Over the past few months, Netflix and Paramount have sent markets reeling amid their feud over Warner Bros. Shareholders initially preferred Netflix’s cash-and-share offer to Paramount's leveraged offer, then preferred Netflix’s all-cash offer over Paramount’s high sticker price with more leverage. Yet, in the end, David Ellison's aggressive bidding won out. This allowed Netflix stock to rally marginally, further boosted Warner Bros. stock, and continued to tank Paramount’s stock. Many third-party viewers watching this showdown were surprised by Ellison’s win. I, however, anticipated it from the beginning and will explain my reasoning below, as well as a breakdown of Paramount's most recently accepted offer.

In late September of 2025, David Ellison proposed a $19 per-share bid for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery. Their offer was a mix of cash and stocks, and just matched, if not undervalued, the at-the-time price of WBD stock. Unsurprisingly, WBD CEO David Zaslav responded with a kind rejection, labeling the offer “inadequate”.

Ellison then increased his offer to $22 per share and sweetened the deal by changing the mix to 67% cash and 33% stock. The deal was topped off with a $2 billion payoff if regulators rejected it, plus a personal (alleged) offer for Zaslav to become co-CEO and co-chairman of WBD and PSKY. Again, Ellison received a flat-out rejection.

At this point, we begin to see a pattern emerging from David Ellison. He is not backing down. He sends out a third bid: $23.50 a share and 80% cash offer. This was a $5.50 premium and highly secure, given the large percentage of pure cash funds. Zaslav responds with a public statement, looking at other offers. It is then that Netflix enters the conversation.

Netflix was smart about entering this soon-to-be bidding war, they went to Trump first and left the discussion expecting no “immediate opposition from the White House”, meaning the deal was likely safe for all parties except PSKY. One month later, PSKY raised its bid, but two rapid-fire back-to-back SEC filings showed that two parties committed to or thinking about PSKY’s offer had just allocated significant funds towards the record-breaking EA deal last year, and a third fund was backing out of their commitment. Netflix announced its official bid at $27.75 a share the day after this second SEC filing, both outdoing PSKY’s ticker price and utilizing PSKY’s risk to make themselves look safer.

PSKY’s chances of securing WDB were diminishing by the day here. Yet, as we established earlier, David Ellison has built himself a consistent psychological profile. I continued to believe D. Ellison would win because I knew he would never back down. Three days after Netflix launched its bid, D. Ellison launched an official hostile takeover bid worth $108.4 billion.

Some spectators watched this happen and may have thought to themselves, David Ellison has lost it. He has bitten off more than he can chew and is now trying to play in a game several leagues above his own. That is a completely rational thought, after all, the bid alone is over 8x larger than the entirety of PSKY. Such a large acquisition from a significantly smaller player is rare enough in the M&A field. The addition of a giant like Netflix, which is 4x larger than their bid rather than 8x smaller, makes the already rare event begin to look more like a miracle.

However, miracles are becoming more common in the 21st century as investors are shown to be more optimistic with their spending, given the AI boom.

Netflix and PSKY continued to amend their offers, with D. Ellison making the largest amendments to appeal to WBD shareholders; offering more money, expensive termination fees, clearing the regulatory path in any way possible, and ensuring their billions of dollars would be delivered by several financing partners.

After months more of back and forth and fierce rivalry, PSKY increases its offer to $31 a share, and Netflix backs out. WBD’s termination fee is paid by PSKY. By early April, WBD officially backs PSKY’s deal of $111 billion. The deal is backed by several entities:

$45.7 billion from Larry Ellison, $250 million from Redbird, $57.5 billion from BofA, Citi, and Apollo, and a $7 billion termination fee payable by PSKY. If any of these entities drop out for whatever reason, L. Ellison has promised he can backstop a larger amount. All in all, financing is secured, brokers are being paid, and the deal has been voted on. PSKY won.

Yet, the rivalry does not end here; it appears Ellison is aiming to outdo Netflix in more than just this acquisition. As noted on Paramount.com, one of Ellison’s primary goals is to produce a minimum of 30 theatrical films annually . Coincidentally, this is the same number of theatrical films Netflix produced in 2025. Look out, Netflix, Ellison is coming for you.