AINEWS
Ethics disclosures show two FCC commissioners accepted premium Kennedy Center tickets from Paramount; the agency is now weighing the company's hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
A federal ethics rule bars agency employees from taking gifts from the companies they regulate or that seek official action. The Federal Communications Commission accepted $137,000 in gifts from Paramount in December 2025, while the agency was deciding the company's $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Paramount is now asking the FCC to approve a second deal: a hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica and republished by Ars Technica show the two figures. FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty received Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount valued at more than $12,000. Trusty had cast a decisive vote earlier in 2025 approving the Skydance merger. The same gala placed FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison; seats in that skybox were listed at $125,000 each, per Kennedy Center guidelines.
Carr's pattern of accepting these gifts predates this gala. ProPublica reports that Carr has accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling more than $63,000 in gifts. Seven FCC commissioners in total have accepted Kennedy Center tickets from CBS or its parent company over the past decade, a pattern the Hollywood Reporter has documented independently.
The underlying rule is categorical: federal employees cannot accept gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by, or seeks official action from their agency. Paramount meets all three tests. The FCC regulates CBS, a Paramount subsidiary. The Skydance merger required FCC approval. The WBD takeover will require the same.
Four ethics experts interviewed by ProPublica called the gifts a "blatant conflict of interest." The characterization is the experts' judgment, not an agency, inspector general, or Office of Government Ethics finding. Carr's specific December 2025 financial disclosure has not been released, and the $125,000 figure is the skybox tier listed in Kennedy Center guidelines rather than a sum drawn from Carr's personal filing.
The second pending decision makes the pattern materially more expensive. On July 13, 2026, California and eleven other state attorneys general sued to block the Paramount–WBD merger, according to filings reported by Variety, Politico, and NPR. The states' filings frame the merger as defying the Department of Justice's posture. The FCC's review of that deal is still pending. The agency will rule on a multi-billion-dollar transaction from a company that, by its own disclosure records, has already paid for the chairman's seat and the decisive commissioner's seat at a single gala.
The December 2025 Kennedy Center Honors gala was hosted by President Trump and reserved its best seats for donors giving $75,000 or more. Honorees included Sylvester Stallone, Kiss, and Gloria Gaynor. The cultural-event packaging makes the gift easy to miss: premium access is a category regulators are supposed to scrutinize, not accept, when the host has business before the agency.
The disclosure system is built to let a reader act on exactly this kind of record. The federal ethics disclosure forms are public. The FCC inspector general accepts complaints. State attorneys general are already litigating. The same records that document the gifts also document the votes, the timing, and the parties involved. The pattern is in the file.