A technician gets cabling out of his truck to install Google Fiber.

George Frey | Reuters

Google said its fiber internet unit called GFiber is combining with Astound Broadband and forming an independent provider, with Google remaining as a minority shareholder.

The new company will be majority owned by investment firm Stonepeak and led by the existing GFiber executive team, “utilizing their expertise in high-speed fiber innovation to manage the combined network footprint,” Google said in a press release on Wednesday. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Google Fiber, launched in 2010, was an early effort by Google to build ultra-fast fiber-optic broadband networks in the U.S., starting with a gigabit-speed rollout in Kansas City in 2012. Google proposed building gigabit fiber connections to homes, far faster than typical U.S. internet speeds at the time.

Since then, some planned expansions were canceled and the company focused on select markets rather than a costly and time-intensive nationwide rollout.

The spinout comes at a time when demand is growing for high-capacity networks fueled by the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence services. The external capital will help the new entity expand across the country, the company said.

“This partnership with Astound and Stonepeak is the next step in our decade-long mission to redefine what customers can expect from their internet provider,” GFiber CEO Dinni Jain said in the release.

GFiber has been part of Google’s “Other Bets” segment, which includes non-core assets such as the Waymo robotaxi division and drug discovery business Isomorphic Labs. In 2025, the combined segment generated $1.54 billion in revenue, or less than 0.5% of Alphabet’s total sales, and recorded an operating loss of $16.8 billion.

The shift toward fiber infrastructure has become increasingly important as demand grows for networks that can support cloud computing, streaming and emerging AI services. U.S. tech giants are also rolling out a rapidly expanding network of transcontinental subsea cables, seeking to keep pace with growing bandwidth demand.

Astound is a major U.S. cable operator and broadband platform, which was acquired by Stonepeak in 2021 for $8.1 billion. Stonepeak specializes in infrastructure and real estate.

A Google spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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UAE National Security Advisor, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on March 18, 2025.

Courtesy: Donald J. Trump | Via Truth Social

A government official and top royal from the United Arab Emirates purchased a $500 million stake in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture last year, months before the Trump administration greenlit the sale of advanced AI chips to the UAE, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — also known as the “spy sheikh” — is the Gulf nation’s national security adviser and manager of its largest wealth fund. Aryam Investment, a Tahnoon-backed company, took a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, according to the Journal. The deal would make Aryam the largest shareholder of World Liberty, and the company’s only known investor besides the founders, the Journal reported.

World Liberty is behind the stablecoin USD1, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by short-term U.S. government treasuries, U.S. dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents.

The company counts President Donald Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff as co-founders emeritus, and is run by members of the Trump and Witkoff families.

The deal, according to the Journal, was signed by Eric Trump in the days before his father’s second inauguration as president. It came as Tahnoon was seeking access to advanced artificial intelligence chips from the U.S., which the Biden administration had blocked over concerns that the chips would end up in China.

According to the Journal, the agreement saw roughly $187 million flow to Trump family entities and $31 million to Witkoff family entities.

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In May, months after the deal between Tahnoon and World Liberty, the U.S. agreed to allow the UAE to purchase hundreds of thousands of advanced artificial intelligence chips from American chipmaker Nvidia. The agreement called for a fifth of the chips to go to Tahnoon’s own AI company, G42.

The Journal report has prompted new scrutiny of the Trump administration’s dealings with the UAE and Tahnoon, with some in Congress warning of potential conflicts of interest or corruption.

“This is corruption, plain and simple,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “The Trump Administration must reverse its decision to sell sensitive AI chips to the United Arab Emirates.”

Warren called on Witkoff, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to “testify in front of Congress on mounting evidence that they sold out American national security in order to benefit the President’s crypto company — and about whether any officials lined their own pockets in the process.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Journal that “[t]here are no conflicts of interest.” She added that Witkoff is working to “advance President Trump’s goals of peace around the world.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also defended the president on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

“I love it when these papers talk about something being unprecedented or never happening before as if the Biden family and the Biden administration didn’t do exactly the same thing, and they were just in office,” Blanche said, without providing evidence.

Republicans and Trump have long accused the Biden family of corruption over the former President Joe Biden’s family’s business dealings abroad. Though an impeachment inquiry was launched in the House over the matter, evidence of wrongdoing by Biden never materialized.

“I don’t have a comment on it beyond President Trump has been completely transparent when his family travels for business reasons,” Blanche said. “This idea that there’s something untoward or unprecedented is just a repeated story that isn’t true.”

Read the complete Wall Street Journal story here.

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Signage is displayed outside the Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. headquarters in Cockeysville, Maryland, U.S.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Sinclair disclosed a stake in fellow broadcast station owner E.W. Scripps on Monday, in a move to push toward a merger of the companies.

Sinclair, which acquired a roughly 8% position in Scripps per the filing, recently launched a strategic review of its own business that could result in a tie-up. Scripps, for its part, has seen its struggles mount in the competitive industry and is among the smallest of its peers.

In the filing, Sinclair said it has been engaged in “constructive” discussions regarding a deal and believes that, if it were to reach an agreement, a transaction could be completed within nine to 12 months.

Sinclair said in the filing that based on trading multiples, there would be an expected $300 million in synergies if a merger were to take place.

Scripps’ stock rose 40% on Monday while Sinclair’s stock gained almost 5%.

Sinclair, which acquired the stake for about $15.6 million, declined to comment beyond the SEC filing.

In a statement on Monday, Scripps said its board “will take all steps appropriate to protect the company and the company’s shareholders from the opportunistic actions of Sinclair or anyone else.”

“Scripps’ board of directors and management are focused on driving value for all of the company’s shareholders through the continued execution of its strategic plan,” the company said in its statement. “The board and management are aligned on doing only what is in the best interest of all of the company’s shareholders as well as its employees and the many communities and audiences it serves across the United States.”

The statement added that the board continues to evaluate “any transactions and other alternatives that would enhance the value of the company and would be in the best interest of all company shareholders.”

Broadcast TV station group owners have suffered like the rest of media companies in recent years due to the shift away from the traditional pay-TV bundles and toward streaming. These broadcast stations, for the most part, make the majority of their money from so-called retransmission fees, which are paid on a per-subscriber rate by traditional TV distributors.

Broadcast station owners like Sinclair have been eager to do mergers as they push for deregulation under the Trump administration.

In August, Nexstar Media Group, the biggest owner of these stations, agreed to acquire Tegna for $3.54 billion.

Sinclair, meanwhile, is also considering spinning off or splitting its ventures unit, which includes pay-TV network The Tennis Channel and marketing technology business Compulse, which was recently rebranded to Digital Remedy.

Sinclair and its advisors held discussions with potential merger partners earlier this year, CNBC previously reported.

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Owner Jeanie Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers and Jay Mohr prior to game one of a first round NBA basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Saturday, April 19, 2025.

Keith Birmingham | MediaNews Group | Pasadena Star-News | Getty Images

The Buss family has agreed to sell a majority stake of the Los Angeles Lakers to businessman Mark Walter in a deal that values the team at $10 billion, according to people with knowledge of the terms.

The sale would mark a new record for NBA valuations. The Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers play, is owned by AEG and is not included in the deal.

CNBC’s most recent Official NBA Team Valuations ranked the Lakers as third in the league in terms of value, at $7 billion.

“Mark Walter is entering into an agreement to acquire additional interests in the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, which he has been a stakeholder since 2021,” a representative for Walter said in a statement to CNBC.

The Lakers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As part of the deal, Jeanie Buss will retain a minority stake in the team she has owned since her family purchased the franchise in 1979 for $67.5 million. She will also retain her governor seat.

Walter is CEO and co-founder of Guggenheim Partners and is not new to sports ownership. He is also the majority owner of MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, WNBA’s Sparks and Cadillac’s forthcoming Formula 1 team. He also owns the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Former Lakers legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who is also a business partner of Walter’s, praised the transaction in a post on X.

“Job well done to my sister Jeanie Buss for striking an incredible deal and picking the right person to carry on the Lakers legacy and tradition of winning,” Johnson said. “Mark Walter is the best choice and will be the best caretaker of the Laker brand.”

NBA valuations have skyrocketed since the league completed its most recent media rights agreement, valued at $77 billion over 11 years.

In March, the Boston Celtics sold for a then-record of $6.1 billion to private equity executive Bill Chisholm.

The Celtics and Lakers are arguably two of the most marquee franchises in the NBA.

In February, the Lakers acquired Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic to team up with LeBron James.

The Lakers finished the 2025 season as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference with a 50-32 record.

The Lakers have won 11 NBA titles since the Buss family took over, the most of any NBA franchise during that period.

— CNBC’s Michael Ozanian contributed to this report.

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