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Mark Ruffalo has fired back at Paramount Skydance after the media company accused him of invoking “antisemitic tropes” in his criticism of its $111bn merger with Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).
The actor, who has long been outspoken against Israel’s military conduct in Gaza and for the rights of Palestinians, shared a statement on social media on Friday in which he highlighted the links between Paramount Skydance, run by CEO David Ellison, and Oracle, the technology company run by Ellison’s father, Larry.
Oracle has supplied software to the Israel Defense Forces, ministry of defense, air force, government and police for decades. Shmulik Hauser, head of Oracle’s sales division, told Ynet last year: “Supporting Israel is in our DNA – even if it costs us clients. That’s our agenda.”
On Friday Ruffalo shared a video of Oracle executive vice-chair, Safra Catz, describing the “really profoundly scary technology” it provided to Israel after the 7 October attack by Hamas in 2023. Above the video, Ruffalo took aim at Larry Ellison, who he accused of “using [Oracle] to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition”.
Larry Ellison, who is worth an estimated $189bn, agreed to personally backstop $40.4bn in equity financing to help Paramount Skydance acquire WBD in a $110.9bn deal.
“These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” Ruffalo wrote. “Look how [Catz] revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Ruffalo urged his followers to oppose the merger, which he argued would be “catastrophic” for the entertainment industry due to job losses and reduced competition.
Though the US department of justice approved the merger in June, it remains on hold while a federal judge considers a lawsuit from a coalition of 12 US states who have challenged the deal on antitrust grounds.
In a rare statement on Saturday, Paramount responded to Ruffalo, saying it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute”.
“Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong – they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe,” Paramount said. “This doesn’t deserve a response in kind – and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
On Saturday, Ruffalo responded to Paramount with a written statement.
“Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people,” Ruffalo wrote. “This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.”
The actor said his views “come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect. Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.”
“This merger has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country,” he added. “Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s business built on data, surveillance technology and government contracts, and the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of a livelihood for thousands of families, is fair and necessary. The $111bn deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public.”
A Paramount spokesperson told NBC that it would make no further comment. The Guardian has contacted Oracle and Catz for comment.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organisation, praised Paramount for “refusing to allow prejudice to masquerade as political or corporate criticism”.
Ruffalo was among thousands of actors and film industry workers who pledged last year not to work with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.
A Paramount-WBD merger would bring together two of the five last legacy studios in Hollywood, as well as a host of TV networks, streaming libraries and news operations. That would include Warner’s HBO Max and CNN coming under the same roof of Paramount-owned CBS and the Paramount+ streaming service.
If the merger does not close by 30 September, it could cost Paramount Skydance around $7m a day in fees it agreed to pay Warner Bros shareholders in the event of a delay.
