President Donald Trump, who is friendly with David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, gave a big thumbs-up to Paramount’s megamerger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which closed earlier Tuesday to form Skydance Corp.
“I’m happy about that. That’s great,” Trump told reporters Tuesday on the lawn of the White House when he was informed that the deal had officially closed.
“It’s gonna be a great company. They’re terrific people, and it’s gonna be a great company,” Trump said. “That’s a great merger. I’m glad they let it go.”
The Paramount-WBD deal was approved by Trump’s Justice Department in June without any conditions. The deal cleared its final roadblock after Paramount reaching a settlement with 12 Democratic state attorneys general to resolve their antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the Warner Bros. Discovery takeover, and a judge approved the settlement on Sept. 30.
Ellison has said publicly that he believed the states AGs’ litigation was politically motivated, stoked by fears he would try to turn CNN into some kind of Trump-friendly mouthpiece. “I believe this fight is not really about market share,” Ellison wrote in an Aug. 4 New York Times op-ed. “I believe a plainer worry sits beneath the briefs and the news releases: the news. The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN.” Ellison has pledged that CNN and CBS News journalists “will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause.”
Under the settlement with the 12-state coalition, the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. will be subject to monitoring by a “news editorial independence board.” The board, which will include representatives from the states, will establish “guiding editorial and journalism principles” for CNN and CBS News. But critics have dismissed this as a toothless condition. One player displeased with this outcome was Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who, although he signed off on the settlement, said afterward he had advocated for a full divestiture of CNN and CBS News.
Trump is known to be friendly with both Ellisons. This April, David Ellison threw a dinner party in Washington, D.C., “honoring” Trump and the First Amendment, which was attended by CBS News execs and journalists. David Ellison last month attended the state dinner at the White House held for visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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In July, a Paramount shareholder sued the Ellisons, alleging they cut an “illegal” deal with Trump to secure U.S. governmental approval for the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. In return, according to the lawsuit, the Ellisons offered “the opportunity to improperly funnel cash” to the president by settling his legal claims against CNN, and they allegedly promised that CNN anchors whom Trump does not like would be fired after the WBD takeover. In response, a Paramount spokesperson said in part, “This lawsuit recycles allegations that have already been reported and already addressed. As we’ve said consistently: no commitments from either David or Larry Ellison have been made to any government body, State AG, or federal agency regarding the future of CNN or any other news property, other than the goal to deliver truth-based journalism.”
From Variety US