Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is reluctant to “overpay” for his larger rival Warner Bros. Discovery – and the Hollywood mogul believes there are good reasons he probably won’t have to go much over $25 a share, sources told On The Money.
That’s because he’s got Donald Trump in his corner.
As reported by The Post, the owner of Paramount, CBS and Comedy Central in recent days has offered $24 a share for WBD (“$23.50 to be exact,” said one source with knowledge of the bid), the parent of HBO and CNN. On Tuesday, WBD said it has received “unsolicited interest” from prospective buyers and that it’s willing to sell.
While WBD’s stock surged 11% on that news, recently closing at $20.53, Paramount Skydance has no plans to raise his offer above $25, sources close to the situation said.
That’s because Ellison is being advised that US antitrust concerns and personal gripes will be a major stumbling block for rival bidders – and that, on that front, Paramount Skydance will have the backing of President Trump, On The Money has learned.
For one, Trump is old friends with Ellison’s dad is software tycoon Larry Ellison, a longtime Trump backer who also happens to be the second-richest person in the world with a fortune pegged at more than $350 billion.
No less significant, sources close to Ellison say, is the fact that the president is said to privately loathe Brian Roberts, the chief executive of cable giant Comcast, who in many respects is the most logical rival bidder for WBD.
As first reported by On The Money, the Roberts-led Comcast has expressed interest in buying WBD. But Comcast is also the longtime owner of the lefty cable channel MSNBC as well as NBC, which Trump and peeps views as equally anti-MAGA, according to sources.
“Trump hates Comcast and Brian Roberts,” said one person with direct knowledge of the deliberations inside the Ellison camp. “So just try getting that deal through his people.”
While Paramount Skydance’s $25 bid limit isn’t written in stone, it is at least for now considered a high-water mark. As the Post has exclusively reported, Zaslav has rejected three private offers for WBD from Paramount Skydance, the last one source rounded up to $24 a share earlier in the week.
Sources also tell On The Money that Zaslav issued Tuesday’s press release because he believed Ellison was about to take his bid hostile at $26 to $28 a share. He wants to sell WBD for as much as $30 a share, which values the company at more than $70 billion.
WBD has become the No. 1 studio and built the No. 3 streaming service since it was formed in 2022 through the merger of Discovery Inc., and Warner Media. As publicly announced Tuesday, WBD has multiple interested parties for various buyout scenarios.
But internally, bankers and lawyers are advising Ellison to play the long game, including a possible appeal to shareholders through a hostile bid because they believe Zaslav has nowhere else to go.
Their best is that a combination of regulatory hurdles — and personal hatred — is likely to nix any sale but a sale to Ellison. Zaslav, meanwhile, needs a deal to prevent WBD’s stock from falling back down to around $12 a share.
“That’s why there’s no way he’s overpaying for this thing,” a person with direct knowledge of the matter tells On The Money.
As also reported, Netflix is interested in just WBD’s streaming and studio, which will be spun off into a separate unit next spring. But Ellison is being told that Trump’s FCC won’t allow Netflix, the nation’s No. 1 streaming service, to buy WBD’s streaming platform because it’s the No. 3 player and would present an antitrust issue.
Amazon is also interested in both the streaming service and WBD’s studio, but it is operating under a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission over allegedly deceptive consumer marketing, another hurdle for regulatory approval of a sizable acquisition, Ellison’s lawyers and bankers say.
With the odds against a rival bid so high, Ellison might be overpaying for WBD even at $25 a share – or so the internal argument goes.
Press officials for the main Trump regulatory bodies, the Justice Department’s antitrust division had no comment, while the Federal Communications Commission didn’t return a request for comment.
A Paramount Skydance spokeswoman and a rep for Comcast declined comment, though a person close to Roberts tells On The Money Comcast is spinning off MSNBC and NBC into a separate, publicly traded company so the antitrust concerns don’t apply.
