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The Department of Justice said Friday that it had signed off on Paramount’s $111 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
The merger, expected to be completed by September, will join Paramount+ and CBS with HBO Max and CNN, under the leadership of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison. The deal will create the largest theatrical distributor in the United States.
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Anonymous sources familiar with the deal told POLITICO that the DOJ concluded the deal wouldn’t harm market competition. Unlike past mergers such as Comcast’s 2011 takeover of NBCUniversal, this one comes with no reported strings attached, as the government did not impose any divestitures, behavioral remedies, or concessions after its review.
Axios reported last Tuesday that Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, would likely oversee editorial decisions at CNN as well, once the merger is completed. Puck, which first broke the news of Weiss’ hiring at Paramount in July 2025, reported that David Ellison was “smitten by Bari’s unwavering support of Israel and preoccupation with the rise of antisemitism.”
Larry Ellison is a personal friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was at one point the largest private donor to the Israel Defense Forces, while emails showed David Ellison collaborated with former Israeli military intelligence chief Benjamin Gantz to counter critics of Israel.
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