Business
Jeff Shell steps down as Paramount president after legal battle with gambler
Jeff Shell agreed to step down as president of Paramount Skydance after becoming entangled in a legal battle with a controversial Las Vegas gambler and self-styled “fixer.”
Paramount announced Shell’s departure Wednesday after the two sides negotiated an amicable resolution to the drama. Paramount said its external review into Shell’s conduct, initiated by Paramount’s board of directors, found no violation of securities laws.
Shell also resigned as a Paramount board member to focus on his legal skirmish, the company said.
His departure comes after just eight months on the job.
Paramount Skydance “is grateful for Mr. Shell’s many contributions and to have relied on him as a valued advisor,” the company said in its statement.
The veteran entertainment executive officially joined the media company with David Ellison’s takeover in August, though he had been a key member of Ellison’s team for nearly two years as the group worked to assemble the pieces of the tech scion’s growing empire. Ellison’s Skydance Media acquired Paramount and then pulled off a stunning $111-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in late February.
Shell brought substantial experience running a media company to Ellison’s inner circle, a group that included former investment bankers and others who haven’t run a large-scale enterprise. But his role within the company long felt awkward because key division managers, including the heads of CBS, the Paramount movie studio and the company’s streaming businesses, reported to Ellison, which left Shell with a nebulous portfolio.
He wasn’t planning to stay on after the company acquires Warner Bros. Discovery, according to two people close to the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly. Paramount hopes to complete that deal this summer.
Shell’s exit this week was prompted by his unlikely association with the high-roller, Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani, who created a public stir after his dealings with Shell went south.
Cipriani sued Shell in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 9, alleging fraud and breach of an oral contract. Cipriani claimed that he provided Shell with “sophisticated, high-value crisis communications services,” according to his suit.
He alleged Shell spilled corporate secrets, which Shell has denied. Cipriani said he reported Shell to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission because Shell allegedly had discussed highly sensitive Paramount information with him: Paramount’s $7.7-billion deal last summer to bring UFC mixed-martial arts fights to CBS and other Paramount outlets.
Cipriani accused Shell of failing to deliver on a verbal pledge to help him produce an English-language version of a Roku TV Spanish music show.
Shell maintained Cipriani fictionalized the two men’s dealings, then spread “false and salacious lies to extract a massive payday,” according to a counterclaim filed by Shell. Cipriani has been seeking $150 million in damages.
In his court documents, Shell said the two men met only twice and that Shell owed him nothing.
But the Cipriani controversy made Shell’s future at Paramount untenable, the sources told The Times.
There was just “too much noise,” one of the sources said.
The Ellisons wanted to stay focused on building Paramount and completing their Warner Bros. takeover. The company needs to line up regulatory approvals in the U.S. and abroad.
Jeff Shell, Paramount Skydance president.
(Paramount / Skydance)
Paramount’s board last month hired the Gibson Dunn law firm to look into Cipriani’s allegations.
The firm conducted a “complete and thorough” review, Paramount said.
“The facts demonstrated that [Cipriani’s] allegations do not establish a securities law violation,” Paramount said. “Mr. Shell promptly notified PSKY of these accusations and is taking forceful legal action.”
Paramount Skydance, and its board members also named in Cipriani’s lawsuit, plan to respond “to the frivolous and baseless claims against PSKY and its named board members and stockholders,” the company said.
The firm attributed Shell’s decision to step down as “consistent with Mr. Shell’s commitment to prioritizing PSKY’s success.”
His departure comes three years after he was ousted as NBCUniversal chief executive.
NBCUniversal-owner Comcast hired a law firm to investigate him after a CNBC anchor filed an internal sexual harassment claim against him. Shell stepped down, acknowledging that he’d had an “inappropriate relationship” with the journalist, who has since left the company.
The job at Paramount was envisioned to be his second act.
Shell’s dealings with Cipriani began with an August 2024 meeting at litigator Patty Glaser’s Century City office.
At the time, Glaser represented both men and urged Cipriani to “cease” his efforts to drum up damaging stories about Shell, who was trying to recover from the scandal that cost him his job at NBC.
Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani in Amazon Prime Video’s 2025 series, “Cocaine Quarterback.”
(Courtesy of Prime)
Near the end of that meeting, Cipriani pledged to help Shell keep negative publicity at bay, according to sources and court documents.
The two men communicated via text messages, on-and-off, for about 18 months.
“Nobody believed me,” Cipriani said Wednesday. “The best thing I did was cooperate with Gibson Dunn and showed them that the texts were real.”
It’s unclear whether Ellison will look to bring in other experienced media executives or look to senior Warner Bros. Discovery executives following Paramount’s proposed takeover of that company.
Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.
Real estate developer Caruso is partnering with the electric vehicle company Rivian to add more than 150 public EV chargers to Caruso’s properties, including malls and apartment buildings.
Caruso owns several iconic Southern California destinations, such as the Grove and Palisades Village, which is scheduled to reopen this summer after last year’s wildfires. Rivian is an Irvine-based luxury EV brand that has risen in popularity in the Golden State as Tesla has lost some traction.
The multi-year partnership will add two new Rivian showrooms to the Commons at Calabasas and the Americana at Brand in Glendale. Each space will be designed like a gallery and offer private experiences, the companies said.
The DC fast chargers will be available to all EV drivers and powered entirely by renewable energy. Caruso did not specify where the new chargers would be installed. It owns residential buildings in Glendale and near Beverly Hills, as well as the Miramar Resort in Montecito.
“We are thrilled to deepen our relationship with Caruso, a partner with a shared belief in creating meaningful experiences for its community,” Marc Navarro, senior manager of real estate at Rivian, said in a statement.
The collaboration will include ride-and-drive experiences across the Caruso portfolio in Los Angeles, Marina del Rey, Thousand Oaks and other locations.
Rivian was also named a presenting partner for the 25th Annual Christmas at the Grove event. Rivian owners enrolled in Caruso’s membership program will receive free parking at all Caruso properties.
“This partnership enhances the first-class retail experience while adding meaningful convenience for our guests,” said Caruso’s chief financial and revenue officer, Jackie Levy, in a statement. “We’re creating destinations that reflect how today’s consumers live, shop and move.”
California has more than 90,000 public EV charging ports and more than 125,000 shared private ports, according to the California Energy Commission. Combined, that’s 68% more EV chargers than gasoline nozzles in the state.
Los Angeles County has nearly 4,000 public DC fast chargers, the most in the state, followed by San Diego and San Bernardino counties. As of the end of last year, 2.2 million zero-emission vehicles were registered in California, including EVs and plug-in hybrids.
There are still shortages of EV chargers in some California counties, including Modoc and Siskiyou counties in the northern-most part of the state and in Inyo County northeast of Los Angeles.
After several rounds of layoffs in 2025, Rivian signaled a comeback earlier this year with strong earnings, reporting gross profits for 2025 of $144 million compared to a net loss in 2024 of $1.2 billion.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada presented a budget update on Tuesday showing that his government’s deficit would be less than projected last fall and that the country’s economy would most likely grow over the coming year despite several key industries being buffeted by President Trump’s tariffs.
The spring economic update, a mini budget of sorts, came exactly one year after Mr. Carney returned the Liberal Party to power in his first political campaign and a few weeks after special elections and defections to the Liberals by members of other parties gave him a majority and the voting control of Parliament he had been denied in that election.
But if Mr. Carney intends to use his newfound political control to change direction, there was no indication. Instead, the update underscored his broad push to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the United States by expanding trade with other countries and cutting government spending in some areas to expand military spending and large infrastructure projects like pipelines and nuclear power reactors.
“The world has been more uncertain than ever, but despite that, the Canadian economy has been resilient,” François-Philippe Champagne, the finance minister, told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re definitely entering a new world order.”
Mr. Carney, the former central banker of Canada and England, was an investment executive until he moved into politics last year. At that time, the Conservatives seemed certain to win the election to come. Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader at the time, had become unpopular after more than nine years in office, and his government was seen as profligate by many voters.
But Mr. Carney’s background in finance reversed the party’s fortunes when voters appeared to be searching for stability in the midst of Mr. Trump’s trade war on Canada and his calls to turn the country into the 51st U.S. state.
Since then, Mr. Carney has, publicly at least, appeared to largely operate as his own finance minister. He again upstaged Mr. Champagne this week by announcing the only major change to be found in the update. On Monday, Mr. Carney said that Canada would set up a sovereign wealth fund like those found in Norway and several oil-rich nations in the Middle East. While the fund of 26 billion Canadian dollars, about $19 billion, is considerably smaller than those other countries’ pools of money, Canadians will be able to invest their own money in Canada’s new projects.
The update clarified that the 26 billion Canadian dollars will be pulled out of the government’s general revenues over the next three years.
The only other significant measure outlined in the update was a plan to spend 2 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.5 billion, to train 80,000 to 100,000 people in skilled construction jobs, and an additional 3.4 billion Canadian dollars, or about $2.5 billion, to fund apprenticeships.
That program follows similar efforts by the federal government and provinces going back several years to deal with Canada’s chronic shortage of construction workers.
Mr. Champagne said that previous efforts had been fragmented but that the new program would be more comprehensive.
“How many people know all these programs and all these agencies?” he said.
The document also forecast that, despite declines in the jobs-heavy automotive, steel, aluminum and forestry industries brought on by American tariffs, the economy would grow by 2 percent this year. Last year, it reached 1.7 percent after falling by 0.6 percent in the final three months.
The government said that it now expected the deficit for the current fiscal year, which began this month, to be 67 billion Canadian dollars, 11 billion dollars less than it had anticipated in the November budget.
While the recent spike in oil prices is being felt by Canadian motorists, air travelers and many industries, it is benefiting Canada’s oil industry and increasing tax revenues as well as employment in that sector. Overall, the government now expects its revenues to be 9 billion Canadian dollars higher than forecast in part because fewer people are likely to lose their jobs.
In the months since November’s budget, it remains unclear exactly what jobs and programs will be lost to budget cuts. And the government has introduced a variety of new spending measures like the investment fund and a temporary removal of a federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel to partly offset the recent price hikes.
Mr. Champagne repeatedly said that the deficit remained low relative to other industrialized nations and that the government was “fiscally prudent” and careful where it cut.
“By spending less, we can invest more in the things that really matter to Canadians,” he said.
Production services vendor Quixote said it will wind down most of its soundstage business in Los Angeles — including its main commercial studio in West Hollywood and its North Valley studio in Pacoima — as the industry continues to grapple with the slowdown in film and television work.
The company will also close its operations in Atlanta as part of the cost-reduction effort, Quixote parent company Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. said in a statement Tuesday.
About 70 employees in Atlanta and L.A. will be laid off, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment. They did not provide a breakdown of how many layoffs would occur in each place.
Some equipment from Atlanta will be sent to L.A. and New York, where Quixote will continue its business in lighting and grip, communications rental services and production supplies and vehicles such as the Star Waggons trailers.
Hudson Pacific Properties expects to save about $21 million to $27 million a year. Quixote’s Griffith Park studio will remain open.
“Like many of you, we have persisted through the prolonged and ongoing slowdown in commercial, television and film production,” Quixote wrote in a Tuesday note to clients and partners. “But ultimately, industry conditions have forced difficult decisions.”
Hudson Pacific will instead focus on its commercial office business, as well as “higher performing segments of our studio business,” Mark Lammas, president of Hudson Pacific, said in a statement.
The Los Angeles-based real estate company bought Quixote in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would address the growing demand for soundstage space. Quixote was originally founded in 1995.
Hudson Pacific’s Sunset Studios business is not affected by the Quixote news. The company says its main Hollywood stages are 96% leased and new stages in Manhattan are completely full.
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