David Ellison, chief executive of Paramount Skydance, joined more than 100 government officials and business leaders at a White House state dinner on Thursday evening for visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, the event became the center of a media dispute after the White House prevented reporters from CNN and MS NOW from covering the occasion.
The exclusion of press representatives from the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network is notable given that Ellison’s company is in the final stages of acquiring the media giant. A federal judge is currently reviewing a proposed settlement between Paramount and 12 Democratic state attorneys general regarding the $111 billion transaction, which was previously approved without conditions by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump earlier this year.
According to reports from CNN, two of its staffers were denied access to cover President Jinping’s arrival back at the White House for the dinner. A press coordinator reportedly instructed the network personnel to consult with White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. Staffers from MS NOW faced similar restrictions at the entrance.
This incident follows a broader pattern in which the Trump administration had banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from covering White House events. After the outlets filed lawsuits, a judge issued a temporary restraining order mandating that access be restored. While the White House complied by reissuing press passes on Thursday morning, it ultimately barred the networks from the state dinner itself.
The guest list featured a convergence of political and tech elite, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple executive chairman Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Other notable attendees included Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, and prominent Fox News personalities such as Bret Baier, Laura Ingraham, and Jesse Watters.
Ellison has a longstanding personal relationship with the Trump family; he previously hosted a dinner in Washington, D.C., in April honoring President Trump and the First Amendment. The menu for the state dinner included a sweet yellow squash velouté, sesame-crusted sea bass with braised bok choy, and a vanilla crémeux dessert with sour cherry confit. Musical performances were provided by tenor Christopher Macchio and military bands from the U.S. Marines and Army.
The menu sounds fancy, but excluding press from a state dinner is just bad optics for democracy.
Does the White House really get to pick and choose which journalists attend diplomatic events like this?
Wait, Paramount CEO at a state dinner for China while his acquisition is under judicial review? Wild timing.
How can a state dinner be a real news event if key outlets are excluded? Transparency matters.
Interesting that Ellison, whose company is buying WBD, got in while CNN reporters were barred. Seems like a conflict of interest.