Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is set to visit the White House on Thursday to discuss the streamer’s $83 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets, TheWrap has learned.
The meeting, which was first reported by Politico, comes as President Donald Trump has demanded that Netflix fire board member and former UN ambassador Susan Rice or “pay the consequences.”
Trump’s call came after Rice said that corporations who “bent the knee” to the administration would face consequences of their own when Democrats return to power. In a Truth Social post over the weekend, he called Rice “racist” and “deranged” and said she has “no talent or skills.” He also questioned how much she is being paid by Netflix and said that her “power is gone and will never be back.”
Representatives for Netflix and the White House declined to comment.
In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Sarandos brushed off the president’s comment about Rice, saying Trump “likes to do a lot of things on social media.”
“This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal,” Sarandos added. “This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the U.S. and regulators throughout Europe and around the world.”
In addition to Trump’s comments, the DOJ issued a civil investigative demand (CID) to theater owners, filmmakers and producers to get their input as part of its antitrust review of the Netflix deal as it evaluates whether the deal would hurt consumers, the theatrical business, competition and jobs in Hollywood.
Netflix has repeatedly maintained that it has “not been given any notice or seen any other sign that the DOJ is conducting a monopolization investigation.” It also said that any claim that it is a monopolist, or seeking to monopolize, is “unfounded.”
“Our success stems from innovation and investment that benefit consumers,” Netflix chief legal officer David Hyman said. “We neither hold monopoly power nor engage in exclusionary conduct, and we’ll gladly cooperate, as we always do, with regulators on any concerns they may have.”
As Sarandos heads to Washington, the Warner Bros. Discovery board is continuing to engage with Paramount CEO David Ellison after determining his latest $31 per share offer could “reasonably be expected” to lead to a “superior proposal.”
Ellison’s tenth bid includes a daily ticking fee equal to 25 cents per quarter beginning after Sept. 30, 2026. Paramount will pay a $7 billion termination fee to WBD in the event the transaction does not close due to regulatory matters. It will also cover a $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would be required to pay to Netflix and agreed to eliminate $1.5 billion in potential financing costs associated with WBD’s debt exchange offer.
Additionally, the proposal includes an obligation to contribute additional equity funding to the extent needed to support the solvency certificate required by Paramount’s lending banks and a “material adverse affect” definition that excludes the performance of WBD’s Global Linear Networks business.
WBD’s board has not determined whether the revised Paramount bid is superior to the Netflix. In the event that it does, Netflix will have four business days to match Paramount’s offer and negotiate with WBD to propose any revisions to its current deal, which is offering $27.75 per share plus additional “stub equity” from the pending spinoff of Warner’s cable networks into Discovery Global.
The Netflix deal remains in effect and the board is not withdrawing or modifying its recommendation.
In addition to its $31 per share offer, Paramount has taken a hostile takeover bid directly to shareholders after it was rejected by WBD’s board multiple times. As of Feb. 9, 42.3 million of WBD’s total 2.48 billion outstanding shares had been validly tendered to Paramount, though shareholders can withdraw their shares at any time before the offer’s deadline.
Ellison also sued Warner Bros. in January in an effort to extract more details about how the Netflix deal and Discovery Global spinoff were valued and launched a proxy fight in an attempt to sway shareholders to block the Netflix deal and require a vote to complete the Discovery Global spinoff, which is already on track for later this year. Paramount also said it planned to nominate its own director candidates to WBD’s board at the company’s annual meeting.
Shareholders are set to vote on the Netflix deal on March 20 at 8 a.m. ET. Netflix has said it expects a deal to close within 12 to 18 months, while Paramount has argued a potential deal with Warner Bros. would close within a year.
