A plane on Thursday flew over Paramount Pictures’ lot in Hollywood towing a banner that read, “Ellison Is Trump’s B!tch!” It is not immediately clear who was behind the stunt. The plane made its passed over the Paramount lot as a group calling itself Neighbors for Strong Communities was planning to hold a press conference outside the Paramount gates to raise alarms about what would happen if the studio leaves California. CEO David Ellison has threatened to leave the state if the Paramount-Warner Bros.
Discovery merger is not closed by Oct. 1, when the company will begin to incur a $7 million-per-day ticking fee to Warner Bros. investors. The megadeal is being held up by a 12-state antitrust lawsuit, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, that is set to go to trial in March 2027. Paramount employees on the lot were taking pictures of the plane, according to a source on the ground.
One of them commented that they thought the AGs’ lawsuit was “about antitrust, not about politics.” At the same time on Thursday, spokespeople representing the Block the Merger coalition — which has strongly opposed the Paramount-WBD merger — were outside the Paramount lot Thursday to “thank state attorneys general for holding firm in their lawsuit to block the $111 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, and to call on them to continue resisting what they have called Paramount ‘blackmail,’” according to the group. Speakers from the coalition included Elyssa Phillips, actress, writer, comedian and Committee for the First Amendment member; Jessica J. González, co-CEO of Free Press; Konstantine Anthony, actor and Burbank City Council member; and Nikki Perez, Burbank City Council member.
A rep for the Block the Merger campaign said the group was not behind the plane. A spokesperson for Paramount declined to comment. Trump is known to be friendly with both David Ellison and his father, Oracle founder and mega-billionaire Larry Ellison.
In April, David Ellison in threw a dinner party in Washington, D.C., “honoring” Trump that whose attendees included CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss. The Ellisons’ ties to Trump have raised concerns that if CNN comes under Paramount’s ownership with the Warner Bros. deal, David Ellison will push CNN’s coverage in a more conservative direction. The CEO has repeatedly pledged that CNN will remain an editorially independent news organization if the Paramount-WBD deals goes through.
At the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in July, Trump joked that David Ellison told him that next year Ellison will rename the WHCA dinner “the Trump White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” “He told me that, and I like that very much. We’re going to change the name of it, OK?” Trump said, alluding to his unsuccessful effort to add his name to the Kennedy Center.
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