On Sept. 22, 2026, a crowd of entertainment workers assembled outside the Melrose Gate at Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood, Calif., to voice alarm over a newly announced settlement. The settlement, reached by a coalition of state attorneys general, resolves an antitrust case involving Paramount Skydance’s planned merger with Warner Bros., and it could pave the way for a far larger consolidation championed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and his son David.
Settlement, protest and the looming consent decree
The consent decree that the attorneys general filed aims to dissolve the immediate legal barrier to the Paramount-Warner deal. Yet U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin has signaled lingering doubts, noting in a recent order that she needs more information about the factual and legal underpinnings of the agreement. While the decree is still pending judicial approval, the protest on Sept. 22 underscored fears that the merger could grant the Ellisons sweeping authority over what the next generation watches, reads and streams.
Ellison’s bid for media dominance
Behind the merger sits a network of deals linking the Ellison family to President Trump. Earlier this year, Trump facilitated Oracle’s co-ownership of TikTok a move tied to the Biden administration’s aborted TikTok ban. Last year, David Ellison’s Skydance Media transformed into Paramount Skydance, acquiring assets such as CBS, Paramount Pictures and Paramount+. The financing for that consolidation reportedly came from senior Larry Ellison, whose empire is valued around $440 billion. If the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition proceeds, the Ellisons would control major outlets including CNNHBO and the film studio Warner Bros. Pictures.
According to Seth Stern director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the deal represents a “perfect feedback loop” that could turn public anxieties about crime and terrorism into even greater demand for Oracle’s surveillance products. The Ellisons have already promised “sweeping changes” to CNN and hinted at an overhaul of editorial practices in exchange for regulatory goodwill, although Paramount officials deny any formal commitments.
Surveillance, algorithms and the next-generation audience
Oracle’s surveillance technology is already embedded in U.S. defense agencies through a near-$7 billion contract covering the Pentagon, the intelligence community and the Coast Guard. Larry Ellison has repeatedly argued that constant recording will make citizens “behave” – a sentiment he repeated to investors in 2024. A decade ago he boasted that Oracle’s “ID Graph” tracked five billion individuals and joked that with a world population of seven billion, “two billion to go.” That era also produced a $115 million privacy settlement over invasive in-store tracking.
Now, the proposed Warner-Mount merger (a shorthand for Warner Bros. Discovery combined with Oracle-backed assets) could embed similar algorithmic hooks into entertainment. Critics of Meta’s child-targeting algorithms already warn about mind-warping effects; the Ellisons’ plan would amplify those concerns by pairing profit-driven engagement tools with a media empire capable of shaping news narratives, movie themes and even the content children consume on streaming platforms.
Political ties and public-policy implications
The Ellisons’ media push is inseparable from their political connections. At the World Governments Summit in Dubai in February 2025, Larry Ellison urged nations to unify their data into a single AI-ready database, framing the move as essential for unlocking governmental AI value. Simultaneously, Oracle co-founded Stargate a $500 billion data-center build-out announced by Trump during his first week back in office, further cementing the link between federal spending and the Ellisons’ technology platform.
Media-ownership watchdogs note that the purchase of a major news outlet and a film studio by a defense contractor creates a modern “fox-in-the-henhouse” scenario. Historical Hollywood productions have already served as soft power tools for U.S. foreign policy; a conglomerate that controls both the narrative machinery and the surveillance infrastructure could steer public opinion on a scale previously unseen.
Recent reports also reveal that a dubious astroturfing firm, Neighbors for Strong Communities launched AI-generated campaigns supporting the Paramount-Warner merger and collaborated on PR pushes with the security-camera company Flock Safety. While no direct corporate partnership between Oracle and Flock has been disclosed, the alignment of interests underscores a coordinated effort to normalize surveillance-heavy technologies.
With the settlement’s legal fate still undecided, the protest outside Paramount serves as a vivid reminder that media consolidation, when paired with expansive data collection, raises profound questions about free expressionprivacy and the shaping of the next generation’s worldview.
