Paramount-Skydance Merger Gives LARRY ELLISON the Keys at CBS Broadcasting

Paramount-Skydance Merger Gives LARRY ELLISON the Keys at CBS Broadcasting

July 29, 2025

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Due Dissidence

Billionaire Drools That "Citizens Will Be on Their Best Behavior" Under Constant AI Surveillance

If it were up to Larry Ellison, the exorbitantly rich co-founder of software outfit Oracle, all of us will soon be smiling for the camera... constantly. Not for a cheery photograph, but to appease our super-invasive, if not totally omnipresent, algorithmic overseers.

As Business Insider reports, the tech centi-billionaire glibly predicts that the wonders of AI will bring about a new paradigm of supercharged surveillance, guaranteeing that the proles, excuse us, "citizens" ...all behave and stay in line.

On his second day back in the White House, Donald Trump hosted three of the top artificial intelligence (AI) executives in the nation to tout a $500 billion partnership, dubbed Stargate, to build AI data centers across the United States, during which Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison suggested AI could be used to rapidly develop new mRNA-based vaccines.

CBS News reports that Ellison, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and OpenAI chief Sam Altman joined Trump at the White House, and have pledged $500 billion over the next four years toward the construction of new AI data centers, starting with 10 in Texas.

The Federal Communications Commission greenlit the $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media on Thursday, 383 days after the deal was first announced. The merger, which is set to close on August 7, will transform Larry Ellison, 80, and his son David Ellison, 42, into one of the most powerful duos in Hollywood, wielding influence over TV shows, movies, news and more.

As Paramount’s chairman, CEO and owner of 50% of its voting rights, David Ellison will oversee an entertainment empire with more than 1,200 film titles, including everything from “Top Gun: Maverick” to a remake of “It’s A Wonderful Life,” plus distribution rights to another 2,400 films. Other crown jewels include popular channels MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime and CBS News. But it’s his father who controls the purse strings and owns the equity, according to regulatory filings. The elder Ellison may have helped get the deal over the hump in other ways, too.

The merger was approved only after some key concessions from both parties. Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million... to be used for his future presidential library, in July to resolve a lawsuit over 60 Minutes’ edit of a 2024 interview of Kamala Harris. (A couple of weeks later, CBS said it would end Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s late night show next May, citing cost overruns.)

Ellison’s Skydance, meanwhile, had to make written commitments promising that the company’s programming would embody “a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum” and that it would “adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,” per the FCC’s letter announcing the decision.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/billionaire-constant-ai-surveillance

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ai-ceo-says-trump-stargate-partnership-could-lead-to-personalized-mrna-cancer-vaccines

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/07/29/how-worlds-second-richest-person-larry-ellison-david-ellison-his-son-8-billion-skydance-paramount-deal/

Original: https://youtu.be/Zq-9fEaBOf4

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