Paramount (PSKY) reportedly believes California AG Rob Bonta’s opposition to the WBD (WBD) deal is influenced by Big Tech donors, but is seeking a settlement that preserves the deal, Fox's Gasparino reports citing sources

State attorney general opposition to a large media combination follows an established pattern in US deal review: state enforcers can complicate and delay even where federal clearance is the main event, and on previous occasions the remedy has been a negotiated settlement or behavioural commitments rather than outright deal failure. The reported posture here is telling: a buyer attributing the challenge to donor politics while simultaneously pursuing settlement is a familiar playbook, discrediting the objection in public while conceding the practical need to neutralise it. The settlement-preserves-the-deal framing suggests the acquirer views the state action as a friction to be priced, not a deal-breaker, which is how comparable episodes have typically resolved. Sourcing of this kind, attributed to a single journalist citing unnamed parties, has historically been directionally informative on negotiation dynamics but unreliable on timing. The follow-ons worth noting are any formal filing or consent-decree terms from the AG's office, the response of other state enforcers, and whether federal review runs ahead of or behind the state track, since parallel processes have tended to be settled in sequence rather than together.