Former Republican presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has purchased a minority stake in Buzzfeed, the digital publishing company that shut down its media outlet last year.
Shares of the company skyrocketed more than 50% before the market open on Wednesday.
Ramaswamy acquired a 7.7% stake in Buzzfeed, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday.
Ramaswamy said in the filing that he believes Buzzfeed's stock is undervalued. He is looking to speak with the company's board and management.
Buzzfeed has struggled to prop up sales since it went public in 2021. In late 2022 job cuts began rolling out with the company citing a poor digital advertising environment, then early last year announced that it was shutting down its Pulitzer Prize winning digital media outlet BuzzFeed News.
The corporate parent’s co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said in a memo to staff at the time that in addition to the news division, layoffs would take place in its business, content, tech and administrative teams.
Earlier this month, Buzzfeed reported a first-quarter loss of $35.7 million, or 72 cents per share, on revenue of $44.8 million. Advertising revenue fell 22%, while content revenue declined 19% and the company is projecting a worsening revenue situation.
Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in January and endorsed former President Donald Trump after finishing a distant fourth in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses.
The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy entered politics at the highest level after making hundreds of millions of dollars at the intersection of hedge funds and pharmaceutical research, a career he charted and built while graduating from Harvard University and then Yale Law School.
Shares of Buzzfeed Inc., based in New York City, rose 59% to about $4 early Wednesday.
FILE - Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Md., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Ramaswamy had purchased a 7.7% stake in Buzzfeed, the Pulitzer Prize winning digital media outlet that went into restructuring last year. Shares skyrocketed more than 50% before the market open on Wednesday, May 22. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — A judge on Friday rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to weigh a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Whitten said the wording the legislative council suggested is “packed with emotion and partisan meaning” and asked for what he called more “neutral” language. The measure aims to expand abortion access from 15 weeks to 24 weeks – the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.
It would allow exemptions to save the woman’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would also prevent the state from adopting or enforcing laws that would forbid access to the procedure.
Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who is a co-chair of the legislative council, said the group will appeal the court’s decision to the state Supreme Court.
“The ruling is just plain wrong and clearly partisan,” said Toma, a Republican.
The State Supreme Court has until Aug. 27 to rule on the appeal for the language to be changed.
Aaron Thacker, communications director for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, noted that the final decision on the ballot itself remains in the air.
“There’s still a lot of scenarios at play," he said. "Even after the secretary certifies the signatures, the courts have to decide if counties can put it on the ballot or not."
Arizona for Abortion Access, the organization leading the ballot measure campaign, sued the council earlier this month over the suggested language and advocated for the term “fetus,” which the council rejected.
Attorney General Kris Mayes wrote in a motion to submit an amicus brief that “fetus" and “pregnancy” are both neutral terms that the council could adopt.
“It’s incredibly important to us that Arizona voters get to learn more about and weigh our measure in objective and accurate terminology,” said Dawn Penich, communications director for the abortion access group.
Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns in this year’s elections. Organizers in five other states have also proposed similar measures that would codify abortion access in their state constitutions: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and South Dakota.
Arizona organizers submitted more than double the amount of signatures needed for the measure to appear on the ballot.
FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters deliver over 800,000 petition signatures to the capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. A judge on Friday, July 26, rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to decide on a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
