# David Ellison **Born:** January 9, 1983, Santa Clara County, California **Father:** [[Larry Ellison]] (co-founder, Oracle Corporation) **Sister:** Megan Ellison (founder, Annapurna Pictures) **Role:** Chairman & CEO, [[Skydance-Paramount]] --- ## Background David Ferris Ellison is the elder of two children of Larry Ellison and Barbara Boothe. His parents divorced when he was young, and David and his sister Megan were raised primarily by their mother on a horse farm in Woodside, California (south of San Francisco). The household was steeped in cinema — his mother kept a library of over 3,000 VHS tapes, and the family spent evenings watching films together. After watching *Top Gun* as a child, David became fixated on flying. Larry bought him a plane at age 13, and they took lessons together. David went on to compete in aerobatic airshows before pivoting to the entertainment industry. ## Education - **Pepperdine University** (attended) - **University of Southern California** — Film school (dropped out 2005) ## Career Arc ### Early Hollywood (2005–2009) Dropped out of USC film school to fund and star in *Flyboys* (2006), a WWI aerial combat drama. The film cost $65 million but earned only $18 million — a high-profile flop, but an instructive one. ### Founding Skydance Media (2006) Founded **Skydance Media** in 2006, named for his passion for stunt flying ("skydancing"). In 2010, formally launched with $350 million in financing (debt + equity), including a JPMorgan Chase revolving credit line. ### Key Productions Skydance became a major co-production partner for Paramount Pictures, producing blockbuster franchises: - *True Grit* (2010) - *Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation* (2015), *Fallout* (2018), *Dead Reckoning* (2023) - *Star Trek Into Darkness* (2013), *Star Trek Beyond* (2016) - *World War Z* (2013) - *Jack Reacher* (2012) - *Terminator Genisys* (2015) - *Annihilation* (2018) - **Top Gun: Maverick** (2022) — Nominated for Best Picture; earned $1.49B worldwide ### Expansion into TV, Animation, and Interactive - **2013:** Launched Skydance Television — produced *Altered Carbon*, *Grace and Frankie*, *Jack Ryan*, *Reacher* - **2017:** Launched Skydance Animation (partnership with Spain's Ilion Animation Studios) - **2019:** Hired former Pixar CCO John Lasseter to run Animation division (controversial due to Lasseter's #MeToo-era departure from Disney) - **Skydance Interactive / Skydance New Media** — gaming division ### Paramount Skydance Merger (2025) On July 7, 2024, Skydance and Paramount Global announced a definitive merger agreement valued at **$8 billion** (combined entity valued at ~$28 billion). The FCC approved the deal on July 24, 2025, and the merger closed **August 7, 2025**. David Ellison became **Chairman and CEO** of the combined Paramount Skydance. Jeff Shell became President. **Ownership structure:** - Pinnacle Media Ventures owns 77.5% of National Amusements (Paramount's controlling entity) - Gerry Cardinale (RedBird Capital Partners) holds the remaining 22.5% of NAI - David Ellison holds 100% of the Ellison family's voting interests See: [[Skydance-Paramount]] ### Warner Bros. Discovery Bid (2025–2026) Paramount Skydance launched a bid to acquire **Warner Bros. Discovery** (CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, TNT, TBS, Discovery networks) — potentially creating the largest media conglomerate in the world. - **Offer:** $30/share → raised to $31/share (Feb 2026) - **Total enterprise value:** ~$111 billion - [[Larry Ellison]] provided an **irrevocable personal guarantee of $40.4 billion** in equity financing - Netflix withdrew its competing bid on Feb 26, 2026, leaving Paramount as the apparent winner - **Regulatory review pending** as of April 2026 See: [[Skydance-Paramount]], [[Tech Oligarch Media Map]] --- ## Relationship with Larry Ellison David's career has been financially underwritten by his father at every stage — from the plane at 13, to *Flyboys*, to Skydance's founding capital, to the $40.4B personal guarantee backing the WBD acquisition. Larry treats media as a strategic investment alongside Oracle's government/defense contracts, creating a nexus between [[Defense Tech]] and mass media control. ## Trump Administration Ties - Larry Ellison is a prominent Trump ally and donor - The Paramount-FCC approval involved concessions widely seen as favorable to Trump: a $16M settlement of Trump's lawsuit against CBS, installation of a newsroom "ombudsman," elimination of DEI programs, and up to $20M in free advertising/PSAs - David reportedly "offered assurances to Trump administration officials" about sweeping changes to CNN if the WBD deal closes (per WSJ) - [[Bari Weiss]] was installed as CBS News editor-in-chief; The Free Press was acquired - Under Weiss, [[CBS News]] saw a wave of departures at [[60 Minutes]], culminating in the **June 2, 2026 firing of [[Scott Pelley]]**, who charged that the network was casting him aside "to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration" — see [[Scott Pelley Firing]] and [[Media Capture]] See: [[Tech Oligarch Media Map]], [[Skydance-Paramount]] --- ## Key Themes - **Military-entertainment pipeline:** From childhood Top Gun obsession → aerobatic flying → Top Gun: Maverick → Pentagon content partnerships → owning the studio that houses the military-entertainment complex's most iconic franchise - **Dynastic wealth → media control:** Follows the pattern of tech billionaires converting economic power into narrative power (see [[Tech Oligarch Media Map]]) - **Silicon Valley meets Hollywood:** Skydance bridges tech money (Oracle/Larry) with content production at industrial scale --- ## Related - [[Larry Ellison]] - [[Skydance-Paramount]] - [[Tech Oligarch Media Map]] - [[Oracle Corporation]]