Mark Ruffalo has hit back at claims he is antisemitic—and doubled down on his stance opposing the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery sought by President Donald Trump’s allies.
In a hearty rebuke of Paramount’s attack on the actor, Ruffalo called the comments “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”
“Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel,” the four-time Oscar nominee wrote in a lengthy statement posted to his X account.
The condemnation came in response to a statement by Paramount that said the company was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute.”
David Ellison, a Trump donor, is Paramount’s CEO and the individual behind the attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
A dozen state attorneys general, including California’s, are currently challenging the $111 billion merger, and critics have warned it could create a behemoth with outsized power in the industry.
It would reportedly cost 4,500 jobs and put Ellison, son of Oracle CEO and Trump mega-donor Larry Ellison, in charge of the biggest studio in Hollywood as well as cable news juggernaut CNN.
Ruffalo, one of the first stars to voice opposition to the merger, posted on Instagram on Friday about the ties between David Ellison’s source of capital for the acquisition and his father’s company Oracle’s role in developing technology used by Israel in Palestine.
Ruffalo reposted a video to his Instagram story of Oracle’s executive vice chair Safra Catz boasting about “really profoundly scary technologies” the company provided to help Israel in the wake of the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
He captioned the video with a lengthy criticism of the merger.
“These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” the Hulk actor wrote.
“Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle,” he continued.
Paramount honed in on the words genocide and apartheid in their response.
“Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong—they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe,” the Paramount statement read.
“This doesn’t deserve a response in kind—and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone,” the statement, first issued to The Wrap, concluded.
Paramount Skydance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His initial comments were seized upon by MAGA maven Katie Miller, wife of Trump staffer Stephen Miller, who claimed on X that Ruffalo was “inciting violence.”
There were a smattering of calls for Ruffalo to be “blacklisted” on X, and MAGA-friendly accounts were reposting the Paramount statement and saying they wouldn’t watch another Ruffalo film.
But Ruffalo, who is currently starring in Spider-Man: Brand New Day—the biggest box office hit of the summer—is fighting back against the accusations.
“To be clear, my views come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect.
“Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life,” he said in his post on X.
He then reiterated that the “merger has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country” and called for a national security review.
“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for serious national security review, and regulators still haven’t given the public a real answer. Until they do, the merger shouldn’t move forward. Now is the time to dive boldly into all these issues, not step back or concede,” Ruffalo said.
