Andrew here. Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension from ABC is the latest example of companies seeking to placate the Trump administration. We’ve got a lot more on what happened below, but here’s the TL;DR: Two companies that together own about 70 ABC affiliates said that they would pull Kimmel’s show. One of them is Nexstar, which is trying to buy Tegna for $6.2 billion — a deal that requires approval from the F.C.C. We’ve seen something like this before: Paramount settled a lawsuit filed by President Trump, and then received approval for its sale to Skydance.
Trump supporters say that the Biden administration forced companies like Meta to censor some content, including about Covid. But this feels quite different: Companies are now pre-emptively censoring — or “canceling” — people who they fear will upset the president. What do you think?
The Kimmel campaign
Jimmy Kimmel is off the air “indefinitely” after comments by the late-night host about the person accused of killing Charlie Kirk drew blowback from two major owners of ABC affiliates and the head of the F.C.C.
It’s perhaps the most dramatic example of businesses and employees taking hits for commenting on the Kirk killing — and, more broadly, being on the wrong side of the Trump administration.
How Kimmel was suspended: Comments he made on Monday about Tyler Robinson, who is accused in the Kirk killing, led to heated criticism by right-wing activists who said that Kimmel had mischaracterized Robinson’s politics.
That crescendoed on Wednesday when Brendan Carr, the F.C.C.’s outspoken chair, said on a podcast that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” — and that his agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”
Then Nexstar and Sinclair, two big owners of local TV stations, said they would suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (Of note: Nexstar is seeking to buy a rival, Tegna, for $6.2 billion, a deal that needs F.C.C. approval; Sinclair is known for its conservative leaning.)
The decision to take Kimmel off the air came from the top at Disney. Bob Iger, the company’s C.E.O., and Dana Walden, its television chief, made the call, according to The Times. Disney’s relations with important affiliate owners were reportedly a factor: The Wall Street Journal adds that Nexstar’s announcement weighed on executives’ deliberations.
That said, The Journal reports, Disney may begin re-airing Kimmel’s show in the coming days.
The Trump administration and right-wing activists might not stop with Kimmel. In applauding Disney’s decision last night, President Trump appeared to encourage NBC to cancel the late-night shows of Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. NBC’s owner, Comcast, has already called on employees to “do better” in promoting civil dialogue after an MSNBC political analyst, Matthew Dowd, suggested that Kirk’s “awful words” led to his shooting. (Dowd was later fired.)
Meanwhile, employees at several other companies have also been suspended or fired for commenting on Kirk’s death. “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out” and “call their employer,” Vice President JD Vance said recently.
A big concern: The Trump administration and its allies haven’t been shy in putting pressure on public enterprises — including banks, law firms and other media companies — for perceived offenses. (This includes The Times.)
The administration’s attack on Kimmel has drawn sharp criticism. But the appetite of corporate America to push back remains in question.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Nvidia plans to invest $5 billion in Intel. The A.I. chip giant also said on Thursday that it would work with Intel to codevelop processors, including for data centers. Shares in Intel, which agreed last month to give the U.S. government a 10 percent stake in exchange for billions in federal funding, soared in premarket trading on the announcement.
China reportedly drops an antitrust investigation into Google. Beijing has ended an inquiry into whether the tech giant’s Android operating system held an unfair position in the Chinese market, The Financial Times reports. The move comes as trade talks advance between Beijing and Washington, including negotiations over a potential sale of TikTok’s U.S. operation, though Chinese regulators appear to be maintaining pressure on Nvidia.
Meta introduces new A.I.-powered smart glasses. The $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display, which has built-in speakers and a tiny screen in the lens to display apps and share media to Instagram, signals the tech giant’s latest effort to build out its smart hardware product offerings. It has also been eager to show investors that its huge investment in artificial intelligence is beginning to pay off.
The Miran effect
Stocks and bonds were rebounding after Wednesday’s Fed meeting showed that Jay Powell was still in charge.
As expected, the central bank lowered its benchmark lending rate by a quarter point, which Powell described as “risk management” to bolster the weakening labor market. Fed watchers were surprised that Powell was able to marshal strong support among the governors, given President Trump’s unyielding criticism and insistence on big cuts. (Trump has yet to weigh in on Wednesday’s decision.)
There was just one dissenting vote. Stephen Miran, Trump’s economic adviser turned temporary Fed governor, wanted a half-point cut. Miran, who was sworn in on Tuesday, appears to have also championed outsize cuts in October and December.
That reveals a disparity in where Fed governors stand on their policy outlook, which analysts say could add to market volatility.
That said, Miran wasn’t able to sway like-minded Fed governors to vote for a bigger cut. Those include Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, Trump appointees who had dissented in July when the Fed voted to keep rates steady.
All of this provided plenty of grist for Fed watchers to ponder. Miran’s term is set to expire at the end of January. Was his vote for a jumbo cut an indication that he wants to stay on, or even seek to replace Powell as chair?
Separately, Waller’s vote for a quarter-point cut might have hurt his chances to succeed Powell, David Seif, an economist at Nomura, wrote in a client note on Wednesday.
What’s next: Powell said during his news conference on Wednesday that governors saw no need for outsize cuts.
A survey of Fed policymakers forecasts two more cuts this year, which would bring its benchmark rate to 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent, down from the 4 percent to 4.25 percent it was lowered to on Wednesday.
The S.E.C. takes aim at shareholder lawsuits
The Trump administration just delivered a potentially huge win for companies seeking to go public — and for business leaders who wish to put the brakes on class-action lawsuits.
On Wednesday, the S.E.C. scrapped a rule that had long affected the I.P.O. market. Via an unwritten policy, the agency would routinely block companies’ access to listing in the U.S. if these businesses sought to ban shareholder class-action lawsuits in their charters and bylaws.
The upshot: Shareholders now will most likely have to pursue their claims in arbitration, and it could hamper their efforts to pursue class-action lawsuits.
The change is part of several recent moves by the S.E.C. to bolster President Trump’s deregulation agenda. The agency is also reviewing the possible nixing of quarterly reporting requirements, at Trump’s suggestion. And on Monday, it gave Exxon Mobil the green light to use a new voting tool that critics say is intended to restrict shareholder activism.
How the decision went down: In a vote along party lines, the regulators reversed a decades-old practice of banning mandatory arbitration. In a statement, Paul Atkins, the S.E.C. chair, argued that this would bolster the market for new listings by freeing start-ups of burdensome compliance requirements. Allowing mandatory arbitration is a first step of an effort “to make I.P.O.s great again,” he wrote.
But Caroline Crenshaw, the commission’s lone Democrat, warned that it would risk “opening the floodgates” to mandatory arbitration. (Businesses and consumer advocates have long been at odds over the prevalence of private arbitration to settle disputes.) CalPERS, the California state pension fund manager, slammed the ruling, saying it would weaken investors’ rights.
What’s next: Companies are likely to start experimenting with mandatory arbitration right away, Ann Lipton, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told DealBook. But they may face snags. Delaware, where two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated, recently banned mandatory arbitration clauses, she noted.
Pic of the day
King Charles III hosted a state dinner on Wednesday for President Trump at Windsor Castle, where the two mingled with business titans, Trump cabinet members and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. Starmer sat next to Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, which had just announced a £100 billion pledge to invest in Britain. Also in attendance: Brian Moynihan of Bank of America; Sam Altman of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, of Google DeepMind; Satya Nadella of Microsoft; Marc Benioff of Salesforce; and Tim Cook of Apple.
What C.E.O.s really think about the TikTok deal
Top executives and policymakers convened in Washington on Wednesday for a meeting hosted by the Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld to discuss the biggest challenges of today, including trade instability, artificial intelligence and increasing nationalization.
One of the hottest topics was TikTok and the U.S.-China deal that’s being negotiated to ensure its survival in America, Lauren Hirsch reports.
The participants thought China got the better end of the bargain. While the deal isn’t finalized, it is expected to allow China to keep control of the algorithm that powers the app, which the U.S. TikTok app would license.
They also seemed to agree with national security experts who warn that the deal being discussed may not satisfy the requirements of a law that would otherwise ban TikTok. About 80 percent of participants said the proposed transaction may be a threat to U.S. national security. Roughly two-thirds thought the Trump administration gave into China in the talks.
Larry Ellison was another winner, they said. Oracle, the tech giant he runs, is expected to be among the major shareholders of the U.S. TikTok. According to 78 percent of attendees, the TikTok deal alone, if completed, would make Ellison the most powerful media executive in the world.
But Ellison is also helping finance a bid by David Ellison, his son, to buy Warner Bros. Discovery; Hollywood insiders have speculated that if the TikTok deal closes, David Ellison’s entertainment empire might eventually rely on the app’s algorithm to better compete against Netflix. That’s led some on Wall Street to speculate that Ellison may be trying to create a synergistic empire similar to the one run by Elon Musk, which includes SpaceX, xAI and X.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
StubHub faltered in its market debut on Wednesday, with its stock falling below its I.P.O. price. (Bloomberg)
The activist hedge fund Cevian Capital said that potential new capital requirements may make Switzerland “not viable” as UBS’s headquarters. (FT)
Politics, policy and regulation
“Bessent, Like Fed Governor, Made Contradictory Mortgage Pledges” (Bloomberg)
Trump officials have complained about the credibility of government economic stats, but they aren’t making full use of sophisticated private data, Lazard’s C.E.O. argues. (The Atlantic)
Best of the rest
“Tiffany Trump Cruised on an Oil Mogul’s Yacht as Her Father-in-Law Talked Oil Deals” (NYT)
The debate over A.I. models’ purported favoring of em dashes reveals deeper questions about modern written language. (NYT)
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