Jilted MAGA oligarch-controlled Paramount-Skydance on Monday filed a lawsuit against WarnerDiscovery accusing the media conglomerate of opacity with shareholders on the terms of Larry and David Ellison’s repeatedly-rejected hostile takeover bids, asking a judge “to simply direct WBD to provide this information so that WBD shareholders have what they need to be able to make an informed decision as to whether to tender their shares into our offer,” CNBC reports.
“WBD has failed to include any disclosure about how it valued the Global Networks stub equity, how it valued the overall Netflix transaction, how the purchase price reduction for debt works in the Netflix transaction, or even what the basis is for its ‘risk adjustment’ of our $30 per share all-cash offer,” Ellison complained in a letter to his own shareholders announcing the lawsuit.
For the nth time, it need be noted that Netflix will not end up owning CNN if and when this is all said and done. America’s number one “fake news” network will at some point over the next year or two be spun off along with the Discovery Channel, TBS, TNT, TLC, and other legacy cable TV assets into a separate entity that would be significantly cheaper for the Ellisons to buy up than the current megacorporation. So it should be obvious from here that (A) Netflix’s offer is both less risky for investors given the structure of the deal and more profitable in the longer run because of the spinoff and (B) that the Ellisons want it all – HBO, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Game of Thrones, and so on – and if for whatever reason they could have it all except CNN they’d probably still take it without blinking.
They’re simply leveraging their temporary friend convicted felon President Trump’s hatred of the outlet and promises to fuck it up even worse than Bari Weiss has with CBS News so far as some political weight to their pursuit of Warner which, once again, Trump really has no power to stop Netflix from acquiring. Arguably by doing stupid shit such as posting some lame OAN editorial headlined “Stop the Netflix Cultural Takeover” like he did over the weekend, he’s undermining whatever already limp case the remnants of the DOJ’s antitrust division might’ve had.
A telling moment will be in late 2027/early 2028 when, should Netflix still win all the Warner entertainment assets anyway, that the opportunity for them to scoop up CNN and the other cable channels post-spinoff presents itself. Will the Ellisons still care to move on it at that point?
That such a possibility hasn’t been floated says a lot about where they’re at on CNN.