Microsoft closes $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard after lengthy regulatory review
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corp., during the company’s Ignite Spotlight event in Seoul, Nov. 15, 2022.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft has closed its $69 billion acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, according to a regulatory filing by the company Friday. It’s Microsoft’s largest deal in its 48-year history and comes after the company quelled concerns about competition from U.K. and European regulators and gained a favorable ruling from a U.S. district judge.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority gave its nod to the deal earlier Friday, clearing the way for the close.
The deal gives Microsoft a hefty portfolio of video game franchises, including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Warcraft. The game developer generated $7.5 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year, a small fraction of the $212 billion in sales reeled in by Microsoft.
“Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a blog post. “We’ll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months.”
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will stay on as CEO through the end of the year.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who took the helm in 2014, is aiming to diversify the company’s business beyond its core areas such as operating systems and productivity software. Activision has been both a partner to Microsoft and a competitor. It’s one of the few large companies that releases popular games that can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.
Regulatory pushback delayed the acquisition. When it announced the deal in January 2022, Microsoft said it expected to close the transaction by the end of June 2023. In July, the two companies agreed to extend the deadline to Oct. 18.
The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., the European Commission and the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority all raised objections to the transaction.
Microsoft made concessions that placated European regulators. The company agreed to give consumers in the European Economic Area free licenses to stream their Activision Blizzard games, along with free licenses to streaming providers so European gamers can play the games through the cloud.
Microsoft signed agreements with console rivals Nintendo and Sony, promising them access to Call of Duty games for 10 years. And Microsoft made similar arrangements with cloud-gaming providers, including Boosteroid, Nvidia, Nware and Ubitus.
The FTC In July asked the San Francisco federal district court for a preliminary injunction to stop Microsoft and Activision from closing their deal before receiving full approval. But after five days of hearings, a judge sided with the two companies. The agency took the case to the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit, which denied a motion to temporarily stop the consummation of the deal.
Satisfying U.K. officials was more complicated. In August, Microsoft said that, assuming the deal closed, game publisher Ubisoft would receive cloud streaming rights for Activision’s games for 15 years.
The FTC said Friday it still has concerns.
“We remain focused on the federal appeal process despite Microsoft and Activision closing their deal in advance of a scheduled December appeals court hearing,” FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham said. “Microsoft and Activision’s new agreement with Ubisoft presents a whole new facet to the merger that will affect American consumers, which the FTC will assess as part of its ongoing administrative proceeding. The FTC continues to believe this deal is a threat to competition.”
Activision ended the second quarter with $587 million in net income on $2.2 billion in revenue, which was up 34% year over year.
WATCH: Microsoft deal with Activision Blizzard set to clear final hurdle
Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York on March 28, 2025.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
CoreWeave shares fell about 6% in extended trading on Tuesday even as the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure beat estimates for second-quarter revenue
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: Loss of 21 cents
- Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected
Revenue more than tripled from $395.4 million a year earlier, CoreWeave said in a statement. The company registered a $290.5 million net loss, compared with a $323 million loss in second quarter of 2024. CoreWeave’s earnings per share figure wasn’t immediately comparable with estimates from LSEG.
CoreWeave’s operating margin shrank to 2% from 20% a year ago due primarily to $145 million in stock-based compensation costs. This is CoreWeave’s second quarter of full financial results as a public company following its IPO in March.
CoreWeave pointed to an expansion in business with OpenAI, a major client and investor. Also during the quarter, CoreWeave acquired Weights and Biases, a startup with software for monitoring AI models, for $1.4 billion.
In May, management touted 420% revenue growth, alongside widening losses and nearly $9 billion in debt. The stock still doubled anyway over the course of the next month.
CoreWeave shares became available on Nasdaq at the end of the first quarter, after the company sold 37.5 shares at $40 each, yielding $1.5 billion in proceeds. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading at $148.75 for a market cap of over $72 billion.
A CoreWeave data center project with up to 250 megawatts of capacity is set to be delivered in 2026, the company said in the statement.
Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
WATCH: Citi’s Tyler Radke’s bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) invites Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to speak in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
The Trump administration is still working out the details of its 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD and could bring deals of this kind to more companies, the White House’s Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
“Right now it stands with these two companies. Perhaps it could expand in the future to other companies,” said Leavitt, the White House’s spokesperson.
“The legality of it, the mechanics of it, is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce, and I would defer you to them for any further details on how it will actually be implemented,” she continued.
President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that he had negotiated a deal with Nvidia in which the U.S. government approves export licenses for the China-specific H20 AI chip in exchange for a 15% cut of revenue. Advanced Micro Devices also got licenses approved in exchange for a proportion of its China sales, the White House confirmed.
“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said Monday.
“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets,” Nvidia said in a statement this week.
Trump said the export licenses for AMD and Nvidia were a done deal. But lawyers and experts who follow trade have warned that Trump’s deal may be complicated because of existing laws that regulate how the government can charge fees for export licenses.
The Commerce Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
The H20 is Nvidia’s Chinese-specific chip that is slowed down on purpose to comply with U.S. export relations. It’s related to the H100 and H200 chips that are used in the U.S., and was introduced after the Biden administration implemented export controls on artificial intelligence chips in 2023.
Earlier this year, Nvidia said that it was on track to sell more than $8 billion worth of H20 chips in a single quarter before the Trump administration in April said that it would require a license to export the chip.
Trump signaled in July that he was likely to approve export licenses for the chip after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited the White House.
The U.S. regulates AI chips like those made by Nvidia for national security reasons, saying that they could be used by the Chinese government to leapfrog U.S. capabilities in AI, or they could be used by the Chinese military or linked groups.
The Chinese government has been encouraging local companies in recent weeks to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 chips for any government or national security-related work, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
WATCH: Access to Nvidia’s H20 won’t hand China an AI advantage: Analyst
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