Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

What We Know About David Ellison—Soon-To-Be Paramount Chief And Major Hollywood Honcho

By Conor Murray,
Forbes Staff.
Murray is a Forbes news reporter covering entertainment trends.

Jul 25, 2025, 04:21pm EDT

Topline

David Ellison’s nepo-baby start helped launch him out of the shadow of his world’s second-richest-person father to become one of Hollywood’s biggest players after Paramount’s merger with his own Skydance.

Key Facts

* Ellison, 42, is set to become the chairman and CEO of Paramount once its merger with Skydance, approved on Thursday by the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission, is complete, setting him in charge of brands including CBS, MTV and Paramount Pictures.

* Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder worth $290 billion as of Friday, making him the second-richest person in the world, according to Forbes estimates.

* A University of Southern California film school drop-out, Ellison pursued a brief acting career before becoming a big-time producer of blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick,” which notched him an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

* Ellison made an offer to buy Paramount in 2024, and the companies finally agreed to merge in July of 2024—though the deal was not greenlit by the FCC until Thursday after a year of political tumult, including a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump that appears to have influenced CBS to settle a lawsuit with with the president for millions, and possibly impacted the decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/12/david-ellison-ceo-paramount-skydance-merger.html


https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/07/25/what-we-know-about-david-ellison-soon-to-be-paramount-chief-and-major-hollywood-honcho/