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The world's richest man, Elon Musk, may expand his influence beyond aerospace, artificial intelligence (AI), and the automotive industry into the film and broadcasting sectors.
US media outlet Semafor reported on the 23rd (local time) that Paramount Skydance (hereinafter Paramount) executives discussed asking Musk to become part of a group of equity investors.
Musk is known to be close to Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and father of Paramount CEO David Ellison.
Larry Ellison invested $1 billion (approximately 1.3667 trillion KRW) when Musk privatized Twitter (now X) in 2022, and also served as a Tesla director from 2018 to 2022.
According to entertainment media outlets Deadline and Variety, Paramount needs a large sum of money to finalize its mega-merger and acquisition (M&A) with Warner Bros. Discovery.
They have secured a $24 billion investment commitment from three sovereign wealth funds led by Saudi Arabia (Saudi, Qatar, and UAE), and upon completion of the investment, these funds will hold a 38.5% stake in the merged company.
Larry Ellison has personally offered to guarantee a $40 billion investment, and it is reported that plans are underway to contact various billionaires to cover the remaining amount. So far, no other billionaires besides Musk have been named.
Semafor pointed out that it could be an uncomfortable situation for Musk to become an investor in the merged company, as Paramount would then own news channels CNN and CBS News.
Musk served as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Donald Trump's second administration and has provided large sums to Republican candidates during election seasons.
In contrast, CNN is considered a progressive media outlet that has sharply criticized President Trump and Musk.
Semafor, the new media outlet that reported this, was co-founded by Justin Smith, former CEO of Bloomberg Media, and Ben Smith, a New York Times (NYT) columnist.
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