Netflix Chief Heads to the West Wing as a Deal — and Politics — Heat up

With input from Politico, CNBC, Investor’s Business Daily.

Netflix’s chief is flying into Washington with a trophy fight on the table and a political grenade in his pocket. Ted Sarandos will be at the White House on Thursday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the calls, to talk through the company’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and to answer a very public demand from Donald Trump that the streamer drop board member Susan Rice.

That’s an awkward agenda. Deal chatter and political pressure don’t usually coexist on the same calendar, but right now they’re tangled. The bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery has intensified after rival Paramount bumped its offer to $31 a share from $30, a move that puts fresh pressure on Netflix to either raise its price or walk away. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice’s antitrust shop — the DOJ Antitrust Division — is already sniffing around the contours of the takeover, making every strategic choice riskier.

Sources say the White House meeting will zero in on both threads: corporate strategy and the president’s repeated public calls for Rice’s ouster. Trump took to Truth Social to demand Netflix fire Rice and warned that the company would “pay the consequences” if she stayed on the board. Rice, for her part, told listeners on a podcast that firms and law firms that “bent the knee” to the president could face fallout if Democrats regain power. That back-and-forth has pushed what might have been a private corporate negotiation into the glare of partisan theatre.

Sarandos has tried to keep the tone businesslike. In comments to the BBC he called the talks “a business deal. It’s not a political deal.” But optics matter. Few CEOs want to be seen stuck between a buying frenzy, federal investigators, and the person who controls the bully pulpit. For context: Sarandos met with Trump privately in November, according to one source, so this visit isn’t his first trip into the political arena.

On the deal side, Warner’s board said Tuesday that no final decision has been reached. If Paramount ends up with the board’s blessing, Netflix would have just four business days to top that bid — a narrow runway in a game where timing is everything. Paramount’s CEO, David Ellison, has been pushing hard. His combined Paramount–Skydance play is credited with major franchise hits, and Ellison has taken the fight to WBD for months, running a hostile tender while also negotiating under a brief waiver from Netflix.

Skydance itself is part of the calculus. Skydance has produced big hits and some flops; it’s strong on franchise pictures but less consistent elsewhere. That record matters when shareholders and regulators examine whether a bidder can wring continued box-office and streaming value from the Warner catalog — the DC characters, Harry Potter, “Game of Thrones” — the kind of IP buyers dream of owning.

On the antitrust front, the DOJ’s review raises the stakes. The division is weighing whether a Netflix takeover of such a giant content house would lessen competition in streaming, advertising, or movie distribution. Add a president publicly threatening a board member and you have a stew of legal and political risk that could slow or complicate any deal.

The convergence of politics and dealmaking is not new in Hollywood, but it’s getting sharper. Not long after Paramount raised its bid, Ellison showed up at the State of the Union as a guest of Senator Lindsey Graham — a close ally of the president. Small signals in Washington can echo loudly in corporate corridors.

For Netflix, the choices are blunt: hike its bid and invite more regulatory scrutiny; stand pat and hope shareholders prefer a strategic dance; or walk away and risk losing a crown jewel of content to a rival. For Sarandos, the White House stop is a chance to try to blunt the political noise, explain the company’s playbook to influential officials, and perhaps persuade skeptical parties that Netflix can handle both the streaming business and the reputational challenges that come with a public political spat.

Expected outcome? Hard to call. White House meetings don’t always change the arc of a takeover. But when the president himself has weighed in, when rivals have upped their offers, and when federal enforcers are in the room, every meeting becomes material. This one will be watched not just by shareholders, but by studios, regulators, and anyone who cares about how content power gets concentrated in the streaming age.

If nothing else, Thursday promises drama: a CEO in the West Wing, a corporate buying fight, a president demanding a resignation, and regulators lurking in the background. That’s a lot for one agenda. Expect statements calibrated for calm and, behind the scenes, a stack of contingency plans being drafted by lawyers and bankers on all sides.