Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison is raising the stakes in the battle for Hollywood’s future, personally intervening to salvage his son David Ellison’s hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. On Monday, David’s company, Paramount Skydance, announced the elder Ellison had provided an “irrevocable personal guarantee” of $40.4 billion to finance the deal, directly countering claims that the company’s funding was unreliable.
It’s the latest turn in the high-profile tug-of-war for Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the entertainment industry’s crown jewels. David Ellison, who became CEO of the newly merged Paramount Skydance in August, has been aggressively pursuing Warner Bros. with a $108 billion all-cash offer, which comes out to about $30 per share. However, WBD’s board rejected that proposal in favor of a rival agreement to sell its studio and streaming assets to Netflix for roughly $83 billion.
