Paramount Skydance, backed by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and the world’s richest man, Larry Ellison, is preparing to make a majority cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. The news comes weeks after Skydance Media, Ellison’s company, bought Paramount Global for $8.4 billion.
Warner Bros., the home to DC Entertainment, HBO Max, cable networks CNN, TBS, and TNT, and more, announced in 2024 that it was planning to restructure the company into two operating divisions. One division would focus on legacy cable television, while the other would focus on streaming and studio content. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the outlet that broke the news, Paramount Skydance will make a bid for “the entire company, including its cable networks and movie studio.”
“By preparing a play for the company before Warner’s planned split, Paramount Skydance is attempting to pre-empt a potential bidding war for the studio and streaming unit that could include deep-pocketed technology companies such as Amazon.com and Apple,” wrote The WSJ.
While a bid has yet to be officially submitted, if Paramount Skydance’s takeover plans hold up to antitrust and regulatory scrutiny and don’t fall apart, it would be a big swing for the recently merged media company. Warner Bros. has a nearly $33 billion market capitalization (the current value of a publicly traded company, in layperson terms), almost double Paramount Skydance’s market capitalization of nearly $19 billion. Following the WSJ report on the potential bid, both mass media companies saw the value of their shares increase, with Warner Bros. shares up 30% and Paramount Skydance shares up 7% as of Thursday afternoon.
If Paramount Skydance’s rumored takeover of Warner Bros. happens, it could lead to exciting crossover opportunities for nerds everywhere. For example, comic book readers and Star Trek fans have long clamored to see some of their favorite crossover events make it to the screen, such as the IDW/DC crossover series Star Trek/Green Lantern, written by Mike Johnson with art by Angel Hernandez, Alejandro Sanchez, and Andworld Design.
But does that excuse the massive anti-trust and regulatory violations and submission to the current fascist administration? On August 21, 2025, the House Committee on the Judiciary launched an investigation into Paramount Skydance after it was reported that the company agreed to pay millions of dollars and provide free services to Donald Trump prior to the merger of the two companies.
“Alarmingly, the FCC’s [approval] decision came only after Skydance and Paramount agreed to provide millions of dollars in payments and free services to Donald Trump himself and millions to support his future presidential library,” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) wrote in their joint letter to Ellison. “Further, the announcement of onboarding a new ombudsman to ‘root out’ such politicization is a poorly disguised attempt at censoring speech that contradicts the Administration’s ideals. We write today to demand information and answers regarding these suspicious and troubling transactions.”
