One Empire, Two Deals, Three Networks: How the Ellison Family Is Bundling Media, Data and Power
Larry Ellison is at times the richest man in the world. His son David is buying CBS, CNN and HBO. Oracle monitors TikTok's algorithm. And Trump decides whether the deals go through.
The Ellison family is concentrating more influence over Western media and data infrastructure than any other private family in generations. Larry, Oracle founder and at times the richest man in the world, holds the purse. Son David is buying the networks through Skydance. Trump decides on the approvals.
Larry Ellison founded Oracle in 1977, named after a CIA database project called Oracle. The agency was Oracle's first major customer, provided the initial funding and gave the company its name. This origin is not a side note or a curiosity, but an early indication of which institutions Ellison built his career in and what kind of trust he still enjoys there today. Oracle is now one of the largest cloud and data providers in the Western world, operating infrastructure for governments, intelligence agencies and corporations, and Ellison himself, with a fortune at times exceeding 300 billion dollars, has temporarily displaced Elon Musk as the richest man in the world.
His son David runs Skydance Media, a production studio Larry financed with his own capital, and since August 2025 Skydance is no longer a production studio but a media conglomerate. The roughly 8 billion dollar acquisition of Paramount Global brought CBS News, Paramount Pictures, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and BET under one roof. At the same time, a roughly 110 billion dollar takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery is underway, encompassing CNN, HBO, the TNT Sports package and the entire Discovery apparatus. The Justice Department has cleared it, while California Attorney General Rob Bonta is still reviewing antitrust questions. Should this deal close as expected in the third quarter of 2026, a single corporation, led by a 30 year old producer with no editorial experience, will control three of the most influential news brands in the English speaking world.
Personnel as Editorial Policy
The most striking personnel decision after the Paramount takeover was the appointment of Bari Weiss as head of CBS News. Weiss is a well known publicist whose defining trait is her decidedly pro Israel stance and her criticism of progressive media, but she has no experience in television. She reports directly to David Ellison. The network's flagship program, 60 Minutes, was cut from seven correspondents to three.
Scott Pelley, its longtime anchor, publicly accused the leadership of instructing him to insert false statements into segments, and claimed a report on the CECOT deportation prison in El Salvador was shelved under pressure from management. Paramount disputes this account. CBS News ratings are in free fall. Advertisers are nervous. What is documented here is not a suspicion but a visible change of course in personnel, programming and tone.
Trump, the FCC and the Calculus of Approvals
The connection between the Ellison empire and the Trump administration is not speculative but follows a comprehensible business logic. Both mega deals require clearance from American federal agencies, and those agencies are run by Trump appointees. In November 2025, Skydance settled with Trump for 16 million dollars in a lawsuit Trump had filed against CBS over allegedly biased reporting in a Kamala Harris interview. CBS and Paramount had initially called the suit legally baseless. Shortly after the settlement, the FCC under Trump's commissioner granted its approval for the Paramount takeover. An official installed by the Trump administration named Weinstein has since served as a so called ombudsman at CBS News, a position without precedent in the history of American press freedom.
Before the DOJ clearance of the Warner Bros. Discovery deal, a dinner with Trump took place, and Larry Ellison is said to have personally assured the president at the White House that CNN would be fundamentally changed in the event of a takeover. The Justice Department cleared the deal shortly afterwards. One need not allege corruption to see the pattern. Anyone who wants to close two of the largest media deals in history and needs agency approvals to do so has a strong economic incentive not to anger the president who controls those agencies. The documented main beneficiary is Trump. He gains influence over networks that covered him critically for years, without needing Congress, a law or a public debate.
Oracle, TikTok and the Question of the Algorithm
Parallel to the media purchases, Oracle is part of the investor group taking over TikTok's US operations, blessed by the White House. Oracle is to guarantee data security and oversee the recommendation algorithm. That is the sharpest structural concern in this overall picture, and it lies not in any provable individual act but in a constellation. TikTok is the channel through which young users in Western countries in particular see images from Gaza, war documentation and critical perspectives on Israeli military operations, because the algorithm distributes content beyond traditional media gatekeepers.
Larry Ellison is one of the largest private supporters of Israel in the United States. In 2017 he donated a then record 16.6 million dollars to the Friends of the IDF, and according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz he maintains a close personal friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is even said to have been offered a board seat in 2021. There is no documented evidence that Oracle has concretely influenced the TikTok algorithm politically so far. The concern is structural. An owner with clearly documented political preferences is gaining control over the recommendation infrastructure of the youngest platform in the world.
What Is Documented, What Remains Speculation
Sharper accusations circulate than those cited in this article: that the Ellisons act on direct orders from the Israeli government, that Scott Pelley was demonstrably instructed to lie, that leaked internal emails prove editors were told to suppress BDS friendly content. These claims are not verified and are not treated as fact here. Pelley's statements are his own account, and Paramount contradicts it. Unverified leaks are not evidence. This distinction is not academic. It is the decisive difference between investigative journalism and what remains of it on social media.
What is documented is nevertheless enough for a complete picture. A media producer with proven political and philanthropic preferences is buying the most influential networks in American television, installing editors in chief without industry experience who report directly to him, paying an eight figure settlement to a president who decides on his agency approvals, and simultaneously taking over data infrastructure for the youngest platform in the Western world. David Ellison says his company is first and foremost an entertainment business and that editorial independence will be preserved. The CBS advertising business proves him right that the current direction is economically self damaging. Ratings are falling, advertisers are pulling back, and a rightward tilt costs money in an ad financed medium. Either the market corrects the course, or the Ellisons accept revenue losses for another purpose. The open question is not whether this family wants influence. The question is whose influence, and whether the institutions meant to check media concentration still function in an administration that is itself a beneficiary of that concentration.