President Donald Trump said Netflix and Paramount Skydance have called him about their fight over Warner Bros. Discovery — but he says he’s staying out of it.
“I’ve been called by both sides,” Trump told “NBC Nightly News.” “It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.”
This is a shift from what Trump said in December of last year.
“They have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Bros., you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know,” Trump said after Netflix made its bid for Warner Bros. Discover. “I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share.”
The fight for Warner Bros. Discovery, and its well-known IP, has been contentious.
In November of last year, formal bids for the media behemoth were submitted, including those from Netflix and Paramount Skydance — which previously signaled interest in buying Warner Bros. Discovery.
Netflix announced in early December that it would acquire parts of WBD — the studio and streaming — for an equity value of $72 billion ($27.75 per share).
“The seismic cash-and-stock deal, which has a total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, will bring together Netflix’s streaming platform with Warner Bros.’ century-old studio, HBO, HBO Max, and some of the most iconic franchises in film and television,” Business Insider reported when the deal was announced.
Paramount Skydance came in days later with a hostile, all-cash offer of $30 per share for all of WBD, including its cable assets, making its appeal directly to shareholders.
The battle has continued with Netflix revising its deal with an all-cash offer at the same price per share, Paramount Skydance saying Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison was backing its offer, and WBD telling its shareholders to reject the Paramount deal.
No matter how the saga ends, the bids will need to clear regulatory hurdles for the merger — and for now Trump said he’ll leave that to the DOJ.
