The chief legal counsel of Paramount Skydance, Makan Delrahim, has alleged that some opponents of the David Ellison-led company’s pending $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery are motivated by “antisemitic views.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Delrahim spoke about the backlash in the industry to the Paramount-WBD deal. To date, more than 5,500 filmmakers, actors and other Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter opposing the deal. House Democrats have urged California Attorney General Rob Bonta to “closely scrutinize” the deal.
“Politics is part of life. It’s part of the beautiful process of democracy,” Delrahim said. “Generally, we are very empathetic to the folks in Hollywood, but this transaction will actually create more and better and exciting jobs. David [Ellison] is an absolute lover of films; he’s a filmmaker himself. For the first time, you are getting an owner who comes from the creative side.”
The exec continued: “Let’s be honest. There’s 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. Regulators and law enforcement officials will see right through that.”
In the interview, published June 1, Delrahim was not quoted as explaining or identifying which opponents of the Paramount-WBD merger have “antisemitic views.” Variety has reached out to Paramount for clarification on his comments.
In September 2025, an organization called Film Workers for Palestine circulated a pledge not to “work with Israeli film institutions” that “are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” A few days later, Paramount released a statement condemning that pledge for “silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality.” (The Film Workers for Palestine emphasized that the pledge is intended to target companies and organizations, not individual Israelis.)
As previously reported by Variety, Larry Ellison — David’s multibillionaire father, who is a major financial backer of Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. — is said to be a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is a donor to the U.S.-based nonprofit organization Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Meanwhile, in the LA Times interview, Delrahim denied that Paramount Skydance has “a commitment” from Trump or his administration to have the WBD deal approved. “There are no deals with the president,” he said.
Asked if Paramount was prepared to defend an antitrust lawsuit from California AG Bonta, Delrahim responded: “Well, no matter what field you’re in, whether it’s antitrust or whether you’re preparing for a football game, you always prepare the best you can for the worst, and you hope it never gets there. So, we’re preparing for challenges from anybody and everybody. But I don’t think any serious antitrust enforcer who looks at the facts, the law, the economics of this transaction will see an antitrust violation.”
Last month, Delrahim sent a letter to Bonta, in which he “reiterate[d] our continued commitment and support to Californian movie theaters and audiences” coming “in response to certain misinformation about the marketplace expressed in recent public commentary.” He also noted Ellison’s repeated pledges that the merged company will release at least 30 films per year. In addition, he said that Paramount+ and HBO Max separately do not have the scale to “compete effectively” against bigger subscription streaming players Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu, and Amazon’s Prime Video.
Meanwhile, regarding Paramount’s potential absorption of CNN with the WBD deal, Delrahim commented, “Antitrust regulators are going to see that it’s going to create synergistic effects. You might be able to cross-program and more people will be exposed to the incredible programming of CBS News. They’ll benefit from each other’s independent strengths.”
Paramount, before it won the WBD deal, said its proposed WBD takeover had cleared a milestone at the Justice Department, after the expiration of the statutory waiting period following Paramount’s “certification of compliance” with the DOJ’s second request for information under the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust act. However, the DOJ has the latitude to challenge a merger even after the HSR waiting period expiration. Earlier this year, the acting head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Omeed Assefi, said the Paramount-WBD deal will “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.
Delrahim joined as Paramount’s chief legal counsel in October 2025. Previously, as a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, he had advised Skydance Media on the Paramount Global acquisition. Before that he served as an assistant attorney general overseeing the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division during President Trump’s first term. Delrahim, who is Iranian American, grew up in L.A.
