The news arrives mere months after David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, successfully closed the deal to merge his company, Skydance, with Paramount. The $8.4 billion agreement required extensive overtures to the White House and Wall Street. Deadline notes that upon completing the deal, Paramount-Skydance execs promised its shareholders it would find $2 billion in cost savings.
In addition to the layoffs, Paramount will also save money on exiting talent. Over the weekend, Puck reported that Paramount’s most coveted creator, Taylor Sheridan, would be descending the mountain in the next few years, trading Paramount for NBCUniversal, where his talents will be better appreciated. And as CBS loses veteran anchor John Dickerson, Jon Stewart is still working out how to stay at Paramount Global—though it’s hard to imagine The Daily Show having a place at the conglomerate that recently axed Stephen Colbert and is racing to meet Fox News at the bottom.
Still, Ellison isn’t finished merging and acquiring. Last week, The Wrap reported that Ellison made three separate bids to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which were unanimously denied by the WBD board. However, WBD responded to the news by putting a For Sale sign in front of the water tower. Despite the rejections, the Ellisons are still frontrunners, namely because of who their friend is. Earlier this month, President Trump, who named Larry Ellison as one of the very fine billionaires involved in the purchase of TikTok, described the Ellisons as “friends” and “big supporters.” As news of Ellison’s attempts to buy WBD leaked to the press, an unnamed White House official told The New York Post, “Who owns Warner Bros. Discovery is very important to the administration. The Warner board needs to think very seriously not just on the price competition but which player in the suitor pool has been successful getting a deal done. And that points to the Ellisons.”
