David Ellison Takes Control of Paramount and Warner Bros
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What happened
David Ellison is completing Paramount's $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal officially greenlit this week after Paramount settled an antitrust lawsuit with California Attorney General Rob Bonta—a transaction California Gov. Gavin Newsom had backed. Ellison's company Skydance had already acquired Paramount, after which he named Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News; his father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is providing more than $40 billion of the equity financing. The settlement requires independent editorial boards for CBS News and CNN without specifying the boards' powers, $1.5 billion in additional domestic production over five years, and theatrical-release targets of 30 films a year, rising to 32, with a requirement to sell Miramax Studios if those targets are missed. The combination would place HBO, HBO Max, Paramount+, CBS, CNN, and a large film library under Ellison's control. Paramount executives have reportedly discussed asking Elon Musk to take an equity stake in the deal.
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Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The left-leaning coverage presents Ellison's takeover as a personal Hollywood coronation and leaves out how the deal was cleared and paid for. Right-leaning coverage is more complete: it reports the merger was greenlit only after a settlement with California's attorney general, with Larry Ellison covering more than $40 billion of the equity. A reader of only the former would see a lone titan, not a family-financed buyout that needed a state deal to close.
The two sides do not even start the same story. Right-leaning coverage leads with talks of an Elon Musk stake and alarm inside CNN. Left-leaning coverage leads with Ellison as "the Hollywood equivalent of Superman, Caesar and Midas combined."
What powers will the independent editorial boards promised for CNN and CBS actually have?
Bottom line
The New York Times described Ellison as a Hollywood colossus and never mentioned the California settlement that required a $1.5 billion bump in domestic production before he could take control.
The receipts — 2 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Paramount executives have discussed asking Elon Musk to take an equity stake in the takeover
- If Paramount fails its annual theatrical-release thresholds, it will be forced to sell Miramax Studios
The Left View
The New York Times frames the takeover as a sudden concentration of industry power in one young executive, calling the result a Hollywood “colossus” and writing that Ellison will be “the Hollywood equivalent of Superman, Caesar and Midas combined.” The paper’s account stresses that historic scale while noting that challenges remain.
The Right View
The New York Post centers a Semafor report that Paramount has mulled an equity investment from Musk to reduce Larry Ellison’s financing load, and treats CNN staff reaction as the political core of the story. A CNN source called the reports “really scary given what he did at X and DOGE”; another said they were “not good for Gavin.” The Post notes Larry Ellison’s status as a Trump ally and Musk friend, says employees at both companies fear a layoff “bloodbath” not addressed in detail by the California settlement, and reports that Weiss has faced “serious blowback” for axing longtime “60 Minutes” correspondents.
Our Take (balanced)
The Times’s strongest argument is sheer concentration: one executive now spanning the remaining major studio-streamer-news combination, crystallized in the “Superman, Caesar and Midas” line. The Post’s strongest argument is downstream political control of news: a possible Musk stake on top of Trump-aligned financing and Weiss’s contested CBS tenure is what CNN staff themselves called “really scary,” citing his record at X and DOGE. The central unresolved tension is whether this is chiefly a business story about a new entertainment conglomerate and its financial risks, or a political story about who will set the bounds of CBS and CNN—bounds the settlement’s editorial boards have not yet defined.
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