David Ellison Defends Meeting With Trump Amid Paramount-Warner Bros Merger Review, Comments On What Was Said About CNN

Skydance CEO David Ellison defended meeting with Donald Trump as Paramount sought to complete its merger with Warner Bros Discovery, while addressing concerns that he talked to the president about the future of CNN. “For absolute clarity, we have not talked to any political leader of any party about news, other than to say that we want to be in the truth business and we want to be in the trust business, and we believe in complete editorial independence,” Ellison told reporters Tuesday at an afternoon press conference on the Paramount lot, hours after its merger with WBD closed. At a town hall meeting earlier Tuesday, Ellison said he supported CNN’s legal challenge to Trump’s ban on the network from the White House grounds, with MS NOW and Politico also restricted. A federal judge sidelined that ban at least temporarily, and will hear arguments at a Thursday hearing on the media outlets’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Watch on Deadline Ellison was asked about a comment he made in August 2025, on the date that Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount closed, that he did not want to see that company politicized. As it turned out, the Paramount-WBD process became unusually politicized for a media transaction, and Ellison himself met with Trump, including hosting a dinner for his administration in April and attending the UFC match on the White House grounds in June. “What I would say is, we have a good relationship with this administration,” Ellison said. “I also had a really good relationship with President Biden. I have a good relationship with Senator Tim Scott, and I have a good relationship with Governor Gavin Newsom. I think it is important to talk to everybody on both sides of the aisle.” He added, “When you’re operating within a business-friendly administration, you should always have those relationships,” pointing out that Ari Emanuel and Dana White sat next to the president at the UFC event, as well as tech figures like Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos who have visited the White House and were at the recent state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We want to speak to everybody. We do not want to politicize the company,” he said. “We were in a transaction review process, but with that said, we are not turning that page. We are operating. We are moving forward, and again, we want to speak to the largest audiences humanly possible. So I understand how some people feel about that. The best thing I can say is we want to prove it over time.” Ellison also said that he was in Washington, D.C., to push for a federal tax incentive since October of last year. He said that it was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who “actually really shepherded that endeavor,” with multiple meetings with him and Trump. That is “really what got the president to effectively say, ‘Yes, I see this, and yes, I want to support this.’ “ He said that he and Makan Delrahim, Paramount’s chief legal officer, were in Washington last week to try to get the incentive legislation “done by December 11 and the end of the year.” There are hopes among boosters of the federal incentive that it can be attached to a year-end government funding bill, with the current legislation running out on that date. RELATED: Lawmakers Introduce Bill For 20% Federal Film & TV Incentive — Read The Bill He added that they have had conversations with both of California’s gubernatorial candidates, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta, “about what could hopefully be done to make California basically more competitive with other states.” Even with the federal rebate, he said, the state would still face competition from New Jersey and Georgia with larger packages of incentives. “So if this federal rebate can get done, which can only get done bipartisan, it’s not possible any other way, it should be one of the most significant booms to out film business in this country,” he said. “We want to see these lots and our soundstages filled with people making movies and telling stories again, and the only way you can do that is to speak with the elected leaders on both sides of the aisle, including the White House, to hopefully accomplish that goal,” he said.