Newsom caves to billionaire merger pressure
Skydance's merger with Paramount is happening after all. Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra, and Attorney General Rob Bonta folded when the Ellison family threatened to leave California if the deal didn't go through immediately.
This matters because a billionaire media conglomerate allied with Trump will now own one of its closest rivals, plus critical news outlets. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund gets a piece too. Layoffs incoming across L.A. and Atlanta. Dissent gets quieter. Cable bills and movie tickets go up.
A coalition of 12 state attorneys generals had already beaten Paramount in court and forced a pause. But threats work better than law when politicians have no spine.
The message is clear: rich people win, working people lose, and democracy gets hollowed out in the process.
Today, billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top. As a result, a billionaire media conglomerate closely allied with the president will soon own one of its closest rivals, including some of the nation’s most critical news outlets. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund will co-own those outlets, too. Layoffs will follow. People from L.A. to Atlanta will lose their jobs, small businesses will lose their contracts, your cable bill and movie ticket will be even more expensive. Dissent against money and power will be even harder to find. This did not have to happen. Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of grassroots anger against the merger, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block it. They beat Paramount in court, winning a court-ordered pause on the merger, and beat them again at the negotiating table, getting the conglomerate to agree to pause the merger until as late as next June. But the Ellison family does not care about the law. Instead, they loudly threatened to leave California if their merger did not go through immediately. Gavin Newsom caved to that pressure. So did Xavier Becerra. And eventually, so did Attorney General Rob Bonta, agreeing to a weak settlement that will be exceedingly difficult to enforce. People want champions who are not afraid of rich bullies. Newsom, Becerra, and Bonta did not meet that mark. The people who work in the film and TV industry and the small businesses who support it will suffer as a result. And so will everyone who values dissent in our democracy. This is not the end. The coalition that fought to block this illegal merger will fight to break up big media. There is legislation pending in Congress today that would retroactively break up corrupt billionaire mergers. This industry was once marked with strict rules so that a small handful of conglomerates couldn’t own everything. There’s no reason we cannot return to that reality. There’s no reason we can’t build on it. But today is a loss, and that loss will be felt by the people who can least afford it.
Source
x.com