YouTube Becomes World's Largest Media Business; Ackman's Pershing Square Files For IPO; and Anthropic Fights Back

The media, finance, and AI worlds are being reshaped by digital disruption and regulatory battles. YouTube has overtaken The Walt Disney Company in annual revenue, marking a historic shift as creator-driven platforms eclipse traditional Hollywood studios. On Wall Street, billionaire investor Bill Ackman is moving to list Pershing Square Capital Management on the New York Stock Exchange in a bid to build a Buffett-style public investment vehicle. Meanwhile, Nasdaq is partnering with crypto exchange Kraken to develop tokenized equities that could transform how investors trade shares globally. And in Washington, AI startup Anthropic has taken the Trump administration to court over a national-security blacklist tied to the company’s refusal to loosen safeguards on its Claude model. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat! 

Markets Around The World

Markets as of 10th March 2026. Cells in RED mean that the value is down, cells in Green mean the value is up.

MAJOR HEADLINES

• YouTube is now the world’s largest media company, outpacing Disney for the first time 

Alphabet's YouTube may now be the biggest media business in the world, highlighting how technology platforms are increasingly reshaping the entertainment landscape. Research compiled by MoffettNathanson indicates that YouTube generated about $62B in revenue in 2025, slightly surpassing Disney Media's roughly $60.9B. The milestone suggests the video platform has moved ahead of traditional Hollywood giants as digital distribution and creator-driven ecosystems continue to expand across global audiences.

The platform's rise traces back to Google's $1.65B acquisition of YouTube in 2006, a deal that came during the early stages of online video's growth. Over time, the service evolved from a simple video-sharing site into a vast entertainment hub spanning music, podcasts, television, sports, and live events. Today, YouTube records trillions of views annually and operates with a dual-revenue structure that combines advertising with subscription offerings, a model that researchers say supports its scale and resilience.

Moffett Nathanson estimates that if YouTube were ever separated from Alphabet as a standalone company, the business could potentially be valued between $500B and $560B, or roughly eight to nine times its 2025 revenue. At that level, the platform's value would exceed the combined market worth of several major Hollywood players, including Disney, Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony, and Paramount Skydance. The research also suggests that ongoing advances in generative AI may allow creators to produce more impactful content while improving targeting and monetization tools across the platform. Yahoo.Finance

• Bill Ackman's Pershing Square files for IPO on the NYSE

Outspoken investor Bill Ackman is taking a step toward his long-held ambition of building a publicly traded investment vehicle modeled on Warren Buffett’s approach, filing to list his hedge fund firm Pershing Square Capital Management on the New York Stock Exchange. Pershing Square filed on Tuesday to list on the Big Board under the symbol “PS.” The planned listing would give public investors a stake in Ackman’s investment platform, which oversees a concentrated portfolio of large-cap companies, including Brookfield, Uber, and Amazon as of the end of 2025.

 The transaction will involve a dual listing structure. Pershing Square’s common shares and the shares of its closed-end fund, PSUS, will both trade on the NYSE. The securities will be listed concurrently but will trade separately, allowing investors to buy or sell each independently. The firm noted that there has previously been no public market for Pershing Square’s common stock prior to the combined offering. As part of the combined transaction, Ackman is seeking to raise between $5 billion and $10 billion for PSUS with investors able to purchase shares at $50 apiece, according to the filing. The firm said it expects to deliver 20 shares of Pershing Square Capital Management’s common stock for every 100 PSUS shares purchased in the initial public offering, at no additional cost.

The investment firm said it has secured $2.8 billion in commitments ahead of the offering. The capital is coming from a mix of family offices, pension funds, insurance companies and ultra-high-net-worth investors, according to the filing. The public listing is a move to leverage his following among Main Street investors after he accumulated more than 2 million followers on social media platform X. Pershing said PSUS will be its first fund marketed to both U.S. retail and institutional investors. CNBC

• Nasdaq Partners With Kraken for Tokenized Stocks, Launching 2027

Nasdaq is partnering with Payward, the parent firm of crypto exchange Kraken, to develop tokenized equities that will enable "programmable investor engagement," the exchange announced Monday. Set to launch in the first half of 2027, the initiative aims to "modernize processes" including corporate actions, shareholder engagement, and proxy voting, Nasdaq stated in a press release. Tokenized shares would afford the holder "full legal and regulatory equivalence," with a transfer of the token representing a transfer of the underlying security, it said.

The exchange added that the plan builds on its tokenization proposal filed with the SEC last year, which aimed to give customers the option to trade securities via traditional digital representation of ownership, with or without blockchain backing. In a separate release, Payward explained that it would develop an "equities transformation gateway" with Nasdaq built atop its xStocks framework, enabling customers "in jurisdictions around the world where xStocks are available" to trade tokenized versions of public company shares. "This issuer‑sponsored approach for tokenized equity securities is designed to empower public companies and enhance global accessibility to U.S. equity markets, ”said Nasdaq President Tal Cohen, adding that tokenization "has the potential to unlock the benefits of an always-on financial ecosystem—enhancing how investors access markets, how issuers engage with shareholders."

Nasdaq's move comes amid a wider push towards tokenized stocks in the TradFi world. In January, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it is developing a blockchain-based platform for trading tokenized equities, while just last week its parent company Intercontinental Exchange invested in crypto exchange OKX at a $25 billion valuation, enabling OKX users to trade tokenized stocks and derivatives listed on the NYSE from later this year. Decrypt

• Anthropic Sues Trump Admin Over 'Supply Chain Risk' Designation

Anthropic has turned to the federal courts to fight a sweeping blacklist by the Donald Trump administration, claiming the government branded the AI startup a national security threat in retaliation for its refusal to relax safety protocols. The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court of Northern California, challenges actions taken after President Trump directed federal agencies in February to stop using Anthropic’s technology. This followed public comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who said the company would not comply with the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to Claude. The complaint names multiple federal agencies and senior officials as defendants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” attorneys for Anthropic said in the lawsuit. “No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.” The dispute began in January when Pentagon officials demanded AI contractors allow their systems to be used for “any lawful use,” including military applications.

Anthropic is asking the court to declare the government’s actions unlawful and block enforcement of the “supply chain risk” designation that prevents federal agencies and Pentagon contractors from doing business with the company. “There is no valid justification for the Challenged Actions,” the lawsuit said. “The Court should declare them unlawful and enjoin Defendants from taking any steps to implement them.” Even after designating Anthropic a risk to national security, Claude has been used in ongoing military operations, including by U.S. Central Command to help analyze intelligence and identify targets during strikes on Iran. Decrypt

Minor Headlines

• Wall Street banks offer UAE staff option to relocate temporarily Bloomberg

• China’s BYD explores entry into F1 to boost its global appeal  Bloomberg

• Mastercard and Google team up for AI-powered shopping TheDefiant 

• Elon Musk announces X money, a new digital pay system, to enter public access next month  Reuters

• Legal AI startup Legora raises $550 million to speed up US expansion  Reuters

• Saudi Aramco to restore 70% of normal crude oil exports within days  Business Post

• Google will provide the Pentagon with AI agents to automate routines job for unclassified works  Bloomberg

• New California law requires VCs to ask founders if they are gay  JD Supra