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Friend,
Meet the Ellisons, new owners of CBS and Paramount, who reportedly want to buy TikTok, CNN and HBO next:
- Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle. Last month, he was briefly the richest person on Earth. He’s one of Trump’s biggest fundraisers and a regular visitor to the White House1 (or what’s left of it).
- His son, David Ellison, just came out on top in the Paramount/Skydance merger. This powerful Hollywood studio is behind films like Mission: Impossible and Top Gun; by comparison, the Ellisons make those movies’ villains look positively harmless.
Following their $8 billion acquisition of Paramount and $150 million acquisition of ‘The’ Free Press (not us2), the Ellisons installed right-leaning blogger Bari Weiss as CBS News’ new editor in chief. She has no experience in broadcast journalism, but plenty of experience sucking up to the Trump administration and fanning the flames of their culture wars.
David Ellison now has Warner Bros. Discovery in his crosshairs, aiming to take control of HBO and CNN, among other assets.3 Industry chatter portrays daddy’s little billionaire as a ruthless empire builder, with thousands of layoffs at Paramount already in the works.
Larry Ellison, meanwhile, is focused on capturing new media: His company Oracle is positioning itself to acquire major control over TikTok, where one in five Americans regularly get their news.4 The negotiations with current owner ByteDance indicate that Oracle’s servers will house the app data of all of TikTok’s U.S. users.5
So what are the Ellisons' Trump ties?
- Just weeks before approval of the Paramount/Skydance merger, David’s Paramount paid Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit over 60 Minutes’ editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
- David likes to get chummy with Trump at UFC matches. When asked about their relationship, Trump repeatedly praises David and Larry, touting them as some of his biggest supporters.6
- In return for David’s capitulating to Trump, presidential loyalist and FCC Chair Brendan Carr rubber-stamps Skydance mergers and smooths over regulatory concerns.
- In September, Trump issued an executive order that clears a path for the transfer of ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a consortium of his oligarch allies — including Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch.7
The trade-off is clear: Favorable treatment from the administration in exchange for favorable coverage in the media. The White House wants to bully an independent press into silence, and the Ellisons are only too happy to oblige.
The health of our democracy is at risk when one family has the power to determine the national agenda. The Ellisons control what you watch on CBS, CNN, HBO and TikTok. They control which stories get told and which ones disappear.
Profits for the Ellisons. Power for Trump.
Free Press is steadfast in our opposition to corporate media consolidation. We’ll be in touch soon with additional opportunities to take action to oppose the Ellisons’ media monopoly and call out its Trumpist propaganda.
Thanks for your support,
Tim and the rest of us at Free Press
P.S. Help Free Press keep fighting for independent media with a donation today.
1. “How Larry and David Ellison Reached the Peak of Their Wealth – and Political Power,” CNN, Oct. 23, 2025
2.“What's in a Name: This Free Press Isn't 'The' Free Press,” Free Press, Oct. 7, 2025
3. “How High Will David Ellison Go in Paramount’s Bid to Bag Warner Bros. Discovery?” Variety, Oct. 24, 2025
4. “Meet Larry Ellison, the 81-Year-Old Tech Billionaire-Turned-Media Mogul,” Fortune, Oct. 8, 2025
5. “Murdoch, Ellison and China: What We Know About the US’s TikTok Deal,” The Guardian, Sep. 25, 2025
6. “David Ellison May Have a ‘Trump Card’ — Literally — in Warner Bros. Discovery Pursuit,” CNN, Oct. 23, 2025
7. “Trump Clears Path for Political Allies to Buy TikTok,” Sep. 26, 2025
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