Actor Mark Ruffalo escalated his campaign against Paramount’s proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday, tying the deal to Oracle’s support for Israel’s military and drawing an accusation of antisemitism from the studio in return.
Ruffalo, who has spent months opposing the merger, posted a resurfaced video on Instagram showing Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra Catz describing technology the company made available to Israel’s military following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack. “This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition,” Ruffalo wrote, referring to the Oracle founder whose fortune backs much of his son’s bid to combine the two studios. He went on to describe Catz and the Ellisons as “really profoundly scary people” and accused the family of contributing to what he called a genocide in Gaza built on an apartheid system.
Paramount responded with an unusually lengthy statement rather than staying silent. A company spokesperson said Paramount is troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in service of a business dispute, arguing that applying words like genocide and apartheid to a corporate transaction cheapens the suffering those terms are meant to describe. The spokesperson added that the company does not tolerate prejudice of any kind and suggested the moment called for lowering tensions rather than escalating them.
Ruffalo has been among the most visible Hollywood opponents of the merger, testifying against it before a Senate hearing and helping organize an open letter signed by more than 5,000 industry figures, including Jane Fonda, warning the deal would devastate the creative workforce. He cited estimates of roughly 4,500 direct filmmaking jobs and 10,000 ancillary positions at risk should the merger proceed, and argued that combining two of Hollywood’s largest studios would concentrate too much control over film, television and news, including CNN, under one family.
The exchange reflects a broader dispute within the anti-merger campaign over where legitimate antitrust criticism ends and language about Israel begins. Paramount’s chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, alleged in June that some opponents of the deal were motivated by antisemitic views, a claim that intensified after reports of anti-Israel rhetoric at merger-opposition gatherings. Ruffalo has not commented further since Paramount’s statement, and representatives for Ellison have not issued a separate response.
