Trump warns Netflix-Warner deal may pose antitrust ‘problem’

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(Bloomberg) — U.S. President Donald Trump raised potential antitrust concerns around Netflix Inc.’s planned $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., noting that the market share of the combined entity may pose problems.

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Trump’s comments, made as he arrived at the Kennedy Center for an event on Sunday, may spur concerns that regulators will oppose the coupling of the world’s dominant streaming service with a Hollywood icon. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review of a deal that would reshape the entertainment industry.

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“Well, that’s got to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said when asked about the deal, confirming he met Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos recently. “But it is a big market share. It could be a problem.”

Bets on prediction marketplace Polymarket showed a 23% chance of Netflix closing the acquisition by the end of 2026, down from around 60% just before Trump’s comments. Warner Bros. rose 1% in early trading on the Blue Ocean trading platform, while Netflix dropped 1.4%.

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The transaction would combine the world’s No. 1 streaming player with HBO Max. The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.

Netflix has “a very big market share, and when they have Warner Brothers, you know, that share goes up a lot,” the president said, adding that he will be personally involved in the decision-making process.

Netflix is expected to argue that other services such as Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the platform’s perceived market dominance.

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Netflix’s Sarandos met with Trump at the White House recently to lobby for the acquisition, Bloomberg reported earlier. Netflix wasn’t any kind of all-powerful monopoly, the executive argued at that time, and had suffered its own subscriber losses a couple of years earlier, according to people familiar with the matter.

By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. jilted Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and has touted longstanding ties to Trump. The acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from the president.

US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.

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“I don’t think it really creates a monopolistic situation,” Wall Street veteran Ed Yardeni, of Yardeni Research, told Bloomberg Television. “Technology monopolies don’t last very long because somebody figures out how to compete against them, and there are certainly plenty of other streaming services.”

European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.

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Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.

Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.

— With assistance from María Paula Mijares Torres, Mark Anderson, Vlad Savov, Suvashree Ghosh, Abhishek Vishnoi, Sohee Kim and Linus Chua.

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