The New York Times on Friday filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, alleging the artificial intelligence startup has illegally copied and distributed its copyrighted content.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, accuses Perplexity of unlawfully scraping The Times’ stories, videos, podcasts and other content to formulate responses to user queries. The startup also generates outputs that are “identical or substantially similar to” The Times’ content, according to the complaint.

“While we believe in the ethical and responsible use and development of AI, we firmly object to Perplexity’s unlicensed use of our content to develop and promote their products,” Graham James, a spokesperson for The Times, said in a statement. “We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognize the value of our work.”

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

Founded in 2022, Perplexity is best known for its AI-powered search engine that gives users simple answers to questions. The startup has raised more than $1.5 billion in funding from investors including IVP, New Enterprise Associates and Nvidia, according to PitchBook.

The lawsuit from The Times on Friday serves as the latest example of how media companies and publishers are working to protect their intellectual property during the AI boom.

The Times is already involved in another ongoing copyright suit against Microsoft and OpenAI, which alleges the companies improperly used The Times’ content to train their AI models. That suit was filed in the Southern District of New York in 2023.

In September, AI startup Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit with a group of authors who claimed that the company had illegally downloaded their books and others from pirated databases.

That settlement makes up the largest publicly reported copyright recovery.

WATCH: Amazon sends Perplexity cease-and-desist over AI browser agents making purchases

Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares fell 5% Friday after the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed analyst expectations.

The company reported earnings after the bell on Thursday, posting revenue of $9.68 billion, which was up 14% over the year prior but fell short of the $9.94 billion in revenue expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

Revenue for HPE’s server segment came in at $4.46 billion, down 5% from the $4.68 billion a year ago. The fourth-quarter number missed StreetAccount analyst expectations of $4.58 billion.

CFO Marie Myers addressed the shortfall on the analyst call Thursday, attributing it to the timing of artificial intelligence service shipments and lower-than-expected government spending.

“Despite these headwinds, we were encouraged by robust server order growth across both traditional server and AI offerings, with demand significantly outpacing revenue in this period,” she said.

Server revenue declined 10% from the third quarter.

HPE beat earnings expectations with adjusted earnings of 62 cents per share, coming in above the 58 cents per share expected by LSEG.

The company expects fiscal 2026 first-quarter revenue in the range of $9 billion to $9.4 billion, which was short of the $9.87 billion expected by FactSet analysts.

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Breaking news this morning: Netflix said it reached a deal to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and streaming assets, ending the sale process that has been the talk of tinsel town.

Here are the details:

• Under the deal, Netflix will acquire WBD’s film studio and HBO Max streaming service. Discovery will continue with its spin out of its TV network business that houses brands such as TNT and CNN.
• Netflix will pay $27.75 per WBD share in the cash-and-stock deal, equating to a total enterprise value of more than $82 billion.
• The streaming giant’s acquisition is slated to close after the separation with Discovery, which is expected to happen in the third quarter of 2026.
• Paramount Skydance and NBCUniversal parent Comcast also bid for all or some of WBD’s assets in the sale process, which officially began in October.
• CNBC reported yesterday that Paramount attorneys sent a letter to WBD CEO David Zaslav questioning the “fairness and adequacy” of the sale procedures.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.

Meta Platforms rebounded more than 3% yesterday, pulling the Facebook parent into positive territory for the week. The stock’s jump helped the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite eke out gains in Thursday’s session. Follow live markets updates here.

Meta’s rally came after Bloomberg reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to make cuts to the company’s metaverse unit. The report said executives have considered cutting as much as 30% of the division’s budget, and that the cuts could include job losses that would likely impact Meta’s virtual reality unit. Stephanie Link, Hightower Advisors’ chief investment strategist, told CNBC that the move would be par for the course for Zuckerberg.

Ulta Beauty doesn’t appear to be feeling the same slowdown that other consumer brands are reporting. The retailer beat Wall Street’s expectations on both lines for the third quarter, sending shares up more than 6% in extended trading.

Ulta raised its full-year profit and sales guidance for the second quarter in a row, saying it expects higher comparable store sales growth than previously penciled in. As CNBC’s Melissa Repko points out, Ulta is benefitting from consumers’ continued interest in beauty products — even as they pull back on other spending.

The Government Accountability Office is investigating Federal Housing Finance Authority Director Bill Pulte, the congressional watchdog said yesterday.

Senate Democrats last month called for the GAO to probe Pulte, asking the agency to determine whether Pulte and FHFA employees “misused federal authority and resources” to accuse President Donald Trump’s enemies of mortgage fraud. Pulte has criminally referred several Democrats to the Department of Justice, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell.

A GAO spokesperson said the organization isn’t ready to offer a timeline for the process. An FHFA spokesman declined CNBC’s request for comment.

Tesla made up ground in Consumer Reports’ closely watched ranking of auto brands release yesterday. The electric vehicle maker landed at No. 10 for 2026, up from the 18th spot last year.

Tesla’s rise was driven by an increase in reliability, Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ senior director of auto testing, told CNBC’s Michael Wayland. Notably, Tesla’s Cybertruck was the brand’s only model with a below-average score.

Subaru took the top spot for 2026, followed by BMW and Porsche. See the full list here.