Paramount was poised to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. What went wrong
By Meg James and Stacy Perman
Dec. 6, 2025
Paramount’s 30 dollars per share bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, backed by Larry Ellison, collapsed Friday when Netflix swept in with a competing 82.7 billion dollar deal. Analysts and auction insiders told The Times that several issues complicated Paramount’s effort, including low initial offers and overconfidence. Paramount is accusing Warner Bros. Discovery of rigging the auction and is expected to press regulators to block the Netflix deal as anti competitive.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-06/paramount-larry-ellison-hollywood-warner-bros-netflix-skydance-sarandos
Ellison, the Oracle founder, had recently financed his son David’s 8 billion dollar acquisition of Paramount Pictures. The Ellison family then moved to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for at least 60 billion dollars. With substantial financial backing and support from President Trump, many Wall Street analysts and Hollywood insiders assumed Paramount would win.
But Netflix shocked the industry by announcing its own blockbuster agreement to acquire the Burbank studio, HBO Max and HBO for 82.7 billion dollars. The Warner board judged Netflix’s 27.75 dollars per share offer, which excluded CNN and other basic cable channels, a better deal for shareholders. It was a rare defeat for Ellison and a victory for Netflix’s co CEO Ted Sarandos.
Auction insiders said Paramount’s first major misstep was submitting low ball bids. By mid October, Paramount had made three unsolicited offers, starting at 19 dollars a share. The Warner board unanimously rejected them as too low. Some Warner executives were irritated, feeling the Ellisons had swept into Hollywood and were trying to exploit the studio’s weakened state.
Paramount’s bid relied on Ellison’s pledge of 30 billion dollars in Oracle stock, according to a person familiar with the matter. As bidding escalated, Paramount sought additional capital from Apollo Global Management. When Warner opened the process to other suitors in late October, Netflix and Comcast joined. Paramount underestimated Netflix, in part because a senior Netflix executive had downplayed interest in public.
Analysts speculated that Netflix had been playing possum. One auction insider said Paramount acted as if it were the only serious contender. Meanwhile, David Ellison and RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale were trying to secure funding from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. Their outreach to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates raised concerns among Warner board members about the stability of the Paramount offer. The fall of Oracle stock during broader market concerns about an AI bubble further complicated Paramount’s position.
Ellison’s ties to Trump also generated concern in Hollywood. Oracle is among the US investors expected to take a majority stake in TikTok’s US business after its separation from ByteDance, a move influenced by Trump. Paramount’s recent 16 million dollar settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over an edited 60 Minutes interview, its cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show due to losses, and David Ellison’s hiring of Bari Weiss to run CBS News all contributed to perceptions of political alignment. Trump publicly praised the Ellisons and expressed support for the Paramount bid.
Paramount’s agreement to distribute Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour 4 just after renewed pressure from Trump added fuel to that perception. Some observers said the once advantageous relationship with the administration began to seem less appealing to potential regulators and international partners.
A White House meeting last month addressed Paramount’s bid and concerns about Netflix. During the same week, David Ellison attended a White House dinner for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. A Guardian report, citing anonymous sources, claimed White House officials had informally discussed with Larry Ellison a list of CNN anchors Trump disliked and wanted removed if Paramount won the auction. That report raised alarms among foreign regulators.
People close to Paramount argued that CEO David Zaslav and board member emeritus John Malone were biased against the Ellisons and that Zaslav wanted to maintain his status as a Hollywood mogul. Paramount ultimately submitted six offers, including a final 30 dollars per share proposal, but none matched Netflix’s bid.
According to those familiar with the process, Paramount executives realized last Monday that they had been beaten. Two days later, the company accused Warner Bros. Discovery of abandoning any semblance of a fair auction process. Netflix said Friday that its deal will take 12 to 18 months to secure regulatory approval. Approval is far from guaranteed due to antitrust concerns about Netflix’s market strength.
Warner Bros. Discovery now faces a legal fight over its handling of the auction.
Larry Ellison, often remembered in Hollywood for a cameo in Iron Man 2 in which Tony Stark calls him the Oracle of Oracle, has long funded the film careers of his children David and Megan. Despite his age, the 81 year old Ellison remains deeply involved at Oracle as executive chairman and chief technology officer.
Ellison grew up in a modest South Side Chicago apartment, raised by relatives after his teenage mother gave him up. After dropping out of the University of Chicago, he moved to California, worked various programming jobs and helped develop early database systems at Ampex. Those ideas eventually became the core of Oracle, which he co founded in 1977 with 1,200 dollars and concepts inspired by an IBM research paper. Oracle grew rapidly, won its first contract with the CIA, went public in 1986 and propelled Ellison to billionaire status by 1993.
Ellison developed a reputation for flamboyance and intensity. He collected super yachts, fighter jets, mansions and samurai swords, and won the America’s Cup twice. He was unafraid of confrontation, once hiring investigators to comb through Microsoft’s trash during the company’s antitrust trial, calling it his civic duty.
At Oracle, Ellison pushed into cloud computing, healthcare and AI, partnering with Nvidia, Meta and xAI.
Hollywood, however, was shaped by his children. With large trusts of Oracle and NetSuite stock, both entered the film business. Megan founded Annapurna, known for films like Zero Dark Thirty and Her. David tried acting and produced the unsuccessful 2006 film Flyboys before launching Skydance Media, producing major hits including Top G-n Maverick, Star Trek and Grace and Frankie and expanding into animation, sports and gaming.
Larry Ellison stepped in when needed, including restructuring Annapurna in 2018 after heavy losses. He financed David’s 8 billion dollar deal to buy Paramount and holds nearly 78 percent of the new company’s stock. The family announced plans to rejuvenate Paramount through technology investments and franchise building around Top G-n, Star Trek and Yellowstone.
They also made clear they are not walking away from Warner Bros. Discovery. Those who know Ellison say he should not be underestimated. History shows he is always ready for a fight.