On February 26, 2026, Warner Bros. Discovery's board of directors sat down to make a choice that would reshape American media for a generation.
On one side of the table was Netflix — which had already signed a deal, had the financing lined up, and was prepared to absorb WBD's studios and streaming assets into the largest entertainment company on earth.
On the other side was David Ellison, 42-year-old son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, and the man who'd just spent five months and four escalating bids trying to buy a company whose board had initially refused to even take his calls.
The board chose Ellison. $110.9 billion. All cash. $31 per share.
Netflix withdrew. The deal was announced the next day.
What got transferred: Warner Bros. Studios. HBO. HBO Max. CNN. TBS. TNT. Cartoon Network. DC Comics. Harry Potter. Game of Thrones. Batman. Superman. A century of film and television history.
All of it now, pending regulatory approval, belongs to the same family that built Oracle.
Act 1: The Long Road to the Deal
To understand how we got here, you have to understand how badly Warner Bros. Discovery needed a way out.
WBD was created in April 2022 through AT&T's divestment of WarnerMedia and its merger with Discovery Inc. The idea was elegant on paper: combine HBO's prestige content with Discovery's global cable empire, produce a streaming service that could compete with Netflix and Disney+, and let the combined company cross-subsidize itself.
The reality was messier. WBD entered the merger carrying over $43 billion in debt. Its stock lost more than 60% of its value by early 2025. The cable networks — Discovery Channel, TLC, TBS, TNT — were hemorrhaging affiliate revenue as cord-cutting accelerated. HBO Max grew but couldn't grow fast enough to offset the cable decline.
In December 2024, CEO David Zaslav announced WBD would split into two companies: "Warner Bros." (studios and streaming) and "Discovery Global" (cable). The split was supposed to simplify the structure and make each half an easier acquisition target. Instead, it triggered exactly that: a bidding war.
In September 2025, David Ellison flew to Zaslav's home with an offer: $19 per share, cash and stock. Zaslav said no. Ellison came back at $22. No. Then $23.50. No.
By November, Netflix and Comcast had entered the bidding. The auction formally opened. Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount all submitted binding bids. Netflix, in a stunning departure from its long-held "builders not buyers" philosophy, offered to acquire WBD's studios and streaming assets while spinning off the cable networks separately. WBD chose Netflix on December 5, 2025.
Paramount refused to stop. In December, Ellison launched a rival all-cash tender offer directly to WBD shareholders, bypassing the board. He raised his per-share bid five more times over the following ten weeks.
On February 17, 2026, Netflix — apparently convinced it couldn't profitably outbid Paramount further — granted WBD a contractual waiver releasing it from the merger agreement. WBD went back to the table with Paramount. Nine days later, Paramount's $110.9 billion all-cash offer was accepted. Netflix's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery was dead.
Act 2: Who the Ellisons Are
Larry Ellison is the co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corporation. He is the fourth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately $140 billion. He owns 98% of the island of Lanai, Hawaii. He backed Donald Trump's 2024 campaign with significant financial support.
His son David Ellison founded Skydance Media in 2006, initially as a film production company focused on co-producing franchise films with Paramount Global — Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, Terminator, Top Gun: Maverick. In August 2025, Skydance completed its own acquisition of Paramount Global, making David Ellison the chairman and CEO of what had been one of Hollywood's oldest studios.
Now the same man runs Paramount Studios, CBS News, CBS, Showtime, Nickelodeon — and is three to eighteen months away from also running CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Studios, and DC Comics.
The Ellison-Paramount acquisition of CBS in 2025 already generated controversy. Scott McFarlane, a prominent CBS News investigative reporter, resigned shortly after the merger closed. On March 24, 2026 — the same week CNN staffers are bracing for new layoffs — McFarlane announced he was joining MeidasTouch, a progressive media startup. His reason: he didn't want to work under Ellison ownership.
He is not alone.
Act 3: What CNN Insiders Are Saying
CNN's employees have watched the deal unfold with a combination of dread and resignation. The network is already in the middle of its latest round of layoffs — at least its fourth major restructuring since 2014. Now it faces an ownership change that, even in the best case, means years of uncertainty.
Kara Swisher, a technology journalist who recently launched a CNN show ("On" with Kara Swisher and Matt Belloni), announced at a Syracuse University event on March 24, 2026 that she would leave CNN if the Ellison deal closes.
"I don't think they'll be good owners," she said. "I think they've already shown several times — including editorial choices — that they have no interest in journalism. And I refuse to work for an organization that doesn't respect journalists."
She said she had already been contacted by representatives of the Ellisons, whom she described as being "very friendly" in their outreach. "Too bad, it's not going to work," she told the audience. "I'm not working for you hacks."
Swisher's podcast, Pivot, has a larger audience in the 25–45 demographic than all cable news networks in primetime. Her willingness to walk is, in part, a negotiating position enabled by leverage. But her comments reflect a broader tension at CNN: a newsroom whose editorial reputation is its core product watching that product pass to new owners with a documented pattern of editorial interference.
David Ellison has publicly pledged that CNN will "remain an editorially independent news organization." Speaking at a conference in March 2026, he said: "We want to be in the truth business."
He made similar pledges about CBS News when the Paramount deal closed.
Act 4: The Regulatory Obstacle Course
The deal faces a 6–18 month regulatory and shareholder approval process, during which everything could change.
The primary concerns are antitrust. Paramount-Skydance, post-WBD acquisition, would control:
- CBS (broadcast network, #1 in total viewers)
- CNN (cable news)
- HBO / HBO Max (premium cable and streaming)
- TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network (cable entertainment)
- Warner Bros. Studios (one of the six major film studios)
- Paramount Pictures (one of the six major film studios)
- Showtime / Paramount+ (streaming)
- Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central (cable)
- DC Comics / DC Studios (film/TV franchise)
- Harry Potter, Game of Thrones IP
No media company in American history has simultaneously controlled two of the six major film studios, a broadcast network, the country's largest cable news network, and one of the two most prestigious premium TV brands. The FCC, DOJ, and FTC will all have opinions about whether this is legal.
Complicating the regulatory picture: Larry Ellison's close political relationship with President Trump. Trump has long targeted CNN as an enemy. Whether that creates regulatory tailwinds (an administration inclined to help a friendly buyer acquire an unfriendly network) or headwinds (antitrust enforcers who don't want to appear to be doing favors) is genuinely uncertain.
Act 5: Historical Context — Why Consolidation Always Ends the Same Way
The last time this many major media properties changed hands this fast was the late 1990s and early 2000s. Time Warner merged with AOL in 2000 in what was then the largest merger in history: $165 billion. It was called a "transformative deal" that would create the "first fully integrated media and communications company for the internet age."
The combined company lost $99 billion in its first year. The deal is widely considered the worst merger in corporate history. Time Warner eventually spun AOL off in 2009 and spent the next decade trying to undo the damage. When AT&T acquired Time Warner in 2018 for $85 billion, analysts praised the "strategic logic." Four years later, AT&T divested WarnerMedia at a loss and walked away.
WBD was the result of that divestiture. Now WBD itself is being absorbed.
The pattern: large media mergers are announced with promises of synergy, editorial independence, and transformative scale. They are followed by cost-cutting, editorial interference, layoffs, and, eventually, another sale.
The employees who built the products — the reporters, the writers, the producers — are, in every iteration of the cycle, the ones who bear the cost of decisions made in boardrooms about entities they never controlled.
The Record
CNN was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner, a man who bet his entire personal fortune on the idea that a 24-hour news channel was viable. He was right. The network broke the Gulf War, the Clinton impeachment, the September 11 attacks. For twenty years, it was the most important news organization in the world.
In 2022, it became part of Warner Bros. Discovery. In 2025, it started its latest round of layoffs. In 2026, it is watching its new owner be absorbed by a media empire controlled by a father and son who built their fortunes in software and film production.
David Ellison says CNN will remain independent. He's said that before, about other newsrooms.
Kara Swisher, who has spent thirty years covering the technology and media industries from the inside, doesn't believe him.
The deal closes in late 2026 or early 2027, pending regulators. Between now and then, CNN's journalists will keep doing their jobs. Some of them will be laid off. Some will leave voluntarily. Some will stay and hope the new owners mean what they say.
History suggests the next chapter writes itself.