President Donald Trump said Sunday that the proposed $72 billion merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” due to the amount of market share that the resulting company would have.
The value of the deal balloons to more than $82 billion when accounting for debt.
Netflix said Friday it would purchase Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio, HBO and streaming service HBO Max. If approved, Netflix would also get access to decades of films and shows in the Warner Bros. Pictures archive.
The deal would not include cable networks such as CNN and TNT currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
Trump on Sunday expressed some skepticism about the prospects of approval.
“Well, that’s got to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he walked the Kennedy Center Awards’ red carpet.
“They have a very big market share,” Trump said of Netflix. “When they have Warner Bros. that share goes up a lot.”
Netflix, which has more than 300 million subscribers, is currently the No. 1 streaming service. Warner’s HBO Max is ranked slightly lower.
Trump said he would consult “some economists” before the deal receives his stamp of approval. “I’ll be involved in that decision, too,” he said. Historically, sitting presidents have not often gotten involved in antitrust approvals when companies seek to merge.
Neither Netflix nor Warner Bros. own any broadcast stations, so the deal will not require approval by Federal Communications Commission, the federal government’s top communications regulator. However, it may still require approval by the Department of Justice’s antitrust division.
The deal will likely also require approval from the European Commission and other governments around the world.
But during his two terms in office, Trump has dramatically reshaped the ways that corporate America deals with the federal government.
Earlier on Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos had visited the president at the White House in mid-November to discuss the potential deal.
Sarandos’ visit echoed the strategy of other many other corporate executives, who have often tried to get on the president’s good side before making major announcements, doing deals, or seeking relief from government regulations or tariffs.
Sarandos was left with the impression that Netflix wouldn’t face immediate opposition from the White House, the Bloomberg report said.
On Sunday, Trump confirmed he had met with Sarandos.
“I met with Ted, I think he’s fantastic,” Trump told reporters.
“He was in the Oval Office last week,” Trump continued before adding that Sarandos made no promises to him in their meeting.
The president also compared Netflix’s success to that of the famed MGM film studio, which Amazon now owns. Amazon purchased the studio during the Biden administration, which did not challenge the takeover.
The Trump administration in July approved the billion-dollar merger of Paramount Global with film studio Skydance. However, that approval only came after a contentious back and forth with the government and the president himself.
Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to the president’s future presidential library over an interview that CBS News conducted with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump alleged the interview featuring Harris, who ran against Trump for the presidency, was deceptively edited. Paramount also agreed with Trump’s FCC to end its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and create an ombudsman at CBS News.
Netflix is expected by many industry analysts to argue that itcompetes against Google’s YouTube for market share. YouTube is often ranked as the most-used streaming app by U.S. consumers.
On Friday, Netflix’s deal announcement also drew scrutiny from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who called it an “anti-monopoly nightmare.”
Netflix began as a DVD-by-mail company and now is a giant subscription-based streaming service reaching more than a half a billion people across 190 countries through 50 languages
