As the worlds of Hollywood, media, and politics all await word on whether the Ellison family will succeed in its attempt to claw Warner Bros. Discovery from Netflix, many complicated questions remain. To attempt to answer them, I asked Puck’s corporate finance expert, Bill Cohan, a former M&A banker and the author of Dry Powder, to open a Google Doc with me and go back and forth…

Matt: Let’s get right into it. David Ellison seemed annoyed in a real Don’t you know who my father is? way when CNBC’s David Faber dared suggest that the Warner Discovery board maybe had reason to question the backing for the Paramount bid. As you laid out yesterday, Larry Ellison was only agreeing to put up $12 billion, about half of the contribution from the three Middle East sovereign funds. And that Larry money was coming from his revocable trust, not the man himself, which may or may not have mattered legally—but at least the WBD board thought it mattered because there wasn’t direct accountability. (Or at least they’re saying they thought it mattered; it’s tough to parse out all the agendas here.) Seems like the Ellisons may have gotten too cute with an offer that was supposedly “fully backstopped” by the world’s second-richest man.

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Bill: There really is a communication problem, which seems to me could be fixed quickly. The Larry J. Ellison Revocable Trust is the entity that owns his 1.16 billion shares of Oracle. It’s the same entity that he used to invest $1 billion in Elon’s $44 billion Twitter deal. The confusion, understandably, comes from the fact that the Oracle proxy statement from this year lists Larry Ellison as the owner of the shares, not his revocable trust. So I can see why WBD might be wondering what the heck is going on. But that can be clarified pretty quickly, I would think, through a call or a letter. WBD’s other concern is that Larry is putting up $12 billion and also guaranteeing the full $40 billion, just like Elon did in Twitter. But the PSKY side, for whatever reason, hasn’t been able to convince the WBD crowd that Larry is really on the hook for the full $40 billion.

Matt: Unless they don’t want to be convinced. Maybe the “concerns” about the financing are just an excuse to reject Paramount in favor of the preferred bidder, Netflix.

Bill: Yes, that remains a possibility for sure (although a bit on the conspiracy side of things). I would think the lawyers or the bankers should be able to quickly clarify these concerns, and then begin work on the other ones, like how the business is operated between signing and closing. After all, either Larry is on the hook for the $40 billion or he’s not, and either his trust owns those Oracle shares or it doesn’t.

Matt: Well, there’s another concern with the financing: the Middle East sovereign wealth funds. The Ellisons only agreed to remove the voting power from the sovereigns after WBD’s David Zaslav and his board complained about potential regulatory and optics issues of giving even a tiny bit of control to investors from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A.E. Did Ellison really think regulators and politicians would be cool with CNN being steered in part by Saudi, whose government somewhat famously has murdered and dismembered journalists?

Bill: Maybe that was a misjudgment. But that was fixed by the time of the $30-a-share bid on December 4. Not that some politicians will be able to resist objecting to the involvement of the sovereign funds to try to score some political points.

Matt: Also, now that the sovereigns have agreed to give up their board seats and voting rights, what exactly did they get for providing the majority of the equity financing? Sophisticated people tend not to want to part with billions of dollars without receiving something major in return.

Bill: The short answer is they believe in the deal, and in the Ellisons and RedBird, and now they get to share in the ownership of the PSKY common stock and the upside, if there is any. That is, if PSKY is the winner here.

Matt: I’m talking about the soft power. There are tons of better businesses for Mideast funds to invest in. You put money in American media to influence American media… and to benefit from its influence around the world… and to influence the powerful people who care about American media. Namely, Donald Trump.

Bill: Yes, Matt, there is some of that too. And obviously, a goal of the Saudi regime has been to diversify its economy away from oil and petroleum. So maybe this is a twofer: a way to buy influence and a way to diversify into a growing media business, the linear TV side of it aside. (Disclosure: Through our recent acquisition of Air Mail, Zaslav is now a de minimis investor in Puck.)

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Matt: Netflix is already indicating that’s gonna happen, and the shareholders seem spooked by the prospect of co-C.E.O.s Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos escalating a bidding war with Larry Ellison.

Bill: Well, then we’re back in the same place arguing about the value of CNN and the other linear assets. That is a judgment call and will be until Gunnar’s stub starts trading as Discovery Global in the third quarter of next year, well after all this should be resolved. So if the Ellisons really want this deal, then $34 is the way to go, as I suggested last week. At that point, I think Netflix can collect the $2.8 billion breakup fee, take the small victory, and get a long-term content-supply agreement from PSKY/WBD for programming up the wazoo—rather than engage in a bidding war with the world’s second-richest person.

Matt: Movie theater owners would certainly cheer that result, and there’s a lot of evidence that allowing Netflix to add Warners would create a powerhouse with enough leverage to end Hollywood as we know it. It’s funny: Sarandos and Peters sent an email to employees today with some FAQs, and one of the Qs was, “Some feel this is the end of Hollywood. What’s our response to that?” I felt like saying, If you have to ask…

Spoiler: Netflix says it isn’t the end of Hollywood. It’s about “growth” and “strengthening” Warner Bros. and “saving jobs,” yada yada. I’ve argued that Netflix might actually be better for the industry overall, at least in the short term, but there’s no guarantee that either side will follow through on the pledges they’re making now. So it’s impossible to know which is ultimately better.

Bill: WBD is in Revlon mode and has to sell to the highest bidder, so PSKY has to be unambiguously the highest bidder here; otherwise there is no reason for the WBD board to change its recommendation. It’s a little like overturning the call on the field in the NFL; there has to be clear, incontrovertible evidence that the WBD board fumbled and the decision should be changed.

Matt: What about the Oracle question? The stock is down about 16 percent over the past month, as Netflix likes to point out, and its debt load is flashing warning signs. But Larry’s still got plenty of money, and as we noted, he’s only putting up $12 billion of it. Oracle went after PeopleSoft back in 2003 and ultimately succeeded, but only after multiple hostile bids and lawsuits.

Bill: Larry still has $250 billion of Oracle stock and a $350 billion net worth. He’s got more than enough dough to pull this off if he really wants to. The question is: Does he want to contribute $40 billion or $50 billion into what might be his son’s folly? That’s a lot to ask for under any circumstances, but I sense the PSKY side really wants to win this.

Matt: I’ll say. David is really putting himself out there, to the point where people in town are making fun of his thirsty-ness.

Bill: Well, if so, Larry is going to have to keep stepping up here, big time.