Netflix plans Trumpian charm offensive after Paramount submits bid for Warner Bros. Discovery: sources
Streaming giant Netflix is planning a Trumpian charm offensive on the heels of some very anti-MAGA comments made by one of its board members and as it faces heightened scrutiny from White House antitrust regulators over its planned purchase of Warner Bros.Discovery’s streaming and studio units, The Post has learned.The maneuvers come as Paramount Skydance submitted its last and final offer for WBD on Sunday, said sources with knowledge of the matter.
The company previously weighed taking its bid up to around $32 a share.In Netflix land, the planned meetings, which have yet to be reported, could include a face-to-face sit-down between CEO Ted Sarandos, and President Trump, according to one person with knowledge of the matter.Over the weekend, Trump lashed out at the streaming giant in a social media post after Susan Rice, a Netflix board member and top Democrat, warned that corporations that “take a knee” to the Trump administration should expect to be “held accountable” if Dems return to power.The comments prompted Trump to threaten to derail the Netflix-WBD deal unless it fired the former national security adviser under President Obama.A Netflix spokeswoman had no comment about Rice but would not deny the planned meetings.The charm offensive comes at a critical time for Netflix to fulfill its growth strategy – including its purchase of WBD’s streaming and studio in a $73 billion deal – and it goes beyond Rice’s inopportune comments.
Inside the DOJ antitrust division, which can seek to block the merger forcing the matter before a federal court, there is growing skepticism about layering Netflix’s No 1 streaming service on top of WBD’s No.3 ranked, HBO Max.Also not helping Netflix’s cause: Public statements dismissing an early-stage DOJ inquiry that the entire company might constitute a streaming monopoly under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, the bedrock federal law guiding antitrust.
As one senior regulatory official in the Trump Adminis...