John Oliver calls David Ellison his 'soon-to-be business daddy'
John Oliver has a new nickname for his possible future boss: “soon-to-be business daddy.”
The joke aired on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, in an edition reported on Sept. 21. Oliver was referring to David Ellison, chief executive of Paramount Skydance, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Why the new title? Paramount Skydance is seeking regulatory approval, meaning it needs sign-off from government regulators, to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company, meaning the owner, of HBO. A sale would put Oliver’s show under Ellison.
Oliver then added a twist. “My soon-to-be business daddy has a literal business daddy,” he said, as a photo of David Ellison with his father Larry Ellison appeared on screen.
Larry Ellison is the billionaire owner of software company Oracle and the father of David Ellison. He has agreed to personally backstop $40.4 billion in equity financing, meaning money pledged to fund the purchase, connected to the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal.
The Ellison jokes came inside a very different story. The main segment examined UnitedHealthcare’s record of denying customers health care.
Oliver cited the case of a cancer patient whose parents paid $95,000 out of pocket for treatment after denials. He also noted that Luigi Mangione is due to be sentenced in December for killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
That set up the punchline. “Having access to wealthy parents just cannot be the system to get badly needed healthcare, even if it is apparently the system that lets you be in charge of HBO,” Oliver said while a photo of David Ellison was shown.
It got a laugh. Oliver then turned back to his potential owner.
“I deeply respect that and I would never make fun of you for it, unlike that pesky Stephen Colbert,” he said.
What makes this stand out is the target. Oliver criticised the health insurer, then openly mocked the man who could soon control the channel that airs his show.
