Couple of unrelated thoughts on this very long thread...

1. I'm sure multiple people have pointed it out, but for all the talk of a bubble, the AOL Time Warner merger was likely the biggest canary in the coal mine for what was to come. History repeats itself with literally the same brand and a lot of the same assets? Sort of depressing if the bubble does now burst because it's like we never learn our lesson

2. Trump wanted the Ellisons because they support him. There's almost no question in my mind the government will fight this. Will they win in court? Hard to say, but my quick thoughts:

If market cap was the basis for antitrust then the answer would be maybe, but that's not the basis for it. Is revenue the basis? No, but Disney generates more than Netflix, so does Comcast, so as a proxy for market share, which I think is somewhat the basis for antitrust (iamaal) it seems like there's no chance this creates some anticompetitive media juggernaut. But then the question is whether streaming is different than more general media. And if it is, how do you define the market when a company like Apple is involved in streaming but not fully a media company? Does that balance things out a bit? I don't think it does because I don't think anyone could claim that Apple counterbalances Netflix in streaming market share. If anything it would be a further argument against Netflix having Netflix and HBOMax.

Now having written all of that, I think the government would win because Paramount streaming with HBO would at least stand a chance in the streaming market against Netflix. And then also increase general media competition because you'd have Disney/ABC, Comcast/NBC, Paramount/CBS with the WBD addition improving Paramount's competitive position relative to the other two.