{"id":309435,"date":"2025-12-08T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=309435"},"modified":"2025-12-08T07:20:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T07:20:50","slug":"the-billionaire-family-poised-to-rewire-u-s-media-in-israels-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/12\/the-billionaire-family-poised-to-rewire-u-s-media-in-israels-favor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Billionaire Family Poised to Rewire U.S. Media in Israel\u2019s Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Oracle’s Larry Ellison and son, executive producer David Ellison– CEO of Skydance Media–arrive at the LA premiere of “Star Trek Into Darkness” at The Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.
(Eric Charbonneau\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Having acquired Paramount and CBS and eyeing TikTok and CNN, the Ellisons are constructing a pro-Israel information empire with unprecedented reach.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4 Dec 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0In early September, the Hollywood producer Lawrence Bender \u2014 known for his work with Quentin Tarantino on films including \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d and \u201cInglourious Basterds\u201d \u2014 had what he later described as \u201ca really tough conversation\u201d with the investors in \u201cRed Alert,\u201d an Israeli miniseries that dramatizes the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

With just weeks remaining before the anticipated release on the second anniversary of the attacks, the show, produced by Israeli mass media company Keshet Media Group, was struggling to secure distribution outside of Israel. The news environment was far from favorable: Israeli fighter jets had just attacked a residential compound in Qatar, and a pledge to boycott<\/a> Israeli film institutions that were \u201cimplicated\u201d in the genocide in the Gaza Strip had collected thousands of signatures in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s going to want to buy something from the Israelis,\u201d Bender, an executive producer of \u201cRed Alert,\u201d told the investors, as he recalled on stage at a Jewish National Fund\u2013USA conference the following month. Among those investors was the Israel Entertainment Fund, which JNF\u2013USA established<\/a> last year with the Israeli streaming service Izzy to produce television and film for international audiences, with a focus on projects filmed in the \u201cGaza Envelope\u201d region of southern Israel. \u201cWe were pretty stressed about what we were going to do,\u201d Izzy CEO Nati Dinnar\u200f, interviewing Bender on stage, recalled.<\/p>\n

According to its backers, \u201cRed Alert\u201d is essentially a work of Israeli propaganda at a moment when a majority of Americans view<\/a> Israel\u2019s government unfavorably. The Israel Entertainment Fund, in a slide deck<\/a> featuring \u201cRed Alert,\u201d says that its projects benefit Israel by \u201ceducating viewers and altering perceptions.\u201d Bender said that \u201cour purpose\u201d in making the show was to \u201cchange the conversation\u201d about Israel among Americans, Europeans, and other viewers abroad.<\/p>\n

A deal to reach that crucial international audience materialized only after Bender encountered David Ellison, the upstart Hollywood mogul, at a memorial service in September. With financing<\/a> from his tech billionaire father, Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, David Ellison had recently merged<\/a> his Skydance Media with the old-line movie studio Paramount. \u201cIt would be my honor to be a partner in this,\u201d he emailed after watching \u201cRed Alert,\u201d according to Bender. \u201cIn Hollywood, that\u2019s a rare thing,\u201d Bender said at the JNF\u2013USA conference<\/a>, describing the studio head as \u201ca big supporter of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Oracle<\/a><\/p>\n

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. (Oracle PR)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ellison\u2019s \u201cfast \u2018yes,\u2019\u201d as he put it<\/a>, to an Israeli government-aligned drama offers a window into his thinking as the 42-year-old mogul and his octogenarian father \u2014 the largest shareholder in his son\u2019s business and among the richest<\/a> individuals in the world \u2014 construct an empire across TV, film, news, and social media. After acquiring Paramount for $8 billion over the summer, and the broadcast network CBS along with it, he finalized a $150 million deal<\/a> for reactionary online outlet The Free Press in October and installed its CEO, the Zionist pundit Bari Weiss, as the top editor of CBS News. Ellison was drawn to Weiss in part because of her \u201cpro-Israel stance,\u201d according<\/a> to The Financial Times.<\/p>\n

Under Ellison, Paramount Skydance (as it is now known) has also been vocal in its opposition to any boycott of Israeli films and filmmakers: In response to the September pledge, which was signed by celebrities including Emma Stone and Javier Bardem, Paramount was alone among major studios at the time in publicly condemning<\/a>\u00a0the effort as \u201csilencing individual creative artists based on their nationality.\u201d (A month later, after a group called UK Lawyers for Israel issued a legal warning<\/a>, Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement<\/a> that \u201ca boycott of Israeli film institutions violates our policies\u201d on discrimination.) At the same time, according to reporting<\/a> by Variety, Paramount leadership has blacklisted individual artists deemed to be \u201covertly antisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n

If, as Bender seemed to suggest, David Ellison\u2019s embrace of a work of hasbara is \u201crare\u201d in today\u2019s Hollywood, the Trump-aligned Ellisons are seeking to expand their media empire. Paramount Skydance was reportedly<\/a> favored by the Trump administration in the auction for Warner Bros. Discovery \u2014 a far bigger conglomerate that includes a news network in CNN and a premium TV asset in HBO Max, in addition to the Warner Bros. movie studio.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 5, a rival suitor, Netflix, announced a deal<\/a> to buy the studio and streaming businesses, though Paramount Skydance has loudly challenged<\/a> that arrangement and may not leave without a fight<\/a> alongside its allies in Washington (CNN, in any case, would not be included in a Netflix deal). And Larry Ellison\u2019s Oracle is among the group of investors slated to acquire the American operations of Chinese social media platform TikTok, in a deal blessed<\/a> by the White House.<\/p>\n

Should these deals (or variations on them) go through, the result will be a degree of media control by a single family without parallel in modern American history, and potentially a singular opportunity for Israel advocates to reach a broad U.S. audience. In the words of a publicity spot <\/a>for \u201cRed Alert\u201d on Israel\u2019s Keshet 12, after Ellison\u2019s Paramount+ streaming service had acquired<\/a> the worldwide rights to the series, \u201cTens of millions of people around the world are finally going to see our story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s \u2018most important weapon\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is the TikTok deal in particular that analysts say could markedly change the information that millions of Americans receive about Israel. After two years of livestreamed genocide \u2014 including numerous TikTok videos posted by IDF soldiers themselves<\/a> \u2014 the political views of a generation of young people \u201chave been shaped by what they\u2019ve seen\u201d online, explained Lara Friedman<\/a>, the president of the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Middle East Peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have TikTok just smashing our young people\u2019s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza,\u201d Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechwriter for President Obama, said<\/a> at a Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) conference in November. Hurwitz lamented that, when she tries to persuade young Jews of her pro-Israel beliefs, \u201cthey are just seeing, in their minds, carnage, and I sound obscene.\u201d And at a conference this week organized by the right-wing Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, Hillary Clinton called it<\/a> \u201ca serious problem\u201d that young people were learning about October 7 and what came after \u201cfrom social media, particularly TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Sanaa<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanaa Al-Safadi mourns over the body of her 15-year-old son, Abdul Rahman, who was killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes, at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, October 29, 2025.<\/div>\n
(Yousef Zaanoun\/Activestills)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Faced with the evidence of genocide, Zionist apologists \u201ccan\u2019t explain that away,\u201d Friedman told +972. \u201cSo what they\u2019re going to do now is get hold of the means by which that information is spread.\u201d Meeting with social media influencers in New York in September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said<\/a> that Israel\u2019s \u201cmost important\u201d \u201cweapons\u201d were \u201con social media,\u201d and he described the deal for TikTok, with its 170 million American users, as \u201cthe most important purchase that is going on right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to acquiring an ownership stake in the U.S. app, Oracle is expected<\/a> to run data security for the platform and oversee changes and updates to the algorithm. Most likely, Larry Ellison and his billionaire co-investors will come under immediate pressure from Zionist groups including JFNA, whose CEO recently described<\/a> TikTok as \u201cthe largest and worst offender\u201d in \u201cspreading hate and antisemitism online,\u201d and said that \u201cthe deal engineered by President Trump presents us with a moment of great hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Ellison probably won\u2019t need much persuading to align with Israel-friendly priorities. A major Republican donor<\/a> and political ally of President Trump, the Oracle co-founder is also a major supporter of Israeli causes, having given<\/a> $16.6 million to Friends of the IDF in 2017, then the largest gift in the organization\u2019s history. In 2021, Oracle\u2019s then-CEO Safra Catz told<\/a> the Israeli outlet Calcalist that the company\u2019s \u201ccommitment to Israel is second to none.\u201d If Oracle employees \u201cdon\u2019t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel,\u201d she said, \u201cthen maybe we aren\u2019t the right company for them.\u201d That same year, Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s opposition leader at the time, vacationed<\/a> on Ellison\u2019s privately owned Hawaiian island.<\/p>\n

The billionaire also enjoys a close relationship with former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, having poured at least $130 million<\/a> into the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change \u2014 which, in turn, has promoted Oracle\u2019s services across the Global South. Blair was named as a leader of the Gaza transitional authority in the Trump ceasefire plan<\/a> that was approved by the UN Security Council in November.<\/p>\n

\n

\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference announcing the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, in the White House, September 29, 2025.<\/div>\n
(Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In predicting how the new TikTok might operate, free-expression advocates point to Elon Musk\u2019s apparent suppression<\/a> of his critics and other disfavored accounts on X, and the attendant flourishing of far-right voices there. The official X policy<\/a> is \u201cFreedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach,\u201d which advocates say gives Musk leeway to effectively censor content deemed objectionable by making it harder to find.<\/p>\n

Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz wrote<\/a> recently that TikTok\u2019s new owners \u201cwill undeniably leverage the platform to push pro-MAGA messaging.\u201d Israel, too, will likely be a major subject of censorship and control, Lorenz told +972. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to hear from Palestinians,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re just going to be exposed to more and more propaganda. It\u2019s going to be harder and harder to find accurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ellisons\u2019 likely domination of a broad swath of U.S. media, Lorenz argued, has no analogue in the United States. \u201cParallels that come to mind are places like Russia or China or India \u2014 places where there is no free press, no free speech, no ability to speak truth to power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We have a Gen Z problem\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n

The strategies used by the Israeli government and its supporters over the years to cultivate a positive image in traditional media \u2014 including expenses-paid<\/a> press junkets<\/a> and hasbara efforts to portray Gaza-based journalists<\/a> as undercover Hamas operatives \u2014 fall short when it comes to TikTok, which is a regular source of news for 43 percent of American adults under 30, according<\/a> to a recent Pew survey. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a generation that is going to see a headline, and rather than look at that headline, they\u2019re going to say, \u2018I\u2019m going to go look for the video. I want to see it for myself,\u2019\u201d Friedman told +972. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to control the narrative in that kind of era, and it creates a new imperative to control what information is able to be spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

When former U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill in April 2024 to ban TikTok in the United States absent a sale by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, the official rationale was lawmakers\u2019 concern about the Chinese government\u2019s potential access to Americans\u2019 data. But support for the legislation, which necessitated the currently pending takeover by U.S. firms, can also be traced to Zionist anxiety over Israel\u2019s image on the platform.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Hundreds<\/a><\/p>\n

Hundreds of Temple, Drexel and UPenn students protest in solidarity with Gaza, at UPenn\u2019s campus, April 25, 2024. (Joe Piette\/CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

At the Munich Security Conference in February of this year, former Republican Congressmember Mike Gallagher \u2014 who introduced<\/a> the sell-or-ban bill with his Democratic colleague Raja Krishnamoorthi in 2022 \u2014 said<\/a> that the bill was \u201cdead until October 7. And people started to see a bunch of antisemitic content on the platform, and our bill had legs again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature,\u201d then-Senator Mitt Romney said<\/a> at a McCain Institute forum in Arizona in May 2024, not long after the bill\u2019s passage. \u201cIf you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it\u2019s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

By that point, American Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had been sounding the alarm about TikTok for months. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, on a Zoom call in the fall of 2023, was recorded<\/a> saying, \u201cWe really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem. And our community needs \u2026 to put our energy toward this, fast.\u201d (The ADL has confirmed<\/a> the authenticity of the recording.)<\/p>\n

On March 6, 2024 \u2014 one day before the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to advance the TikTok bill to the House floor \u2014 the leaders of JFNA said in a letter<\/a> to the committee, \u201cOur community understands that social media is a major driver of the rise in antisemitism, and that TikTok is the worst offender by far.\u201d Referring to the legislation by its bill number, the letter said, \u201cA vote for HR 7521 is a vote against antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Ellison has pushed back on the idea that politics plays a role in his business decisions. \u201cI\u2019m not going to be in the position of ever making political statements. We\u2019re an entertainment company first,\u201d he said at a Bloomberg conference<\/a> in Los Angeles in October, adding that Paramount\u2019s official statement about the boycott was \u201ca statement that discriminating based on where somebody is from is wrong\u201d and that he stood by it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Ellison allowed that the \u201cvalue system\u201d of The Free Press<\/a> \u201creally does align with the value system that we believe in.\u201d Later in the conversation, he described President Trump\u2019s just-announced Gaza ceasefire plan \u2014 which, according<\/a> to the Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada, would \u201centrench permanent Israeli control\u201d of the Strip \u2014 as \u201ca historic accomplishment and one that we should all be happy\u201d about.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Palestinians<\/a><\/p>\n

Palestinians walk in the street in Gaza City, December 2, 2025. (Ali Hassan\/Flash90)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A changing of the guard<\/b><\/h3>\n

Owners do not typically exercise direct editorial control over American news media, and analysts caution against overstating the Ellisons\u2019 influence even as they seek to extend their reach from CBS to CNN. Complicating matters further, the latest bid by Paramount Skydance for Warner Bros. Discovery includes minority financing from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, according<\/a> to Variety \u2014 three governments that might push back on a staunchly pro-Israel agenda.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, CNN is hardly a bastion of left-wing politics to begin with. As one staffer told<\/a> The Guardian in early 2024, the cable network has a \u201csystemic and institutional bias<\/a>\u201d in favor of Israel. CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, for example, have frequently relied on Israel-friendly talking points in their coverage of U.S. campus protests<\/a>. At the same time, CNN has produced hard-hitting journalism about Gaza, including a report this week<\/a> detailing how the Israeli military has bulldozed corpses into unmarked graves, in apparent violation of international law.<\/p>\n

It is such coverage that may be at risk, with the Ellisons having demonstrated a willingness to make major personnel changes that \u2014 as with the promotion of Bari Weiss to run CBS News \u2014 could entrench political biases at the media properties under their control. In a late October round of layoffs at CBS News, Variety reported<\/a>, \u201cthe ax conspicuously fell on those whose reporting featured an anti-Israel bent.\u201d Among those terminated was the seasoned foreign correspondent Debora Patta, who had reported<\/a> vividly<\/a> on the killing in Gaza and, according<\/a> to The New York Post, had recently signed a new three-year contract.<\/p>\n

Patta\u2019s work had come under attack in August by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who, in claiming<\/a> that a video interview he\u2019d given her had been misleadingly edited, echoed President Trump\u2019s 2024 lawsuit against CBS (filed before his return to the White House) over the editing of a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview; Paramount, with its acquisition by Skydance under federal review, settled<\/a> that suit for $16 million. Weiss herself reportedly<\/a> added Patta\u2019s name to the dismissal list, while saving the job of a Rome-based correspondent who professed pro-Israel views and asked to be assigned<\/a> to cover Gaza.<\/p>\n

Whatever the Ellisons\u2019 intentions, their moves are being greeted as evidence of a new approach friendly to both Israel and Trump. \u201cThey let the Zionists into Hollywood tonight,\u201d Eve Barlow, a pro-Israel social media personality and writer, said<\/a> on Instagram after attending the L.A. premiere of \u201cRed Alert\u201d on the Paramount lot.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with \u201c60 Minutes\u201d on Oct. 31, two days after the CBS layoffs, Trump praised Weiss as \u201ca great new leader.\u201d Reminding the interviewer, Norah O\u2019Donnell, that \u201c\u201860 Minutes\u2019 was forced to pay me a lot of money,\u201d Trump said that CBS\u2019s \u201cnew ownership\u201d was \u201cthe greatest thing that\u2019s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.\u201d And Larry Ellison has reportedly discussed<\/a>, in a recent conversation with a senior White House official, firing CNN hosts whom Trump does not like.<\/p>\n

The same week as Trump\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview, David Ellison schmoozed with fellow Hollywood bigwigs at a dinner honoring Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, the executive he may soon dethrone. The glittery event<\/a> at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was hosted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which, through its film division, co-produced \u201cOne Day in October,\u201d an October 7 anthology drama that debuted in the U.S. on Zaslav\u2019s HBO Max. Like \u201cRed Alert,\u201d one reviewer noted<\/a>, \u201cOne Day in October\u201d leaves out Israel\u2019s oppression of Palestinians to \u201cfocus almost entirely on the survivors of the attack,\u201d and in so doing, imply that \u201coverwhelming force is a justified response.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Warner Bros. Discovery on the auction block, the gala for Zaslav had valedictory undertones. Presenting the studio boss with an award for his philanthropy and efforts to fight antisemitism, Steven Spielberg said that Zaslav \u201cshares a certain ethos with the moguls that built Hollywood.\u201d In his own speech, Zaslav shared an insight from his experience owning a broadcast network in Poland and resisting attempted censorship there: \u201cWhen the government controls the news, that is the end of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

+972 contacted spokespeople at Paramount and Oracle for comment; their responses will be added if received.<\/em><\/p>\n

Will Alden is a writer living in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in <\/em>Jewish Currents, The Nation, The New York Times, BuzzFeed News, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has been a recipient of the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist prize and a finalist for the Nonprofit News Awards.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – 972mag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Dec 2025\u00a0–\u00a0Having acquired Paramount and CBS and eyeing TikTok and CNN, the Ellisons are constructing a pro-Israel information empire with unprecedented reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":309443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[3541,3194,3614,1017,125,87,865,88,2915,2462,1706,3695,427,2098,249,70,886],"class_list":["post-309435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-cbs-news","tag-cnn","tag-disaster-capitalism","tag-freedom-of-information","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-media-empire","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-mind-control","tag-monopoly-capitalism","tag-palestine","tag-tiktok","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309447,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309435\/revisions\/309447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}