Larry Ellison, the world’s fourth-richest man, has agreed to personally guarantee $40.4 billion in financing for Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), escalating the media conglomerate’s bidding war with Netflix.
Paramount announced that Ellison — whose son, David Ellison, serves as the company’s chairman and CEO — “had agreed to provide an irrevocable personal guarantee” for the bid in a Monday press release. The elder Ellison’s cash-backing comes days after WBD asked its shareholders to reject a $108 billion Paramount offer to assume control of all of WBD’s assets, Reuters reported.
WBD initially agreed to a $83 billion deal with Netflix earlier in December that would have seen the streaming giant take over Warner Bros.’ film studio and HBO Max streaming service. The new Paramount deal, coming in at $25 billion over Netflix’s price tag, would include the full WBD portfolio, including its Discovery Global division, which operates CNN and other cable channels.
Larry Ellison has notably donated to multiple Republicans over the past decade, and is known to be friendly with Trump. Conversely, Netflix’s co-founder and board chairman Reed Hastings is a prominent Democratic megadonor and the streaming giant has been widely criticized for its alleged “woke” left-wing bias.
Paramount has made six offers to WBD over a 12-week period in the course of the acquisition battle, according to the New York Times. The Paramount deal, however, has thus far been overshadowed by Netflix’s proposal.
“A revocable trust is no replacement for a secured commitment by a controlling stockholder,” WBD wrote prior to Ellison’s new guarantee.
“Following a careful evaluation of Paramount’s recently launched tender offer, the Board concluded that the offer’s value is inadequate, with significant risks and costs imposed on our shareholders,” Samuel A. Di Piazza, Jr., Chair of the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors, said in an open letter earlier in December. “This offer once again fails to address key concerns that we have consistently communicated to Paramount throughout our extensive engagement and review of their six previous proposals. We are confident that our merger with Netflix represents superior, more certain value for our shareholders and we look forward to delivering on the compelling benefits of our combination.”
Paramount, however, asserted on Monday that WBD’s concerns had not appropriately been conveyed during the course of negotiations.
“WBD asserted that the full equity backstop from the Ellison family trust—which was included in Paramount’s December 4th proposal to WBD and the December 8th tender offer to WBD shareholders—was inadequate, despite the trust holding a majority of the assets of Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and controlling shareholder of Paramount,” Paramount’s Monday press release stated. “None of these concerns nor the demand for a personal guarantee were raised by WBD or its advisors to Paramount in the 12-week period leading up to WBD agreeing to the inferior transaction with Netflix, Inc.”
Ellison briefly became the world’s richest person in September after Oracle’s stock saw its biggest single day gain since 1992. He is now the fourth-richest behind Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, with a net worth $192 billion, according to Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List.
President Donald Trump reportedly pushed Ellison to revive the “Rush Hour” franchise earlier in 2025 — and Paramount agreed to distribute its fourth installment, multiple outlets reported in late November.
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