Warner Bros. Discovery Plays Tinder: Swipes Left on Ellison, Right on Netflix
KEY POINTS
- •Warner Bros. Discovery advised shareholders on December 2025 to reject Paramount's $30-per-share offer in favor of Netflix’s $27.75 bid.
- •David Ellison involved Larry Ellison early on, but WBD worried about liability risks from a revocable trust backing the bid.
- •Paramount dangled a co-CEO role and over $567 million to Zaslav who declined, while secret bidders including Starz showed interest in cable assets.
In an epic saga fit for a daytime Emmy, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) snubbed Paramount's $30-a-share love letter in favor of Netflix’s $27.75 bid—for just its studios and streaming bits. David Ellison tried pulling the ultimate dad-card calling on David Zaslav to cozily chat with Oracle wizard Larry Ellison, but WBD wasn’t buying the trust fund’s shaky promises. Paramount countered with promises of co-CEO glory and hundreds of millions showered on Zaslav (exactly $567,712,631), who coyly demurred. Meanwhile, secret suitors like Starz, aka 'Company C,' tempted with $25B for cable scraps, but WBD’s dating game stayed loyal. Wall Street banks are cashing in $225M as the war rages, with Middle Eastern billions waving but labeled 'technical hurdles,' and nobody sweating regulatory to-dos because apparently, that’s just background noise. Oh, and Trump, casually lurking like the plot twist no one asked for.
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When billionaires play swap meet: Netflix gets the studios, Ellisons get ghosted, Zaslav gets a septuple-digit sympathy card, and Starz wishes it got an invite.
David Zaslav just played billionaire musical chairs and Netflix’s still standing while Larry Ellison’s trust fund got ghosted.
Paramount offered co-CEO bribes and hundreds of millions but got left on read—David Zaslav’s emoji game is strong.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 12/17/2025 | Author: Lucia Moses
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