Overview
- On Friday Mark Ruffalo reposted a clip of Oracle executive Safra Catz and accused Larry and David Ellison of being complicit in a “genocide” as part of his campaign against the $111 billion Paramount Skydance bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
- The circulated clip quotes Catz saying Oracle provided technology to assist the Israeli military and that the company had built “really profoundly scary technology,” a line Ruffalo used to warn about tech merging with media power.
- Paramount issued a public statement condemning Ruffalo’s language as invoking antisemitic tropes and saying terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” applied to a corporate deal were “a bridge too far.”
- The deal remains under coordinated legal challenge by roughly a dozen state attorneys general, and opponents have amplified reporting that the combined company could eliminate about 4,500 film and TV jobs in Los Angeles County over several years.
- The episode intensifies a broader debate over whether anti‑merger activism is valid scrutiny of tech and media concentration or crosses into prejudice, a dispute that may affect public sentiment and the legal path of the merger.