David Ellison

David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, controls Paramount Skydance. Its $110B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery was approved by WBD shareholders in April 2026, with foreign financing partly from Saudi and Qatari funds, NPR reported; the deal would hand the Ellison family the Warner Bros. studio and cable channels including CNN and HBO. NPR also reported that critics in Hollywood say the merger gives too much power to an Ellison family that is friendly with President Trump, and that David Ellison planned an invitation-only dinner in Washington to honor Trump. The family's politics are on record: his father gave $16.6M to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2017, the largest single gift in its history, and once offered Benjamin Netanyahu a seat on Oracle's board, The Intercept reported. A newsroom changes hands; the newsroom's owners do not change sides.