Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos visits White House amid Warner deal battle
By Brian Stelter, CNN
(CNN) — Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos visited the White House on Thursday for meetings — though not with the president — as the streaming giant seeks Trump administration approval of its mega-deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.
Netflix’s pending plan to acquire HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio has been tested by Paramount’s hostile takeover bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
President Trump has previously indicated that he favors Paramount. And last weekend, he publicly told Netflix to remove board member Susan Rice, a former Obama advisor, or “pay the consequences” — renewing the prospect that he will put his thumb on the corporate scale.
Some industry analysts expect Trump’s Justice Department to sue Netflix to block the Warner deal, which could lead to a protracted period of litigation.
Politico’s Wednesday afternoon report about the Sarandos visit spurred speculation about whether the Netflix chief would have face time with the president.
The White House clarified on Thursday that Sarandos was not meeting directly with Trump.
“Netflix is meeting with staff members at the White House,” a White House official told CNN.
A Netflix spokesperson said the company’s leadership did not request a meeting with Trump. The spokesperson said the visit with staff members was set up two and a half weeks ago.
The timing point is noteworthy because the tug-of-war over Warner has escalated in recent days.
With Netflix’s blessing, WBD opened a window for fresh talks with Paramount last week, and on Tuesday, the WBD board confirmed that Paramount had raised its bid to $31 per share.
Paramount made other promises to sweeten the deal, including a “$7 billion regulatory termination fee,” emphasizing Paramount’s confidence that its deal would not be blocked by the Trump administration.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has made a number of moves to forge a close relationship with Trump. The two men had a private meeting at the White House earlier this month, as CNN previously reported.
Soon after the Ellison meeting, Trump told an interviewer that “I haven’t been involved” in the battle over WBD, despite previously saying of the Netflix deal, “I’ll be involved in that decision, too.”
Trump has also said it is “imperative that CNN be sold,” and the current deal with Netflix does not entail CNN being sold; instead, it would be spun off into a new entity with WBD’s other cable assets.
Sarandos has been at the White House repeatedly in recent months, though not always to meet with the president.
Trump has praised Sarandos as a “great person” — but has posted criticism of Netflix on Truth Social.
Sarandos, in turn, has complimented Trump’s interest in the entertainment industry and downplayed the criticism.
When asked by the BBC about Trump’s post assailing Rice, Sarandos said, “This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal. This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the US and regulators throughout Europe and around the world.”
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Alejandra Jaramillo contributed reporting.
