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  • Bitcoin holds near $64,000 as U.S. inflation data looms, Harmony exploit rattles altcoins

    Crypto markets were steady on Wednesday as traders absorbed a protocol exploit while waiting for a U.S. inflation report that often sets the tone for risk assets.

    Harmony, a layer-1 blockchain network for DeFi protocols and marketplaces. confirmed it had been hit by an exploit early in the Asian day. An attacker minted some 4 billion ONE tokens through empty blocks, representing about 26% of the token’s circulating supply.

    Around 2.8 billion of the tokens were quickly funneled to exchanges, pushing ONE down as much as 40% to a record low.

    Broader markets were also little changed before the July U.S. CPI print, due at 12:30 UTC. Brent crude is near $90 a barrel after more Houthi attacks on shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and a U.S. strike on a vessel in the Gulf of Oman renewed supply concerns overnight.

    Bitcoin $BTC$64,051.34 absorbed all of this quietly, adding 0.23% since midnight UTC to around $63,900. The Fear and Greed index is at 38.

    Derivatives positioning

    • Futures market stasis masks a bearish shift in taker sentiment: While the aggregate crypto futures market appears to be in stasis, with negligible changes in total volume and open interest, underlying positioning is shifting. The long-short ratio for takers, or those executing market orders that remove liquidity from the book, has flipped bearish, with shorts now accounting for 51.36% of activity. This is a 180-degree reversal from the bullish bias observed earlier in the week.
    • Avalanche shows signs of aggressive shorting as open interest climbs: The AVAX token has emerged as one of the largest laggards among the top 100 coins over the past 24 hours, even as open interest (OI) grew 6%. A combination of falling prices and rising OI validates the current weakness in the spot price. Confirming this trend is the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD), which is the most negative among major assets, suggesting that bears are aggressively shorting via market orders rather than utilizing passive limit orders.
    • Dogecoin leverage builds toward a potential volatility breakout: Open interest in DOGE futures continues to climb, surpassing 17.2 billion tokens, the most since October. This significant growth from the June low of 12 billion tokens occurred while the price remained pinned near the 7-cent mark. The buildup of leverage amid sideways price action suggests that the market may be coiled for a significant volatility event in the near term.
    • Major assets see light positioning: Market participation in the two largest cryptocurrencies remains subdued, with bitcoin’s open interest hovering below 750,000 $BTC. This lack of momentum has persisted for several weeks, and a similar trend is visible in ether ETH$1,909.79, indicating that institutional and retail traders alike are currently sidelined in the majors.
    • Selling pressure dominates the altcoin market according to CVD trends: Most of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies are exhibiting negative 24-hour cumulative volume deltas. This widespread selling pressure indicates a general bearish tilt across the sector, with Chainlink LINK$8.7971, Cronos CRO$0.04701, and Tron TRX$0.3369 being the only notable exceptions.
    • Implied volatility remains depressed ahead of key U.S. inflation data: Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, is back under pressure, receding to 37.5% from Monday’s high of 38.66%. Short-dated one-week implied volatilities also remain at low levels, signaling that options traders are not anticipating significant changes following the U.S. CPI release. This suggests the market may be underpricing the actual event risk.
    • Options traders eye the $70,000 level while hedging for volatility: In the Deribit bitcoin options market, the $70,000 call remains the most actively traded contract for the second consecutive day. Simultaneously, there is a growing preference for $BTC strangles, a strategy involving the simultaneous purchase of puts and calls, indicating that some participants are positioning to profit from a sharp move in either direction.

    Token talk

    • CRV is the week’s standout performer, up roughly 35% over seven days and trading around 28 cents. The move coincides with a 15% annual emissions reduction that is set to trigger imminently. It has risen by more than 3% since midnight UTC.
    • Uniswap (UNI) has tumbled by more than 10% over the past 24 hours with no clear catalyst for the slide, suggesting the altcoin market remains vulnerable to price swings due to limited liquidity and market depth.
    • Monero (XMR) is up by 5.8% since midnight and has now retraced Tuesday’s entire shift to the downside.
    • AI tokens NEAR, FET and TAO are all also in the black, up by between 1.3% and 2.3% respectively as AI-themed optimism slowly returns to the market after months of waning sentiment.
  • Paramount’s Makan Delrahim Says “Everything Is On The Table” In Finding Merger Resolution, Says Leaving California Is A Consideration But Not “Blackmail”

    Paramount’s Makan Delrahim Says “Everything Is On The Table” In Finding Merger Resolution, Says Leaving California Is A Consideration But Not “Blackmail”

    Paramount‘s Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim said that “everything is on the table” when it comes to finding a resolution to a state attorneys general lawsuit seeking to block the company’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

    At a Politico conference on Tuesday, Delrahim also defended the company’s consideration of exiting California. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the state AGs lawsuit and appeared at the same conference hours earlier, called the threat to leave a form of “blackmail.”

    “David Ellison was born here, lived here since I moved to this country. I’ve lived here. He’s raising his children here. His intent is to be committed to be in California,” Delrahim said. He added, “There’s a point at which where you have a duty, a fiduciary duty to your shareholders, and those are all the factors you consider. But our goal is to be here.”

    Delrahim said, “I heard the attorney general say that this was some kind of blackmail attempt for the lawsuit. It is not. When the delay starts costing you know after this merger has been approved from, I believe, 67 countries — European Union, China. Canada, Australia — let’s forget about the DOJ — but all of them have reviewed it this way. But this state seems to view this merger in a different market. You have to take a look at the business environment and look to see what’s best for not only the community, the business, and ultimately, go to the place where you are wanted.”

    Ellison told a group of the company’s executives that he would start the process of leaving the state around Oct. 1 if Bonta did not negotiate a settlement. Paramount faces paying a $7 million-per-day ticking fee to Warner Bros. Discovery for each day that the merger doesn’t close past Sept. 30. But a federal judge last week set the trial for next March, scuttling the company’s plans to close the deal as soon as this summer.

    California and 11 other states sued to block the merger last month, claiming that it would stifle competition for wide release theatrical film distribution, anticipated big budget blockbusters, and basic cable television channel licensing.

    With the prospect of a trial delaying the transaction well into next year, Paramount has waged a PR campaign to try to show that the deal has drawn industry support, while Ellison has tried to peg the state AG opposition as about concerns over what would happen to CNN, amid warnings that he would push the network in a Trump-friendlier direction. In a new York Times op ed, Ellison wrote that news organizations require independence, while he said that CNN and CBS News, which Paramount already owns, “are here to tell it straight down the middle.”

    Delrahim pointed to the Ellison op ed, and said that when it came to CNN, the CEO “wants to bring it back to news.”

    Bonta, though, denied that the lawsuit was about control of the network, and a mere divestment of the channel would not be a sufficient structural remedy to satisfy the state AGs.

    Delrahim told the Politico conference, “I take [Bonta] at his word. It’s not about CNN.This is an antitrust case. He’s trying to protect movie theaters and cable operators, as alleged in the lawsuit.”

    But Delrahim predicted that the AGs would not have a viable case at trial. He pointed to support for the merger from major exhibitors, and when it came to the merger’s impact on cable operators, “it will fall apart because of the market definition.”

    “There is no such thing as basic cable anymore,” he said. “Combined, if you look at streaming, the two companies will have something like 7% to 11% of the market share.”

    When Politico’s Alex Burns pressed him on the prospect of selling CNN as a way to “make it easier to get this deal done,” Delrahim responded, “I was born in Iran. I moved here after the 1979 revolution. The single most important thing we have is the First Amendment. not because I’m a religious minority and …think people should be free, but also the First Amendment and free speech. If you start using state powers and wrap yourself around that to actually violate the First Amendment and control of content, that would be the saddest day in this country.”

    He added, “But having said that, everything is on the table. We would be delighted to engage and discuss about any resolution to get this merger, to get this closing after all this time, in order to repair the industry, create more jobs, bring more jobs and production back.”

    Delrahim also was asked about the prospect that the company would be investigated by Democrats if they take control of one or more chambers of Congress in the midterms. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Democrats have warned that Paramount would face scrutiny along with other big mergers and efforts to win support from the Trump administration.

    “You can allege all you want,” Delrahim said. “There is no corruption here.”

  • California Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Xavier Becerra Says He Prefers Settlement Of Paramount-WBD Antitrust Lawsuit: “Conference Room, Not Courtroom”

    California Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Xavier Becerra Says He Prefers Settlement Of Paramount-WBD Antitrust Lawsuit: “Conference Room, Not Courtroom”

    Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee to become the next governor of California, recommended that state attorneys general and Paramount reach a settlement and avoid an antitrust trial over the proposed Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

    Weighing in for the first time on the lawsuit, Becerra said at a Politico conference on Tuesday, “I hope it settles before court. It is easier to stand in a conference room and settle than it is to stand in a courtroom. I say that having had to stand both in the conference room and in the courtroom. You get way more done in the conference room than you do in the courtroom.”

    Becerra, the former secretary of health and human services during the Biden administration, served as California’s attorney general from 2017 to 2021. That is the job now held by Rob Bonta, who is leading 12 state attorneys general in their lawsuit to block the transaction.

    Becerra did not weigh in on the merits of the state AGs’ case, but said, “Having done antitrust cases, these are not easy. They’re a different animal from most litigation. They are very difficult. They are very fact intensive. The law doesn’t keep pace. All I know is this, in terms of what’s going on in this particular case, the entertainment industry is our baby in California. We have to fight to keep it vibrant. If a merger is good, that helps that keeps it vibrant, I’m willing to say, let’s take a look. If that merger undermines the ability of the industry of remaining vibrant, then I’m going to take … a closer look as well. At the end of the day, is it good for the entertainment community in California? Does it benefit California families to have another merger occur? And then, at the end of the day, who will settle it?”

    Asked about reports that Paramount CEO David Ellison has raised the prospect of the company exiting California if no settlement is reached, Becerra said, “Having a major player in the industry leave would not be good. At the same time, I said as well, ‘Is it going to be good for working families?’ Having them leave leave the state is certainly not good for working families. So let’s be adults, not be kids. Conference room, not courtroom.”

    Earlier, Becerra’s Republican rival, Steve Hilton, blasted the state AG case, calling it “totally politically motivated.” He said that Bonta’s arguments “just don’t add up.”

  • Tough Laptop, Easy Price: Save 37% Off the Asus Chromebook CR11

    Tough Laptop, Easy Price: Save 37% Off the Asus Chromebook CR11

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  • Paramount Has Spent 100 Years in Hollywood. David Ellison Loved That. Until He Didn’t

    Paramount Has Spent 100 Years in Hollywood. David Ellison Loved That. Until He Didn’t

    “Paramount has deep roots in Southern California. My vision is to stay true to our roots,” wrote David Ellison in a letter to lawmakers representing the state in February.

    What a difference a few months makes. Now the mogul is locked in a protracted legal battle with the attorneys general of California and 11 other states as he attempts to consummate a $111 billion mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. And he’s in a race against time before a ticking fee penalty of $7 million a day kicks in at the start of October if the deal isn’t done.

    And each week, it seems, there’s a new leak suggesting the Paramount CEO may be exploring other options to move his company’s headquarters — and taking the idea seriously.

    On Monday, it was Puck that kicked off another cycle when reporting that Ellison told staffers in a senior leadership meeting he plans to move the company headquarters out of state if the antitrust suit isn’t settled by Oct. 1, when that penalty fee begins. This leak underscores that urgent timetable and could be seen as both a negotiating tactic and a real consideration to pull up anchor for new shores.

    As The Hollywood Reporter reported in July, Tennessee has been one of the states courting Paramount. Now add Texas, Georgia or another state to the list. The insinuation is that even if the merger eventually goes through, the two historic Hollywood studios could (theoretically) be moving out of their historic homes.

    So the notion that Ellison would abandon Paramount’s historic place in Hollywood (literally: Paramount’s 65-acre lot, parts of it a century old, is the only big studio in the neighborhood, after all) to finalize his mega-merger isn’t a new one. But this narrative also represents a notable change in tune from Ellison, a California native himself and the product of two California universities, who not long ago was courting state politicians to win their approval for his mega-transaction. In the same letter where he laid out his vision for Paramount staying “true to our roots,” he pointed out that it was his regime that relocated the company’s headquarters from New York to the Paramount studio lot in L.A. Paramount also made a commitment to produce more movies for theatrical release, “all of which means more activity in Hollywood and local jobs,” he claimed.

    The letter was sent to lawmakers Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Laura Friedman in response to their concerns about what the merger would mean for jobs in the state. “Our pledge to continue to license Paramount and Warner Bros. film and shows means there will be additional opportunities available for creative talent in Los Angeles,” Ellison continued. “Our pledge to continue to be active buyers of content from third-party studios and independent producers also means more good-paying jobs in Los Angeles.”

    For the politicians who received that February letter, the threat to leave the state is prompting a bit of whiplash. “The reason Paramount has been an entertainment powerhouse for over a century is the crews, the writers, the artists, and the local businesses in my district. They are the best in the world at what they do,” said Friedman in a statement to THR. “It would be a massive mistake for Paramount to leave them behind, and it’s wrong to treat the workforce that built Paramount as a bargaining chip in a legal matter.”

    In his own statement, Schiff said his “north star” was to “protect the jobs of the hardworking Californians” in entertainment. “I hope that Paramount will stick to their commitments to build a stronger Hollywood and keep production here,” he added.

    And Ellison isn’t the only one at Paramount to have paid lip service to the virtues of working in California. Two of Paramount+’s major upcoming new shows, the Clueless sequel starring Alicia Silverstone and the original series Ascent starring Viola Davis, are filming in L.A. They’re joining other series under the Paramount corporate umbrella, like Matlock, Tracker and NCIS: Origins, that already shoot in the state. As a result, Paramount landed more than $37 million in the last round of California film and television tax credits.

    “We’re proud to continue investing in the local creative community and production talent who bring our stories to life,” said CBS Studios president David Stapf in a statement on Monday, before the latest reports of Paramount’s roving eyes emerged.

    How real is the threat to flee the state, then, or is this a laughable pressure tactic? As THR has previously reported, it’s not impossible to imagine Ellison relocating the company headquarters, but the rubber would meet the road on attempting to persuade executives to move their studio work to, say, Nashville or Austin or Atlanta. All told, about 17 percent of the Paramount’s workforce is based in L.A. alone, according to a study from CVL Economics, while 13 percent of Warner Bros. Discovery is based in the area. Good luck to those Paramount execs trying to meet an up-and-coming writer-creator for a casual coffee on Music Row or convincing anyone major other than Taylor Sheridan (who is soon to bid goodbye to the studio anyway) to briefly pop by for a meeting in Texas.

    That’s not to mention the significant ill will that would be produced by kicking a local industry while it’s down, all while Ellison’s representatives have been presenting him for some time as the savior of Hollywood and its jobs, if only his deal goes through. (“We will continue to fight against any attempt to derail a deal that plainly benefits consumers, creators, and the industry as a whole,” a Paramount spokesperson said in response to a town hall where Hollywood workers aired concerns about job loss as a result of the mega-merger.)

    The production downturn in California has been so severe that it’s created a grassroots movement to improve production conditions and become a major campaign narrative for L.A.’s mayoral candidates. “Paramount has been an iconic part of Los Angeles for more than a century, and we will work to ensure that Paramount remains rooted in Los Angeles, continues to invest in our city, and continues to support good-paying jobs for Angelenos,” Mayor Karen Bass, who is running for re-election, said in a statement to THR about the company’s latest rattle of the chains. It’s become a marketing tactic for television series and films to flaunt that they were made locally, rather than in, say, Romania or Australia.

    For now, Ellison is attempting to ward off a trial with a stick, rather than a carrot, but the message keeps shifting. Maybe we should take his word for it that he means business on leaving California. But he said the opposite not too long ago.

    Aug. 11, 8:48 p.m. Added a statement from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

  • Jason Sudeikis Makes Cameo at Mumford & Sons Concert to Perform ‘Ted Lasso’ Theme Song

    Jason Sudeikis Makes Cameo at Mumford & Sons Concert to Perform ‘Ted Lasso’ Theme Song

    Jason Sudeikis, star and co-creator of Ted Lasso, made a surprise cameo at Mumford & Sons’ Tuesday night concert in New York City to perform the hit Apple TV show’s theme song.

    Halfway into the show at Madison Square Garden, the camera panned to a surprise guest in the crowd: Sudeikis. He was nodding his head to the music at first and then smiled and ran on stage to finish out the song with the band. The crowd erupted in cheers for the actor and the duet.

    The Ted Lasso theme song was co-written by composer Tom Howe and Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford, the latter of which also performed the song that plays near the beginning of each episode.

    On Tuesday, Mumford later told the New York crowd to quiet down “or I’m going to stick Ted on you.” He also mentioned that he worked on the music for the Coen Brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, which starred Oscar Isaac and his wife, Carey Mulligan. Isaac later joined him on stage to perform a song.

    The fourth season of Ted Lasso premiered earlier this month. However, Sudeikis initially intended for the sports comedy-drama to end with 2023’s season three. In a recent cover story for The Hollywood Reporter, the actor opened up about having second thoughts when the last season wrapped, leading to him developing the never-supposed-to-happen fourth season. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if it’s done,’” he told THR.

    In July, Sudeikis also made a surprise appearance in the first-ever FIFA World Cup Final halftime show, where his Ted Lasso character shared some words of encouragement to co-headliner Justin Bieber before he performed.

  • ‘The Brink of War’ Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle

    ‘The Brink of War’ Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle

    There was a time when talky slabs of recent political history like “The Brink of War,” carried by skilled name actors who aren’t quite stars, were largely the preserve of Emmy-chasing TV networks. Today, with a bit of added Christian-right rhetoric, they’re ready for the big screen, as the growing faith-based film industry expands its palette in terms of subject matter — but not cinematic style, as evidenced by this dutifully drab gray-flannel enterprise from writer-director Michael Russell Gunn.

    The latest from so-called “values-based” distributor Angel Studios comes hot on the heels of their Fourth of July release “Young Washington,” which has drummed up nearly $47 million in theaters, and shares with that Great Man biopic the kind of textbook American patriotism that recalls, well, a certain kind of textbook. The story of how the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev paved the way for the next year’s nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, it feels veritably designed (right down to its PG rating) to bore kids in history classrooms for generations to come. Adult audiences may be more willing when “The Brink of War” opens wide on Friday, but it’s doubtful they’ll be much more entertained.

    “Young Washington” was stolidly old-fashioned, but still rousing in its gung-ho way. “The Brink of War” is a far dustier, more static affair: Its drama is all in two aging men seated at a table, arguing with each other over two days about nuclear disarmament in a remote Icelandic consulate building. That doesn’t have to be dull, of course, and if you squint a little at the screen, you can just about see the first-rate Broadway play that could emerge from this material — with no casting changes required — if the telling were just a little more tense, and the writing just a little more witty.

    Gunn’s stiff script is attentive to the political dynamics and rhetorical thrust of the talks, and if its repeated emphasis on American honor, freedom and statesmanship makes for a somewhat pious exercise, you can’t deny the narrative stakes are high. The lines of conflict are established early and clearly: Where Gorbachev merely wants to discuss the banning of ballistic missiles, Reagan’s equal emphasis on human rights — in particular, the Soviet Union’s restrictions on Western travel for its citizens — complicates the discussion, while his insistence on pushing the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative continues to be a sticking point for the other side. (No surprise that the film glides over American political opposition to the latter proposal, unambiguously taking Reagan’s side on all fronts.)

    What’s crucially lacking here is a particularly compelling sense of Reagan and Gorbachev as human characters. Jeff Daniels and Jared Harris, respectively, put forward solidly recognizable impressions of the men we knew from televised speeches and newscasts, but aren’t given many notes to play: The leaders’ inner lives are limited to standard-issue exchanges with their wives about professional duty and strain, which don’t vary much in tone from the pithy aphorisms they share with their right-hand men about diplomacy, or lack thereof. Even when religion comes up for discussion, it’s in predictably on-message Angel Studios fashion, as Reagan chides his atheist opponent for “denying [his people] the hereafter.” (“This is worse than propoganda!” protests one of Gorbachev’s aides; irony is not one of the film’s stronger suits.) At one point, Reagan spills some chicken salad sandwich filling on his shirt; it’s about the most unguarded moment we get.

    Reagan also, naturally, gets the leading perspective, as well as the most generous sounding boards in the supporting ensemble: not just his wife Nancy (Hope Davis), who doesn’t travel to Reykjavik but provides repeated counsel over the phone, but his Secretary of State George Shultz (played with an air of gruff, salt-of-the-earth decency by J.K. Simmons), on hand to straighten out Team America’s priorities when the negotiations go awry.

    Though the film’s lens is consistently ennobling — abetted by everything from DP Magdalena Górka’s sober official-portrait lighting to Austin Wintory’s overbearing score — Daniels gets Reagan’s combination of folksy squareness and flintier social conservatism. It’s a more substantial portrayal than Dennis Quaid’s in the tackily propagandistic 2024 biopic “Reagan,” though we’re still left with the impression that, in the ranks of American presidents on screen, the erstwhile movie star remains a less dynamic movie subject.

    Harris, meanwhile, plays Gorbachev as an altogether more aloof, intractable and unknowable figure, which is precisely how the film wants it — though Branka Katić gives the canniest, funniest performance here as his watchful, image-conscious wife Raisa, here placed in a remote PR war with the U.S. First Lady where, yet again, America gets to come out on top. The film could use a few more such colorful secondary strands adjoining the main conflict, though one subplot involving a maybe-romance between two jaded journalists assigned to the summit is oddly framed and abruptly dropped.

    Fairly deliberate for much of its two-hour running time, “The Brink of War” suddenly races toward a denouement in its final quarter-hour — somewhat eliding the fact that the Reykjavik Summit was, at least in the short term, a failure, with the two men’s talks ultimately stalling, and folding it into the clearer success story of the next year’s treaty. As the film’s single most lumpen line of dialogue reminds us at the close: “A journey of a thousand miles doesn’t begin with the most incredible arms deal in history — it begins with a single step.” Gunn’s film, on the other hand, is content to skip a few steps where necessary.

  • Crunchyroll, Sony Nab Makoto Shinkai’s Untitled Next Film for Global Release

    Crunchyroll, Sony Nab Makoto Shinkai’s Untitled Next Film for Global Release

    Sony’s Crunchyroll has snapped up global distribution rights to anime hitmaker Makoto Shinkai‘s much-anticipated next feature.

    The anime streamer will co-distribute the untitled project with Sony Pictures Entertainment across the world excluding Asia — with the exception of India, which is grouped with the Western territories. Crunchyroll said Tuesday that the film’s title, plot details and expected timing are all being kept under wraps for now.

    While exceedingly little about the new feature is known, Shinkai is unmistakably one of anime’s biggest blockbuster names. His breakthrough feature Your Name grossed $358 million worldwide in 2016, a landmark in anime’s international expansion. Weathering With You followed in 2019 with $193 million, and 2022’s Suzume took roughly $323 million. All three features rank high among the top-grossing anime films of all time.

    The new film will follow the same distribution path as Suzume, which was handled jointly by Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures. The film bowed in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival and went on to earn a Golden Globe nomination for best animated feature after earning more than $10 million in U.S. theaters.

    Shinkai, 53, has released a feature roughly every three years — Your Name in 2016, Weathering With You in 2019, Suzume in 2022 — and anticipation has been building among anime fandom over the past four years about what his next work might be. The director broke his silence in a New Year’s social media message in January, writing that he would finally be able to share concrete details about his next film sometime this year.

    For Crunchyroll, the deal extends a theatrical run that has made the Sony-owned company the dominant Western distributor of Japanese animation — it claims 12 of the 20 top-grossing anime releases in U.S. history, including Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, last year’s global phenomenon.

  • Another OpenAI Exec Quits in Leadership Shake-Up as AI Giant Eyes IPO

    Another OpenAI Exec Quits in Leadership Shake-Up as AI Giant Eyes IPO

    In brief

    • Brad Lightcap is leaving OpenAI after eight years.
    • His departure follows several recent exits across the company’s leadership, ethics, and safety teams.
    • OpenAI confidentially filed for a potential IPO in June but has not committed to going public.

    Longtime OpenAI executive Brad Lightcap announced Tuesday that he is leaving the AI developer after eight years to start a new venture. It’s the latest among a string of departures at the AI behemoth, leaving observers to wonder what to make of the moves as OpenAI preps for an IPO.

    In a post on X, Lightcap said starting something new was “bittersweet,” calling his years building the company the honor of his life.

    “Through it all, I’m proud of how we’ve maintained our focus on people,” he wrote. “It always amazes me how quickly the world has adopted our tools and rallied behind our mission. I hope we will continue to earn their trust.”

    Lightcap joined OpenAI in 2018 and spent four years as its chief operating officer. He helped build the company’s finance, legal, personnel, corporate security, government relations, and partnership teams as it grew from a research lab into a major AI developer.

    “Sitting here today, mission success feels within sight,” Lightcap wrote. “It has been the honor of my life to help bring us to this point.”

    Lightcap’s exit follows several leadership changes at OpenAI in 2026.

    Bill Peebles, Kevin Weil, and Srinivas Narayanan announced their departures in April, followed by product and business chief Fidji Simo, who stepped down in July to focus on recovering from a chronic illness.

    AI ethics lead Chloé Bakalar also left in July and reportedly has not been replaced. Bakalar’s departure followed those of safety systems chief Johannes Heidecke and chief futurist Joshua Achiam that same month.

    The news comes as OpenAI prepares to enter the public markets.

    In June, OpenAI confidentially filed for a potential IPO but has not said when or if it plans to proceed. On Myriad, a prediction market developed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, the market currently believes it’s more likely rival company Anthropic IPOs before OpenAI at nearly 85% odds.

    Nevertheless, the expected public offering for Sam Altman’s OpenAI has made its recent executive turnover a focus of speculation on social media.

    “It is just not that typical to have so many executives depart before their long awaited IPO,” Partner at asset management firm ParaFi Jeff Park wrote on X. “Unless…”

    Whatever the reason, Lightcap expressed gratitude to his colleagues and said he would remain available to support them after his departure.

    “I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to work with all of you, and to so many of you for the support through the years,” he wrote. “The old OpenAI meme that “the real AGI is the friends you made along the way” really rings true for me.”

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  • Jenna Ortega ‘Would Go All Day’ Without Food or Water as a Child Star to Make Sure She Wasn’t ‘In the Way of Anybody’

    Jenna Ortega ‘Would Go All Day’ Without Food or Water as a Child Star to Make Sure She Wasn’t ‘In the Way of Anybody’

    Jenna Ortega recently told Esquire that, as a child actor, she would go entire days without asking for food or water to make sure she was not “in the way of anybody.”

    “I really had it going for me as a child ‘cause I can’t think of one mistake I made,” Ortega said. “Is that a terrible thing to say? I feel like I make mistakes now all the time, but as a child, I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on.”

    Part of putting on that game face, Ortega explained, was not asking for anything on set.

    “I wasn’t asking for a sip of water,” she recalled. “I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”

    Ortega added, “Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself.”

    Before she was “Wednesday,” Ortega got her break headlining the Disney Channel series “Stuck in the Middle.” That show debuted in 2016, and Ortega was only 13 years old. Her other early TV credits include “Richie Rich,” “Jane the Virgin,” “You” and “Elena of Avalor.”

    When asked for her take on the stigmas surrounding child stars, Ortega quipped, “Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true? And do with that what you will.” She later explained that “the motivation” behind her career was sparked very young when she first told her parents she wanted to be an actor.

    “I was 7 years old when I said I wanted to do this,” Ortega said. “My parents laughed at me when I told them that I wanted to do it, and then that was kind of the root of everything. The motivation. And I never really stopped, because I’m very stubborn. And then I never questioned it.”