What David Ellison Is Really Up to
David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, appears to be orchestrating a public relations campaign to portray his proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. as broadly acceptable to Democrats, isolating the twelve Democratic state attorneys general who are suing to block the deal. Over the past week, a series of seemingly coincidental but interlinked media pieces have promoted the merger while framing its opponents, including California's Rob Bonta and New York's Tish James, as unreasonable regulators rather than experienced legal enforcers, according to Hollywood Reporter columnist Steven Zeitchik.
The pattern began with an op-ed from talent agency boss Ari Emanuel in the Wall Street Journal, urging the attorneys general to drop their case, without disclosing that Ellison had committed $7.7 billion to his company TKO for UFC broadcast rights. Days later, an anonymously sourced Journal report claimed California governor Gavin Newsom was privately pushing Bonta to settle out of court, citing unnamed job-creation concerns unsupported by economists. The campaign culminated in an op-ed by Ellison himself in the New York Times repeating standard pro-merger arguments, a sequence Zeitchik argues reflects a coordinated strategy rather than a string of unrelated coincidences.
- Ellison accused of orchestrating pro-merger media campaign against Democratic AGs
- Emanuel op-ed omitted his $7.7bn UFC deal with Ellison
- Report claims Newsom pressured Bonta to settle merger lawsuit
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Paramount's Warner Bros. bid has been under scrutiny since a group of twelve Democratic state attorneys general, including California's Rob Bonta and New York's Tish James, launched legal action to try to block it. David Ellison, Paramount's chief executive, has been pushing to complete the acquisition, which would combine two of the biggest names in American film and television.
The dispute matters because state attorneys general have real power to hold up or unwind big media mergers, and their objections have become one of the main obstacles standing between Ellison and the deal going through. How the public and political debate around the case unfolds, including who is seen to support or oppose it, could influence the outcome as much as the legal arguments themselves.
Recent commentary has focused on a run of newspaper opinion pieces and reports touching on the merger, including contributions from talent agency figure Ari Emanuel and from Ellison himself, alongside claims about the views of California governor Gavin Newsom. These have raised questions, discussed by commentators such as Hollywood Reporter's Steven Zeitchik, about how coordinated such coverage might be and what interests are behind it.