“Don’t trust billionaires,” Stephen Colbert told Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen on CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast when asked what major lesson he learned in 2025. “They don’t get rich by finding that money on the side of the road, brother.”
That’s quite the message to send to the corporate overlords at CBS who canceled his show last summer—a show that’s literally #1 in its time slot.
WHAT’S GOING ON: CBS announced it was ending “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in July, claiming it was “purely a financial decision” and insisting the show was losing $40 million a year. The show will limp along through May 2026 before going dark.
BUT BUT BUT: Pretty much nobody believes those numbers. Fellow late night host Jimmy Kimmel called CBS’s claims about Colbert’s show “obviously lies.” So what actually happened? The decision conveniently came as parent company Paramount was trying to get FCC approval for its merger with Skydance Media—and after Donald Trump had repeatedly attacked Colbert and called for him to be canceled on Truth Social.
OF COURSE, the FCC approved that merger the very next week. The deal put David Ellison—son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, who reportedly bankrolled the whole thing—in charge of the combined company. Nothing suspicious there!
THE DETAILS: Colbert hasn’t exactly been going quietly. When Paramount announced a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. last month, he couldn’t resist: “Wow. I gotta say, if my company’s got that kind of green, I’m sure they can afford to uncancel one of their best shows.”
WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t just about one late night host getting axed. It’s a case study in how billionaire-controlled media companies can silence critics when political pressure meets corporate self-interest.
Trump wanted Colbert gone. Paramount needed Trump’s FCC to approve their merger. Colbert got canceled. The merger got approved. Billionaires got richer.
BOTTOM LINE: Colbert’s three-word lesson—”don’t trust billionaires”—isn’t just a sick burn on his former bosses.
It’s a warning about who actually controls the information ecosystem and what happens when media consolidation meets authoritarian pressure. At least he’s going down swinging.