Welcome to the era of the ‘nepo CEO’: David Ellison’s Paramount victory cements a new kind of corporate leader

Before last week, few people outside of Hollywood had heard of David Ellison, former actor, life-long aviation enthusiast, film producer, and, notably, son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Just a few days ago, however, the 41-year-old’s company Skydance Media clinched a $8 billion deal to buy and merge with the struggling film and television company Paramount Global. Now, Ellison is a mogul-in-waiting and the latest member in the growing club of nepo CEOs.

The concept of nepotism has been with us since the mid-17th Century, when Italian Catholic popes began giving their nephews, or nipote, high-ranking church positions strictly because of familial ties. Even now, it’s a practice humans can’t seem to shake. 

Recently, cultural pundits have brought laser-sharp focus to the habit of giving offspring unearned access to wealth and power by tracking nepotism’s beneficiaries, the so-called nepo babies. They are usually actors, screenwriters, models, and musicians who were fast-tracked within their careers with the help of a parent in the business. Their talents—or lack thereof—draw extra scrutiny.

But nepo babies are everywhere, including at the helm of large public companies, where they can be judged harshly. Lachlan Murdoch, 52, recently assumed the executive chair and CEO role at Fox Corporation, taking over from his father Rupert. Gus Wenner, 33, became CEO of Rolling Stone in 2022 to run the media brand his father Jann launched. Outside of media, all five of the Arnault siblings, whose father Bernard Arnault is CEO of LVMH, one of the world’s largest........

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