Ellison and Kreiz Name Skydance Leadership Team a Day Before Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Deal Closes

Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz on Monday announced the CEO Leadership Team expected to run the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery company, which will take the name Skydance, according to a joint announcement distributed via PR Newswire. The reveal came a day ahead of the transaction's anticipated close on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, as reported by Wrestlezone and Variety.

The New Org Chart

Under the structure the companies outlined, every named executive reports directly to Ellison and Kreiz, who drew the team from both Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, per CNBC and Deadline. Ellison will concentrate on long-term strategy, creative direction, talent relationships, partnerships, technology and capital allocation, while Kreiz takes charge of day-to-day management and integration of the combined business, the companies said in the release. Andy Gordon, Paramount's current chief strategy and chief operating officer and a former RedBird Capital Partners partner, becomes president of Skydance and will work with both CEOs on strategic priorities. Ellison, Kreiz and Gordon will all sit on the board, with Ellison as chairman.

Casey Bloys, currently chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content at WBD, becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance DTC, overseeing the combined HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming businesses, according to the official announcement. George Cheeks, formerly a Paramount co-CEO and chair of TV media, becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance TV, a remit that spans three television studios, the company's global sports group, the CBS Television Network, 27 local stations and more than 50 cable networks including HGTV, Food Network, TBS, TNT, Discovery, BET, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, per the release.

JB Perrette, most recently CEO and president of global streaming and games at WBD, becomes co-chair and chief business officer of both Skydance TV and Skydance DTC, taking oversight of global distribution, advertising sales, content sales, DTC strategy and marketing while Bloys and Cheeks concentrate on content, the Hollywood Reporter and the official announcement both note. On the film side, Paramount executives Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein become co-chairs of the Skydance Motion Picture Group, overseeing Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and the wider film slate, Screen Daily and Deadline reported. James Gunn and Peter Safran will continue as co-heads of DC Studios, according to Variety and Deadline.

The corporate leadership slate named in the release includes Dennis Cinelli as chief financial officer, Makan Delrahim as chief legal officer and president of global corporate affairs, Dane Glasgow as chief product officer, Rebecca Mall as chief marketing officer and Melissa Zukerman as chief communications officer. The companies said a complete list of the broader executive leadership team will be issued soon after close, meaning further appointments, and possibly further departures, are still pending.

Who Isn't Making the Cut

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are not joining the new company, Deadline reported, with their last day falling on Tuesday, the day the merger is set to officially close. Screen Daily had separately reported that De Luca and Abdy, the Warner Bros. counterparts to Paramount's film chiefs, would not be joining the combined entity.

Closing Mechanics

The deal is expected to close Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, according to Variety and Wrestlezone. Alongside the close, the company plans to move its Class B common stock from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, with trading beginning that day under a new ticker, SKYD, replacing PSKY, Variety reported. The company also intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to formally rename itself Skydance Corporation, Variety reported.

CNN, CBS News and the Weiss Question

Sir Mark Thompson will remain chairman and editor-in-chief of CNN Worldwide, overseeing the business in the U.S. and globally, according to the official leadership announcement and CNBC. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Thompson told CNN staff on Monday he and Ellison had come to terms on a new deal keeping him in charge of the network, telling staff he now had "real confidence" that the incoming owners "understand and will fully support the principle and practice of the kind of independent news that CNN has always stood for," per the Hollywood Reporter's account of his remarks.

Bari Weiss remains editor-in-chief of CBS News, a role she has held since joining Paramount Skydance in October 2025 when the company acquired The Free Press, the outlet she founded and continues to edit, CNBC and the official announcement confirm. The New York Times reported that Ellison has for now kept CNN separate from Weiss's remit, though that arrangement is subject to change, and noted that Weiss has been accused by several "60 Minutes" correspondents of meddling with their reports, allegations CBS has denied. Before Monday's announcement, Variety reported that CNN personnel had worried Weiss might extend her authority to the cable news network as well.

The New York Times also reported that CNN remains profitable, on track to net $650 million this year, even as its viewership has fallen behind MS NOW, with Fox News ahead of both networks. Separately, the Times noted that Skydance has not yet disclosed the makeup of an independent editorial oversight board it agreed to create as part of a settlement with state attorneys general who had sought to block the merger on antitrust grounds.

Synergy Targets and Debt Load

Deadline reported that Ellison has promised Wall Street $6 billion in cost savings while insisting that most of it will not come from job cuts, a pledge Deadline set against roughly $80 billion in debt that it said will load onto the combined entity along with the hefty interest expense needed to service it. The two figures are far apart: the $6 billion savings target sits $74 billion below the $80 billion debt figure (6 - 80 = -74), or about 92.5% smaller ((6 - 80) / 80 x 100 = -92.5%). That is our arithmetic comparison of the two figures Deadline reported, not an official company projection or a forecast of how either number will move, and it is offered only to illustrate the scale mismatch between the promised savings and the debt load. Deadline said the debt and interest burden is feeding fears of layoffs despite Ellison's assurance that cuts will not be the primary source of savings.

Variety has separately reported that the broader acquisition financing includes about $42.4 billion in bonds, additional new loans, roughly $46.7 billion in equity financing personally guaranteed by Larry Ellison, and about $24 billion in commitments from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, underscoring the scale of capital being marshaled to close the transaction.

Bottom Line

With the leadership roster now public and the Tuesday close date confirmed, the practical test shifts to integration: whether Bloys, Cheeks and Perrette can run overlapping streaming and television businesses without the kind of friction that undercuts the promised savings, and whether Thompson's and Weiss's separately negotiated editorial arrangements hold as the oversight board required by state regulators remains unnamed. A fuller executive leadership team is still to come, and so, by Deadline's accounting, is the harder reckoning between a $6 billion savings target and an $80 billion debt load.