David Ellison Skydance Paramount Warner Deal Approved
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What happened
David Ellison’s Skydance, after acquiring Paramount from the Redstone family, has moved to combine it with Warner Bros. Discovery. Outlets covering the story report that a court has now approved that combination, which they say would create a large media company under the Skydance name and involve about $80 billion in debt. California Attorney General Rob Bonta dropped or settled an antitrust lawsuit over the deal with few conditions, after Ellison competed with Netflix for WBD and reached an agreement with WBD chief David Zaslav. The combined assets described include Warner Bros. studios, CNN, CBS, and Paramount’s film and television holdings; Ellison has also hired journalist Bari Weiss to run CBS.
ONE-SIDED THIS WEEK.
Only right-leaning outlets have covered this story in the last two days;
The Verge reported it on 2026-10-06.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage has not reported the court approval of David Ellison's Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery combination. Right-leaning coverage reports that the deal, known as Skydance, is now court-approved. That coverage puts the combined company at $80 billion in debt. It also says California attorney general Rob Bonta dropped his antitrust suit with few conditions. Right-leaning outlets reprint the same column and do not quote the court order. A reader of the silent side would miss that the merger cleared court.
Right-leaning coverage leads with elite forecasts of failure rather than with the ruling's terms. The New York Post recites the experts' label of Ellison as a "lucky-sperm kid."
What conditions did the court attach to the approval?
Bottom line
The New York Post is telling readers Ellison's Paramount-Warner combination is court-approved after California's attorney general dropped his suit; left-leaning coverage has not reported that approval.
The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
- The combined company has $80 billion in debt
- California AG Rob Bonta dropped his antitrust suit with few conditions
- Ellison threatened to leave town and take all his jobs with him
The Right View
New York Post business columns present the court-approved Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery combination as a win for David Ellison against commentators who, they say, predicted failure at every step. They report that skeptics doubted he could buy Paramount from the Redstones, beat Netflix for WBD, persuade David Zaslav to sell, or get California AG Rob Bonta to drop an antitrust suit, and that those same voices cast Ellison as a lightly credentialed producer relying on his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and on family ties to President Trump. The pieces call Bonta’s case fallacious, say he settled after Ellison threatened to take jobs out of California, and treat the outcome as evidence that elite, politically skewed expert opinion is unreliable—citing COVID lockdowns as a parallel. They also cite Ellison’s producing credits on films such as Mission: Impossible and Top Gun and the Bari Weiss hire at CBS as proof he is not a mere inheritor.
Our Take (balanced)
The named corporate and legal events—Skydance’s Paramount deal, a WBD combination, a court approval, Bonta’s antitrust action and settlement, and appointments such as Bari Weiss at CBS—are specific and checkable against court records, company filings, and the California attorney general’s docket. The published items are opinion columns, not document-driven news: they assert that unnamed Wall Street, academic, and media “experts” were repeatedly wrong and motivated by class and political bias, without quoting those experts or attaching the court order or settlement text. Established in the available reporting is a claimed completed deal path and Bonta’s decision to drop or settle; alleged or interpretive are the characterizations of Ellison as vindicated, the suit as fallacious, and elite opinion as systematically worthless. No left-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch for the court order, Bonta’s settlement terms, securities filings on debt and corporate structure, and official statements from Skydance/Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and the California attorney general.
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