adminBillionaire Larry Ellison stepped up where corporate boardrooms and timid financiers hesitated, personally guaranteeing roughly $40.4 billion to back Paramount Skydance’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. This is the kind of decisive private capital intervention that conservatives cheer — risk-taking, job-creating investment by an American entrepreneur rather than another Washington bailout or regulatory fiat. Ellison’s guarantee was disclosed in a filing that aims to remove the main excuse Warner’s board used to favor a rival deal, and it makes plain who is willing to put real money on the line for shareholder value.
Paramount’s bid remains a $30-per-share all-cash offer that, depending on how you count debt and assets, has been described in the press as a roughly $108 billion effort to keep Warner Bros. whole under one roof. Paramount has also published details about the Ellison family trust’s holdings to show the deal is backed by tangible assets and not smoke and mirrors. For everyday Americans paying attention, that clarity matters — it’s proof that when private capital commits, markets respond and deals get serious.
Warner’s directors had griped about the revocable nature of the family trust and questioned whether the Ellison family would actually back the transaction, but Paramount answered by securing an irrevocable personal guarantee and agreeing that trust assets won’t be moved while the deal is pending. That move strips the board of its favorite procedural dodge and forces the issue back to a simple one: will shareholders accept a superior cash bid or bow to a management team protecting a preferred transaction? Conservatives should support letting shareholders — not self-interested corporate insiders or political actors — decide which offer delivers real value.
Paramount also increased its regulatory reverse termination fee to $5.8 billion and extended the tender deadline to January 21, 2026, mirroring the protections Netflix put in place and signaling Paramount is prepared for a fight on both the market and regulatory fronts. That fee is not a concession to Washington politics; it is prudent dealcraft — a guarantee that Paramount believes in its proposal enough to absorb real financial consequences if regulators block the deal. In an era when bureaucrats love to posture about “competition,” companies must be ready to shoulder the costs of creating scale and preserving American content creation.
Wall Street reacted quickly: Paramount shares jumped and Warner Bros. Discovery shares rallied as investors priced in the heightened credibility of Paramount’s bid, while Netflix pulled back slightly amid renewed uncertainty. This market response is exactly what free markets are for — pricing information delivered by real money. It’s a rebuke to the managerial class that pretends to know what’s best; when a private investor puts skin in the game, shareholders and markets decide, not virtue-signaling executives.
Yes, both rival bids still face fierce antitrust scrutiny, and even the federal government has signaled it will look closely at any consolidation in the media space — a reminder that politics will always loom over big American businesses. Conservatives should be clear-eyed: government checks on monopolies have a role, but knee-jerk intervention to protect incumbent management or ideological gatekeepers is not the answer. Let regulators do their duty without becoming the deciders; in the meantime, let voters and shareholders reward capitalists who invest in America’s cultural engine rather than politicians who try to own it.
