Elon Musk has reportedly invested approximately $1bn in Skydance, the new media empire led by David Ellison.
The deal comes alongside fresh equity infusions from existing investors, including board member Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow. Semafor first reported the news.
The investment follows Paramount’s recent $111bn merger with Warner Bros Discovery, a huge acquisition that brought the media companies together under the Skydance name. At the head of the new media empire is David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder and Donald Trump ally Larry Ellison.
The Guardian has contacted Musk and Skydance for comment.
The cash infusion solidifies an alliance between two of Trump’s richest monetary backers. In September, Semafor reported that Paramount executives had considered Musk as an equity investor, citing his close ties to Larry Ellison, who invested $1bn in Musk’s acquisition of X in 2022 and also $45m in support of Trump’s re-election bid in 2024. Musk spent more than $290m on Trump’s re-election bid and has spent more than $350m backing Republicans in the current US midterm elections.
After the merger, Skydance co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz, who previously led Mattel, informed employees that the integration would involve layoffs, stating: “Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce.”
The company’s leadership – which now oversees Paramount and Warner Bros’s movie studios, HBO Max, CBS News and CNN – has set a target of more than $6bn in cost savings over the next three years, a goal that Los Angeles county officials estimate could lead to the loss of 4,500 film and television jobs in Los Angeles alone.
Prior to the merger, a coalition of 12 states, including California and New York, sued Paramount, arguing that the deal would “extinguish” competition and result in “higher prices, lower quality and less content for film and television”.
In September, a settlement agreement required Skydance to release at least 30 films and more than 180 television shows annually, while ensuring that CBS and CNN maintain editorial independence.
