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• Paramount settled the lawsuits that were slowing down its Warner Bros. Discovery deal.
• Staffers inside Paramount and WBD are bracing for competition as the companies merge.
• A longtime WBD staffer said they predict an “internal war of the tech stacks.”

Employees at Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are preparing themselves for not-so-friendly competition as their companies merge in the coming weeks.

“It’ll be quite competitive to see whose services and teams stick around,” a Paramount streaming manager said, reasoning that WBD has “some great engineers and teams doing very similar work to us.”

Paramount’s $110 billion deal to buy WBD gives CEO David Ellison control over a treasure trove of media assets. HBO, CBS, CNN, TNT, and MTV will live under one roof, as will streamers Paramount+, HBO Max, Discovery+, and free ad-supported service Pluto TV.

Ellison said in a Monday memo to staffers that he hoped to complete the transaction in “approximately two weeks.” In the settlement agreement that paved the way for the deal, Paramount pledged to increase its production spending in the US, keep both its movie lot and the Warner Bros. lot, and release a certain number of movies in theaters over the next five years.

Ellison said in the memo that Paramount is still figuring out the logistics of the cross-company integration.

“I know you have questions about what happens next — your role, your team and how we will work day to day,” Ellison wrote. “We don’t have all the answers yet, and I won’t pretend otherwise.”

Paramount has spent the last year putting Paramount+ and Pluto TV on a shared tech platform. Ellison has said that HBO Max will eventually be integrated as well, though it’s unclear exactly how that would work.

“I see another internal war of the tech stacks happening,” a veteran WBD streaming staffer said, referencing the Warner-Discovery merger that resulted in a new tech platform for HBO Max.

Five of the eight employees across Paramount and WBD who Business Insider spoke to after the settlement said they were nervous about their job status as the companies come together.

A Pluto TV manager said that they thought they would be “OK in terms of job security — at least until they merge all the streaming platforms.”

Ellison has promised investors $6 billion in cost savings from its WBD deal. The overlap of Paramount and WBD’s assets has analysts and employees expecting cuts, since the combined company will have two sets of many teams, including software engineers, marketing teams, and ad sales groups.

Paramount has said that layoffs won’t account for the majority of the cost savings, though WBD’s board has warned that job cuts are coming under Paramount’s ownership, “given the overlapping nature” of the companies’ studios, streaming platforms, and TV networks.

A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

‘Just get this over with‘

Staffers at Paramount and WBD said they had mixed feelings about what the mega-merger will mean for their careers.

The glass-half-full camp is relieved that the lawsuit over Paramount’s WBD deal has been settled, since it provides more clarity about the combined company’s path forward.

“I’m glad that we’ll get going with the integration and finding out what the future holds,” a high-level employee in Paramount’s ad group said.

A veteran Paramount streaming staffer said that the settlement could help to put “all the drama to bed,” though they added that there would be “some anxiety on both sides until it’s clear what’s happening with layoffs.”

Another high-level Paramount streaming leader said they’re looking forward to the codebases merging, noting that Paramount’s converged tech platform was “built to be multi-tenant and multi-brand.”

Inside WBD, one adtech employee expressed optimism about their job since they’re in a revenue-generating part of the business. They also said they’d be excited about getting a severance package if they got cut.

Others are antsy to learn their fates and new marching orders.

“We want to just get this over with,” the longtime WBD streaming staffer said of the deal.

• A US Army training command is updating its drone warfare courses every 60 days.
• The curriculum changes based on takeaways from soldiers and changing tactics.
• Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine also impact how soldiers learn drone warfare.

The US Army’s training command in Germany is updating its drone warfare curriculum every 60 days in response to changes in this technology and the way it’s used on the battlefield.

These changes reflect what soldiers are learning from using drones, as well as ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and include electronic warfare, or EW, and counter-drone technologies to better replicate the challenges troops could face in future wars.

During a media roundtable last week, Army leaders discussed efforts to modernize the force for uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS, including the curriculum for troop training courses, called programs of instruction, or POIs.

Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, the head of 7th Army Training Command, said the command developed drone-related programs of instruction based on its experience.

“We iterate every sixty days to update those POIs, primarily focused on UAS operations,” Tillis said on the call, per a transcript, “whether it’s a planning course, an instructor course, or an employment course, and also with EW and other effects.”

Tillis added that the command syncs with the different Centers of Excellence routinely to share updates. The 7th Army Training Command is the Army’s largest overseas center for training soldiers. Located in Germany, the command oversees the instruction and courses for soldiers across Europe and Africa and works with Army partners and allies as well.

Army officials also shared details on how the 173rd Airborne Brigade, elements of which were involved in the Unmanned Assault Battalion experiment focused on uncrewed systems, and other units had gained experience in drone warfare at the Hohenfels Training Area in Germany.

Tillis said that “over the last three iterations, each rotational unit, including the opposing force, has grown significantly. We have observed units grow in proficiency, lethality, depth, range, and ideas of how to task-organize and employ capability across the depth of the battlefield” to support combined-arms maneuver and achieve objectives.

The Army stood up the Unmanned Assault Battalion last fall and is now phasing it out after the recent Saber Junction exercise in Germany. Army leaders have said the unit was never intended to be a permanent thing; rather, it was a temporary role. The unit’s takeaways on drones will be disseminated across the Army while it returns to its airborne infantry role.

Tillis said that lessons were being applied from the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, sharing that the Army is learning lessons from its partnership with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, honed “in a very tough, demanding, relevant operational environment.”

The leaders of several Ukrainian drone schools told Business Insider late last year that they were updating their curriculum constantly, sometimes as often as every other week.

Earlier this month, Capt. Allan W. Watson, the commander of Blackhawk Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, wrote an op-ed describing what his troops learned from a combat exercise against Ukrainian forces. US forces saw clearly the threat that drones pose from a surveillance and attack perspective, but the training also gave them a chance to experiment with solutions for armored vehicles.

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta has settled an antitrust suit that sought to stop Paramount from buying Warner Bros. Discovery.
• That suit gives Larry and David Ellison all but the final go-ahead to finalize the $110 billion deal they started pursuing a year ago.
• The Ellisons had two key advantages when they started out: Nearly endless money, and a line to the Trump White House. It’s not a surprise that they got their way.

One of the world’s richest men, and his son, wanted to buy one of the most prestigious assets in the media world.

Now they have gotten their wish.

That’s the important part about Monday’s news: Larry and David Ellion’s Paramount has settled a lawsuit brought by California and several other states, which sought to hold up Paramount’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. With that out of the way, there are no longer any serious regulatory challenges to the deal. So the Ellisons can start finalizing their $111 billion acquisition in the very near future.

That means the Ellisons will have combined control of major media assets, including two movie studios, HBO, and TV networks, including CBS, CNN, and dozens more.

If you want to, you can dig into the details of the settlement to see what the Ellisons gave up to make this go away. The TLDR: Not much.

A little longer: Rob Bonta, the California attorney general who led the antitrust case, repeatedly said he wanted “structural” changes to clear a Paramount/WBD deal — something that would have required the Ellisons to jettison some part of their combined businesses. He didn’t get any of that.

Instead, Bonta’s main selling point is that he now has an “enforceable commitment” that the Ellisons’ studios will make at least 30 movies a year — which is a pledge Ellison has been making publicly since April.

Perhaps that’s why Bonta spent much of his press conference explaining why he was working hard on other antitrust suits, while conceding that he didn’t get the outcome he wanted here.

“I didn’t believe these two companies should merge,” he said Monday. “I still don’t.”

It’s happening anyway. And it reinforces why many observers thought a year ago that Larry and David Ellison would end up owning Warner Bros. Discovery before they’d even formally announced their plan to buy WBD.

The logic was:

• Larry Ellison was one of the richest men in the world (he’s currently worth an estimated $200 billion — down considerably from $400 billion last fall, when his Oracle stock was flying on an AI-fueled spree, but still enough to be ranked No. 7 on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s billionaires).
• Larry Ellison is close to Donald Trump: “We have a good relationship with the administration,” his son David acknowledged a year ago — and Donald Trump treats federal agencies like the Department of Justice as an extension of himself. So if Donald Trump wanted regulators to sign off on a Paramount-WBD deal, they would.

We saw both of those dynamics play out over the course of the last year. Last December, for instance, Netflix convinced WBD to sell some of itself to the streaming giant, instead of Paramount’s buy-the-whole-thing deal. But a few months later, Netflix walked away from the deal —possibly because it saw regulatory issues in its path, but at least as likely because Paramount had signaled that money really wasn’t an object, and that it was willing to keep raising its price to get the deal done.

Netflix shareholders definitely didn’t want the company in a bidding war. The Ellison family doesn’t have to answer to anyone but Larry Ellison, who is personally guaranteeing financing for the purchase.

And not surprisingly, Trump’s DOJ signed off on the Ellisons’ deal, in June, reportedly before staff attorneys skeptical of the deal were allowed to weigh in. This month, the DOJ went further to signal its support of Paramount via a filing in the states’ suit.

The one advantage Bonta seemed to have was time: The longer the deal took to get done, the more pressure the Ellisons would be under, for various reasons. But David Ellison countered with tactics that put Bonta and his state under pressure: chiefly, a series of news stories asserting that Ellison was just about to move at least part of Paramount outside California.

Whether Ellison was ever truly serious about that — or how he’d square his professed love of Hollywood with plans to leave Hollywood, which might make it much harder for him to make deals with Hollywood talent — remains unclear. Bonta says would-be-moving plans didn’t impact his decision to settle — but he also said his settlement with the Ellisons doesn’t include a promise to stay in California. So maybe we get a repeat performance someday.

Could Bonta have played his cards better and gotten something truly meaningful out of Paramount in exchange? Maybe. But just because Bonta was able to slow the deal down for a few months doesn’t mean he was ever likely to derail it completely — something he says he would like to do in an ideal world.

But regulators and politicians around the world — not just ones close to Donald Trump — approved the deal. The Ellisons have nearly all the money in the world. Rob Bonta and some other states’ attorneys weren’t going to get it stopped, either.

• As an American who went to Oktoberfest for the first time, I encountered lots of surprises.
• Chugging beer and standing on tables will get you kicked out, but dancing on the benches is OK.
• I was surprised to find there was a full carnival outside the tents.

As a beer aficionado, I’ve been to my fair share of brew festivals throughout the US, several of which were “Oktoberfest” themed.

So, when I booked a trip to visit Oktoberfest in Munich a few years ago, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. However, after just a few steps into the roughly 100-acre festival, I realized just how special it really is.

Oktoberfest was first held in 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Louis I (the crown prince of Bavaria) and Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen, and is now celebrated every year in September and October.

Today, people from around the world travel to the festival to celebrate German culture and, of course, beer. In fact, last year’s festival approximately 6.5 million people.

Here are the five things that surprised me most when I attended Oktoberfest for the first time.

The locals wear vests with their lederhosen, not suspenders

Nearly everyone at Oktoberfest dresses the part — wearing traditional Bavarian lederhosen outfits for men and dirndls for women.

My husband was sporting the lederhosen we’d always seen with leather suspenders. However, we quickly noticed that many of the men were wearing vests with their leather shorts instead.

A friendly German local later told us that while suspenders are fine to wear, they tend to signal that you’re not local.

The tents are actually temporary wooden structures

When I hear the word “tent,” I tend to think of the big tops at the circus. However, the ones I saw at Oktoberfest put those to shame.

In reality, the huge tents at the festival are temporary wooden structures, some of which have two floors.

In total, there are 17 “large” tents and 21 “small” ones throughout the festival, each with its own unique theme. Each tent also serves the beer of the affiliated brewery.

Chugging and standing on tables will get you kicked out

There’s a misconception that chugging is a common thing at Oktoberfest. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Locals warned us early on that chugging is a surefire way to get kicked out of a tent. And before long, we saw a bachelor party escorted out for this very reason.

Another no-no is standing on the tables. It’s common — and encouraged — however, to stand on the benches to sing along to fan favorites like”99 Luftballons,” “Sweet Caroline,” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

But getting atop the tables is a step too far and will get festivalgoers kicked out.

People were snorting a mysterious white powder

When our tablemate poured some white powder onto the table at 1 p.m., I have to admit, I was a little shocked by his boldness.

But then, he explained that it was Wiesn Koks (aka Oktoberfest cocaine), a drugless, totally legal substance.

Festivalgoers snort the powder, which is a combination of glucose and menthol, to wake up between steins.

There’s a full carnival outside the tents

“Family friendly” and “beer fest” aren’t usually words you hear together. But for Oktoberfest, it’s true. Children under 6 are allowed inside the beer tents before 8 p.m., and some venues even offer special kid-friendly food menus.

Outside the tents, we found an entire carnival, including roller coasters, games, and the famous Devil’s Wheel, where a small group tries to stay on a rotating platform for as long as possible.

However, I recommend hitting the rides earlier in the day. Even if you’ve been pacing yourself, you never know how the glassy-eyed guy across the Tilt-A-Whirl will fare.

Overall, while I knew Oktoberfest was going to be fun, I was blown away by its sheer scale and the friendliness of everyone we met.

Although I’m hanging up my dirndl for now, it might be coming back out sooner rather than later.

This story was originally published on September 30, 2024, and most recently updated on September 21, 2026.

• Paramount Skydance has gotten the green light to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
• The plaintiffs suing to stop Paramount’s WBD mega-merger agreed to settle their cases.
• Read the full memo from Paramount CEO David Ellison below.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison just confirmed to employees that the company had settled the lawsuits that were holding up its deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We have complete clearance for this merger and can move toward closing,” Ellison said in a Monday memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.

Ellison said that Paramount is “tentatively planning” to complete its $110 billion acquisition of WBD in “approximately two weeks.”

After completing this deal, Paramount will be a Hollywood behemoth that owns Paramount Pictures, the Warner Bros. studio, CBS, HBO, HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and TV networks like CNN, TNT, TruTV, and MTV.

Paramount’s WBD deal was put on pause in July after lawsuits brought by 12 states and the Writers Guild of America, which argued that the merger would reduce competition and harm consumers.

On Monday, the plaintiffs announced that they had agreed to settle the lawsuits. Paramount vowed to boost US production spending, adhere to a minimum theatrical film release requirement, not sell its movie lot or the Warner Bros. lot, and make a few other concessions.

Paramount was in a hurry to close its deal since it had agreed to pay WBD shareholders a so-called “ticking fee” of $650 million per quarter — roughly $7 million per day — starting on October 1 if the deal didn’t close. The judge overseeing the case had scheduled the trial date for March, which meant that Paramount would have owed about $1.3 billion in fees if it didn’t settle the lawsuit.

The uncertainty surrounding the deal had some Paramount staffers wondering about their jobs, employees previously told Business Insider.

“I know it’s created real uncertainty, and for some of you, real anxiety — that’s not lost on me,” Ellison said in his memo to employees.

Read Ellison’s full memo here:

Team,

Just a few moments ago, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, on behalf of himself and 11 other State AGs, announced a settlement that clears the path forward on the lawsuit blocking our merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. We have also reached a settlement with the Writers Guild of America.

With both groups’ concerns now addressed, we have complete clearance for this merger and can move toward closing. There’s still work ahead to get this deal across the finish line, but we’re excited to bring these two iconic companies together, as it means more opportunity for our creatives, production crews and employees across the business, and more great entertainment for audiences everywhere.

We’re grateful to Attorney General Bonta and his fellow AGs, and to the WGA, for engaging in good faith to reach this resolution. The agreement includes a number of commitments, including 30+ films annually and expanded U.S. film production — meant to help revitalize our industry and support the people behind it, here at home. Since we launched this bid, our goal has been to build a stronger Hollywood: more stories told, greater choice for consumers, stronger competition. Combining these companies gives us the opportunity to do just that.

This is an exciting moment for our company and our industry. If you’re like me, you’re in this business because you love the art of visual storytelling — the chance to entertain, unite and inspire the world through extraordinary stories.

Together, Paramount and WBD can do more of that, for audiences everywhere.

And we can’t wait to get started.

I know you have questions about what happens next – your role, your team and how we will work day to day. We don’t have all the answers yet, and I won’t pretend otherwise. We are tentatively planning to close in approximately two weeks. That said, closing is really just the starting line. Bringing two companies this size together takes time, and we’ll share information as it becomes available. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please visit the Integration Hub, reach out to your manager or HR representative, or email internalcomms@paramount.com.

Thank you for your patience, commitment and hard work throughout this process. I know it’s created real uncertainty, and for some of you, real anxiety — that’s not lost on me. Our people are what make this company one of the best in the world, and I’m truly grateful for your dedication and support. I’m confident we’re going to build something special together in the years ahead.

Let’s go!

David

• Detroit’s Big Three are going back to their roaring V8 roots.
• V8s were on death’s doorstep as federal emissions regulations bore down on automakers.
• Now, as Washington pulls back on climate rules, the V8 trucks and muscle cars are making a comeback.

For years, the growl of a big, manly V8 engine had been fading from US auto assembly floors.

No longer.

A V8 is a gas engine with eight cylinders arranged in a V-shape. It has long been a go-to choice for Americans who want the power to tow, haul, or go very fast — though it generally uses way more fuel than smaller engines.

Now, even as gas prices rise, the V8 is getting a new lease on life. Washington has relaxed emissions rules, eliminated companywide fuel-efficiency fines, and ended the federal EV tax credit. Automakers are responding with new and revived V8-powered trucks and performance cars, betting that Americans’ appetite for big vehicles still has plenty of runway.

Data suggests demand for big, gas-powered vehicles — particularly trucks — remains strong. According to Cox Automotive, US consumers spent about $15 billion on full-size pickup trucks in December alone.

“Consumers wanted these cars,” Kevin Roberts, the director of market intelligence at CarGurus, told Business Insider. “It was just a challenging economic choice because of the regulations that previously existed. But there are different rules now.”

America’s V8 obsession

Detroit’s Big Three are leading the way.

On Thursday, GM announced two new V8s for the 2027 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. That’s after the company invested roughly $830 million in US propulsion plants.

Ram Trucks brought back its Hemi V8 engine in August after discontinuing the motor just last year. This month, it relaunched the TRX, a V8-powered sport-oriented pickup the company markets as an automotive “apex predator.”

Last May, General Motors stopped producing electric-vehicle batteries at its Western New York propulsion plant and restarted V8 engine production for trucks instead — a shift that required an $888 million investment.

Ford is making a different sort of V8 bet. The company’s updated 2027 F-150 still offers the 5.0-liter V8, even as a turbocharged V6 replaces the outgoing four-cylinder as its base engine. The company also previously told Business Insider it plans to add a new, faster trim to its V8-powered Mustang Dark Horse lineup, called the SC.

The history of America’s big engines

V8s are essential to American car-making culture.

First developed for US consumers in the early 1900s by Cadillac, V8s became synonymous with postwar expansion, cheap gasoline, and a domestic auto industry built around size and power. Ford helped popularize the engine in the 1930s, offering dramatic horsepower gains over smaller powertrains.

That popularity launched generations of American nostalgia.

“What customers actually want is more horsepower and more torque,” said Dave Mann, a classic Ford Bronco owner and the president of motor oil company Performance Oil Technology. “That’s where the money is, and that’s the bread and butter for American automakers.”

Sales dominance didn’t last forever.

As fuel prices surged and emissions rules tightened in the 1970s and 1980s, consumer preferences shifted. Smaller, more efficient vehicles — many built by Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda — surged in popularity. By the early 2000s, V8 engines, which had once powered more than half of all American vehicle sales, accounted for less than 20%.

The engine never disappeared. Instead, they just powered full-size trucks and enthusiast-minded racers.

“What makes V8s superior is the instant response when you hit the gas pedal,” Justin Goldsberry, an enthusiast and author of the Automobile Innovations newsletter, previously told Business Insider. “Everything is immediate and highly responsive.”

A big shift is on the horizon

Big trucks — including the best-selling Ford F-150 and second-best-selling Chevy Silverado — still remain wildly popular.

Those trucks have long been Detroit’s best profit-makers. They’ve taken on new importance for car companies, especially as they announce billion-dollar write-downs after their EV transitions have gone slower than expected.

Whether they’re reaching the market at the right time is an entirely different question.

As US pump prices keep rising, gas-saving mild hybrids, which pair electric motors with a standard gas-powered engine, are gaining popularity. JD Power told Business Insider that hybrids represented 15.9% of all vehicle sales in July, up 2.5% compared to the same month in 2025.

“We’ve seen a large increase in hybrids,” Roberts said. “The US is starting to shake some of its gas-guzzler mindset.”