Actor Mark Ruffalo has publicly rejected Paramount's characterisation of his comments opposing the studio's $111 billion (£87.4bn) merger with Warner Bros as "antisemitic." The dispute began after Ruffalo, a vocal critic of the merger, shared social media posts linking Oracle's technology to the Israel-Gaza war, prompting Paramount to accuse him of invoking antisemitic tropes in a business dispute. The row highlights the increasingly bitter and personal tone of the fight over the proposed media consolidation.

Ruffalo had shared a 2024 clip of former Oracle chief Safra Catz discussing "profoundly scary technologies" tied to the Israel-Gaza war, calling the conflict a "genocide" built on "an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle," and warning this technology would likely be folded into a newly merged conglomerate. Paramount responded by calling his language a "bridge too far" that cheapened real suffering, while insisting it does not tolerate prejudice and urging less rhetoric. In his Saturday rebuttal, Ruffalo said criticising Israeli officials, military contracts or executives was not the same as criticising Jewish people, insisting his views reflect political conviction rather than hostility, and citing his deep personal ties to Jewish friends, colleagues and family.