[volleyball]

So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok.

Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mentioning that Ellison is a life-long zionist, friend of the IDF and close personal friend of Netanyahu to whom he even offered a post at Oracle.[3]

This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.

[1] - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...

[2] - https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&old...

[throwawayqqq11]

Thank you for providing the media take over angle. I wish the people down voting you would explain why.

[Retric]

He’s got the wrong guy on the paramount deal. It’s David Ellison though they’re related:

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-warner-bros-disco...

[jacobolus]

David Ellison is Larry Ellison's son, and Larry Ellison spent $6 billion on the Paramount deal. It's not really a stretch to imagine that the father might have some influence on the resulting operation. (According to a cursory web search, on paper Larry Ellison now has a 35.5% voting interest and David Ellison has a 64.5% voting interest.)

[Retric]

I agree it’s not that big of a stretch, but it elevates the discussion when you communicate what part of your argument is objectively correct vs a stretch.

My knee-jerk reaction was to upvote the comment, but that’s how Ecco chambers get increasingly divorced from reality.

[vincnetas]

how do you know if anyone is downvoting a comment?

[dfxm12]

The text gets lighter in color and harder to read. People may come later and vote for it, darkening the text again.

[spookie]

To be completly frank, its better to focus on the media consolidation part. That's the real problem.

[usefulcat]

Actually it's the opposite. Pre-internet, there were a handful of news sources in any given city (mostly newspapers and TV), so they couldn't afford to alienate half of their potential viewers/readers by leaning hard left or right.

Today, there are many, many sources of 'news' online. So many that the net effect is that most of those sources lean one way or the other, and by and large people choose to listen mostly or only to those sources they agree with.

No wonder political opinions are so highly divided today. Almost no one ever hears anything from the other side.

[hvb2]

For a large share of the population social media is the only media they consume, so this is part of your real problem

[palmotea]

> So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN.

That's not Larry Ellison, it's his nepo baby David Ellison.

[spacechild1]

This is just crazy. No single person should have this amount of power, in particular if they have the moral integrity of Larry Ellison...

[Retric]

It is two people here. David Ellison who took over Paramount is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle.

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison

[SSLy]

Durin I, Durin II…

[seemaze]

>moral integrity of Larry Ellison...

Don't anthropomorphize Larry Ellison

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728

[seizethecheese]

Genuine question: what do you think the alternative is? Ultimately someone will have the power. I don’t know what’s particularly questionable about Larry Ellison. An entrepreneur controlling media seems better than the state or a foreign government.

[jimbokun]

Is Larry Ellison owning TikTok objectively better for US citizens than the current Chinese owners?

[yoyohello13]

It less about who and more about how many. Lots of different people, with different points of view, sharing control of the media is way better than one guy having the ability to push whatever narrative they feel like at the time.

[thesmtsolver]

Trying to be neutral. Did we consider China's relationship with Palestine? Were we ok with American minds being swayed by a foreign country?

[volleyball]

I would argue that on this matter and all matters relating to the middle-east, American minds are still being swayed by a foreign country and have been for the last 50 to 80 years. At least, with Chinese Tiktok, Elon's twitter and competition between the various social media platforms, Americans for the first time were exposed to voices from the other side. And between the two sides, were able to make up a more informed decision. This is a desperate attempt to reverse that. I doubt it will work in the long-term and i don't think it is expected to. But I think in near-term this is a measure to control the narrative to prepare for American misadventures in the region over the next couple of years. Which almost certainly includes a second war with Iran, Israeli annexation of the West Bank and even possibly a partial American occupation of Gaza.

[farseer]

That is one of the prime reasons congress banned TikTok.

[netsharc]

If we want neutral, how about a fair arena for opinions and ideas.. at the moment "The Right" yells and screams "Anti-Semite! Terrorist!" if someone protests against the starvation and slaughter of children... So having them control the medium doesn't feel right for me.

Ok someone's going to come and say that "The Left" controlled the medium and disallowed "non-mainstream" messaging about Covid... I admit my bias and consider such messaging lunacy too..

[nineplay]

> This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.

Again? People should be talking about the hostile take-over currently in progress and how it is getting exponentially worse. But the billionaire mouthpieces gave everyone a shiny new inconsequential talking point and no one cares about anything that matters.

[Imustaskforhelp]

> No one cares about anything that matters.

Maybe that's what they wanted all along.

Why fight a war against class, against oppression when we can sit on a chair and write a comment either defending or arguing against something as petty as religion.

It would be maybe the 3rd point worth discussing definitely after concentration of power & how they can influence our opinion of the masses.

But people made it the first.

There is no such thing as a moral billionaire imo, I saw a video like this and I sorta agree.

I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone owning this much amount of control.

Religion seems so petty to me yet it seems that the world is coming back to it. Fighting us vs them.

We have all forgotten what the people in 1970's esque dreamed of 2025 etc. (I am a genz but I have seen such videos of people thinking what)

And the funny thing is, is that we ourselves have forgotten how to dream of what will happen in 2100

Do we really want to grow old in society where even after 70-80 years, one of our children or grandchildren sees yet again some comment like this and writes something like this that I am writing?

I feel a little frustrated.

[tinyhouse]

What's the problem with being pro-israel? Everyone needs to be pro-whatever-you-prefer? I'm pro-israel too.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What's the problem with being pro-israel?

There are tiny pockets of this country that assume this is the singular issue that animates everybody, every day, and that it is impossible to believe in both Israel's right to exist and defend itself and the Palestinians' right to not be bombed because the Israeli PM doesn't want to go to jail.

[Imustaskforhelp]

The problem is that the pro stands from problem.

Whenever we take a stance, We identify our ego with that stance. We shall die but die a pro X or pro Y

As such many debates happen in bad faith as well.

Of course everyone has their agenda but one has to understand that agenda is just a framework for understanding the world.

And we need to understand the world because it has no inherent meaning.

So like, if we really have to deduce meaning, if we really have to be pro something that we can die on a hill towards, I'd rather have it be a humanitarian thing.

I am not saying that palestine is good either but rather that in genocide/wars, the people fighting the war/military/families displaced suffer, not the old man causing the war.

I feel like I am a humanist. Wishing to understand the world, yet I feel like some people in this world have hurt me so much that sometimes I just wish the world to burn.

I am sure that people are gonna comment on something like "oh do you support a genocide etc."

But I am trying to make the point that the world should really be just anti suffering,accepting. Yes I am naive but surely with all of this technological improvements, we can improve the structure of society to not be fucking brewing with hate and bullying and resentment.

We can do so much better as a society without even trying much. Just small acts of kindness and basically creating a environment that rewards it and punishes bullying/hate speech etc. might be really nice if I am being honest.

Not sure why we can't be pro this instead of defining ourselves with the confict of two other foreign nations

[tinyhouse]

I think it stems from being a selfish species. All our life we pick sides - a sport team, university, town, etc.

[Imustaskforhelp]

We can't pick sides on violence. In wars, everybody loses.

I don't even know if we can consider things to win if that means that childrens have to die in screams.

I don't want such victories to be celebrated.

I want peace to be celebrated.

I don't think that its highly unusual to have a functioning society that doesn't actively partake where the children/woman/helpless suffer.

We have failed as a society if we can't stop it/actively pick sides in it.

The only side that one should pick is peace.

[lmm]

Did you miss the news that they're conducting a genocide?

[Jensson]

I don't think Israel is conducting a genocide, to me for something to be a genocide you need to do much more than they are currently doing. To me it seems like they are conducting a fairly standard occupation with very authoritarian military control, that is not genocide.

Words tend to get watered down over time, if they were gassing Palestinians like Hitler gassed yews people would have a very different opinion on this matter, which is why I feel words shouldn't be watered down that much.

[JumpCrisscross]

> hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man

Ellison read and responded to the political situation more skilfully than Elon.

He used Stargate to cement himself as a power broker in AI. He used that influence to provide antitrust assurances that gave his son a leg up for Paramount. Meanwhile he used that proximity to media to get a foot in the door with TikTok.

The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. This is a project all the major Trump donors and high-level supporters contributed to. That Ellison is coming up as one of the new aristocrats is closer to a dice roll; that we have oligarchs, now, is very much by design.

[wnc3141]

In authoritarian regimes the industrial capacity of an economy is appropriated by the state, where the fruits of the industry are enjoyed by party loyalists.

In this case using the state to choose which business is viable, no doubt being businesses that play ball with the party.

-its why sectarian conflicts and power delegation is so high stakes in many parts of the world.

[andrekandre]

  > The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy.

well, tbf in the old days, it was literally called ‘political economy’ for a reason… maybe the name should make a comeback.

[hn_throw_250915]

Larry the lawnmower Ellison?

[volleyball]

The lawnmower in question is a big-time donor to the Israel state and the IDF. Regarding the IDF the lawnmover seems to have caught some feelings:

  Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.

When Oracle opened a data-center in Jerusalem, his colleague and CEO Safra Katz had this to say :

  ...when you connect with Oracle you understand that we are committed to the U.S. and Israel. We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don't agree with our mission to support the State of Israel then maybe we aren't the right company for them. Larry (Ellison, co-founder of Oracle) and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country and no one should be surprised by that.

"our commitment to Israel is second to none". Does America fall under [none] here? Something to consider when looking at these acquisitions.

[paxys]

Nothing hostile about it. This is what the American people voted for.

[slg]

In 2020, 22.4% of the US population voted for Trump. In 2024, 22.7% of the population voted for Trump. I hate how people draw drastic conclusions regarding what the American people want based off the shift of less than half a percentage point of the population.

[misnome]

Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t care” and so voted for whoever won.

[djeastm]

I don't think that necessarily follows. An abstention is a voting choice that doesn't imply support for one choice or another in the minds of the voter, regardless of the result.

[asdff]

Abstention is not that, it is saying you are comfortable letting others choose for you. You have to consider the end result of the action not the intention of the action to understand what the choice really means.

[slg]

Everyone who chooses not to vote is voting “I don’t like any candidate” and so voted against all candidates. How is your interpretation more valid than mine?

[asdff]

You aren't voting against anyone. You either vote for someone or you take yourself and your vote out of the picture and ceed political control to more passionate people. That is what they are doing, "I will let the most passionate people choose our leader and I stand by their choice" not "I don't like anyone."

[slg]

How can you possibly feel comfortable ascribing a motive to over a hundred million people? You didn't answer the question on why this interpretation is more valid than mine.

[Imustaskforhelp]

This.

Idk about america, but there's definitely a sentiment echoing I feel like all across the world that there is a concentration of power and the divide between state and class is shrinking and we consider state to be itself (corrupt?) / not working to our wants.

That's my understanding of it. People have given up hope on...well having hope.

But hey lets define what is a woman first, that matters more than people sadly suiciding because they can't take this cruel petty world anymore.

We have induced our cruelness on earth, every animal,tree, air, even other humans. Who have we left?

Have we forgotten humanity? What does humanity even mean when we realize that people literally eat animals which scream to death from pain for the "taste" ?

I myself ate an egg yesterday for "protein" after a few years, I am skinny so I had to convince myself that I needed it but still my heart felt a bit bitter.

I am not judging you if you eat meat, that's not the point because I don't have a point/agenda. I am venting.You almost feel small when you think about it.

I really feel like the world can be a better place so there's hope tho.