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 it on Sept. 30.
Ellison has said publicly he believed the states AGs’ litigation was politically motivated, stoked by fears he would try to turn CNN into a 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.”
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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