The Ellisons may not get to play their trump card after all.
U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the proposed Netflix purchase of Warner Bros. today, his first comments on the news of the deal, which broke last week.
Asked what he thought of the proposed deal, Trump praised Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos and didn’t seem committed one way or another about the deal (via Ted Johnson and THR):
“Well, that’s gotta go through a process, and we’ll see what happens. Netflix is a great company. They’ve done a phenomenal job. Ted is a fantastic man. I have a lot of respect for him. But it’s a lot of market share, so we’ll have to see what happens.
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. That’s going to be for some economists to tell. … And I’ll be involved in that decision too, but they have a very big market share.”
The streaming giant’s proposal includes a $5.8 billion breakup fee and promises to maintain Warner Bros. current operations, “including theatrical releases,” should the deal get through the heavy regulatory scrutiny it will have to undergo.
Asked about Sarandos specifically, Trump confirmed this morning’s report that he recently met with the Netflix exec ahead of the deal:
“He came up. He was in the Oval Office last week. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a great, he’s a great person. But he’s done one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies and other things. He’s got a lot of interesting things happening aside from what you’re talking about, but it is a big market share. There’s no question about it. It could be a problem.”
Trump also confirmed they had not discussed any potential guarantees in the case of the mega merger.
The deal is expected to close in late 2026/early 2027, pending regulatory approval and after the studio and streaming assets are spun off under Warner Bros., separated from its linear television businesses under Discovery Global.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, father of Paramount CEO David Ellison and one of the richest men in the world, is a major Trump donor. David Ellison made a series of concessions to the Trump administration before gaining FCC approval of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount and insisted they were the only bidder for Warner Bros. Discovery with a clear path to regulatory approval.
