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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella arrives to court in San Francisco on June 28, 2023. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard CEOs are expected to testify to persuade a federal judge in California to reject the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to block their $69 billion deal.

Shelby Knowles | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday that he would like to eliminate exclusive arrangements between video games and popular gaming consoles.

Larger gaming rivals Nintendo and Sony often release exclusive titles on their devices as a way to lure customers in a competitive market. Microsoft employs the strategy as well for its Xbox, though Nadella said his company is a “low share player in the console market.”

Regarding exclusive deals, Nadella said “I have no love for that world.”

Nadella spoke at a hearing in federal court in San Francisco, as the Federal Trade Commission seeks judicial support to prevent Microsoft from closing its $68.7 billion acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard. The FTC is worried that the tie-up could allow Microsoft to withhold popular games in Activision’s library from other consoles or degrade service for those games elsewhere.

Microsoft has said it wants to add Activision games to its Game Pass subscription service. To quell regulator concerns, Microsoft has offered 10-year agreements to make Activision’s popular Call of Duty titles available for Sony and Nintendo consoles.

Sony hasn’t accepted Microsoft’s offer and is opposed to its acquisition of Activision.

“I believe that this transaction is bad for competition,” Jim Ryan, head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said in a video deposition that was played in court on Tuesday.

Nadella’s view on consoles reflects his broader approach to technology platforms. Since becoming CEO in 2014, he’s changed the culture at a company long known for proprietary closed systems, attempting to ensure that its software can work well on multiple devices, not just its own hardware.

Microsoft has brought its Office productivity applications to Apple’s iPad and its SQL Server database software to Linux. In earlier years, Microsoft prioritized Windows, but today the operating system is no longer the crucial source of revenue that it was. In the fiscal third quarter, Microsoft said Windows represented just over 10% of revenue, down from about 25% in 2011.

A Microsoft spokesperson said Nadella’s comments on Wednesday “made it abundantly clear that Microsoft will honor its commitments to its partners and the gaming community to bring more games to more players.” 

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to testify today

Nadella also acknowledges that, when it comes to gaming, Microsoft has challenges. Microsoft’s cloud service, which is available in Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, is “just not good enough” as a substitute for current platforms, he said.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is skeptical of multi-game subscription services in general. He said in court on Wednesday that his company has experimented with them, including working with Nvidia’s GeForce Now while it was in a testing phase.

Kotick, whose company is based in Santa Monica, California, said he still wants to get the deal done with Microsoft even if he holds a differing opinion on subscriptions and whether they present a big opportunity.

“Maybe part of it is being in Los Angeles and having watched the big media companies move their content to these subscription streaming services, and the business results have suffered,” Kotick said.

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley will decide if the FTC will receive a preliminary injunction that would stop Microsoft from closing the deal. Meanwhile, in the U.K., the Competition and Markets Authority moved to block the transaction in April.

“My board’s view is if the preliminary injunction is granted, they don’t see how the deal can continue,” Kotick said.

WATCH: FTC injunction on Microsoft-Activision merger ‘a positive development’, says TD Cowen’s Aaron Glick

FTC injunction on Microsoft-Activision merger 'a positive development', says TD Cowen's Aaron Glick

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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after viral Coldplay kiss-cam controversy

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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after viral Coldplay kiss-cam controversy

Chris Martin of Coldplay performs at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on October 12, 2021 in London, England.

Simone Joyner | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Astronomer, the technology company that faced backlash after its CEO was allegedly caught in an affair at a Coldplay concert, said the CEO has resigned, the company announced Saturday.

“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted,” the company said in a statement. “The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.”

Byron was shown on a big screen at a Coldplay concert on Wednesday with his arms around the company’s chief people officer, Kristin Cabot. Byron, who is married with children, immediately hid when the couple was shown on screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” A concert attendee’s video of the affair went viral.

In May, Astronomer announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.

Byron’s resignation comes after Astronomer said Friday that it had launched a “formal investigation” into the matter, and the CEO was placed on administrative leave.

“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,” the company said in its Saturday statement. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells an additional $12.94 million worth of shares

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells an additional .94 million worth of shares

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025.

I-hwa Cheng | Afp | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold 75,000 shares on Friday, valued at about $12.94 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Friday’s sale is part of a plan adopted in March for Huang to sell up to 6 million shares of the leading artificial intelligence company. Earlier this week, Huang sold 225,000 shares of the chipmaker, totaling about $37 million, according to a separate SEC filing. The CEO began trading stock per the plan last month.

Surging demand for AI and the graphics processing units that power large language models has significantly boosted Huang’s net worth and pushed Nvidia’s market capitalization beyond $4 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company.

Nvidia announced this week that it expects to resume sales of its H20 chips to China soon, following signals from the Trump administration that it would approve export licenses. Earlier this year, U.S. officials had stated that Nvidia would require special permission to ship the chips, which are specifically designed for the Chinese market.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Huang said during a news conference on Wednesday in Beijing that he wants to sell chips more advanced than the H20 to China at some point.

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, holds hundred dollar bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.

Marco Bello | Getty Images

The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital asset firm to head for the public market.

The company, led by CEO Tom Farley, a veteran of the finance industry and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “BLSH.”

A spinout of Block.one, Bullish started with an initial investment from backers including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with Nomura, Mike Novogratz and others. Bullish acquired crypto news site CoinDesk in 2023.

“In the first quarter of 2025, Bullish exchange executed over $2.5 billion in average daily volume, ranking in the top five exchanges by spot volume for Bitcoin and Ether,” the company said on its website. The prospectus listed top competitors as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

The IPO filing says that as of March 31, the total trading volume since launch has exceeded $1.25 trillion.

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The filing is another significant step for the cryptocurrency industry, which has fought for years to convince institutions to embrace digital assets as legitimate investments.

It’s already been a big year on the market for crypto offerings, highlighted by stablecoin issuer Circle, which has jumped more than sevenfold since its IPO in June. Etoro, an online trading platform that includes services for crypto investors, debuted in May.

Novogratz‘s crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq in May, moving its listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in June, Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S.

Meanwhile, investors continue to flock to bitcoin. The digital currency is trading at over $117,000, up from about $94,000 at the start of the year.

President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed the GENIUS Act into law — a set of regulations that establish some initial consumer protections around stablecoins, which are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar with the intent of reducing price volatility associated with many cryptocurrencies.

In its filing with the SEC, Bullish says its mission is partly to “drive the adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology.”

Crypto industry players, including Thiel, Elon Musk, and President Trump’s AI and Crypto czar David Sacks spent heavily to re-elect Trump and have pushed for legislation that legitimizes digital assets and exchanges.

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