LOS ANGELES – Paramount is weighing a move out of California, and taking its $30 billion annual content budget with it, if state Attorney General Rob Bonta follows through on his threat to sue and block the studio’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
Paramount chief executive David Ellison and his advisers have discussed relocating the company’s headquarters to Bayonne, New Jersey – where the company leased 300,000 square feet of studio space last year – or to Texas, where Chevron, Oracle, and Tesla have already moved after friction with California regulators. The discussions are ongoing and no final decisions have been made.
Ellison is personally resistant to the idea. He moved Paramount’s headquarters from New York to Los Angeles after his initial acquisition of the company closed, and has spent most of his adult life in California. People close to him have pushed him to treat relocation as a live option, and that push has not stopped.
Paramount has proposed an extensive consent decree to address Bonta’s antitrust concerns. The offer includes 30 films produced annually, a 45-day theatrical window before streaming, a 90-day streaming window after theatrical release, both the Paramount and Warner studio lots kept operational in California, and a minimum of $30 billion in annual content spending. More than 50,000 jobs fall within the scope of the commitment. Bonta has declined to engage with the proposals.
The attorney general told reporters he saw “red flags in the air everywhere” and expressed concern about “job loss and prices being increased.” Paramount’s statement called its ongoing engagement with remaining regulators constructive. “We continue to engage constructively with the remaining few regulators,” the company said, “and are prepared to address any legitimate antitrust issues.” The two public positions have not converged.
Whether the relocation threat is a negotiating posture or a genuine operational plan is a question Paramount itself may not have answered internally. Semafor, which first reported the deliberations, noted that advisers have framed the discussions as keeping the option on the table rather than committing to a move. Ellison has resisted being pushed publicly.
California is among the last significant domestic obstacles in what has otherwise been a smooth regulatory run for the $110 billion merger. Paramount exited its United International Pictures venture with Universal to satisfy European Union regulators, but dozens of antitrust authorities globally have approved the deal without raising concerns. Only California and Washington remain as potential blocking forces in the United States.
The broader pattern of California corporate departures offers a template for how such a move would unfold. Oracle announced its Texas move in 2020. Tesla followed in late 2021. Chevron relocated its corporate headquarters to San Ramon and accelerated separation from California operations. None of those decisions happened overnight, and each involved a mix of regulatory friction and the state’s persistent structural cost disadvantages.
The combined studio and streaming entity that the Paramount-Warner merger would create has a range far beyond either company alone – Paramount+, HBO Max, Warner Bros. theatrical, Paramount Pictures, and the Warner television library among them. California and New York led a multi-state coalition earlier this year preparing to block the merger on antitrust grounds, a coalition that has since lost momentum as global approvals accumulated.
What happens next depends on whether Bonta files suit. If he does not, Paramount’s relocation deliberations become moot and the merger closes. If he does, Ellison faces a decision that runs against his instincts and against the advice of those around him who believe the threat should remain leverage rather than action. A headquarters move out of California would not necessarily change studio lot operations – both lots would remain under the proposed consent decree – but it would relocate the administrative center of one of Hollywood’s oldest studios out of the state that defined the industry. That gap, between threat and act, is where this negotiation currently sits.
