A top Netflix boss has called out President Donald Trump’s “unusual” behavior in the lead-up to the streaming giant’s failed takeover of Warner Bros.
Netflix wanted to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery until it was outbid by Paramount Skydance and its Trumpy CEO, David Ellison. The 43-year-old, who is the son of Oracle’s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison, out-powered the Netflix package by putting together a bid with the backing of the sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
His push coincided with a secret MAGA plot to portray Netflix as a left-wing indoctrination machine. If the deal goes through, Ellison is expected to modify left-leaning network CNN, which is under the Warner Bros. umbrella, like he did when he installed MAGA-curious opinion journalist Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News.
Ellison’s camp is confident it can easily win regulatory approval, given its proximity to Trumpworld. Greg Peters, the co-chief executive of Netflix, told The Telegraph that the deal should face scrutiny.
“Remember this is a deal that will have to be approved in 50-plus jurisdictions, so there’s lots of jurisdictions that will have a particular perspective on this,” Greg Peters, the co-chief executive of Netflix, told The Telegraph.
“A deal of this magnitude should be inspected by regulators; that’s appropriate,” he added.
Peters also provided insight into President Trump’s behavior in the lead-up to the Netflix bid collapsing.
On Truth Social last month, Trump delivered an all-caps ultimatum and demanded that Netflix boot President Obama’s former national security adviser, Susan Rice, from its board or face retaliation. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” Trump wrote, calling into question Rice’s credentials.
“It’s unusual,” admitted Peters, who brushed the harsh comments off as “the social media rhetoric zone.”
He also spoke about the streaming giant being painted as liberal by President Donald Trump and his cronies. “We do partnerships with a huge range of folks,” said Peters. “We do partnerships with folks that the more progressive parts of society get mad at us doing.”
“Like Dave Chappelle,” he added. “We had a very famous dust-up with progressives on some of the content he produced. We think our job is to work with a wide range of folks. We believe in artistic expression.”
Peters oversees product, technology, operations, and partnerships at Netflix, while co-CEO Ted Sarandos is responsible for content and creative strategy.
Sarandos said that once it became apparent his company would not be acquiring CNN, Trump lost interest in the transaction. “Once it was clear that we weren’t in the CNN business, it was a lot less interesting. He didn’t care that much more about our deal,” he said.
Sarandos, too, used the word unusual. However, he used it to describe Ellison, not Trump.
“Unusual, yeah, unusual, irrational, whatever words you want to use in that,” he said. “It’ll be fascinating to see the next steps. I have been on the record a lot in the last two weeks talking about what I think the future looks like. I’m confident in our future that we’re not impacted by all that. In fact, maybe it’s to our advantage. But I hope I’m wrong for the sake of the industry.”
