Paramount CEO David Ellison arrives with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., earlier than President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union within the Home chamber on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026.
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP/AP
Warner Bros. Discovery’s blockbuster announcement Thursday that it could settle for Paramount Skydance’s takeover bid should not be considered merely as looking for to unify two main Hollywood gamers, two huge streaming platforms and two main TV information divisions below one roof.
However there’s extra to it.
Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison is relying largely on the monetary backing of his father, Larry Ellison — the co-founder of software program big Oracle, the lead investor in TikTok US, and one of many richest folks on the planet.
The Ellisons have staged what seems to be a lightning-swift ascent by social and legacy media relying closely on their connection to the Oval Workplace.
Ought to the Ellisons obtain a inexperienced mild from regulators to proceed with the deal, the minnow may have swallowed the whale. Warner at the moment has greater than 5 occasions the market worth of Paramount.
That is on high of buying Paramount itself and a significant stake in TikTok US — all in lower than a yr. And that is along with Oracle, which runs a lot of the digital spine of the nation’s commerce and authorities.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, proper, sits subsequent to media mogul Rupert Murdoch as they take heed to President Trump converse within the Oval Workplace on February 03, 2025.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America
However historical past reveals such mega-mergers typically finish in tears. The film enterprise is pricey. Cable tv is extremely worthwhile however in steep decline as viewers minimize the twine. The mixed firm will probably be saddled with debt. So why would the Ellisons spend their billions this fashion?
David Ellison has sought to be a power in Hollywood for years. He helped to provide motion pictures with Tom Cruise at his household’s firm Skydance Media. However for his father, Larry Ellison, it is about extra than simply making his son’s very costly desires come true.
“Past any {dollars} that they’ll derive — it is the information about client habits, all the way down to the particular identification,” Klein says.
He says the push into synthetic intelligence by Oracle creates a thirst for extra perception into how folks view information and leisure and what merchandise they purchase on-line. The streaming channels and social media big each supply larger and extra granular data.
“That is the prism that you have to take a look at this Paramount/WBD deal by,” says Klein, co-founder of HANG Media, a Gen Z social video engagement platform. “Oracle… needs to be one of many main gamers in AI. That is what Oracle needs to get out of media.”
The deal nonetheless hinges on acceptance from antitrust regulators in Washington and Europe, who can search to dam the transaction. California’s lawyer common made clear Thursday evening he would additionally give the acquisition robust scrutiny.
“If a merger considerably reduces competitors in any market, it is unlawful. Courts kind of take that actually,” says College of Chicago legislation professor Eric Posner, who held a senior antitrust place within the U.S. Justice Division below former President Joe Biden.
“However in apply, the Justice Division has discretion on whether or not to problem these mergers,” Posner tells NPR. “And the courts have discretion on whether or not to dam them.”
Pleasant ties to Trump
President Trump’s Justice Division is a wild card. Final yr, the division’s then antitrust chief, Gail Slater, took an aggressive stance towards Google in courtroom. Final month, the Justice Division sued to dam Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of a wi-fi tech competitor. Slater resigned below duress this month, nonetheless.
The Federal Communications Fee is unlikely to intervene, as no broadcast licenses would change fingers within the Paramount takeover of Warner. However its chair, Brendan Carr, might nicely advise the Justice Division and he has lauded David Ellison’s strikes at CBS.
Even earlier than sweetening its supply this week, Paramount proclaimed its “confidence within the pace and certainty of regulatory approval for its transaction.”
Publicly, it argues that such consolidation is required to tackle streaming giants, very a lot together with Netflix but in addition Amazon Prime, Apple, Disney and YouTube.
Behind the scenes — and typically in not-so-hidden methods — the Ellisons have grow to be cozy with President Trump. Larry Ellison is a backer and adviser.
On Tuesday evening, David Ellison attended Trump’s State of the Union tackle as a visitor of the president’s ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Graham tweeted out a photograph of the 2 males making Trump’s signature “thumbs-up” gesture forward of the speech.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos departs the White Home on Wednesday. Sarandos was there to debate Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. simply hours earlier than Warner introduced its choice for Paramount.
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Andrew Leyden/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America
Netflix chief Ted Sarandos met Thursday with administration officers on the White Home — although notably not with Trump, based on an aide — in a last-gasp effort to salvage his firm’s competing bid. By the top of the evening, Netflix had given up the combat.
The shadow forged over the method by the president has impressed sharp criticism of the trail that Paramount and the Ellisons took to land the Warner deal.
“A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are attempting to grab management of what you watch and cost you no matter value they need,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts mentioned in a press release. “With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump’s Division of Justice, it will be as much as the American folks to talk up and state attorneys common to implement the legislation.”
“It’s not simply the seemingly open corruption of this complete course of that leaves me shaken,” writes Jeffrey Blehar within the conservative Nationwide Assessment. “I’m shaken by how little folks will care.”
CNN’s future hangs within the stability
The Ellisons’ acquisition of Paramount adopted an analogous path.
Final summer time, the earlier house owners of Paramount introduced the top of late evening host Stephen Colbert’s CBS present as they sought federal approval to promote the corporate to David Ellison.
Whereas they cited economics, Colbert’s was the top-rated late evening present on community tv — and he has been a lacerating satirist of the president. Colbert known as the cancellation a “huge fats bribe.”
Ellison subsequently made extra pledges to the FCC’s Carr to win assist. Amongst them: he promised the cessation of variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives all through Paramount and the addition of an ombudsman to subject complaints of ideological bias. He named the previous head of a conservative suppose tank to that position.
Carr blessed the sale. He has since praised the shifts made at CBS Information.
Different parts are in play as nicely.
CBS’s new editor in chief is Bari Weiss, founding father of the center-right opinion and information web site The Free Press. Ellison purchased the positioning and added it to Paramount’s portfolio.
Bari Weiss, CBS Information’ editor in chief, interviews conservative activist Erika Kirk in a CBS city corridor occasion in December.
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CBS Picture Archive/CBS through Getty Photos/CBS
Weiss has contended CBS and far of the remainder of the media has been too reflexively hostile to conservatives and the president, and she or he’s sought to revamp the newsroom.
Perceived worth past the underside line
The deal David Ellison struck for Warner is valued at practically $111 billion. The brand new firm would carry substantial money owed and have Saudi and Emirate backing. The income are at the moment comparatively modest.
But Klein contends bigger motives are in play. Simply take a look at Google, he says, which owns what many think about the dominant media firm, YouTube.
“They need to know what you watch, and the place you come from, and what you purchase while you watch, and the place you go after you purchase, and what you submit within the feedback and what you want and love and all that,” Klein says.
“And should you can mix that together with your streaming content material and your studio choices and your advertising and marketing for all of the content material product you are creating,” he provides, “you are in a really very highly effective place.”
