When CNN anchor Jake Tapper broke into coverage on Thursday evening with a major Warner Bros. Discovery sale update, he remarked that the news “affects everybody I’m looking at right now in the studio.”
Anxiety is high inside CNN, as staffers grapple with the growing likelihood that Paramount’s David Ellison — who appointed Free Press cofounder Bari Weiss to reshape CBS News and has recalled having “great conversations” with President Donald Trump about acquiring CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery — could ultimately take control of the cable news channel.
“It’s concerning,” one CNN staffer told TheWrap, noting how Ellison posed days earlier alongside Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, each giving a thumbs up before attending the State of the Union together. The unease comes alongside reporting that David Ellison has promised the White House changes to CNN, while his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has talked about the possibility of axing specific hosts.
While CNN may not be the most coveted property in the WBD stable — rival suitor Netflix only desired HBO and the studio assets — it is the most politically radioactive. Trump has bristled at CNN’s coverage for years, blasting stars like Jim Acosta during his first term and Kaitlan Collins in the second. He made clear in December that the news channel, rather than TNT or the Food Network, was front of mind in the WBD sale saga, declaring that “it’s imperative that CNN be sold” and placed under new management.
“People think it could be the end of CNN,” a second staffer told TheWrap. “ As much as people say that’s not possible, what’s to say that’s not possible?”
CNN CEO Mark Thompson acknowledged during a Friday morning editorial call that the news marked “quite a moment” for the network, but he urged staff not to “jump to conclusions” ahead of more information. His comments echoed a Thursday night note to network staffers, but such guidance is easier said than done. Ellison’s perceived coziness with Trump has already fueled speculation for months that a Paramount-owned CNN would soften its coverage of the president.
And yet the only certainty inside, it seems, is uncertainty. Staffers don’t know precisely how a deal would unfold — and even if Paramount faces an easier regulatory path than Netflix would have, new management would not take effect until late 2026 at the earliest.
“Contracts are coming up, and everybody is confused,” the first staffer added. “What are we signing on to? What is CNN going to be?”
CBS’ course
It’s stunning how quickly David Ellison, 43, is amassing a media and entertainment empire.
His company, Skydance Media, completed its merger with Paramount in August, and offered its first unsolicited bid for Warner Bros. Discovery the following month. Paramount acquired the right-leaning Free Press for $150 million in October, and last month, Larry Ellison’s Oracle nabbed a 15% stake in TikTok.
Even as Netflix assumed the driver seat in the WBD sweepstakes, Ellison appeared undeterred, launching a hostile bid in early December at $30 per share. On CNBC that morning, host David Faber asked, “Do you think the president embraces the idea of you being the owner of CNN?”
“We’ve had great conversations with the president about this,” Ellison said, though he declined to speak for Trump “in any way, shape or form.”
Such a seemingly warm relationship has provoked consternation among CNN employees over the network’s future editorial independence, particularly after Ellison was pictured as Graham’s guest on Tuesday night.
The concern, the second staffer added, is that Ellison’s ownership “gives President Trump more control over a news organization.”
“What happens to this independent news organization when it potentially gets taken over by people who, you know, who knows what they promised Donald Trump?” the second staffer said.
Representatives for Paramount did not immediately comment. WBD declined to comment and CNN declined to comment beyond Thompson’s note to staff.
Given that Ellison had no past experience in news, the trajectory of CBS News over the past few months could be a roadmap for a Paramount-led CNN.
Ellison’s appointment of Weiss — an outspoken political commentator who launched a successful startup but never worked in television news — speaks to the CEO’s willingness to disrupt a legacy network,
Weiss’ stewardship has led string of controversies, from her abrupt shelving of a “60 Minutes” segment, which prompted internal criticism that she was making a “political” rather “editorial” move, to her failure to address revelations about contributor Peter Attia’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, fueling the story for weeks.
CBS News hasn’t gone MAGA in the past four months, and still employs journalists aggressively covering the administration. But “CBS Evening News” has taken a more Trump-friendly turn under new anchor Tony Dokoupil, who landed interviews with several top administration officials out of the gate and noticeably gave the January 6 attack the both-sides treatment on the five-year anniversary of the event.
Beyond the news division, CBS’s concerns about Stephen Colbert adhering to equal-time rules only heightened fears that the Paramount-owned network would bend to Trump’s FCC.
Meanwhile, there is anxiety inside CBS as a second round of layoffs under Ellison’s ownership loom, amid expectations that Weiss will further put her stamp on the news division. TheWrap reported in November that Weiss would like Paramount to acquire WBD given the possibility that CBS would have more resources and global reach by teaming up with CNN.
When asked in the CNBC interview about whether combining the news operations would be successful, Ellison responded, “We want to build a scaled news service that is basically, fundamentally in the trust business, that is in the truth business, and that speaks to the 70% of Americans that are in the middle.” The company, he said, would be “doing well while doing good,” describing that business model as “essential.”
Ownership in flux
For all the concerns about an Ellison-led CNN currying favor with Trump, the network’s journalists are no strangers to corporate upheaval and shifting editorial priorities.
CEO Jeff Zucker was still in charge when AT&T completed its 2018 takeover of Time Warner, creating WarnerMedia. Four years later, WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery.
One of WBD chief David Zaslav’s first big moves was to shut down the short-lived streaming venture CNN+. Chris Licht briefly ran the network before being ousted in 2023, after which Mark Thompson took the helm. Thompson has since prioritized rebuilding CNN’s digital strategy, including launching the streaming product CNN All Access last fall.
Thompson has emphasized CNN’s digital-first future for the network in response to linear television’s decline, adding a paywall to CNN’s well-trafficked website in 2024 and, after a round of steep layoffs early last year, hiring several staffers and executives to boost its digital product.
The CEO’s plans got a vote of confidence from management last year with a $70 million investment for its revamp, and WBD said it was “encouraged” by the performance of the “All Access” streaming tier in its Q4 letter to shareholders on Thursday.
As the second staffer asked, “All this work, all this investment, all this time — now it just all goes away?”
CNN staffers were already on pins and needles as the WBD sale process got under way last fall given that mergers can lead to redundancies and layoffs. “I think people just want to know they’ll have a job,” one staffer said at the time.
Later, when it appeared that Netflix would buy WBD’s film assets and HBO, there were new questions about whether CNN would be re-routed to a new spinoff, Discovery Global, as planned, or perhaps sold off separately.
“I think that issue is far from settled,” former CNN president Jon Klein told TheWrap in December. “Unfortunately, my friends at CNN are still going to have to have to live in purgatory for a little while.”
It looks like purgatory will persist, as the first staffer cautioned TheWrap that a lot can transpire before the deal is done, asking: “How many new cycles are going to pass between now and when this theoretically would take effect?”
