David Ellison continues to rub elbows with President Donald Trump as Paramount Skydance seeks to overcome the latest hurdle in its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Specifically, the Paramount Skydance CEO was among the prominent guests at the Trump-hosted State Dinner Tuesday evening, which took place at the White House in Washington, D.C.
In addition to Ellison, the guest list was rounded out to include a number of tech giants, political leaders and athletes. Namely, Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, attended the event, according to a list shared by the first lady’s office with ABC News.
The list also highlighted that pro golfer Rory McIlroy would be in attendance, along with exiting Apple CEO Tim Cook, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. Of course, there were many Fox News personalities present, too. In fact, Bret Baier, Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters and Rachel Campos Duffy all made the final guest list.
Though, it’s Ellison’s presence that is particularly noteworthy, given Paramount Skydance’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is pending federal regulatory review.
Just last week, Trump was the guest of honor at Ellison’s pre-White House Correspondents’ Dinner event — which took place hours after the Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved the merger with Paramount Skydance. And, on Monday, the Ellison-led media giant asked the FCC to “permit existing and prospective foreign investors to indirectly hold equity and voting interests in Paramount, in the aggregate, in excess of the 25% statutory benchmarks.”
It also asked the regulator to “specifically approve certain foreign investors to indirectly hold equity and/or deem voting interests of greater than 5% in Paramount” and “grant advance approval for the non-controlling prospective foreign investors to increase their indirect equity and/or voting interests up to 20% in Paramount.”
At the time, a Paramount spokesperson told TheWrap that its filing is “completely standard for investments such as this and is not a condition to closing Paramount’s acquisition of WBD.”
“When the transaction and equity syndication close, the Ellison family and RedBird will collectively hold the largest equity stake in the combined company and continue to be the sole owners of Class A Common Stock, representing 100% of the voting shares, with no other equity syndication party having any governance rights, voting shares, or Board representation,” the spokesperson added. “The combination of Paramount and WBD’s complementary assets will enhance competition while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice.”
So, it isn’t surprising Ellison continues to make his presence known in D.C.
