We knew Paramount Skydance wanted to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. We knew that they company was pretty pissed when Warner CEO David Zaslav turned down the offer for $20 a share for the entire company. And we knew that this became a fury when Netflix and Warner agreed to a deal at $27.5 per share last week. Now Paramount has reacted, and reacted big. The company has launched a hostile takeover bid, swooping in with a $30 per share offer, which works out to over $108 billion, $25 billion more than Netflix is paying.
It was rumored earlier this year, while Zaslav was making it clear how much he wanted to sell Warner Discovery, that he was looking for $30 per share—a massive over-valuation of the company, but one he was looking to justify by splitting the company, severing off the “Discovery” parts and its loss-making cable networks, and loading that doomed company with all of Warner’s debts. Paramount’s opening bid at $20, however, was for the whole shebang. Netflix, however, outbid everyone by agreeing to $27.5 per share after the split, which is due to happen in the second half of 2026.
Now, Paramount is going hard in its efforts to prevent this, increasing its previous offer by an enormous 50 percent, and again for the whole company and all its debt. The BBC reports that the company, backed by the billionaire Ellison family, called this bid a “superior alternative,” and clearly one designed to make shareholders revolt if Warner sticks with Netflix’s lower offer.
This was never likely to go smoothly. If the Netflix deal goes through, it would make the streamer one of the most powerful players in Hollywood, and with the absorption of HBO Max an even more dominant force in streaming. Regulators were absolutely going to be scrutinizing this, and in a time when such bodies are now fully under the control of president Donald Trump’s mercurial (and self-interested) whims, that could go in any direction. Things were looking positive for Netflix in this regard, after its CEO Ted Sarandos had recently been to the Oval Office, likely to play on the president’s infantile habit of agreeing with the last confident voice that spoke to him. However, Sunday night Trump gave hints that he was going to be a wrench in the works, saying the deal “could be a problem.”
It’s also worth noting that the recent Paramount and Skydance merger only took place after the company, er, “settled” a legal dispute with Trump by giving him $16 million.
Paramount’s offer would work out to $108.4 billion for the whole company, including its cable networks, dwarfing Netflix’s post-debt removal offer of $83 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t worth close to either figure—optimistically valued at around $10 a share six months ago, and Paramount itself is only worth $11 billion in its own right. Larry Ellison, who backs the company, is said to be worth nearly $270 billion, so could certainly afford it, but it’d still be the most extraordinary outlay were there to be no external investors involved. As more details come to light from Axios reporter Sara Fischer, it seems that—inevitably—a lot of the money will come from wealth funds including Saudi Arabia’s, Qatar’s and the UAE’s, among others.
🚨🚨 WOW. Paramount’s initial press statement didn’t include a mention of sov wealth funds, but sep SEC filing said other outside financing partners include funds from Saudis, Qataris, Emirates as well as Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners (!)
Those funders, “have agreed to forgo… https://t.co/5kkhRQWHx4
— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) December 8, 2025
The New York Times‘ Lauren Hirsch further details the figures, stating that $24 billion of the total will be sourced this way, with a further billion from Tencent, and then a bunch from RedBird Capital Partners and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Kushner’s involvement could explain Trump’s intervention over the weekend.
Paramount’s bid for WBD is backed in part by
– $24bn from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds
– $1bn from China’s Tencent
– Jared Kushner’s private equity firm pic.twitter.com/Kdt94WevPc
— Lauren Hirsch (@LaurenSHirsch) December 8, 2025
So, there we are, more excitement in the world of billionaires buying up everything to feed us their homogenized sludge.
Updated: 12/08/2025, 11:17 a.m. ET: Updated the post to add details about Paramount’s potential investors in the deal.
