Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday said it will reopen deal talks with Paramount Skydance under a seven-day waiver from Netflix to explore “deficiencies” in Paramount’s offer to buy the entirety of WBD.

The legacy media company has a pending transaction with Netflix for its streaming and studio businesses. Paramount launched a hostile tender offer straight to WBD shareholders at $30 per share after losing out to Netflix in a bidding war.

“Netflix has provided WBD a limited waiver under the terms of WBD’s merger agreement with Netflix, permitting WBD to engage in discussions with Paramount Skydance (“PSKY”) (NASDAQ: PSKY) for a seven-day period ending on February 23, 2026 to seek clarity for WBD stockholders and provide PSKY the ability to make its best and final offer,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in a release.

“During this period, WBD will engage with PSKY to discuss the deficiencies that remain unresolved and clarify certain terms of PSKY’s proposed merger agreement,” it said.

Paramount leadership has repeatedly said its $30 per share, all-cash offer is not its “best and final.” Last week the company sweetened its offer with additional “enhancements,” but stopped short of raising the per-share value.

Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday that a senior Paramount representative informed a WBD board member that it would pay $31 per share if deal talks were to reopen.

After the limited waiver period, Netflix will retain its matching rights provided by the merger agreement, WBD said.

“Throughout the entire process, our sole focus has been on maximizing value and certainty for WBD shareholders,” said WBD CEO David Zaslav in a statement. “Every step of the way, we have provided PSKY with clear direction on the deficiencies in their offers and opportunities to address them. We are engaging with PSKY now to determine whether they can deliver an actionable, binding proposal that provides superior value and certainty for WBD shareholders through their best and final offer.”

WBD also on Tuesday announced a special meeting of shareholders will be held on March 20 and said its board continues to unanimously recommend the Netflix deal over Paramount’s offer.

Netflix said in a statement the shareholder meeting date marked an “important milestone for our transaction with WBD.”

“While we are confident that our transaction provides superior value and certainty, we recognize the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY’s antics,” Netflix said. “Accordingly, we granted WBD a narrow seven-day waiver of certain obligations under our merger agreement to allow them to engage with PSKY to fully and finally resolve this matter.”

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery were up about 3.5% Tuesday. Shares of Paramount were up about 6%.

Either proposed purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery assets comes with regulatory questions.

Media industry insiders and lawmakers have questioned whether Netflix’s proposed deal would win approval as it would bring together two of the top streaming services and could result in higher prices for consumers.

Netflix leadership has repeatedly said the company believes it would win regulatory approval for the deal because it would preserve jobs in a challenged media landscape rife with layoffs.

Paramount has sounded the alarm to WBD shareholders, however, and argues its offer is not only better but would more easily garner government support.

On the flipside, Paramount’s offer has raised questions of foreign funding and antitrust considerations in bringing together two large portfolios of pay TV channels and two major film studios.

Paramount’s deal is financed in part by sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Qatar. Paramount has said those entities have agreed to forgo any governance rights.

In its statement on Tuesday, Netflix called out the foreign funding, which it said it expects to come under scrutiny from international regulators, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Netflix said it also expects European authorities “to scrutinize the Middle Eastern investors in PSKY’s consortium and to be skeptical of claims that they are purely passive investors.”

Given Europe’s track record of antitrust enforcement, it’s possible regulatory battles for either deal would be won or lost in that market. Of course, the question still looms of how President Donald Trump will view either transaction. Trump recently said he hadn’t been involved in the process so far and didn’t plan to be, though he has reportedly met with executives from each camp.

Netflix’s statement on Tuesday “unsurprisingly points to a number of arguments Netflix believes it has in its favor,” according to an analyst note from Raymond James on Tuesday, “including better prospects for approval, a clearer national security picture, and financial security.”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed an amicus brief in federal court on Tuesday to assert the agency’s right to enforce prediction markets instead of individual states, according to its new chairman, Michael Selig.

Selig argued in a Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed that the CFTC has always had authority over prediction markets and determining whether the event contracts constitute gambling, as critics allege. Selig noted nearly 50 active legal cases against prediction markets and said the CFTC would be stepping in to prevent state encroachment.

“The CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency’s exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products,” he wrote.

The move comes as prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket face legal challenges in multiple states over event contracts. The platforms allow users to bet on the outcomes of events in pop culture, sports, entertainment and more.

Critics of prediction markets have argued that the offerings amount to little more than gambling, though Kalshi has defended its platform and argued that it abides by federal regulations. Sports betting on the prediction platforms has drawn comparisons to legalized sports betting in the U.S.

In his first public comments as CFTC chairman at the end of January, Selig said he was prepared to draft new, clear rules to govern prediction markets and revisit the agency’s rules on involvement in federal and circuit court cases.

“Where jurisdictional questions are at issue, the Commission has the expertise and responsibility to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives,” he said at the time.

In his Monday op-ed, Selig said event contracts “serve legitimate economic functions” and operate under CFTC rules as “swaps” rather than gambling. He also posited that trading on event contracts is beneficial for the market and for Americans at large.

“These exchanges aren’t the Wild West, as some critics claim, but self-regulatory organizations that are examined and supervised by experienced CFTC staff,” Selig wrote.

In a Tuesday video posted to X, Selig said his message to those who challenge the CFTC’s authority is clear: “We will see you in court.”

“Today, the CFTC is taking an important step to ensure that these markets have a place here in America and have the integrity and resilience and vibrancy that our derivative markets deserve,” he said.

Selig said the amicus brief would be filed in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Crypto.com in its dispute with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

CNBC could not verify that the amicus brief had been filed.

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes a CNBC minority investment.

DETROIT — Ford Motor‘s $5 billion “bet” on its next generation of all-electric vehicles will feature a budding technology that Tesla commercialized in the U.S. on its Cybertruck, the Detroit automaker said Tuesday.

The system, known as a 48-volt electrical architecture, had been discussed in the automotive industry for decades but Tesla was the first to bring it to consumers in 2023.

The auto industry has historically used a 12-volt system with a lead-acid battery for all vehicles to power the car’s accessories — but that’s been problematic and caused recalls for many EVs. The new architecture instead uses the EV’s high-voltage battery to power everything.

The 48-volt system improves efficiency, allows for additional electrical bandwidth and saves weight through the reduction of wiring, officials have said. The power also can be “stepped down” to 12 volts, when needed, through the use of new electronic control units, or ECUs, that handle different groups of an EV’s architecture.

The new electrical system is one of many innovations that Ford believes will allow its next-generation EVs — starting with a $30,000 small electric pickup truck in 2027 — to compete against Tesla as well as rapidly expanding Chinese brands in global markets.

“At Ford, we took on the challenge many others have stopped doing. We’re taking the fight to our competition, including the Chinese,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said during an August event at a plant in Kentucky that will produce the unnamed electric pickup. “For too long, legacy automakers played it safe.”

Farley has called it a “Model T moment” for the company, referring to the company’s flagship vehicle that came out more than a century ago and led to the mass adoption of vehicles during the early 1900s. He’s also called it a “bet” for Ford given the amount of changes it will make to the EVs as well as the company and its processes.

Ford expects the new EVs, which will be based on a common “Universal Electric Vehicle,” or UEV, to have comparable costs to gas-powered vehicles through new technologies and efficiencies. Currently, the massive batteries that power EVs have made them far more expensive to produce and have been infamously unprofitable.

The Detroit automaker has said the new EVs will reduce parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and 15% faster assembly time.

“It represents the most radical change on how we design and how we build vehicles at Ford since the Model T,” Farley said at the plant. “Now is time to change the game once again.”

Ford said those improvements, as well as price points that are more similar to gas-powered models, will lead to greater adoption of EVs. That’s despite a significant slowdown in U.S. EV sales amid changes to federal support by the Trump administration as well as less-than-expected consumer adoption.

U.S. EV sales peaked in September, ahead of the federal incentives ending, at 10.3% of the new vehicle market, according to Cox Automotive. That demand plummeted to preliminary estimates of 5.8% during the fourth quarter.

Those market conditions recently led Ford to announce $19.5 billion in write-downs, largely related to a pullback in EV plans, but the company said it will continue to invest $5 billion for its new UEV platform through 2027.

“Our focus has been on giving them everything they would get in a nice vehicle and more, and we think that that will allow us to ultimately not just make an affordable vehicle, but make one that’s extremely desirable,” Alan Clarke, Ford’s executive director of advanced EV development, said during a media briefing.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent competitors such as Ford and General Motors a “how-to” guide on developing a 48-volt system in 2023.

Clarke said Ford had already decided on a 48-volt platform before getting the letter but that it “certainly added fuel to the fire” and was a “helpful starting point to see how they thought about” it. It also helped suppliers get ready to assist with 48-volt systems, he added.

In addition to the 48-volt system, the company on Tuesday released additional details on how it’s achieving its targets with the new EV through aerodynamics, team “bounties” to increase vehicle efficiency and turning to Tesla-pioneered “gigacastings.”

Gigacasting is a manufacturing process that can replace dozens of traditionally small, stamped parts with larger pieces. The process requires massive machines to pressurize large sheets of metal into parts such as a vehicle’s facia or underlying structure.

Ford said the new pickup will only have two structural front and rear parts compared with 146 such components on its current gas-powered Maverick small pickup.

Ford also said its aluminum castings for the upcoming EV are more than 27% lighter than those features on a Tesla Model Y.

“We’re still on a really steep decline of EV costs, and you can only get that by innovating, and you can only get that by system level, optimizing into what eventually becomes a product that a customer wants,” Clarke said.