Did you know BET is fully owned by the same company that owns TikTok US? They are also currently bidding $108 billion to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which would add CNN and HBO to the list.
That company is Paramount, now controlled by the Ellison family since August 2025. Under their ownership they now hold BET, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Showtime, Paramount+ and Pluto TV, alongside their stake in TikTok US through Oracle.
The man behind it all is Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle and one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
He is a well documented financial backer of Israel, having donated over $26 million to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and maintaining a close personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. His son David Ellison runs Paramount as Chairman and CEO.
Most recently, Paramount bought out Tyler Perry’s 25% stake in BET+, the streaming service he co-founded in 2019. Perry had been the only Black voice with any ownership in the platform. That is now gone. BET+ will be fully absorbed into Paramount+ from June 2026.
The platform created by a Black man for Black people in 1980 is now completely inside an empire with deep financial ties to the Israeli military...