Elon Musk invests $1 billion in Skydance weeks after Paramount closes $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery deal that brought CNN under Ellison control

Semafor reported yesterday that Elon Musk invested roughly $1 billion in Skydance Corp., the combined company created when Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on October 6, giving the new entity control of CNN, CBS, HBO, Warner Bros. and Paramount studios along with roughly $80-87 billion in debt and a target of more than $6 billion in cost savings over three years. The equity injection arrived around the same time as contributions from other investors including board member Laurene Powell Jobs. Larry Ellison, whose son David leads Skydance, had committed $1 billion through his trust to Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition in May 2022, a deal that also drew $800 million from Sequoia and $500 million from Binance. Neither Musk nor Skydance has confirmed the new investment. John Malone speculated the day before the report that a larger SpaceX arrangement involving $8-10 billion could follow. A $1 billion stake represents a minority position against Skydance’s market capitalization in the high $30 billions.