Jessica Toonkel

Comcast plans to separate its media and connectivity businesses, dismantling an earlier bet on combined entertainment and distribution in the face of intensifying competitive pressure. The cable and entertainment company, home to “Saturday Night Live,” “Law & Order” and Bravo, aims to complete a tax-free spinoff of NBCUniversal and Sky, establishing a pure-play media company.

Fox Corp. is acquiring Roku in a deal valued at around $25 billion, making a major bet on the future of ad-supported streaming. The deal—Fox’s largest to date—brings together a media company known for its live news and sports programming with the biggest provider of streaming platforms for connected TVs. It will add scale to Fox’s streaming business, currently home to free, ad-supported streaming service Tubi, which the company bought for $400 million in 2020, and subscription-based Fox One and Fox Nation.

President Donald Trump has gotten involved in regulatory decisions big and small that once were made by independent agencies, dramatically shifting the balance of power across Washington and reordering how influence campaigns are waged. Political appointees by nature tend to be closely aligned with the president’s worldview. But former agency officials across administrations say it is highly unusual for presidents to be so intimately involved in the details of regulatory reviews.

Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, in what would be a giant bet on the hot artificial intelligence (AI) startup. The ChatGPT maker is seeking up to $100 billion in new capital from investors, a round that could value it at as much as $830 billion. Investing tens of billions of dollars in OpenAI could make Amazon the biggest contributor in the AI company’s ongoing fundraising round.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has struck a deal for internet-service provider Hotwire Communications, making a multibillion-dollar bet on the growing industry for next-generation broadband infrastructure. The deal is expected to value Hotwire at around $7 billion, including debt. An announcement is expected soon. Hotwire is a closely held internet service provider that operates in commercial settings and residential communities, according to its website.

Verizon is in advanced talks to acquire Frontier Communications in a deal that would bolster the company’s fiber network to compete with rivals including AT&T. A deal would be sizable, given Frontier’s market value of over $7 billion. The company, cobbled together by several deals over the years, provides broadband connections to about three million locations across 25 states. Verizon, the top cellphone carrier by subscribers, has faced increased pressure from competitors and from cable TV companies that offer discounted wireless service backed by Verizon’s own cellular network.

Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover is unlikely to raise antitrust concerns. But what is already being scrutinized is Musk’s failure to comply with rules regarding disclosure of his initial 9 percent stake, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The Federal Trade Commission recently opened an inquiry into whether Musk failed to comply with an antitrust reporting requirement as he amassed his initial 9.1 percent stake in Twitter between the end of January and the beginning of April 2022.

US District Judge Richard Leon said a trial to decide if AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner is legal under US antitrust law may last six to eight weeks, significantly longer than previously forecast. At a pre-trial hearing, Judge Leon said he will hear up to two days of motions before hearing opening arguments on March 21. Lawyers for the government and both companies did not comment on Leon’s estimate on the length of the trial; they had previously suggested it would last three weeks.