Warner Bros. shareholders voted Thursday to approve Paramount’s $81 billion takeover of the company in a major step toward closing the controversial megamerger that could put CNN under the control of the Trump-allied Ellison family.
Paramount Skydance’s offer to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery at a rate of $31 per share received overwhelming support from Warner’s shareholders in Thursday’s preliminary vote, which came on the heels of a monthslong corporate battle with Netflix over Warner and its assets.
The Warner Bros. board spent months warning shareholders against Paramount’s offers, which it said were “too risky.” But in an abrupt about-face earlier this year, the board announced that Paramount presented an offer superior to the one it had accepted from Netflix. The streaming giant dropped its bid to acquire Warner, clearing the way for shareholders vote on the Paramount merger.
Valued at $111 billion including debt, the deal won’t be finalized until it clears the federal regulatory review process. But Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has signaled confidence in the company’s ability to secure regulatory approval for the acquisition. That approval would come from the Trump administration, and billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, David Ellison’s father, is a prominent GOP donor who is personally close to President Donald Trump.
The merger, if approved, would put the Ellisons in control of CNN, a news organization the president frequently decries without evidence as “fake news.” Trump publicly involved himself in the competing Warner Bros. bids last year, saying that it was “imperative” CNN be sold and that its current ownership should not be in charge of the company. The president has since downplayed his personal role in the merger, but concerns about what the deal could mean for the future of CNN still loom large.
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Lawmakers and state attorneys general have called for more scrutiny of “undisclosed conflicts of interest” surrounding the merger.
The Trump administration green-lit the Ellison family’s acquisition of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, last year after the network agreed to shell out $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump brought over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump sought $20 billion in damages over claims that the Harris interview, which aired during the 2024 presidential race, had been deceptively edited.
With David Ellison at the helm, Paramount Skydance also acquired Bari Weiss’ media company, The Free Press, and installed Weiss as editor-in-chief at CBS News. Weiss’ control over programming has since raised questions of objectivity, especially after she pulled a planned “60 minutes” segment on abuse inside the El Salvador megaprison that held hundreds of Venezuelan migrants who were removed from the U.S. by the Trump administration in March 2025.
Weiss, David Ellison and other Paramount media executives were slated to host Trump at a dinner at the Institute of Peace in Washington on Thursday, shortly after Warner shareholders voted in favor of the merger.
As part of the deal, the Ellisons will acquire HBO and Warner’s legacy brands, including the Harry Potter franchise. That consolidation could reshape the streaming landscape and entertainment production in Hollywood. Thousands of industry professionals voiced their “unequivocal opposition” to the merger in an open letter earlier this month.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.