Paramount bosses Larry and David Ellison aren’t having much fun in the wake of a 12 state antitrust lawsuit that risks derailing their $111 billion attempt to dominate what’s left of U.S. corporate media.
There’s been a certain creeping desperation apparent the last month or two; whether it’s the company’s top lawyer claiming that critics of the deal are somehow antisemitic, or the continued threats that the company will leave California if states don’t back off their lawsuit. The company has also been funding no limit of shitty editorials trying to pretend further consolidation is just what Hollywood needs.
This report (paywalled) from Puck indicates that David Ellison is laying the groundwork to move Paramount to Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, or another state if California AG Rob Bonta doesn’t settle the antitrust case. It’s kind of an irrelevant threat in some contexts given that most U.S. film and TV production was already leaving California, and may occur whether or not the deal is approved.
Unfortunately for Ellison and his nepobaby kid, the old “I’m taking my ball and going home” threat doesn’t appear to be working on Bonta, and the antitrust lawsuit case is slated to begin next March — much later than the Ellisons were hoping. From Vulture:
“It’s possible Ellison and his team were hoping all of this would scare Rob Bonta, the state’s attorney general, into backing down. But so far, Bonta doesn’t seem cowed and has accused Paramount of “blackmail” in trying to get its way. And outside observers seem to agree: “Paramount’s PR campaign appears to be strengthening Bonta’s hand rather than weakening it,” the analysts at Lightshed wrote in a note to clients this week.”
Amusingly, a bunch of Paramount employees told Business Insider they were mostly just happy the merger was paused so they could focus on their work:
“It’s nice to be able to focus on what we do without the impending disruption that a merger in 2026 would have brought,” a high-level advertising employee said of the merger delay.”
Ellison is also trying to apply pressure on more corporate-cozy Democrats to push Bonta to support a deal (see: California Gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, and off-the record comments by Gavin Newsom), but that doesn’t seem to be working either. In part because the U.S. cultural animosity toward billionaires and shitty giant companies is bubbling over, but also because time is simply on Bonta’s side.
Starting in October the company has to start paying a $7 million per day ticking fee to investors, which clearly has the Ellisons panicking. Larry’s over-extension in AI, should a bubble pop, could also complicate the financing for what’s already a very debt-heavy deal.
And again, it’s more than possible that Ellison follows through and moves Paramount out of California regardless of whether the deal is or isn’t approved simply to grab some tax breaks, putting a stake in the heart of an already reeling Hollywood that’s steadily watched most film and TV production migrate overseas.
But at the same time this exact sort of consolidation is just foundationally deadly. These deals always (and 50 years of data is not subtle on this point) result in mass layoffs, higher prices, less competition, and broad enshittification as the remaining company struggles to manage debt.
So for the few remaining regulators we have concerned about the public interest and labor, the best tack continues to be to simply block this and any other “growth for growth’s sake” consolidation. Though Ellison’s megamerger is extra shitty for numerous additional reasons, ranging from the dodgy financial support from overseas autocrats, to the Bari Weiss extraction class agitprop degradation of whatever’s left of journalistic institutions like CBS and CNN.
It’s very possible that Larry Ellison likely loses either way this goes. Either the state wins its antitrust lawsuit derailing his dreams of media domination, or he succeeds with his acquisition and is overloaded with debt while a bizarre assortment of nepobabies and brunchlords (who appear to have no idea what they’re doing) struggle to remain relevant as traditional broadcast TV heads toward extinction.