Billionaire Trump pal eyeing 'axing' CNN hosts the president 'is said to loathe': report
12h
Larry Ellison at the White House, in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Senior White House officials say that they are in favor of Paramount Skydance acquiring Warner Bros Discovery, and one official has discussed potential programming changes and firings at CNN with Paramount's largest shareholder, Larry Ellison, The Guardian reports.
Paramount Skydance is currently engaged in a potential bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, expected to submit a formal bid by the Thursday deadline, is in a competition between other parties including Comcast and Neftlix.
According to The Guardian, Paramount is poised "as the best bid" thus far.
Billionaire Ellison and President Donald Trump have a close relationship, marked by Ellison hosting fundraisers for Trump, meeting with him regularly, and potentially benefiting from Trump's administration on business deals like Oracle's role in the "Stargate" AI partnership and the proposed TikTok acquisition.
Ellison's son David is also a significant figure in the media landscape following his company Skydance's merger with Paramount.
Larry "Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House but, in at least one of the calls, engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said," reports The Guardian.
"The conversation also touched on floating names to replace Burnett and the possibility of running CBS assets like its flagship 60 minutes program on CNN air – proposals that have animated the White House, the people said," they write.
Paramount already has an in with Trump after they paid a $16 million settlement to him after an edited interview of former Vice President Kamala Harria by 60 Minutes last year.
"Additional backing from White House officials would smooth over any other hurdles for the Paramount bid," The Guardian notes.
And while "the only regulatory scrutiny" of Paramount acquiring Warner Bros "would be an antitrust review by the justice department," a former White House official doesn't see it being a problem.
"This won’t pose serious antitrust issues,” they told The Guardian. “That’s just how the government relations game is played."
Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission chair, agrees, telling The Guardian that a Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery would be very unlikely to require any review by his commission.
“I’d be very surprised if there was an FCC role at all in that type of transaction,” Carr said.