States Roll Over And Show Bellies To Paramount, Will Allow Warner Bros. Merger

On July 13, California state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he would lead a 12-state coalition in mounting a supposedly bold legal challenge to the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery mega-merger. The deal had cleared every previous legal hurdle, but the states had to try and stop the Ellison family from gaining control over the plurality of American media production because, in Bonta's words, that consolidation would represent a "death knell for the film and TV industry—and for our democracy." Two months later, the parties have settled the suit, with the states meekly submitting and getting nothing serious to show for it. What a waste of time. After a nine-month campaign, the Ellisons have won the right to dictate the future of American entertainment and media. It all began in December 2025, when Netflix agreed to pay WBD $72 billion in cash and stock for the latter's streaming and film-studio businesses. When WBD rejected Paramount's competing all-cash offer for everything it had, adding the TV arm to the assets in the Netflix deal, Paramount mounted a hostile takeover bid. The Ellisons' ominous pitch to WBD shareholders was: You better take our deal or our friend the President will reject your merger. It worked. When the WBD board offered Netflix a chance to match Paramount's offer, the streaming giant instantly said no, and David Ellison had his prize. All he needed to do was jump over a few regulatory hurdles, most of which have been lowered or removed for people like him under the second Trump Administration. The Department of Justice approved the deal in June.

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