170 Jewish Artists Back Ruffalo Over Paramount-WBD Merger Row — SkimNews
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- Mark Ruffalo drew accusations of antisemitic tropes after criticizing Paramount Skydance's $111bn merger with Warner Bros Discovery, prompting over 170 Jewish artists and academics to sign a letter titled "Enough!" calling it an "outrageous smear campaign."
- The letter's signatories include Todd Haynes, Joel Coen, Miranda July, Hannah Einbinder, Wallace Shawn, Naomi Klein and Ilana Glazer, with Glazer calling the accusation "absurd" and "a dangerous way to shut down legitimate criticism."
- Paramount Skydance responded to Ruffalo saying it was "troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute."
- Ruffalo's original critique linked Oracle — supplier of software to the Israel Defense Forces — to the WBD deal; Larry Ellison personally agreed to backstop $40.4bn in equity financing, and his son David owns Paramount Skydance.
- The letter cites Oracle's Gaza-related work as "an open-air laboratory for AI-driven killing and control technologies" and flags Larry Ellison's reported $350m in personal funding of the Tony Blair Institute and Oracle's role in the Trump-brokered TikTok sale.
- The merger already secured approval from the Trump administration in June and awaits a court decision to combine two of the five remaining legacy Hollywood studios.
Why it matters: Over 170 Jewish figures are drawing a hard line in a defining debate — whether criticizing corporate ties to Israeli military technology constitutes antisemitism. With Paramount Skydance's $111bn WBD merger pending a court decision after Trump administration approval in June, the dispute fuses Hollywood consolidation politics with a broader fight over whether the antisemitism label can be deployed to shut down merger criticism.
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