Good morning. I have the pleasure of kicking off Fortune Brainstorm AI this morning with none other than Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
The fun doesn’t stop there. Investors Cathy Gao and Steve Jang, Qualcomm’s Nakul Duggal, Zoox co-founder Jesse Levinson, Cursor CEO Michael Truell, Calm CEO David Ko, Amazon devices chief Panos Panay, Freshworks CEO Dennis Woodside, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, Arm CEO Rene Haas, and Natasha Lyonne—yes, that one—are on today’s agenda.
Don’t miss it; watch the livestream here. Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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So, about that $83 billion Netflix-Warner Bros deal
It’s Hollywood-shattering news.
On Friday, Netflix announced that it would acquire Warner Bros.—but not Discovery—in an $82.7 billion deal that would give the world’s largest paid streaming service a studio lot in Burbank, HBO Max, and an IP portfolio ranging from Casablanca to Game of Thrones.
So how’s everyone feeling today? A bit concerned.
For starters, there are the anticipated regulatory hurdles. “That’s got to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens,” President Trump said Sunday when asked about the deal. “But it is a big market share. It could be a problem.” (If the deal fails at the hands of regulators, Netflix must pay Warner Bros. Discovery $5.8 billion.)
Then there’s the labor angle. A group of film producers sent a letter to Congress on Thursday outlining “grave concerns” about such a deal. “Netflix views any time spent watching a movie in a theater as time not spent on their platform,” the document reads. “They have no incentive to support theatrical exhibition, and they have every incentive to kill it.”
Finally, there’s the uneasy feeling that this story is far from over. “We’re not experts at doing large-scale M&A,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said on a Friday call with investors. “But we’ve done a lot of things historically that we didn’t know how to do.” —AN
Will Apple’s chip chief be next to leave the company?
Hot on the heels of last week’s news about turnover at the top comes a report that Apple chip chief Johny Srouji is looking toward the exit.
It’s a dramatic turn of events for a company legendarily allergic to such drama.
He “recently told [CEO Tim] Cook that he is seriously considering leaving in the near future,” according to a Bloomberg report. “Srouji, the architect of Apple’s prized in-house chips effort, has informed colleagues that he intends to join another company if he ultimately departs.” Ouch.
The list of recent Apple senior executive departures continues to grow. Apple AI chief John Giannandrea is riding into the sunset. Top design exec Alan Dye defected to Meta. General counsel Kate Adams and sustainability chief Lisa Jackson are retiring. Former COO Jeff Williams did so last month. CFO Luca Maestri is believed to be winding down.
And, of course, there continue to be rumors about how long Cook, 65, will keep Apple’s top job.
For now, Apple is reportedly moving heaven and earth to keep Srouji. But elevating him to a more sweeping role like CTO “would likely require [hardware engineering chief John] Ternus to be promoted to CEO,” Bloomberg writes. And that is a step “the company may not be ready to take.” —AN
X blocks European Commission after €120 million fine
The European Commission can no longer buy and track ads on the social service X in the wake of issuing a €120 million (approx. $140 million) fine to the company for violating EU transparency rules.
“Your ad account has been terminated,” X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, wrote in a post published Sunday.
Bier wrote that the EU’s executive arm tried to amplify its own social media post about the fine by trying “to take advantage of an exploit” to post a link “that deceives users into thinking it's a video and to artificially increase its reach.”
At the time of writing, the EC hadn’t responded to the accusation.
The fine in question was based on the EU’s Digital Services Act, or DSA, which aims to halt the spread of illegal content. The EC said X was deceptive in changing its blue checkmark from a means of verification to a paid feature and opaque about its advertising library.
The Trump administration—in which X owner Elon Musk served as a special government employee—has been critical of the DSA, accusing it of discriminating against American tech giants. The White House has threatened to maintain steep tariffs on European exports if the EU fails to ease its digital regulations. —AN
More tech
—Silicon Valley’s hottest new thing: “refounding.” Pivoting? So 2010s.
—Arm will establish a chip training facility in South Korea.
—China’s iPhone attack. New apps to help users switch from Apple’s AI-poor devices.
—Digital asset treasuries: all but dead.
—Reddit fights AI slop. Moderators can’t keep up with tens of millions of unwanted posts.
—OpenAI steps into the muck. New prompt responses feel like ads, but aren’t, and everyone’s confused.
—Automated reasoning: Amazon’s tactic for preventing AI agents from going off the rails.
