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Hollywood Shake-Up: Netflix Snags Warner Bros. Discovery, Leaving Ellison in the Dust
Hollywood was abuzz with anticipation, as tech titan Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, and his son David seemed poised to dramatically expand their media empire. Just months after bankrolling David’s $8-billion acquisition of Paramount Pictures, the Ellison family made an audacious bid of at least $60 billion to acquire Warner Bros.
Discovery. This bold move positioned them as potential power players in the film and television industry, with many insiders and Wall Street analysts expecting them to prevail, even garnering the public blessing of President Trump.
However, the Ellisons’ cinematic ambitions hit a snag this past Friday when Netflix unexpectedly swooped in, announcing an $82.7-billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. studios, HBO Max, and HBO. This blockbuster move delivered a significant blow to the Ellisons, who were ultimately outmaneuvered by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and his team.
While Larry Ellison was once again the primary financial backer for the Paramount bid, the Warner Bros. Discovery board ultimately favored Netflix’s offer of $27.75 per share, which notably excluded CNN and other basic cable channels, deeming it a superior deal for shareholders.
The news came as a shock to many who had predicted a Paramount victory, marking a rare defeat for the often-unbeatable Ellison. Industry analysts and auction insiders point to several factors that complicated the Ellisons’ path, including what some described as “low-ball” offers and a degree of hubris.
“This is a bad day for Paramount and for the Ellisons,” commented Lloyd Greif, president and CEO of Los Angeles-based investment bank Greif & Co. “They were overconfident because they underestimated the competition.”
Representatives for Paramount and Warner Bros. declined to comment, and a representative for Ellison at Oracle did not respond to inquiries.
Sources close to the tech mogul, who were not authorized to speak publicly, indicate that Ellison is far from backing down. Paramount, whose chief legal counsel previously headed the U.S.
Justice Department’s antitrust division during the first Trump administration, is reportedly gearing up for a legal battle with Warner Bros. They are expected to urge the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice to investigate the Netflix deal, citing potential anticompetitive practices and harm to consumers and theater owners.
In a strongly worded letter sent Wednesday, Paramount’s lawyers accused Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav of rigging the auction process in favor of a “single bidder” and “abdicating its duties to stockholders.”
What Went Wrong
Several sources suggest that Paramount’s initial misstep was its series of low-ball offers. By mid-October, Paramount had submitted three unsolicited bids, starting at $19 per share, all of which were unanimously rejected by Warner’s board as insufficient. This approach reportedly incensed top Warner Bros. executives, who felt the Ellisons were attempting to leverage Warner Bros.’ struggles to their advantage.
Although Larry Ellison guaranteed Paramount’s Warner bid with $30 billion of his Oracle stock, as the price escalated, Paramount required significantly more capital, leading them to partner with private equity firm Apollo Global Management.
When Warner opened the bidding to other suitors in late October, Netflix and Comcast entered the fray. Paramount’s leadership seemingly underestimated Netflix, with a senior Netflix executive publicly downplaying their interest.
“Maybe Netflix was playing possum,” suggested Paul Hardart, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Another source close to the auction, who was not authorized to comment, stated that Paramount “thought they were the only game in town.”
At one point, Paramount’s team appeared more focused on the movements of Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts, who had reportedly visited Saudi Arabia on theme park business. Meanwhile, David Ellison and RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale were scrambling to secure additional financing from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.
This public pursuit of external funding “probably sowed some doubts among the board at Warner Bros. Discovery,” Hardart noted.
The widely observed negotiations with wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates “invited skepticism of the strength of the Paramount commitment,” added C. Kerry Fields, a business law professor at the USC Marshall School of Business.
Further complicating matters, a drop in Oracle stock amid concerns of an AI bubble left Paramount’s bid in a more precarious position.
Worries Over Trump Ties
In Hollywood, Larry Ellison’s close ties to former President Trump also reportedly dampened enthusiasm for Paramount’s bid. Oracle is part of a group of U.S. investors expected to hold a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations, a development largely influenced by Trump’s support.
This summer, Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement in Trump’s lawsuit against CBS for edits made to a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, as Paramount sought regulatory approval for the Ellison Skydance takeover. Days later, CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, citing financial losses.
In October, David Ellison’s controversial hire of Free Press founder Bari Weiss to run CBS News delighted the former president. “Larry Ellison is great, and his son, David, is great,” Trump told reporters in mid-October. “They’re big supporters of mine.”
Following Trump’s reported intervention, Paramount agreed in late November to distribute Brett Ratner’s “Rush Hour 4,” a project previously shelved due to sexual assault allegations against the director, which Ratner has disputed. “They were in the pole position with the Trump administration, but then that [position] started to be not as appealing to people,” Hardart observed.
Last month, a White House meeting reportedly took place to discuss Paramount’s bid and the threat posed by Netflix. In the same week, David Ellison attended a White House dinner hosted by Trump for Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
A report in The Guardian, citing anonymous sources, also raised concerns among some foreign regulators. The newspaper alleged that White House officials had informally discussed with Larry Ellison several female CNN anchors Trump disliked and wanted fired if Paramount succeeded in acquiring Warner.
People close to Paramount contend that David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, and his mentor, John Malone, a Warner board member emeritus, were biased against Paramount, and that Zaslav is aiming to retain his mogul status.
Paramount ultimately submitted six offers to Warner, including a final $30 per share bid, but none were as strong as Netflix’s proposal, according to two individuals involved with the auction. Paramount executives reportedly knew they had been outmaneuvered last Monday. Two days later, they sent a blistering letter to Warner, stating, “WBD appears to have abandoned the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process.”
Netflix announced Friday that its deal is expected to close in 12 to 18 months, pending regulatory approval. However, this timeline is not guaranteed, given potential antitrust concerns regarding Netflix’s market dominance.
Warner Bros. Discovery is now bracing for a legal battle over its handling of the auction.
Playing Himself in ‘Iron Man 2’
Until recently, Larry Ellison was perhaps best known in Hollywood for his “Iron Man 2” cameo, where Tony Stark referred to him as the “Oracle of Oracle,” and as the quiet financier behind his children David and Megan’s film careers.
Those familiar with Larry Ellison emphasize that he should not be underestimated. At 81, a determined and resolute Ellison shows no signs of slowing down. While he stepped down as Oracle’s CEO in 2014, he remains its executive chairman and chief technology officer, deeply involved in the company’s expanding ventures.
“He keeps reinventing the company. Right when you think that they can’t figure it out, they figure it out and they’re pretty resilient,” said Brent Thill, a tech analyst at Jefferies.
Ellison, the son of a 19-year-old unwed mother, was raised by his aunt and uncle in a modest Chicago walk-up. As he once told Fox Business, “I had all the disadvantages necessary for success.”
A smart and headstrong individual, Ellison dropped out of the University of Chicago and drove to California in a used Thunderbird. He began his career as a bank computer programmer, leading to several computer roles at various companies. In the early 1970s, he worked on early databases for Ampex, which reportedly became the precursor to Oracle’s systems.
In 1977, Ellison co-founded Oracle with $1,200, drawing inspiration from an IBM research paper. The startup revolutionized how companies stored, managed, and retrieved vast amounts of data, quickly becoming an influential tech giant. Oracle’s first contract was with the CIA.
Oracle went public in 1986, and seven years later, Ellison made his debut on Forbes’ billionaire list with a net worth of $1.6 billion.
Even among Silicon Valley’s eccentric billionaires, Ellison stood out. “The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison” is the title of a 1997 biography, one of at least ten books exploring his life. Unlike many of his tech peers who favored quiet pursuits, Ellison reveled in flamboyant escapades and the attention they brought.
Ellison has flown fighter jets for fun, twice won the America’s Cup (in 2010 and 2013), and amassed a collection of superyachts, mansions, and samurai swords.
As both Oracle’s and Ellison’s fortunes grew, he earned a reputation for ruthlessness. For years, his archnemesis was Microsoft founder Bill Gates. During Gates’ antitrust trial in 2000, Ellison not only admitted to hiring private investigators to go through Microsoft’s garbage but also defended his actions, calling it his “civic duty.”
Mike Wilson, one of Ellison’s biographers, called him “the Charles Foster Kane of the technological age.”
At Oracle, Ellison spearheaded expansion into cloud computing, healthcare, and more recently, artificial intelligence, forging close partnerships with AI chipmaking giant Nvidia, Meta, and xAI.
Hollywood, however, became the domain of Ellison’s children, David and Megan, from his third marriage to Barbara Boothe. The couple divorced shortly after Megan’s birth.
The Ellison scions grew up with their mother on a horse farm in Woodside, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent school breaks with their father, sailing around the world on his superyachts. Early on, the tech entrepreneur established trusts for his children, containing large tranches of stock in Oracle and later NetSuite, an enterprise software company he helped finance, which went public in 2007. Over time, these trusts, along with their independent holdings, made David and Megan phenomenally wealthy.
With Ellison’s deep pockets, both pursued filmmaking careers. Megan launched Annapurna, an indie production company behind acclaimed films like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Her.” David, after a brief, unsuccessful stint as an actor and producer of the 2006 flop “Flyboys,” established Skydance Media, bankrolling a slew of box office and television hits such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Star Trek,” and “Grace and Frankie,” later expanding into animation, sports, and gaming.
“David made money, his sister made the art,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
And Larry Ellison often provided support. In 2018, he orchestrated a major reorganization of Annapurna after the company faced hundreds of millions in losses due to several box office misfires. It was Ellison who put up the bulk of his son’s $8-billion bid to acquire Paramount, the iconic studio, along with CBS, MTV, and other properties, making him the largest shareholder with nearly 78% of the newly formed company’s stock.
The Ellison family had announced plans to revitalize the famed Paramount studio through major investments, leveraging technology and building on popular franchises including “Top Gun,” “Star Trek,” and “Yellowstone.”
And they are not ready to walk away from Warner Bros. If history has proven anything, Ellison is always up for a fight.