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mergers and acquisitions
'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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Trump’s Lax Approach to Antitrust Helps Spur Banner Year for Corporate Mergers
"Trump’s new antitrust enforcers have demonstrated a willingness to facilitate dealmaking through an uptick in early terminations and settlements," said the American Economic Liberties Project.
Dec 26, 2025
Global corporate mergers surged to near-record highs in 2025, driven in part by US President Donald Trump's lax approach to antitrust enforcement.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that global dealmaking in 2025 topped $4 trillion, including 68 mergers worth $10 billion or more, highlighted by Netflix's $72 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and a proposed $85 billion mega-merger between railway giants Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
The US alone accounted for $2.3 trillion worth of mergers and acquisitions, which the Financial Times said highlighted the Trump administration's role in green-lighting corporate consolidation.
"Top dealmakers said that the Trump administration’s push to loosen regulation had encouraged companies to explore tie-ups that they might otherwise have been hesitant to pursue," the Financial Times explained.
Andrew Nussbaum, co-chair of the executive committee at law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, told the Financial Times that corporate leaders "see a willingness of the regulators to engage in constructive dialogue" under the second Trump administration, which has given them "a willingness to take on regulatory risk for transactions that are strategic."
The American Economic Liberties Project has also taken note of the Trump administration's role in shepherding through big mergers, and created a Trump Merger Boom tracker earlier this year to document the massive wave of corporate consolidation.
In its analysis of the administration's lax approach to antitrust enforcement, the American Economic Liberties Project said that "Trump’s new antitrust enforcers have demonstrated a willingness to facilitate dealmaking through an uptick in early terminations and settlements."
"Despite pro-enforcement rhetoric early on from Trump’s heads of the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division," the American Economic Liberties Project added, "it’s becoming increasingly clear that agency leadership is having trouble making their decisions in a vacuum—with a quiet tide of deals granted to companies that have been friendly to the White House."
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Critics Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Threat If Netflix Acquires Warner Bros.
"The threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself," warned actress Jane Fonda.
Dec 05, 2025
Netflix announced a deal Friday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and streaming business for $83 billion, a merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create a media behemoth that critics say threatens industry competition, higher costs for consumers, the rights of entertainment workers, and democracy.
Netflix, the largest streaming company in the world, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), owner of the third-largest streaming platform HBO Max, unveiled the proposed agreement after a closely watched bidding war that included Paramount Skydance, the company that the Trump administration reportedly favored to acquire WBD. Paramount is owned by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison—a close ally of President Donald Trump.
David Ellison reportedly met with Trump administration officials on Thursday to "press his case" against Netflix's pending acquisition of WBD. An unnamed senior official told CNBC on Friday that the Trump administration is treating the Netflix-WBD deal with "heavy skepticism."
While some expressed relief that Paramount appears—at least for now—to have lost the bid for Warner Bros., antitrust advocates argued such a view overlooks the much broader and more serious threat of corporate consolidation.
"Does anyone think Netflix won’t do what Trump wants to get their deal through?" asked Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. "The threat to democracy isn’t the Ellisons, it’s media consolidation."
The American Prospect's David Dayen expressed a similar sentiment, writing on social media: "Keeping WBD out of Paramount's hands is good. Putting it in Netflix's is still unlawful consolidation though. This is the #1 streamer merging with #3. State enforcers should speak up."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend."
In a newsletter post following news of the merger agreement, Stoller argued the Netflix-WBD deal is plainly illegal under the Clayton Antitrust Act and "a recipe for monopolization."
"The ideal scenario now is a trial that puts the secrets of Hollywood executives and financiers on display, and crushes the financiers who think mergers are the only move in business," Stoller wrote. "Then Hollywood can get back to the business of making good TV shows and movies."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "this deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare."
"A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market," said Warren. "It could force you into higher prices, fewer choices over what and how you watch, and may put American workers at risk."
"Under Donald Trump, the antitrust review process has also become a cesspool of political favoritism and corruption," the senator continued. "The Justice Department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently—not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery."
Ahead of the announcement, major figures in the entertainment industry sounded alarm over the possibility of a Netflix takeover of WBD. In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, a group of film producers warned that Neflix would "effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace" if it acquired WBD.
The Writers’ Guild of America, which represents film and TV writers, has said it would oppose WBD merging with any "major studio or streamer," warning it "would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition."
"Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth," the union said in a recent statement.
Jane Fonda, the renowned actress and activist, wrote Thursday that "the threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself."
"Consolidation at this scale would be catastrophic for an industry built on free expression, for the creative workers who power it, and for consumers who depend on a free, independent media ecosystem to understand the world," Fonda wrote. "It will mean fewer jobs, fewer opportunities to sell work, fewer creative risks, fewer news sources, and far less diversity in the stories Americans get to hear."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend," she added.
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