Mediagazer: Elon Musk says xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $80B and X at $33B; xAI was reportedly in talks to raise funds in February at a $75B valuation (CNBC)

8:20 PM ET, March 28, 2025

Top News:

Elon Musk says xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $80B and X at $33B; xAI was reportedly in talks to raise funds in February at a $75B valuation — Elon Musk said on Friday that his startup xAI has merged with X, his social network, in an all-stock transaction that values …

Brian Stelter / CNN:

A US district court judge issues a temporary restraining order halting the Trump administration's efforts to close Voice of America, in a lawsuit by VOA staff — A federal judge sided with silenced Voice of America journalists on Friday, the latest setback for President Trump's push to shut …

Discussion: New York Times, The Independent, US District Court, Southern District of New York, The NewsGuild, Ilann Maazel on LinkedIn, Deadline, @brianstelter.bsky.social, @brianstelter.bsky.social, @brianstelter.bsky.social, Roll Call and New York Daily News

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

Trump commutes the criminal fraud sentence of Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson, shortly before Watson was due to begin serving a 116-month prison term — - CNBC Councils — CNBC on Peacock — Join the CNBC Panel — Supply Chain Values — Select Shopping — Ad Choices

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:

In a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger, FCC Chair Brendan Carr says the FCC is opening an investigation into DEI practices of Disney and ABC — - Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, is now investigating Disney over its DEI practices.

Charlotte Klein / New York Magazine:

Guardian US expects $44M in donations in the US and Canada in 2025, up 33% YoY; contributions make up 60% of revenue, which exceeded costs by $16M in 2024 — There was a time in media when having a billionaire owner was an asset. For many outlets, this is still the case …

Discussion: @casmudde.bsky.social, @pressgazette.co.uk, @annala7680.bsky.social, Steve Sachs on LinkedIn, @sulliview.bsky.social, @nymag.com, @charlottetklein.bsky.social and @mattmittenthal.bsky.social

Oliver Darcy / Status:

Sources: the Los Angeles Times has laid off dozens of employees on the business side this week, including VP of Communications Hillary Manning — The newspaper slashed dozens of business-side staffers this week—including its longtime chief spokesperson—in a painful new round of cuts, Status has learned.

Discussion: @pinemikey.bsky.social, Breitbart, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social and @passantino.bsky.social

Carly Thomas / The Hollywood Reporter:

The Academy apologizes for not publicly supporting Hamdan Ballal, co-director of Oscar-winning No Other Land, after his assault and arrest in the West Bank — Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was reportedly beaten and detained earlier this week after a conflict in the West Bank.

Discussion: The Wrap, The Independent, Deadline, IndieWire, Variety, Raw Story and The Ankler

Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:

Adalytics: DoubleVerify, IAS, and Human Security, paid by advertisers to detect bots, regularly miss such traffic; DoubleVerify missed 21% of bot visits — Companies that claim to help brands avoid serving digital ads to bots regularly miss nonhuman traffic

Discussion: Jay Friedman on LinkedIn, Dr. Augustine Fou on LinkedIn, Charlie Tysse on LinkedIn, Jim Gordon on LinkedIn, Paul Kurrie on LinkedIn, Integral Ad Science and MediaPost

Washington Post:

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg says the Trump administration's lies regarding Signal chats on Yemen attack plans prompted him to reveal the texts — The Trump administration tried to paint the veteran journalist as a liar, so he felt compelled to prove them wrong — and he had the receipts.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Axios, @nxthompson.bsky.social, @jswatz.bsky.social, @herbscribner.bsky.social, @ellenwapo.bsky.social, Reuters, Decider, CBS News and r/Journalism

Jake Kanter / Deadline:

A look at AI-generated fake movie trailers on YouTube; WBD, Paramount, and Sony have earned ad revenue from some videos instead of defending their copyright — Cut to Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor watching on and Milly Alcock's Supergirl levitating into view. “They are not from here,” Luthor intones in an ominous voiceover.

Discussion: @tasharobinson.bsky.social, @redactedrodriguez.bsky.social, @peterhallhuman.bsky.social and @denispacheco.bsky.social

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Penske Media and Tasty Media plan a Spanish-language edition of The Hollywood Reporter with original content, following editions in Italy, India, and Japan — The partnership sees the iconic entertainment brand expand its reach with Spanish-speaking readers in Latin America and Spain.

Discussion: Diego Ortiz on LinkedIn

Kate Lamb / The Guardian:

Amid increasing intimidation of journalists in Indonesia, journalists working for Tempo, an outlet critical of the government, received dead animals as threats — Grisly gifts a worrying turn for press freedom in world's third-largest democracy — Warning: some readers may find an image in this story distressing

Discussion: @bermudezlievano.bsky.social, @eveshi.bsky.social, WIPs galore, Editor and Publisher and Committee to Protect …

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 8:20 PM ET, March 28, 2025.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Bureau Reporter - Vietnam, HCMC — Bloomberg

Curation Editor (Contract), NY — Apple News

Business Editor, CA — TheWrap

Executive Ed. - Tech & Electronics, AZ — AspenCore

Economy & Industry Reporter, TX — Texas Tribune

Deputy Editor - Health Care, VA — Politico

Political Enterprise Editor, DC — Guardian US

Housing & Real Estate Reporter, ME — BDN

Associate Reporter - Yahoo Finance — Yahoo

Senior Editor, Remote — Raw Story

Deputy Politics Editor, CA — Sacramento Bee

Alphaville Reporter, London — FT

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Student Press Law Center:
A press freedom coalition condemns US immigration officials' detention of a Turkish Ph.D. student who co-wrote an op-ed supporting Palestinians in March 2024

Discussion: Freedom of the Press …, @hamishmckenzie, ABC News, @mshelton.bsky.social, The Federalist, Reuters, @freedom.press, PEN America, @splc.org, @penamerica, @brianstelter, The Tufts Daily and @penamerica

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Google will pay $100M in cash to settle a 2011 lawsuit accusing the company of charging for clicks on ads outside the geographic areas the advertisers targeted

Discussion: MediaPost and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
AppLovin hires a law firm to investigate short sellers' allegations that the mobile ad company's ad performance numbers are fraudulent

Discussion: The Register, Adweek, Barron's Online, Yahoo Finance, CNBC, Business Wire, Benzinga and Investor's Business Daily, more at Techmeme »

Reuters:
Court documents: India criticizes Elon Musk's X for wrongly labeling an official website, used to notify tech firms of harmful content, as a “censorship portal”

Discussion: @thomashansen.bsky.social, more at Techmeme »

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
FICCI-EY: India's media and entertainment sector revenue hit $29.4B in 2024, with digital media accounting for 32%, surpassing TV for the first time

Discussion: Digital Music News, Music Ally, The Economic Times, Press Trust of India, EY, MIT OpenCourseWare, Deadline and Bloomberg

Matt Stevens / New York Times:
A report on California's creative economy finds entertainment jobs in 2024 were 25% below 2022; LA County's 2024 shooting days fell 42% compared to 2022

Discussion: Hollywood Life, Variety and Deadline

Earlier Picks:

Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
JioStar, the joint venture that merged Viacom18 and Star India, says its streaming service JioHotstar has passed 100M subscribers

Discussion: WORLD SCREEN and Variety

Brian Welk / IndieWire:
Memo: Amazon MGM Studios head Jen Salke is stepping down to start a new production entity; the former NBC Entertainment president joined Amazon in 2018

Discussion: Variety, Deadline, Variety, The Verge, Business Insider, Reuters, World of Reel, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Information, Cord Cutters News, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline

Julia Ornedo / The Daily Beast:
Richard Carlson, a former Voice of America director, former CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and father of Tucker Carlson, has died at 84

Discussion: @tuckercarlson, @rdotinga, @xelahart.bsky.social, @jilltwiss.bsky.social, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times and The Gateway Pundit

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
AP photographer Evan Vucci and AP Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller testified Thursday about damage done by the White House ban on the wire service

Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Meta adds a Friends tab on Facebook that will show content just from users' friends, with no recommended posts, as it brings back “OG” Facebook experiences

From Techmeme:

John Hudson / Washington Post:
Sources: White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and other NSC members have conducted government affairs over personal Gmail accounts

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google researchers say DPRK's IT workers are fraudulently securing positions at companies in Germany, Portugal, and the UK, after facing sanctions in the US

Wikimedia:
The Wikimedia Foundation says base bandwidth demand for downloading Wikimedia Commons multimedia content is up 50% since January 2024, driven by AI crawlers

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page