Comment by dofm

> Who cares if their debt is junk.

Non-rhetorical answer to your rhetorical question, but:

The near future of the political right wing of the USA is dependent on the Ellisons staying afloat to create an impervious right-wing media sphere that would survive the end of Fox.

The Paramount-Skydance/Warner merger is now delayed until 2027. Trump/the GOP needs that merger to go ahead, but if Larry's debt position worsens it really might not.

So you can expect the executive branch to push for the USA to backstop Oracle's debt in some way, whether directly or indirectly (taking some sort of stake in OpenAI to allow it to guarantee Oracle gets most of its money, for example — anything to get the credit rating back up).

It will be the first stage of this becoming a problem for the American taxpayer.