Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday teased a possible meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday to finalize a deal for TikTok U.S. and resolve other trade issues.

Yes, but: The Chinese government readout of a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese officials yesterday stopped short of directly confirming a meeting between the two world leaders.

Why it matters: The U.S. has some leverage when it comes to the TikTok deal itself, but negotiations are part of broader trade talks around things like soybean sales and tariffs.

🤏 Reality check: ByteDance's fire sale deal to sell TikTok U.S. dramatically undervalues the asset compared to other ad-supported social media giants.

• The new U.S. entity, valued at only $14 billion, is a clear sign of how desperate ByteDance was to sell the app to avoid potential legal battles over U.S. national security law that would have banned the app if it wasn't sold.

💰 By the numbers: Third-party estimates suggest TikTok's U.S. ad business alone will bring in over $14 billion this year.

• By that measure, TikTok's U.S. arm would only be valued at 0.95x its estimated ad revenue this year, which pales in comparison to Meta's multiple of 9.38x its projected 2025 global ad revenue.

The big picture: Other social giants are valued far above the market average.

• Reddit has charmed public investors, despite being older and significantly smaller than other publicly traded social platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest.

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CNN unveiled today its new subscription streaming service, All Access, three years after the chaotic collapse of CNN+.

Why it matters: Unlike CNN+, the new service is like a "close sibling" of CNN's core cable product, CEO Mark Thompson tells Axios.

📡 Between the lines: CNN+, which was a much more expensive endeavor, was meant to be additive to cable, with shoulder programming that complemented CNN's live feed.

• That required CNN to build and market a whole new set of shows, instead of mostly tapping into its existing programming.

🌎 Zoom in: The new service offers users access to select live programming from CNN's domestic channel and CNN International.

• It will also include free ad-supported streaming channels, special access to certain live feeds during breaking news and events, and full access to CNN's website content and digital journalism.

Follow the money: All Access is launching first in the U.S. for $6.99 per month or $69.99 annually.

• Eventually, Thompson said, the company plans to integrate content and shows from its CNN en Español cable network and expand the service internationally.

The company is exploring possible ways to bundle its subscription with other apps it's working on like CNN Weather.

• If CNN decides to paywall CNN Weather and/or other future lifestyle-adjacent news apps, that could lead to a suite of products the company could bundle alongside the core news offering, Thompson says.

🔌 Reality check: Earlier in the streaming era, pay-TV providers were reluctant to allow content companies to offer their cable content to consumers directly, fearing it would cannibalize their cable bundle products.

• Today, most pay-TV providers are eyeing ways to work with content companies to offer cable subscribers a way to log into these new services at no extra charge.

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Analysts are bullish that a potential bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery can offer the board opportunities to maximize shareholder value, besides its planned split.

Why it matters: "Aside from legacy Hollywood industry or adjacent players like Apple or Amazon, WBD's exploration of strategic alternatives also opens the door for other possible bidders from Tech companies to private equity," Argus analyst Joseph Bonner wrote in a note today.

👀 Yes, but: Any deal would require regulatory approval, and Wall Street is hyper-aware that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison's regulatory courtship thus far — combined with his father Larry Ellison's relationship with the president — presents a unique advantage.

• LightShed Partner's Rich Greenfield, a prominent media analyst, suggested in a note to clients yesterday that Comcast should bring on Erika Kirk as editor-in-chief of a combined news unit if Comcast were to acquire WBD and with it, CNN.

State of play: WBD has rebuffed several offers from Paramount over the past few weeks, creating an opportunity for other interested parties — including Comcast, Netflix, Apple and Amazon — to potentially charm its board.

• Tech firms don't typically acquire big companies, but WBD's studio, library and HBO Max streaming service are attractive assets, even to tech giants wary of inviting legacy culture into their businesses.

🏔️ What to watch: Paramount, meanwhile, is readying itself for a major round of layoffs this week following the completion of its merger with Skydance, Axios can confirm.

• The cuts are expected to impact a wide range of departments, including CBS News, where Bari Weiss has wasted no time meeting with top executives about changes to the network.
• Longtime anchor John Dickerson yesterday said he is departing the company after 16 years.

Disney on Thursday warned customers that its networks, including ESPN, ABC and its entertainment channels, may be dropped from YouTube TV if the two parties cannot reach a new distribution agreement ahead of their current deal expiring this week.

❌ Why it matters: If the two parties fail to strike a deal, millions of YouTube TV consumers could lose access to live games across a slew of major sports franchises, including college football, NFL and NBA.

Zoom out: This is the fourth time since August that a major programmer has had to leverage a consumer campaign to negotiate a distribution deal with YouTube TV. It came close to dropping channels from Fox Corp and NBCUniversal. It's still at an impasse with TelevisaUnivision.

Between the lines: Because virtual pay-TV providers are not regulated in the same way as their traditional pay-TV peers, these disputes give companies like YouTube TV an opportunity to reshape agreements in the digital era in a way that better suits their objectives.

• For example, YouTube is reportedly considering the creation of a separate sports and broadcast package.
• Asked whether ESPN would be open to a specialized sports package on YouTube TV, ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro told Axios last month, "We are certainly open to a sports package or a genre-specific sports offering on the right business terms."

The big picture: With more than 8 million customers, YouTube TV is one of the largest pay-TV providers in the U.S., giving it significant leverage over TV content providers.

• Time spent with YouTube TV as well as YouTube's free app, dwarfs that of its biggest streaming rivals, including Netflix and Disney, per Nielsen.
• YouTube TV captured 12.6% of all television viewing last month.

Campbell Brown, a veteran news anchor and the former head of news at Meta, has raised a $3 million seed round led by Lerer Hippeau with investment from Perplexity's venture fund to co-launch a new company called Forum AI that evaluates AI models for bias and makes judgment calls about high-stakes topics.

🧠 Why it matters: Brown believes much more transparency and expertise are required to inform human-level intelligence within AI systems.

How it works: Forum AI leverages proprietary technology in conjunction with a network of more than 500 curated, domain experts across an array of topics to evaluate AI systems' handling of certain topics for a monthly fee, Brown said.

• It also provides real-time expert insights on sensitive topics as major events unfold, as well as new data for AI companies to train their algorithms in responding to delicate queries.

⭐️ Between the lines: The company has already onboarded several experts who will be listed on its website, including former Democratic U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and historian Niall Ferguson.

Zoom out: Tech companies have historically struggled with how to best inform their algorithms while also dodging the responsibility of making editorial judgments.

• Meta famously created an Oversight Board in 2020 to outsource tricky content moderation questions.
• The board, which it funded, is still operational. But the company has recently taken a more hands-off approach to content moderation, letting community feedback influence its decisions more than fact-checkers.

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The Atlantic is leveraging creator products from its CEO Nicholas Thompson to drive business, a spokesperson told Axios.

Why it matters: More media executives are using their personal brands and creative work to develop sales and branding opportunities for their companies.

📖 Zoom in: Thompson, whose new book "The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports" debuts tomorrow, has made a point to expand his brand as a content creator both to promote ideas related to The Atlantic's publishing business and his passion for running.

• 🎥 Thompson publishes a daily "Most Interesting Thing in Tech" video to his more than 1.6 million followers on LinkedIn and a monthly newsletter on the platform that has nearly 500,000 subscribers.
• 📧 A spokesperson said the newsletter is a direct revenue driver for The Atlantic. The company, she said, has sold sponsorships for the newsletter and has leveraged Thompson's footprint on LinkedIn to elevate the company's strategic goals around AI.
• 🎙️ Thompson has expanded his LinkedIn posts on AI into a business-side podcast called "The Most Interesting Thing in A.I.," sponsored by PwC and produced by The Atlantic's creative marketing studio Atlantic Re:think.

Zoom out: Thompson's creator role is atypical for media CEOs of large, established companies, but has become more common among media startup founders.

• Axios CEO and co-founder Jim VandeHei writes a "Behind the Curtain" column alongside co-founder Mike Allen and has authored two books that highlight the company's "Smart Brevity" editorial strategy and VandeHei's leadership lessons.
• The Information CEO and founder Jessica Lessin hosts the company's new TITV video show and writes columns for the publication.
• Punchbowl CEO and co-founder Anna Palmer co-hosts the startup's news podcast "The Daily Punch" alongside co-founder Jake Sherman.
• The Free Press CEO and co-founder Bari Weiss, who also now serves as editor-in-chief at CBS News, regularly writes columns and hosts a podcast for The Free Press.