Jared Kushner has resurfaced as an unexpected name in the middle of one of Hollywood’s most consequential takeover fights. Paramount’s bold, all-cash $108 billion hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), announced Monday, lists Kushner’s fully owned private equity firm, Affinity Partners, as one of four outside financing partners helping back the offer—alongside the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar.
Axios first reported the involvement of Saudi and Gulf investment.
That detail appears deep inside Paramount’s tender offer documents. In the filing, Paramount identifies “the Public Investment Fund (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), L’imad Holding Company PJSC (Abu Dhabi), Qatar Investment Authority (Qatar), and Affinity Partners (Jared Kushner)” as investors who would, if the transaction succeeds, receive nonvoting equity and give up governance rights—including any board representation.
Paramount also argues that because these investors are structured without governance rights, “the Transaction will not be within CFIUS’s jurisdiction,” referring to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Reports have suggested WBD’s board preferred Netflix’s deal partly because it did not involve foreign financing and therefore would avoid CFIUS-related complications—an often opaque, high-stakes government process that can derail politically sensitive mergers.
For now, the bidding environment still looks fluid. Both Paramount and Netflix appear positioned to raise their offers. Paramount CEO David Ellison said on CNBC that he told Warner Bros. chief David Zaslav that $30 per share was not Paramount’s best and final bid.
Kushner’s Middle Eastern Connections
Kushner’s presence in the financing package fits a larger pattern. Since leaving government, his firm has raised billions from Gulf investors and joined major transactions fueled by capital from the same region. In September, his firm teamed up with Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in a $55 billion agreement to take Electronic Arts private—described as the largest private-equity buyout in history.
Wall Street Journal reporting shows Kushner helped connect Silver Lake with PIF leadership earlier this year as talks around the EA buyout accelerated. Affinity Partners ultimately took an approximately 5% stake in the deal, alongside Silver Lake and PIF, which provided most of the equity financing. That deal was a milestone for Kushner’s fund: a major global technology buyout at massive scale, supported by the same Gulf investors now appearing in Paramount’s WBD financing structure.
Kushner has also remained engaged in Middle East diplomacy, not only finance. He played a meaningful role in the administration’s recent Israel-Gaza peace effort, brought in because of his work on the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term, which helped establish diplomatic ties between Israel and multiple Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been advertising its increased openness to Western business. Barclays highlighted that shift in late October at the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh when it confirmed plans to relocate its regional headquarters there. At the same forum, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid A. Al-Falih pointed to progress under Vision 2030, the kingdom’s roughly nine-year-old economic transformation plan, and called 2025 a “pivotal moment,” arguing global business foundations are being reshaped in real time.
A Deal With Political Gravity
Over the weekend, the fight picked up a sharper political edge when President Donald Trump publicly weighed in on Netflix’s agreement to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming assets. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump said the Netflix–WBD deal “could be a problem” due to the combined businesses’ market share, and suggested he expects to be involved in the review process.
He also confirmed he met with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos in the Oval Office shortly before Netflix announced the deal, and said Sarandos offered “no guarantees” about the transaction.
Trump did not confirm Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw’s reporting, which said Sarandos has been wooing Trump since late November, including a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Still, Trump signaled familiarity and warmth, calling Sarandos a “fantastic man” and crediting him with helping build Netflix into a powerhouse. Netflix executives, for their part, expressed confidence in regulatory approval during Friday’s analyst call, describing a deal valued at $72 billion in equity and about $83 billion including assumed debt.
The Political Plot Thickens
The personalities and affiliations involved only add to the political undertones. Paramount was recently acquired by David Ellison, the son of longtime Republican donor Larry Ellison—whom Trump tapped as one of several U.S. billionaires to take control of TikTok’s U.S. assets. (Shaw also reported that Sarandos had been interested in the Paramount studio before Ellison bought it.) Sarandos, meanwhile, is married to Nicole Avant, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas during the Obama administration. Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings is a prominent Democratic donor, though he has shifted into a nonexecutive chair role and has been focusing on his Powder Mountain resort in Utah, which he acquired shortly after Fortune published an article about the resort in 2023.
Paramount, in its filing, insists its bid carries fewer regulatory risks than Netflix’s. It argues the Netflix agreement faces significant antitrust hurdles and could require a long review timeline. Paramount also emphasizes that its outside funding is nonvoting and therefore does not trigger CFIUS review—removing one more layer of national-security scrutiny.
Trump’s stance toward Paramount has been less consistent. Roughly 20 minutes after Paramount launched its hostile offer, Trump criticized Paramount management over a 60 Minutes segment featuring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, writing on Truth Social that it was “NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP.” He added: “Since they [Paramount] bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!” CBS News and 60 Minutes have long maintained editorial independence from corporate ownership. Paramount previously settled a lawsuit brought by Trump over a 60 Minutes episode during the 2024 election, paying $16 million in July 2025—shortly before Ellison’s takeover secured regulatory approval.
On Monday, Larry Ellison told CNBC that he has had “great conversations” with Trump about the WBD bid, without offering details.
Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, responded on X after Ellison’s remarks by arguing that “the correct option is neither Paramount nor Netflix buy Warner.”
“The president inserting himself in the deal is obviously problematic, regardless of the parties involved,” Hegde said.
