CNBC Daily Open: Netflix walks away from Warner Bros. Discovery bid

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• NFLX
• WBD
• PSKY

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Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Feb. 3, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

In the latest plot twist of the high-stakes bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix said Thursday it would not increase a counteroffer for the company’s studio and streaming assets, effectively clearing the way for Paramount Skydance’s revised bid to take center stage.

That comes after the WBD board deemed Paramount’s revised all-cash bid earlier this week of $31 per share, up from $30 per share, to be a superior offer to acquire the entire company.

Netflix had four business days to revise its bid in light of Paramount’s superior offer, the WBD board said in a statement Thursday.

Investors appeared to prefer clarity over courtship. Netflix shares jumped more than 10% in extended trading, while Paramount’s rose as much as 5%. However, WBD’s stock fell 1.39%.

WBD CEO David Zaslav said Thursday the Paramount merger agreement would create “tremendous value” for shareholders once the board formally adopts the deal and expressed enthusiasm about the potential of the combined company. Translation: the deal train is boarding.

On the artificial intelligence front, markets proved harder to charm.

Nvidia shares sank over 5%, dragging the Nasdaq Composite down more than 1%. The S&P 500 also closed lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered just above the flatline.

The retreat came despite reassurances from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Thursday that the markets “got it wrong” on fears that AI agents will cannibalize the enterprise software industry. He made the comments after the chip designer’s blowout earnings report.

For now, clarity is powering media shares higher, but conviction in AI is proving harder to sustain.

Over in the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party lost a Manchester-area seat Friday to the left-wing Green Party, in what had been a Labour stronghold for nearly a century. The defeat is a huge blow to Starmer, who has been facing mounting pressure to resign in recent weeks over his appointment of Labour veteran Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, despite his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo, Alex Sherman, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this story.

What you need to know today

**Democrats plan to force Iran war powers vote next week, **their leadership announced Thursday, as President Donald Trump engages in a massive military buildup in the region. The resolution would compel the administration to seek congressional approval before engaging in any further activity in Iran.

**Anthropic CEO Amodei pushes back, **saying the company “cannot in good conscience” allow the U.S. Department of Defense to use its models in all lawful use cases without limitation, following tense negotiations with the Pentagon in recent weeks.

U.S. markets pull back Thursday, after the latest results from Nvidia and Salesforce failed to abate investor skepticism surrounding AI. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite settled lower, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added just slightly above the flatline. Asia markets traded mixed in volatile trading.

No deal after “most intense” U.S.-Iran talks. Washington and Tehran agreed to extend negotiations in the latest round of talks, with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi describing the discussions as the “most intense so far.”

[PRO] Stocks that stand to gain if Big Tech builds its own power plants. U.S. President Donald Trump said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that major tech firms must supply their own power for energy-hungry data centers. If that goes through, these stocks might stand to benefit.

And finally…

Nvidia H100 chips inside a server room at the Yotta Data Services Pvt. data center, in Navi Mumbai, India, March 14, 2024.

Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images

An Indian company is set to build a $2 billion AI hub with Nvidia’s GPUs and go public. Here’s what we know so far

India’s Yotta Data Services, which is building a $2 billion artificial intelligence hub using Nvidia’s chips, said demand for graphic processing units in the country is exceeding supply as domestic AI models prepare to scale and the local user base surges.

At present, India trails the U.S. and China in the race to develop a native AI foundational model and lacks large domestic AI infrastructure. That is beginning to shift.

— Priyanka Salve

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