President Donald Trump said he would stay out of the takeover battle between Netflix (NFLX) and Paramount Skydance (PSKY) over Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), a marked shift from two months ago, when he said he would be involved in the deal’s approval process.
“I haven’t been involved,” Trump told NBC News in an interview. “I’ve been called by both sides. It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.”
“There’s a theory that one of the companies is too big and it shouldn’t be allowed to do it, and the other company is saying something else,” he added. “They’re beating the hell out of each other — and there’ll be a winner.”
In December, Trump said Netflix (NFLX) had a “very big” market share, which would go up by a lot if it bought Warner Bros.’ (WBD) assets. “That’s going to be for some economists to tell. I’ll be involved in that decision, too.”
Netflix (NFLX) offered to buy Warner Bros. (WBD) studio and streaming assets at an enterprise value of $82.7B. WBD’s board has backed this offer.
Paramount (PSKY) launched a hostile bid for the entire company, including Warner Bros.’ (WBD) cable networks like CNN, with an enterprise value of over $108B. Paramount recently extended the deadline for its bid to Feb. 20.