{"id":616320,"date":"2026-02-26T00:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/616320\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T00:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:47:24","slug":"ted-sarandos-heads-to-white-house-to-counter-latest-paramount-move-in-wb-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/616320\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Sarandos Heads To White House To Counter Latest Paramount Move In WB Battle\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTed Sarandos<\/a> is heading to the White House to salvage Netflix<\/a>\u2018s bid for Warner Bros<\/a>\u2018 crown jewels. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe streamer co-CEO will sit down Thursday with \u201cseveral administration officials,\u201d Deadline has confirmed. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is among those Sarandos will be talking to, I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest swing by the Executive Mansion by pitchman supreme Sarandos comes as talks between $108 billion hostile takeover protagonist Paramount<\/a> and Warner Bros Discovery have been extended and the tide seems to be shifting<\/a> in David Ellison<\/a>\u2018s favor. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter once proclaiming that he wouldn\u2019t \u201cpoliticize\u201d Paramount, increasingly politically sharp elbowed CEO Ellison just yesterday was a guest of close Donald Trump<\/a> ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at the very partisan State of the Union speech.<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tParamount CEO David Ellison walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address during a Joint Session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on Feb, 24, 2026 (Photo:Getty)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that context, it is unclear right now, if Trump himself will be meeting with Sarandos on Thursday. <\/p>\n

\n\t Praising both \u201cfantastic\u201d Sarandos and \u201cgood friend\u201d Ellison on different occasions over the past months as the moves to take over the iconic studio have occurred, the former Apprentice host has expressed concern about Netflix\u2019s potential market share if the streamer and HBO Max become one.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, when it comes to a chat tomorrow between POTUS and the exec, \u201cdon\u2019t bet against it, Ted knows where power rests,\u201d an insider said of the Executive Mansion visit. \u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s going to the White House and not (the Department of) Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe White House had no comment on Sarandos\u2019 dropping by. As has been the case of late as the battle for WBD<\/a> has become more robust (to put it politely) Netflix did not respond to Deadline\u2019s request for comment. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe White House (Photo:Getty)<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is all as POTUS recently raged that Netflix needed to axe <\/a>\u201cracist, Trump Deranged\u201d Susan Rice from its board. The outburst came as the ex-Obama aide admonished corporations and CEO who bent the knee to the administration over the last year. \u201cThis is a business deal,\u201d Sarandos diplomatically responded <\/a>earlier this week when pressed on Trump\u2019s posting against Rice \u201cIt\u2019s not a political deal. This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the U.S. and regulators throughout Europe and around the world,\u201d he said. In noted understatement, Sarandos added of Trump: \u201cHe likes to do a lot of things on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile perhaps not quite desperate times requiring desperate measures yet, tomorrow\u2019s White House visit is the second time in as many weeks that Sarandos has walked the corridors of DC power. The aim is, of course, to close Netflix\u2019s $83 billion WBD board-accepted desire for WB\u2019s streaming and studio assets.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn February 3, the streaming chief submitted to a pounding by MAGA loyalists on Netflix having \u201cthe wokest content in the history of the world\u201d and being \u201cpropaganda\u201d machine for progressives. The POV from a number of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights appeared to come verbatim from a report by a Heritage Foundation spin-off, as exclusively reported by Deadline.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe pressure increasingly had been building on Netflix as a week of extended talks between Paramount and Warner were winding down. Just 24 hours before those talks were to end on Feb. 23, the streamer found itself under the\u00a0Department of Justice<\/a>\u2018s antitrust lens to determine how much leverage Netflix has over the industry. Specifically, if the proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix \u201cmay substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, or Section 2 of the Sherman Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd as we reported today<\/a>, 11 Republican attorneys general weighed in with a letter to U.S. AG Pam Bondi, insisting that the DOJ heavily scrutinize Netflix\u2019s bid for the iconic studio. Among their concerns \u2013 that \u201ca proposed merger between Netflix and Warner Brothers will likely result in undue market concentration that stifles competition and therefore creates higher prices, lower reliability, and less innovation for one of America\u2019s major industries \u2014 all to the detriment of American consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPolitico was first to report Sarandos\u2019 February 27 White House visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ted Sarandos is heading to the White House to salvage Netflix\u2018s bid for Warner Bros\u2018 crown jewels. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":616321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,32129,69,4659,208977,15329,161221,67,132,68,1021,66550],"class_list":["post-616320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-david-ellison","tag-donald-trump","tag-netflix","tag-netflix-wbd","tag-paramount","tag-ted-sarandos","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-warner-bros","tag-wbd"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116134179491877085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}