Self-storage company Public Storage is buying National Storage Affiliates in an all-stock deal worth about $10.5 billion. National Storage has more than 1,000 properties, 69 million rentable square feet, and 550,000 units across 37 states and Puerto Rico. Public Storage said Monday that the acquisition will help expands its exposure to markets that are poised for strong long-term growth based on demographic trends, including the Sun Belt region.

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Worries about the war with Iran sent oil prices back to $100 per barrel and stocks sinking worldwide. The S&P 500 fell 1.5% Thursday and returned to big swings following a couple days of relative calm. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.6%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.8%. The center of action was again the oil market, where the price of a barrel of Brent crude got as high as $101.59. Treasury yields climbed in the bond market on worries about higher inflation and fewer cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve.

Warner Bros. is again rejecting a takeover bid from Paramount and telling shareholders to stick with a rival offer from Netflix. Warner's leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Skydance-owned Paramount's overtures — and urged shareholders just weeks ago to support selling its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has made efforts to sweeten its $77.9 billion hostile bid for the entire company. Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday that its board determined Paramount's offer isn't in the best interests of the company or its shareholders and doesn't meet the criteria of being a superior proposal. It still recommends shareholders support the Netflix deal.

OpenAI could now be the world's most valuable startup, ahead of Elon Musk's SpaceX and TikTok parent company ByteDance, after a secondary stock sale designed to retain employees at the ChatGPT maker. Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company's valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI's remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015.

Tesla gave Elon Musk a stock grant of $29 billion on Monday as a reward for years of "transformative and unprecedented" growth despite a recent foray into right-wing politics that has hurt its sales, profits and its stock price. In giving its billionaire CEO 96 million in restricted shares, the electric car company noted that Musk hasn't been paid in years because his 2018 compensation package has been rejected by a Delaware court. Tesla on Monday called the grant a "first step, good faith" way of retaining Musk and keeping him focused, citing his leadership of SpaceX, xAI and other companies.Â