Roku’s Timely Exit; Salesforce’s Dealmaking Is Revving Up

There’s a lot going on all of a sudden. We’re all still trying to come to grips with the latest Anthropic-Trump administration standoff. SpaceX’s market performance so far has been like a rocket ship: The stock rose 20% on Monday, finishing with a market capitalization of $2.5 trillion. And back on Earth, we got some notable acquisitions on Monday, in a sign that mergers and acquisitions are alive and well. (Indeed, late Monday we scooped that Qualcomm was in talks to buy AI chip designer Tenstorrent).

Earlier in the day, Salesforce said it would buy Fin, a customer-focused AI agent maker, for $3.6 billion (more on that below). The much bigger deal, though, was Fox’s $22 billion proposed purchase of Roku, the streaming-device maker and ad service. That acquisition represents a triumph for Roku CEO and founder Anthony Wood, although not necessarily for Fox, whose stock plunged 15%. (And some on Wall Street wondered if rival bidders might emerge for Roku—New Street Research made the case for Meta Platforms or TikTok, neither of which seems likely. Never say never, though.)