Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says President Donald Trump is all business as the Department of Justice weighs the streaming giant’s potential acquisition of Warner Bros.
“The only thing we talk about is how to keep jobs in America, how to keep the production industry healthy,” Sarandos said of his talks with Trump during an appearance on Puck’s “The Town” podcast.
Trump “wants to know what happened in California,” Sarandos said in the podcast episode, referencing the state’s film and TV production decline.
Hollywood has increasingly gone outside Los Angeles to make movies and shows in recent years, lured by tax credits in places ranging from Atlanta to the United Kingdom.
On-location shooting days for movies and TV shows in the LA area fell 21% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to a study from FilmLA Research published in mid-January. This production drop has hurt LA’s creative community.
Trump previously floated the idea of imposing tariffs on movies and shows made outside the US, though it’s unclear how an import tax could apply to creative services.
Netflix versus Paramount
Netflix has been on a charm campaign to convince the president and Hollywood that it would be a better buyer of Warner Bros. than rival bidder Paramount Skydance.
A key part of Netflix’s pitch is that it would cut fewer jobs than Paramount. Paramount has said it’s planning to create $6 billion in so-called synergies, which would likely include layoffs, while Netflix has told investors it’s aiming for $2 billion to $3 billion in cost cuts, in part by saving money on licensing programming.
WBD’s board of directors seems sympathetic to Netflix’s argument. The board warned shareholders that if it accepted Paramount’s offer, there could be an exodus of employees seeking to avoid layoffs.
Antitrust analysis often focuses on how strong a company is relative to its competitors and how the market power it could wield over consumers. Regulators also look at how a merger or acquisition would impact the production side, which in this case would be how many studios are competing to buy new movies or shows.
Paramount has argued that Netflix, the largest paid streaming service with over 325 million subscribers, would become too powerful if it bought the Warner Bros. studio and HBO assets. Netflix has downplayed those concerns, saying that it also competes against YouTube and traditional TV for attention.
Trump said in December that Netflix had a “very big market share” so buying Warner Bros. “could be a problem.” However, the president said in early February that he had decided he “shouldn’t be involved” and would defer to his Department of Justice.
“We do not discuss private conversations that may or may not have happened, but President Trump has great relationships with all parties in this potential transaction and remains neutral in this process with no preference for either bidder,” a White House official told Business Insider.
Sarandos says Trump isn’t fixated on ‘favors’
Netflix’s co-CEO said Trump hadn’t asked him for political concessions relating to the Warner Bros deal.
“We’re not talking about doing anybody any favors or anything else,” Sarandos said.
Sarandos has long donated to Democrats, and Netflix is often seen by Republicans as a left-leaning company, as evidenced by the grilling Sarandos got during his visit to Capitol Hill in early February.
Notably, Paramount is run by David Ellison and is financially backed by his father, Larry Ellison, a mega-billionaire who has long supported Trump. The younger Ellison has also built rapport with Trump, as the president said last year that Paramount’s CEO was “great” and would “do a great job” running the Hollywood institution.
If Trump doesn’t pick a side, however, those relationships may not help the Ellisons win the battle for Warner Bros.
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