Billionaires Are Taking Over Media

Now is the time to support independent voices, and utilize the new tools at hand to stay informed

There is a reason every authoritarian movement in history has targeted the press first: if you can control the narrative, you can control the people. And right now, billionaires are buying up America’s media landscape at a pace we have never seen before. This isn’t about “innovation,” “efficiency,” or “saving journalism.” It is about power—raw, concentrated power—over the flow of information that shapes our politics, our understanding of the world, and our democratic future. Let’s Address This.

Credit: Democracy Labs

Consider what has already happened to date.

• A billionaire owns The Washington Post.

• A billionaire owns The New York Post.

• A billionaire owns the Wall Street Journal.

• A billionaire owns The Los Angeles Times.

• A billionaire owns Meta—Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp—the largest information distributors on Earth.

• A billionaire owns Twitter/X—where political narratives now rise or fall by the algorithmic whim of one man.

• And now, billionaire Larry Ellison—one of the richest people alive—has bought Paramount, giving him control of CBS. He is now openly trying to buy Warner Bros. as well.

This is not normal. This is not benign. This is not safe.

Follow the Money—and the Motives

Ellison’s attempted takeover of Warner Bros. should set off alarms for anyone who cares about democracy. Paramount’s financing for the bid includes Jared Kushner’s investment firm and significant Middle Eastern funds, likely tied to the Saudi government. We must ask the only reasonable question: Why is the Saudi government interested in acquiring influence over American media?

We don’t actually need an answer, because whatever the answer is, it isn’t for something that is in the interest of the American people. And that’s enough to tell us it’s a bad idea. Saudi leadership has a clear documented history of targeting journalists—including the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. To allow foreign autocratic governments and U.S. billionaires to jointly influence domestic narratives is not a small matter.

Meanwhile, despite laying off 2,000 workers and claiming financial instability, Paramount now has more than $100 billion in “available cash” to build a monopoly capable of swallowing competing networks whole. Ask yourself: in what world does a company that claims it cannot afford workers suddenly conjure $100 billion to consolidate power?

The answer is simple: this was never about protecting journalism. This is about capturing the public square. Billionaires did not accumulate extreme wealth through a generosity of spirit toward working people. They became billionaires by extracting value, suppressing wages, avoiding taxation, influencing regulation, and ensuring the system works for them—and not for you.

Handing them control of our media gives them something far more valuable than money: the ability to shape public perception, rewrite reality, steer elections, silence critics, and normalize their political and economic agendas.

Because if they control what you hear, they can control what you believe. And if they control what you believe, they can control how you vote, or whether we get the right to vote. That is the endgame. And it is critical we work that much harder to stay informed.

So How Do We Stay Informed?

I welcome the 155,000+ remarkable people who have subscribed to Let’s Address This. Our articles are being read by more than 2 million people monthly, and our platform continues to grow. If you’re thinking about subscribing, now is an excellent time.

Now obviously I am one person and cannot possibly report on all the critical stories that exist. So, while encouraging you to continue to subscribe here, write to me with your questions, and share my content—I also want to arm you with the tools needed to stay informed. I rely on tools and resources designed to verify and cross-check the sources I cite, so when you read a fact cited in one of my articles, it is backed by verifiable data. How do I make that determination?

One of the most valuable tools I use is Ground News, which helps me provide the trustworthy analysis you expect and deserve. The problem is that up until now, there has not been an easy way to discern who owns a media platform, which headline is accurate, which is misleading, or which is simply false. Ground News empowers you to see the bigger picture and make informed decisions. Here’s how it works.

In any given story, Ground News does three things really no one else does:

1. First, they gather related articles globally in one place so you can compare coverage and see what details are emphasized, exaggerated, or left out entirely.

2. Next, they provide context about the source of the information—like whether they have a political bias, the factuality of their reporting, and who owns them.

3. Finally, they cut through partisanship, sensationalism, the lack of transparency, editorial bias, and instead focus on facts and context.

The end result is that you know Ground News has given you the tools to help you form your own opinions and decisions. It is subscriber supported so by subscribing, you directly support my newsletter and contribute to keeping the media transparent.

Conclusion

Billionaires keep buying media outlets, and it’s skewing the reliability and accuracy of the information we receive. This is why I take the time to fact check everything I research and write, and why I’m grateful to each of you for subscribing and supporting my advocacy. The fact that more than 2 million people read Let’s Address This every month is mindblowing, and something I deeply cherish.

My goal is for us to take control of what’s happening in our country and world, and that starts by ensuring we have accurate information. Your investment in independent media and in tools like Ground News help us all become better empowered to understand the world around us. We need not be hopeless, we need to channel our rage into action. Let’s get to work.