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The Paramount-Warner Merger Would Give the Trumpers Even More Control of the Media
The merger would allow Paramount to merge CBS’ newsroom with Warner-owned CNN, which would presumably mean arch-Trumper Bari Weiss would be in charge of CNN.
Jul 15, 2026
Until a couple of months ago, we could get a dose of humor to help us get through the craziness, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. But CBS pulled Stephen Colbert off the air, and not because of bad ratings—he had by far the most widely viewed network show at that hour.
The problem was President Donald Trump is too thin-skinned to put up with a comedian poking fun at him regularly. As a result, he had Brendan Carr, his chair of the Federal Communications Commission, imply that the Ellison family’s effort to take over Paramount, CBS’ parent company, would be blocked if Colbert wasn’t fired. The Elliot family includes prominent Trumper Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, and David Ellison, his equally right-wing son who most immediately controls Paramount.
But taking over one of the country’s major broadcast networks wasn’t enough for the Ellisons. They also control TikTok, the fifth most widely used social media platform, which Trump wrestled away from a Chinese company and put in Larry Ellison’s hands.
And now, Paramount is looking to take over Warner Brothers. In addition to giving them control over two major Hollywood studios, the merger would allow Paramount to merge CBS’ newsroom with Warner-owned CNN. This would presumably mean arch-Trumper Bari Weiss would be in charge of CNN.
Stories about the upward redistribution of income over the last half-century, and anti-worker practices by businesses, tend to get short shrift. But there is no doubt they would get even less attention in a Trumper-controlled media universe.
David Ellison put Weiss, who has long-established right-wing credentials, in charge of CBS News soon after taking over the network. In this role, she has already fired or driven away many serious reporters and repeatedly censored "60 Minutes," its highly regarded and widely watched investigative news show. We can expect more of the same at CNN if Paramount’s takeover of Warner is allowed to go through.
While Trump’s Justice Department’s antitrust division has green-lighted the Paramount-Warner merger, there is still a possibility it can be stopped. California and 11 other states sued to stop the merger on antitrust grounds. In addition to merging two of the major news networks, it would also consolidate two massive Hollywood studios.
An analysis by the Media and Consolidation Research Organization Lab at the University of California San Diego found that the resulting reduction in competition would almost certainly mean fewer new movies are produced and less employment in the industry. It also would likely mean higher streaming prices for consumers. This is in addition to the problem of giving Trumpers even more control of the media.
There is at least some chance that the courts will block this merger on the merits. However, if it goes through the appellate process, the Republican Supreme Court may find the opportunity to provide another gift to Trump supporters irresistible. Still, the prospect of a years-long delay could persuade Paramount to compromise and offer at least partial divestment of some of Warner Brothers holdings to facilitate the merger. In any case, the antitrust lawsuit raises the possibility of blocking the merger in its current form.
While further consolidation of the media and placing ever more of it in the hands of Trumpers is definitely bad news, it would be wrong to imagine that we previously had a golden age of media. News outlets owned and run by rich people tend to present news in a manner that is acceptable to the bosses. Stories about the upward redistribution of income over the last half-century, and anti-worker practices by businesses, tend to get short shrift. But there is no doubt they would get even less attention in a Trumper-controlled media universe.
However, we should be looking for something better. One route is a system of individual tax credits, say $100 per person, to support a person’s favorite news outlet(s). This would be a credit, not a deduction, and fully refundable, so even the poorest person would get a $100 to support the news outlet of their choice.
The model is the tax deduction for charitable contributions, except that everyone would get the same amount. There are many design issues that would have to be ironed out, but such a system could create a large pool of money to support news reporting in various forms that is not controlled by rich people.
This system also has the advantage that it can be done at the state or even local level. That means that cities run by progressives, like New York and Seattle, could pave the way by putting this sort of system in place. (Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson, is a big supporter of this sort of system.)
It is hugely important to do what we can to block further consolidation of the media in the hands of the Trumpers. We also need to do other things, like reforming Section 230 to take away the special protection it gives the huge social media platforms. But the most important longer-term measure to protect a free press is to set up an alternative funding mechanism. An individual tax credit system is a promising route, but we need to get these alternatives on the table and start moving forward with them.
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Fight the Trump Media Takeover With Tax Credits for Independent Reporting
If 150 million people took advantage of a $100 credit, that would make $15 billion available to support independent media.
Jun 05, 2026
It is terrible to see Bari Weiss, under orders from Trumper owner David Ellison, dismantle "60 Minutes" and the rest of CBS News. CBS was never close to being a paragon of unbiased reporting; the rich always had a disproportionate voice, but the network, and especially "60 Minutes," did much excellent investigative reporting.
The Weiss-Ellison team is explicitly saying that this will no longer be the case under their leadership. Any investigative reporting this crew does will most likely be on President Donald Trump’s political opponents. And the material they present will likely be as distorted as the lies that Trump spouts on a daily basis.
The problem goes well beyond CBS. The Ellison family is also planning to take over CNN through its acquisition of Warner Bros., the parent company. The Trumper trio of Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk own TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, and X, respectively. They do not hide their efforts to use their control of these social media platforms to push their political agenda.
And it goes beyond just outright control. Trump and Brendan Carr, his chair of the Federal Communications Commission, have said that they would use the federal government’s regulatory powers to punish outlets that broadcast material they don’t like. Trump used this threat to extract tribute from both ABC News and CBS News (pre-Weiss) over absurd lawsuits.
The media matter hugely for democracy, much more than campaign financing.
All in all, this is a really bad story. But there are things that can be done other than whine. First, the Ellison’s takeover of Warner is not a done deal. People can protest this monopolization of both movie production and news. Even Trumper politicians can be forced to respond to public pressure. Note the seeming retreat from Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his criminal friends. Giving tax dollars to Trump’s chosen criminals was too much for people to stomach, and the Republicans in Congress were forced to nix it.
There are also a large number of independent outlets that continue to do solid reporting. I would put ProPublica at the top of that list, but there are many others. I would also include The New York Times and NPR, despite my many criticisms of both outlets over the years. And there are dozens of smaller publications, way too many for me to list, that people should look to support. Instead of buying something you see advertised on CBS or any other corrupt media outlet, send the money you would have spent to The Nation, In These Times, Payday Report, or any of a number of other independent outlets.
But we really need to go beyond what people cough up out of goodwill. The billionaires have endless money to push their Trumpian nonsense. The nickels and dimes that ordinary people can afford is not a match. We really need to have government support for independent media, and I’m not talking about going back to the old days with the federal government coughing up $500 million a year (0.007% of the budget) for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
We need an individual tax credit or voucher, modeled on the charitable contribution tax deduction. The difference is that this money would be designated for news outlets, and that it would be a credit (say $100), available to everyone, not a deduction from taxes. This way the money would go to the outlets that people find valuable, not the ones the government has chosen. (There is a question of eligibility, but this has generally not been a major problem in qualifying for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service.)
This route can make a huge amount of money available to support independent reporting. If it was set up nationally and 150 million people took advantage of a $100 credit, that would make $15 billion available to support independent media. That is roughly 300 times ProPublica’s annual budget.
Needless to say, not everyone will use their credit to support media progressives will like. Some may support tabloid-type reporting on Hollywood figures. Some of it will go to support right-wing Fox News- type propaganda. But if even 20% went to support real news, it would be an enormous boon for independent reporting.
And the great thing about this credit is that it can be done at the state and local level, so we don’t have to wait for the forces of good to retake Washington. There have already been some efforts in this direction around the country. In this respect, it’s worth noting that Katie Wilson, Seattle’s new progressive mayor, is a big proponent. If Seattle or some other progressive city or state led the way, it could set an example for others to follow.
To many, this sort of media tax credit will be a new idea. We all know the old line about intellectuals having a hard time with new ideas. But it is really important that people overcome their difficulties. The media matter hugely for democracy, much more than campaign financing. (Sorry, but it’s a bit nuts to think that campaign ads affect voting, but not what people see between the ads.)
I’ve pushed this scheme for a long time, and maybe it’s not the best plan. But if people have better ideas, put them on the table. Whining over the right’s takeover of the media is not a political strategy.
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Forget Citizens United, If We Don't Have Independent Media We're Done For
If progressives are going to have any hope of competing with the billionaires’ candidates, we need to ensure that the Trumpers don’t control the portion of the media not currently in their possession.
May 24, 2026
I was briefly sent into a rage last week, throwing ketchup against the wall, when I saw that one of the Murdoch sons was buying up Vox Media. After seeing Elon Musk take over Twitter, Junior Trumper David Ellison take over Paramount and CBS, and now ready to buy Warner Brothers and CNN, and senior Trumper Larry Ellison taking over TikTok, the thought of yet another serious new outlet falling into Trumper hands was pretty appalling.
Fortunately, the buyer turned out to be James Murdoch, the relatively sane Murdoch son. While that is comparatively good news, no one should feel too relieved over this outcome.
It’s good that Vox isn’t being taken over by a right-wing billionaire, but that’s just luck. It could be. There are any number of right-wing billionaires who have the means to buy up just about any media outlet in sight. And once they do, they could turn their new acquisition into another variant of Fox News.
Part of my reason for the ketchup throwing was that I just saw yet another diatribe against Citizens United, with someone attributing the failures of our political situation to this decision. To be clear, I think the decision was bad in both logic and its outcome.
The government creates corporations; how can it not have the authority to limit their political behavior? Individuals and the organizations they create can do whatever they want politically, but leave corporations out of politics. And we certainly saw more money flooding into politics following the Citizens United ruling, but people need to keep their eye on the ball.
Elon Musk contributed close to $300 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected in 2024. That was Elon Musk, not Tesla or any other company he controls. Other billionaires have also contributed millions or tens of millions to political campaigns.
Reversing Citizens United will require a Constitutional amendment, which is impossible for practical purposes in any foreseeable future. Alternatively, it can be reversed through a court-packing scheme, which is only slightly more feasible.
And then after this great victory, Elon Musk can still contribute $300 million to elect his favorite reactionaries and racists. Would we be celebrating? For the rich, contributing to candidates through the corporations they control is a convenience, not a necessity.
As a practical matter, we are not going to be able to limit the amount the rich spend on campaigns. The only plausible route to preserve democracy is through various forms of public financing, like the super-match in New York City that multiplies small contributions by a factor of 8. Alternatively, Seattle has “democracy vouchers” where each voter gets $100 to contribute to the candidate(s) of their choice. These programs can allow candidates to have enough money to be competitive even without relying on rich people’s money.
We need the same approach to the media. Many progressives seem to have the view that campaign spending has a magical impact on people’s voting, as opposed to everything else that people come across in their lives.
If voters heard nothing but Fox News 24/7, it would take an enormous number of campaign ads to get voters to take arguments from a candidate like Bernie Sanders or AOC seriously. If progressives are going to have any hope of competing with the billionaires’ candidates, we need to ensure that the Trumpers don’t control the portion of the media not currently in their possession.
Part of that story depends on trying to block the right-wing takeovers that are still in the works. That includes the Paramount effort to take over Warner Brothers and the Nexstar-TEGNA merger, which would lead to an unprecedented consolidation of local news outlets in the hands of a right-wing media group.
But it is also necessary to develop an alternative stream of funding, like the super match or democracy vouchers provide for elections. One route is a system of journalism vouchers that people can use to support the news outlets of their choice. This can be done at the state or even local level, since this Republican Congress is not about to pass a measure challenging the power of the rich.
Building up alternative media to challenge the views being pushed by Trumper media is a long and uphill battle, but it is essential if we’re going to preserve democracy. And the first step is recognizing the need for the battle and getting people to stop worrying about Citizens United. If we’re going to undertake a tough fight, we need to be sure we get something important if we win.
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Mega Media, MAGA Lies
Corporate media consolidation amplifies Trump regime propaganda.
Mar 17, 2026
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better!”
So said war-addicted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a Pentagon press briefing last week as he complained about news outlets—specifically CNN—not covering the death and destruction of the war on Iran with the elated positivity Hegseth feels it so clearly deserves.
It was the latest example of the Trump regime demanding not merely a pliant news media, but an entirely servile industry that functions as its propaganda arm. While this fascist worldview has been most dramatically displayed in President Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to censor and cancel late-night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert for their anti-Trump commentaries, ruling elites in Trump’s orbit have long pursued a dangerous realignment and consolidation of media power to serve their right-wing agenda.
Hegseth’s outburst directed at CNN reflects the Trump regime’s ploy to concentrate more corporate news networks under the command of David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance and son of right-wing billionaire Larry Ellison.
The growth of the Ellison father-son empire is based on refashioning the American press—or what’s left of it—into the palm of Trump’s hand.
Last year, Trump cleared the way for Paramount’s merger with Ellison’s Skydance Media after Paramount paid a $16 million lawsuit filed by Trump against Paramount’s CBS News. Now Paramount Skydance is on the verge of acquiring an even larger legacy media giant, Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN.
“One family, the right-wing Trump-aligned Ellisons, will soon control: TikTok, CBS, CNN, HBO, Discovery Channel, BET, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, DC Studios, Fandango, Miramax, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, PlutoTV, Showtime, TBS, The CW, TNT, Warner Bros., and more,” US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned. “This is oligarchy.”
David’s father, Larry, is a staunch Zionist and the sixth richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of more than $198 billion. He is also one of Trump’s closest allies. The growth of the Ellison father-son empire is based on refashioning the American press—or what’s left of it—into the palm of Trump’s hand.
But it isn’t merely one family’s broadcast news juggernaut that rules this age of media monopoly power.
Censorship and MAGA’s Mouthpiece
Over the weekend, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr issued new Orwellian threats against unnamed networks running “fake news” (i.e., reporting that lacks the government’s deliriously upbeat spin) on the Iran war. Carr suggested he would revoke or refuse to renew the broadcasting licenses of networks that don’t “correct course.” While the reactions against Carr’s threats were swift, Trump wholly endorsed the FCC edict on Sunday while deriding media organizations as “Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic.”
But outside of media mergers and acquisitions, a wider net of news outlets has been pulled closer into the Trump regime’s hold. This includes the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, with its newly stated commitment to “personal liberties and free markets” along with editorials that reveal its increasing fealty to Trump.
The New York Times, while seemingly less beholden to the Trump regime, continues to churn out a steady stream of poorly disguised Zionist propaganda and breathless coverage of Trump’s imperialist military interventions. The so-called newspaper of record is so steeped in the machinery of empire that screaming prejudice drips from its discriminate use of language, as demonstrated by its passive headlines on Israeli atrocities against Palestinians that obscure Israel’s role versus its matter-of-fact reporting on recent Iranian strikes targeting Israel.
CBS News, however, proves that the Ellison media empire buys more consistent right-wing editorial leadership and allegiance to Trump.
Bari Weiss, spawned from the journalistic cesspool of the Times to later found the hilariously named website The Free Press, has been catapulted to unearned heights of the Ellison empire. While she possesses no experience as a reporter, her hard-line Zionism and anti-woke politics made her a perfect editor in chief to lead CBS News aggressively to the right.
“The mega rich have always been willing to hire, promote, and fund people willing to unquestioningly run interference for their interests while making them feel like their near-pathological selfishness, hoarding of money and power, and total disregard for the public interest is somehow morally justifiable. CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss is simply another in a long line of feckless water carriers for the one percent,” Elizabeth Spiers wrote in The Nation last December.
“[Weiss] has shown she’s not merely stupendously unqualified—she’s ideologically opposed to the practice of good journalism,” Spiers added.
Since Trump led the US empire into its unprovoked war on Iran last month, Weiss’ CBS has featured an infinite lineup of pro-war commentators, leading CBS’s own staffers to describe the network’s war coverage as a “propaganda-palooza.” Of course, such propagandizing isn’t exclusive to Trump’s newfound love of foreign wars. This was made clear in December when Weiss—who doesn’t hide her cringeworthy fawning over Trump—abruptly pulled a "60 Minutes" story on the notorious El Salvadoran prison camp where the Trump regime has sent many deportees in its ruthless war on immigrants. Since Weiss’ takeover, there’s also been a decline in CBS coverage on climate change.
Breaking the Fascist Echo Chamber
Against this grim backdrop of the decaying “Fourth Estate” of American “democracy,” there remains the ever-exploding and unwieldy landscape of independent media and social platforms. Oligarchs and authoritarians like Trump have struggled to exert control over the endlessly diverse and expanding universe of information and narratives exponentially building itself on these platforms.
Not that they haven’t tried.
Right-wing elites have successfully pushed the Meta platforms of Facebook and Instagram as well as Google’s YouTube to censor pro-Palestinian content. Trump launched his own social platform, Truth Social, in reaction to perceived anti-conservative biases in Twitter’s algorithm—which is now run by Trump’s favorite Big Tech billionaire sociopath, Elon Musk, who renamed it “X” and has proudly moved the platform’s algorithmic biases decidedly to the right. And, of course, we cannot forget TikTok, whose new US owned operation is now controlled by an investor group led by none other than Larry Ellison.
Now, as Trump oversees the final stages of a decades-long merger of corporate power and the state, his regime expects media organizations to serve not just Wall Street but the White House as well.
As is true of most pernicious policies from the Trump regime, right-wing designs on big media did not begin with Trump. Corporate media has long been an industry rife with monopolization and abuse of anti-trust laws to amass market dominance, from the Disney-ABC merger in the mid-90s to the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ongoing vast control over local news outlets reaching more than 40% of US households.
But alongside the Trump regime’s growing media machine, which is designed to shield it from public scrutiny, is also the inverse agenda of strengthening the regime’s ability to scrutinize the public through domestic surveillance technology. Led by Hegseth and Trump’s resident villainous creep Stephen Miller, the regime is pushing AI companies to hand over unrestricted use of their technology to spy on Americans and urging Congress to expand government surveillance powers.
If it seems that warnings about Trump’s right-wing media takeover are sensationalist or overstated, Trump himself is quite clear about it. The despot shared an infographic over the weekend illustrating how “President Trump Is Reshaping the Media,” celebrating the defunding of NPR, the departure of prominent news anchors from major networks, and mass layoffs at the Washington Post.
Corporate media consolidation has always been about serving the interests of the elite and their capitalist system of endless personal profit. Now, as Trump oversees the final stages of a decades-long merger of corporate power and the state, his regime expects media organizations to serve not just Wall Street but the White House as well.
The good news is that the public is not powerless against this slide toward state-controlled media. If viewers can pressure a corporation as powerful as Disney with the threat of canceling their subscriptions until it spurns government bullying, as in the case of Kimmel’s show, such collective action can be replicated and broadened to other forms of economic pressure by the masses. In the same way, news worker unions like The NewsGuild CWA, WGAE, and others can work to mobilize newsrooms against the fascist media coup.
The Trump regime’s right-wing media echo chamber can and must be broken through collective people power, both in the form of boycotts and by supporting independent media that answer to no politicians, no government masters, and no corporate overlords.
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'One Family Is About to Control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok': Alarm Grows Over Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
"When Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "All of them."
Feb 27, 2026
Concerns are mounting about the state of the US media landscape now that it looks increasingly likely that Paramount Skydance—a company controlled by the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a donor to President Donald Trump—will succeed in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
One day after Netflix announced that it was dropping its previously accepted bid to buy Warner, many critics demanded that antitrust laws be invoked to block the Paramount-Warner merger from going through.
Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, warned that the Ellison family could soon use their control over vast swaths of US media properties to engage in mass censorship, and he pointed to their decisions to cancel Stephen Colbert's program and to refuse to air an interview with Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico.
"One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok," he wrote in a social media post. "They’ll buy [Warner Bros. Discovery] with $24 billion in money from the Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. To win over Trump, they canceled Colbert... and blocked Talarico. Much more will follow. Block this rotten deal."
Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, said the proposed Paramount-Warner merger was "even worse" than the proposed Netflix-Warner merger.
"This deal endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations, and movie studios," Aaron said. "Allowing more mergers in the already highly concentrated movie business will harm filmmakers and industry workers when Paramount delivers on its promise to make deep cuts to please its Wall Street backers."
Writing in the American Prospect, David Dayen described the Paramount-Warner merger as the "worst-case scenario" that has "echoes of media-political consolidation as we see in dictatorships the world over."
Dayen argued that state governments still had time to block the merger, but warned that they were in a race against time given that Paramount's consultants "are trying to speed run the deal in a matter of weeks."
"The states could challenge the merger even after the feds bless it," Dayen continued, "but by then, Paramount and Warner Bros. would have likely commingled their assets, engaged in layoffs, and made it very difficult to untangle the merger, particularly for judges who are inherently conservative on these matters."
Some Democratic lawmakers are warning that they aren't going to stop fighting the Paramount-Warner merger even if it goes through.
In an interview with Semafor, Sen. Ruben Gallego (R-Ariz.) predicted that the Ellisons would come to regret aggressively buying up US media properties.
"Once we take power, whoever the president is, we’re going to break up your companies," said Gallego. "So all the investment you did to create these mergers are going to be for naught. Your investors are going to be pissed at you, and you’re likely going to end up getting fired as the CEO because you wasted so much money and corrupted yourself in the process."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) echoed Gallego's argument in a social media post.
"Paramount should enjoy its growing news monopoly while they have it," he wrote, "because when Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates. All of them."
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'Antitrust Disaster': Son of Billionaire Trump Donor Poised to Take Over Warner Bros.
"A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want."
Feb 27, 2026
Netflix announced Thursday that it would not continue its effort to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, paving the way for Paramount Skydance—a company controlled by the son of billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison—to take over the media giant after a lengthy bidding war.
The news came after Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos visited the White House and met with members of President Donald Trump's staff, raising suspicions about the role the administration may have played in pushing the streaming giant to drop its bid for Warner Bros. and cede the fight to David Ellison's Paramount. Along with other major media properties, Warner Bros. owns CNN, a frequent target of Trump's ire.
"What did Trump officials tell the Netflix CEO today at the White House?" asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), calling the potential Paramount-Warner Bros. merger "an antitrust disaster threatening higher prices and fewer choices for American families."
"A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want," Warren added. "With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump’s Department of Justice, it’ll be up to the American people to speak up and state attorneys general to enforce the law."
In a statement that appears to have stunned Hollywood, Netflix announced Thursday that it would not raise its offer for Warner Bros. after that company's board deemed Paramount's latest offer of $111 billion "superior." Netflix said it determined the pursuit of Warner Bros. was "no longer financially attractive."
"Ellison will readily throw the First Amendment, CNN’s reporters, and HBO’s filmmakers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets."
Ellison, for his part, said he was "pleased" that the Warner Bros. board "affirmed the superior value of our offer, which delivers to WBD shareholders superior value, certainty, and speed to closing."
The proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger still must receive regulatory approval in the US and Europe. Critics have voiced concerns about the legitimacy of a US Justice Department review given the recent ouster of antitrust chief Gail Slater.
State attorneys general could also intervene. Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, emphasized in a statement that "Paramount/Warner Bros is not a done deal."
"These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny—the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review," said Bonta.
On top of antitrust concerns, critics of the potential Paramount-Warner Bros. merger warned it would be a disaster for journalism and free expression. David Ellison acquired CBS News last year through the Paramount-Skydance merger approved by the Trump administration, and he is now poised to take over CNN, HBO, and other major platforms.
"Ellison has already shown his cards," said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. "When the Trump administration unconstitutionally demanded editorial concessions from Ellison’s Skydance in exchange for government approval of its takeover of Paramount and CBS News, he obliged, even appointing a Trump loyalist as a so-called ‘bias ombudsman.’ CBS has since repeatedly censored journalists or altered its coverage to please Trump and his allies."
"There is no reason to believe that this proven capitulator will behave any differently this time around—in fact, he’s already reportedly promised Trump ‘sweeping changes’ at CNN, including firing people Trump dislikes," Stern said. "Ellison will readily throw the First Amendment, CNN’s reporters, and HBO’s filmmakers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets."
"Lawmakers, state attorneys general, and anyone else in a position to intervene should make clear that they will not stand by as the Trump administration abuses its power to unconstitutionally extract content-based concessions from news companies," he added.
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Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Banned From TikTok After Trump-Backed Investor Takeover
The ban of journalist Bisan Owda comes amid an alleged wave of censorship after the platform was taken over by a clique of Trump-aligned investors, including the pro-Israel megadonor Larry Ellison.
Jan 29, 2026
Bisan Owda is still alive, but not on TikTok.
The award-winning Palestinian journalist and filmmaker found that her social media account had been suddenly terminated days ago, as part of an alleged wave of censorship following the platform's formal takeover by American investors last Thursday.
“TikTok deleted my account. I had 1.4 million followers there, and I have been building that platform for four years,” the 28-year-old Owda said in a video posted to her other social media accounts on Wednesday, just days after TikTok's new owners assumed control.
“I expected that it would be restricted," she said, "not banned forever."
Owda had achieved a massive following for her daily vlogs documenting life amid Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip. She showed herself constantly on the move, one of the nearly 2 million residents in the strip forcibly displaced by the military onslaught, and gave viewers a firsthand account of Israel's attacks on hospitals, its leveling of neighborhoods, and its assassinations of journalists.
Each of them began with the signature phrase: "It's Bisan from Gaza, and I'm still alive."
A documentary with that title, produced with the Al Jazeera media network, won multiple awards, including an Emmy in 2024 for news and documentary filmmaking.
Owda's videos, which are mostly in English, gave Western audiences a humanizing glimpse into the lives of Palestinian people victimized by the war. She was one of many Palestinians who shared their stories on platforms like TikTok, which American legislators blamed for the titanic shift in youth public opinion against Israel since the genocide began in October 2023.
In 2024, then-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) infamously justified the bipartisan push to ban the platform by decrying the "overwhelming" volume of "mentions of Palestinians" on it.
Others, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is now the secretary of state, expressed similar sentiments that TikTok was a critical front in an information war for the minds of young people.
In the video announcing her ban, Owda drew attention to comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in September that social media was the most important "battlefield" on which Israel needed to engage.
Netanyahu said the "most important purchase" going on at the time was the sale of TikTok from the Chinese company ByteDance to American investors, which had been enforced via an executive order from US President Donald Trump.
Among those investors was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who now holds both a 15% stake in TikTok and the primary responsibility for data security and algorithm oversight. In addition to being a major donor to Republican causes, Ellison describes himself as having a "deep emotional connection to the state of Israel," has been listed as the largest private donor to Israeli military causes, and is a close personal friend of Netanyahu.
Other major stakeholders include the US-based private equity firm Silver Lake, which has close ties to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and the Emirati investment firm MGX, which contributed an unprecedented $2 billion in a deal to help Trump's lucrative cryptocurrency startup, World Liberty Financial.
Owda also highlighted comments made by Adam Presser, the new CEO of TikTok, describing changes he'd help to make to the platform while working as its head of operations in the US that limited use of the word "Zionist" in a negative context.
"We made a change to designate the use of the term 'Zionist' as a proxy for a protected attribute as hate speech," Presser said. "So if someone were to use 'Zionist,' of course, you can use it in the sense of you're a proud Zionist. But if you're using it in the context of degrading somebody, calling somebody a Zionist as a dirty name, then that gets designated as hate speech to be moderated against."
The apparent censorship of Owda comes as many other users report that their content critical of the Trump administration has been throttled in the days following the takeover by the new owners.
Users have found themselves unable to upload content critical of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and unable to send direct messages containing the word "Epstein," referring to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, whose relationship with Trump has come under scrutiny of late.
TikTok's owners have denied censoring content, blaming the issues on a power outage at an Oracle data center.
Following these reports, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched an investigation into whether the platform was censoring anti-Trump content.
According to CNBC, the daily average number of users deleting TikTok has shot up by 150% since the new owners took over.
Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of users have flocked to a new platform called UpScrolled, which was launched in July 2025 by Palestinian-Australian app developer Issam Hijazi, who said he created it as a counter to the overwhelming presence of pro-Israel content on established platforms.
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#TakeBackTikTok From Ellison to Let Palestine Live
Billionaire Larry Ellison's takeover of US TikTok is a clear attempt to censor pro-Palestine content on the popular social media app. Here's how users can fight back.
Jan 13, 2026
CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans call on TikTokers across the world to flood the platform for Palestine to #TakeBackTikTok from billionaire Larry Ellison, the media mogul soon to control TikTok’s US app.
“We don’t have Ellison’s billions, his private Hawaiian island, or his cushy ties with Trump, but we do have people power on a platform with two billion users worldwide who warn against suppressing posts for Palestine,” said Benjamin, who has nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok.
“Time to school the billionaire yachtsman in uncharted waters,” said Evans, who organized a picket in front of Paramount, an Ellison family asset, to protest subsidiary CBS hiring Israel flack Bari Weiss to head the network’s news division.
The elder Ellison, 81, chair of the board at Oracle, may think he’s the smartest guy in the virtual room come January 22, when US-TikTok busts out of the social media gate to detach from TikTok globally. Ellison may be gloating about the fact that the new stand-alone consortium—prompted by China-phobic legislation—will center Oracle and UAE investors with AI at the ready to suppress pro-Palestinian content on a platform that LOVES Palestine. Ellison, who has donated over $26 billion to the Israeli military, may—when CODEPINK isn’t looking—even wink across the ocean to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
With Israel on trial at the International Court of Justice for genocide in Gaza, someone in the Zionist camp had to call 911 to overhaul the narrative on a platform with 170 million fans in the US.
These guys go back.
In 2021, Ellison offered pal Netanyahu a seat on the Oracle Board and a lounge chair on Ellison’s island of Lanai in Hawaii. That same year in Jerusalem, Oracle built a $319 million underground data bunker—hardened against a missile strike—to provide Netanyahu and the Israeli military with cloud services for intelligence on Palestinians and integration of information from drones and satellites for Israel’s killing fields.
At first glance, Ellison has much to celebrate as Israeli state propaganda prepares to saturate the new US TikTok with its official tourism tagline, “Israel, Exactly Like Nowhere Else." If the propaganda on TikTok mirrors advertising on other social media platforms, one can expect to hear denials in multiple languages that Israel is starving Gaza. Such claims, however, contradict United Nations findings (December 2025) that over a million people still face crisis levels of hunger, with over 100,000 children expected to suffer extreme malnutrition.
With Israel on trial at the International Court of Justice for genocide in Gaza, someone in the Zionist camp had to call 911 to overhaul the narrative on a platform with 170 million fans in the US.
For Israel flag wavers, this was an emergency.
TikTokers Rock for Palestine
TikTokers in the United States favor Palestine vs. Israel posts 17-to-1, according to Northeastern University research conducted from 2023-2025. TikTok posts of orphaned Gaza amputees wandering amid apartments turned to rubble make Israel a tough sell to Gen-Z and younger millennials scrolling the app to witness Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine in between ads for panda drums and shimmering lipsticks.
Netanyahu, facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Gaza’s mass starvation, openly acknowledges the importance of counteracting the images of carnage on social media. “Weapons change over time... the most important ones are on social media, “ Netanyahu said during a September 2025, huddle with US social media influencers who might be willing to promote Israel’s image for $7,000 a post. During the meeting, Netanyahu identified TikTok as the No. 1 influencer of global public opinion of Israel.
In June, 2025, the Pew Research Center, noting a dramatic shift in public opinion, found that 60% of those surveyed in 24 countries did not favor Israel over Palestine; in the US, Israel’s biggest weapons supplier, 53% expressed a “somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of Israel,” with 69% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans turning thumbs down on Israel. In what should be a wake-up call to Israel shills in the White House and Congress, Pew spotlights younger Republicans under 50, who are now about as “likely to have a negative view of Israel as a positive one.”
Background
In 2024, Congress passed legislation to force TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, launched by Chinese entrepreneurs, to sell off its US app or face a ban in the land of the not-so-free US. President Donald Trump, Ellison’s chum, then issued an executive order to delay the sale of TikTok’s US platform until Oracle and ByteDance could work out the kinks to enable Oracle to host US data on its cloud server and retrain the algorithm leased from ByteDance for US auditors to police. Lots of moving parts here.
Under the US joint venture, majority ownership will rest in the hands of Oracle, MGX, (UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund), and Silver Lake, a US private equity firm with ties to UAE investors. Existing ByteDance investors (General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, BlackRock, Soft Bank, and more) will be among the minority owners, along with ByteDance founders and employees. The Congress that kicked and screamed about foreign influence, imagining Chinese spies behind every TikTok post, barely shrugged when the UAE surveillance state teamed up with Ellison to siphon off US TikTok.
Follow the Billions and the Acquisitions… If You Can
The Ellison family holds an estimated 40-41% of Oracle’s outstanding 1.16 billion stock shares in a family trust controlled by patriarch Larry Ellison. Through the trust, the elder Ellison provided a $40.4 billion guarantee to finance the merger of Skydance Media, owned by son David, with the Paramount entertainment conglomerate. With the Ellisons’ shares in Oracle, Skydance Media, and Paramount, the family’s media dynasty can—left unchallenged—propagandize for Israel and Trump at CBS, Paramount Pictures, Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Pluto TV, and Paramount+—and soon TikTok.
TikTok content creators and users could outsmart the Ellisons by flooding the platform with pro-Palestinian posts and comments in “algospeak” or coded language.
CODEPINK, hardly new to media activism, ramps up for the challenge.The LA chapter recently joined Entertainment Labor 4 Palestine to demonstrate outside Paramount-CBS studios in Hollywood. Activists waved signs that read, “CANCEL PARAMOUNT” and “PARAMOUNT/CBS BLACKLISTS PRO-PALESTINE WORKERS” and “BARI WEISS CENSORS TRUTH” as Evans and the crowd tried to deliver a petition in objection to the CBS News editor’s cancellation of an expose on CECOT, the Salvadoran torture prison where Trump sent migrants—beaten by batons—to languish in windowless cells.
“You cannot stay on the property… Back on the sidewalk,” ordered the guards to CODEPINK.
Flood the platform
TikTok content creators and users could outsmart the Ellisons by flooding the platform with pro-Palestinian posts and comments in “algospeak” or coded language, some of which is already popular on TikTok. A Palestine demonstration becomes a “music festival.” Israel’s genocide becomes “Isrel G-side.” Gaza becomes “G@za.” Dead becomes “unalived.” Palestine become P*l3stine, with symbols and numbers replacing letters.
“Flood the platform for Palestine” was the message that the #TakeBacKTikTok campaign projected one December night onto the building of Oracle’s UK headquarters. The “Keep Posting, Keep Talking, Keep Sharing” call to action wrapped up a bold three-minute projection of life-sized images of tortured half-naked Palestinians, cratered apartment buildings, and terrified children in Gaza.
Also projected were images of Ellison, Netanyahu, Trump, and pro-Palestinian social media influencer Guy Christensen, 19, “yourfavoriteguy” who has amassed 3.5 million TikTok followers and endorsed the US #TakeBackTikTok campaign to flood the platform for Palestine in the run-up and emergence of US TikTok as a stand-alone app. While months ago ByteDance hired a former Israel Defense Forces instructor to monitor content at TikTok, Christensen views the new US joint venture as an attempt to double-down on censorship.
”What will it take for Americans to rise up against Israel’s blatant takeover of the last remaining major social media platform?” Christensen asks on his Substack.
Benjamin shares his outrage after receiving TikTok messages that read, “Not eligible for recommendation” when her posts are presumably deemed too controversial or sensitive for wider distribution. “TikTok has already been blocking our content when we simply call for an end to genocide. Enough! The new owners must stop, not escalate, the censorship,” said Benjamin.
Options for organizing
- Building a strategic partnership: MGX, the UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Silver Lake investors are, like Oracle, intent on deployment of AI across social media, much to the chagrin of US-based TikTok workers in California, New York, Washington, and Texas who fear losing their jobs to AI. Unlike TikTok proletarians in the UK, workers based in the US are not unionized—yet. Seeking union representation from United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) and Communication Workers of America (CWA), TikTok content monitors and e-commerce sales reps, some of whom may be offered stock in the emerging US spin-off, are likely allies to buck the bosses and outsmart the algorithm to keep Palestine alive on TikTok.
- Skirting US TikTok to go global: Should the new US TikTok hide or ban most pro-Palstine posts, even those with coded language and watermelon emojis, savvy TikTokers may skirt around the ban, opening up accounts on Private Virtual Networks to access the TikTok seen by much of the world—particularly Asia, the Middle East, and Africa—where TikTok is most popular. Such VPN’s can place content creators in another region of the globe—not in Los Angeles or Dallas where they may live, but in Cairo or Tokyo, beyond the reach of a customized and sanitized US TikTok with Pinocchio-type ads that scream, “Israel is not starving Gaza” while Palestinians boil weeds for dinner.
- Abandoning TikTok to encourage a hostile take-over: TikTokers could abandon the platform for Upscrolled, a pro-Palestinian site; Bluesky, a decentralized open source platform; RedNote, a Chinese version of Instagram; Reddit, a discussion platform for niche communities; or Facebook and Instagram, provided owner Meta drops its habit of rigging the algorithm to suppress Palestine posts. There could also be a migration of TikTokers to YouTube reels, although that, too, would present challenges in the wake of Google, YouTube’s owner, signing a $45 million deal with Israel to run ads that show thriving food markets with the message, “There is food in Gaza.”
Content creators abandoning US TikTok could trigger an exodus of advertisers in search of the migrating Gen Z demographic. Advertiser flight could, in turn, undermine or bankrupt a platform that generated $39 billion in revenue for ByteDance in 2024.
With users and advertisers abandoning a highly censored platform, TikTok could go to the graveyard with MySpace, an early social networking platform that alienated users with wall-to-wall advertising. Even UAE sheiks would hate to lose money in the long run on a hollowed-out US spin-off that cost the consortium $14 billion to buy from ByteDance.
Would the UAE or others with beaucoop bucks ever encourage US counterparts to launch a hostile takeover to purge Oracle from US TikTok? It could happen. Look at the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) battle, in which Paramount launched an unsuccessful hostile bid to block Netflix’s acquisition. Although TikTok is not publicly traded, Oracle trades on the NYSE and could be vulnerable to internal pressure and shareholder activism.
Bidding wars, platform censorship, and billionaire media ownership could also amplify demands on Congress to outlaw media consolidation under a future US administration sympathetic to regulation.
Larry Ellison may not be the smartest guy in the room, after all.
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The First Year of Trump's Second Term Was Terrific—for US Billionaires
Over 2025, the combined wealth of all US billionaires climbed to $8.1 trillion, a 21% increase over 2025, up from $6.7 trillion exactly a year ago.
Jan 02, 2026
The first year of the Trump administration was a very happy new year for the US billionaire class. The richest 15 billionaires, all with assets more than $100 billion, saw their combined wealth surge 33%, from $2.4 trillion to $3.2 trillion. This is double the growth of the S&P 500 over 2025, which was 16.4%.
Over 2025, the combined wealth of all US billionaires climbed to $8.1 trillion, a 21% increase over 2025, up from $6.7 trillion exactly a year ago.
Based on an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of data from the Forbes real time billionaire list from 2025, there are 935 billionaires in the United States with combined wealth totaling $8.1 trillion at the close of 2025 markets. This is an increase from 813 US billionaires at end close of 2024 markets, with combined wealth of $6.7 trillion.
The richest three American wealth dynasties—the Waltons, Mars, and Koch families—saw their wealth accelerate from $657.8 billion to $757 billion in one year.
Many top billionaires have seen their wealth surge during and after the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
[Note: Bloomberg reported global billionaire wealth increased $2.2 trillion over 2025, in an analysis released several days before the market closed at 4:00 p.m. on December 31, 2025. The market fluctuated considerably in the final days of 2025.]
The top five current billionaires and their individual wealth on January 1, 2026, compared to January 1, 2025:
- Elon Musk of Tesla/X and SpaceX with $726 billion, up from $421 trillion a year ago.
- Larry Page of Google, with $257 billion, up from $156 billion a year ago.
- Larry Ellison of Oracle fame with $245.billion, up from $209 billion a year ago.
- Jeff Bezos of Amazon with $242.billion, up from $233.5 billion a year ago.
- Sergey Brin of Google with $237 billion, up from $148.9 billion a year ago.
The three wealthiest dynastic families in the US hold an estimated $757 billion, up from $657.8 billion at the end of 2024, a 16% gain. These are:
- Walton. Seven members of the Walton Family with combined wealth of $483 billion, up from $404.3 billion a year ago.
- Mars. Six members of Mars family with combined wealth of $120 billion, down from $130.4 billion a year ago.
- Koch. Two members of Koch family have a combined wealth of $154.8 billion, up from $121.1 billion a year ago.
Wealth Gains Since Beginning of Pandemic
Many top billionaires have seen their wealth surge during and after the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
On March 18, 2020, Elon Musk had wealth valued just under $25 billion. Less than five years later, at the end of 2025, Musk’s wealth is $726 billion, a dizzying 2,800% increase from before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jeff Bezos saw his wealth rise from $113 billion on March 18, 2020 to $242 billion at the end of 2025.
Three Walton family members—Jim, Alice, and Rob, saw their combined assets increase from $161.1 billion on March 18, 2020 to $378 billion at the end of 2025.
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500 Richest People Gained Record $2.2 Trillion in 2025, Fueling Calls for Wealth Tax
"If the monstrous political-economic system that is tearing our planet, the climate, and its people apart isn't brought to its knees—then humanity will be," warned one climate scientist.
Jan 01, 2026
Led by Big Tech billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Elon Musk, the world's 500 richest people added a record $2.2 trillion to their collective wealth in 2025, Bloomberg reported as the year ended on Wednesday.
"Obscene greed! While billions of people live in poverty," human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell responded on X—a social media platform now controlled by Musk, the richest person on Earth. "It's why we need a global wealth tax."
Musk—who could become the world's first trillionaire thanks to his new controversial pay package as CEO of Tesla—is one of just eight ultrawealthy individuals who got around a quarter of all the gains recorded by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The others are Amazon founder Bezos and Oracle chairman Ellison, as well as Michael Dell, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg. The previous year, Bloomberg noted, "the same eight billionaires made up 43% of the total gains."
According to Bloomberg, the gains that brought the combined net worth of all 500 people to $11.9 trillion "were turbocharged" by the 2024 election victory of President Donald Trump. The Republican and his relatives were among the "biggest winners" of 2025, gaining at least $282 million, for a net worth of $6.8 billion.
The "winners" also include Musk, who gained $190.3 billion for a net worth of $622.7 billion; Ellison, who gained $57.7 billion for a net worth of $249.8 billion; and Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who gained $12.6 billion for a net worth of $37.7 billion.
After Trump's electoral win, several Big Tech billionaires buddied up to him, with Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all attending his inauguration. Musk then spent several months spearheading the administration's attack on federal workforce as the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The world’s 500 richest people have total wealth of $11.9tn.Their wealth up by $2.2tn in 2025. 8 billionaires accounting for a 25% of the gains.No one becomes this rich by working.They fund right-wing parties, oppose worker/human rights, cause more pollution than normal people.
[image or embed]
— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka.bsky.social) January 1, 2026 at 3:21 AM
Sharing the Guardian's coverage of the findings on the social media network Bluesky, British climate scientist Bill McGuire warned that "if the monstrous political-economic system that is tearing our planet, the climate, and its people apart isn't brought to its knees—then humanity will be."
The Guardian pointed to Oxfam International's November statement that $2.2 trillion "would have been more than enough to lift 3.8 billion people out of poverty," which the humanitarian group highlighted ahead of the Group of 20 Summit hosted by South Africa, whose government used its G20 presidency to push for solutions to global inequality.
"Inequality is a deliberate policy choice. Despite record wealth at the top, public wealth is stagnating, even declining, and debt distress is growing," Oxfam executive director Amitabh Behar said at the time. "Inequality rips away life opportunities and rights from the majority of citizens, sparking poverty, hunger, resentment, distrust, and instability."
A June 2024 report from French economist and EU Tax Observatory director Gabriel Zucman—prepared for the G20's Brazilian presidency—estimated that a global 2% minimum tax on the wealth of 3,000 billionaires could generate about $250 billion.
As seven Nobel laureates, including Joseph Stiglitz, noted in a July op-ed published by the French newspaper Le Monde, "By extending this minimum rate to individuals with wealth over $100 million, these sums would increase significantly."
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