Fresh off his rival CEO’s night cheering on President Trump’s State of the Union address, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos will march to Washington to argue his case.
Sarandos, 61, is locked in a heated faceoff against Trump-friendly Paramount CEO David Ellison for the most coveted prize in Hollywood: Warner Bros. Discovery.
Since WBD accepted Netflix’s merger bid in December, Ellison, 43, has launched an aggressive all-cash rebuttal, including an additional $2.8 billion to cover the cost of exiting the already agreed-upon Netflix deal. The total bid now exceeds $108 billion.
On Thursday, Sarandos will attend meetings at the White House to discuss the deal, Politico reported. It remains unclear whether Trump will meet with Sarandos directly, but if he does, it could get contentious, coming just days after the pair traded barbs.
Last Saturday, Trump, 79, posted a bizarre demand for the CEO, requesting he immediately “fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences.”
Rice previously made comments on a podcast that incensed the president. Trump threatened Sarandos, whose WBD merger could face antitrust opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress.
In response to the Truth Social post, Sarandos brushed the president off. “This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal,” the CEO said in an interview following Trump’s threats.
Alongside direct threats from the president, who has said the Netflix deal could be “a problem,” Ellison’s offensive gameplan has put him on near-equal footing with Netflix. On Tuesday, WBD reopened the possibility of a Paramount merger.
In Paramount’s Q4 earnings report, Ellison also teased his plans to take over news media’s preeminent left-wing institution: CNN. Ellison announced on Wednesday that Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of WBD, which owns CNN, would supercharge his ongoing efforts at CBS.
“While we are confident in our standalone strategy and growth trajectory for Paramount, we view WBD as an accelerant to achieving these goals more quickly,” Ellison wrote in the report.
Despite blossoming streaming revenue, Paramount reported a 5% decline in TV media revenue to $4.7 billion from last year’s $4.98 billion. It was the company’s only sector to see revenue decline.
Since Ellison took over CBS in August, the news organization has floundered under new MAGA-coded Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. In the months since, the network has lost ratings for its new nightly news anchor, Tony Dokoupil, and has seen departures from top producers and talent, including 60 Minutes anchor Anderson Cooper.
Ellison, though, is determined to turn CBS around.
“The goal is to build a modern news organization equipped for the digital age and rooted in facts, rigorous reporting, and audience-first storytelling,” Ellison wrote in the earnings report. The MAGA-friendly CEO also said that the CBS News streaming platform will receive “new formats and programming.”
Facing increased pressure from both Trump and Ellison, Sarandos’ White House meeting could be paramount to his merger’s success.
