Oct 6, 2026 · 1 hr 21 min · 21 segments
S6 E10 The deal is done. Paramount has bought WBD. The new name is Skydance, trading under ticker symbol SKYD. Larry Ellison is reportedly looking to privately unwind some of his $40B investment in…
Trish ReganHost
And you see, there's talk that Elon might get in because there is talk of private owners coming in, not on the publicly traded side, on the privately traded side.
Paramount, which Skydance had previously bought, Paramount, which owns CBS, coming in and closing on that purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery today.
And this is the company that has moved to the New York Stock Exchange under that ticker symbol SKYD.
And what does this mean? It means that CNN and CBS News are all sitting under the same roof.
They are all controlled by David Ellison and his father, Larry, and also RedBird Capital, which holds some of the voting shares as well.
I think it works out to the Ellisons having a little more than 70% and RedBird having somewhere in the 20s.
Anyway, if Elon comes in, okay, if Elon comes in, and reports say that he has indeed been approached, he wouldn't be buying control.
Now wouldn't it? [laughs] So two weeks ago, Semafor had reported that Paramount executives had discussed asking Elon Musk to join that syndicate of equity investors.
And I told you about it at the time, and it made all the sense, right, in the world because Elon is, you know, just a hand- one of a handful of people that you could go to and say, "Hey, you know, buddy, have you got a few billion hanging around? Can, can you help me out?" And [laughs] David Ellison and Larry Ellison were apparently considering him because right now Larry Ellison is personally guaranteed for more than 40 billion of the equity financing.
And that guarantee was key to getting to the finish line because, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery was like, "Well, you know, we don't wanna take a bid unless this money is real.
Like, we want real cash." And so Larry pledged his own fortune, this is the dad, Oracle software, and said, "Okay, my son's gonna do this deal and I am going to back it." And so that's where that money is coming from.
And you see, there's talk that Elon might get in because there is talk of private owners coming in, not on the publicly traded side, on the privately traded side.
Paramount, which Skydance had previously bought, Paramount, which owns CBS, coming in and closing on that purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery today.
And this is the company that has moved to the New York Stock Exchange under that ticker symbol SKYD.
And what does this mean? It means that CNN and CBS News are all sitting under the same roof.
They are all controlled by David Ellison and his father, Larry, and also RedBird Capital, which holds some of the voting shares as well.
I think it works out to the Ellisons having a little more than 70% and RedBird having somewhere in the 20s.
Anyway, if Elon comes in, okay, if Elon comes in, and reports say that he has indeed been approached, he wouldn't be buying control.
Now wouldn't it? [laughs] So two weeks ago, Semafor had reported that Paramount executives had discussed asking Elon Musk to join that syndicate of equity investors.
And I told you about it at the time, and it made all the sense, right, in the world because Elon is, you know, just a hand- one of a handful of people that you could go to and say, "Hey, you know, buddy, have you got a few billion hanging around? Can, can you help me out?" And [laughs] David Ellison and Larry Ellison were apparently considering him because right now Larry Ellison is personally guaranteed for more than 40 billion of the equity financing.
And that guarantee was key to getting to the finish line because, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery was like, "Well, you know, we don't wanna take a bid unless this money is real.
Like, we want real cash." And so Larry pledged his own fortune, this is the dad, Oracle software, and said, "Okay, my son's gonna do this deal and I am going to back it." And so that's where that money is coming from.
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