🇺🇸 🇪🇺From Italy and Germany to France and UK — US companies are openly signaling interest in Europe’s key media and tech assets.
La Repubblica, La Stampa, The Telegraph, ITV, Cognigy — some deals were blocked, others stalled or redirected to local buyers:
- Italy’s Exor confirm talks to sell most of Gruppo GEDI (La Repubblica and La Stampa), valued at ~€140M. While the buyer is Greece’s Antenna Group, critics point to its owner Theodore Kyriakou’s close ties to US business and Trump-linked circles, raising fear of an editorial shift.
- Newsrooms say they are kept in dark. Journalists at La Stampa staged a strike, while La Repubblica’s newsroom and unions publicly condemned the opaque talks. Staff warn the deal puts 1,300 jobs at risk — and threatens the editorial independence of Italy’s major national titles.
- RedBird (US) agreed in principle to buy The Telegraph for ~£500M — then the bid was pulled amid political/regulatory pressure. However, it still might not be the end of this case.
- Late 2025 US-owned Sky was in talks over parts of ITV (UK). Another sign of how much UK media infrastructure already is influenced by the US corporate orbit.
- Paramount lobbies Macron and UK officials over its Warner Bros takeover — even though both firms are American. Why? Because European regulators, studios and audiences are now central to US media.
- Even Europe’s biggest AI deal ends in US hands. German startup Cognigy sold to US firm Nice for $955M — a record sum. Berlin just admits that tech sovereignty is slipping away.
Piece by piece, Europe’s media and tech ecosystem is being absorbed. Newsrooms, broadcasters, studios, AI leaders — ownership, leverage and decision-making keep drifting toward the US influence.
Source: RT
