In November, Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, made a trip to the White House for a lengthy meeting with Donald Trump. According to Bloomberg, the two discussed a number of topics, but chief among them was Netflix’s plan to bid on Warner Bros. At the end of their conversation, Sarandos felt that “Netflix wouldn’t face immediate opposition from the White House.”
This week, Netflix successfully won the bidding war for Warner, offering $82.7 billion. It’s well known that Paramount and its CEO David Ellison were eager to acquire the storied studio and its streaming assets. Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, have close ties to the White House, and as part of their pitch to Warner, suggested that only they were in a position to overcome the regulatory hurdles of further media consolidation.
Sarandos seems to have rightly believed that the Ellisons overestimated their political clout. And despite some public efforts to turn the White House against the deal, Netflix won out, for now. There is, of course, still a chance that Paramount could launch a hostile takeover effort, or that the Justice Department could try and scuttle the deal — nothing is guaranteed yet.
Sarandos tried to acquire Paramount before David Ellison swooped in, so snatching Warner Bros. out from under his nose is likely something of a personal victory.
