Money Stuff: The Podcast — “Best and Final: WBD, IPO, BNPL”

Date: December 12, 2025
Host: Matt Levine (Bloomberg Opinion)
Co-host: Katie Greifeld (Bloomberg News)

Episode Overview

In this week’s episode, Matt Levine and Katie Greifeld dissect three of the hottest topics in finance and markets: the dramatic Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) bidding war, the shifting winds around mega-company IPOs (with a focus on SpaceX), and the rise of buy now, pay later (BNPL) and private credit. The pair infuse their signature wit and deep analysis to make sense of murky deal mechanics, regulatory weirdness, evolving financial market trends, and why everyone—the market, politicians, and even TV hosts—cares so much about these topics.

1. Warner Bros. Discovery Bidding War: Netflix vs. Paramount

Main Discussion:

• Matt and Katie unpack a uniquely chaotic merger battle for Warner Bros. Discovery, highlighting both the financial intricacies and the odd strategic choices from the competing bidders, Netflix and Paramount.

Key Points & Insights

• Strange Bidding War Dynamics

  • Netflix signed a deal for ~$30/share (mix of cash + two classes of stock), then Paramount offered a matching $30/share cash tender.
  • Unusually, Paramount made the same bid that Warner’s board already rejected, then publicly said it wasn't "best and final," signaling more may come but not actually raising.
  • Matt: "Ordinarily, you don't negotiate against yourself. And if you do...you raise the bid—but instead they're like, we're not going to raise the bid, but this is not our best and final offer. How could you tender to that?" (04:19)

• “Friendly Deal” Necessary

  • Paramount’s bid is expressly conditioned on being “friendly” and needing board approval—reflecting 2025 trends toward eventual negotiated settlements, not pure hostile takeovers.
  • Matt: "They need the board on side. It is a negotiation, they're waging a public pressure campaign, but they're not just doing a pure hostile offer." (05:17)

• Key Differences in Bids

  • Paramount’s offer is for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including cable networks (like CNN), while Netflix’s excludes cable networks.
  • Disputes arise in valuing these cable network assets—boards and bidders each place wildly differing numbers on their value.
  • Katie: “It also depends on how you value the cable networks.” (06:45)

• Financing and Succession-Style Intrigue

  • Paramount’s deal structure is essentially a massive leveraged buyout (LBO).
  • Backing comes from Larry Ellison’s personal trust (with a side of social media memes about “your dad buying a company for you”) and controversial figures like Jared Kushner.
  • Matt: “It's weird to be the CEO of a public company and be like, my company is going to buy this prized asset with my dad's checkbook. I don't know. It's fine.” (08:41)

• Politics & Regulatory Risk

  • Trump’s disdain for CNN looms over the entire deal:
    • There’s an expectation that regulatory approval may hinge on making CNN more politically “friendly.”
    • Matt: “...To get a merger done, you have to commit to making television news friendlier to Donald Trump. Yeah, it's really bad.” (09:02)
  • Rumors swirl about possible antitrust intervention, with both real and politically-motivated grounds discussed.
  • Matt: “A lot of the reporting...is that like Larry Ellison is friendlier with Trump and therefore will win.” (11:01)

• Deal Certainty and Impact

  • High breakup fees ($2/share) provide little solace to shareholders facing 18 months of uncertainty while regulatory review unfolds.
  • Uncertainty, especially for employees, is acute; the only sure thing is podcasts.
  • Katie: “In a situation where your company is in this deal limbo for 18 months, I have to imagine the company is in suspended animation...that's a lot of uncertainty.” (13:27)

Timestamp Highlights

• Bidding mechanics & board strategy: 03:28 – 06:45
• Financial backers & “succession” dynamics: 07:34 – 09:02
• Regulatory and political interference: 09:02 – 11:01
• “What happens next?” speculation: 13:06 – 13:59

2. The IPO Pipeline: SpaceX and the New World of Going Public

Main Discussion:

• The hosts explore why “private forever” mega-companies like SpaceX now appear poised to IPO, and why the scale and timing of these listings are fundamentally different from previous decades.

Key Points & Insights

• Changing IPO Landscape

  • The thesis that “private markets are the new public markets” is challenged; even the biggest private firms (OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic) are contemplating IPOs.
  • Differences from the past: These are not small or mid-size firms going public, but trillion-dollar companies.

• Scale and Valuation

  • SpaceX’s speculated $1.5 trillion IPO valuation is enormous—private investors have already captured most of the upside, with public investors entering much later than they used to.
  • Matt: "So much of the upside has been captured already by private market investors." (18:40)

• Capital Intensity Forces IPOs

  • New mega-capex needs (e.g., $30 billion for data centers on Earth and in orbit) render private funding insufficient—even massively successful, cash-flow positive companies like SpaceX must tap public markets.
  • Katie: “There is a limit to how long you can stay private.” (20:41)

• Public Company Risks (and Spectacle)

  • With the move to public markets comes public reporting, investor scrutiny, and potential securities fraud claims for things like failed rocket launches.
  • Matt: "Every bad thing that happens to a public company is securities fraud... every time a rocket blows up or they can get sued, it's really grim." (22:24)

• Elon Musk Leading Multiple Public Giants

  • They joke about Musk potentially being CEO of two or more public mammoth companies and the unique “Elon” factor.

Notable Quotes

• “It's just SpaceX, man.” — Matt (23:31)
• “It’d be interesting when he gets sued for the fourth time at a rocket plane.” — Matt (23:41)

Timestamp Highlights

• The “private forever” myth vs. new IPO reality: 16:28 – 18:40
• SpaceX funding needs and IPO logic: 19:41 – 21:47
• Public spectacle and risk with SpaceX IPO: 21:53 – 23:57

3. Buy Now, Pay Later and the Private Credit Revolution

Main Discussion:

• The rise of private credit funding, especially via “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) lenders like Affirm, is changing how consumer lending data is tracked and how risks move through the financial system.

Key Points & Insights

• Data and Regulation Blind Spots

  • Classic bank data (credit cards, balances, delinquencies) is less comprehensive as more consumer finance shifts to BNPL and non-bank lenders funded by private credit.
  • Katie: “This makes data worse in terms of tracking.” (26:48)

• Private Credit vs. Banks

  • Banks are highly regulated due to their risky, runnable funding model.
  • Private credit—think insurance companies, asset managers lending directly—are far less regulated, funded by long-term equity, and thus not subject to bank-style runs (in theory).
  • Matt: "...The tradeoff for [less regulation] is that that's less regulated." (28:13)

• Systemic Risk and Regulation

  • Despite regulatory gaps, Matt contends the fundamental risk is lower, so heavy regulation isn’t warranted. But pressure for more oversight grows as private credit grows.
  • Katie shares an anecdote of a private market executive lamenting, “We’re becoming a bank. It truly sucks.” (29:22)

• Potential for Future Crisis

  • The pair riff on how 2022's crypto collapse echoed 2008 but note that a private credit crisis would require new mechanics:
    • Matt: “Banks get regulated, things that are not banks move into the business, they become big, they move into riskier and riskier funding models, they blow up, they get bailed out by the Fed and they become banks… Could that be the story of private credit? Yeah, maybe.” (29:40)

Notable Quotes

• “If you just like have a pot of your own money and make loans out of it, you’re less regulated. And people get nervous about that because it’s less regulated. But it’s like, that's the trade off.” — Matt (28:14)

Timestamp Highlights

• BNPL’s impact on data and banking regulation: 25:07 – 28:38
• Private credit’s future and “banks everywhere” dynamic: 28:38 – 30:01
• Speculating on the next financial system crisis: 30:01 – 30:40

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “How could you tender to that? How could you be like, okay, you can have it for not your best and final offer?” — Matt (04:19)
• “It is very weird to have your dad buy several companies for you. Whatever. I think it's making an expression like, of course my dad would buy companies for me.” — Matt (08:27)
• “To get a merger done, you have to commit to making television news friendlier to Donald Trump. Yeah, it's really bad.” — Matt (09:02)
• “The only sure thing is podcasts.” — Katie (13:57)
• “It's just SpaceX, man.” — Matt (23:31)
• “Every bad thing that happens to a public company is securities fraud... every time a rocket blows up or they can get sued, it's really grim to think about.” — Matt (22:24)

Conclusion

This episode deftly blends big-picture finance, regulatory intrigue, and cultural commentary. Matt and Katie break down high-stakes M&A, the shifting ground beneath the world’s biggest companies considering IPOs, and the trade-offs of private credit’s quiet dominance. Listeners walk away with insight into how big deals really work, how political winds shape even trillion-dollar companies, and why financial plumbing can shape (and hide) risk in unexpected ways.

For more:

• Subscribe to Matt Levine’s Money Stuff newsletter at bloomberg.com.
• Catch Katie Greifeld daily on Bloomberg TV’s “The Close,” 3–5pm ET.
• Submit listener questions for future episodes!

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