Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) warded off speculation about whether he pressured California Attorney General Rob Bonta to settle with Paramount Skydance over the company’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I didn’t pressure anybody,” Newsom told reporters on Wednesday.
After Bonta, who has been openly against the merger for months, made the surprising move to meet with Paramount’s representatives and settle with the company, reports swirled that Newsom had been urging Bonta to do so. The Wall Street Journal initially reported that Newsom wanted Bonta to settle with Paramount out of court because he was concerned about the lawsuit’s potential impact on California jobs.
The outlet also reported that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra joined the chorus of individuals pushing for an out-of-court settlement. The settlement came as Paramount reportedly eyed moving its operations out of California to Texas, Tennessee, or Georgia.
“I made the point — and I made it very publicly and consistently, and it’s been reported maybe two or 300 different ways — that we, me, many folks, including the mayor, soon-to-be governor-elect Becerra, and others, preferred, in the words of Rob Bonta himself, that he focus on getting this done at the ‘boardroom,’ not in the ‘courtroom,’” Newsom told reporters on Wednesday.
Newsom was referencing an August statement Bonta made, in which he said: “Generally for all of my cases, I prefer to resolve disputes in the boardroom, not the courtroom.”
“We amplified that [and] said this was a better approach,” Newsom said Wednesday. “So that was the framework, and, you know, he worked hard to deliver for California, and I think he did.”
Bonta has been vocal about his disdain for the Paramount merger with Warner Bros. Discovery and his belief that it would create an unfair entertainment industry behemoth. He clarified when announcing the settlement that he still does not support the merger.
PARAMOUNT SETTLES ANTITRUST LAWSUITS OVER WARNER BROS. MERGER
“This settlement is not a vote of support for this merger; it is not a blessing of the broader merger,” Bonta said. “If they ever fail to comply with the many critical terms we have in our settlement, we can go to court and enforce it through court and court orders.”
As part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to terms such as investing $1.5 billion in production spending in California, releasing a set number of films, including independent films, and creating an independent editorial board for both CNN and CBS News. The editorial independence of each news outlet has been a major flashpoint for Democrats about the merger, as Paramount CEO David Ellison has close ties to President Donald Trump through his father, Larry Ellison.