Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has invested around $1 billion in Skydance, according to a Semafor report citing people familiar with the matter. This provides much-needed funds as the company looks to cut costs and bolster its stock price.
The deal comes at the same time as other equity investments from Skydance’s other investors, including board member Laurene Powell Jobs.
Musk has publicly praised the Ellisons and Skydance, leading to speculations over a more expansive partnership between Musk’s lower-earth-orbit satellite network, Starlink, and Skydance.
“He’s gonna have to re-engineer all of those channels, and figure out how they morph into streams themselves rather than just traditional linear,” billionaire cable executive John Malone said Tuesday. “I think there’s a deal coming there,” Malone also said at his Paley Center appearance.
“Who helped Elon finance Twitter when he bought it? Larry Ellison,” Malone said. “How did Larry Ellison come up with some of the money to put into the creation of Skydance? Tesla stock. And I would not doubt for a minute that before very long you’re going to see an announcement.” The investment comes following Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros Discovery under the Skydance name. Skydance combines two major Hollywood studios, Paramount+ and HBO Max, and networks including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, and Food Network. The company is headed by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
The Semafor report mentioned that Ellison, who poached Mattel’s Ynon Kreiz to serve as co-CEO, could use Musk’s capital to bolster the company’s cost-cutting and technological efforts. Ellison and Kreiz reportedly mentioned that the integration would involve layoffs, stating: “Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce.”
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“We are building a true product and tech team,” Ellison said in a CNBC interview earlier this month. “We are a big believer that artificial intelligence is a tool for artists, not the other way around.”
Musk and Larry Ellison have long been close, and it is reportedly partly because of the Oracle founder’s money and connections that Paramount was able to take over Warner Bros. Larry Ellison has personally guaranteed more than $40 billion of the equity financing for Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. He had also invested $1 billion in Musk’s 2022 deal to take X, formerly Twitter, private. He also invested in Tesla in 2018, and served on the company’s board of directors for years.