Billionaire Larry Ellison’s support for Stargate — a landmark $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project championed by President Trump — could help set the wheels in motion for the embattled merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, sources told The Post.
The Oracle founder on Tuesday shared the stage at the White House with President Trump to announce the Stargate deal — which Elon Musk quickly overshadowed, claiming on X that “they don’t actually have the money” and to date have ” well below $10 billion secured.”
Ellison — whose net worth is currently pegged by Forbes at $205 billion — is likely hoping his show of support for Stargate will help his son David’s Skydance Media win regulatory approval for its deal to controversially, $8 billion to join Paramount, the sources said.
That’s despite President Trump’s new Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr publicly saying he had concerns about the merger, focusing on Paramount-owned CBS’ alleged bias in the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t believe in coincidences anymore,” a former FCC commissioner told The Post, requesting anonymity.
Paramount is also reportedly considering settling a $10 billion lawsuit by President Trump against the company over alleged bias before the merger was considered.
“That’s very smart for Larry to do,” a source close to Paramount said of Ellison’s appearance at the White House. “It tells me he’s going to have no problem with the deal with Paramount.”
Media investor Daphna Ziman’s consortium, Project Rise Partners, is preparing to submit a higher bid for Paramount this week, she told The Post in an interview.
But Paramount has a binding agreement with David Ellison’s Skydance Media and can back out only if regulators block the merger, the sources said.
“I think if Trump advises Carr and the FCC to go along with the merger, because people follow his wishes,” Ziman said, adding, “Ellison is totally outmaneuvering.”
Ellison’s Skydance declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Ellison’s Oracle and a spokesman for Trump did not return calls.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, last week also said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) should review the Skydance-Paramount merger to see if China can have too much influence on Paramount.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Defense added Tencent to its list of firms suspected of working for the Chinese military.
China-based Tencent would have less than a 5% stake in the combined Paramount-Skydance when the companies merge, a Skydance spokeswoman confirmed.
Skydance said Tencent will not have an attributable interest in licensed CBS broadcast stations, according to a Jan. 2 public filing with the FCC.
“Tencent and certain other current Skydance investors – along with many other institutional and individual investors – will hold publicly traded non-voting shares of New Paramount, and such shareholders have no ability to influence the operation or management of New Paramount.”
“Tencent’s wholly passive, minority, unattributed minority interests present no basis for a concern of undue influence,” Skydance said.
Now, Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank have announced a $500 billion AI project that will include building massive data centers.
On Tuesday, Oracle shares rose 7% on the news and then rose 5% again after hours when Trump announced he would be open to Ellison or Elon Musk buying TikTok.
Ellison talked about the benefits of AI at the press conference.
“Small fragments of [cancer] tumors circulate in your blood. So you can make the early detection of cancer. If you can do that using AI, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test and using AI to look at the blood test,” Ellison said.
“Once we find the gene sequence of that cancer tumor, then you can vaccinate the person — design a vaccine for each individual person that vaccinates them against that cancer. That mRNA vaccine, you can do it robotically, again using AI, in about 48 hours.”
The Ellison family and Redbird Capital are buying Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, which controls Paramount through super voting stock.
But part of the deal is also Paramount buying Skydance in which Tencent has a stake.
Skydance in the merger is offering Paramount common shareholders $15 in cash for roughly half of their shares.
Paramount shares are trading below $11, indicating investors believe the company will decline in value after the merger.
#Exclusive #Larry #Ellisons #support #Trumps #billion #project #save #Paramount #merger #sources
Image Source : nypost.com