Claims Surface That Ellison Told Trump Aides He’d Reshape CNN if He Acquired Warner Bros.
According to the Wall Street Journal, David Ellison has been telling people inside the Trump administration that if he ever ended up buying Warner Bros., he would shake up CNN in a big way.
The Journal reported that Donald Trump, who is 79, has been telling people around him that he wants new owners for CNN and wants the network’s programming to change.
The Journal also reported that David Ellison, whose father is Larry Ellison, a billionaire and longtime Trump ally, made these comments while Paramount was trying a $108 billion hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is backing the Paramount bid. Paramount made the offer after losing a bidding war to Netflix for Warner, which owns Hollywood studios, CNN, HBO, HGTV and a huge catalog of shows and movies.
Insiders told the Journal that after news came out saying Netflix’s massive offer for Warner was going to be accepted, Larry Ellison called Trump to warn him that the deal would hurt competition.
Trump later made comments that seemed to show he agreed. At the Kennedy Center Honors, he said the possible Netflix merger would give one company a “big market share” and that it “could be a problem.” He did not mention that his own son-in-law had a financial stake in the competing bid.
David Ellison talked to CNBC about the situation and said, “I’m incredibly grateful for the relationship that I have with the president, and I also believe he believes in competition. And when you fundamentally look at the marketplace, allowing the number one streaming service to combine with the number three streaming service is anti-competitive.”
He also said that if Paramount were to take over Warner, adding CNN to the company would help it grow. He described the goal as building a large service focused on trust.
“We want to build a scaled, new service that is basically, fundamentally in the trust business, that is in the truth business, and that speaks to the 70 percent of Americans that are in the middle,” he said. “And we believe that by doing so, that is for us, kind of doing well while doing good.”
When asked on CNBC whether Trump liked the idea of him owning CNN, Ellison said, “We’ve had great conversations with the president about this, but I don’t want to speak for him in any way, shape, or form.”
Trump has been angry at CNN for months. He has attacked several CNN journalists and the network as a whole since returning to office.
On Truth Social, he recently went after host Kaitlan Collins, calling her “Stupid and Nasty,” and said the network’s owner runs “the whole corrupt operation.” He also insulted CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand in June and complained about a separate CNN report that said he was considering an investment in an Iranian civilian nuclear program.
CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter spoke about the situation on The Story Is With Elex Michaelson. He said the big companies bidding for Warner mainly want the entertainment properties, but the fight over CNN is part of the fallout.
According to Stelter, “the main play by all these big companies is for the entertainment assets… but one of the knock-on effects here is about ownership of CNN going forward, and we know President Trump is interested in that.”
When he was asked how much influence Trump has over the deal, Stelter said, “he has a role” but “is not the ultimate decider.” He added that while Trump can make things harder for whichever company tries to buy Warner, he cannot directly veto the deal.
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