Paramount Streaming Revenue Rises, but TV Segment Faces Headwinds
Media company is pursuing a high-stakes bid for rival Warner Bros. Discovery
- Paramount reported fourth-quarter revenue of $8.15 billion, with direct-to-consumer revenue up 10% and TV media revenue down 5%.
- The company recently revised its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery to $31 a share.
- Paramount expects direct-to-consumer profitability in 2026 and is on track to achieve $3 billion in cost savings in coming years.
Paramount’s PSKY -2.21%decrease; red down pointing triangle streaming revenue grew in the fourth quarter, but the company—which is pursuing a bid for rival media company Warner Bros. Discovery—reported weakness in its TV media segment.
Paramount, whose assets include CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and its namesake studio, earlier this week revised its bid for Warner, now offering $31 a share.
In a letter to shareholders Wednesday, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison said that the company views Warner as “an accelerant” to achieving its goals more quickly.
Paramount reported revenue of $8.15 billion for its fourth quarter, in line with analyst estimates.
Revenue for the direct-to-consumer segment, which includes the Paramount+ streaming service, was $2.2 billion, up 10% from the year-ago period, the company said. Paramount+ ended the quarter with 78.9 million subscribers; analysts polled by FactSet expected it to have 80.2 million subscribers at the end of the period.
TV media revenue declined by 5% year-over-year to $4.71 billion. Paramount said it expects to see continued headwinds to affiliate revenue, driven by declines in pay-TV subscribers.
Paramount’s shares were up less than 1% in after-hours trading.
The company forecast total first-quarter revenue between $7.15 billion and $7.35 billion and said it expects to grow direct-to-consumer profitability in 2026 and have stable margins in its TV media segment.
In November, Paramount raised its cost-cutting target to at least $3 billion, up from $2 billion. The company said Wednesday that it was on track to achieve its savings targets through 2027.
Earlier this week, Warner said it had received a revised offer from Paramount to buy the entire company for $31 a share and said its board of directors determined Paramount’s revised bid “could reasonably be expected to lead” to a proposal superior to Netflix’s signed agreement to buy Warner’s studios and HBO Max streaming service.
Paramount closed its $8 billion merger with Skydance in August. The deal was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in July, shortly after Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit by President Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Salesforce Sees Stable Growth Despite Wall Street’s AI Concerns
The company expects annual revenue of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion in the new fiscal year
- Salesforce expects current fiscal year revenue growth to match about the same rate as it did the year before, amid investor concerns about AI’s threat to software.
- The company reported a profit of $1.87 billion and revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter ended Jan. 31.
- Annual recurring revenue from Salesforce’s AI product Agentforce reached $800 million in the quarter, up from $540 million the quarter before.
Salesforce CRM 3.41%increase; green up pointing triangle expects revenue to grow in the current fiscal year at about the same rate as it did the year before, as investors worry about AI’s threat to software.
Chief Executive Marc Benioff told investors on a call Wednesday he wasn’t fazed by the selloff across software companies in recent weeks, which was driven by concerns that AI companies would replace software services. He said the stock’s price—which hit a three-year low earlier this month—created the opportunity to authorize a $50 billion share buyback.
“This is not our first SaaS-pocalypse,” Benioff said, referring to software-as-a-service. “We are going to make it through this one as well, so this is a great marketing opportunity and a great buying opportunity.”
The new buyback will replace all previously unused authorizations, Salesforce said.
In the new fiscal year, Salesforce expects annual revenue to be $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion, while analysts were projecting $46.11 billion. The company expects adjusted earnings per share to be $13.11 to $13.19, while the consensus estimate from Wall Street was $13.15.
At the midpoint, the full-year revenue guidance would represent roughly 10% growth, in line with the 10% sales increase Salesforce logged in the just-ended fiscal year.
The stock fell 5% to $181.25 in after-hours trading.
Benioff highlighted the growth of Salesforce’s AI product Agentforce, which made its debut in the fall of 2024. He said more companies, including SharkNinja and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, are adding agents at a rapid pace and turning to Agentforce to do that work for them.
Agentforce reached $800 million in the quarter, up from $540 million the quarter before. Salesforce said it closed 29,000 deals during the quarter, a 50% jump from the third quarter. Agentforce made its debut in the fall of 2024.
“If there is a SaaS-pocalypse, it may be eaten by the SaaS-quatch because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got better with agents-as-a-service,” Benioff said.
Even before February’s software selloff, investors have been questioning Salesforce’s ability to stay relevant in the age of AI. Agentforce has been growing, but some investors worry it isn’t catching on fast enough. Despite consistently beating estimates with its financial results last year, Salesforce shares have lost 38% of their value in the past 12 months.
Revenue rose 12% to $11.20 billion in the fourth quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast revenue of $11.19 billion.
Salesforce posted a profit of $1.87 billion, or $2.07 a share, compared with $1.82 billion, or $1.75 a share, a year earlier. Adjusted per-share earnings were $3.81, ahead of the $3.05 anticipated by analysts, according to FactSet.
In the current quarter, Salesforce anticipates revenue of $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion, ahead of the $11.0 billion analysts expected. Adjusted earnings per share are set to be $3.11 to $3.13, also ahead of Street estimates of $3.01.
Nvidia Beats Back Bubble Fears With Record $68 Billion in Sales in Fourth Quarter
‘Computing has changed,’ CEO Jensen Huang says, citing agentic AI as driver of 94% profit surge
- Nvidia reported a 94% profit increase to $43 billion and 73% sales growth to $68.1 billion in Q4, beating estimates.
- Data center hardware accounted for 91.4% of Nvidia’s Q4 sales, totaling $62.3 billion, with gross margins at 75%.
- Nvidia expects $78 billion in revenue for the current quarter, exceeding analyst predictions of $72.9 billion.
Nvidia NVDA 1.41%increase; green up pointing triangle reported a 94% increase in profit and record sales for the fourth quarter, helping ease concerns over a possible artificial-intelligence bubble that rippled through markets in recent months.
The chip maker reported net income of $43 billion, up from $22.1 billion in the year-earlier quarter, on sales of $68.1 billion, up 73% from $39.3 billion a year earlier, easily beating consensus estimates.
Analysts polled by FactSet had predicted net income of $37.5 billion and revenue of $66.1 billion for the quarter.
Data center hardware—the chips and networking equipment that Nvidia sells to AI and cloud-computing companies—accounted for 91.4% of the quarter’s sales, or $62.3 billion, and the segment’s revenue grew slightly faster than the company’s overall sales.
“The simple way to think about it is, computing has changed,” Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said on Wednesday’s earnings call with investors. “In this new world of AI, compute equals revenues…I am certain at this point that we’ve reached the inflection point” where agentic AI is upending how business is done worldwide and selling AI tools is starting to generate real profits.
With each passing quarter, the pressure grows on Nvidia—which at a market value of nearly $5 trillion is the world’s largest publicly traded company—to beat Wall Street’s expectations.
“It’s no longer enough for Nvidia to produce good quarterly results,” said Daniel Newman, chief executive of tech research and advisory firm Futurum Group. “They have to produce perfect quarterly results.”
Nvidia’s gross margins, which have been rising steadily for the past year, hit 75% in the January quarter, up from 73% a year earlier, in line with analysts’ predictions.
In recent months, investors have sent tech stocks on a wild ride as worries about the AI trade have risen, then subsided, only to resurface. Nvidia’s share price fell as low as $170.94 in mid-December but has recovered to over $196.
The biggest buyers of Nvidia’s chips include ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Oracle, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Google parent Alphabet and Amazon.com. In recent months, investors have grown concerned over OpenAI’s fundraising abilities and rising competition from other chip designers, including Google and makers of custom chips.
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s deal, announced in September, to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, was on ice. Instead, Nvidia has said it will participate in OpenAI’s latest funding round, making a smaller investment that people briefed on the situation said is in the range of $30 billion.
“They’re exposed to a subset of companies with fragile balance sheets,” Newman said.
A factor that will likely shape Nvidia’s fortunes will be the transition from AI-model training to inference, the process by which AI tools respond to queries. Training and inference require different types of computing, and as a result, different hardware.
Nvidia has for years dominated the training market with its graphics processors, known as GPUs—powerful chips capable of performing billions of simple tasks simultaneously. As more tech companies deploy AI tools in the real world, demand is expected to shift from training to inference, which relies more heavily on central processing units, or CPUs, a simpler type of data-center chip that more companies are capable of designing.
Last week, Nvidia announced a partnership with Meta that included its first major deployment of CPUs that aren’t connected in servers to GPUs, a sign that customers such as Meta need more inference-computing infrastructure to run their AI tools and other applications.
“It’s important to understand that inference equals revenues for our customers now,” Huang said. “As AI agents come into wider use, being able to quickly generate the computing tokens needed to operate them, customers have realized that their capital spending on Nvidia’s products leads to faster growth.”
In an interview following the earnings release, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said that Nvidia wasn’t worried about competition from custom-chip designers because the company’s latest generation of servers, known as Grace Blackwell, provides the most efficient inference computing power on the market.
“It doesn’t surprise us that others want to take a part of the great market that we’re a big part of,” Kress said. “It sounds like a good idea, but right now we’re the king of inference. That’s what we are: the king of inference.”
One factor that isn’t yet driving meaningful revenue growth for Nvidia is the Trump administration’s relaxation of restrictions on selling the company’s H200 chips in China.
Although small quantities of H200 sales have been approved, “we have yet to generate any revenue and we do not know whether any imports will be allowed into China,” Kress said on the earnings call. The company warned that homegrown Chinese chip designers are catching up and could disrupt the global AI landscape if Nvidia was prevented from bringing Chinese developers onto its computing platform.
Nvidia said Wednesday that it expected $78 billion in revenue in the current quarter, significantly higher than the $72.9 billion predicted by analysts, and gross margins of 75%, slightly higher than Wall Street’s prediction. The better-than-expected revenue and rosy guidance nudged Nvidia’s stock up less than 1% in after hours trading, to $198.39.
Nvidia faces potential headwinds if it becomes more difficult for important customers such as OpenAI to obtain financing, or if competitors that specialize in custom AI chips gain market share, said Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist for Zacks Investment Management, which owns about $300 million worth of Nvidia stock across multiple funds.
But even if demand shifts, he expects minimal impact on Nvidia’s margins in the short term because of how the company has developed best-in-class products for multiple computing categories.
“At the end of the day, they’re still the most in-demand piece of hardware in the AI market, regardless of what side of it you’re on,” Mulberry said.
Corrections & Amplifications
Nvidia reported net income of $43 billion, up 94% from $22.1 billion in the year earlier quarter, on sales of $68.1 billion, up 73% from $39.3 billion a year earlier. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said net income had risen 35% from the year-earlier quarter and that sales had risen 20%. (Corrected on Feb. 25)
BlueScope Says $11 Billion Steel Dynamics, SGH Takeover Offer Insufficient
BlueScope Chair Jane McAloon says the board is open to further engagement
- BlueScope Steel said a revised US$11 billion takeover offer from Steel Dynamics and SGH isn’t sufficient, but is open to further talks.
- BlueScope cited insufficient value and onerous conditions as reasons for not recommending the proposal to shareholders.
- The offer structure involves SGH acquiring BlueScope’s assets and selling North American businesses to Steel Dynamics.
BlueScope BSL -2.64%decrease; red down pointing triangle Steel said a revised takeover offer from U.S. steelmaker Steel Dynamics STLD 0.35%increase; green up pointing triangle and Australian conglomerate SGH isn’t sufficient for directors to recommend a deal to shareholders, but that it is open to talks if the companies are able to address some of its concerns.
Last week, Steel Dynamics and SGH submitted a sweetened offer for Australia’s BlueScope that values its equity at roughly US$11 billion, and said they wouldn’t raise it again unless a rival bidder emerges.
The proposal intensified a takeover campaign by Indiana-based Steel Dynamics, which has been involved in five bids for BlueScope since late 2024. BlueScope owns a steel mill in Delta, Ohio, which Steel Dynamics covets at a time when demand for locally produced steel in the U.S. is being stoked by tariffs on imports.
Under the offer, SGH would acquire all of BlueScope’s assets and then sell the North American businesses to Steel Dynamics.
“The revised proposal does not adequately address our valuation concerns,” BlueScope Chair Jane McAloon said in a letter addressed to the chief executives of Steel Dynamics and SGH on Thursday. “Consequently, the offer price is not sufficient for the board to recommend a scheme of arrangement to its shareholders.”
She said the board is open to further engagement, including providing some due diligence information, if Steel Dynamics and SGH address several issues. That includes, “importantly, increasing the value of your proposal for all BlueScope shareholders,” she said.
In the letter, McAloon questioned the structure of the offer price and how the suitors value BlueScope’s North America business versus its operations elsewhere.
She also raised concerns about conditions attached to the revised proposal that she described as onerous—including exclusivity—and asked for more information about how the takeover would be funded.
“Notwithstanding your ‘best and final’ statement, we consider that there are various ways to increase the value that BlueScope shareholders could receive,” she said. BlueScope remains open to finding a deal, McAloon said.
Spokespeople for Steel Dynamics and SGH declined to comment. Shares in BlueScope were roughly 3.5% lower by early afternoon in Sydney.
The companies submitted a roughly US$8.8 billion takeover offer for BlueScope in December that was rejected by BlueScope directors last month.
Last week, they made a revised offer under which BlueScope shareholders would receive 32.35 Australian dollars, equivalent to about US$22.84, per share in cash. The offer equates to A$34.00 a share before payment of an interim and special dividend recently announced by BlueScope. It represents a total equity value of A$15 billion.
Since rejecting the pair’s earlier bid, BlueScope’s chief executive has outlined plans to make cost savings and boost shareholder returns. The company recently reported a more than doubling in first-half net profit and said it would increase dividend payments.
BlueScope owns the North Star steel mill in Ohio, which it said in 2024 accounted for roughly 4% of U.S. production of hot-rolled coil. The company has significantly expanded the operation since Trump imposed a 25% tariff on foreign-made steel in 2018. That tariff was doubled to 50% last year.
Steel Dynamics and SGH previously said that BlueScope’s North American operations aren’t strategically compatible with its other businesses “and would benefit as stand-alone businesses under new ownership.”
SGH would retain BlueScope’s operations outside of North America, including its Australian steel products, Asia coated products, and New Zealand and Pacific Islands businesses. That includes Australia’s largest steelworks, located south of Sydney.
McAloon said she has twice requested details on how the companies are valuing the North American operations, but hasn’t been provided that information.
“It is evident that an on-sale price has been agreed,” she said. “It is important for the board to understand this value attribution.”
In late 2024, BlueScope rebuffed two separate proposals made jointly by Steel Dynamics and Alan Kestenbaum’s Bedrock Industries.
Last year, Steel Dynamics proposed buying all of BlueScope. It intended to keep the North American operations and distribute the other assets to BlueScope shareholders—a proposal that BlueScope directors also rejected.
The Sickest Burns on the Internet Right Now Are Coming From French Bureaucrats
The country’s politicians have spent centuries mastering the art of saying nothing. That all changed in September.
PARIS—When French authorities raided X’s offices over alleged distribution of child sexual-abuse material, owner Elon Musk took to his account to call it “a political attack.”
Two hours later, French diplomats shot back on X, referencing Jeffrey Epstein: “Maybe that logic flies on some island. Doesn’t fly in France.”
Some of the sickest burns on the internet right now are coming out of the French Foreign Ministry.
For centuries, French has been the measured and mellifluous language of international diplomacy. Politicians here have so mastered the art of saying nothing that the technique has its own name: la langue de bois, or wood tongue.
But now a cadre of bureaucrats in Paris’s gilded Quai d’Orsay are ditching their carefully worded communiqués in favor of a stream of real-time X posts that mix self-mockery and sarcasm…in English.
Their X account is called French Response, and it was started in September as part of a broader French strategy to adopt a more combative tone. The goal: better defend the country in a multifront meme war.
Initially, French Response targeted its trolling largely at Russia, which French officials have long accused of deploying social media as a weapon to tear at France’s social fabric. But as trans-Atlantic tensions with the U.S. mounted over topics like tech regulation and President Trump’s desire to own Greenland, the account increasingly directed broadsides at Trump administration officials and MAGA allies.
“Breaking: Statue of Liberty reportedly spotted swimming back across the Atlantic. Said she ‘preferred the original terms and conditions,’” French Response replied in January to a pro-Trump account on X that had said France could be conquered “as an after thought” following a U.S. takeover of Greenland and Canada.
“#MakeAmericaGoodAgain please,” read another post from last month, with a picture of Abraham Lincoln.
On a Friday in late February when Sarah Rogers, U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy, posted on X that the U.S. “will continue to watch” a case in France where a far-right activist was allegedly killed by people with ties to far-left groups, French Response replied with statistics suggesting the U.S.’s homicide rate is several times higher than France’s. “We will continue to watch this case,” French Response wrote.
The account has gotten widespread attention, in part for mixing its attacks with a soupçon of self-deprecation.
When Fox News host Laura Ingraham criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for urging a riposte to U.S. threats to take Greenland, French Response wrote, “Colonialism doesn’t work—trust us,” evoking France’s own checkered colonial past.
French Response grants itself no diplomatic immunity for stereotypes, either.
When a Russian commentator accused “panicked EU bureaucrats” of attacking X, the account reposted a meme video of two Italian DJs nonchalantly spinning 1990s-inflected electro while smoking cigarettes and drinking Campari on a sunny balcony.
“The French often have a reputation for being arrogant, particularly in diplomacy,” said François Heisbourg, a former senior French diplomat, who described the shift as clever. “This isn’t the house style.”
France has a history of political witticisms, or bons mots—literally “good words,” said Julien Nocetti, a research fellow at the French Institute of International Relations. This tradition, which emerged in the Parisian literary salons of the 17th and 18th centuries, is defined as the art of the witty remark.
“O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous,” Voltaire, the 18th-century French enlightenment philosopher, himself known for his bons mots, once wrote, adding: “God granted my prayer.”
The more recent inspiration for the account came from French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. He decided France had to do a better job breaking through on social media when it came under criticism.
Responding to online attacks with a press release was, as a person close to France’s foreign ministry put it, “a bit like showing up to drinks with friends in a tuxedo.” Pascal Confavreux, a ministry spokesman, phrased it more diplomatically: “We use irony and humor to deliver a punch and create deterrence by exposing the absurdity of the claims made by those who attack us.”
Political voices from the U.S. to Europe have been injecting more humor and derision into their public messaging, an approach that some research suggests is more powerful.
“News is given with a frank posture, tinged with humor, derision, sometimes self-deprecation, which leads to virality on social networks, and increases the impact of our message,” Barrot said in a January speech to French diplomats where he urged them to adopt the French Response tone.
Nicolas Normand, a former French ambassador to several African nations, said the new initiative is still dwarfed by the waves of false and damaging online claims targeting France.
“It’s a drop in the ocean,” he said.
The team running the account comprises career diplomats, former journalists and online community managers who already worked at Quai’s press directorate. France’s foreign ministry declined to make them available for an interview, citing a risk of online harassment.
Marie-Doha Besancenot, a communications adviser in Barrot’s cabinet who previously led public diplomacy at NATO, plays a role supervising the account.
Musk, who has regularly attacked European regulations on social-media companies and investigations into X, is a frequent target. French Response has replied or quote-tweeted over a dozen Musk posts since late September.
In January, the billionaire retweeted an X post with stats showing U.K. prosecutions of social-media users and asked, “Why is the UK government so fascist?” French Response came to Britain’s defense with a viral photograph of Musk at a 2024 post-election rally.
That post, on Jan. 11, is French Response’s most viewed, with 8.3 million views. It helped propel the account from roughly 12,000 followers to more than 185,000 today. The foreign ministry says the account now receives roughly 35 million views a month.
Engie to buy UK’s biggest electricity distribution company in £10.5bn deal
French utility to purchase UK Power Networks from Hong Kong’s CK Infrastructure Holdings
Engie has agreed to buy UK Power Networks, Britain’s biggest electricity distribution company, for £10.5bn, as the French utility expands its role in supplying power to households and businesses.
Engie said late on Wednesday it was purchasing UK Power Networks from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Infrastructure Holdings.
The French utility — which counts the French state as a 23 per cent shareholder — has invested in renewable power generation in recent years in continental Europe, the UK and elsewhere alongside its gas production and trading.
Engie has also sought to shift more into operating power supply networks, which offer a predictable stream of revenues set by regulators and serve to smooth the utility’s earnings.
UK Power Networks is one of five monopoly power distribution networks in Britain, deriving its revenues from a portion of customer bills.
The company is the largest electricity distribution company in the UK by number of customers, serving 8.5mn households and businesses across London and the south-east of England.
The deal has an equity value of £10.5bn. Engie said it would finance the acquisition through €4bn of asset sales, new debt and a €3bn capital raising.
Engie chief executive Catherine MacGregor said Britain would become the group’s second-largest contributor of operating profit after France.
She pointed to the UK’s “clear decarbonisation and electrification strategy, which goes hand in hand with considerable investment needs in networks and energy infrastructure”.
The UK has a target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is propelling huge investment in the country’s power networks — so they can cope with higher demand for electricity from households and businesses as part of the pivot away from fossil fuels.
Engie said the deal to buy UK Power Networks was expected to close in mid-2026.
The utility also raised its 2026 profit targets, saying it expected net income of between €4.6bn and €5.2bn this year, up from a previous range of €4.2bn to €4.8bn, due to the acquisition.
In 2022, a plan by CK Infrastructure Holdings to sell UK Power Networks to a consortium involving KKR and Macquarie collapsed after a last-minute price increase by the owner.
Iran to offer ‘commercial bonanza’ to US companies
Tehran is seeking to tempt Donald Trump with investments in its oil and gas reserves as it seeks to stave off an attack
Iran is aiming to tempt Donald Trump with financial incentives, including investments in its vast oil and gas reserves, as part of efforts to convince the US president to agree a deal on its nuclear programme and avoid war.
One person familiar with the matter described the prospect of a “commercial bonanza”, with Tehran seeking to appeal to Trump’s penchant for deals promising a financial dividend for the US.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi will hold another round of indirect talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Geneva on Thursday.
A senior US official said no commercial offer had yet been made to the US. “This was never discussed. President Trump has been clear that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon or the capacity to build one,” the official said.
The prospect of investment opportunities was “specifically directed at Trump, a major economic bonanza in oil and gas and mining rights, critical minerals and all of that”, the person familiar with the matter said.
A second person said there had been discussions on Iran offering US investments in gas and oil but said the proposal had not been formally presented to Washington.
“[Iran is] looking at Venezuela as a case study,” the person said, referring to Trump’s push for US companies to get oil deals in the Latin American country after the US seized Nicolás Maduro last month.
The idea forms part of Iran’s efforts to convince Washington it is serious about a deal and stave off US strikes as it faces mounting pressure from Trump.
It also comes as Iranian officials have threatened to escalate any conflict with the US in the wake of an American attack, indicating they will reconsider their previous doctrine of limiting retaliation.
Trump, who has assembled the biggest military build-up in the Middle East since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, warned Tehran last week it had a “maximum” 15 days to reach a deal or “bad things will happen”.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump condemned what he called Iran’s “sinister” nuclear ambitions and accused Tehran of “working to build missiles that will soon reach” the US.
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” he said. “But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are . . . to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”
Iran insists its programme is for civilian purposes, but it was enriching uranium close to weapons grade levels before the US and Israel bombed its nuclear facilities last year.
The people briefed on the talks said Iran was also discussing the possibility of a multinational verification mechanism for its nuclear programme, which could involve a US team or a third country representing it, alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog.
Araghchi said on Tuesday that Iran “will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon” and would seek a “fair and equitable deal — in the shortest possible time”.
“We have a historic opportunity to strike an unprecedented agreement that addresses mutual concerns and achieves mutual interests,” Araghchi said on X. “A deal is within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei declined to provide details about what Tehran was offering but cited opinion pieces by Araghchi about potential economic co-operation with the US.
“In those articles, Araghchi talks about oil, gas and energy, where we have advantages and need modern technology, and where there is strong capacity,” Baghaei told the FT.
Iran ranked as the planet’s third-largest oil and second-largest gas reserve holder in 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration. It shares the world’s largest natural gasfield with Qatar.
Hamid Ghanbari, a deputy foreign minister, told Iranian businessmen this month that “common interests in the fields of oil and gas, including joint fields [with neighbouring countries], as well as investments in mining and even the purchase of civilian aircraft, have been included in the talks with the US”.
Ghanbari said that unlike with the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran signed with the Obama administration and other world powers, it was “necessary for the US to benefit from sectors that offer high and quick returns” to secure a “sustainable agreement”.
Iran briefly opened up to foreign investment after that deal took effect, with Boeing signing a $20bn deal to supply aircraft to Iran Air.
But it collapsed before any aircraft were delivered after Trump abandoned the nuclear accord in 2018 and imposed waves of severe sanctions that cut Iran off from the global financial system and prevented foreign investment.
As part of any new nuclear deal, Iran would want sanctions relief. Ghanbari said Tehran would expect the US to unfreeze its oil money held overseas, amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
The Trump administration and Iran have held two rounds of indirect talks this month, the first since the US briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran last June. They had held five rounds of negotiations before that conflict.
A longstanding barrier to progress has been whether Iran can keep its ability to enrich uranium. The US has been insisting that Tehran permanently end its capacity to enrich.
Iran has rejected the condition, saying it is its right as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. Caving to the demand is considered a red line for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.
Regional officials, including Turkey’s top diplomat, have told the FT that the Trump administration had signalled it might be flexible, suggesting Iran could be allowed to enrich to token levels if a deal was agreed. Trump administration officials have disputed this.
Araghchi told MSNBC last week that Washington had not asked Tehran to permanently suspend enrichment.
“We have not offered any suspension, and the US side has not asked for zero enrichment,” he said. But Witkoff, Trump’s lead negotiator, said at the weekend that the president’s “red lines” included “zero enrichment” and said Iran would have to hand over its enriched uranium stockpile.
Salesforce chief dismisses ‘SaaS-pocalypse’ fears of AI overtaking business software
Shares in company that sells software as a service fall after it projects revenue below Wall Street’s expectations
Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff has dismissed concerns of a “SaaS-pocalypse” hitting business software even as the group posted a weak revenue forecast amid investor fears that AI will disrupt its business.
The group on Wednesday said its full-year revenue would come in between $45.8bn and $46.2bn, undershooting analysts’ estimates of $46.1bn, according to S&P Visible Alpha.
Salesforce, which sells software as a service (SaaS) to track customer relationships, has faced pressure from investors during a market rout spurred by the risk that AI start-ups such as Anthropic pose to software companies.
The group has been pitching its “agentic” AI tool Agentforce that can take actions on behalf of clients, including handling customer service.
“If there is a ‘SaaS-pocalypse’, it may be eaten by the ‘SaaS-quatch’ because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got better with agents,” Benioff told investors.
“Anthropic runs its whole operation on Salesforce and Slack. I think every AI company does,” he added.
The San Francisco-based company’s shares are down about 27 per cent this year alongside competitors such as Intuit, Workday and ServiceNow. They dropped a further 5 per cent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The soft guidance accompanied mixed fourth-quarter earnings, with Salesforce reporting revenue increased 12 per cent to $11.2bn in the three months ended January 31, in line with expectations. Operating profits of $1.9bn fell shy of the $2.1bn analysts estimated.
Agentforce and Data 360, the company’s AI products, generated annual recurring revenues of $2.9bn, up from $1.4bn in the previous quarter. This included $1.1bn from cloud data business Informatica, which it acquired for $8bn in late 2025.
Salesforce is also wrestling with the pricing model that will underpin its future AI services, having traditionally focused on a “per-seat” licensing approach.
Benioff has insisted that pricing based on the number of users offers customers predictability. This contrasts with a move towards a consumption-based model adopted by some AI start-ups — or an outcome-based approach promoted by Sierra, a rival start-up set up by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.
Salesforce on Wednesday boosted its dividend and announced a new $50bn share buyback programme after repurchasing $23bn last year.
Benioff — long a supporter of progressive causes — has come under fire from Salesforce employees after making a series of remarks regarding immigration and law enforcement.
He invited employees who had flown into Las Vegas from overseas this month for a company event to stand up before noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were present and monitoring them.
The remarks came several months after the billionaire invited US President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard in San Francisco to curb crime and public drug use. He later apologised for the remarks.
His recent comments have led to significant employee pushback, including from senior executives such as Rob Seaman, general manager of subsidiary Slack.
In a message to employees, Seaman wrote he “cannot defend or explain” Benioff’s remarks. “They do not align with my personal values and I know this to be the case for many of you as well.”
Senior figures have left Salesforce in recent months, including Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who joined OpenAI as chief revenue officer.
After Hours Summary: NVDA -0.7% initially traded higher then ticked lower during call; NTNX +15.1% on AMD investment and earnings; SEZL +15.7%, VAC +12.1% higher on earnings; AI -22.4%, TTD -16.2% lower on earnings
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: IBTA +20.2%, SEZL +15.7%, NTNX +15.1% (also partnership with AMD to jointly develop AI infrastructure platform, includes AMD making a $150 mln investment in NTNX stock), VAC +12.1%, ARQT +10.1% (also files mixed shelf offering; also files for common stock offering by selling shareholders), MRVI +9.2%, CHYM +8.4%, STRL +7.7%, ROOT +7.2%, IONQ +7.1%, XZO +6.7% (also new strategic partnership with Tokio Marine Highland), LXU +6%, NPKI +5.6%, IMAX +5.4%, MEG +4.8%, INVA +4.8%, ECPG +4.2%, LB +4% (also increases dividend; also authorizes new $50 mln share repurchase program), VCYT +3.6%, TASK +3%, MIAX +2.3%, CBZ +2.1%, PSTG +2%, PR +1.6% (also increases dividend), APA +1.4%, SKYT +1.3%, JOBY +1.2%, ACAD +1.1%, KNTK +1.1%, ADMA +0.8%, TCOM +0.8%, URBN +0.8%, SLNO +0.7%, PSKY +0.5%, MYRG +0.4%, MGNI +0.2% (also authorizes new $200 mln share repurchase program), WTRG +0.2%, KW +0.1%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: TASK +3% (CFO to step down; also declares special dividend of $3.65/sh; also announces refinancing commitments), BWIN +2.7% (collaboration with Fairway Mortgage), BNC +2.1% (issues letter to shareholders), XYL +1.7% (authorizes new $1.5 bln share repurchase program), MRK +1.4% (FDA approves NUMELVI for Dogs), TPB +1.2% (increases dividend), TMO +0.7% (increases dividend), PACB +0.6% (files mixed securities shelf offering), FICO +0.5% (authorizes new $1.5 bln share repurchase program), ABG +0.4% (authorizes $424 mln increase to share repurchase program), PFG +0.3% (files mixed securities shelf offering)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PRCT -27.3%, ARRY -22.8%, AI -22.4%, ERII -20.2%, TTD -16.2% (also increases share repurchase authorization by $350 mln), CHE -12.6%, ZIP -11.2%, GDRX -11%, FTAI -9.2% (also increases dividend), EE -9.1%, RDW -8.8%, ALKT -8.4%, BBSI -7.9%, HEI -6.3%, UHS -6%, NU -5.4%, ORA -5.3%, ENVX -5% (also authorizes new $75 mln share repurchase program), CRM -4.4% (also authorizes new $50 bln share repurchase program; increases dividend), MIRM -4.4%, SNPS -4.4% (also increases share repurchase authorization to $2 bln), FSK -4.3%, HNST -4.3% (also $25 mln inaugural share repurchase authorization), NGVT -4.2%, NRDS -3.9%, ZM -3.9%, SARO -3.3%, HTO -3.2%, A -3.1%, SRPT -3.1%, MDXG -3%, SM -2.7%, TTI -2.7%, SNOW -2.6%, METC -2.4%, PTGX -2.4%, RVMD -2.2%, NOG -1.8%, GNL -1.8%, VICI -1.6%, PRSU -1.6%, CPRX -1.4%, TKO -1.1% (also to launch up to $1 bln in share repurchases in March 2026), DORM -0.7%, NVDA -0.7% (also finalizing an investment and partnership agreement with OpenAI), OUT -0.6%, SDRL -0.5%, DBRG -0.4%, TDOC -0.4%, CLDX -0.4%, SDGR -0.2%, QXO -0.2%, CRGY -0.1%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: INVX -9.8% (stock offering by selling shareholder), VGZ -9.2% (commences $30 mln stock offering), UCTT -5.2% ($400 mln convertible notes offering), MIRM -4.4% (stock offering by selling shareholders), LRMR -2% (commences $75 mln stock offering), ARES -1.6% (files mixed securities shelf offering), ECL -1.5% (dividing its COO role into two complementary positions), LFST -1.5% (25 mln share offering by selling shareholders), AMD -1.5% (partnership with NTNX to develop AI infrastructure platform; includes AMD making a $150 mln investment in NTNX stock), MCB -1.1% ($175 mln stock offering), HESM -1.1% (files prospectus; may offer shares representing limited partner interests), DDOG -0.7% (strategic partnership with Sakana AI), EFX -0.4% (increases dividend), C -0.1% (files mixed securities shelf offering)