📈Paramount Goes Hostile: After the Warner Bros $WBD ( ▲ 1.66% ) board spurned Paramount’s earlier all-cash bid, they’re back. This time with Apollo, Citi, and PE. Paramount is offering a $31/share (compared to Netflix’s ~$30/share stock deal) directly to WB’s shareholders, with a decision due Jan 8.

📈SpaceX’s Public Launch: SpaceX is considering an IPO in the new year. While the IPO would only be ~$30 Bn, Elon Musk is seeking a (small 🤏) valuation of $1.5 Trn which would make SpaceX the 7th largest company in the world, by market cap. Keep your eyes peeled for Q3 2026 when they plan to list.

📈Oracle’s Worst Day Since Dot-Com: Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 4.47% ) hit analysts expectations with its most recent earnings report. Yet due to increased AI CapEx, Oracle’s FCF dropped to -$10Bn. Combining this with investors already wary of exposure to OpenAI and the broader ‘AI Bubble’ a sharp, 15%, pullback ensued.

📈JPM Goes Crypto Bro: Teaming up with Galaxy Digital $GLXY ( ▼ 10.42% ), JP Morgan arranged a $50 Mn Commerical Paper issuance hosted on the Solana blockchain. Both the purchase and redemption of the security will be paid in USDC. While the issuance is small, the transaction demonstrates the interest traditional banking heavyweights are showing crypto.

🌎Jimmy Lai Verdict Imminent Hong Kong’s High Court will deliver its verdict Monday for the trial of media tycoon and China critic Jimmy Lai, who faces life impisonment. Lai is charged under the National Security Law with foreign collusion and sedition. Prosecutors claim Lai utilized his extensive foreign connections (incl. meeting with Mike Pence) to lobby for sanctions against Hong Kong and China.

🌎Great Barrier Law: Australia enacted the world’s first social media ban this week, requiring ten platforms to prevent account creation for those under 16. Critics argues it isolates the youth and pushes them towards less regulated platforms. For its part, Reddit claims the ban will be largely pointless and is suing the Australian government to overturn this new law.

🌎Living Up To The Nomination: Cambodia and Thailand are fighting again. This time triggered by Thai accusations that Cambodia had laid new landmines (a claim Cambodia strongly denies). Trump announced a new truce between the two nations Friday. However, this claim was immediately rejected by the Thai PM who stated there was no ceasefire and that fighting would continue.

🌎Peace Plan Impasse: Ukraine and its European alies have submitted a counter-response to the U.S. peace plan which had initially pressured Kyiv to accept significant territorial losses (e.g. the “Fortress Belt”). Other sticking points include future security gurantees against Russian attack, and excluding Russia from adminstering the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

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👔Disney Goes Long on Slop: Disney $DIS ( ▲ 0.13% ) has announced a $1 Bn investment into OpenAI which will give the makers of ChatGPT license to use over 200 characters from the franchise in AI generated videos. In the same week, Disney also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google for using its content to train Gemini 3.

👔Trump’s Chip Tax: Trump just allowed Nvidia to export H200 chips to China only if they pay 25% of the revenue to the Trump administration, all in the name of national security. Meanwhile, DeepSeek is allegedly training its newest AI model on Nvidia’s top-of-the-line Blackwell chip, a claim Nvidia disputes.

👔Activist Investors 1, Pepsi 0: We previously reported on Elliott Investments and PepsiCo, and now PepsiCo is doing something about it. PepsiCo is planning on cutting the number of products it offers by 20% and will reduce broader operating costs (layoffs incoming) to boost its share price

👔Instacart’s AI Price Problem: Previously, perfect price discrimination was thought impossible but now with AI it’s already happening. Instacart $CART ( ▲ 0.69% ), the Uber for grocery delivery, has been charging customers different prices (up to 20% more) for the same item. The same dozen of eggs retailed anywhere from $3.99 to $4.79, depending on the shopper.

🤪The Louvre is Fine, Everything is Fine: The Louvre is enduring an astonishing run of bad luck. The misery started with a $100 million heist in October, followed by a major flood in November that damaged historical Egyptian documents. Now, citing poor work conditions, staff unions have called for a strike next week.

🤪Scoot and Loot: A new study found that, in Chicago, street and vehicle crime rose nearly 18% in neighborhood with rental e-scooters. Researchers suggest the scooter’s speed, portability, and easy discardability make them ideal gateway vehicles for nonviolent crimes like thefts and car break-ins.

🤪Ultimate Cheaters: A study ranking mammal infidelity found that Soay sheep are the ultimate players whilst on the other extreme, the California deermouse is a perfect angel scoring 100% on monogamy. Humans ranked seventh-most monogamous, placing us just above some beavers.

🤪Adult-Level I Spy: After moving in to a new office in NYC, quant hedge fund manager Pete Muller wanted to spice up the office interior. He hung 80 artworks on the walls of the office, 5 of which contained cryptographic clues to a hidden room. It took three of his employees all of three months to crack the clues.