How the Ellisons Are Ending the Redstone Family’s Value-Destroying Paramount Era

Larry Ellison is having quite the summer. First Oracle scores a deal with OpenAI and Microsoft to help handle OpenAI’s workloads. And now Ellison’s son, David, has struck a deal to buy Paramount Global, owner of CBS and Paramount Pictures, a purchase the elder Ellison is partly financing. Larry Ellison’s Hollywood footprint is growing.

David Ellison promises to bring a more tech-forward approach to Paramount, including by shifting animation production to the cloud—using Oracle, of course. Good luck to him—Paramount could use some fresh blood after 30-odd years of control by the late Sumner Redstone and more recently his daughter, Shari. And on that point, it has to be said that given the miserable contribution the Redstones have made to the company over that time, the fact that the family is getting a big premium for its 77% voting stake is outrageous.