Gerald M. Levin Dies: Former Time Warner CEO Who Oversaw AOL Merger Was 84
deadline.comGerald M. Levin, the former CEO of Time Warner who helped oversee its calamitous merger with AOL, died Wednesday in Long Beach, CA.
He was 84. His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his grandchild, Jake Maia Arlow. Levin had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but no details about his death were shared.
Once described as one of the most powerful media executives in the world, Levin with Steve Case orchestrated the ruinous merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000.
At the time, Time Warner was the world’s largest media company while AOL was a behemoth in its own right. But the deal would go down among the worst in history, and Levin resigned from the company in 2002. “He saw the merger with AOL as making Time Warner digital by injection,” Richard Parsons, who succeeded Levin at Time Warner, told the NYT. “What AOL brought to the party was instant access and competence in terms of how to access the internet world.” Born in Pennsylvania, Levin attended Haverford College and University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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