In a stunning escalation of Hollywood’s high-stakes chess game, Paramount has launched a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, just days after Netflix was declared the winner of a fiercely contested auction. The move, announced on December 8, 2025, has thrown the future of one of the world’s most storied media companies into uncertainty, setting up a dramatic showdown between two of the industry’s biggest players—and drawing in a cast of financial backers and political heavyweights that reads like a who’s who of global power.
Paramount’s all-cash offer values Warner Bros Discovery at $30 per share, a significant jump from Netflix’s $82.7 billion deal for the company’s studio assets and HBO Max streaming service. According to filings reported by the Los Angeles Times and BBC, Paramount’s bid is backed by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, as well as a Chinese technology firm and Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Paramount emphasized that these investors have agreed to waive management rights, including board seats, in an attempt to sidestep state-level security reviews.
“We are offering shareholders $17.6 billion more cash than the deal that they currently have signed up on Netflix. We believe when (Warner shareholders) see what is currently in our offer, that that’s what they’ll vote for,” said Paramount CEO David Ellison in a CNBC interview. Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has been the public face of Paramount’s aggressive campaign, which began in mid-September and has included six separate bids for Warner Bros Discovery.
Netflix, for its part, remains unfazed. “We have a deal done and we are incredibly happy with the deal,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos told a business conference, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. “We’re super confident we’re going to get it across the line and finish.” Netflix’s offer, at $27.75 per share, includes a mix of cash and stock and assumes more than $10 billion in Warner Bros debt. The company estimates that regulatory approval could take 12 to 18 months—a timeline Paramount has dismissed as “unrealistic.”
The auction’s outcome has already rocked Hollywood. Warner Bros Discovery’s board remains supportive of Netflix’s bid and has advised shareholders not to take any action regarding Paramount’s proposal until a formal recommendation is made within ten business days. The board’s decision to select Netflix was unanimous, and the company has indicated that it believes the combined value of the Netflix offer and a planned spin-off of Warner’s basic cable channels—including CNN, TBS, and Food Network—would exceed Paramount’s bid for shareholders.
Yet Paramount is refusing to back down, bypassing Warner’s board and management to appeal directly to shareholders. “We’re really here to finish what we started,” Ellison told CNBC. In a statement, the company described its proposal as a “superior alternative” to Netflix’s, offering more cash upfront and, in its view, a higher likelihood of regulatory approval.
The regulatory landscape, however, is anything but simple. Both deals are expected to face intense scrutiny from U.S. and European competition authorities. Analysts have flagged concerns that Netflix’s acquisition would give it excessive power in the streaming market, potentially harming actors, writers, and other creative professionals. Paramount’s plan, meanwhile, would combine CBS and CNN under one roof and give it significant leverage over sports and children’s programming, raising questions about the impact on advertisers and local TV distributors.
The involvement of Jared Kushner and the Ellison family has added a political dimension to the saga, with President Trump himself weighing in. Over the weekend, Trump said that Netflix’s purchase “could be a problem” due to the size of the company’s market share, and that he “would be involved” in his administration’s decision on whether to approve any deal. Yet Trump’s stance has been anything but consistent: he has also praised Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos as a “great person,” while criticizing Paramount for allowing “60 Minutes” to interview his former ally turned critic, Marjorie Taylor Greene. As CNN noted, Trump made no mention of the hostile takeover bid itself in his latest comments.
Paramount is banking on its ties to Trump and its hiring of former antitrust regulator Makan Delrahim to help steer the deal through Washington. “The Trump card is the best card Paramount-Skydance has but it could backfire in multiple directions,” wrote Blair Levin, a media analyst at New Street Research, in a note to investors. “As they say in Hollywood, ‘stay tuned’.”
Financial details of the Paramount bid have also come under scrutiny. According to regulatory filings, the Ellison family is providing $11.8 billion, with another $24 billion coming from the Middle Eastern funds and $1 billion from China’s Tencent. RedBird Capital Partners and Kushner’s Affinity Partners are providing additional, undisclosed debt financing. The opacity of some of these arrangements has given Warner’s board pause, especially compared to the more transparent financing in Netflix’s offer.
Wall Street has reacted swiftly to the drama. Shares of Warner Bros Discovery jumped more than 4% to $27.23, Paramount surged 9% to $14.57, while Netflix slipped 3.4% to $96.79 on the day the news broke. The market’s response reflects both the uncertainty and the high stakes of the contest, with investors betting on the potential for a bidding war or a blockbuster merger that could reshape the media landscape.
Industry insiders and union leaders are watching closely. The Directors Guild of America, for instance, issued a statement expressing concern about the potential impact of either deal on its members and the broader industry. Both Netflix and Paramount have promised not to make major cuts, but with a heavy debt load looming over whichever company prevails, layoffs and restructuring seem likely.
Historical precedent looms large in the background. The $108.4 billion enterprise value of Paramount’s bid is nearly identical to the sum AT&T paid for Time Warner in 2018, a deal that took nearly two years to clear regulatory hurdles under the first Trump administration. That acquisition ultimately led to the creation of Warner Bros Discovery after AT&T exited Hollywood in 2022.
As the clock ticks toward a potential Christmas resolution, the fate of Warner Bros Discovery now hangs in the balance. Will shareholders be swayed by Paramount’s cash-rich, politically connected offer, or will they stick with the certainty of Netflix’s deal? In a year already packed with industry upheaval, this battle for Hollywood’s crown jewel is shaping up to be the most consequential—and dramatic—of them all.
