ellison

Democratic lawmakers are demanding scrutiny into Paramount Skydance’s financial backers amid rising concerns about potential foreign influence of U.S. media properties.

In a letter this week to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, seven U.S. senators criticized Carr’s suggestion that Paramount’s $111-billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, backed by billionaire Larry Ellison and his family, was on a fast track to receive FCC approval with scant oversight.

Such complicated mergers typically receive an intense government review. The proposed merger would combine two legendary film studios, dozens of cable channels, HBO, CBS and two major news organizations, CNN and CBS News.

Ellison and his son, David, who chairs Paramount, are friendly with President Trump, who has long agitated for changes at CNN, which is slated to be absorbed by Paramount.

The company has said it expects to complete the deal by the end of September.

The Democrats expressed concerns that the fix may be in. Trump’s Justice Department has been reviewing whether the merger would violate U.S. antitrust laws, but a key deadline passed last month without comment from the department’s antitrust regulators.

Also at issue is the Middle Eastern money the Ellison family has been expecting to pull off Paramount’s leveraged buyout of its larger entertainment company rival. The acquisition would leave the combined company with nearly $80 billion in debt.

Late last year, Paramount disclosed that it had lined up $24 billion from wealth funds representing the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, who would then become equity partners in the combined company.

Paramount has described the funds as largely passive investors, saying the royal families would not have input into corporate decision-making. They also would not control seats on the Paramount-Warner board.

Congressional Democrats previously have warned about potential national security concerns. The senators, led by Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), remain concerned, particularly because the transaction will help shape the future of Hollywood production and the direction of key news outlets, including CNN, which maintains a strong presence around the world.

Members of the party have called on Carr to conduct “a full and independent” analysis of the foreign ownership interests before signing off on the merger. The FCC could play an important role, they said, because the tie-up includes Paramount-owned CBS, which holds FCC broadcast station licenses.

Paramount declined to comment. FCC officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Booker and Schumer pointed to Carr’s comments at an industry conference in Spain earlier this month. During an appearance at the Mobile World Congress, Carr suggested the Paramount-Warner deal could be swiftly approved because the foreign investment would warrant only a “very quick, almost pro forma review,” Carr reportedly said.

The FCC has a duty to examine foreign ownership, the lawmakers said, referencing the U.S. Communications Act, which forbids owners from outside the U.S. from holding more than 25% of the equity or voting interests in an entity that maintains an FCC license.

The lawmakers mentioned the FCC’s move earlier this year to tighten its foreign ownership framework to bolster transparency.

Paramount has not yet disclosed its final list of equity partners.

The company previously disclosed its proposed partners in Securities & Exchange Commission filings. However, last month, the composition of the Paramount-Warner deal changed when Larry Ellison agreed to fully guarantee the $45.7-billion in equity needed to finance the $31-a-share buyout of Warner investors.

Before Ellison stepped up, Warner board members had expressed concerns about Paramount’s financing. The tech billionaire’s increased involvement helped carry the Paramount deal over the finish line. Netflix bowed out Feb. 26, ceding the prize to Paramount.

Still, Paramount is expected to line up billions of dollars from outside investors.

It would be significant if Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co., contributed $24 billion to the deal, the Democrats wrote.

“This is not incidental capital, it represents roughly one-fifth of the total transaction value,” Booker and the others wrote. “And it is not clear that this will be the only foreign investment.”

Initially, Paramount included Chinese technology company Tencent Holdings as a minority investor, but Paramount later removed Tencent from the investor pool due to concerns about its problematic status — it has been blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Tencent might return to the fold.

“This constellation of foreign investment from China and from Gulf States, with complex and sometimes competing relationships with the United States, demands rigorous, not perfunctory review,” Booker and the others wrote.

The letter also was signed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii).

They keyed in on the role of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, saying it was controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “whom the U.S. intelligence community concluded ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.”

The proposed $24-billion investment would give “these governments a significant financial stake in the future content, licensing, and strategic decisions of a combined entity that includes some of the most-watched news and entertainment networks in America.”

It is also unclear whether the current tensions in the Middle East over the Iran war will have an impact on Paramount’s investor syndicate.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a proposed Paramount investor, also withdrew late last year.

Paramount shares held steady at $9.17. The company’s stock is down 31% since Feb. 27, when the company prevailed in the Warner auction.

Should Paramount Skydance prevail in its $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the Larry Ellison family would control two historic Hollywood film studios, dozens of cable channels, HBO and two legendary newsrooms, CBS News and CNN.

Concerns about the potential loss of more Hollywood jobs, and questions about newsroom independence dominated a hearing Friday to address Los Angeles’ crisis of shrinking film and TV production jobs.

Paramount wants to wrap up its Warner merger by September — a rapid timetable. The takeover deal, which was struck last month after Netflix bowed out, would put HBO and CNN under the control of Larry Ellison and his son David, the chairman of Paramount, which includes CBS.

Both Ellisons maintain friendly relations with President Trump. Those bonds, along with challenges to legacy media and changes at CBS News in recent months, sparked handwringing during the hearing called by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale).

“The questions surrounding this merger go beyond jobs, contracts and consumers,” Schiff said. “They also go to editorial independence of two of America’s most significant news organizations, CNN and CBS News.”

Trump has long agitated for changes at CNN, and members of his cabinet, including War Secretary Pete Hegseth, have openly cheered for an Ellison takeover of CNN.

To pave the way for the Ellisons’ purchase of Paramount, the company paid $16 million to Trump last summer to settle his lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris in October 2024. Most 1st Amendment experts had deemed Trump’s suit “frivolous.”

Since the Ellisons took the helm, there has been a change in direction at CBS News and a reduction in its size and scope. Staff members at CNN are bracing for similar changes, including to the tone of its newscasts.

In addition to the long-term health of Los Angeles’ film economy, the merger’s fate could determine “whether we have state sponsored media … or whether we have journalists who can truly follow the story,” Friedman said.

A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

The deal is currently before regulators in the U.S. and abroad.

Paramount Chairman David Ellison has vowed to “build a stronger Hollywood,” by increasing the creative output of the two legendary movie studios — Paramount and Warner Bros. — to 30 theatrical releases a year. Warner Bros., which owns such prominent franchises as “The Matrix,” Batman, Harry Potter, “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Friends,” has long been one of Hollywood’s most prolific studios.

But Paramount has suffered from years of under-investment and Ellison and his team have been working to boost the film pipeline.

Ellison has also pledged to keep both studio lots and preserve HBO.

“HBO will continue to operate independently under our ownership, enabling it to create more of the world-class content it is renowened for,” Ellison wrote in the Feb. 28 letter to Schiff and Friedman, responding to their concerns about consolidation.

During Friday’s hearing, the lawmakers turned to former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, who famously jousted with Trump during his first term, for his reflections. He was asked whether any “guardrails” could protect against potential merger harms.

“If this merger goes through, the guard-rails are gone,” Acosta said bluntly. “If we continue to go down this road it will be lights-out for the news industry… We need media options that are not controlled by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country.”

The hearing occurred the same day that CBS News imposed another sweeping round of layoffs and disbanded its CBS News radio network. It also came the same week as Trump’s Federal Communications Commission approved a massive television station merger, which will allow Texas-based Nexstar Media Group to control more than 250 stations, despite a legal challenge from state attorneys general.

The proposed Paramount-Warner merger would prompt at least $6 billion in cost savings, according to Paramount. Industry veterans warn that billions more in cuts may be necessary to make the deal math work.

A combined Paramount-Warner would carry nearly $80 billion in debt, a legacy of the proposed leveraged buyout and the mergers that came before it.

The hearing at Burbank City Hall —“Lights, Camera, Competition”: Promoting American Film Production,” — was wide-ranging. Award-winning actor Noah Wyle, the star and a producer of Warner Bros.’ “The Pitt,” discussed the need to bring more productions back to Los Angeles where thousands of out-of-work film professionals have been suffering. “The Pitt” is filmed in Burbank.

“Over the last six years, the aggregate effect of projects leaving the state in search of tax credits, the pandemic and last year’s fires has been a near cratering of our once thriving industry,” Wyle said. “We lost 42,000 film and TV jobs between 2022 and 2024.”

The hearing unfolded down the road from the massive Warner Bros. studio complex, and was held to explore ways to boost the Hollywood economy, including the potential for a national tax credit under consideration in Congress. The campaign is intended to keep film jobs in the U.S. amid an increased migration to Britain, where Warner Bros. maintains an expansive studio complex in London, and other countries that offer generous subsidies.

“Work in the entertainment industry is precarious,” said Matthew D. Loeb, International President of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). “Past studio mergers have meant fewer jobs.”

In remarks that are likely to stoke concerns through the corridors of CNN, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Friday he is looking forward to Paramount’s ownership of the network.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network the better,” Hegseth said during a morning briefing.

Hegseth’s invoking the name of the Paramount Skydance chief executive — whose company will take control of CNN once its deal to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery is finalized — amplified the fear many have that the cable news channel will seek to appease the Trump administration.

The typically combative Hegseth made the remarks after blasting CNN’s reporting on the U.S. military action in Iran. CNN said the Trump administration underestimated the impact its attack would have on the Strait of Hormuz, echoing the claims of other media outlets. Oil tankers have been unable to get through the passage due to attacks by Iranian drones, escalating gas prices as a result.

“CNN doesn’t think we thought of that,” Hegseth said. “It’s a fundamentally unserious report.”

Paramount declined to comment on the remarks by Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has a lot of experience in bashing the mainstream media. A CNN representative said the network stands by its reporting.

Trump has a friendship with Ellison’s father, Larry, and the two have reportedly discussed changes to CNN once Paramount takes ownership. But it’s the rare time such expectations have been offered up publicly by a top member of the administration.

Trump, who has long expressed disdain for CNN, expressed his preference for Paramount to prevail over Netfilx in its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery so that CNN would be in the hands of the Ellisons.

In his last public statement about CNN, David Ellison said he wants to be in the “truth business” and insisted there would be no corporate interference in the network’s coverage.

“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team, and we absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained, obviously, for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward,” Ellison told CNBC on March 5.

Paramount has been forced to battle the perception of that its news organizations will tilt to the right under its stewardship. One of David Ellison’s first moves after his company Skydance Media took over CBS was installing Bari Weiss as editor in chief of the network’s news division despite having no experience in TV news. Ellison acquired Weiss’s the Free Press, a centrist digital news site that often targets excesses of the political left and is staunchly pro-Israel.

The acquisition and the appointment of Weiss were seen as a way to help smooth the regulatory approval of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount last year. CBS News has been under intense scrutiny for signs that is shifting its coverage to please the administration.

A number of CBS News journalists unhappy over the division’s direction under Weiss have already departed. Scott MacFarlane, the Justice Department correspondent who announced his exit Monday, was said to be particularly unhappy over the network’s handling of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who wanted to overturn the 2020 election results.

Anderson Cooper also passed on signing a new deal with “60 Minutes,” where he has been a correspondent since 2007. But with the merger, the CNN anchor will still be a part of the company.

Weiss’ has had some early missteps. The Jan. 6 story was among several highly criticized segments during the first week of “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil.” She delayed a “60 Minutes” segment on the government’s use of an El Salvador prison to detain undocumented migrants for more reporting, only to have it air with minor changes. The delay prompted charges that Weiss was trying to placate the White House, which CBS denied.

Notwithstanding the controversy, some insiders contend there has
not been a significant shift in how CBS News is covering most stories.

The network was among the first to report that the severity of injuries to U.S. service members from an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait were far more serious than the government initially said.

CBS News is also moving ahead with the hiring of Jeremy Adler, once a top advisor to former congresswoman and outspoken Trump nemesis Liz Cheney, to handle communications for Weiss, according to people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Axios — citing unnamed sources — reported that White House officials are angry about Adler joining the network, as Cheney was vice chairman of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the most conservative members of Congress during her time, supported Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the 2020 election.

Adler was Cheney’s deputy chief of staff and senior communications advisor from 2019 to 2023. He also served as a regional press secretary on now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.