Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday rejected Paramount's high-priced acquisition proposal, citing uncertainty about the funding sources of the Ellison family, which led the acquisition. This seemed to surprise analysts who had previously been certain that Paramount would successfully acquire Warner Bros. with the support of the Trump administration.
What’s even more surprising is that at the height of the bidding war, Trump publicly complained about Paramount’s news division, CBS, saying that the media’s attitude toward him since being acquired by the Ellison family was far worse than before.
David Ellison-led Skydance merged with Paramount Pictures earlier this year. Subsequently, the market believed that CBS's report would be more favorable to Trump, because David Ellison's father and Oracle founder Larry Ellison is regarded as one of Trump's close supporters.
Trump said on social media on Wednesday that those who think he has a close relationship with the new CBS owner should understand that since the acquisition, the "60 Minutes" program crew has treated him worse than before. If these people were his friends, he couldn't believe what his enemies would look like.
Not friends
Larry Ellison is the co-founder and chairman of Oracle. He has held fundraising events for Trump and participated in the large-scale data center "Stargate" project unveiled by Trump. He is considered one of Trump's allies.
Trump's attitude towards CBS was also quite friendly a month ago. At that time, Trump reached a settlement with CBS over past disputes. He also gave his first interview to the "60 Minutes" program, saying that CBS's new leader Weiss looked great. Weiss was also one of the key executives appointed after David Ellison acquired Paramount.
However, after Paramount announced a hostile takeover of Warner Bros., Trump began to hint that his relationship with Paramount was not as close as rumored. On Tuesday, Affinity, Trump's son-in-law Kushner's private equity firm, also announced it was withdrawing from Paramount's bidding group, deepening market doubts about the relationship between Trump and the Ellison family.
This also deprived Paramount of its biggest advantage in a hostile takeover of Warner Bros.: the friendly attitude from the U.S. government.
But while Trump has publicly distanced himself from Paramount, he has also been cool with Netflix, another Warner Bros. bidder. Trump claims that neither Paramount nor Netflix are friends of his.
And gaining Trump's support is becoming a key step in the smooth sale of Warner Bros. The White House previously stated that while Trump respects the acquisition strategies of the two companies, he is expected to personally participate in the final acquisition and emphasized that the US government is paying attention to market diversification.