David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has cleared a big regulatory hurdle in advancing toward completing its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery — although it’s still not a done deal and could face other legal challenges.
The Justice Department‘s Antitrust Division has approved the deal, Variety has confirmed. As first reported by Politico, the regulator is giving the green light to the Paramount-WBD tie-up without requiring “any divestitures, behavioral remedies or concessions.”
“The Division has completed its analysis of the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. and determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers,” including with respect to streaming video on demand, linear TV, and studio development, production or distribution of films for theatrical release, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said in a statement Friday about the closing of its investigation of the Paramount-WBD merger.
There’s been major backlash in the industry to the megadeal, which would bring bring together Paramount assets including CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures and Paramount+ with WBD’s HBO and HBO Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, CNN, TNT, TBS, HGTV and more. Paramount execs have said they anticipate achieving more than $6 billion in cost savings through the merger — indicating big layoffs would ensue.
To date, more than 5,500 filmmakers, actors and other Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter opposing the deal, arguing that it would eliminate jobs, raise prices and reduce competition. Organizers of the BlockTheMerger.com open letter include the Writers Guild of America (WGA); individual signatories include: Florence Pugh, Pedro Pascal, Edward Norton, Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Kristen Stewart, Mark Ruffalo, Noah Wyle, Ramy Youssef, Rosario Dawson, Rosie O’Donnell, Ted Danson, Tiffany Haddish, Yorgos Lanthimos and Robert De Niro.
The Teamsters urged the DOJ to block the Paramount-WBD deal unless Paramount agreed to “substantial and enforceable safeguards” against job cuts and committed to supporting increased U.S. production.
In March, the acting head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Omeed Assefi, said the Paramount-WBD deal would “absolutely not” be on a fast-track for approval due to political reasons, in the context of the Ellison family’s friendly ties to Trump.
On Friday, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said that its “rigorous” eight-month investigation was “led by the Division’s career staff” and included that production of more than 2 million documents from more than 80 parties. “The Division’s mandate is to investigate and, if necessary, litigate proposed mergers that harm competition or American consumers,” the division said. “This investigation included a review of reams of documentary evidence, hours of deposition testimony of senior-level executives, interviews with third-party witnesses, and staff-led meetings with the Parties themselves. These investigative efforts all led to the same conclusion: the film and television industry is highly dynamic, and the proposed transaction is not likely to harm competition or American consumers.”
Paramount Skydance said in a statement Friday, “We are grateful for the Department of Justice’s thorough review of this transaction, as well as the work of the other agencies that have completed their reviews and provided clearance to date. This deal is pro-competitive, resulting in a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology and investment. We remain focused on completing the transaction as soon as possible and delivering its benefits to consumers, creators and the entertainment industry as a whole.”
Paramount still faces other potential roadblocks to closing the WBD deal. Among those: State attorneys general including California’s Rob Bonta have said they will potentially move forward with litigation seeking to block the Paramount-WBD merger on antitrust grounds.
Regarding the DOJ’s approval of the deal, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement, “This is terrible news for every American who doesn’t want Trump-aligned billionaires to control what they watch and how much they pay. The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal has reeked of corruption and influence-peddling. This fight isn’t over. State AGs must block this merger.”
Meanwhile, Paramount’s proposed WBD deal is undergoing regulatory review in Europe and the U.K.
The European Commission is investigating the deal under the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation, looking at the approximately $24 billion being fronted for the takeover by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. The EU set a provisional July 14 deadline for vetting the deal under the law, according to a notice posted on the regulatory agency’s site. That’s in addition to its investigation under standard merger rules with a July 7 deadline.
On Tuesday (June 9), the U.K.’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, said it initiated an investigation into the proposed Paramount-WBD deal.
Warren is among U.S. Democrats who have called on the Trump administration to review the foreign investments behind the Paramount-WBD deal, including urging the FCC and the Treasury Department to initiate such reviews. But to date, there has been no indication that any U.S. government entity will do so.
In communications with the DOJ, Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim alleged that Netflix had been strongly lobbying regulators against Paramount’s WBD deal. Netflix clinched a deal to buy Warner Bros.’s streaming and studios businesses in December 2025 before backing out of the bidding in February after Paramount upped its takeout offer for all of WBD. “Netflix’s panic-level response and scorched-earth campaign to try and poison regulators and other stakeholders against the Transaction shows just how seriously Netflix takes Paramount as a scaled competitor,” Delrahim wrote in a June 5 letter to officials in DOJ’s Antitrust Division.
About Delrahim’s comments, a Netflix spokesperson said: “These claims from Paramount Skydance are absurd. We walked away from this deal months ago and remain focused on our own business, not theirs. Ultimately, it’s up to the regulators to approve this deal and determine if it is in the best interest of the industry and all concerned.”
Separately, Delrahim said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last week that there is “a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C. They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction really because of their own antisemitic views.” Delrahim has not identified which opponents of the Paramount-WBD merger allegedly hold “antisemitic views.”
