Busting Myths on Foreign Media Ownership as TikTok Ban Looms

In fact, there are no laws restricting foreigners from buying U.S. newspapers or media generally, other than long-standing rules related to broadcast TV and radio. And the Federal Communications Commission has relaxed even those rules in the past decade, an understandable move given the diminished state of broadcast media. To be sure, the lack of foreign regulation hasn’t been much of an issue for the rest of U.S. media until recently, given the relative paucity of rich foreigners buying up media businesses. Aside from Murdoch in the days before he became American, one of the few foreigners to own a newspaper was Canada’s Conrad Black, who for a time owned the Chicago Sun-Times. In cable TV, a European firm controls the Altice cable TV operator, which serves part of the New York metropolitan area and the Southeastern U.S. 

Until the internet came along, technological limitations kept most media companies focused on their home territories. The borderless nature of the internet has changed things, creating opportunities for everyone from Netflix to The New York Times to expand in much of the world (while Axel Springer expanded in the U.S.). In that sense, the TikTok bill sets a bad precedent that U.S. companies might come to regret. Its saving grace, however, is that it targets apps controlled by a “foreign adversary,” most obviously China, which already blocks access to U.S. internet companies. So the bill simply puts business opportunities between China and the U.S. on a more equal playing field. When you think of it like that, it’s hard to argue against the TikTok bill. 

Instacart and the Lockup

So much for the theory that lockup expirations, when early shareholders can sell their shares, put downward pressure on an-already depressed stock. Instacart’s lockup expired nearly a month ago, on Feb. 15, and yet the stock has climbed ever since. Today it reached a new high of $35.35. 

That must be a huge relief to Instacart’s management. The company’s stock had fallen below its $30 IPO price within days of the September IPO and fell to a low of around $23 in early January. It didn’t really start to improve until a few days before the lockup expiration. The day the lockups came off, the stock dipped on unusually heavy volume, but it quickly recovered and hasn’t looked back.

How to explain the recovery? It may have been influenced by Instacart’s expansion of its share buyback, which likely more than offset any selling pressure from early investors wanting to dump their stock. And perhaps some of those early investors, freed of lockup restrictions, decided to wait for the stock to rise a little before they sold. Whatever the reason, Instacart shareholders have a reason to smile.

In Other News

• Microsoft will make its new OpenAI-powered cybersecurity software, dubbed Security Copilot, generally available on April 1, the company announced on Wednesday (more here).
• Amazon said Wednesday that it will start delivering prescriptions, including the Zepbound weight-loss pen, for drugmaker Eli Lilly’s direct-to-consumer service (more here).
• Apple said it would allow software developers in Europe to offer their apps to users via their websites as part of a series of tweaks it has been making to its new App Store policies in the region, which it rolled out this month (more here).
• Michael Abbott, head of software and services for General Motors, is leaving the automaker less than a year after he joined, due to health issues (more here).

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