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.

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.

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.

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.

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.