Skydance owner David Ellison is trying to buy Warner Bros. with the help of Middle Eastern cash.
Ellison, whose company Skydance took over Paramount in a highly publicized eight billion dollar merger in August, is tapping the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, according to Variety.
Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav is reviewing a second round of offers to sell Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes Warner Bros. Studios, HBO, CNN, and its other TV network properties. Comcast and Netflix are also competing for the sale against Skydance, though the companies are only in it for Warner Bros. studios and the streaming businesses. Ellison hopes to take over the company in its entirety.
Paramount Skydance’s 42-year-old MAGA-friendly CEO installed conservative journalist Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News shortly after he obtained that property in the Paramount deal. Onlookers expect more Trump-friendly appointees to come to mainstream news, should he also get his hands on CNN with a successful Warner Bros. purchase.
Trump has already used his ally to his advantage, as Paramount confirmed last week it would revive the Rush Hour franchise with controversial director Brett Ratner—reportedly, at Trump’s request. Ratner, a friend of the Trumps who was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women (which he denies), also directed Melania Trump’s $40 million documentary for Amazon Prime Video.
While the exact amounts of the bids to buy Warner Bros. remain unknown, Variety reports that Skydance Paramount’s all-cash offer includes funds from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). The amounts are below the threshold to require an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, according to the site’s sources, and the bid still mostly consists of the Ellison family’s own money.
Several American entertainers, including Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, and Bill Burr, faced blowback for taking Saudi money to perform at the country’s state-sponsored Riyadh Comedy Festival this past fall. Marc Maron called out his fellow comedians for performing for “the folks that brought you 9/11,″ citing Saudi officials’ alleged roles in the September 11 attack and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
During Trump’s White House welcoming party for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November, he dismissed the journalist’s gruesome murder, telling reporters, “Things happen.”
As for Ellison’s role in the continuous unification of major media conglomerates, Daily Show host Jon Stewart—once considered a potential casualty of Skydance’s merger with Paramount before renewing his contract last month—shared his thoughts after becoming one of Ellison’s charges.
“My guy should have it all,” he quipped sarcastically on his Weekly Show podcast. “Why are there other media companies? Shouldn’t they all just be one? Shouldn’t we get to a point where we’re all just fired and hired by the same guy?”
“Just one guy controls all of the media—what could go wrong?” he concluded.
