Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, has recently been contending with Elon Musk for the title of world’s richest man. Both have wealth in the neighborhood of $350-400 billion. I mean, really, who cares? I can think of so many ways they could do something good for others with all that moola-boola, but no! They are on a power trip. Instead of feeding hungry children or endowing a hospital or funding wells in African villages, they buy self-aggrandizing toys.

Elon Musk wants to build a rocket to Mars and control the world’s satellite communications systems.

Larry Ellison bought CBS. He’s a friend of Donald Trump. CBS cancelled Stephen Colbert’s show. Colbert ridicules Trump. His show will be on the air until May so he has months in which to make jokes about Trump.

But CBS was not enough now Ellison wants to buy CNN and HBO. In its headline, the New York Times calls Ellison “the Billionaire Trump Supporter Who Wants to Own the News.”

William D. Cohan writes:

Larry Ellison is already a major stakeholder in CBS and Paramount. Now CNN, HBO and a major share of TikTok are in his sights. If all goes as anticipated, this tech billionaire, already one of the richest men in the world and a founder of Oracle, is poised, at 81, to become one of the most powerful media and entertainment moguls America has ever seen.

For the rest of us, the effect of Mr. Ellison’s gambit could be every bit as consequential, if not more so, than what happened a generation ago when Rupert Murdoch brought his brand of Down Under snark and cynicism to create what has become Fox News, intensifying our political polarization.

Mr. Ellison’s expected incursion into Hollywood and Big Media, if successful, could also go well beyond what other tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff have attempted through their acquisitions of The Washington Post and Time magazine, respectively. For those men, the acquisitions were more like expensive hobbies.

Mr. Ellison is up to something very different: transforming himself into a media magnate. Along with his son, David, he could soon end up controlling a powerful social media platform, an iconic Hollywood movie studio and one of the largest content streaming services, as well as two of the country’s largest news organizations. Given Mr. Ellison’s friendship with, and affinity for, Donald Trump, an increasingly emboldened president could be getting an extraordinarily powerful media ally — in other words, the very last thing our country needs right now.

This consolidation of the news media is not good for democracy. What will freedom of the press mean if billionaires control the news?

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