A person familiar with the situation said Elon Musk has put about $1 billion into Skydance, requesting anonymity because they lacked authorization to speak publicly. Semafor first reported the news on Thursday, and said his commitment is part of Skydance's broader push to raise equity capital. Spokespeople for Musk and Skydance didn't get back to CNBC right away when asked for comment.
On Oct. 6, Paramount finalized its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery and named the merged entity Skydance. Co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz face a to-do list that includes merging the Paramount and Warner Bros. film studios, uniting Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single streaming offering, and overhauling central operations that support multiple TV channels along with a pair of news units. The company has been looking to cut costs.
Skydance says it expects to save $6 billion over a three-year period, though it is working under a debt load near $80 billion. The stock slipped about 1% on Thursday.
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David Ellison's father, Larry Ellison, has a track record with Musk. Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, put $1 billion into Musk's 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now X, contributed capital to Tesla in 2018, and also sat on Tesla's board. He further backed Paramount's bid to take over WBD by personally guaranteeing over $40 billion of the equity financing.
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