Last month a group of blue state attorneys general led by California's Rob Bonta sued to block the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger. Ostensibly this is about being progressive and therefore fighting consolidation which might lead to less competition. In reality, it probably has more to do with throwing sand in the gears of a deal President Trump supports led by a CEO, David Ellison, who has shown support for Trump.
David Ellison, whose Paramount Skydance is awaiting closure of its massive deal to swallow up Warner Bros. Discovery, will host an invitation-only dinner next week “honoring” President Donald Trump and CBS News’ White House correspondents, Variety has confirmed.
The event will take place in Washington, D.C., on April 23, two days before the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, April 25. The Ellison-hosted function will be held at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, which the State Department in December 2025 announced was being renamed “The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.”
There was also some talk about the fact that the merger would put CNN in the hands of Ellison.
This case is more about politics than law. Paramount CEO David Ellison wrote that he believes opposition to the deal is fueled by concerns about the political direction in which he would take CNN, which is owned by Warner Bros. The attorneys general who brought the case appear to be so fixated on preserving CNN’s liberal bent that they would kneecap an effort to revitalize Hollywood.
In any case, AG Bonta sued to block the deal. Even NPR can read between the lines.
A dozen states, led by California, are suing to block Paramount from buying Warner Bros. Discovery in a Hollywood mega-merger that would unite some of the nation's largest movie studios, television newsrooms, and other entertainment properties.
"The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement announcing the suit, which was filed in federal court in California's Northern District...
The Paramount-Warner deal would give a wealthy family that has taken pains to show its allegiance to President Trump the effective ownership of the companies' competing movie studios, streamers (Paramount+ and HBO Max), sports programming (CBS Sports and Turner Sports) and news divisions (CBS News and CNN) as well as a suite of cable channels, such as Comedy Central, VH1, MTV, TNT, TBS, HGTV and Discovery, among others.
The president has repeatedly praised Larry and David Ellison, the digital titan and his son who are the controlling owners of Paramount. And he has publicly urged the sale of Warner's CNN to new owners.
In short, this is more resistance politics masquerading as an antitrust case. The goal here isn't necessarily to win but to drag this out long enough that someone reconsiders and the deal falls apart. The process is the punishment.
Last week, David Ellison issued a warning to his fellow executives. If California refused to settle the lawsuit by Oct. 1, Paramount would move its entire studio out of California.
Ellison told Paramount senior execs last week that he will relocate Paramount’s operations outside of the state of California if the deal doesn’t close by Sept. 30, sources confirmed to Variety. The final hurdle to closing the Paramount-WBD merger is the states’ antitrust case; therefore, if Bonta does not agree to negotiate a settlement in the case by then, the company will begin the process of exiting California starting Oct. 1. Ellison told his team the Paramount Skydance board has approved the move.
Suddenly, AG Rob Bonta is outraged that someone is playing politics.
This illegal merger will result in higher costs, fewer options, and fewer people making movies.
— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) August 11, 2026
My office remains committed to stopping illegal consolidation and protecting a vibrant California economy for businesses that play by the rules.
Again, Bonta is a deceptive political hack. This lawsuit has little to do with competition and everything to do with shoving a thumb in Trump's eye. As for the claim that Ellison is just making a random threat, that's not true either. The date is a significant one for Paramount.
The reason Ellison gave to his senior leadership team for the relocation out of California was that Paramount will need to cut costs once the “ticking fee” payable to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders kicks in starting Oct. 1. On that date, Paramount will begin accruing fees owed to WBD shareholders of $7 million per day until the deal closes. The trial in the state AGs’ lawsuit is scheduled to start March 2, 2027, roughly five months after that, so Paramount would be on the hook to pay around $1.2 billion to WBD shareholders by the time the trial is scheduled to conclude.
Again, Bonta knows all this which is why he doesn't need to win, he just needs to drag this out until the deal no longer makes sense.
As for Ellison's threat, the Hollywood Reporter has a whole article offering the pros and cons for actually doing this. The bottom line is that Ellison could do it and Tennessee has already reached out to invite him, but there are downsides as well. Much of the business is still located in Hollywood even if business has been down lately.
Personally, I'd love to see more of these companies continue to vacate California. It seems inevitable that as California drifts ever leftward more big businesses will relocate. But this would be a very high profile example. Paramount was formed, ironically enough, through a merger back in 1916, joining the Famous Players Film Company to Paramount Pictures Corp. which was a distributor originally. That's a lot of history to put up for sale.
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