Lifestyle
Kilian Jornet Set Out to Summit 72 of America’s Tallest Peaks — in Just One Month
The Beginning
Kilian Jornet was drenched and tired.
Mr. Jornet, 37, was just a few days into an ambitious odyssey, a self-designed project he had named “States of Elevation.” His goal was to link, by foot and by bike, the tallest peaks in the contiguous United States — a series of 70-plus publicly accessible mountains in Colorado, California and Washington known as the “14ers” because they are all 14,000 feet or higher (symbolized on the map as ). He estimated it would take him around a month.
But now, in early September, Mr. Jornet wondered whether he could continue.
It is not often that Mr. Jornet, one of the most accomplished endurance athletes on the planet, seems susceptible to human frailties. In 2017, he reached the summit of Mount Everest twice in one week, without support or supplemental oxygen. In 2023, he climbed the 177 tallest peaks in the Pyrenees in eight days. Last year, he needed just 19 days to tackle the 82 tallest peaks in the Alps.
But now, after a long flight from Norway, where he lives with his wife, Emelie Forsberg, a former skyrunning world champion, and their three young daughters, Mr. Jornet was jet-lagged and struggling to acclimate to the high altitude of the LA Freeway in Colorado, a mountainous traverse along the Continental Divide.
Making matters worse, a steady rain left him feeling as if he were soaked through to his core.
“I just felt exhausted,” Mr. Jornet recalled in a recent interview. “It felt impossible to do one more week, let alone another month. But then the body switched, and I went from fighting to adapting.”
Climbing peak after peak in Colorado, he seemed to grow stronger as he moved west, through the Mojave Desert and into the Sierra Nevada, across Northern California and finally into the Cascades.
A small support crew in a recreational vehicle met up with Mr. Jornet periodically while he was hiking, and followed more closely during his long bike rides. He also had a rotating cast of friends and fellow athletes who joined him for parts of the project.
And, over the course of 31 days and 3,197 miles, he conquered a challenge in which, on any given day, he was completing a feat — or, in some cases, feats — that many climbers would consider a lifetime achievement in and of itself.
Colorado
16 days | 1,207 miles | 56 peaks
A couple of days before Ryan Hall, the retired Olympic marathoner, was set to meet Mr. Jornet near Crested Butte, Colo., he checked the forecast. An avid climber, Mr. Hall was alarmed enough to send Mr. Jornet a text message asking if they really wanted to tackle the Elks Traverse in a snowstorm. Mr. Jornet was not concerned.
“Yeah,” he replied via text, “we might get a little wet out there.”
The weather, though, turned out to be pleasant, and Mr. Jornet and Mr. Hall chatted throughout their 12 hours together — about their families, about training and nutrition, and even about “different levels of consciousness,” Mr. Hall said. At one point, Mr. Jornet, who is from Spain, described climbing as an out-of-body experience.
Mr. Hall was surprised to learn that Mr. Jornet did not drink coffee. His explanation? He worries caffeine will make him push too hard and hinder his ability to recover. Mr. Hall said Mr. Jornet made no mention of feeling tired or hungry during their time together.
“It was interesting to see how he managed his body and what he was putting it through,” Mr. Hall said, “and how, mentally, it wasn’t taking up any space.”
Mr. Hall also noticed that Mr. Jornet refrained from talking about the project. Instead, he seemed present. The only mountain that mattered was the mountain he was on. Mr. Jornet, Mr. Hall said, was “full of peace” — an impression that was reinforced when they reached Castle Peak, their fifth and final summit together. Not that Mr. Jornet was keeping track.
“The peaks don’t really mean anything to me,” he told Mr. Hall. “The peaks are just an excuse to be out here.”
Dakota Jones, an elite trail and mountain runner, joined Mr. Jornet for his final two days of climbing in Colorado, which started with an ascent of Mount Sneffels and a 25-mile traverse through the early hours of the night.
When Mr. Jornet awoke the next morning, he rode his bicycle several hours to the next trailhead. Mr. Jones followed Mr. Jornet’s crew in his Toyota Tacoma and prepared for the day by consuming a burrito, several doughnuts and lots of coffee.
“He’s so far beyond what the rest of us can do,” Mr. Jones said of Mr. Jornet.
At around noon, they embarked on a nearly 14-hour run through the Weminuche Wilderness, a remote area of the San Juan National Forest. By the time they reached their final peak of the day, Mr. Jornet had run out of food.
“He never said a word,” Mr. Jones said. “He just kept going. That’s Kilian.”
Mr. Jornet spent a total of 16 days in Colorado, where he made 56 summits while covering more than 1,200 miles.
Desert Ride
5 days | 877 miles
Up close, there was nothing inherently sexy about Mr. Jornet’s quest. Day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, he was simply putting one foot in front of the other, or pedaling one stroke at a time. Mr. Hall likened him to a “metronome,” his rhythmic movements never hurried or rushed.
Mr. Jones approached Mr. Jornet as if he were part of an anthropological study: What was he capable of doing next?
“He has both the physiology to be great and the infinite discipline and focus to make the most of what he has,” Mr. Jones said. “And that’s a really rare combination.”
Mr. Jornet’s discipline was clear when, after conquering Colorado, he spent five days biking nearly 900 miles across vast expanses of the Mojave Desert. He averaged about 14 hours a day in the saddle.
He was accompanied for portions of the trip by athletes like Chris Myers, a trail runner, and Gemma Arró Ribot, a former teammate on the Spanish ski mountaineer team. But Mr. Jornet also spent a great deal of time alone, and he battled boredom, fatigue and the heat by listening to music and audiobooks.
Mostly, though, he biked as a mode of transport, as a means to an end.
California
7 days | 593 miles | 15 peaks
One of Mr. Jornet’s early challenges in California was Norman’s 13, a winding, 100-mile route that links all 13 of the 14,000-foot peaks in the Sierra Nevada. In search of some expertise, Mr. Jornet recruited Olivia Amber, a world-class trail runner who, about two weeks earlier, had done the route on her own.
Some context: Ms. Amber, 30, described Norman’s 13 as a “dream project” that she had pieced together over several years. For even the most accomplished adventurers, the route is serious business. And when Ms. Amber completed it in 89 hours (which included four hours of sleep), she became the fourth person to ever do so — and the first woman.
And then there was Mr. Jornet, fresh off hundreds of miles of bicycling through the desert, who intended to move through Norman’s 13 as just one part of a much larger project. It was difficult for Ms. Amber to comprehend.
“He’s rewriting what’s possible in the mountains,” she said, “especially with endurance feats.”
On Sept. 25, Ms. Amber was set to meet Mr. Jornet at the junction of the Taboose Pass Trail and the John Muir Trail, before their shared trek up Split Mountain. To reach him, she had to jog 12 miles while ascending 6,000 feet — and she had to do it in a hurry after receiving word that he was moving quickly.
“I honestly thought he was going to beat me there,” she said. “It was crazy.”
From the start, Ms. Amber could sense Mr. Jornet was egoless. He seemed genuinely grateful for her help. With rough weather approaching, he agreed when she suggested that he take a quick nap before leaving camp.
“I wasn’t totally sure if he was committed to sleeping,” Ms. Amber recalled.
They set out before dusk, and as they began to move through the night, heavy snow blanketed them. It was Ms. Amber’s sixth time up Split Mountain, and Mr. Jornet’s first. It hardly mattered.
“He had this feel for where we were and for the terrain even though he had never been there before,” said Ms. Amber, who accompanied Mr. Jornet for 25 snow-filled miles. “I could just feel that energy from him — a confidence that came from a place of deep understanding of how to move in that kind of environment and in those conditions.”
Of course, Mr. Jornet made it look easy, even when it was not. Later, after biking another 390 miles over two days into the Cascades of Northern California, he reached Mount Shasta — the 71st and penultimate peak of his project — where he was buffeted by an Arctic wind. He had to crawl the final 1,000 feet to the summit.
“You need to laugh in those situations and find the way to pass through,” Mr. Jornet said.
Oregon Ride
3 days | 489 miles
A few hours after summiting Mount Shasta, Mr. Jornet was on two wheels once again. He was joined by the triathlete Ian Murray for a 60-mile ride on crushed volcanic gravel before they slept just south of the Oregon border.
Mr. Jornet was by himself for the next two days as he rode 430 miles to the foot of Mount Rainier in Washington. The end was near.
When he was planning the project, Mr. Jornet worried about being hit by a car or a truck while biking. “A lot of people were telling me it would be very dangerous,” he recalled.
He and his team worked hard to locate the safest roads with the widest shoulders, and he found, to his surprise, that most drivers gave him ample space. He also was grateful for the company of his friends, new and old.
“He clearly could have done every inch of this on his own and he would have been totally fine and totally happy,” Ms. Amber said. “But he had this deeper appreciation that people showed up for him and were willing to help him.”
Mr. Jornet wanted to share the experience with those who joined him for portions of it — and with the wider world. Mr. Hall, for example, laughed whenever Mr. Jornet broke out his selfie stick. It was important to Mr. Jornet that he and his team use social media — Mr. Jornet has nearly two million followers on Instagram — to convey the beauty of the natural world and the importance of protecting it.
During his travels, Mr. Jornet saw moose, coyotes, goats, eagles, snakes and even a couple of bears from a distance. None bothered him, he said.
“We would look at each other,” Mr. Jornet said, “and say: ‘Hey, guys! How are you doing?’ And just continue.”
Mount Rainier Finale
Mr. Jornet started up Mount Rainier at dawn on Oct. 3, and it was a final test worthy of the project — a 29-mile haul up 14,320 vertical feet before he reached the summit. About 17 hours after he had set out that morning, he returned to the trailhead where his support team was waiting with celebratory slices of pizza and pickle juice shots.
After 31 days and 72 summits, Mr. Jornet’s objectively absurd project was complete. He covered 629 miles on foot and biked an additional 2,568 miles, which outdistanced this year’s Tour de France by more than 400 miles. And he did all that while amassing 403,691 feet of elevation gain.
Throughout the project, Mr. Jornet wore a smartwatch that tracked his heart rate, his mileage, his sleep totals (he averaged about six hours a night) and even something called his “recovery score,” which registered zero — yes, zero — for 17 consecutive days. (At one point, he broke his cellphone, and members of his team questioned whether he had done it on purpose.)
Mr. Jornet estimated that he had burned about 9,000 calories a day, but he managed not to lose any weight. One of his secret weapons: flasks of olive oil that he guzzled raw. By the end of his journey, he was looking forward to homegrown produce from his garden and thick slices of his wife’s sourdough bread.
The day after summiting Mount Rainier, Mr. Jornet awoke feeling disoriented. His first instinct, he said, was to reach for his bike: Didn’t he have more miles ahead of him? No, he realized, it was over. He slept more peacefully the next night.
His trek through the Alps last summer, while less physically demanding, had left him mentally drained because so many of the climbs were so challenging. His jaunt through the American West was a comparative breeze.
“It was just fun,” he said. “It was nice to ride and to run and to see the things and just to enjoy those places. And I could have gone on. I was happy to finish and go home, but physically it felt like my body was ready to continue.”
For now, Mr. Jornet plans to take a break and spend time with his family.
“But I know myself,” he said, “and I know in a couple of months that I will start to think of something else.”
Performers onstage at The Game Awards 2025 at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
hide caption
toggle caption
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
The first minutes of The Game Awards set the mold for the next three hours. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won best independent game during the preshow, beating out acclaimed sequels like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Moments after, the main stage opened with operatic singers and a full orchestra (plus the obligatory electric guitar!) belting out music from the game.
Clair Obscur was already the favorite to win the grand prize — but kicking off the show with the game front-and-center felt like an anointing. It triumphed in nearly every category it competed in, picking up nine awards in total. By the time it won “Game of the Year,” Clair Obscur had surpassed The Last of Us: Part 2 to become the most decorated game in the Awards history.
As predictable as the night became, the game it honored was anything but. Clair Obscur came from an independent French studio composed of developers who had worked for the French gaming behemoth Ubisoft. Instead of chasing trendy genres like battle royales or open-world action games, Clair Obscur drew inspiration from turn-based role-playing games like the classic Final Fantasy titles. It paired an intimate and existential story with a setting that was both whimsical and epic. And it cast motion-capture icon Andy Serkis alongside game actor veterans like Ben Starr and Jennifer English, who delivered the night’s most rousing speech when she accepted the award for best performance.
“I just want to say to every neurodivergent person watching in this room, because I know there’s probably quite a lot of you,” English said. “To all of you that feel like life is stuck on hard mode, this is for you, and thank you so much to the games community and industry for giving us, so many of us, a home.”
Jennifer English, also known for her leading role in 2023 Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3, accepts her best performance award onstage at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025.
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
hide caption
toggle caption
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
Clair Obscur’s victories fit with two themes of the night: the rise of independent studios and the internationalization of the awards themselves. Half of the “Game of the Year” nominees were indie games, even as the term has stretched to include titles with sizable budgets and publisher partnerships.
This semantic squishiness is a result of The Game Awards’ outsourced voting process, which polls over 150 international media outlets (including NPR) to determine a list of nominees. These outlets decide for themselves how to define categories like an “independent game” or “action adventure game.” After the shortlist is tallied, they’ll pick their favorites in each category, which are weighted against an open online voting system that makes up a 10th of the total score. As the jury has expanded outside of the U.S., which now only represents roughly 15% of outlets, award winners have become both more global and more mainstream.
Still, Clair Obscur’s ubiquity speaks volumes. Even as it swept other deserving indies aside, the game demonstrates the outsized impact a small team can have on the broader market. No longer seen as just a niche, prestige title, Clair Obscur rose to prominence thanks to strong word-of-mouth and its inclusion on the Xbox Game Pass Service, which allowed regular gamers and critics alike to try the game out without committing to a full purchase.
Guillaume Broche, Tom Guillermin, Nicholas Maxon-Framcombe, and François Meurisse accept the Game of the Year award for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
hide caption
toggle caption
Frank Micelotta/Picturegroup
Big companies still took home prizes, however. After being completely shut out last year, Nintendo earned a few awards for Switch 2 exclusives, with Donkey Kong Bananza winning best family and Mario Kart World winning best sports/racing. Grand Theft Auto 6 won most anticipated game for the second year in a row. Wuthering Waves, a Chinese game with a huge mobile audience, won the Players’ Voice award, the only category completely determined by public online votes.
Here are the full nominees and winners for the 2025 Game Awards (winners in bold):
Game of the year
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)
Best game direction
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best narrative
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)
Best art direction
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Best score and music, leveled up by Spotify
Christopher Larkin, Hollow Knight: Silksong
Lorien Testard, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Darren Korb, Hades II
Toma Otowa, Ghost of Yōtei
Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Best audio design
Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)
Best performance
Ben Starr, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Charlie Cox, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Erika Ishii, Ghost of Yōtei
Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Konatsu Kato, Silent Hill f
Troy Baker, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Innovation in accessibility
Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
Atomfall (Rebellion)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
Games for impact
Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia/AP Thomson/Hexacutable)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Don’t Nod Montreal/Don’t Nod)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
Wanderstop (Ivy Road/Annapurna Interactive)
Best ongoing
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Marvel Rivals (NetEase Games)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Best community support
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Best independent game
Absolum (Guard Crush Games/Supamonks/Dotemu)
Ball x Pit (Kenny Sun/Devolver Digital)
Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Best debut indie game
Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Dispatch (AdHoc Studio)
Megabonk (Vedinad)
Best mobile game
Destiny: Rising (NetEase Games)
Persona 5: The Phantom X (Black Wings Game Studio/Sega)
Sonic Rumble (Rovio Entertainment/Sega)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby (Cygames Inc.)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)
Best VR/AR
Alien: Rogue Incursion (Survios)
Arken Age (VitruviusVR)
Ghost Town (Fireproof Games)
Marvel’s Deadpool VR (Twisted Pixel Games/Oculus Studios)
The Midnight Walk (MoonHood/Fast Travel Games)
Best action
Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Ninja Gaiden 4 (Platinum Games/Team Ninja/Xbox Game Studios)
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance (Lizardcube/Sega)
Best action/adventure
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (MachineGames/Bethesda Softworks)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best RPG
Avowed (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep SIlver)
The Outer Worlds 2 (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)
Best fighting
2XKO (Riot Games)
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Capcom)
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (SNK Corporation)
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection (Digital Eclipse/Atari)
Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)
Best family
Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
LEGO Party! (SMG Studio/Fictions)
LEGO Voyagers (Light Brick Studios/Annapurna Interactive)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best Sim/Strategy
The Alters (11 Bit Studios)
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS – The Ivalice Chronicles (Square Enix)
Jurassic World Evolution 3 (Frontier Developments)
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (Firaxis Games/2K)
Tempest Rising (Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms)
Two Point Museum (Two Point Studios/Sega)
Best sports/racing
EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
F1 25 (Codemasters/EA)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Rematch (Sloclap/Kepler Interactive)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)
Best multiplayer
Arc Raiders (Embark Studios)
Battlefield 6 (Electronic Arts)
Elden Ring Nightreign (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Peak (Aggro Crab/Landfall)
Split Fiction (Hazelight/EA)
Best adaptation
A Minecraft Movie (Legendary Pictures/Mojang/Warner Bros)
Devil May Cry (Studio Mir/Capcom/Netflix)
The Last of Us: Season 2 (HBO/PlayStation Productions)
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (FOST Studio/Ubisoft/Netflix)
Until Dawn (Screen Gems/PlayStation Productions)
Most anticipated game
007 First Light (IO Interactive)
Grand Theft Auto VI (Rockstar Games)
Marvel’s Wolverine (Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Resident Evil Requiem (Capcom)
The Witcher IV (CD Projekt Red)
Content creator of the year
Caedrel
Kai Cenat
MoistCr1TiKaL
Sakura Miko
The Burnt Peanut
Best Esports game
Counter-Strike 2 (Valve)
DOTA 2 (Valve)
League of Legends (Riot)
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Moonton)
Valorant (Riot)
Best Esports athlete
brawk – Brock Somerhalder (Valorant)
Chovy – Jeong Ji-hoon (League of Legends)
f0rsakeN – Jason Susanto (Valorant)
Kakeru – Kakeru Watanabe (Street Fighter)
MenaRD – Saul Leonardo (Street Fighter)
Zyw0o – Mathieu Herbaut (Counter-Strike 2)
Best Esports team
Gen.G – League of Legends
NRG – Valorant
Team Falcons – DOTA 2
Team Liquid PH – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Team Vitality – Counter-Strike 2
Players’ voice
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Dispatch (AdHoc Studio)
Genshin Impact (HoYoverse)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)
CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash speaking to members of the audience before the start of the CNN Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 10, 2024.
Andrew Harnik/AP/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Andrew Harnik/AP/AP
After Netflix made a big play to buy most of CNN’s parent company, journalists and executives at the news network thought they had dodged a bullet. One week later, it’s pretty clear they hadn’t.
Two questions remain: Why did they think that in the first place? And what’s ahead?
Netflix, which is already the nation’s leading streamer, had struck a deal to acquire the movie studios, archives, intellectual property and streaming services of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
But Netflix did not want to become Newsflix. CNN and its sister cable channels were to be spun off in a separate company. Inside CNN, that seemed like good news.
“It will enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for CNN by successfully navigating our digital transition,” Mark Thompson, the chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, wrote in a memo to staff shortly after Warner said it would accept the Netflix offer.
Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, speaks onstage during Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2024 on May 15, 2024 in New York City.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Di/Getty Images North America
hide caption
toggle caption
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Di/Getty Images North America
Staffers recalled the mass layoffs caused when new corporate owners at Warner canceled the network’s streaming service CNN+ in April 2022, just a month after it launched. They say they had been heartened to think their new efforts might actually get off the ground.
But in the new plan, as part of a corporate family of fading cable channels loaded with debt from the merger that created Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s fate would remain entirely up for grabs.
And President Trump, who has long called networks such as CNN fake news and long sought to taunt or toss out CNN’s reporters, now wants a deciding role in the network’s future.
“I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace,” Trump said Wednesday at the White House in response to a question from a Daily Mail reporter. “I think it’s imperative that CNN be sold.”
This account is based on interviews with seven current and former CNN staffers, including journalists and executives. They spoke on condition they not be named due to the uncertainty surrounding the network’s future and, for those still at CNN, their jobs.
CNN put in play by corporate maneuvers
CNN’s status was put in play this past summer, when Warner CEO David Zaslav announced the company would split in two. Unsolicited, David Ellison, backed by his billionaire father Larry, bid for the entire company. Zaslav turned them down. They kept at it. He finally put the company up for auction.
Larry Ellison is the co-founder of Oracle, one of the richest people on the planet, and an ally of Trump. David is the head of Skydance, a Hollywood production company. Since last summer, he’s also the head of Paramount Global, which includes CBS, Paramount Studios and other properties.
Billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison shares a laugh with President Trump as Ellison stands on a stool at a news conference at the White House on Jan. 21, 2025. Ellison’s son David is making a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
hide caption
toggle caption
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
Presidents do not – or are not supposed to – play a role in anti-trust decisions. They are typically handled by Justice Department officials or semi-autonomous regulatory agencies.
Yet to get the sale of Paramount to the finish line, its prior ownership paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed against CBS’s 60 Minutes – a lawsuit that outside legal observers considered flimsy. The company also announced the end of the late night show of longtime Trump critic and satirist Stephen Colbert.
The Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellisons’ takeover of Paramount, required because the company owns 28 local television stations and needed government signoff to allow the transfer of their broadcast licenses.
With David Ellison now at the helm of CBS, there have been more changes that appear to be aimed at responding to Trump’s criticism of the network and to appeal to conservatives, according to four people at CBS. (They spoke on condition of anonymity to characterize sensitive corporate matters.)
Ellison named Kenneth Weinstein, a former head of a conservative think tank, as ombudsman at CBS News and he also selected Bari Weiss, the founder of the right-of-center Free Press, as the network’s editor in chief. Ellison also fulfilled pledges to scrap DEI initiatives at the network.
Despite feeling of relief, CNN still vulnerable
Hence the sigh of relief inside CNN when news broke of Netflix and Warner’s deal: many of CNN’s journalists didn’t want the political implications of having Paramount as owner. Nor did they want to merge with CBS, which would entail massive job losses.
Yet the Netflix deal, assuming it is consummated, would leave CNN and its sister channels exposed, vulnerable to purchase by someone else. Maybe a local TV giant like Nexstar or Sinclair Broadcast Group, which have a center-right and a hard right orientation, respectively, would want to acquire it. Maybe an investment fund would.
It is just as likely Paramount itself would give it another go – and pick up the former Warner channels on the cheap. Ellison had suggested they were worth $1 a share. (He is currently offering $30 a share for the whole company.) And now, among some staffers at CNN, there’s a sense of growing dread.
Trump’s comments Wednesday about the network’s leadership were “extremely unprecedented, perhaps not surprising, coming from President Trump, given his long dislike for any journalism that holds him accountable,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said on his show Wednesday in a clip he reposted on social media. “He made it so clear that the fate of CNN is what’s driving his view and his potential involvement [in] this potential transaction when it comes to who buys Warner Bros. Discovery.”
Tapper’s on-air guest was former CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, founder of the media newsletter Status. He told Tapper that Trump was “a thin-skinned aspiring autocrat who wants to seize control of the media. And he wants an obedient press.”
David Ellison has mounted a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Here, the Paramount Skydance CEO speaks during the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Oct. 9, 2025.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
hide caption
toggle caption
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
Paramount seeks to build trust as it seeks to bulk up
As this week has proven, the Ellisons are far from finished in their pursuit of the entire company. They upped their offer a bit. They pledged to unify big studios and beef up streaming, sports rights and cable properties to take on the likes of Netflix. They promised to save Hollywood from being swallowed by the giant streamer. The Ellisons are seeking to rally the creator class on their behalf.
Having been frozen out by Warner chief Zaslav, Paramount pitched itself to Warner’s investors as the logical and more profitable choice — backed by far more cash up front than Netflix’s offer. Paramount’s new chief legal officer is Makan Delrahim, perhaps best known as the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division during Trump’s first term in office. Ironically, in office Delrahim unsuccessfully sought to block AT&T from acquiring CNN and its then-corporate parent.
AT&T may have wished Delrahim had succeeded in court; it spun off its media holdings to merge them with Discovery several years later, creating Warner Bros. Discovery.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is among the lawmakers who have raised questions about media consolidation on bids from both Netflix and Paramount.
“We’ve got two already giant companies, both of which have these big streaming services,” Warren said Thursday on NPR’s Morning Edition. “We’re going to spend a bazillion dollars to do this. But we’re going to make even more bazillions of dollars.
“And how do they plan to do that?” she asked rhetorically. “Well, there’s only two places to go. They plan to do it by squeezing the workers. That is, there’ll be fewer places to pitch your movie. There’ll be fewer places to be a makeup artist or to drive trucks for. And they plan to squeeze the consumers. And they do that, of course, by raising prices.”
Major investors, major ties to Trump
David Ellison argues the administration will more readily approve Paramount than Netflix. And he’s not been shy about touting his family’s ties to Trump. “I’m incredibly grateful for the relationship that I have with the President, and I also believe he believes in competition,” Ellison told CNBC earlier this week. Earlier this year, Trump arranged for Larry Ellison to receive a significant stake in the U.S. version of TikTok.
Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia holds a joint press conference with President Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 18, 2025.
Win McNamee/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
hide caption
toggle caption
Win McNamee/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
As for the financing of the Paramount deal: According to the small print of Paramount’s filings with federal financial regulators, it involves the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, controlled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, an ally of the president who was implicated in the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. At least two Republican senators said after classified briefings they believed Prince Mohammad was involved in the hit. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded the prince approved an operation to capture or kill Khashoggi.
Other investment partners in the Paramount bid include the L’imad Holding Co. PJSC of Abu Dhabi, the Qatar Investment Authority and the U.S. investment fund Affinity Partners. The last of those funds is controlled by Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law and former White House adviser. In its securities filing, Paramount said all agreed to foreswear any claim to a seat on the board of directors.
In interviews, CNN staffers recoiled at the idea that the Saudi royal or the Trump in-law would have any ownership stake in the network – even given the promises they would keep their distance.
“They could be in it purely for profit,” says Kelly Shue, a finance professor at the Yale School of Management said of the investors. “But it is also disturbing that they could control media framing and news.”
That’s the appeal for Trump.
When a reporter for ABC News questioned Prince Mohammad about Khashoggi and the Saudi involvement in the September 2001 terror strikes on the U.S in an Oval Office appearance last month, Trump attacked her for being “insubordinate” — as though she worked for him somehow.
Similarly, on Wednesday, when Trump was asked about the release of a video showing the U.S. strikes on Venezuelan vessels that his Defense Department claims are operated by terrorists, he turned his ire on the questioner.
“I thought that issue was dead. I’m surprised. You must be with CNN,” Trump said to the reporter, who indeed was with CNN. “You know you work for the Democrats, don’t you? You’re basically an arm of the Democrat party.”
With that, Trump shut down questions from all reporters present.
Paramount’s current offer to buy Warner is good through Jan. 8th, although it could be extended.
On Monday, Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos told investors that he foresaw a new bid from Paramount and that he expects Netflix’s deal to hold.
There’s no sign that this auction is over yet. And there’s no more clarity on who will own — or control — CNN.
Editor’s note: CNN, Paramount Plus, Warner Bros. Discovery and Warner Bros. Pictures are among NPR’s financial supporters.
Attempted traffic stop leads to arrest of Maryland man wanted for kidnapping
Legal experts question University of Michigan’s role after charges against former HC Sherrone Moore
Nine high school sports takeaways from the first full night of the winter season – The Boston Globe
KSTP/SurveyUSA poll results: Fraud in Minnesota
Mississippi Lottery Mississippi Match 5, Cash 3 results for Dec. 12, 2025
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton
Three years on, former MEP Kaili remains in limbo still awaiting trial
Afghan CIA fighters face stark reality in the U.S. : Consider This from NPR
Video: Behind the Supreme Court’s Push to Expand Presidential Power
Kilmar Abrego Garcia seen for first time since release, pledges to ‘continue to fight’ Trump admin
-
Alaska6 days agoHowling Mat-Su winds leave thousands without power
-
Texas7 days agoTexas Tech football vs BYU live updates, start time, TV channel for Big 12 title
-
Ohio1 week agoWho do the Ohio State Buckeyes hire as the next offensive coordinator?
-
Washington4 days agoLIVE UPDATES: Mudslide, road closures across Western Washington
-
Iowa5 days agoMatt Campbell reportedly bringing longtime Iowa State staffer to Penn State as 1st hire
-
Miami, FL6 days agoUrban Meyer, Brady Quinn get in heated exchange during Alabama, Notre Dame, Miami CFP discussion
-
Cleveland, OH5 days agoMan shot, killed at downtown Cleveland nightclub: EMS
-
World5 days ago
Chiefs’ offensive line woes deepen as Wanya Morris exits with knee injury against Texans
