Paramount allegedly leaks stuff about antitrust talks regarding its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery — never mind that it’s stuff that people already know — and this guy talks like it’s a criminal offense.
Actor Mark Ruffalo unleashes nonsensical and arguably bigoted attacks against Paramount’s owners, the Ellison family, in a show of rabble rousing to derail the deal — and this guy talks like it’s a nothingburger.
Welcome to the not-so-wonderful but definitely wacky world of California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Mind you, Bonta is a guy no one ever heard of until lightning struck and he got the bright idea to lead a coterie of lefty AGs and sue to break up Paramount’s $81 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery on antitrust grounds.
He’s the state’s chief legal officer, and you would think that his plate is full given the copious maladies faced by Californians: homelessness, wildfires, taxes that are driving away middle-class residents and small businesses — not to mention the billionaires they’re trying to tax even more.
There’s also the matter of real and actual crime, which makes vast swaths of the state unlivable.
Yet it gets worse.
Aside from 1) his highfalutin notion that a state AG should stop a deal that was approved by the world (the US, EU and UK antitrust cops among the regulatory bodies); and 2) the lighter-than-air legal case he’s mounting that two middling companies combined would have more pricing power than Big Tech expanding into media; there’s 3) Bonta’s contemptuous double standards and public posturing.
I know he’s running for governor someday and wants to make a name for himself, but that doesn’t excuse his hypocrisy.
Let’s start with his palling around with Ruffalo, a capable actor with some odd political views and demonstrated ignorance when it comes to the business of his chosen profession.
Ruffalo has cast himself as a point man for Hollywood opposition to the deal.
He has circulated petitions and prodded regulators to kill the merger on social media in a seemingly endless stream of fulminations about how the combo will destroy competition.
Inspired by the celeb left
Indeed, it seems plausible that Bonta’s case was inspired by Ruffalo’s insipid script, as the AG claims to believe that two weak companies — both of them ravaged by debt, cord cutting, etc. — somehow will provide robust competition for the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
That’s as opposed to a slow walk to extinction (check their share price pre-merger talks).
Don’t believe me?
Consider that on Feb. 27, Ruffalo called for state AGs to kill the deal after it was poised to pass every other regulatory body because “there are lots of agents in Hollywood who can tell you how past mergers and consolidations have hurt their clients and business,” he wrote on X.
Just hours later, Bonta chimed in, “Mark, I hear you. I’m in conversation with my AG colleagues about Paramount/Warner Bros. . . . California has a special interest in protecting competition.”
A few months later, Bonta filed his lawsuit demanding insane “structural” changes to the deal or else.
Pretty thin case, according to every antitrust lawyer I speak to. Meanwhile, “Hollywood agents” are maybe the most myopic businesspeople on the planet, with zero insight into antitrust laws.
They’re always on the lookout for the next quick payday, and of course they don’t like facing a more robust negotiating partner. In the long run, they don’t care what happens to either company.
Again, Bonta’s willful ignorance of the above can almost be forgiven.
He is, after all, a craven California politician looking for free publicity and presumably a conduit to campaign contributions from lefty actors and Big Tech (the sector that benefits the most if this merger gets scrapped).
What shouldn’t be ignored is what Ruffalo said next — namely, his incendiary allegation that the deal will make the Ellison family stronger so it can promote Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
True, such sentiment is commonplace on the loony left, which is always looking for oppressors while defending the oppressed, even if the latter happen to be bloodthirsty terrorists.
Ruffalo has since said he isn’t a Jew hater.
(His rep didn’t answer a request for comment.)
Still, that doesn’t make connecting Larry Ellison and his son, Paramount CEO David Ellison, who are Jewish, with “genocide” and “an apartheid system of oppression” any less noxious. It also doesn’t make Bonta’s silence on the matter any less disgusting.
Ruffalo believes the Israeli war machine is being “powered” by Oracle, the company Larry founded. Israel’s defense after the largest mass slaughter of Jews on Oct. 7, 2023, is both “oppression” and “genocide.” All this from the man you can guess inspired Bonta’s lawsuit.
I’ve asked Bonta for comment and haven’t heard back. Maybe he’s too busy clamping down on “leaks,” or spending his time on TV giving softball interviews.
Either way, for all of his mouthing off, California’s AG should be held most accountable for his silence.