Chris Hayes explains how the Trump administration is helping American media consolidate in the hands of right-wing billionaires
Published
Citation
From the September 17, 2025, edition of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes
CHRIS HAYES (HOST): So given that context, I want you to look around the U.S. right now and see what's been happening here, right in front of our eyes. In July, the Trump FCC — that's the entity that Brendan Carr controls — approved the sale of Paramount, with it CBS, to Skydance Media, which is controlled by the family of pro-Trump tech billionaire named Larry Ellison. It was his son, actually, who's buying it. Now that approval only came after Paramount paid Trump $60 million to settle the president's obvious frivolous, ludicrous lawsuit against CBS News and 60 Minutes for editing interviews, and after the Ellisons agreed to eliminate DEI programs, and after they agreed to install an executive formerly from a conservative think tank to essentially act as a sort of ideological minder at CBS News for political bias. So they did all those things, then they got the approval for this very, very large merger. After that, CBS canceled Stephen Colbert's top-rated late-night show, which was notorious for its criticism of the sitting president.
Last week, after Larry Ellison officially leapfrogged another pro-Trump billionaire, Elon Musk, to become the world's richest man, the new Paramount conglomerate made another media bid, this time for Warner Brothers Discovery, which just so happens to own CNN. So there's a possibility that they could purchase that and roll that up as well. Then yesterday we got this news about TikTok, perhaps you've seen it. Do you remember the Chinese-owned app that was banned as a security risk because of a bipartisan vote in both houses of Congress and signed into law by Joe Biden? And then Donald Trump just literally ignored the law while he searched for a U.S. buyer. Well, yesterday there was news of a framework of a deal. Interesting. Let's see what the deal is — gives Americans an 80% stake in TikTok. Which Americans? Well, you'll never guess. Yes, Larry Ellison is one of them, along with far-right venture capitalist, Trump donor, DOGE consultant, MAGA-backer Marc Andreessen.
As Talking Points Memo noted, if all those deals all go through that would mean the Murdoch family controlling Fox News, the Journal, New York Post, its other properties. Twitter, TikTok, CBS, CNN and more owned by Elon Musk and the Ellison family. The Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos. The Trump administration is threatening to bring the government down on free speech and use it against dissent. It is also facilitating the sale of some of our biggest private media outlets to Trump allies, and is a very obvious attempt to consolidate power over free expression.