Rob Bonta Says Paramount Case Is Unlike Meta

Rob Bonta won a major settlement from Meta. He doesn’t see Paramount Skydance as nearly so willing to deal.

“There’s a contrast in that Meta was always going to stay here, never threatened to leave,” the California attorney general told Playbook. “Paramount could do the same thing. But it requires Paramount to want to do that. They seem to want to blackmail and threaten.”

Bonta took a victory lap Wednesday over Meta’s agreement to pay billions of dollars and institute protections for kids using Instagram and other platforms. He played a key role in brokering the settlement after California and two dozen other states filed a lawsuit alleging the company intentionally hooked children and downplayed the potential harms.

But as Bonta touted the win, he turned to the next big fight in his portfolio: antitrust litigation challenging Paramount Skydance’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.

"Literally, Paramount is the outlier,” Bonta said. “They are an island. They are unique in not wanting to come to the table in good faith to address the issues we’ve raised.”

Bonta blasted Paramount’s repeated threats to leave California, and what he called the company’s unwillingness to negotiate antitrust arguments in the state’s lawsuit. Earlier this week, he canceled a meeting with Paramount representatives after he accused them of leaking the “alleged substance" of settlement negotiations.

Paramount did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening. The company has previously denied leaking information about confidential talks, and it argues that the pending merger does not violate antitrust laws and would help strengthen an entertainment industry in decline.

For Bonta, the Meta and Paramount cases represent a recasting of his office not just as a bulwark against Donald Trump, but as an increasingly aggressive check on big tech and other powerful corporate interests.

“We’re standing toe to toe with some of the biggest corporations in the world, and standing on the side of the law,” he told Playbook.

The dual role — Trump antagonist and corporate enforcer — is quickly rocketing Bonta to a new level of prominence beyond Sacramento after he passed on a run for governor earlier this year. It’s a profile built on an increasingly expansive vision of the state attorney general’s office.

Bonta said it is imperative for Democrats to take bigger swings on issues like antitrust law and consumer protections, arguing the Trump administration has been too lenient on Silicon Valley and other large industries.

"It's incumbent on us to step up and do more,” Bonta said. “We’re uniquely located and uniquely empowered to take on big, powerful entities that are breaking the law.”

The Bay Area Democrat had far less of a megaphone when Joe Biden was in the White House. But with Trump as an antagonist, Bonta has seized the opening, filing dozens of lawsuits against administration policies.

On Wednesday, Bonta launched his latest anti-Trump salvo when he and 23 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s effort to block mail voting via the postal service. “This mail-in voting rule is an unlawful overreach that shows just how far President Trump will go to control elections,” Bonta said.

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