Could a major deal between David Ellison’s Skydance and Elon Musk’s SpaceX be brewing?
The media mogul John Malone thinks so.
Speaking at the Paley Center International Council Summit Wednesday with Liberty Global chief John Fries, Malone predicted that Musk and Ellison would cut some sort of deal to help the media company delever while also giving Musk’s company access to content or other assets.
“I think there’s a deal coming there,” Malone said, citing an eyebrow-raisingly specific $8-$10 billion investment figure. “I predict, big prediction, that you’ll see a global output deal for Skydance with SpaceX, and an investment by SpaceX into Skydance, to delever Skydance and take a little bit of the burden off David Ellison’s shoulders, because he’s taking on a pretty big pile of debt.”
What exactly SpaceX would get in that deal is less obvious, though Malone, who was the architect of the Warner Bros. Discovery deal alongside David Zaslav, noted that Musk and David Ellison’s father Larry Ellison “are very intertwined.”
“Who helped Elon finance Twitter when he bought it? Larry Ellison,” Malone said. “How did Larry Ellison come up with some of the money to put into the creation of Skydance? Tesla stock. And I would not doubt for a minute that before very long you’re gonna see an announcement.”
SpaceX is seeking to expand its Starlink internet service, and has been buying broadcast spectrum. Perhaps CBS, which owns a slew of local stations (including in many markets where it owns multiple stations), could be willing to sell some of that spectrum. SpaceX also owns X (formerly Twitter) which has a real advertising business, and could be part of any tie-up.
Malone knows a thing or two about media and telecom dealmaking, given his friendships and battles with the likes of Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller and many others, as he recounted in an excerpt from his memoir in THR.
It has been rumored that Musk could invest in Skydance as part of Ellison and RedBird’s effort to syndicate equity in the company, though a formal SpaceX tie-up would take things a step further.