Netflix Reportedly Greased the Skids for Its Warner Acquisition by Yukking It Up with Trump

The main subtext of Thursday’s unpleasant announcement was that Netflix planned to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in an $82.7 billion deal, amid the ongoing plunder of culture by Big Tech that Silicon Valley is still grabbing for everything it owns. That subtext may have overshadowed some additional, equally nefarious subtext, which unnamed sources confirmed to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw: that if it succeeds, it will likely be the result of a personal lobbying effort aimed at securing President Donald Trump’s approval.

That pressure reportedly led Netflix leadership to visit the White House for a meeting with Trump that lasted hours, but only after a delicious dinner at Mar-a-Lago a year earlier.

To refresh your memory, Netflix is ​​purchasing a vast array of cultural properties on top of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming infrastructure, including HBO Max. For starters, it kicks off four of the most cited “best movies of all time.” citizen Kane, casablanca, blade RunnerAnd gone With the WindThe same thing applies for TV also, Now Netflix will have ownership rights sopranos, WireAnd my personal favorite media property in existence: curb Your Enthusiasm,

By absorbing the best of legacy showbiz, Netflix has no ground left to win without becoming a monopoly so blatant that no presidential administration could possibly afford it. And Trump is historically more pro-monopoly than previous Republican presidents. So such meetings, dirty or not, were probably inevitable.

According to Bloomberg reporting, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sat down with Trump at the White House in mid-November to gently discuss it and make his company’s case, and during the meeting Trump is said to have told Sarandos that Warner Bros. should go to the highest bidder — which must have been pleasant to Sarandos’ ears. Sarandos apparently claimed at the time that Netflix was ranked 5th or 6th on the list of largest TV distributors, and with this deal, it would become as big as YouTube.

But apparently Sarandos had set the stage for the success of this conversation almost exactly a year earlier, at a Mar-a-Lago dinner in December 2024 — right after Trump won the presidential election, in other words. That was when Silicon Valley leaders like Mark Zuckerberg were traveling to Florida to kiss Trump’s ring before he was sworn in.

Sarandos “had deep ties to the Obama and Biden administrations” because he is married to Nicole Avant, who was Obama’s ambassador to the Bahamas, Shaw writes. It was primarily in the Obama-centric context that Sarandos had compromised with global power players, so in his view he needed to get it right. Per Shaw, “the two exchanged stories and established a bond over their childhoods and shared love of entertainment.” And apparently Trump and Sarandos still talk.