David Ellison is looking to build up Paramount’s finances ahead of the mega merger, and has been mulling over several wealthy individuals who could back the deal, according to a report.
Page A2From§Eachthe early bird edition — 23 September 2026
CNN's CEO asks to stay 'useful' to new owners now mulling Elon Musk as an investor
As it ran on the front
Consider what a denial costs, which is nothing, and what it buys, which is the week. "I didn't pressure anybody," Gavin Newsom told reporters on Wednesday, and you may take him entirely at his word. Nothing in the drafting required pressure. It required a signature. The attorney general who had spent months openly against this merger sat down and supplied one, and the concessions he took for it were called, by one critic, "meaningless bullshit." A settlement is the instrument by which the party able to say no agrees to stop saying it. The price, mind you, did not move. One hundred and eleven billion dollars. One hundred and eleven.
And the men inside the thing? Mark Thompson, who runs CNN, told staffers he remained "very committted to CNN" and wants to stay if he can be "useful" to his "new bosses." Useful. A handsome word, and his own.…
…(cont) The money is still being assembled. David Ellison is mulling wealthy individuals who could back the deal ... Elon Musk among them. At CNN the word for that is "Really scary."
The FCC approved Saudi and UAE ownership stakes in it. Approved.
The fence, the tenant mends. The field is not the tenant's. Not yet.
“They sold you a settlement and the price didn't move a dollar — a hundred and eleven billion, same as the day it was filed, and the concessions got called "meaningless bullshit" by people who read them. Now the governor swears he didn't lean on anybody, the guy running CNN is telling the incoming bosses he can be "useful," and Ellison's shopping the equity around to Elon Musk while the FCC waves in Saudi and UAE ownership. That's not a media company anymore, that's a favor factory, and the news you watch is what comes off the line.”
“Settlements are how the system works — the state got concessions, real concessions, and nobody pressured anybody, which the governor said himself. Did I call them meaningless? That doesn't sound like me. And capital is capital; if a CEO wants to be useful to his shareholders, that's called a work ethic, why is that suddenly sinister?”
Earlier in this story
- California extracted concessions from the $111 billion Paramount merger; the merger closes at $111 billion. By Sterling · the midnight edition, 23 September 2026
The receipts
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) warded off speculation about whether he pressured California Attorney General Rob Bonta to settle with Paramount Skydance over the company’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
A CNN source said Thompson told staffers that he "remained very committted to CNN" and wants to stay at the company if he can be "useful" to his "new bosses."
· California AG Rob Bonta talks tough on Paramount, but says he’s ‘open’ to settlement talks if they’re ‘sincere’ from the morgue, 17 Sep 2026
· Rob Bonta ‘will have to own it’ if Paramount leaves from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.