Paramount’s new boss is adamant he intends to keep “politics at arm’s length”. Good luck with that, says Vanity Fair. After this summer’s $8 billion takeover by Skydance, David Ellison, 42, is in “the hot seat” of an impassioned national debate about the future of the media juggernaut and whether it has been captured by Donald Trump.
As CEO of the newly formed Paramount Skydance Corporation, Ellison’s first big appointment has fanned the flames. In a controversial acqui-hire, he is paying $150 million to buy Bari Weiss’s news site, The Free Press, and installing the journalist entrepreneur as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Her pro-Israel and anti-woke views have fuelled speculation that she’ll act as an “ideological commissar” at CBS, helping to “enforce compliance” with the White House line.
This is certainly an “almost existential” moment for the near 100-year-old network, whose new owners have been accused of “kowtowing” to the president after settling a vexatious $16 million lawsuit to get the deal over the line, and cancelling comedian Stephen Colbert when he described it as a “big, fat bribe”.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Ellison is hardly the patsy “nepo baby” of a Maga-leaning patriarch he’s sometimes portrayed as. Described as modest, well-mannered and popular, he’s the opposite in temperament to his volatile, irascible father, Larry – who bankrolled Skydance’s takeover, and last month briefly became the world’s richest man thanks to the soaring share price of his company, Oracle. But he has inherited the latter’s drive – credited in Hollywood for building Skydance, which he founded in 2010, into one of the industry’s strongest independents. “I don’t know his plan, but I would bet on that kid any day of the week,” former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman told The Los Angeles Times. He has “an institutional knowledge and appreciation for the studio’s history, and a real love of movies”.
Born in 1983, to Larry Ellison and his third wife Barbara Boothe, David grew up on a horse farm in the San Francisco Bay area and was an intern at Oracle during high school. He eventually enrolled at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, dropping out to act in a $60 million movie about World War I pilots, Flyboys, part-financed by his father, which spectacularly flopped.
There’s no question Ellison “was gifted a head start”, says Bloomberg. Not many young Hollywood wannabes get to raise $350 million from JPMorgan for a production company. But it’s what he did with the cash that counts. He got a taste of success right at the start with the release of the Coen brothers’ True Grit, which grossed more than $252 million globally, following that up with several other blockbusters.
Still, the huge Paramount deal takes things to a new level. To secure it, Ellison had to wrestle with the Redstone family and their shareholders – while trying to prevent Trump from derailing the deal. “The reward for his patience is a company in decade-long decline,” stuffed with ancient networks and a “withered” film studio.
David Ellison is gunning for Warner Bros
Less than two months after swallowing one ailing media giant, Ellison is now looking to take down a much bigger one. Nothing captures his ambition better than his interest in Warner Bros. If he wins the $50 billion giant, the combined behemoth would boast the largest share of the national TV advertising market, the biggest movie studio output and a pair of streaming services (Paramount+ and HBO Max) that together sell more US subscriptions than even Netflix, says The Economist. Add CNN to CBS – and throw in Larry Ellison’s interest in the US operations of TikTok – and the family will become a mighty force in both old and new media. The question is what they do with that power.
This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.
-
26 million Brits at risk of retirement shortfall if state pension triple lock were to be scrappedCurrent projections of pensioner poverty assume the state pension triple lock will be in place for the next 50 years. Critics say this is unlikely and revised figures showing pension undersaving among millions more people give a truer picture of the crisis
-
Reeves calls on regulator to investigate steep private dental chargesThe chancellor has asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to look into the high costs of dental treatment amid concerns over rising prices which essentially locks people out of the system
-
Who is Jared Isaacman, SpaceX astronaut and Trump's pick as NASA chief?Jared Isaacman is a close ally of Elon Musk and the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space. Now, he is in charge of NASA
-
Defeat into victory: the key to Next CEO Simon Wolfson's successOpinion Next CEO Simon Wolfson claims he owes his success to a book on military strategy in World War II. What lessons does it hold, and how did he apply them to Next?
-
How to find value in Asian small cap stocksThree competing Asian investment trusts all have good records, but this one is the obvious choice at present, says Max King
-
The battle of the bond markets and public financesAn obsessive focus on short-term fiscal prudence is likely to create even greater risks in a few years, says Cris Sholto Heaton
-
'Rachel Reeves’s tax rise will crash the economy'Opinion Rachel Reeves will be the first chancellor since Denis Healey in the 1970s to raise income tax. It will only push Britain into recession, says Matthew Lynn
-
Cringe Britannia: the decline of the UK's soft powerBritain has long wielded soft power through its commitment to sound political values and the export of high and popular culture. That is now under threat
-
'We still live in Alan Greenspan’s shadow'When MoneyWeek launched 25 years ago, Alan Greenspan was chairman of the Federal Reserve. We’re still living with the consequences of the whirlwind he sowed
-
Go for growth: how to invest in emerging marketsDeveloping countries offer investors compelling long-term economic prospects, says David Prosser
