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Some context from Matt Levine [0] as to what was different prior to this change.

(TL;DR, but please correct me if I'm wrong: it was previously backstopped by Ellison's revocable trust. Ellison could theoretically clear out the revocable trust at any time, and leave WBD high and dry. Now that it is backstopped by Ellison himself, there is no such worry.)

[0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2025-12-17/war...

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> In an effort to address these concerns, Paramount said on Monday morning that Larry Ellison, the co-founder of tech giant Oracle, had agreed to personally backstop $40.4bn in equity financing for the proposed deal.

The deal is for $108.4bn though.

IIUC, Ellison's trust is on the hook for 40.7bn so where's the missing 0.3bn? Levine didn't really talk much about how the remainder is secured so there could be issues there as well.

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