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Rob Bonta Is About to Start Charging David Ellison $7 Million a Day

Paramount's $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery has cleared the Justice Department and 68 jurisdictions. It now runs through one office in California—and Rob Bonta is in no hurry.

Attorney General of California Rob Bonta has spent five years in the seat teaching Silicon Valley that a federal clearance is not a finish line. He joined the federal case that found Google an unlawful monopolist in ad tech, brought Amazon to court over price-inflating third-party merchant contracts, and extracted binding governance commitments during OpenAI’s nonprofit restructuring to keep oversight anchored in California. Now, a $111 billion Hollywood merger is learning the exact same lesson. 

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Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison holds an agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery that expires on June 1, 2027. The antitrust trial standing between Ellison and the closing is set for March 2, 2027, in Oakland. Starting October 1, 2026, every day the deal stays open costs him roughly $7 million in ticking fees owed to WBD shareholders. Bonta controls all three of those numbers by controlling when, or whether, he settles. 

Ellison has spent the year trying to unite two historic studios by acquiring WBD. He agreed in February, the Justice Department cleared the deal in June, and regulators in 68 global jurisdictions—including the European Union, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, COMESA and China—signed off. The one thing left is the antitrust lawsuit from Bonta’s 12-state coalition and the Writers Guild, because the deal can’t close while the case is pending. The fastest path to closing runs through a settlement on Bonta’s terms, but Bonta pulled the plug on Monday’s scheduled sit-down, accusing Paramount of........

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