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Former Treasury Secretary Mnuchin: I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bipartisan bill that if signed into law would force ByteDance to either divest its flagship global app or face an effective ban on TikTok within the U.S.

“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”

There is common ground between Liberty and ByteDance. Masa Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund invested in ByteDance in 2018, and is also a limited partner in Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic.

The bill is now headed to the Senate, where its future is uncertain, though President Joe Biden has said that he will sign the legislation if reaches his desk.

“This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have highlighted TikTok’s reach in the U.S. — by its own estimates, 170 million Americans use the app — as providing the Chinese government with ready access and influence over the U.S.

Major tech investors, including Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois, have publicly or privately decried the social media platform as a pernicious influence.

Still, it remains unclear if the Chinese government would permit ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. buyer. TikTok has lobbied furiously against the bill, including a concerted pitch to its user base and through videos on its platform.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has implied that a sale is not an option. China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin described the bipartisan push as indicative of “robber’s logic” toward TikTok, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

ByteDance was valued at $220 billion at its last funding round in 2023, according to PitchBook data. While a discrete valuation for TikTok was not immediately clear, any sale price for the U.S. division would likely be less.

TikTok’s most valuable asset and, to lawmakers, its most worrying weapon, is its algorithm, which delivers tailored content to users and was developed in China. Any sale of TikTok without the algorithm would be significantly less attractive to potential buyers.

Mnuchin did not specify who the other investors would be in such a deal or the potential valuation for the social media site.

There are other interested buyers. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was shopping a potential deal to prospective partners.

Last week, Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital was a lead investor in a $1 billion capital raise to stabilize New York Community Bancorp.

Mnuchin served as Treasury secretary under former President Donald Trump. That administration also took an antagonistic stance toward TikTok, which ultimately resulted in ByteDance striking a data partnership with Oracle. Trump has since reversed course and come out against a TikTok ban.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Sony raises profit forecast after earnings beat, lifted by music and imaging divisions

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Sony raises profit forecast after earnings beat, lifted by music and imaging divisions

The Sony Group Corp. logo displayed on a screen at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (Ceatec) in Chiba, Japan, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Sony Group on Tuesday posted a stronger-than-expected rise in second-quarter operating profit and announced a share buyback of up to 100 billion Japanese yen ($648 million).

Here are Sony’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

  • Revenue: 3.108 trillion Japanese yen ($20.14 billion) vs. 2.985 trillion yen expected
  • Operating profit: 429 billion yen vs. 398.44 billion yen expected

Operating profit climbed 10% from a year earlier, while revenues were up 5%. Sony shares jumped more than 6% after the earnings release.

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The Japanese technology giant raised its full-year outlook, expecting operating profit to climb by 100 billion yen, or 8% from its previous forecast, led by its imaging and sensing solutions and music segments. The company also lifted its annual revenue projection by 300 billion yen, or 3%, while trimming its estimated losses from U.S. tariffs to 50 billion yen from 70 billion yen.

While Sony has been affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariff regime launched in April, Tokyo reached a trade deal with Washington in July that lowered duties on Japanese exports to 15% from the 25% initially proposed. The reduced tariffs took effect Aug. 7.

Music and imaging boost

Profit from Sony’s music business increased 27.65% year over year to 115.4 billion yen, while operating profit from its imaging business jumped nearly 50% to 138.3 billion yen, making it the company’s most profitable segment in the quarter.

Sony’s imaging and sensing solutions segment develops and manufactures advanced semiconductor products for a wide range of applications, from smartphones to automotive and industrial systems.

The company also reported strong sales in its game and network services division, which houses its popular PlayStation home console brand. The segment represents Sony’s top revenue driver, but posted a decrease in profits in the September quarter, falling 13.26% to 120.4 billion yen.

Game and network services have performed well in recent quarters thanks to a shift to digital game purchases and the PlayStation Plus subscription service. Growth in hardware shipments has been comparably muted.

KPop Demon Hunters

Despite Sony’s strong earnings showing, profit from its picture business shrank nearly 25% year over year. That was despite Sony Pictures Animation being behind this year’s smash hit production, KPop Demon Hunters, which premiered on June 20. 

The film, which was produced by Sony, has reportedly become the most popular Netflix film ever, and continues to break streaming records, even for its original soundtrack. 

Despite the success, Sony has missed much of this upside due to selling the film’s exclusive rights to Netflix.

While the exact details of the deal are unknown, it was reported that Sony made an initial $25 million profit from producing the film for Netflix.

Netflix saw K-pop Demon Hunters drive significant viewership and even contributed to its 17% revenue jump in its September quarter.

However, in a bright spot for Sony, a sequel to the movie has already been confirmed, with Netflix reportedly providing the Japanese company a $15 million cash bonus for the first film’s performance. 

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Tesla investor support for Elon Musk’s massive pay plan was lower in 2025 than in 2018

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Tesla investor support for Elon Musk's massive pay plan was lower in 2025 than in 2018

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks during the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting on Nov. 6, 2025.

Courtesy: Tesla

Tesla shareholders voted last week to give CEO Elon Musk a record pay package, one that could net him about $1 trillion in company stock over the next decade. But Musk received less support than he did for an earlier pay plan in 2018.

Setting aside holdings owned by board members and executives, about 66.9% of shares tabulated in the vote were in favor of the package, according to a filing on Friday. When shareholders voted on the 2018 plan, that number was 73%, according to an analysis by Andrew Droste, head of corporate governance at investment firm Columbia Threadneedle.

In announcing the preliminary results on Thursday at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, Tesla said the plan received 75% support among voting shares. The company count included insiders like Musk, who held around a 15% stake in Tesla going into the proxy and was allowed to vote his shares.

The decline from the prior vote follows a tumultuous stretch for Musk and Tesla. Sales slumped in the first half of the year, in part because of Musk’s inflammatory political rhetoric and his work for the Trump administration, slashing the size of the federal government. Tesla’s brand value has also deteriorated.

Still, Droste said in an email that even at just under 70%, the vote represents “broad support for Elon among Tesla’s shareholder base.” Most investors recognize that Tesla and Elon Musk are “inextricably linked,” he wrote, and were “unwilling to risk his potential departure by allowing this vote to fail.”

Board members recommended shareholders approve the pay plan, which they introduced in September. Top proxy advisors Glass Lewis and ISS had recommended that investors vote against it.

The pay package for Musk, already the world’s richest person, consists of 12 tranches of shares to be granted if Tesla hits certain milestones over the next decade. The first tranche of stock gets paid out if Tesla hits a market capitalization of $2 trillion, about $500 billion more than the current valuation. Awards tied to market cap gains are paired with operational achievements.

Musk could still collect more than $50 billion by hitting a handful of the more attainable goals laid out for him by the board in the new pay plan. There are also a list of “covered events” in the award terms that would allow him to earn his shares without meeting required operational milestones.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Correction: A prior version of this story had an incorrect figure for the vote in support of the pay package.

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CoreWeave’s stock slides on weak guidance even as revenue more than doubles

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CoreWeave's stock slides on weak guidance even as revenue more than doubles

Michael Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Semafor World Economy Summit during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring meetings in Washington on April 25, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

CoreWeave, a provider of infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenue on Monday, but the company delivered disappointing full-year guidance. The stock dropped 6% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings: Loss of 22 cents per share
  • Revenue: $1.36 billion vs. $1.29 billion expected

Revenue in the quarter soared 134% from $583.9 million a year ago, according to a statement. The company reported a net loss of $110 million, narrowing from about $360 million in the same quarter last year.

CoreWeave’s growth is tied directly to the AI boom, as the company rents out Nvidia graphics processing units and has won business from leading cloud infrastructure providers, including Google and Microsoft. The company’s backlog now stands at $55.6 billion, with 2.9 gigawatts in contracted power, up from 2.2 gigawatts on June 30, according to the statement.

However, CoreWeave now sees 2025 revenue coming in between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion, trailing the average analyst estimate of $5.29 billion, according to LSEG.

A third-party data center developer is behind schedule, CEO Mike Intrator said on the company’s earnings call. But he added that the delay won’t affect CoreWeave’s backlog.

“There was a problem at one data center that’s impacting us, but there are 32 data centers in our portfolio,” Intrator said.

During the quarter, CoreWeave announced a $6.5 billion expansion of its business with OpenAI and a six-year deal with Meta worth up to $14.2 billion. CoreWeave also received its sixth contract from “a leading hyperscaler.”

The company remains supply-constrained, Intrator said. The shortage is not in power but instead has to do with the availability of partly completed “powered-shell” data centers in which CoreWeave can set up its own equipment, he said.

Meanwhile, CoreWeave is building its own data center infrastructure from the ground up in Pennsylvania, he said.

“The overwhelming majority of the delay that you’re seeing should be taken care of within Q1 of next year.” Intrator said.

CoreWeave went public on the Nasdaq in March, selling shares at $40 each. On Monday the stock closed at $105.61, representing a 164% return. The Nasdaq has gained 32% over a similar period. CoreWeave shares slipped in extended trading on Monday.

Less than four months after its IPO, CoreWeave announced its intent to acquire data center infrastructure operator Core Scientific for $9 billion, but Core Scientific shareholders voted against the proposed deal.

CoreWeave’s 2026 capital expenditures should be “well in excess of double” the total for 2025, which will end up between $12 billion and $14 billion, said Nitin Agrawal, the company’s finance chief.

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