After months of a back-and-forth bidding war between Netflix and Paramount-Skydance, Netflix last week chose not to counter Paramount-Skydance’s latest offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, paving the way for these two giant media companies to merge. While Paramount-Skydance is a social media/entertainment entity, the financing for the deal comes mostly from Oracle, an I.T. giant that manages large portions of the world’s digital infrastructure, from cloud services to artificial intelligence to government surveillance systems.
This merger will put Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, and his son David, the primary owner of Paramount-Skydance, in control of one of the largest media and tech empires ever assembled, and will be accountable to no one but itself. For the rest of us, it will mean less access to accurate information, less ability to get the context we need to understand that information, and perhaps at some points outright censorship and surveillance by this massive corporation.
Although Netflix’s offer of $83 billion was already considered generous, the Ellison’s offered $111 billion, an amount most observers consider far more than Warner Bros. Discovery is actually worth. David Ellison’s bid using money from Paramount-Skydance was supplemented by $40 billion of his father’s personal fortune. And $24 billion of that money came from the ruling families of three oil rich Gulf nations: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
We of course recognize that the media in capitalist society is never fair and balanced. It’s not even in the business of telling the truth. The media is always controlled by those who are wealthy and can afford to own newspapers or magazines or television stations or internet and social media platforms. In the early 20th century capitalists like William Randolph Hearst owned dozens of newspapers, magazines and film and entertainment companies. In the mid to late 20th century the original three U.S. television companies CBS, ABC and NBC were owned by big capitalists and their corporations. After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 those outlets were then bought up by even larger companies like Disney, General Electric and others. And in the 1970s and 1980s the billionaire Rupert Murdoch purchased the New York Post and then 20th Century Fox, which he then developed into the right-wing media machine that stoked racism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria, and a hatred of anyone they labeled “left.” The owners and names have changed but the game remains the same.
And since the early 2000s, tech companies have become the new media giants, owning the electronic currents that give billions most of their information today. Much of our media infrastructure is now owned by these tech capitalists like Zuckerberg, Musk and a few others. And just like earlier media moguls, the still buy and own the media so that they can shape our understanding of the world and support political views that are good for them. Think of why Elon Musk bought Twitter for such an obscene price a few years back. Hey may have lost money on the deal, but he both silenced critics and amplified his own lies, allowing his preferred candidate to influence millions and get reelected to the presidency.
This may now be taking on a new and even darker twist. It now seems that tech capitalists like the Ellisons and Musks, and oil rich capitalist ruling families from other parts of the world, are throwing their money at the insanely corrupt Trump family and directly propping up his family’s wealth and power, even if it isn’t the most profitable thing to do. And because they prop up the Trump family with their bribes and use their media to support his political agenda, he will ignore anti-trust laws and allow them to grow bigger and pursue eve great profits. He may even use their technologies and platforms to then tighten his control over all of us.
The Ellison’s may be thinking exactly this. Although they say they will make of the most of their purchase through “synergies” (by which they mean thousands of layoffs!), they may be primarily purchasing the ability to censor and influence. The Ellison’s and other billionaire friends are not only longtime friends of Trump, they are also longtime Zionists and advocates of AI surveillance. They have already moved to stifle critical news and entertainment at CBS, and especially at the respected program 60 Minutes. There have already been accusations of outright censorship at Tik-Tok in the U.S., which the Ellison’s are now part owners of. And now that they will own CNN, we can expect it to shift from a liberal-Democratic perspective in its news to a right-wing perspective that supports the Trump regime. The same with HBO and other media outlets this deal gives them. And Trump will in turn help Oracle and their many media companies grow bigger and even more profitable. So while the capitalist media has never given us the news we need and has always worked to shape our understanding of the world in ways they want, we may be entering into a new era of media-authoritarian regime alliance. With past decades of media centralization and now with deals like this, in the near future it will become even more difficult to find and understand the truths and reality of our world. And we may be subjected to even greater surveillance and control from the rich and powerful who surround and prop up the Trump regime and the reactionary politicians who follow him.
