Media billionaire John Malone is exiting his seat on Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors and will become chair emeritus.
The company said Friday in an SEC filing that Malone, 84, notified the board on Tuesday that he did not intend to stand for re-election at WBD’s next annual shareholder meeting.
The board is set to increase to 14 members, the company has said, and will soon add tech investor Anton Levy. WBD has been overhauling its board of late, in part due to pressure by an activist shareholder.
Malone helped engineer the $43 billion merger of Discovery (in which he held a longtime stake) and WarnerMedia in 2022 and has been a mentor to CEO David Zaslav. Unlike Malone’s many shrewd moves over decades in the media business, however, the WBD merger hasn’t yet borne fruit. The company’s stock fell to nearly $8 a share this week amid market turbulence, and it trades at roughly one-third its level at the time of the combination.
As chair emeritus, WBD said, Malone will attend board meetings “in an advisory capacity, but will not vote on board matters.”
Malone has blazed a unique trail and will recount some of his adventures in a memoir to be published in September by Simon & Schuster. He remains chairman of Liberty Media and a significant stakeholder and strategic force at Charter Communications, SiriusXM and other companies affiliated with Liberty.
“John possesses one of the most brilliant strategic minds our industry has ever known,” Zaslav said in a statement. “His exceptional insights and visionary perspective on the global media landscape and its future have been invaluable to me personally and pivotal in shaping the trajectory and remarkable growth of Discovery and now at Warner Bros. Discovery. Working alongside John has profoundly enriched our ability to navigate complex challenges, seize transformative opportunities, and create lasting value.”
WBD Board Chair Samuel A. Di Piazza, Jr. said Malone has been “instrumental in overseeing the development of Warner Bros. Discovery’s strategy and charting our course to navigate the current media landscape.”
Malone thanked Zaslav and called it a “privilege” to have served on the board and used the phrase “industry-defining” to describe the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery. “A constant through this journey has been my long-standing partnership with David, built on deep trust and his powerful combination of operational excellence and decisive leadership,” said Dr. Malone. “The Board and management team have made incredible progress making the company more resilient, agile and positioned for pro table growth. I am confident Warner Bros. Discovery is on the right path.”
While he appears regularly at Liberty’s annual investor day and at occasional conferences, Malone maintains a fairly low public profile but his insights travel. With a doctorate in operations research from Johns Hopkins, “Dr. Malone,” as he is often called, fascinates those in the media business as few others with his acumen and strategic thinking. He is known for masterminding complex financial transactions aimed at minimizing tax and debt burdens for investors. The execution of the WBD merger via an obscure vehicle known as a Reverse Morris Trust was a signature Malone transaction.
