Sometimes corporate drama comes down to read receipts. Paramount Skydance (PSKY), led by David Ellison, launched a hostile $108.4 billion bid for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) on Monday after what can only be described as being ghosted. A regulatory filing revealed that the HBO owner's radio silence—not strategic disagreement, just literal non-response—pushed Paramount to go public with its offer.
Here's what happened: Paramount made six proposals over twelve weeks, each one sweeter than the last, ultimately landing on a fully financed $30 per share offer. Warner Bros Discovery's response? Crickets. Instead, the company committed to what Paramount diplomatically called "an obviously financially inferior transaction with extraordinary regulatory risk and a longer timeline to a possible closing"—that would be Netflix's (NFLX) $82.7 billion bid announced last Friday.
The timeline reads like a slow-motion rejection. It started back in 2023 and 2024 when Paramount Global and Warner Bros held periodic merger talks that went nowhere. Fast forward to July 2024, and Paramount Global merged with Skydance, completing the deal by August 2025. Warner Bros, meanwhile, announced plans in June 2025 to separate its cable networks by mid-2026.
Six Swings, Six Misses
Between September 11 and 22, Paramount pursued Warner Bros with an initial $19 per share offer. Rejected. From September 27 to October 8, they revised it to $22 per share with 66.7% cash and offered co-CEO and co-Chair roles. Also rejected. Between October 9 and 13, another offer at $23.50 per share got turned down, and Warner Bros launched a multi-round sale process instead.
Paramount kept trying. Between November 20 and 24, they submitted a $25.50 per share offer and held discussions on key terms. From November 24 to December 1, they went all-in with a $26.50 per share all-cash offer, fully backstopped with a $5 billion regulatory reverse termination fee.
The Unanswered Call
Then came December 3 and 4, when Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav raised concerns about Paramount's equity financing and non-U.S. investors. Paramount responded by submitting a $30 per share all-cash offer. Ellison texted Zaslav: "Just tried calling you about new bid we have submitted. I heard you on all your concerns and believe we have addressed them in our new proposal. Please give me a call back when you can to discuss in detail."
No response came, even after a follow-up. On December 5, Netflix and Warner Bros announced their $82.7 billion merger. Three days later, on December 8, Ellison's Paramount launched its hostile bid—$18 billion higher than Netflix's offer.
The question now is whether Warner Bros shareholders will appreciate being left on read when there was apparently $18 billion more on the table.
