EXCLUSIVE: Meet CNN's New Owner, Why CNN Won't Be The Same Anymore (Investigation)
(Image courtesy, Google)
Larry Ellison, David's father (Courtesy Google)
OLD MONEY BACKS NEW MONEY
American billionaire investor David Ellison, 43, launched an all-out hostile takeover of Warner Bros Discovery and battled Netflix to the ground in making that acquisition. When David, backed by his equally billionaire dad and tech giant Oracle's co-founder Larry Ellison, raised the stakes to $110 billion, Netflix coul not up the bid.
So, that gives the coveted company to David once Trump administration approves the deal.
The deal's package is huge. It encompasses film-making, its original venture, to publishing and broadcasting. Its notable component is CNN.
BUDDY DEAL?
Now, the Ellisons are close personal friends and political allies of President Donald Trump. From the first Trump administration, CNN has be very critical of Trump. It got to a point where CNN's press credentials were revoked by Trump's White House.
The trend resumed after Trump's second venture into the White House.
TRUMP RUMPS 'EM!
The role Trump played in the bidding process to give David the upper hand over Netflix suggests a deeper reason for the aggressive takeover of the corporation.
Isn't this takeover done to force CNN's coverage to favourably tilt towards Trump and the conservatives?!
Let's unpack this position.
MUZZLE OF CBS
In August 2025, after David bought Paramount Global which has CBS in its portfolio, the company became Sundance Global. But, crucially, he made sweeping changes to its editorial direction. He chose and appointed Bari Weiss as the news outlet's editor in chief. Immediately, Weiss shelved a critical investigative documentary done on Trump.
Weiss said the story was being held for “additional reporting” after Trump officials declined to go on the record. CBS settled a $16 million lawsuit with Trump in July after he accused the outlet for deceptively editing a news content with his for in the 2023 polls, Kamala Harris. So, maybe she wanted Trump's administration to comment in order to minimize chances of another Trump's lawsuit.
But, internal emails from the reporter who led the piece, journalist Sharyn Alfonsi, said the decision essentially gave the administration a “kill switch” to bury any reporting “they find inconvenient.” The report eventually aired this January.
However, increasingly, CBS, noted for its core investigative and unbiased reporting, started leaning towards supporting the conservatives and openly supporting Trump.
Immediately after purchasing Paramount and by extension, CBS, David launched his hostile take bid for Warner Bros Discovery.
Now, the owners did not want to sell to David. But, that is where Trump directly interfered. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ellison told Trump officials that he'd make sweeping changes to CNN if he became its owner.
That surely sweetened the deal for Trump. Soon after, the US's Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
DAVID AND GOING FORWARD
Mega Mode Media learnt that though David maintained in a recent media interview that CNN's “Editorial independence will absolutely be maintained,” many do not believe him based on his CBS antecedents.
For he, through Weiss, weeded out CBS of old, established reported and producers including Annie Walsh, do not be surprised if CNN sacks its diehard independent producers and reporters to replace them with conservative ones.
Thick plumes of smoke from US-Israeli first strike on Iran, leading to the ongoing Iran w@t (Courtesy Google)
TIMING WITH IRAN W@R
The New York Times reported that the US Secretary of Defence who oversees Pentagon, Peter Hegseth, said "the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” during a briefing at the Pentagon.
"The sooner"?
The timing is suspicious. The takeover of the two prominent broadcast media houses that have been challenging government narrative about factual events on ground as Iran w@r hots up are now controlled by one person. This new owner is Trump's family friend with his dad, and who is is largest donor to Trump's presidential campaign.
The US government official channels have been saying that US is winning the w#r already via increased successful strikes against Iran.
But, CNN, following CBS's now muted tone, is the leading voice that has been challenging this narrative, by revealing that Iran has muscled up and is making gains in the war, that in effect, Trump's government is lying about the Iran war.
This is explosive and could spell huge negative implications for Trump, first, with the fiercely patriotic American and increasingly war-weary people who hate seeing their leaders lying to them about an unnecessary that is k1ll1ng American troops causing anguish to many American families. Secondly, with the US Congress, who can go as far as impeaching Trump, and jail him if CNN continues refuting the lies his government is feeding Americans about the w@r.
Peter Hegseth, middle, US Secretary of Defense ((Courtesy, New York Times)
"FREE SPEECH, FREE PRESS" GONE TOO SOON
Hegseth, incidentally a former broadcast former host of "Fox and Friends", based his comment about Ellison's takeover of CNN after objecting to what he called “fake news from CNN.” He cited a CNN report that the Trump administration had underestimated how America's military offensive in Iran could affect the Strait of Hormuz, the sea route that 20 percent of the world’s oil pass through. The defense secretary called that assertion “patently ridiculous, of course.”
CNN trsponded: “We stand by our reporting.”
Frankly, this takeover means the launch of propaganda news in the US. And dawn of a conditioned, robotic people that cannot access opposing sides of situations for critical reasoning.
With such inadequate reporting of events such as the Iran w@r now, coupled with forced supportive coverage for Trump, and erosion of free speech as this generally continues, the United States is descending into authoritarianism.
It is a scary concept for America, even, the world when the avowed bastion of Free Speech enshrined in the US amendments and espoused in its "free media" motto, descends to a controlled speech and controlled media state. It gives less hope to journalists and media houses worldwide especially, in less advanced countries.
If this can happen in the US, it sends a pessimistic vibe to the world that discourages journalists fighting for free speech and free media that their objectives are utopian and unrealistic, that if this can happen in America after decades of fierce independence of speech and media, then, no country can have free speech and free media afterall.
Now, unless a miracle stops this forced merger, CNN would not look or sound the same. Definitely.
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