The Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount Skydance's plan to sell large equity stakes to sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Under US law, companies with broadcast licenses need FCC approval for direct or indirect foreign ownership exceeding 25 percent. Paramount says its indirect foreign ownership will reach 49.5 percent after investments from the sovereign wealth funds and filed a petition asking the FCC to waive the foreign ownership limit. Paramount, the owner of CBS, holds FCC licenses for the 28 local CBS stations it owns and operates.

Paramount is buying Warner Bros. Discovery in a $111 billion deal partially financed with foreign investment but hasn't completed the acquisition because US states filed a lawsuit to block the merger. Trump's Department of Justice approved the merger. The FCC is letting Paramount sell indirect ownership stakes to "some of the most repressive governments in the world," FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, said. "An investment this large in one of America's biggest media companies doesn't just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and what gets made."

The Paramount/Warner deal would combine two of the largest movie studios, merge Paramount+ with HBO Max, and give Paramount ownership of CNN and other TV channels. "The funds plan to invest $24 billion in the Paramount/Warner deal," the Los Angeles Times wrote. "Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is set to contribute $10 billion, while the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi's L'imad Holding Co. will separately add $7 billion."

Although the Trump FCC has taken a hard stance against foreign-made equipment, it said in an order that granting Paramount's request is in the public interest. "Paramount asserts that... its 'new foreign investors, which will receive only non-voting equity, will not have any ability to influence the company's editorial decision-making or news or entertainment content or to access its viewers' personal data,'" the FCC said. The Ellison family and Red Bird Capital Partners will continue to own 100 percent of Paramount's Class A voting shares, while the foreign investors will hold Class B non-voting shares. The FCC approved Paramount's petition in a declaratory ruling issued by the Media Bureau. FCC commissioners did not vote on the item. Gomez said she "called for this new and novel issue to go to a full commission vote given what's at stake. Instead, the FCC snuck this ruling out as a staff-level decision, with no public vote and no accountability for a call of this magnitude."

Senate Democrats said in a May letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that "the foreign governments behind this investment systematically suppress press freedom in their own countries and have made a series of investments and gifts to entities controlled by the president and his family, raising serious concerns about their influence over the independent American media and the potential for corruption." But the approval has been expected since Carr in March said, "I think this is a good deal, and I think it should get through pretty quickly." The FCC said its order "permit[s] up to 100 percent indirect foreign equity interest of Paramount, in the aggregate." While Paramount said it expects 49.5 percent of shares to be owned by foreign investors based on its current deals, it told the FCC the number could change "in light of routine fluctuations in publicly held equity interests and to account for potential future investments."