"Because the fact that Netflix and WBD announced a deal Friday morning doesn't necessarily mean that the deal will go through. It needs regulatory approval - and in 2025, that means it needs the approval of the president of the United States, who has dispensed with the notion that there's any distance between what he wants and what his regulators do."
"If he's persuasive, you could see Trump's Department of Justice suing to block the deal - just like Trump's DOJ sued to block the sale of Time Warner to AT&T in 2017, during his first presidency. The US lost that case, but only after a long court battle - something AT&T and Warner people complained about for years after the fact."
Netflix agreed to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $72 billion, bringing HBO and the Warner Bros. studio under Netflix ownership. The transaction requires regulatory approval, which in 2025 depends heavily on the president and his administration's posture toward antitrust enforcement. Paramount CEO David Ellison met at the White House to argue that the Netflix-WBD deal should be blocked on antitrust grounds. If the administration is persuaded, the Department of Justice could sue to stop the transaction, echoing the 2017 DOJ suit trying to block AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner. Ellison could also pursue a hostile takeover or sue WBD over its handling of offers.
Read at Business Insider
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