President Donald Trump is getting involved in the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal.
On Friday, Netflix announced that it would acquire Warner Bros., including its TV and film studios, HBO and HBO Max, for $72 billion. If the deal goes through, it will be Netflix’s biggest acquisition to date.
Speaking to reporters at the Kennedy Centre on Sunday, Trump said Netflix is a great company that has done a “phenomenal job.”
But he added, “They have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Brothers, you know, that share goes up a lot.”
“So I don’t know, that’s going to be for some economists to tell. And also, I’ll be involved in that decision, too,” Trump said.
Trump added that Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, visited him in the Oval Office last week. He said Sarandos was a “great person” who has done “one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies.”
“But it is a big market share, there’s no question about that. It could be a problem,” he added.
Representatives for Netflix and Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
The announcement of Warner Bro.’s sale has drawn criticism. Paramount CEO David Ellison was at the White House last week, where he objected to the deal on antitrust grounds, per a report by The New York Post. Paramount Skydance had been competing with Netflix and Comcast to buy Warner Bros.
This is not the first time Trump has become involved in an antitrust case. In 2017, he opposed AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, saying it was “not good for the country.”
Netflix’s stock price is down about 7% in the past five days, while Warner Bro.’s stock price is up more than 8% in the same period.
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