A new Paramount lawsuit accuses David Ellison and his father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison, of cutting an illegal deal with Donald Trump to secure US government approval for Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The complaint was filed Tuesday in Delaware Chancery Court by shareholder Paul Robbins, and it seeks to block the roughly $111 billion merger while also demanding unspecified monetary damages.
At the center of the Paramount lawsuit is a claim that the Ellisons, who control the company as father and son, promised sweeping changes at CNN and a series of personal benefits to Trump in order to remove federal regulatory barriers and win the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. The suit frames those alleged promises as a breach of the Ellisons’ fiduciary duty to shareholders, arguing that the arrangement created enormous financial and legal risk for Paramount. It names both Ellisons along with the roughly ten members of Paramount’s board. If completed, the merger would combine two of Hollywood’s biggest entertainment companies and place CBS News and CNN under the same ownership, which is a large part of why the fight over editorial control has become so heated.
The specific allegations are striking. According to the complaint, the alleged side deal gave Trump the opportunity to improperly funnel cash to himself by settling his legal claims, and it included a guarantee of up to $20 million in free advertising and a separate $16 million payment tied to an earlier settlement. The Paramount lawsuit also claims the Ellisons promised to overhaul CNN once the Warner Bros. Discovery takeover closed, potentially including firing anchors that Trump does not like. In the framing of the complaint, the family allegedly traded editorial independence for regulatory approval.
The suit points to CBS as a preview of what it says is coming for CNN. It alleges that the Ellisons already reshaped CBS to make its coverage more favorable to Trump, at the cost of the network’s ratings, and argues that CNN is next in line for the same treatment. That claim ties back to Paramount’s earlier settlement of a lawsuit Trump had filed against the company, which critics have long characterized as a payout dressed up as a legal resolution.
There is an important caveat worth noting. The shareholder behind the Paramount lawsuit, Paul Robbins, does not appear to have firsthand knowledge of the alleged deal. His claims are built on public documents and widely published media reports about the relationship between the Ellisons and Trump, rather than internal accounts. Robbins has owned Paramount stock since 2021, though the filing does not specify how many shares he holds.
Paramount has pushed back. A company spokesperson previously said that neither David nor Larry Ellison made any commitments to any government body, state attorney general, or federal agency about the future of CNN or any other news property, beyond a stated goal of delivering honest, fact based journalism. Paramount has also specifically denied that any advertising side deal exists. In other words, the company rejects the premise of the suit outright.
The Paramount lawsuit is not happening in isolation. It is the fourth legal challenge aimed at the Warner Bros. Discovery merger in a matter of days. A coalition of 12 state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds and is seeking a temporary restraining order, the Writers Guild of America filed its own challenge, and a group of Paramount+ subscribers sued earlier. Together, the cases have turned what would be one of the largest media mergers in history into a legal battlefield.
The politics sit right under the surface. Paramount and its allies have argued that the antitrust push from Democratic attorneys general is a campaign season stunt, noting that some of those officials are up for reelection this year. On the other side, critics see a Trump friendly family gaining control of CNN and other major news outlets. Larry Ellison has donated tens of millions to pro Trump groups and worked with Trump on the US TikTok deal, while David Ellison has cultivated a friendly relationship with Trump and hosted a dinner with him and top administration officials in Washington earlier this year. That backdrop is exactly what makes the shareholder’s corruption claims land as loudly as they have.
For now, none of it is settled. The allegations in the Paramount lawsuit are just that, allegations, and the Ellisons have denied any improper deal. But with the merger reshaping Hollywood and control of CNN hanging in the balance, the courts are about to spend a lot of time examining what was actually promised to get this deal done.
