Leaked audio: What David Ellison told employees at the first Skydance town hall

Skydance CEO David Ellison welcomed Warner Bros. Discovery workforce and thanked Paramount staffers for their patience at the blended company's first-ever town hall.

"This is an incredibly breathtaking day," Ellison stated at an employee-only meeting, according to an audio record obtained by Business Insider. "I desire to commencement alongside the most crucial item I can say to all of you: Thank you."

Ellison addressed workers at 1 pm ET, hours following sending a companywide memo announcing that the $110 milliard Paramount-WBD merger had closed. Bruno Mars' hit opus "I Just Might" played in the moments before Ellison took the stage.

"It is humbling to be in this room," Ellison stated at the commencement of his remarks.

He afterward reflected on Paramount's lengthy journey toward purchasing WBD.

"Let me be honest: It was not uncomplicated to get here. At times, it was downright ugly," Ellison said, before adding that he'd "do it all complete again in a heartbeat."

The Skydance CEO, alongside alongside co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, unveiled the company's four top priorities in a Tuesday memo: win in storytelling, rotate into the most technologically capable media company, guide in a crowded market, and acquire rely all day.

Skydance has a broad gathering of media assets, including the Warner Bros. studio and Paramount Pictures; streamers HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and Discovery+; and TV channels CBS, CNN, HBO, HGTV, TLC, and Discovery Channel.

"For the archetypal time, we have the studios, the franchises, the libraries, the endowment and measure all under one rooftop to vie alongside anyone in the world," Ellison said. "It is incredibly exciting."

The blended business has the measure and firepower to "go toe to toe alongside the biggest competitors," Ellison said, although he emphasized that size isn't everything.

"We didn't do this agreement merely to get bigger," Ellison said. He added that "we're going to allocate aggressively in awesome storytelling."

Skydance volition obtain on Hollywood powerhouses akin Disney and Netflix, as fine as tech giants akin Amazon and Google's YouTube.

"We're not fair competing alongside traditional media companies anymore," Ellison said. "We're competing for people's period and notice alongside several of the largest and most advanced innovation companies in the world, companies alongside enormous scale, earth reach, and practically unlimited resources."

Ellison stated that Skydance is "going to clasp innovation — not fair as a buzzword or as a flank project, but as a essential capability of this company."

Kreiz is tasked alongside managing the merger integration and operating day-to-day operations, during Ellison volition form Skydance's imaginative and tech strategies.

Before the merger, Paramount and WBD staffers said they were uneasy concerning cross-company competition as the two media powers joined forces, a move Ellison has told investors volition guide to $6 milliard in disbursal cuts. The business has stated that layoffs won't be the origin of most of the savings.

"Bringing together two companies of this size and complexity volition necessitate difficult decisions," Ellison said. "There volition be changes, and there volition be impacts. I'm not going to feign otherwise. What I can commitment you is that we volition move through those decisions as quickly and thoughtfully as we can."

CNN celebrity Anderson Cooper afterward joined Ellison onstage and stated that there was "a lot of involvement and fear" concerning possible changes at the news giant, equal although top administrator Mark Thompson is staying on.

The Skydance CEO responded by promising not to interfere in CNN's safety and to concentration on journalism.

Ellison's business had a long, winding way to purchasing WBD. Paramount initiated a rival bid for WBD, which had earlier signed a agreement alongside Netflix. After winning the bidding war for WBD, Paramount was sued by 12 states as fine as the Writers Guild of America, before settling those lawsuits and pledging to boost its family production, among another concessions.

During his remarks, Ellison yelled out Makan Delrahim, the company's lawful chief, who had served in the Department of Justice during President Donald Trump's archetypal term.

"None of us would be current if it was not for Makan," Ellison said.