The battle for Warner Bros. Discovery has exploded into one of the vital consequential media bidding wars in many years, and three individuals — or, extra precisely, two individuals and one terribly rich household — stand to make a large fortune regardless of who finally wins.
For years, John Malone, David Zaslav, and the Newhouse household have been the ability constellation behind Warner Bros. Discovery: Malone as the corporate’s architect and longtime strategic thoughts, Zaslav as its polarizing CEO and highest-paid face, and the Newhouses as its single largest shareholder bloc.
Collectively, they’ve ridden out hovering highs and brutal lows. When Warner Bros. Discovery was spun off from AT&T in 2022, it entered the market with a valuation close to $60 billion. Inside eighteen months, it had misplaced practically two-thirds of its worth. Debt ballooned. The inventory crumbled. Warner was reducing initiatives, shelving completed movies, and navigating strikes that shut down Hollywood. But inside that storm, Zaslav continued incomes compensation packages that routinely topped $40–50 million a yr, sparking shareholder revolts and widespread trade outrage. In the meantime, Malone and the Newhouses watched their stakes erode together with the corporate’s battered market cap.
However fortunes in media can reverse quick — and typically violently.
In early December 2025, Warner Bros. out of the blue turned the centerpiece of an escalating bidding struggle. Netflix stepped in first, agreeing to purchase the studio and streaming belongings for $72 billion, valuing Warner Bros. Discovery shares at $27.75 every. Then, simply three days later, Paramount Skydance detonated the method with a hostile $108 billion all-cash bid for your complete firm, providing $30 per share. Just some months in the past, the inventory value was languishing at round $11 per share. In a single day, a beaten-down inventory surged, and billions of {dollars} in shareholder worth re-materialized out of skinny air.
That surge is not simply reviving Warner Bros. It is reviving the worth of the individuals who have been tied to it for many years. LAnd nobody stands to achieve extra dramatically than David Zaslav.
David Zaslav
For practically 20 years, Zaslav has been one of many highest-paid executives in the US, whilst the corporate he led cycled by means of turmoil, debt stress, inventive unrest, and a collapsing share value. Since 2009 alone, Zaslav has made greater than $670 million in wage and bonuses. Right here is the breakdown of his annual complete comp since 2009:
- $11.7 million (2009)
- $42.6 million (2010)
- $152 million (2014)
- $129.4 million (2018)
- $246.6 million (2021)
- $39 million (2022)
- $50 million (2023)
In 2025, the Warner Bros. board prolonged his contract by means of 2030 and granted him greater than 23 million low-strike choices. On the time this package deal was granted, Warner Bros. Discovery’s market cap was round $23 billion, and as a reminder, when the newly merged firm went public in 2022, its market cap was $60 billion. The board additionally threw in an important kicker: All 23 million choices would immediately vest upon any change in management. In different phrases, he would not have to attend til 2030 to earn these 23 million shares.
That brings us again to December 2025.
Netflix’s $72 billion settlement instantly lifted the inventory and remodeled these choices right into a windfall price greater than $400 million. Paramount’s hostile $108 billion bid pushed Zaslav’s potential payout to round $460 million.
And that is solely the choices.
On prime of the choices, a sale additionally triggers the accelerated vesting of roughly 6.3 million restricted inventory items, price greater than $170 million on the Paramount provide value. Mixed with the worth of the WBD shares he already owns, Zaslav’s complete payout inches towards $700 million, probably extra if a bidding struggle breaks out.
With a web price we at the moment peg at $600 million, even after a hefty tax invoice, David Zaslav will virtually definitely stroll away from the deal a billionaire.
Now let’s flip to John Malone
John Malone
If David Zaslav is the face of Warner Bros. Discovery, John Malone has all the time been its architect. He has formed extra media mergers than maybe any dwelling government, and the Discovery–WarnerMedia mixture was considered one of his signature strategic constructions. Although Malone’s direct stake in WBD has declined over time, he nonetheless owns roughly 18 million shares — a significant place that was crushed when the inventory collapsed in 2023 and 2024.
When Warner Bros. Discovery debuted at a $60 billion valuation in 2022, Malone’s stake was price properly over a billion {dollars}. Eighteen months later, because the inventory sank into the one digits, that very same stake had been chopped to a fraction of its former worth. By late 2024, Malone had absorbed one of many steepest paper losses of his profession.
The December bidding struggle has reversed that nearly in a single day.
Underneath Netflix’s $72 billion provide, valued at $27.75 per share, Malone’s 18 million shares are out of the blue price about $500 million. Paramount’s $108 billion hostile bid pushes that quantity even greater — roughly $540 million at $30 per share. And if the bidding escalates past $30, Malone’s upside will increase greenback for greenback with every new provide.
Not like Zaslav, Malone’s payout entails no vesting schedules, no efficiency cliffs, no contractual triggers. It’s pure fairness. Which implies each extra $1 added to the ultimate sale value provides one other $18 million on to Malone’s backside line.
Now let’s speak in regards to the Newhouse household… and the financially catastrophic mistake they made simply 4 months in the past…
David Zaslav and Donald Newhouse (Picture by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Photos for AFTD)
The Newhouse Household
The Newhouse household, led by 96-year-old patriarch Donald Newhouse (pictured above with David Zaslav), traces its stake in Warner Bros. Discovery again to their early funding in Discovery Communications within the Nineteen Nineties, when cable was booming, and Discovery was reworking from a distinct segment documentary channel into a worldwide media pressure. By means of their holding firm Advance Publications, the Newhouses turned considered one of Discovery’s largest long-term shareholders, and when Discovery absorbed WarnerMedia in 2022, they emerged from the merger as the one largest particular person shareholder within the mixed firm, proudly owning greater than 8% of WBD, round 200 million shares. On the time of the merger, these roughly 200 million shares had been price greater than $10 billion.
On the Paramount provide value of $30 per share, that authentic 8% stake would have been price practically $6 billion. Not as good as $10 billion, however that is not even essentially the most painful a part of the story.
In late June, when Warner Bros. Discovery was languishing close to all-time lows, the Newhouse household determined to promote 100 million shares — roughly half their place — for $10.97 per share. That sale generated $1.1 billion in money. On the time, it regarded like a smart liquidation. 4 months later, it appears catastrophic. Perhaps the worst timing in company historical past.
Those self same 100 million shares would now be price $3 billion beneath the Paramount bid.
Do not feel too unhealthy for the Newhouses, although. They nonetheless maintain roughly 98 million shares, and at $30 per share that remaining stake is price about $2.94 billion. Add within the $1.1 billion they pocketed in June, and the household will stroll away with roughly $4 billion complete if the Paramount deal closes.
Nonetheless… oooof. Watching $2 billion slip away since you offered 4 months too early? That stings, even if you’re a billionaire dynasty.
