CBS News journalists are anxious about the network's future under its new owner, Paramount Skydance, as the acquisition heralds far more than a simple change of management.

After a promising introduction from CEO David Ellison, the newsroom has been left without direct communication, and apprehension has intensified with reports that Bari Weiss, a prominent mainstream media critic, will be hired as editor-in-chief and that the company acquired her online publication, The Free Press, for $150 million.

This is one part of a series of recent moves to build a media empire with his Silicon Valley tycoon father, David Ellison has negotiated or gained approval for pivotal deals through President Donald Trump and his appointees, thereby assembling an unprecedented array of old and new media assets, according to The Washington Post.

Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old co-founder and chairman of Oracle, who is the second-richest person in the world, is set through his company to own a piece of the US spin-off of TikTok, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. His son, David Ellison, made blockbusters including "Top Gun: Maverick" at his Hollywood company Skydance before merging it with Paramount this summer and taking control of CBS and its other TV and movie franchises, a deal financially backed by his father.

Father and son in control of US business, culture

The disruption at CBS News this week heralds the arrival of a vast father-son enterprise that spans Hollywood and television and will soon include a chunk of a massively popular social app, an expansion of their staggering wealth and holdings that could shape the future of US business and culture.

In a media world accustomed to ruling dynasties, the Ellisons stand out for their immense wealth and the vast scope of the audience they now reach, with Larry Ellison's personal fortune of $345 billion being more than thirty times that of Rupert Murdoch.

The TikTok and Free Press deals provide the Ellisons with an online media foothold that has eluded the Murdoch family, and by uniting Paramount's audience with TikTok's data-centric model, they could forge a new interdisciplinary model for the media business, Professor Anthony Palomba told The Washington Post.

“You have a son who is going into media, a father who is close to Trump and acquiring the most addictive social platform we’ve ever seen,” Palomba said, noting, “These are very smart people, and none of this is accidental.”