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Former New York City Mayor and billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg has joined the investor group headed by Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez that is seeking to acquire a majority stake in the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.

The addition of Bloomberg, who built his fortune after co-founding his eponymous financial data company that has served Wall Street professionals for decades, is a major coup for Lore and Rodriguez, who are locked in a battle with current T-Wolves majority owner Glen Taylor over control over the team.

A spokesperson for Lore confirmed Bloomberg’s participation in the investment group.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment.

Bloomberg’s involvement in the Lore-A-Rod bid to own the Wolves dates back to late last year, The Post has learned from sources familiar with the matter.

Public knowledge of Bloomberg’s investment puts pressure on Taylor, who is trying to stop the sale, and has signaled that A-Rod and Lore do not have enough money to build the team. 

If Lore and A-Rod succeed in wresting control of the T-Wolves from Taylor, Bloomberg will wind up with approximately a 10% ownership stake in the team, sources told The Post.

An arbitration court is expected to decide in August or September whether A-Rod and Lore can force a sale, sources said.

The Post has sought comment from the Timberwolves and Rodriguez.

News of Bloomberg’s involvement was first reported by The Athletic.

Bloomberg’s wealth, which is valued by Forbes at $106.2 billion as of Thursday, makes him the 13th richest person in the world.

Bloomberg’s addition allows Lore and Rodriguez to go forward with a final $300 million investment to buy out Taylor in the short term rather than waiting until the end of the basketball season next year, according to the report.

Bloomberg is reportedly set to kick in just a portion of the $300 million as most of the money will come from investors that Lore and A-Rod have already lined up, among them former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The investment group headed by the Lore-Rodriguez tandem currently owns around 40% of the T-Wolves as well as the WNBA team, the Lynx.

In April 2021, Lore, the e-commerce mogul behind successful startups such as Diapers.com and Jet.com, teamed up with former Yankees great Rodriguez and reached an agreement with Taylor to purchase the Wolves for $1.5 billion.

The agreement was structured so that Lore and A-Rod would gradually acquire stakes in the team in a multi-step process over the span of a few years.

By last year, the two sides proceeded to the point where A-Rod and Lore amassed a 36% stake in the club.

The deal’s final stage called for the two to acquire an additional 40% stake by this past March — giving them majority control of the NBA franchise.

But Taylor, the 83-year-old businessman and former Minnesota state lawmaker, balked at selling the 40% stake — claiming that Lore and A-Rod did not line up adequate financing to complete the transaction.

Lore and A-Rod denied the claim, saying that Taylor got “seller’s remorse” after his T-Wolves surged to championship contention and likely saw its valuation soar in comparison to when he agreed to sell the club three years ago.

The Wolves’ valuation has surged to north of $3 billion, according to recent reports.

The team led by explosive superstar Anthony Edwards shocked basketball observers this year by reaching the Western Conference finals in the NBA — only to lose to the Dallas Mavericks.

In late March, The Post reported that Lore, who told the NBA he was worth around $4 billion, did not want to invest much of the $520 million that was needed for him and Rodriguez to increase their stake in the team to 80%.

Lore was willing to invest a relatively little amount of money, but wanted A-Rod, who had put in a lot less than Lore, to catch up in this new round of financing to a level much closer to what he had invested, sources with direct knowledge of the situation said.

Before Lore and A-Rod were set to plunk down $600 million for the additional 40% stake, they made a last-minute change in their financing of the payment — enlisting private equity firm Dyal Capital after the withdrawal of the Carlyle Group.

Lore and A-Rod insist that the financing is ready and that they have enough money to acquire the remaining 40% stake, which would buy out Taylor’s limited partners and leave him with 20% of the club.

The original agreement between the two sides allows Lore and A-Rod to acquire Taylor’s 20% stake anytime before March of next year.

Lore and A-Rod are reportedly making plans to map out a strategy for running the Wolves if, as they expect, the arbitrator will rule in their favor.

Their investor group plans to spend considerably to keep the team competitive, according to The Athletic, chiefly by paying the NBA’s luxury tax — a provision in the collective bargaining agreement that requires teams to fork over extra money if their payroll exceeds a threshold.

The Wolves’ collection of highly paid stars including Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert has inflated the payroll above the league-mandated salary cap — necessitating a luxury tax payment.

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Technology

Texas Instruments’ stock falls on weak forecast

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Texas Instruments' stock falls on weak forecast

The Texas Instruments headquarters in Dallas, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2024.

N. Johnson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Texas Instruments reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings. But the stock fell in extended trading due to a third-quarter forecast that missed estimates.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: $1.41 vs. $1.35 expected
  • Revenue: $4.45 billion vs. $4.36 billion expected

Texas Instruments said it expects current-quarter earnings between $1.36 and $1.60 per share, while analysts were looking for $1.50 per share. The company forecast revenue of $4.45 billion to $4.8 billion, for a midpoint of $4.625 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $4.59 billion.

Revenue increased 16% in the second quarter from $3.82 billion in the same period a year earlier. Sales in the company’s analog chip business, its largest, rose 18% to $3.5 billion, surpassing the StreetAccount estimate of $3.39 billion for the segment.

Net income rose 15% to $1.3 billion, or $1.41 per share, from $1.13 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Texas Instruments is a key supplier of legacy semiconductors for automotive and industrial uses.

As of Tuesday’s close, Texas Instruments shares were up 15% for the year on broader market optimism for chips. In June, the company said it would spend $60 billion to expand chipmaking factories in Texas and Utah, a move that was praised by the Trump administration in its push to bring more technology manufacturing to the U.S.

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Environment

This $900 million solar farm in Texas is going 100% to data centers

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This 0 million solar farm in Texas is going 100% to data centers

Enbridge is going big on solar again in Texas, and Meta is snapping up all the solar power it can get.

Last month, Electrek reported that the Canadian oil and gas pipeline giant just launched its first solar farm in Texas. Now it’s given the green light to Clear Fork, a 600 megawatt (MW) utility-scale solar farm already under construction near San Antonio. The project is expected to come online in summer 2027.

Once it’s up and running, every bit of Clear Fork’s electricity will go to Meta Platforms under a long-term contract. Meta will use the solar power to help run its energy-hungry data centers entirely on clean energy.

The solar farm project’s cost is around $900 million. Enbridge says it expects Clear Fork to boost the company’s cash flow and earnings starting in 2027.

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Enbridge EVP Matthew Akman said the project reflects “growing demand for renewable power across North America from blue-chip companies involved in technology and data center operations.”

Meta’s head of global energy, Urvi Parekh, added that the company is “thrilled to partner with Enbridge to bring new renewable energy to Texas and help support our operations with 100% clean energy.”

Meta’s first multi-gigawatt data center, Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026.

Clear Fork is part of a growing trend: tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and Google are racing to lock down renewable energy contracts as they expand their fleets of AI-ready data centers, which use massive amounts of electricity.


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Technology

Trump met with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

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Trump met with Amazon's Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

President Donald Trump met with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, CNBC has learned.

The meeting between Trump and Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, lasted for more than an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the conversation was private.

Amazon declined to comment on the meeting. A spokesperson for Bezos didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nature and exact timing of the visit couldn’t be learned.

A Gulfstream G700 private jet linked to Bezos landed in Dulles, Virginia, outside Washington, on July 14 before taking off the next day, according to Jack Sweeney, a programmer who tracks flight data from jets owned by Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others.

Bezos, who also owns rocket company Blue Origin, has cozied up to Trump during his second term in the White House. Trump frequently hurled insults at Bezos during his first term, largely because of the Amazon founder’s ownership of The Washington Post.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Bezos joined a swath of tech CEOs on stage at Trump’s inauguration in January after donating $1 million to his inaugural fund.

The Trump administration praised Bezos for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial pages to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”

In April, Trump said Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “terrific” and “a good guy” after the billionaire assured Trump that the e-commerce giant had no plans to display tariff-related surcharges on its website.

More recently, Bezos has reportedly sought to capitalize on the dramatic falling-out between Trump and Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump win a second White House term and previously led the government-slashing initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.

Bezos competes with Musk, who is the CEO of SpaceX, through Blue Origin and Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low-Earth orbit satellite internet venture.

After Trump and Musk’s relationship soured, Bezos spoke with Trump on several occasions, while Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp traveled to the White House, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The conversations centered in part on government contracts, according to the Journal.

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