Kara Swisher Says She’s Leaving CNN Now That Settlement Clears Way For Paramount-WBD Merger

Kara Swisher said that she will depart CNN now that a legal settlement has cleared the way for Paramount to acquire the network’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery.

On her Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway, posted on Tuesday, Swisher said that she has “asked my agent to get me out of my contract. It ends December 31, so it’s only a few months, right? I just can’t. … I was trying to figure out ways I could work with them in some like licensing way, but then I thought, ‘F— these guys! I don’t want to work for them. I just don’t.”

On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a settlement of a state AG lawsuit to block the merger, which includes the creation of an independent editorial board to oversee journalistic standards. But Swisher called such a board “dingbat nonsense,” citing the toothless nature of a board set up to oversee The Wall Street Journal when it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 2007.

Swisher has been a contributor to the network since 2023 and headlined an original series, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever, earlier this year. She said that the network had been trying to keep her.

“I have a lot of regard for the executives there now,” Swisher said. “I have other things that make more money, that matter more and have a bigger audience … I just don’t want to work” at the network with the David Ellison-led takeover.

Swisher has been a critic of David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, and their purchase of WBD.

She added, “I think they are terrible media owners. I would rather work for Rupert Murdoch.”

She said, “I can’t leave yet, but I will leave as soon as I can.”

A CNN spokesperson declined to comment.

At CNN, the pending merger has generated plenty of anxiety as to the pending changes under the new owners. At a Politico summit last month, Paramount’s Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim talked about plans for CNN and said that Ellison “wants to bring it back to news,” a remark that suggested that the network wasn’t doing so now and was in for a major shift in the way it covers stories.