Paramount fights Netflix for Warner as Trump hovers

What happened

Paramount Skydance Monday launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, seeking to undo Netflix’s purchase of Warner’s studio and streaming businesses. Paramount said its $77.9 billion all-cash bid for the whole company, including CNN, offered better value to shareholders than the $72 billion purchase price agreed to by Netflix and Warner on Friday. It was Paramount chief David Ellison’s sixth bid for the company in 12 weeks.

Who said what

“We’re really here to finish what we started,” Ellison told CNBC Monday. His debt-heavy offer was backed by his father, billionaire Larry Ellison — a friend of President Donald Trump — and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, among other investors. “Presidents are not supposed to influence the regulators who review major corporate deals,” The New York Times said, but Trump is “placing himself directly in the middle” of the “biggest media deal of the decade.”

Trump said Sunday night he would “be involved” in approving any Warner sale, and Netflix’s increased share of the streaming industry “could be a problem.” Both proposed deals “present antitrust concerns in a traditional regulatory environment,” The Washington Post said, but “Trump’s evident interest in weighing in on the deal, and his familial involvement in the stakeholders, casts a more uncertain and possibly more political frame” on the jockeying.

Larry Ellison called Trump after the Netflix deal was announced “and told him the transaction would hurt competition,” The Wall Street Journal said Monday, citing White House sources, while David Ellison has assured administration officials “he’d make sweeping changes to CNN,” a “common target” of Trump’s ire. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who also reportedly met with Trump last week, said Monday that Paramount’s hostile bid “was entirely expected” and he was “super confident” his merger would go through.

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What next?

Trump “will want Paramount and Netflix to compete for his approval of a deal,” the Journal said, citing a person close to the president. Trump told reporters Monday that “none of them are particularly great friends of mine,” and “I want to do what’s right.” Warner shareholders have until Jan. 8 to vote on Paramount’s tender offer.