Musk reportedly acquired a $1 billion stake in Hollywood giant Skydance, significantly below market expectations. The latter's stock experienced sharp intraday fluctuations before closing down approximately 1%.

Elon Musk has reportedly acquired a stake of approximately $1 billion in Hollywood giant Skydance, according to Semafor. This move coincides with capital injections from other Skydance investors. Following the news, Skydance's stock price surged by as much as 7.5% to $8.46 during intraday trading, before triggering a circuit breaker. After trading resumed, it fell to $7.53, down over 4.3% for the day, ultimately closing with a loss of approximately 1%.

The size of this investment is significantly lower than market expectations of $8 billion to $10 billion, and Skydance faces total debt of nearly $8.7 billion, leaving credit market pressure unresolved. Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on October 6, integrating assets such as Paramount, Warner Bros., Paramount+, HBO Max, as well as CNN and CBS. Musk's move is considered strategically significant, potentially seeking synergy between the X platform and xAI in content distribution and AI training data. However, it has also sparked politically sensitive controversy regarding the editorial independence of CNN and CBS.