How to read the tea leaves on stalled $8B Paramount-Skydance deal

Everyone is reading the tea leaves these days on the seemingly forever stalled $8 billion Skydance-Paramount deal.

The Wall Street fortune tellers keep looking for clues as to whether Paramount heiress Shari Redstone will pay President Trump what he wants to settle a $20 billion lawsuit against its CBS subsidiary?

And if she does, will that be enough to get the deal approved by his broadcast regulators.

On The Money exists at least in part to cut through the malarkey – and tell you that the latest tea leaves being closely examined are (as a certain great playwright once said) full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

One of those tea leaves led to the suggestion that Paramount laid off people earlier this week, a pretty steep 3% of its current workforce, because it’s planning that the deal will not go through.

Layoffs of such a magnitude usually occur not when two parties are about to merge, but long before, or when there is no deal in the works. The thinking is that current management is resizing the business because they plan on operating Paramount for the foreseeable future.

As On The Money was first to report, Paramount’s top brass – aside from Redstone (she’s recused herself because of the potential payday) – is wary of the optics of paying off Trump so Shari can walk away with what’s left of the nest egg left to her by her father, the late merger impresario Sumner Redstone.

They fear it could open the company to bribery charges by settling the frivolous lawsuit – alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris in the heat of the campaign (Trump won the election so there’s no damages) – that their directors and officers insurance doesn’t cover if some prosecutor brought a case.

All true, but the layoffs had little to do with the future of the deal, one way or the other, people close the transaction told On The Money.

SkyDance had planned to own Paramount by now, and was planning the exact same cuts to make the numbers work before it can invest and grow the business, sources said.

With the deal in limbo, Paramount just did it first so cross that tea leaf off your list.

The second tea leaf is a little more interesting, though I am told, just as inconsequential to the deal’s outcome.

It involves the appearance of Skydance boss David Ellison ringside at a UFC 314 fight in Miami several weeks ago with Trump, who was shaking hands and schmoozing with the likes of Joe Rogan and Shaquille O’Neal.

The tea-leaf-reading talk here speculated that the deal is back on – Trump can’t wait to approve it as a favor to David’s dad, and Trump bestie, Larry Ellison. Why would Trump be seen with Larry’s kid if he were about to screw him?

Except, guess who else was ringside as Trump made his way through the crowd? Elon Musk, yes that Elon who had just called Trump some really nasty names. So nasty that earlier this week, Elon issued a semi-apology. He was sitting with his son, not far from the younger Ellison and Trump.

So cross that one off as well, deal watchers tell me.

For now, those looking for clues on how this stalemate ends will have to turn over a new tea leaf.