Netflix CEO brushes off Paramount’s ‘totally expected’ hostile bid, ‘very confident’ in closing deal with Warner Bros. Discovery | Luck

“Today’s move was completely expected,” Co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors at a UBS conference as he scrapped the Paramount bid hours earlier. “We closed the deal and we’re incredibly pleased with it. We think it’s great for our shareholders. It’s great for consumers. We think it’s a great way to create and protect jobs in the entertainment industry.” From Netflix’s perspective, Sarandos added, “We have a deal in place and we’re incredibly happy with it.”

Sarandos’ co-CEO, Greg Peters, then walked viewers through Netflix’s three-phase plan to capture value from Warner Bros. and HBO. If the deal goes through, he said, Netflix will overflow with licensing opportunities, “double down” on the HBO brand and unlock the benefits of Warner Bros.’ vast IP library, which many analysts consider the industry’s “crown jewel.”

The executives’ comments came after investors sent Netflix shares down 6% in two trading sessions since the Warner deal was announced, with some analysts calling the $82.7 billion deal “overpriced” and “very risky.” Netflix shares have fallen more than 20% in the past six months.

Peters acknowledged that Netflix is ​​known as a creator, not a buyer — generally developing its own intellectual property rather than buying other companies: “We didn’t do that before,” he said. But the company that started out as a DVD-by-mail rental has morphed several times to become a $400 billion-plus giant that now challenges Hollywood’s order.

And it’s worth noting that Netflix started streaming content from other companies before it started producing its own programming. Its licensing operations are still lauded in the industry, with a famous case of legal drama Suits became a hit several years after it went off the air on cable television. As Peter said, “We’re basically constantly evaluating different different licensing opportunities for titles and then trying to figure out how to maximize the value of that asset on our platform? The Warner deal just makes official what Netflix is ​​already doing, day in and day out.”

Netflix’s announcement on Friday rattled many in Hollywood, including filmmakers and their unions and movie theater owners, whose trade organization called it an “unprecedented threat” to their businesses.

Sarandos, the executive behind the model that made “Netflix and chill” synonymous with millennial dating practices and binging shows and movies at home, has largely refused to release movies except to qualify for awards. At an event earlier this year, Sarandos dismissed going to the movies as “an outdated idea for most people” and said Netflix was “saving Hollywood” with its home streaming model.

But on Monday, he extended an olive branch to theater owners, saying of the theatrical release: “We didn’t buy this company to destroy its value. What we’re going to do with that is we’re deeply committed to releasing these movies exactly as they released them today,” he told a UBS conference.

Sarandos also discussed his conversations with President Donald Trump — which Bloomberg reported on over the weekend beginning in November.

President Trump “cares deeply about American industry and loves the entertainment industry,” Sarandos said. The president’s main concern was jobs, according to Sarandos, who drew on statistics showing that Netflix original production employed 140,000 people between 2020 and 2024, contributing $125 billion to the U.S. economy. “We manufacture in all 50 states,” he said. “We used 500 independent production companies to create content for us, roughly 1,000 original projects.”

Sarandos and Peters pointed out that Paramount’s offer could mean further job cuts because Paramount and Warner overlap more in their operations than Netflix and Warner. “In the offer that Paramount talked about today, they also talked about $6 billion in synergies,” Sarandos said.. “Where do you think the synergies are coming from? Cutting jobs. Yeah, so we’re not cutting jobs, we’re creating them.”

Sarandos also talked about HBO, the premium cable channel turned streamer — a former rival and inspiration for Netflix. Sarandos famously said of Netflix that “the goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” comments he later amended to add that he also wanted “CBS and the BBC.” Now that his company is set to become HBO’s parent company, he said he can realize his true destiny as a leading light of prestige television.

“They were doing gymnastics to make themselves a mainstream entertainment brand,” Sarandos said of HBO during the HBO Max era, overseen by WBD CEO David Zaslav. “They no longer have to do that as part of this transaction.

Both Netflix CEOs also hammered home a message clearly aimed at regulators, who could take antitrust action to stop the deal: The combined company would hardly dominate television. The Netflix deal spins off CNN, TNT, Discovery, HGTV, Food Network and the company’s other cable channels, while the Paramount offer keeps the cable assets attached. Based on Nielsen viewership data, which appeared to include both linear TV and streaming, Peters said Netflix only controls 8% of TV hours in the US; adding HBO would increase that to 9%.

“We would still be behind YouTube,” he noted. “And we’d still be behind the combined Paramount-WBD at 14%.”

BofA Research’s Media & Entertainment team used a different metric — total TV streams — from Nielsen data to calculate that Warner and Netflix combined would account for about 21% of the market, while Paramount and Warner would account for 8%. However, both would still be behind YouTube at 28%.

On Sunday, Trump weighed in on his relationship with Sarandos and the pending antitrust issue. Trump said the Netflix co-CEO is a “fantastic person,” adding that Warner-Netflix’s market share “could be a problem.” Either way, Trump added, uncharacteristically for a sitting president, he would be involved in what happens next.

Sarandos wrapped up the UBS panel by reiterating to everyone listening and watching, many of whom were long-term holders of Netflix stock, that he was “excited” about the deal. (The question of whether Netflix would sweeten its bid on WBD was not raised.)

“We think this deal with Warner Brothers is good for shareholders,” he said. “We think it’s good for consumers. We think it’s good for creators. We think it’s great for the entertainment industry as a whole.”

(Editor’s note: one of the authors worked at Netflix from June 2024 to July 2025. The report has also been updated to clarify that Paramount and Warner together account for 8% of TV time.)