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David Ellison’s Antitrust Playbook

Paramount’s new boss would still release about 15 Warner Bros. movies per year if he acquires its parent company as a key Trump advisor joins to help grease a potentially loud transaction.

Makan Delrahim
Who knows better than Delrahim, the top antitrust enforcer at the Department of Justice in the first Trump term, how to push a deal through the current administration? Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
September 26, 2025

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Today’s hiring of Makan Delrahim as Paramount’s new chief legal officer is the clearest sign yet that David Ellison really wants Warner Bros. Discovery. Who knows better than Delrahim, the top antitrust enforcer at the Department of Justice in the first Trump term, how to push a deal through the current administration? He also evaluated and greenlit Rupert Murdoch’s 2019 sale of his Fox assets to Disney, making him the perfect shepherd for what will likely be a very loud and winding regulatory path to the reduction of five legacy Hollywood studios to four. Sigh…