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Greetings! Oracle chair Larry Ellison's power in American business is about to expand. The Federal Communications Commission’s approval on Thursday of Ellison-backed Skydance’s takeover of film and TV icon Paramount Global cleared the last major hurdle standing in the way of the $8 billion deal. It’s expected to close on Aug. 7, when Larry Ellison’s son David will become CEO of a newly enlarged Paramount, owning CBS, Paramount studios, a bunch of TV channels, the Paramount+ streaming service and Skydance’s film and TV production business. The company will remain publicly traded. Hopefully Oracle and Paramount will coordinate their quarterly earnings calls so we don’t have to choose between the two Ellisons! In the annals of inherited wealth, it’s hard to think of another example of a rich public-company founder financing his son in the takeover of another public company: Typically moguls focus on ensuring that their children succeed them at their own business. Larry Ellison’s willingness to back David’s adventures at Paramount is in that sense commendable—he’s helping his son make his own way. But it does set the stage for what’s sure to be a fascinating drama. The acquisition is, after all, something of a risky bet, given that Paramount isn‘t exactly the shiniest of the Hollywood jewels, what with its heavy exposure to slowly declining cable channels. What will happen between father and son if it all goes wrong? Sure, Larry Ellison can easily afford to write off the money he’s putting into the deal. He’s just one of the people financing it, so he may only be putting in a couple of billion dollars. His stake in Oracle, by contrast, is worth $282 billion. Still, billionaires don’t throw money away happily. And there are signs the two took some time figuring out which of them would be in charge of the new company. Skydance’s initial filings with the FCC showed that the elder Ellison would control Paramount after the deal, but a few weeks later, the corporate structure changed, putting David in charge as the one holding all of the Ellison family’s votes in Paramount. Then 10 days ago, it changed again to show that Larry Ellison would have about 35.5% of the family’s votes, FCC filings show. The filing specified he wouldn’t have any “veto rights, or any special or outsized voting rights” as a result. Father-child feuds are common in Hollywood. Paramount Global was itself the setting for an ugly feud between father and daughter, the late Sumner Redstone and his daughter, Shari, over succession. Shari Redstone is now selling Paramount to the Ellisons. Then there was the recent battle between Rupert Murdoch, the aging media mogul, and his son James Murdoch. Of course, this isn’t Ellison’s first rodeo in Hollywood. His daughter, Megan, is also a Hollywood player, with her Annapurna Pictures entertainment company. A few years ago, the elder Ellison had to step in to overhaul the money-losing business, according to Variety. It’s possible that Larry Ellison is an indulgent dad who won’t mind if the Paramount takeover goes south. Whatever happens, though, this is one drama worth tuning in for. Here’s a rundown of our coverage this week, prepared with the assistance of The Information’s Deep Research artificial intelligence tool. The New AI Rulebook: Washington Steps In We dug into into the Trump administration’s newly released “AI Action Plan,” which signals a big shift in how the U.S. government intends to regulate and promote the AI industry. The AI Arms Race Intensifies Beyond Models The battle for AI supremacy has evolved beyond simply building the largest model. Our coverage highlighted how the competition is now being fought over data access, product strategy and talent. A key scoop revealed the escalating data war hitting OpenAI, thwarting the company’s plans to integrate Slack into ChatGPT. We also revealed the early—and positive—reaction to OpenAI’s still-to-be-released GPT-5. On the product front, we analyzed the strategic dilemma Google faces in maintaining both its traditional search bar and the Gemini chatbot. The talent war continues. We scooped that Meta Platforms has hired away at least three AI researchers from Google DeepMind. And we revealed the backstory to Meta’s hiring of a top AI figure from Apple in a juicy inside tale. On the research front, we reported from the International Conference on Machine Learning on the current shortcomings of large language models. We also explored the growing importance of reinforcement learning for improving AI models. Corporate Accountability and Market Realities Microsoft is facing scrutiny for its persistent cybersecurity issues, with a new flaw discovered in its SharePoint software. The recurring problems, which led to a cut in CEO Satya Nadella’s bonus last year, highlight the cultural challenges and inherent risks of its market dominance. Earnings season provided a check on the tech industry’s pulse. Tesla’s revenues fell 12% in the second quarter, and yet Elon Musk’s focus remains fixed on robotaxis and Optimus robots. Tesla is behind in its ambitious plans to manufacture 5,000 robots by the end of this year, as we reported in this deep dive. Meanwhile, Google’s earnings showed the tech giant is firing on all cylinders, with search revenue growth speeding up from the first quarter. In other market news, Opendoor’s incredible market rally prompted us to look at the summer resurgence of meme stocks. Deals, Departures and New Ventures In the venture world, we broke the news that Elad Gil is raising a fund of $1.5 billion to back both young and mature startups. We identified some of the investors in OpenAI’s current fundraising. We also reported that Benchmark general partner Victor Lazarte is leaving the firm to start his own fund focused on early-stage AI startups. In mergers and acquisitions as well as funding, we detailed which AI startups were potential takeover targets. We also broke news on data center startup Crusoe’s billion-dollar fundraising. Investors are eagerly anticipating Figma’s IPO—our True Value columnist Anita Ramaswamy ran the numbers and calculated what the company is really worth. Check out her analysis. Weekend Features Start your weekend off with our Weekend sports column, The Arena, which digs into sports leagues trying their hand at venture capital–style investing.
- Oura CEO Tom Hale said the health-tracking company crossed more than $500 million in annual revenue last year and grew at more than 120%. He made the comments in an interview on The Information’s TITV.
- Meta Platforms in October will stop accepting advertising related to political and social issues in the EU, the company said in a blog post on Friday. The social media giant said the move was in response to forthcoming regulation in the bloc about the transparency of political ads.
- Meta Platforms has named Shengjia Zhao as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs, its new artificial intelligence organization, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads on Friday.
• Incident management software maker PagerDuty is exploring a potential sale, according to a Reuters report on Friday. The company’s shares rose more than 10% on the news. Dealmaker was named the “Best in Business” newsletter for its insightful coverage of private technology and the AI hype cycle. Start receiving the newsletter here.
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