Ruffalo Blasts Paramount-WBD Merger Over Ellison Ties
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- Mark Ruffalo posted on Instagram Story Friday denouncing Paramount Skydance's pending $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, resurfacing Oracle EVP chair Safra Catz bragging about providing 'profoundly scary technology' to the Israeli military after Oct. 7, 2023.
- Ruffalo linked the merger to Oracle's alleged complicity in what he called a 'genocide' against Palestinians, citing the 73,000 death toll in Gaza and questioning why 'Trump pushed this illegal merger through.'
- Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is being challenged by a dozen state attorneys general, including California, and would eliminate 4,500 direct filmmaking jobs plus 10,000 ancillary positions, per Ruffalo's post.
- David Ellison, son of Oracle CEO and Trump megadonor Larry Ellison, would control the merged entity including CNN, which Ruffalo flagged given the 'MAGA makeover' Ellison gave CBS News.
- Oracle's Safra Catz, an Israeli citizen, said in a resurfaced panel clip: 'There's a few things that we did that I really can't talk about to advance the agenda for the Israeli military.'
- Ruffalo warned the merged conglomerate would 'hike up the cost of cable and flatten out competition,' calling it a 'classic antitrust case' driven by a 'classic Oligarch.'
Why it matters: Ruffalo is framing a corporate media merger as a national-security and human-rights story, arguing that Oracle's Israel-linked technology could be folded into a Paramount-Warner Bros. conglomerate reaching 4,500 film jobs and CNN's newsroom. With twelve state attorneys general already suing, the merger faces a legal path that celebrity opposition could now influence.
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