Earlier this week, Paramount CEO David Ellison threatened to move the studio out of state beginning on October 1 (about six weeks!) if California Attorney General Rob Bonta does not come to the table to settle his merger with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
On Tuesday, Xavier Becerra, the Democrat nominee to replace sitting Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), blinked and called for the attorney general to work out a settlement.
Becerra likely knows Ellison is not bluffing, and that if Bonta continues to block the deal by refusing to talk, Ellison will move Paramount out of California. Then, if the merger is eventually approved, Ellison will probably take WBD with him. That’s a loss of over 50,000 jobs.
Tee hee.
California has already seen a countless number of major corporations flee. This includes Tesla, Charles Schwab, Hewlett Packard… High taxes, insane regulations, poor governance, violent crime, and an open hostility towards business have already done irreparable harm to the former Golden State. But losing Hollywood!? Losing two 100-year-old, legacy studios!? What that would do to blight California’s reputation as a total freaken loser state is unthinkable.
California, more specifically Southern California, more specifically Los Angeles, is still the Entertainment Capital of the World, and the entertainment industry is what made California California and Los Angeles Los Angeles. Imagine Boston losing the Red Sox, Florida losing oranges, Wisconsin losing dairy, Washington losing Antifa, Minnesota losing Learing Centers…
The thing is, Ellison will do it. He will move. He’s not bluffing. His dad did it. In 2020, Larry Ellison decided he’d had enough of California and relocated his $500 billion company, Oracle, to Texas.
Oh, yes, the younger Ellison will do it.
So, as he examines his dwindling presidential chances, current Gov. Gavin Newsom has already blinked and called for the attorney general to make a deal. Newsom knows losing a major studio under his watch would further erode his chance of becoming president.
And now, Becerra is wisely doing the same…
“I hope it settles before court. It is easier to stand in a conference room and settle than it is to stand in a courtroom,” he told the far-left Politico. “I say that having had to stand both in the conference room and in the courtroom. You get way more done in the conference room than you do in the courtroom.”
Becerra didn’t come out and say that he’s in favor of the merger, but this position makes it pretty clear that he is. Ellison has checkmated everyone with his credible threat to move.
And remember, this whole stall is all about preserving CNN as a propaganda tool for the Democrat Party.
That’s all this is about.
Even if Paramount and WBD merge, there is no concern about an entertainment monopoly when Netflix and Disney will still own a larger market share of the entertainment world.
No, this entire effort to kill the merger is to stop Ellison and Bari Weiss from changing CNN in any meaningful way. Democrats simply cannot stomach and truly fear they cannot survive in a world where CNN is not allowed to continue with this:
Even though CNN has watched its ratings, credibility, and influence dwindle to near zero over the last decade, Democrats simply cannot stomach losing this platform to spread hate, lies, smears, and violence if there is any kind of sensible reform at CNN.
In a recent op-ed, Ellison pledged that once CNN comes under his authority, all he wants is for CNN to report the facts and the truth.
Trust me, reporting facts and truth is the last thing Democrats and those who work at CNN want.