Remember David Ellison’s warm relationship with President Donald Trump?
The Paramount Skydance CEO seems to wish you wouldn’t.
Ellison courted Trump as he sought approval from the Department of Justice for his Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Now, Ellison is facing a lawsuit from 12 Democratic states — and he’s looking to distance himself from partisan politics. The deal is on hold as it heads to trial.
“There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions,” Ellison wrote in a New York Times opinion piece on Tuesday that defended the deal.
Ellison said his politics are “just like most Americans,” with “some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal.”
The Paramount CEO also wrote that he has “regularly voted for candidates of both parties.” His billionaire father, Larry Ellison, whose wealth backstopped the WBD deal, is a longtime Trump backer. Public records show that the younger Ellison donated over $900,000 to a fund supporting Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump said in March that David and Larry Ellison are “two great people.”
In the op-ed, Ellison downplayed concerns about how the CBS News parent would steward CNN if it took control of WBD.
The new messaging contrasts with the Trump-friendly moves Ellison made in recent months.
They included:
Hosting a private dinner “honoring the Trump White House,” top administration officials, and CBS News correspondents, as Status and The New York Times reportedJoining Trump at multiple UFC matches, including one on the White House lawn, days after his merger got approved by Trump’s DOJAttending Trump’s State of the Union address with the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, days before WBD accepted Paramount’s merger proposal
Ellison also took several actions that critics say were politically motivated, but Paramount has countered were purely for business reasons. They include installing anti-woke editor Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News and canceling the show of renowned Trump critic Stephen Colbert.
“When it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views,” Ellison wrote in his op-ed.
Paramount’s CEO also made the case for his WBD deal, arguing that the merger would help it compete with tech giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, “whose resources dwarf ours.”
The states suing to stop Paramount’s WBD acquisition have argued that it will limit competition by giving the combined company too much power over the theatrical distribution of top movies and over the licensing of cable TV channels.
Ellison wrote that a Paramount-WBD would be strong enough to compete with tech giants but can’t “dictate what audiences watch or what writers get paid.”
