‘I’m Just Not Staying’: Kara Swisher Jumping Ship At CNN As Soon As She Can Over ‘Incompetent’ Ellison Takeover
CNN’s Kara Swisher said she’ll depart CNN as soon as she can if the “incompetent” Ellison family successfully acquires the network’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
David Ellison is the CEO and owner of Paramount Skydance, which was formerly just Skydance Media before its multibillion-dollar acquisition of Paramount Global. He is also the son of pro-Trump tech mogul Larry Ellison.
Ellison’s combined company, Paramount Skydance, secured DOJ approval on June 12 for an $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of multiple platforms and networks, including CNN and HBO Max.
However, Politico reported the merger could still face legal scrutiny as California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) continues to investigate the deal and could opt to sue and block it from happening, despite DOJ approval.
Swisher is a longstanding critic of the Ellisons and vowed to leave CNN, pending approval of the acquisition, back in March during an event at Syracuse University. She doubled down on that statement in a new episode of her Pivot podcast with co-host Scott Galloway.
“With the CNN thing, well you know my feelings on that,” she told him before adding, “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”
Before she could switch topics, Galloway clarified, “So, you’re out? You’re out of CNN?” apparently suspicious because Swisher had been trying to talk him into “doing s**t at CNN for months.”
Swisher insisted that was prior to the prospective Ellison acquisition.
“Let me try to outline it: I don’t want to work for the Ellisons, and I don’t want to work for their handpicked minions because I think they’re incompetent,” she said.
She continued:
I just don’t see any way that these people make good decisions and I don’t trust them. That’s it. They just… I just don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to work for tech people. … I’m just not staying … there’s lots of places to go. Like you, I think TV is great but it’s not that great to put up with this s**t. … Anyways, there’s lot of other options, and I’m under contract with them until the end of the year and I’m hoping they’ll let me out early because I don’t want to affiliate with them. I left James Murdoch, too, this is not a new, fresh thing for Kara Swisher to flounce out and do better.”
Watch above via YouTube.
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