Ellison spoke with CBS journalists on his first day, acknowledging the stresses of the past year and touting the importance of “fact-based journalism,” a person in attendance said.

David Ellison’s Skydance Media has closed its $8 billion merger with Paramount Global to create new company Paramount Skydance Corp.

On the first day as the new owner of Paramount, CEO David Ellison insisted that Skydance was “not involved” in the Donald-Trump Paramount settlement, but deflected questions about a potential Skydance side deal made with Trump to run PSAs.