The richest man on earth owns X.
The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.
The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.
Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
❓Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media?
Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic
– some might say sinister – reason.
💥If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth.
Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy
by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats,
and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth.
You also have Donald Trump to contend with.
In his second term of office, Trump has
brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies
and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.
So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post
defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom
– without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding.
The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors,
but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy,
a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors.
And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars
without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.
These breaches are inexcusable.
It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison,
founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world.
Ellison is a longtime Trump donor who also, according to court records,
participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.
In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington.
At the time, Larry and his son David,
founder of Skydance Media,
were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve their $8bn merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBS News.
In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned,
citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence,
and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump.
No matter. Too much money was at stake.
In July, Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS
and canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,
much to Trump’s delight.
Three weeks after the settlement was announced, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr,
chair of the FCC, approved the Ellisons’ deal,
making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance and giving him control of CBS News.
In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist
Bari Weiss the CBS News editor-in-chief,
despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview,
-- cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.
I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president.
But that was when CBS News
– the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite
– was independent of the rest of CBS,
and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.
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