She'd rather work for Rupert Murdoch than stay at CNN. Here's why

Kara Swisher has reached a breaking point with one of the biggest media deals of the year.

The Bay Area tech journalist and podcaster says she plans to leave CNN rather than work under David Ellison once the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery is complete.

Ellison is CEO of Paramount Skydance, which has been cleared to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery after reaching a deal with California Attorney General Rob Bonta that was announced Monday, Sept. 21.

"I'd rather work for Rupert Murdoch," Swisher, referring to the controversial media mogul who owns Fox News, told author and academic Scott Galloway on her "Pivot" podcast.

Swisher went on to call Ellison and his father, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison , "terrible media owners" and said she's already asked her agent if could get out of her contract with the cable news network earlier. The agreement runs through the end of the year.

"It's only a few months, right?" Swisher said on the podcast episode that dropped Tuesday, Sept. 22. "I just can't. I was trying to figure out ways I could work with them in some like licensing way. But then I thought, 'F- these guys.' I don't want to work for them. I just don't."

Bonta had been leading a 12-state coalition that included 11 other attorneys general in a lawsuit that was intended to block the $111 billion merger, but has agreed to drop the lawsuit after Ellison agreed to certain concessions intended to preserve film and television production schedules.

Ellison is working to complete the merger by Oct. 1. The deal would combine Paramount's holdings - including Paramount Pictures, CBS, Showtime and the Paramount+ streaming service - with Warner Bros. Discovery's entities such as Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, CNN and the streaming service HBO Max.

Many observers note that CNN may drastically change if Ellison places controversial CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss in charge of the 46-year-old network founded by Ted Turner as the first 24-hour news channel.

"They've been very nicely trying to keep me, and I have a lot of regard for the executives there now," Swisher said. "But I am not staying. I have other things that make more money, that matter more, that have a bigger audience."

Swisher and Galloway are scheduled to bring a live version of the "Pivot" podcast to the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco on Nov. 7.