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Global online shopping platform Temu is already climbing the ranks in the U.S. Apple Store.

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Chinese low-cost online retailer Temu has launched a new lawsuit against its rival Shein over copyright concerns and “mafia-style intimidation of suppliers,” a filing on Wednesday showed.

In the filing, Boston-headquartered firm WhaleCo, which operates as Temu in the U.S., alleged that fast-fashion brand Shein infringed on its intellectual property rights, falsely imprisoned its merchants, among other moves to halt Temu’s growth in the U.S.

“We sued Shein because recently their actions have escalated,” said a Temu spokesperson.

“They began to illegally detain merchants, forcibly asking for their phones, stealing our merchant accounts and passwords, stealing our business secrets, and simultaneously forcing merchants to leave our platform. Their actions are too exaggerated; we had no choice but to sue them.”

Shein did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

This comes just weeks after both parties decided to drop their previous lawsuits against each other in October, over copyright and antitrust concerns.

In December last year, Shein sued Temu over intellectual-property infringement while Temu accused Shein in July of threatening and forcing manufacturers into exclusivity agreements.

The two companies are fierce competitors in the online budget shopping space. Temu focuses on selling made-in-China goods, from fashion to household products, at low prices and targets overseas consumers. Similarly, Shein relies on contracted manufacturers, mostly in China, to design, produce and ship its low-priced products.

“Though Temu’s business model is very different from the fashion-focused, resale approach relied on by Shein, ever since Temu’s U.S. launch in September 2022, the company has been seen by Shein as its greatest threat — and therefore the target of malicious and unlawful conduct intended to thwart Temu’s success,” according to the filing on Wednesday.

Congress looking to block Shein from going public

Temu is owned by Chinese tech giant PDD Holdings which also backs China-based e-commerce app Pinduoduo. Temu was PDD Holdings’ first international foray and the app quickly found success among cost-conscious shoppers.

Within weeks of its launch, Temu topped app store rankings and subsequently expanded rapidly across countries such as Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the U.K.

Shein was founded in China in 2008, according to some accounts. But the company’s official origin story began in 2012.

In November, Shein confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S. It was last valued at $66 billion.

A U.S. House committee report in June claimed that Shein and Temu exploited trade loopholes to import goods into the U.S. without paying import duties or making shipments subject to human rights reviews.

— CNBC’s Clement Tan contributed to this report.

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Electronic Arts stock closes up 15% on report company near $50 billion deal to go private

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Electronic Arts stock closes up 15% on report company near  billion deal to go private

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Shares of Electronic Arts closed up 15% on Friday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the video game company is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private.

Investors including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Silver Lake could announce the deal as soon as next week, the report said. PIF has been pouring billions of dollars into gaming, purchasing the makers of Pokemon Go and the parent company behind Monopoly Go, for example.

Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners is another participating investor, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

The deal would be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history, surpassing the agreement to take TXU Energy private for about $45 billion in 2007. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is when debt is predominately used for an acquisition, a tactic traditionally used by private equity firms or activists.

EA makes popular video games including The Sims, Madden NFL, the soccer game FC, formerly known as FIFA. With Friday’s gains, the stock is up about 32% for the year.

EA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

WATCH: CNBC’s interview with EA CEO Andrew Wilson

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Ex-Meta global affairs chief says tech should stay out of politics

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Ex-Meta global affairs chief says tech should stay out of politics

'How to save the internet': Sir Nick Clegg on the intersection of politics and tech

Former Meta global affairs chief Nick Clegg said Friday that tech companies should keep a distance from politics and people should feel “uneasy” about those firms intervening in the public space.

“I generally don’t think that politics and tech innovation mixes very well,” Clegg told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I think it’s quite good when they kind of keep each other at a certain, respectful distance.”

President Donald Trump‘s deal with China this week to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. includes heavy doses of both elements, and the balance between the technology and political interests will be closely watched.

Clegg said two details should be especially looked at with TikTok: The safety of American data and the ownership of the algorithm, which he said would be “quite difficult” to share.

Clegg, who stepped down from his role at Meta earlier this year, questioned if U.S. data would be “kept safe here and not subject to surveillance,” but was also critical of other government efforts to silo data.

Clegg noted a recent legislative effort by India to impose “hard data localization” that would keep all data about citizens in India.

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“The moment countries start doing that, the dominoes will start to fall,” he said. “If everybody says, ‘No, we want our slice of the … data cake.’ Then, of course, the open data flows that drives the internet will start eroding.”

Trump’s executive order for the new TikTok structure establishes a joint-venture company to oversee TikTok’s U.S. data and algorithm, with Oracle controlling cloud services and running the app’s security operations, CNBC’s David Faber reported.

Neither China nor TikTok parent company ByteDance has commented on Trump’s Thursday executive order.

Clegg said the biggest risk to the internet is possibly the relationship between the U.S. and China, noting the potential of any fallout to push other countries into different policies.

He said the image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing next to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent visit was “striking.”

“If India starts emulating China and starts trying to sort of cut off India, much like China has done from the rest of the internet. … I think that would be terrible for the kind of global open principles that the internet was based on,” Clegg said.

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Chinese driverless tech startup Momenta is raising funds at a roughly $6 billion valuation

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Chinese driverless tech startup Momenta is raising funds at a roughly  billion valuation

A car equipped with Momenta technology on display at the IAA Mobility show in Munich, Germany in September 2025.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

Momenta, a Chinese driverless technology startup, is raising a fresh round of funding that could value the company at around $6 billion, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The valuation could change as the funding progresses, one of the people, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss the details publicly, said.

Bloomberg first reported the deal with a valuation above $5 billion.

Momenta declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

The Beijing-headquartered company develops software and algorithms that can be used by automakers to give their vehicles some automated driving features. These company claims that its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) allows a car to carry out some functions autonomously such as changing lanes.

This week Momenta and Mercedes-Benz struck a deal to bring the Chinese firm’s technology to the German auto giant’s all-new electric CLA in China. The technology will power Mercedes-Benz’s driver assistance system across highways, urban streets, and parking, the two companies said in a joint press release on Thursday.

Momenta’s technology will eventually be equipped on 40 models developed by Mercedes-Benz, a person familiar with the matter said.

BMW signed a similar deal in June to equip its Neue Klasse electric vehicles in China with Momenta technology.

Momenta’s list of investors include Tencent, Temasek, SAIC Motor, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz.

The company is participating in a competitive market that includes players like Nvidia and Horizon Robotics in China. There are a number of other players in the autonomous driving software space including WeRide and Pony.ai.

Signing with global automakers is a big win for Momenta which is also gearing up for an initial public offering. Reuters reported on Friday that the company is considering shifting its listing to Hong Kong from New York.

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