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All Ellison’s Men

With its capitulation to Trump complete, Paramount’s merger with Skydance can finally proceed, leaving CBS News unmoored, if a little relieved, and questioning if its new owners secretly sweetened the settlement deal. Naturally, there are already rumblings about what David Ellison wants and expects from his news division.

David Ellison
Ellison’s pursuit of Paramount always appeared to have been motivated by his interest in the film and studios business—“He loves big franchises,” a Paramount source said—as well as the appeal of CBS’s NFL package and other sports rights. His attitude toward the news division is more ambiguous. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
July 9, 2025

Suffering, as Proust once observed, can only be healed by experiencing it in full. In that way, at least, Paramount’s recent decision to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s meritless lawsuit against 60 Minutes was somewhat liberating for the company’s leadership, and even for many of the journalists at CBS News who spent months dreading and protesting this very outcome. Yes, everyone recognized the tragedy of this absurd capitulation, but many also described feeling relieved—as one CBS News insider put it, “this wound is finally being sutured, even if pathetically and with greed as the bonding agent.”