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Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is “undeterred” after Warner Bros. Discovery rebuffed his first three offers to buy the media giant, according to a person who has been advising Ellison.
The next move is unknown. But both Ellison and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav are playing their parts perfectly in this M&A struggle over one of the biggest media companies in the world.
Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent of CNN, HBO Max, DC Comics, Cartoon Network, and a storied list of other brands, said earlier this week that it had started a deal review process “after receiving interest from multiple parties.”
The newly formed Paramount Skydance is at the top of the list, as Ellison tries to rapidly grow his media empire.
Ellison’s allies are privately arguing that he is the only buyer who would pass muster with Trump administration regulators. “That’s the Trump card,” an adviser remarked, enjoying the double entendre.
The adviser, like the other sources for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because the companies are not commenting publicly.
Privately, Ellison is exuding the kind of confidence that comes from having tens of billions in cash. His ambitions are bolstered by his father, Larry Ellison, Oracle’s executive chairman, who currently ranks as the second-richest man in the world. Together they are “building an unprecedented media empire,” as The Washington Post put it earlier this month.
However, so far, WBD has turned down the Ellison entreaties. Zaslav, who has led WBD since it was formed through a 2022 combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery, is insisting that the company is worth more than the $23.50 per share that Ellison most recently offered.
And the WBD board agrees, having unanimously voted to reject that bid.
Zaslav is talking internally about how HBO Max and the Warner Bros. movie studio would fit well with Amazon or Netflix, according to a person involved in the conversations.
NBCUniversal’s parent company, Comcast, is also taking a look at WBD’s assets, sources told CNN earlier.
This week’s for-sale announcement signaled that many outcomes are possible: A deal for all of WBD, a deal for the company’s streaming and studio assets to another company, or the already-planned split of WBD into two publicly traded halves.
Lest there is any doubt, Ellison does want to buy all the WBD assets, including CNN, even though Warner is newly willing to sell pieces, sources with knowledge of the talks said.
Ellison’s recent acquisition of The Free Press and installation of Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief evinces a deep interest in news — in ways that worry some and excite others.
Paramount’s pursuit of WBD raises big questions about billionaire control of major media conglomerates. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for one, has been raising her voice about potential consumer harms.
And Wall Street analysts have been asserting that President Trump’s personal preferences may weigh heavily on the deal process. The commentary is a stark reminder of how the president has reshaped the government in his own image.
Trump has repeatedly praised the Ellisons in recent months. “They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine,” the president said in mid-October.
“They will make the right decisions,” Trump added. “They’re going to revitalize CBS — hopefully, they’ll bring it back to its former glory.”
Trump’s praise is notable partly because the younger Ellison was a big Democratic donor as recently as last year. He was spotted schmoozing near Trump at two different UFC matches earlier this year, though, and he agreed to several conditions imposed by the Trump-aligned FCC in order to complete his takeover of Paramount.
Additionally, the elder Ellison has expressed support for Trump in the past and has been leading a group of investors who intend to buy TikTok’s US assets, potentially giving Trump a political and cultural win.
Paramount is leveraging these presidential relationships as it pursues WBD. “Trump’s implicit support for the deal is their number one talking point,” a person involved in the negotiations said.
Paramount insiders refute that, noting that Ellison made many pro-deal arguments in a letter to WBD’s board that The New York Times obtained on Wednesday.
“We are confident that we are the best partner for WBD,” Ellison wrote in the letter, “with a combination of our two companies creating a scaled Hollywood champion to the benefit of both our companies’ shareholders, consumers and the entertainment industry at large.”
Some analysts have backed up those arguments. Paramount’s bid “makes a lot of strategic sense by owning a much stronger slate of I.P. at Warner Bros. and seeking scale with the combined HBO Max and Paramount+ platforms,” Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson said in a note to investors.
Fishman also said that “combining the linear network portfolios would also likely yield significant cost synergies, while unlocking strategic benefits from pairing CBS News with CNN and leveraging the long-standing CBS-Turner partnership for NCAA’s March Madness Final Four plus other overlapping sports rights portfolios.”
But Warner’s leaders argue that Paramount is not fully valuing its assets. Plus, though the Trump factor looms large, US regulators are not the only government officials to consider.
A Paramount-WBD deal would face regulatory scrutiny in the United Kingdom, the European Union and some Latin American countries. The perception of Trump clearing the way for the Ellisons in the US could hurt them in other markets, sources said.
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