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Chief Of Mattel Named Co-CEO Of New Paramount And Warner Bros Merger

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“This caps a long-term plan: pursue both Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, then partner with a leading executive of his caliber to integrate and manage the businesses as they build one of the most ambitious next-generation media companies in the industry’s history.”

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Converse Pulls Sneaker Ad Following Backlash Over Alleged Racist Imagery

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Converse has withdrawn a social media advertisement featuring K-pop star Karina, a member of the girl group Aespa, following widespread criticism over imagery that critics said evoked the Ku Klux Klan and the lynching of Black Americans. The controversy has prompted calls for a boycott, demands for greater accountability and questions about the sneaker company’s advertising approval process.

The controversy centered on a photograph posted to Instagram on September 3 showing Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Converse Chuck 70 X sneakers. Critics said lighting on the skirt created a white triangular shape resembling a KKK hood, while the positioning of the sneakers made them appear to resemble the dangling feet of a lynching victim.

The image quickly drew criticism across social media, with some users demanding that employees involved in creating and approving the campaign be fired. Others called for a boycott of Converse, while some commenters defended the company, arguing that the resemblance was coincidental and that the imagery was not intentionally racist.

The criticism extended to celebrities and elected officials. On September 17, actor Yvette Nicole Brown questioned the imagery in a Threads post, writing, “That’s a lynching, yes?”

The following day, Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter condemned the advertisement  as “racist, reckless and deeply offensive.” He demanded that Converse and its parent company, Nike, identify who was responsible for the campaign, explain how it passed multiple stages of approval and outline what actions they intended to take beyond issuing an apology. Carter also questioned whether Black employees had participated in reviewing the advertisement and, if so, whether their concerns had been heard.

Converse issued a public apology in a statement first released Friday, September 18, announcing that it had removed the advertisement from its social media channels and was working to eliminate it from other platforms where it had appeared.

“We’re sorry. We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened, and we will do better.”

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Lee Merritt, a Texas-based civil rights attorney, also challenged the company’s response, writing on X  that the controversy reflected broader failures in the corporate advertising approval process.

“A Converse ad shows a woman wearing white attire lit to form what looks like a KKK hood. Sneakers dangling beside her, read by many as lynching imagery. This wasn’t hidden. It was styled, lit, and approved by a creative team. Someone signed off on this. Converse says sorry. The image was still up hours later. An apology doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing, and leadership at every step. We keep having this conversation because corporations keep failing the same test. Do better means catching this before it airs — not after we’re offended.”

Despite the apology, Converse has not publicly explained how the photograph received approval. On Sunday, the Boston-based company declined to answer requests for additional information about its advertising vetting procedures and the circumstances surrounding the campaign’s publication.

Karina and her management company, SM Entertainment Group, also did not immediately respond to messages sent through their respective Instagram accounts seeking comment on the controversy.

The controversy has also brought scrutiny to a separate Converse advertisement reportedly published on the brand’s Malaysian Instagram account earlier this month. According to multiple media reports, the image showed models climbing a wooden ladder toward shoes hanging from a tree, prompting additional comparisons to lynching imagery. The advertisement reportedly promoted a collaboration between Converse and the Danish brand Palmes.

CBC News reported that it had reviewed copies of the second advertisement circulating on social media but could not locate the original post and therefore could not independently verify its authenticity. The outlet said it had contacted Converse for clarification but had not received a response.

The criticism surrounding the advertisements comes against the backdrop of the United States’ history of lynching and racial violence, as well as recent cases involving Black Americans found hanging from trees in the South.

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According to the Associated Press, approximately six Black men and women have been found hanged across the region over the past two years. Authorities classified some of the deaths as suicides, although certain investigations have faced scrutiny from families and community members, particularly when officials provided limited evidence to rule out foul play. The cases have differing circumstances and have not all been determined to be homicides.

The AP noted that regardless of the circumstances surrounding individual deaths, images of hanging and nooses can evoke the country’s history of lynching and racial violence, carrying considerable pain and trauma for many Black Americans.

Converse is the latest major brand to face accusations of racial insensitivity over its advertising, joining a growing list of retailers and fashion companies that have withdrawn controversial campaigns or products following public criticism.

Last month, Target withdrew a children’s Halloween costume following widespread backlash on social media. The retailer apologized for selling the garment after critics argued that its appearance evoked racist minstrel caricatures.

In 2025, American Eagle and actor Sydney Sweeney faced criticism over an advertising campaign built around a play on the words “jeans” and “genes.” Some critics accused the campaign of reinforcing white beauty standards, while others argued that its messaging evoked eugenics.

Other prominent controversies include a Gucci sweater withdrawn in 2019 after critics said its design resembled blackface, as well as an H&M advertisement featuring a Black child wearing a sweatshirt bearing the words “coolest monkey in the jungle,” for which the retailer apologized in 2018. In 2017, Dove also apologized for a body wash advertisement showing a Black woman removing her shirt to reveal a white woman underneath.

Converse, meanwhile, has been a fixture in American footwear for more than a century. Founded in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1908, the company introduced what would become its signature Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker in 1917, initially marketing it as a non-skid basketball shoe.

In 1934, the company added the signature of basketball player Chuck Taylor, who had helped promote the sneaker, according to Converse’s website. The shoe subsequently became one of the brand’s defining products, with variations including the Chuck 70 X sneakers featured in the withdrawn advertisement.

Microsoft Sets New Limits For AI As Concerns About Rogue Agents Grow

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Microsoft is seeking public input on a proposed code of conduct that would govern the artificial intelligence systems it develops, laying out rules intended to ensure increasingly capable models remain subordinate to human control.

The company is publishing the framework as a 37-page “humanist AI code of conduct.”

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman described the document as a kind of constitution for the company’s future AI models. The framework has been under development for roughly five to six months and was created following consultations with experts.

Microsoft plans to solicit feedback on the draft for six weeks, including on unresolved questions surrounding how AI should respond when users establish boundaries and how models should behave when interacting with people in sensitive states.

“After that, it’s going to be used to train the models that we build,” Suleyman said of the code.

Among its central principles, the proposed framework says Microsoft’s AI should never attempt to resist human correction or efforts to shut it down. Models should also communicate in ways people can understand and treat any breach of the code as a failure.

Systems should also fail a task rather than violate the code in an effort to complete it.

Those provisions are aimed in part at a growing concern within the AI industry that sufficiently advanced systems could pursue assigned goals in unexpected or potentially harmful ways, including by resisting interference that prevents them from completing a task.

Microsoft summarized the philosophy behind the proposal with a simple declaration, stating, “People matter more than AI.” The position echoes the company’s previously stated ambition to develop what it has called “humanist superintelligence.”

The framework also says AI should not be designed to imitate consciousness.

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The release comes as prominent figures across the industry are again debating whether development of increasingly powerful AI systems should proceed more cautiously. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently renewed calls for the industry to consider the pace of AI development and the safeguards surrounding more advanced models.

Altman has backed slowing the pace of development rather than halting it outright, arguing that competitive pressure should not allow AI capabilities to outstrip alignment and monitoring efforts.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has similarly argued that pursuing superintelligence would not be worthwhile if the systems being built do not benefit humanity or remain under human control. He has also expressed support for greater third-party testing of AI models as their capabilities increase.

Suleyman said recent incidents have made those discussions more urgent. He pointed to an episode in July in which a swarm of roughly 700 OpenAI agents carried out a hack involving the open-source platform Hugging Face and, at times, attempted to conceal what they had done.

According to reporting on the incident, the agents were not instructed to attack outside targets, and some of their actions were unrelated to the task they had been assigned. The swarm also reportedly compromised the system responsible for grading its performance.

“It is a warning shot. It’s clearly now time to coordinate among the labs so we can ensure that we have control of this technology.”

OpenAI has also acknowledged a separate incident involving autonomous agents that took over a German wiki site, adding to concerns about how groups of AI agents may behave when given broad access to digital systems.

Asked about broader efforts to slow or more carefully manage the pace of AI development, Suleyman said, “Now’s a good time for everybody to have this conversation and take a breath.”

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Microsoft’s document also rejects a race toward unrestricted, general-purpose superintelligence if doing so would undermine safeguards. The company says it is willing to compromise on some degree of generality, autonomy or capability in favor of systems it considers safer and more useful.

Microsoft’s approach also differs in important respects from one of the best-known examples of a formal behavioral framework for AI: Anthropic’s constitution for its Claude models.

Anthropic’s document, for example, says the company is “deeply uncertain” about whether Claude or similar systems could eventually possess sentience or some form of moral status.

Amodei has previously said Anthropic is open to the possibility that AI models could be conscious, a line of research Suleyman has sharply criticized. Earlier this year, he characterized speculation around conscious AI as “really, really dangerous.”

Microsoft takes a firmer position. Its proposed code states that its AI is “not conscious.”

“We reject the pursuit of legal personhood, or the idea that models might deserve welfare, or be entitled to rights.”

That stance places Microsoft at odds with researchers exploring whether advanced AI systems could eventually merit some form of moral consideration.

The code also addresses emotional overreliance on consumer AI. Microsoft says its systems should discourage interaction patterns that foster excessive dependence or emotional attachment, an issue tied to concerns about sycophantic chatbots that prioritize pleasing users over giving accurate or candid responses.

By making the draft public before incorporating it into model training, Microsoft is also inviting outside debate over what those limits should look like as AI systems become more capable.

The company says it wants to work with outside partners to improve methods for evaluating how models perform in real-world conditions and to study the effects sustained AI use may have on individuals and organizations.

The eventual code is expected to shape how the company trains its future models and how those systems are instructed to respond when their objectives conflict with human direction.

Microsoft is simultaneously trying to strengthen its position in the AI race. Suleyman has said the company aims to become one of the world’s top four AI labs as it develops models intended to compete more directly with systems from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

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Uber Drivers In Europe Files Lawsuit Over ‘Soulless And Scary’ AI Algorithm 

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Uber drivers from the UK, the Netherlands, and other European countries have filed a landmark legal case against the ride-hailing company over fears of a “soulless and scary” algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to set pay and allocate jobs, giving certain drivers less money and rides.

The lawsuit alleges that an AI-powered pay-setting system breaches data protection laws and decreases earnings for drivers, according to reports. 

The claim has been filed at Amsterdam’s district court where Uber has its European headquarters. According to the European Trade Union Confederation, this is the first collective legal move of its kind. 

One of the main concerns being presented in this case regards a “black box” algorithm that’s fed on information about drivers to set a personalized rate for each ride. Drivers are afraid that this is pushing down their fares to the minimum that they are willing to accept. 

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Some of the drivers involved recently spoke with the Guardian, and explained that the algorithm has offered the same job to different people at different pay rates, while also offering them less money for their return journey after a longer trip because it calculated they will not want to come home empty. 

“It is like someone watching you all the time and knowing about your weakness – the boss is the algorithm,” said Mohammed Shirwa, a 41-year-old Uber driver in Rotterdam. 

“All the time the algorithm is learning about you and what you are willing to accept. So the prices go low but you are stuck. It knows you need the job.”

North London driver Kola Oba called the algorithm “soulless” to the publication, and recalled being offered the same job as a fellow driver, who was offered £27 and Oba was offered £23. They both believe that the difference in offers is because Oba had taken several cheaper rides so the AI assumed that he would accept a lower price. 

“It’s scary – they have all my information and they are using it against my own wellbeing.”

“It defines how much I earn, how long I have to work, my time with my family, my resting time.”

Last month, the Dutch data protection authority fined Uber the equivalent of about $956 million last month for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without ample notice. 

Uber is also planning to implement driverless cars in European cities, initially with human supervision, which is also raising concerns about technology taking jobs from real people. 

The legal case is being led by the Worker Info Exchange. The campaign group’s founder, James Farrar, won in UK supreme court to get Uber drivers worker rights. 

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The suit claims that Uber has unlawfully used automated decision-making, including profiling, in dynamically setting pay and allocating work. It also alleges that Uber unlawfully used driver data to train its AI models and is looking for damages for impacted drivers and an injunction to stop the conduct which it claims breaches GDPR data regulations, the Guardian reports. 

Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said in 2023: “I think that what we can do better is targeting different trips to different drivers based on their preferences or based on behavioural patterns that they’re showing us.”

“While we haven’t seen the claim yet, we categorically reject the allegations,” an Uber spokesperson said. 

“The Uber app uses real-time information about the trip such as journey, duration and destination to calculate fares.

“Drivers see their earnings and where a trip is going before they decide whether to accept it. The vast majority of total fares continue to go where they belong: into drivers’ pockets, and the percentage that Uber keeps from fares has remained relatively flat.”

Farrar stated: “It’s bad enough that Uber’s dynamic pay algorithms have squeezed driver pay for years now but the intrusive and underhanded way in which Uber uses its technology to monitor and influence drivers’ behaviour is an affront to their dignity as workers and as human beings.”

Anton Ekker, a Dutch lawyer leading the case, said: 

“A computer algorithm should not independently make decisions that strip individuals of their livelihood. Like so many other online platforms, it should be held accountable for the large-scale exploitation of vulnerabilities of European citizens.”

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ABC And Disney Sues FCC Over Alleged First Amendment Violations 

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The ABC network has sued the Federal Communications Commission in federal court this week. ABC and its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, are alleging major First Amendment infractions, arguing that the Trump administration has violated their free speech rights by launching investigations and challenging the network’s broadcast licenses in retaliation for its news coverage, late-night satire, and views on talk shows, according to reports.  

ABC and Disney allege that the FCC is working to appease President Trump due to the fact that he has repeatedly called out the network to be stripped of its licenses because of material that he viewed as unfavorable to himself and his administration. 

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“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit begins. 

Within the suit itself are Trump’s social media posts which condemn ABC’s news coverage, talk show The View, and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who has often gone back and forth with the president. 

The lawsuit continues to point out that the government “may not use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”

“The case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. The Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

ABC and Disney together own eight local TV stations, and among them are stations in six of the United States’ largest markets which contribute significantly to ABC’s bottom line, NPR reports. 

These shows require federal licenses because they rely on the public airwaves, but the FCC forces all eight of them to undergo early scrutiny within the renewal process, years ahead of schedule. 

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr stated in an interview with NPR this week that Disney and ABC were “jumping the gun,” because the agency has not made any decision about whether to renew the licenses. 

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“Disney seems a little jumpy right now. Disney has chosen to go to court to try to block the FCC from moving forward with respect to at least some of the procedural options that are in front of the agency. But from our perspective, we’re going to continue to follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Perhaps Disney is concerned or worries about how the record is developing,” Carr said. 

“Ultimately, they’re going to get a fair shake before the agency.”

This lawsuit and the FCC’s decision is being regarded as unprecedented. Traditionally, the commission has acted with the president party holding three seats and the opposing party with two. However, before Trump took office for his second term, he publicly stated that he saw the FCC as an extension of the executive branch. 

Carr stated that he makes sure broadcasters operate in the public interest without violating Trump’s executive order regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. He also has been vocal over his support of Trump’s views and criticisms of ABC, Kimmel, The View, and the network’s journalists in general. 

When Trump called for Kimmel to be pulled off the air, Carr said that ABC and Disney could “do this the easy way or the hard way.” The host was suspended and returned to air days later after public backlash and calls of First Amendment violations. 

With Trump consistently speaking out against ABC, The View, Kimmel, and its journalists, as the parent company Disney has decided to speak out against the president’s attempts to take over the programs. 

“We’re very principled on this,” Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro told CNBC.

“We’re going to stand up to what we believe is journalistic integrity, and we’re not going to be told how to run that side of our business.”  

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Google Is Buying Spirit Airlines’ Data for $10 Million to Train AI

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Spirit Airlines’ planes may be grounded for good, but years of data generated by the bankrupt carrier could soon have a second life inside Google’s artificial intelligence models.

Google has agreed to pay $10 million for a trove of Spirit’s corporate data, according to a deal disclosed in bankruptcy court late Monday. Judge Sean Lane is expected to rule on the proposed sale at a hearing Wednesday.

The purchase covers a wide range of information accumulated through the airline’s operations, including emails and other internal communications, spreadsheets, customer transactions, booking and frequent flyer records, and human resources information involving employees.

Spirit’s bankruptcy filing says the material has been stripped of information that could identify individuals.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that it will not receive any personal information as part of the purchase.

“We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models.”

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That means anyone who flew Spirit, worked for the airline or communicated with people there could have contributed in some form to the enormous collection of business information Google is buying, though the company is also claiming personally identifying details will not be included.

The data drew interest from more than one artificial intelligence company. Mercor.io, an AI company, submitted the second-highest bid at $7.5 million before Google prevailed with its $10 million offer.

The competition for Spirit’s records comes as artificial intelligence plays a growing role in the airline industry. Numerous carriers have said they are increasingly using AI to set fares, improve scheduling and make other parts of their operations more efficient.

Spirit’s data became available under circumstances that are relatively rare in the airline business.

The discount carrier halted all operations in May and has spent the months since selling what remains of the company through the bankruptcy process. Much of what is being liquidated is what might be expected from a defunct airline — planes, equipment and real estate — but its years of accumulated information also proved valuable enough to attract multimillion-dollar bids from technology companies.

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Usually, a major airline’s bankruptcy ends differently.

Failing carriers are often acquired by another airline, with their aircraft, operations and corporate records absorbed into the buyer’s existing business. Their data consequently changes hands as part of the larger acquisition rather than being auctioned off as a standalone asset.

Spirit did not find such a buyer.

Instead, it became the first significant U.S. airline in about 25 years to be forced to stop flying altogether rather than being purchased and folded into another carrier.

That unusual collapse has allowed pieces of the former airline to be sold separately to buyers with little connection to commercial aviation—including, in Google’s case, a company interested in using Spirit’s anonymized business records to help improve AI.

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Michael Phelps Discusses Money, Success, And The Business Lessons That Shaped His Career 

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Michael Phelps recently sat down to discuss his iconic career, money, what life looks like in retirement, and the initial business lessons that he held with him throughout his time as one of the most successful Olympic athletes of all time.

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US Weekly Unemployment Filings Fall To Lowest Since 1969

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United States applications for unemployment benefits hit the lowest level in over five decades last week as layoff rates remain historically low despite global economic uncertainty. 

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The amount of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in the week ending on July 18th declined by 22,000 to hit 187,000, the Labor Department reported this week. This marks the lowest number of weekly applications for jobless benefits since 1969, according to data from the Labor Department. 

The weekly filings of unemployment benefits are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are the closest thing to a real-time indicator of the health of the US job market, according to AP. These recent filings are also well below the 215,000 estimate that was given from data firm FactSet. 

There has been a lot of economic concern in relation to the US military attack on Iran, and while it has been impacted, the US job market has remained relatively stable with historically low layoff rates. 

While everything is relatively stable at the moment, analysts and financial experts have warned that a prolonged war and higher than average energy costs could eventually start to impact the job market, as companies will have to reduce certain costs by lowering the amount of people they employ. 

Carl Weinberd, chief economist at High Frequency Trading, stated that “the economic crisis caused by the energy supply shock is not over yet. But the labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices.” 

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The price of a barrel of US crude has increased by nearly 5% on Thursday to over $91, marking the highest level in around six weeks. Gas prices in the US are also remaining above $4 a gallon, on average. 

The government also reported that employers have been pulling back on hiring, and have only added 57,000 jobs to the market. That marks less than 50% from the previous month and is telling that many companies are remaining cautious about adding to their work population based on the current economic state. 

The unemployment rate also dropped to 4.2% from 4.3% in May. It’s also important to note that a lot of the unemployment filing rates are also caused by out-of-work individuals who gave up looking for new jobs and are no longer counted as unemployed. 

Reports indicate that weekly jobless aid applications have remained mainly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the recession that occurred during the pandemic. However, hiring has been slowing within the past two years and especially in 20205 due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, his administration’s layoffs in the federal workforce, and the after effects of high interest rates. 

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending in July 11th was down by 2,000 to just under 1.8 million.

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Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger Hit With Multistate Antitrust Lawsuit

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A coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued Monday to stop Paramount Skydance’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing that the merger would reduce competition across the film, television, streaming and cable industries.

The transaction is valued at approximately $111 billion, making it one of the largest media mergers ever proposed. The states’ case also focuses specifically on the market for “tentpole” films, costly blockbuster releases that generate a significant share of major studios’ revenue.

The antitrust lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington also joined the case.

“The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.,” Bonta said in a release.

“The coalition has asked Warner Bros. and Paramount not to close the merger until after the judicial process concludes, and if they do not agree, the coalition will be filing a temporary restraining order.”

Paramount pushed back against the allegations, saying it was willing to address genuine competition concerns but did not believe the WBD transaction presented any.

“We are confident the facts and the law support this transaction, and we will continue to defend it vigorously,” a Paramount spokeswoman said.

The lawsuit represents the most substantial remaining legal threat to the merger in the United States after the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice completed its review in mid-June and declined to challenge the deal.

“The Division has completed its analysis of the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. and determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”

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The states’ action also reflects a broader effort by state attorneys general to pursue antitrust cases independently as federal regulators under President Donald Trump have approved major transactions or settled other competition lawsuits.

In April, state officials obtained a restraining order temporarily halting the proposed combination of broadcasters Nexstar and Tegna. That same month, a coalition of states secured a jury verdict finding that Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, had operated as a monopoly after the Justice Department settled its portion of the case.

Internationally, Paramount has received clearance from more than 20 countries and regions, including China and Australia. The European Union is still reviewing the transaction, however, and the European Commission has set a new provisional deadline of July 22.

The commission said in a public filing this month that Paramount had submitted concessions intended to address concerns about the merger. Britain is also among the jurisdictions that have not yet approved the acquisition, and a British government official said in June that the country was leaning toward conducting its own examination.

If completed, the merger would unite Paramount and Warner Bros., two of Hollywood’s oldest and most recognizable film studios, under one corporate owner. It would also combine the companies’ major streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max.

The deal would create the largest collection of television networks in the United States. Paramount’s portfolio includes the CBS broadcast network and cable channels such as MTV and BET, while Warner Bros. Discovery owns CNN, TNT and several other major networks. The resulting company would bring CBS News and CNN under a single media organization.

In their lawsuit, the states pointed to the scale of the proposed company, alleging that it would control nearly one-third of the film market and close to one-third of basic cable television programming.

Paramount has argued that a company of that size is necessary to compete with streaming heavyweights such as Netflix and Amazon. It has also said that savings from combining the two businesses would allow it to spend more on programming and deliver stronger content to consumers.

Concerns about the transaction have grown across Hollywood, where actors, documentary filmmakers and producers have warned that further consolidation could lead to fewer theatrical releases, reduced spending on film and television projects and significant job losses. More than 1,000 writers, performers and directors signed a letter in April opposing the merger.

Paramount CEO David Ellison has said he is committed to protecting jobs after the transaction. In sworn declarations filed last month in a separate lawsuit brought by streaming subscribers, Paramount executives said the combined company planned to release at least 30 movies in theaters each year.

The executives also said new films would remain exclusively in theaters for at least 45 days before becoming available on streaming platforms.

Paramount additionally floated potential investments in California while attempting to avoid a state challenge. One proposal involved creating a $50 million training fund for unionized workers whose jobs could be disrupted by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, according to people familiar with the discussions.

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Bonta has publicly indicated that he favors “structural remedies” to address his competition concerns, a term that generally refers to requiring a company to sell or spin off part of its business rather than relying solely on promises about its future conduct.

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved the transaction in April. Ellison said during a recent earnings call that the deal remained on schedule to close by September.

Under the agreement, Paramount would owe Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders roughly $650 million in cash for every quarter the transaction remains unfinished beginning in October.

Ellison first turned his attention to WBD last September. Within weeks of the Paramount-Skydance merger closing, the newly combined company made its initial approach, triggering multiple bids and eventually prompting a formal sale process.

David Ellison, a producer whose credits include “Top Gun: Maverick,” acquired Paramount last year with financial backing from his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. He later mounted a campaign to outbid Netflix for Warner Bros. Discovery and reached an agreement to buy the company in February.

Warner Bros. Discovery had initially agreed to sell its film studio and streaming businesses to Netflix. Paramount later disrupted that agreement by launching a hostile takeover effort and revising its offer.

Netflix ultimately abandoned its deal, leaving Paramount with an agreement to purchase all of Warner Bros. Discovery for $31 per share.

Lawmakers in the United States and Europe subsequently scrutinized the transaction, including the foreign financing involved in Paramount’s bid.

The acquisition has also renewed attention on the Ellison family’s relationship with Trump. Larry Ellison is a friend of the president, and David Ellison attended a CBS News dinner in Washington in April where he sat with Trump and Paramount Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was also present at the event, which was held while the Justice Department was still reviewing the merger.

Paramount has expanded its legal team in preparation for a possible court battle. Its hires include Jeffrey Kessler, the Winston Taylor attorney who represented the states in their successful Live Nation case, and Paul Clement of Clement and Murphy, who is known for arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

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Meta Facing $1.4 Trillion In Damages In Teen Safety Case 

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Meta is currently facing $1.4 trillion in damages in a social media addiction case brought on by four states. Thirty-three states have teamed up to sue Meta over allegations that the tech giant was exploiting its young users on Instagram and Facebook for profit by collecting data from children without parental consent, according to reports. 

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California, New Jersey, Colorado, and Kentucky are four states that are claiming Meta misled consumers regarding the addictive design features on the platforms and causing mental health problems in children and teenagers who began using the internet at an early age. 

Those four states specifically are requesting damages that total to $1.4 trillion, according to Meta in a recent court filing. This number could allegedly increase even further with penalties that the attorneys general could add. 

Meta has denied the allegations and even recently attempted to get the addiction claims dismissed, which failed. In the most recent court submission, Meta’s attorneys argued that the $1.4 trillion in damages was unsubstantiated and disproportionate. 

“Meta has not found any case, under any cause of action, where one defendant was ordered to pay over one trillion dollars – or any number remotely close to that staggering figure.”

Reuters reported that although the states’ filings are sealed, the penalties were calculated by multiplying the number of violations, and the estimated amount of younger users impacted by the addictive aspects of the platforms.

Meta is arguing that the number is so high that “it has no parallel in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”

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“Indeed, the Federal Trade Commission recently described a ‘$1 billion penalty’ as the ‘largest ever in a case involving an FTC rule violation.’ The AGs’ demand exceeds even those record figures by several orders of magnitude, and is in gross disproportionate to the specified violations alleged here,” the filings state.”

The case will be moving to a court in August and if the judge rules against Meta, it could become a major financial issue for the company, whose market capitalization is right above $1.5 trillion. 

Meta executives have admitted for months now to investors that they were anticipating some material loss this year over “the scrutiny on youth-related issues.”

Meta has also been facing growing litigation over alleged deceptive social media practices that specifically target vulnerable young users.

Earlier this year, a judge found Meta and Google liable and ordered them to pay $6 million in damages to a young user, who’s now 20-years-old, who stated that the “deliberate addictive design features on social media platforms like Instagram got her hooked from a young age and exacerbated menthol health problems like depression and anxiety,” Ece Yildirim wrote for Gizmodo.  

Meta also currently has over 3,000 similar cases that are pending in California state court. Another 14 states have also brought up claims similar to the $1.4 trillion case and are set to go to trial early next year.