Jason Kilar plans to stay as WarnerMedia CEO until 2022
Jason Kilar, whose future as CEO of WarnerMedia had been in some doubt recently, said Thursday he will remain in the job until at least 2022.
Kilar announced the decision to WarnerMedia employees at a celebration of the one-year anniversary of the company’s streaming service HBO Max.
“My plan and my focus is to remain here in my CEO role at WarnerMedia,” Kilar said. “I am not thinking right now about post-merger. There will be a time to consider that topic in 2022.”
“I believe we have unfinished business and the work of the next year can and should be extremely fulfilling as the world continues to see what we are capable of doing,” he added.
Kilar’s position at the company was left up in the air after AT&T announced earlier this month it was spinning off WarnerMedia and combining it with Discovery. CNN is part of WarnerMedia and will be included in the transaction.
AT&T announced Discovery CEO David Zaslav will run the combined business. Also that day, investors calls and media interviews featured AT&T CEO John Stankey and Zaslav, which prompted confusion on Kilar’s role in the future combined company.
The New York Times reported on the same day as the merger announcement that Kilar had hired a legal team and was negotiating his exit from WarnerMedia. The Times also cited anonymous sources saying Kilar had been “kept in the dark about the deal until recent days.”
The deal is still subject to regulatory approval.
