Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, July 31st.

Today on Forbes, how the world's second richest person and his son pulled off the $8 billion

dollar Paramount deal.

The Federal Communications Commission green lit the $8 billion merger between Paramount

and Skydance Media last week,

383 days after the deal was first announced.

The merger, which is set to close on August 7th, will transform Larry Ellison, who is 80 years old,

and his son David Ellison, who is 42, into one of the most powerful duos in Hollywood, wielding influence

over TV shows, movies, news, and more.

As Paramount's chairman, CEO, and owner of 50% of its voting rights, David Ellison will oversee

an entertainment empire with more than 1,200 film titles, including everything from Top Gun Maverick

to a remake of It's a Wonderful Life, plus distribution rights to another 2,400 films.

Other crown jewels include popular channels, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and CBS News.

But it's his father who controls the purse strings and owns the equity,

according to regulatory filings. The elder Ellison may have helped get the deal over the hump

in other ways, too. The merger was approved only after some key concessions from both parties.

Paramount agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to be used

for his future presidential library in July to resolve a lawsuit over 60 minutes' edit of a

2024 interview of Kamala Harris. A couple of weeks later, CBS said it would end Trump

critic Stephen Colbert's late-night show next May, citing cost overruns.

Ellison Skydance, meanwhile, had to make written commitments promising that the company's programming

would embody, quote, a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum,

...