PlayStation.
A large part of the EU’s investigation centered around cloud gaming.
Cloud gaming will allow people to effectively stream games from servers, removing the need for expensive dedicated hardware, such as consoles. These games could be played on existing devices like TVs, smartphones and laptops. For example, if a user buys a game online, they could stream it via a cloud gaming service.
But the key to success for cloud gaming will also be a large catalogue of games that users could immediately access via a subscription service, sort of like Netflix. That is one part of the rationale behind Microsoft’s proposed Activision takeover.
The British regulator was concerned about Microsoft’s ability to secure a dominant position in cloud gaming before it even takes off.
EU regulators found that Microsoft would harm the competition in the distribution of PC and console games via cloud gaming services, as a result of the acquisition. One way competition would be hurt were if Microsoft made those Activision games exclusive to its own platform, the Commission said.
But the European Commission said Microsoft offered remedies to allay competition concerns. Consumers that have bought or will buy an Activision game will be able to stream these titles on any cloud gaming platform of their choice. Microsoft will also offer royalty-free licenses to cloud gaming platforms to stream Activision games, if a consumer has purchased them. The idea is that gamers do not necessarily need to stream the game where they buy it.
A senior official at the European Commission told reporters on Monday the move will increase competition in the market and allow streaming platforms that didn’t have access to Activision games to now have them.
U.S. FTC decision in focus
Despite the EU approval, Microsoft still faces a tough task of convincing rivals such as Sony and other regulators, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, that the Activision takeover will not harm competition.
The case between the FTC and Microsoft is still ongoing. A senior Commission official said the EU has exchanged views with the FTC on several occasions and has had close co-operation regarding it.
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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