Proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Raises Antitrust Concerns

Photo of Larry Ellison from 2013. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

At a press conference on March 13, 2026, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took a serious, measured tone in a comment regarding CNN: “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has outbid Netflix in a $111 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which would allow for a sole corporation to control several major media outlets, including Paramount, Skydance, CBS, Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, CNN, and streaming platforms such as HBO Max, Paramount+, Discovery+, and Pluto TV.

David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is a film producer and media executive who founded Skydance Media in 2010. In D.C., the Ellison family has demonstrated its ability to leverage its wealth and influence in consolidating tech and media power.

The merger includes approximately $40 billion of financing from Larry Ellison and $24 billion from Middle Eastern investors. Those investors would hold 38.5% of the company’s non-voting equity shares, with 15.1% to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, 12.8% to Abu Dhabi, and 10.6% to Qatar. The foreign investment component remains subject to FCC approval, though Chair Brendan Carr has indicated it is unlikely to face significant obstacles.

Although mutually agreed to by Netflix and Paramount, the merger must still pass regulatory review. On April 23, 2026, WBD shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the deal. It now faces review from the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, led by Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi, who has pledged a thorough, unbiased investigation and said the case will “absolutely not” be fast-tracked for political reasons, a concern that has been raised due to the relationship between Larry Ellison and Donald Trump.

Ellison, a longtime supporter and friend of Trump, hosted a fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign at his California estate, where tickets reportedly reached $250,000 per guest. The two have also aligned on business efforts, with Trump backing Oracle Corporation’s bid for a stake in TikTok.

The merger approval process is familiar to David Ellison, whose Skydance acquired Paramount Global in August 2025, shortly after the company agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against CBS over a 60 Minutes interview he alleged was deceptively edited, a case which the network initially indicated lacked merit. Critics argued the deal was “a payoff dressed up as a settlement.”

The Paramount-Skydance deal and the opposition that came with it are in line with a broader pattern of media consolidation in the country.

In 1983, roughly 90% of U.S. media was controlled by about 50 companies. Today, almost all media is owned by five major firms, and the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger would reduce that number to just four. As such, critics argue that the deal would significantly reduce competition and threaten journalistic independence.

The Writers Guild of America warned that “the world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent,” citing risks to jobs, wages, content diversity, and consumer prices.

Opposition has also come from within the film industry. In April of 2026, 4,706 prominent figures, including Kristen Stewart and Mark Ruffalo, signed a petition voicing their “unequivocal opposition” to the merger, warning that it would further concentrate the industry and reduce opportunities for workers and audiences alike. “We are deeply concerned by indications of support for this merger that prioritize the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good.”

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called the merger an “antitrust disaster,” warning that corruption within the administration could weaken enforcement.

Warren also spoke out when DOJ Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Gail Slater, was fired on February 12 after less than a year in office and just two weeks before Paramount and WBD struck a deal. She noted that the sudden firing of “one of Trump’s few bipartisan-supported nominees … looks like corruption.”

Trump has positioned himself rhetorically as a populist opponent of elite power, yet his administration’s antitrust record has largely favored deregulation and consolidation. Within the first year of his second term, the number of merger deals increased by 9.8%, while deal values rose by 73%. Since his second term, the administration has not moved to block any transactions, but has approved all of them in settlement agreements.

A report by Public Citizen found that during the first year of Trump’s second term, his administration “canceled 145 enforcement actions against 153 corporations facing federal investigations, enforcement lawsuits, or other accountability measures for alleged lawbreaking.” As a result of Trump’s corporate enforcement retreat, at least eighteen corporations accused of lawbreaking avoided paying $3.1 billion in penalties.

In April 2026, nine Democratic lawmakers demanded an investigation into the conduct of top DOJ officials and into a handful of deals they found troubling.

“These cases reveal an alarming pattern of behavior in which top DOJ officials have repeatedly overridden antitrust enforcement efforts, potentially at the urging of politically connected corporate lobbyists and influence peddlers, regardless of the merits of the antitrust issues raised in the matters before the DOJ, including proposed mergers,” they wrote.

The merger also raises questions about the future of CNN, a network Trump has long feuded with.

While Trump has said he has no personal stake in the deal, in December 2025 David Ellison met with Trump and DOJ officials in Washington, D.C., where he reportedly pitched that, if Paramount acquired Warner Bros. Discovery, he would make “sweeping changes” at CNN; when asked about CNN’s role in any deal, Trump said he believed “it’s imperative that CNN be sold.”

Critics have raised concerns that, under the Trump administration, political obedience plays a significant role in media companies' decision-making. In July 2025, Free Press published a report on 35 prominent media companies that found a pattern of “capitulation” to Trump’s hostility to avoid retaliation and remain in his good graces. Mainly, they do this through payments to Trump in the form of legal settlements, commitment to DEI rollbacks and censorship, along with things like White House appearances and Mar-a-Lago dinners.

On April 24, 2026, David Ellison hosted a dinner party “honoring the Trump White House,” where Bari Weiss, members of Trump’s cabinet, and other media executives were in attendance, and Trump gave an hour-long speech.

The deal is unfolding within a regulatory environment shaped by Donald Trump’s broader approach to antitrust enforcement, which critics argue is marked by transactionalism—media companies that can maintain a favorable relationship with Trump are rewarded with regulatory leniency.

The proposed merger also highlights broader concerns about the concentration of power within the media industry. Placing such a significant share of the entertainment and news landscape under the control of David and Larry Ellison would further consolidate influence in the hands of a small group of closely connected actors, raising questions about competition, editorial independence, and the diversity of viewpoints available to the public.