David Ellison Defends Meeting Trump Amid Paramount-WBD Merger Review

Skydance CEO David Ellison defended meeting with Donald Trump as Paramount sought to complete its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, while addressing concerns that he talked to the president about the future of CNN.

“For absolute clarity, we have not talked to any political leader of any party about news, other than to say that we want to be in the truth business and we want to be in the trust business, and we believe in complete editorial independence,” Ellison told reporters on Tuesday at an afternoon press conference on the Paramount lot, hours after its merger with WBD closed.

Ellison was asked about a comment that he made in August, 2025, on the date that Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount closed, that he did not want to see that company politicized.

As it turned out, the Paramount-WBD process became unusually politicized for a media transaction, and Ellison himself met with Trump, including hosting a dinner for his administration in April and attending the UFC match on the White House grounds in June.

“What I would say is, we have a good relationship with this administration,” Ellison said. “I also had a really good relationship with President Biden. I have a good relationship with Senator Tim Scott, and I have a good relationship with Governor Gavin Newsom. I think it is important to talk to everybody on on both sides of the aisle.”

He added, “When you’re when you’re operating within a business-friendly administration, you should always have those relationships,” pointing out that Ari Emanuel and Dana White sat next to the president at the UFC event, as well as tech figures like Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos who have visited the White House and were at the recent state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We want to speak to everybody. We do not want to politicize the company,” he said. “we were in a transaction review process, but with that said, we are not turning that page. We are operating. We are moving forward, and again, we want to speak to the largest audiences humanly possible. So I understand how some people feel about that. The best thing I can say is we want to porve it over time.”

Ellison also said that he was in Washington, D.C. to push for a federal tax incentive since October of last year. He said that it was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who “actually really shepherded that endeavor,” with multiple meetings with him and Trump. That is “really what got the president to effectively say, ‘Yes, I see thing, and yes, I want to support this.”

He said that he and Makan Delrahim, Paramount’s chief legal officer, were in Washington last week to try to get the incentive legislation “done by December 11 and the end of the year.” There are hopes among boosters of the federal incentive that it can be attached to a year-end government funding bill, with the current legislation running out on that date.