Elon Musk has reportedly invested $1 billion in Skydance, weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance’s merger closed.
Paramount closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, valued at about $110 billion including debt, on Oct. 6, and named the combined company Skydance. The company starts with about $80 billion in debt.
Skydance is targeting more than $6 billion in annual savings within three years.
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A Los Angeles County report estimated that about 4,500 direct film and television jobs in the county could be lost over that period, though county officials said the figures are not layoff forecasts.
The company said a big part of the savings would come from sources other than labor, such as combining streaming technology and cloud providers.
Chairman and CEO David Ellison and Co-CEO Ynon Kreiz acknowledged in a memo that layoffs will be part of the integration.
The combined media powerhouse merges popular streaming platforms Paramount+ and HBO Max and a host of TV networks, including CNN and CBS News.
Mr. Musk’s $1 billion is in line with a wider effort by Skydance to raise equity investments, coming around the same time as equity investments from Skydance’s other investors, including board member Laurene Powell Jobs, Semafor reported.
In September, the outlet reported Mr. Ellison was weighing an investment from Mr. Musk, among other wealthy individuals.
Mr. Musk has a long history with the Ellison family.
Mr. Ellison’s father is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has a long-standing friendship and business relationship with Mr. Musk and previously invested $1 billion in Mr. Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now X; invested in Tesla in 2018, and served on Tesla’s board.
Larry Ellison personally guaranteed more than $40 billion of the equity financing for the deal.
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