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John Malone, the cable pioneer, iconic investor, David Zaslav mentor and major shareholder of Warner Bros. Discovery said crippling debt plagued the conglom post-merger but it’s slowly starting to see some light. At an event in New York, he opined on the recent election, what he thinks the incoming administration’s top priorities should be, and media M&A — and also expressed a wish to know more about Elon Musk‘s mind.
“Unfortunately, Warner Bros. Discovery got in with a lot of leverage when they combined and so they had to struggle a little bit, using a lot of their energy to drive down their debt,” he said during a Q&A at the Paley International Summit in midtown. The Liberty Media chairman rarely appears in public but has been a fixture at this event, interviewed by his colleague Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global.
They appeared virtually from, respectively, Denver and London. The two have an easy relationship and questions veered to the personal. Fries asked, “Is there anything you want to learn more about next year, something you want to dig deeper into, understand better?”
“How Elon Musk’s brain works,” Malone answered.
“That could take some time,” Fries responded.
The Tesla billionaire and owner of X, formerly Twitter, has been ubiquitous throughout the presidential campaign supporting president elect Donald Trump, attending rallies and offering $1 million giveaways to voters in swing states.
On WBD, Malone said, “I do believe now they’re starting to experience what the original theory was — “to take underexploited Warner Bros. programming content, library content, create a brand, and distribute it globally.” Discovery has large global footprint, and Max is in the midst of an aggressive global expansion.
In a lightening round Malone was asked rapid fire what stocks he likes.
He’s a buyer of Comcast, Charter, AT&T and all the big tech companies. On Paramount, he said, “Larry Ellison is one of the smartest guys on the planet so I might speculatively own some.” David Ellison’s Skydance is acquiring Paramount a deal expected to close in 2025. He’s neutral on Disney, which “still has problems to solve.” Netflix stock is “probably a little overpriced in the market so I wouldn’t be an owner of it, but I respect the hell out of it.”
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