#larry-ellison

#larry-ellison

President Donald Trump personally urged Paramount's owner Larry Ellison to bring back Rush Hour, the buddy-cop martial arts franchise fronted by Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, according to new reports. Ellison, a key political ally and major financial backer, is now a large shareholder at Paramount and inching toward a takeover of Warner's storied catalogue. That gives the president, for the first time, a foothold in Hollywood's creative machinery.

Ellison, the founder of the tech giant Oracle, is quickly emerging as the new face of oligarchic power in the U.S. Oracle has become an AI powerhouse at the same time Ellison and his son David have acquired Paramount and its vast media empire. With Donald Trump's recent executive order, Ellison and Oracle will also now oversee TikTok's algorithms, shaping a platform that reaches 150 million U.S. users.

Ellison has been an ongoing ally of the president, raising millions for his campaign and advising him during the COVID-19 pandemic. And now, he's poised to play a critical role in President Donald Trump's executive order for TikTok's U.S. operations. The U.S. branch of TikTok is valued at approximately $14 billion. Oracle, along with private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi's MGX will control around 45%.

The 81-year-old cofounder of software giant Oracle is on the verge of beating out Elon Musk for the title of world's richest person. Ellison, who cofounded Oracle in the '70s and is still its chief technology officer and executive chairman, saw his net worth skyrocket over the past day to $364 billion, just short of Musk's $384 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index.

On Thursday evening, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve Paramount's $8.4 billion merger with fellow entertainment firm Skydance Media, a deal that took considerable lobbying from the Trump administration and connections to Larry Ellison.