MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Playboy plans to relocate its global headquarters from Los Angeles to Miami Beach and open a Playboy club there.

The Miami Beach headquarters at the top of a luxury office building will include studios to support Playboy’s “growing creator network” and the club will have a restaurant as well as a members-only section inspired by the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, the company said Thursday in a statement.

“Miami Beach is among the most dynamic and culturally influential cities in the country, making it the ideal home for Playboy’s next chapter,” Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy Inc., said in the statement.

The first Playboy Magazine was published in 1953, featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover and in a “Sweetheart of the Month” color nude photo inside.

The first Playboy Club opened in 1960 in Chicago, which was the headquarters of the company at the time, and the company opened up clubs around the world.

In 2020, Playboy ceased publishing its monthly print magazine, sticking instead with online content.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed a new stake in troubled insurer UnitedHealth last quarter, according to a regulatory filing, a surprising buy because of the company’s current reputation, but perhaps not considering his history of bargain investing.

The Omaha-based conglomerate bought more than 5 million shares in the health care firm for a stake worth about $1.6 billion at the end of June. The stake puts it as the 18th biggest position in the Berkshire portfolio behind Amazon and Constellation Brands, according to VerityData.

Berkshire’s equity portfolio is worth about $300 billion, so it is possible that Buffett’s two investing lieutenants Todd Combs and Ted Weschler were more responsible for this purchase rather than the “Oracle of Omaha” himself. Buffett said one of his investment managers was behind the Amazon investment in 2019.

The insurer’s stock shot up 6% in extended trading following Berkshire’s disclosure.

Shares of UnitedHealth were down nearly 50% for 2025 through Thursday’s close before Buffett’s filing. The largest private health insurer has become the face of a public blowback in this country against the rising costs of health care. UnitedHealth is currently facing a Justice Department investigation into its Medicare billing practices.

In May, the company pulled its annual earnings outlook and CEO Andrew Witty stepped down. Last month, UnitedHealth gave a new 2025 outlook that was well short of Wall Street estimates, hitting the stock further.

Buffett, who’s turning 95 this month, has been critical of the healthcare system in the U.S., calling it a “tapeworm” on the economy due to its high costs. In 2018, he, along with Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon, launched a joint venture to improve healthcare for their employees and potentially for all Americans, but it was eventually shut down.

UnitedHealth isn’t the only stock Berkshire picked up recently. In fact, the conglomerate also took small stakes in steel manufacturer Nucor, outdoor advertising company Lamar Advertising and security firm Allegion. Berkshire also got back into homebuilders Lennar and DR Horton.

Shares of Nucor jumped nearly 8% in afterhours trading, while Lennar and DR Horton popped about 3% each.

Buffett also pared his positions in Bank of America and Apple. The Apple stake was cut by about 7%. Berkshire’s largest positions as of the end of the second quarter were Apple, American Express, Bank of America, Coca-Cola and Chevron.

The legendary investor is stepping down as Berkshire CEO at the end of the year, handing over the reins to Greg Abel. Buffett will stay on as chairman of the board. It’s still unclear who will be in charge of Berkshire’s gigantic equity portfolio, though Buffett has alluded that Abel will be making all capital allocation decisions at the conglomerate.

UnitedHealth attracted other buyers last quarter, according to filings, including Michael Burry and Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper. Shares of the insurer are trading at a price-earnings ratio of just under 12, near its lowest in more than a decade.

There was speculation regarding a mystery stock Buffett was buying as Berkshire had asked for permission to keep certain holdings secret last quarter. It turns out the secret stock was a combination of multiple positions and likely the stakes added in DR Horton, Nucor and Lennar “A” shares.

Lyft said Thursday its co-founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, are stepping down from the ride-hailing services provider’s board, following the completion of a two-year transition plan.

Green and Zimmer began serving as the chair and vice chair of Lyft’s board in 2023 after stepping down as CEO and president, respectively, handing the reins to David Risher, who has been a board member since 2021.

The duo founded Lyft in 2012, with the company now operating across four continents and nearly 1,000 cities.

Sean Aggarwal, who was the chair of Lyft’s board from 2019 to 2023, will reprise his role.

Zimmer is launching a new consumer-focused business venture named YES&, while Green will continue as a venture partner at Autotech Ventures, a firm investing in the mobility and transportation sector.

Lyft, which recently completed its nearly $200 million acquisition of European mobility platform FreeNow, has signed a deal with China’s Baidu 9888.HK to introduce the search-engine giant’s robotaxis in the region.

It posted revenue of $1.59 billion in the second quarter, missing estimates of $1.61 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Rides on Lyft’s platform grew 14% to a record high of 234.8 million in the quarter, slightly below estimates of 235.9 million, per Visible Alpha.

For years, conservative groups and corporate leaders argued that the U.S. government would be better if it were run like a business.

For President Donald Trump, who has controlled his own businesses for decades, that looks like taking an increasingly active role in individual corporations’ affairs, from manufacturing to media to tech firms.

And corporations are meeting the demands of a president who is more freely exerting his powers than he did the last time he was in office. At Trump’s urging, Coca-Cola said it would produce a version of its namesake soda with U.S.-grown cane sugar. Paramount paid millions to settle allegations Trump levied against CBS’ venerated “60 Minutes.” Two major semiconductor makers agreed to give the government a cut of their sales in China. The CEO of Intel met with Trump soon after the president called on him to resign.

“It’s so much different than the first term,” said a Republican lobbyist whose firm represents several Fortune 500 companies, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “He’s just acting like a businessman. In his first term, I think he was trying to cosplay as a politician. He’s more comfortable in his own skin, too. He can explain deals better.”

Trump’s role represents a break with past administrations that may have been unwilling or unable, politically, to bring similar pressure to bear on businesses. In the past, small-government conservatives once accused previous Democratic administrations of attempting to “pick winners and losers” by trying to regulate industries. Trump today stands downstream of a bolder right-wing movement that calls for enhanced state intervention in corporate affairs.

Trump has said the corporate concessions are intended to boost the U.S. economy.

And the White House, in a statement, reinforced the idea that Trump’s involved approach to private-sector dealings is a key part of his economic agenda.

“Cooled inflation, trillions in new investments, historic trade deals, and hundreds of billions in tariff revenue prove how President Trump’s hands-on leadership is paving the way towards a new Golden Age for America,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Ulta Beauty and Target said Thursday that they have decided to end a deal that opened makeup and beauty shops in hundreds of Target’s stores.

Shares of Target fell about 2% in early trading, while Ulta’s stock slid about 1%.

In a news release, the companies said the partnership — which also added some of Ulta’s merchandise to Target’s website — will end in August 2026. Target had added more than 600 Ulta Beauty shops to its stores since 2021, according to a company spokesperson. That’s nearly a third of Target’s 1,981 U.S. stores.

Ulta Beauty at Target shops carried a smaller and rotating assortment of the merchandise at the beauty retailer’s own stores. They were staffed by Target’s employees.

The loss of the popular beauty retailer’s products could be another blow to Target as it tries to woo back both shoppers and investors. Target’s annual sales have been roughly flat for four years and it expects sales to decline this fiscal year. Shares of the company are worth less than half of what the were back in 2021, when they hit an all-time closing high of $266.39. It also has faced backlash over both its Pride collection and its rollback of key diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Store traffic for Target has declined year over year nearly every week from the week of Jan. 27, days after the company’s DEI announcement, through the week of Aug. 4, according to Placer.ai, an analytics firm that uses anonymized data from mobile devices to estimate overall visits to locations. Target traffic had been up weekly year over year in the four weeks before Jan. 27.

The only exceptions to that trend were the two weeks on either side of Easter, when traffic rose less than 1% year over year, the firm’s data showed.

On earnings calls and in investor presentations, leaders of the Minneapolis-based company had touted Ulta’s shops and its trendy beauty brands as a way to drive store traffic.

At a investor presentation in New York City in March, CEO Brian Cornell highlighted beauty as a growth category for Target and cited it as reason for confidence in Target’s long-term business. He said the company had gained market share in beauty and its sales in the category rose by nearly 7% in the fiscal year that ended in early February.

Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, 66, is expected to depart the company soon. The longtime Target leader renewed his contract for approximately three years in September 2022 after the board scrapped its retirement age of 65.

David Bellinger, an analyst for Mizuho Securities who covers retailers, said in an equity research note on Thursday that Target’s “messy in-store operations” as well as issues with retail theft and insufficient staffing at stores likely contributed to the companies ending their partnership.

“Overall, we see losing the Ulta shop-in-shop relationship as a negative development and something else Target’s next CEO will have to grapple with,” he wrote.

In a statement on Thursday, Target Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez said the discounter is “proud of our shared success with Ulta Beauty and the experience we’ve delivered together.”

“We look forward to what’s ahead and remain committed to offering the beauty experience consumers have come to expect from Target — one centered on an exciting mix of beauty brands with continuous newness, all at an unbeatable value,” he said.

In a statement, Ulta’s Chief Retail Officer Amiee Bayer-Thomas described the Target deal as “one of many unique ways we have brought the power of beauty to guests nationwide.”

“As we continue to execute our Ulta Beauty Unleashed plans, we’re confident our wide-ranging assortment, expert services and inspiring in-store experiences will reinforce our leadership in beauty and define the next chapter of our brand,” she said.

Elon Musk on Monday threatened Apple with legal action over alleged antitrust violations related to rankings of the Grok AI chatbot app, which is owned by his artificial intelligence startup xAI.

“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform X.

Apple declined to comment on Musk’s threat.

“Why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps? Are you playing politics?” Musk said in another post.

Apple last year partnered with OpenAI to integrate its ChatGPT chatbot into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop and desktop products. Musk at the time said: “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.”

Prior to his legal threats against Apple, Musk had celebrated Grok surpassing Google as the fifth top free app on the App Store. When contacted by CNBC, xAI did not immediately respond to a request for further information on a potential lawsuit.

CNBC confirmed that ChatGPT was ranked No. 1 in the top free apps section of the American iOS store, and was the only AI chatbot in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” section. The App Store also featured a link to download OpenAI’s new flagship AI model, ChatGPT-5 at the top of its “Apps” section.

OpenAI on Thursday announced GPT-5, its latest and most advanced large-scale AI model, following xAI’s release of its newest chatbot, Grok 4, last month.

Musk has an ongoing feud with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015. The billionaire stepped down from its board in 2018, four years after saying that AI was “potentially more dangerous than nukes.”

He is now suing the Microsoft-backed startup, and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging they abandoned OpenAI’s founding mission to develop artificial intelligence “for the benefit of humanity broadly.”

Robert Keele, who headed the legal department at xAI, announced last week that he had left the company to spend more time with his family. In his announcement, Keele also acknowledged “daylight between our worldviews,” referring to Musk.

In response to Musk’s antitrust threats against Apple, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an X post: “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.”

This is not the first time Apple has been challenged on antitrust grounds. In a landmark case, the Department of Justice last year sued the company over charges of running an iPhone ecosystem monopoly.

In June, a panel of judges also denied an emergency application from Apple to halt the changes to its App Store resulting from a ruling that the company could no longer charge a commission on payment links inside its apps, nor tell developers how the links should look.

— CNBC’s Kif Leswing and Lora Kolodny contributed to this article.

Disney’s ESPN and Fox Corp. are teaming up to offer their upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming services as a bundle, the companies said Monday.

The move comes as media companies look to nab more consumers for their streaming alternatives, and draw them in with sports, in particular.

Last week, both companies announced additional details about the new streaming options. ESPN’s streaming service — which has the same name as the TV network — and Fox’s Fox One will each launch on Aug. 21, ahead of the college football and NFL seasons.

The bundled apps, however, will be available beginning Oct. 2 for $39.99 per month. Separately, ESPN and Fox One will cost $29.99 and $19.99 a month, respectively.

While the bundle will offer sports fans a bigger offering at a discounted rate, the streaming services are not exactly the same.

ESPN’s flagship service will be an all-in-one app that includes all of its live sports and programming from its TV networks, including ESPN2 and the SEC Network, as well as ESPN on Disney-owned ABC. The app will also have fantasy products, new betting tie-ins, studio programming and documentaries.

ESPN will also offer its app as a bundle with Disney’s other streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, for $35.99 a month. That Disney bundle will cost a discounted $29.99 a month for the first 12 months — the same price as the stand-alone app.

Last week, ESPN further beefed up the content on its streaming app when it inked a deal with the WWE for the U.S. rights to the wrestling league’s biggest live events, including WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble and SummerSlam, beginning in 2026. The sports media giant also reached an agreement with the NFL that will see ESPN acquire the NFL Network and other media assets from the league.

The Fox One service, however, will be a bit different. Fox had been on the sidelines of direct-to-consumer streaming for years after its competitors launched their platforms. Just this year, it said it would offer all of its content — including news and entertainment — from its broadcast and pay TV networks in a streaming offering. Fox One won’t have any exclusive or original content.

Fox’s move into the direct-to-consumer streaming game — outside of its Fox Nation app and the free, ad-supported streamer Tubi — came after it abandoned its efforts to launch Venu, a joint sports streaming venture with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Both Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Disney CEO Bob Iger said during separate earnings calls last week that they were exploring bundling options with other services. Since Fox announced the Fox One app, Murdoch has said the company would lean into bundles with other streaming services.

“Announcing ESPN as our first bundle partner is evidence of our desire to deliver the best possible value and viewing experience to our shared customers,” said Tony Billetter, SVP of strategy and business development for FOX’s direct to consumer segment, in a release on Monday.

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to share 15% of their revenue from sales to China with the U.S. government, the White House confirmed Monday, sparking debate about whether the move could affect the chip giants’ business and whether Washington might seek similar deals.

In exchange for the revenue cut, the two semiconductor companies will receive export licenses to sell Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308 chips in China, according to the Financial Times.

“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” Nvidia said in a statement to NBC News. “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s AI tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”

AMD said in a statement that its initial license applications to export MI308 chips to China have been approved.

The arrangement crafted by President Donald Trump’s administration is “unusual,” analysts told CNBC, but underscores his transactional nature. Meanwhile, investors see the move as broadly positive for both Nvidia and AMD, which once more secure access to the Chinese market.

Nvidia’s H20 is a chip that has been specifically created to meet export requirements to China. It was previously banned under export curbs, but the company last month said it expected to receive licenses to send the product to China.

Also in July, AMD said it would resume exports of its MI308 chips.

At the time, there was no suggestion that the resumption of sales to China would come with conditions or any kind of revenue forfeiture, and the step was celebrated by markets because of the billions of dollars worth of potential sales to China that were back on the table.

On Monday, Nvidia shares rose modestly, while AMD’s stock was up more than 2%, highlighting how investors believe the latest development is not a major negative for the companies.

“From an investor perspective, it’s still a net positive, 85% of the revenue is better than zero,” Ben Barringer, global technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot, told CNBC.

“The question will be whether Nvidia and AMD adjust their prices by 15% to account for the levy, but ultimately it’s better that they can sell into the market rather than hand the market over entirely to Huawei.”

Huawei is Nvidia and AMD’s closest Chinese rival.

Uncertainty, nevertheless, still looms for both U.S. companies over the longer term.

“In the short term, the deal gives both companies some certainties for their exports to China,’ George Chen, partner and co-chair of the digital practice at The Asia Group, told CNBC. ‘For the long term, we don’t know if the U.S. government may want to take a bigger cut from their China business especially if their sales to China keep growing.’

Multiple analysts told CNBC that the deal is “unusual,” but almost par for the course for Trump.

“It’s a good development, albeit a strange one, and feels like the sort of arrangement you might expect from President Trump, who is a deal-maker at heart. He’s willing to yield, but only if he gets something in return, and this certainly sets an unusual precedent,” Barringer said.

Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, said the revenue cut is equivalent to an “indirect tariff at source.”

Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group, also posted Sunday on X that the move is a “sort of ‘tax’ for doing business in China.”

But such deals are unlikely to be cut for other companies.

“I don’t anticipate it extending to other sectors that are just as important to the U.S. economy like software and services,” Nick Patience, practice lead for AI at The Futurum Group, told CNBC.

The U.S. sees semiconductors as a strategic technology, given they underpin so many other tools like artificial intelligence, consumer electronics and even military applications. Washington has therefore put chips under an export control regime unlike that of any other product.

“Semiconductor is a very unique business and the pay-to-play tactic may work for Nvidia and AMD because it’s very much about getting export approval from the U.S. gov,” the Asia Group’s Chen said.

“Other business like Apple and Meta can be more complicated when it comes to their business models and services for China.”

Semiconductors have become a highly sensitive geopolitical topic. Over the last two weeks, China has raised concerns about the security of Nvidia’s chips.

Late last month, Chinese regulators asked Nvidia to “clarify” reports about potential security vulnerabilities and “backdoors.” Nvidia rejected the possibility that its chips have any “backdoors” that would allow anyone to access or control them. On Sunday, Nvidia again denied that its H20 semiconductors have backdoors after accusations from a social media account affiliated with Chinese state media.

China’s state-run newspaper Global Times slammed Washington’s tactics, citing an expert.

“This approach means that the US government has repudiated its original security justification to pressure US chip makers to secure export licenses to China through economic leverage,” the Global Times article said.

The Chinese government is yet to comment on the reported revenue agreement.

Trump’s deal with Nvidia and AMD will likely stir mixed feelings in China. On the one hand, China will be unhappy with the arrangement. On the other hand, Chinese firms will likely want to get their hands on these chips to continue to advance their own AI capabilities.

“For China, it is a conundrum as they need those chips to advance their AI ambitions but also the fee to the US government could make it costlier and there is a doubt of US ‘backdoors’ considering US has agreed for chipmakers to supply,” Counterpoint Research’s Shah said.

— CNBC’s Erin Doherty contributed to this report.

Apple has been sued by a Texas company that accused the iPhone maker of stealing its technology to create its lucrative mobile wallet Apple Pay.

In a complaint made public on Thursday, Fintiv said Apple Pay’s key features were based on technology developed by CorFire, which Fintiv bought in 2014, and now used in hundreds of millions of iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and MacBooks.

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fintiv, based in Austin, Texas, said Apple held multiple meetings in 2011 and 2012 and entered nondisclosure agreements with CorFire aimed at licensing its mobile wallet technology, to capitalize on fast-growing demand for contactless payments.

Instead, and with the help of CorFire employees it lured away, Apple used the technology and trade secrets to launch Apple Pay in the United States and dozens of other countries, beginning in 2014, the complaint said.

Fintiv also said Apple has led an informal racketeering enterprise by using Apple Pay to generate fees for credit card issuers such as Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, and the payment networks American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

“This is a case of corporate theft and racketeering of monumental proportions,” enabling Cupertino, California-based Apple to generate billions of dollars of revenue without paying Fintiv “a single penny,” the complaint said.

In a statement, Fintiv’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz called Apple’s conduct “one of the most egregious examples of corporate malfeasance” he has seen in 45 years of law practice.

The lawsuit in Atlanta federal court seeks compensatory and punitive damages for violations of federal and Georgia trade secrets and anti-racketeering laws, including RICO.

Apple is the only defendant. CorFire was based in Alpharetta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb.

On August 4, a federal judge in Austin dismissed Fintiv’s related patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, four days after rejecting some of Fintiv’s claims, court records show.

Fintiv agreed to the dismissal, and plans to “appeal on the existing record,” the records show.

Bed Bath & Beyond is back — kind of.

The bankrupt home goods chain is being resurrected by the owners and licensees of its intellectual property, which opened the first new Bed Bath & Beyond store in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday with potentially dozens of more to come.

This time around, the store has a new name — Bed Bath & Beyond Home — and marks a “fresh start” for the beloved brand, said Amy Sullivan, the CEO of The Brand House Collective, the store’s operator.

“We’re proud to reintroduce one of retail’s most iconic names with the launch of Bed Bath & Beyond Home, beautifully reimagined for how families gather at home today,” Sullivan said in a news release. “With Bed Bath & Beyond Home we’re delivering on our mission to offer great brands, for any budget, in every room. It’s a powerful addition to our portfolio and a meaningful step forward in our transformation.”

In honor of the brand’s legacy, the new store will accept the brand’s famous 20% coupon, regardless of when it expired.

“We encourage guests to bring in their legacy Bed Bath & Beyond coupons which we will gladly honor,” the company said in a news release. “The coupon we all know and love is back and for those who need one, a fresh version will be waiting at the door.”

Bed Bath and Beyond 2.0 has been several years in the making and involved a rigmarole of corporate acquisitions and rebrandings. When the original Bed Bath and Beyond filed for bankruptcy in April 2023 following a string of corporate missteps, it struggled to find a buyer and ended up liquidating and selling off its business in parts. Overstock.com later bought the brand’s intellectual property, rebranded its business to Beyond Inc. and launched an online-only version of Bed Bath and Beyond.

What followed from there was a dizzying array of corporate deal-making. Ultimately, Beyond took an ownership stake in Kirkland’s Inc., a home decor chain with around 300 stores across the U.S., and gave it the exclusive license to develop and create Bed Bath & Beyond Home stores, as well as Buy Buy Baby stores.

Kirkland’s later rebranded to The Brand House Collective and plans to convert some of its existing Kirkland’s Home stores into more Bed Bath and Beyond shops. Friday’s launch in Nashville is the first of six planned for the market and, pending the results, it plans to convert around 75 additional stores through 2026.

The company said it chose Nashville for the launch because of its proximity to its corporate headquarters, which will allow it to “closely manage every detail and set the standard for future rollouts.”

While the relaunch is exciting for fans of the legacy brand, it comes at a difficult time for the home decor market. In many ways, Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy was the fault of its management team and execution missteps, but it also faced macro challenges as well, experts said at the time. Competition from players like Amazon, Walmart, Home Goods and Wayfair has made it harder for other brands to capture customer spend, and the overall sector has been soft for several years because of high interest rates and the sluggish housing market.

Even the current leaders in the home decor space have seen soft trends and it’s unlikely that will change until interest rates fall and the housing market picks back up, some analysts have said.