The entertainment conglomerate Paramount Skydance is navigating a significant internal shake-up, having lost approximately 600 employees who chose to resign rather than comply with a strict, full-time Return-to-Office (RTO) mandate. The voluntary exodus, announced in recent company disclosures, came with a substantial price tag for the newly merged entity.
The CEO’s Buyout Offer and Rationale
The RTO policy was instituted by David Ellison, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Paramount Skydance Corp., shortly after the $8 billion merger of Paramount and Skydance Media was finalized in August 2025.
Ellison presented remote workers with an ultimatum: either return to the Los Angeles and New York offices five days a week, or accept a severance package.
In a memo explaining the decision, Ellison underscored the need for physical presence in the creative industry:
“I believe that in-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture and driving the success of our business. Our people are the key to winning, and being together helps us innovate, solve problems, share ideas, create, challenge one another, and build relationships that will make this company great,” he wrote.
Ellison further emphasized the value of organic, in-person learning that virtual tools cannot replicate:
“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning. I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom.”
The Financial Cost of the Exodus
According to company disclosures filed on Monday and reported by Fortune magazine, around 600 employees at the vice-president level and below opted to take the buyout. This voluntary separation cost Paramount Skydance approximately $185 million in severance packages.
The company listed these costs under “restructuring charges… associated with actions to align the business around our strategic priorities.”
The cost is part of a much larger financial realignment for the merged media giant. In a shareholder letter, Paramount stated it expects to incur a staggering $1.7 billion in total restructuring expenses as it streamlines operations and seeks to achieve significant cost savings. The company’s restructuring efforts also include other recent rounds of mandatory layoffs impacting thousands of employees.