The Rundown - WBD Rejects Paramount Bid, Amazon in Talks to Invest $10B in OpenAI

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Market update for Wednesday, December 17, 2025. Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode: Warner Bros. rejects Paramount bidOpenAI in talks with Amazon for $10B investmentDBV shares soar on peanut allergy drug trial winLennar shares fall on housing profit missWaymo hits $100 billion valuation

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, December 17th. In today's episode, we'll explain why oil prices are at four-year lows. We'll also tell you why the Warner Brothers Board is rejecting Paramount's takeover bid. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out what Waymo is valued at and why I think they could IPO in the near future. We get a great show. show for you today.

Let's go. Stocks are coming off a wild day of trading on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was down nearly 1% in the morning, but then rallied in the afternoon to finish down just 0.2%. The NASDAQ was actually able to squeeze out a 0.3% gain and snapped a three-day losing streak thanks to a bounceback in tech stocks. Six of the seven magnificent seven stocks were in the green yesterday, led by Tesla, which which was up 3% and hit all-time highs for the first time this year.

Tesla stock has been on an absolute heater in the past month, jumping nearly 20%, which is a bit shocking to me given that Tesla has been struggling with sales. Clearly, investors are more focused and excited about the progress the company is making when it comes to their robotaxies. Meanwhile, the energy sector got absolutely crushed yesterday. It was by far the worst performing sector, and it was pushed down by the sell-off in oil,

which has fallen below $55 a barrel. That's the lowest level in four years. This year, oil prices have fallen more than 20% because of oversupply and weak demand from countries like China. So that's been bad for investors and companies like Exxon and Chevron, but it's been great for our wallets when filling up the gas tank. Now, oil prices are up 2% this morning after President Trump ordered a total blockade of oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, which could result in a prolonged disruption of

supply. Venezuela is one of the largest producers of oil in the world. So we'll have to see how that. that plays out. Now, speaking of rising prices, remember, we are getting the November CPI report tomorrow morning. That'll be the most up-to-date data that we have on inflation. Economists are predicting a 3.1% year-over-year increase. So we'll see what the numbers coming at. We'll break it all down on tomorrow's episode. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Warner Brothers Discovery.

Warner's has officially rejected Paramount's hostile takeover bid. The board is telling shareholders to stick with the Netflix deal instead. Now, a quick recap on the situation here. A couple weeks ago, Netflix agreed to buy Warner's film and TV studios, along with HBO and HBO Max and all of the IP, for $27.75 a share, worth about $72 billion total. Paramount, though, went directly to WBD shareholders with a $30 a share offer for the entire company, including the cable channels. And on paper, the Paramount bid does look better, but the Warner's board says they aren't sure that Paramount can actually pay for this deal. The Paramount is owned by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, who's the founder of Oracle, he's the fifth richest man in the world. Larry is supposedly backstopping this deal, but Warner says the commitment from Larry is coming from a opaque and revocable trust, which basically means they don't think the money is locked in.

On top of that, some outside investors that Paramount had lined up, like Jared Kushner's affinity partners, have back. out. Jared Kushner is President Trump's son-in-law, so the fact that he's backing out is very interesting here. So that's why the Warner's Board is recommending that shareholders accept the Netflix deal since Netflix is a $400 billion company and actually has the money to move forward with the acquisition. The story is far from over though. Paramount is making the case that their deal will actually get regulatory approval because again Larry Ellison is boys with Trump, while Netflix deal will likely face greater resistance. Plus Paramount is also hinted that they could potentially increase their bid to higher than $30 a share, which should get WBD shareholders to pick them

over the Netflix deal. But I mean, with the way that Oracle stock is tanking right now, dropping Larry Ellison's net worth, I'd be kind of surprised that Larry would want to commit even more money to this, but I guess we'll see what happens. Right now, though, I do think that Netflix is more likely to win the deal. Let's shift gears and talk about Open AI. According to reporting from the information, Open AI is in talks to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon at a valuation north of $500 billion, making Amazon the latest big tech company investing in Open AI. Now, as part of this deal, Open AI would buy and use Amazon's tranium AI chips, giving Amazon a major customer for its in-house Nvidia competitor. So this looks like another one of

those circular financing AI deals where Amazon gives Open AI a ton of money, and then Open AI turns around and uses that money to buy Amazon's chips and cloud services. But the thing is, Open AI needs as much money as possible. Open AI has told investors it expects to burn more than $100 billion over the next four years to buy things like servers, chips, talents. But everyone keeps asking the same question here. Where is all this money coming from? How is Open AI going to pay for all of this? Because Open AI's revenues is around $15 to $20 billion in annual run rate. Open AI can't pay for all this with just revenue. So for now, they're burning through investor money, including all the big tech companies that have invested in them. Open AI has already raised more than $45 billion,

including a $13 billion investment for Microsoft, which owns 27% of Open AI. On top of that, Nvidia has floated the idea of investing up to $100 billion, starting with a $10 billion tranche tied to construction milestones, though that deal isn't finalized just yet. But now there is this Amazon deal, and honestly, it's a smart move by Open AI because they're trying to tie themselves to every big tech company, so these big tech companies are now incentivized to see Open AI win. And for Amazon, this deal makes a ton of sense.

It helps push their own AI chips. to real use instead of letting Nvidia just dominate everything. And who knows, this might set the table for OpenAI and Amazon to integrate commerce and shopping features down the line. By the way, Amazon is also an early backer of Anthropic, which made the Claude Chatbot. They've invested $8 billion into Anthropics so far. In fact, a ton of other big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia have also invested in Anthropic.

So honestly, these big tech companies are going to end up winning either way. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of DBV technologies are soaring this morning after the company reported positive phase three trial results for its peanut allergy treatment in young children. This via skin treatment is a non-invasive skin patch. It's on a pill or an injection, which could be a big deal for kids and parents dealing with severe peanut allergies. My 2-year-old son has a peanut allergy, so this patch would be a game changer for us. DBV says that it's now on track to submit a Biologics license application to the FDA in the first half. of 2026, which is the final step needed before the drug can be approved and sold in the U.S.

So investors are banking on the upside here. DBV stock is up nearly 40% in pre-market trading. Now, on the flip side, Lenar's stock is sliding after the home builder missed earnings estimates and delivered weaker than expected guidance due to the slowdown in the housing market. Lenar said that buyers are still holding back even as mortgage rates have eased slightly because home prices remain too high. Now, in order to move inventory, the company has been offering more incentives and cutting prices, and that's starting to hurt their margins. Gross margins on home sales came in at 17%, which is below the expectation of 17.5%. And the company warned that margins could fall even further to 15 to 16% in the current quarter.

So you add all that up and Lanar stock is down 4% this morning in pre-market trading. Now, we've heard from a couple of home builders this earning season, and overall it has not been a great signal for the broader housing market, especially as affordability continues to weigh on demand. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Waymo is now being valued at around $100 billion. According to reports from the information and Bloomberg, Waymo is in talks to raise more than $15 billion from outside investors at a $100 billion valuation,

making the self-driving company more valuable than Ford and GM combined. Waymo last raised money in October of 2024 at a $45 billion valuation, so their valuation has more than double. in a year. And honestly, it's easy to see why, because Waymo has made a ton of progress in the last year. Waymo is really the only company right now running fully driverless rides with no safety drivers across multiple U.S. cities. On top of that, Waymo is actually making money now, roughly $350 million in annual revenue. And that number is expected to grow as the company expands into more cities in 2026, including Miami, Dallas, Philly, Houston, and more. In fact, Waymo expects

they hit 1 million rides per week by late 2026, which is pretty wild. I think with all this momentum that Waymo has right now, they could potentially IPO in the next year or two. That's just my speculation, by the way. No one is reporting this, but I think it could happen. It makes a ton of sense. You know, right now, Waymo is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, and Alphabet is spending a lot of money on AI data centers. So Alphabet might decide to take Waymo public so they can raise even more money to fuel Waymo's expansion,

instead of funding it with their own balance sheet. Let me know in the comments on what you guys think. I do think the demand for a Waymo IPO would be absolutely crazy. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast.

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