Donald Trump demands Netflix sack board member or ‘pay the consequences’
Donald Trump has demanded Netflix sack one of its board members or ‘pay the consequences’ at the same time the streamer faces a government investigation into its proposed deal with Warner Bros.
This was not the news Netflix would’ve wanted as it ploughs on to acquire studio Warner Bros for $US83 billion.
Donald Trump has demanded the streaming behemoth fire board member Susan Rice or “pay the consequences”.
Netflix’s deal to buy Warner Bros will require regulatory oversight from the US government and while it is traditional that US presidents sit at an arm’s length from the activities of the Department of Justice, Trump has been more intimately involved in its decisions during his second term.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Trump has previously flip-flopped on how much influence he would exert over the government’s investigation into the proposed deal, having declared in December that would be “involved” only to say later that he would stay out of the process. “The Justice Department will handle it,” he told NBC News in February.
While Trump didn’t not specify what the “consequences” were if Netflix retained Rice on the board, it has largely been read as a threat the thwart the streamer’s ambitions with Warner Bros.
Rice, an African American woman, is a long-time Democratic operator who was a domestic policy adviser to Joe Biden, had served as national security advisor and the US ambassador to the United Nations under Barack Obama’s government, and had been an assistant secretary in Bill Clinton’s second term.
Rice joined the Netflix board in 2018, left in 2020 to work in the Biden government, and returned to Netflix in 2023.
What appeared to have prompted Trump’s tirade were comments Rice made during a podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara, last week. She said that corporations including law firms and media businesses that had capitulated to Trump would face a reckoning.
“There is likely to be a swing in the other direction and they are going to be caught with more than their pants down,” she said. “They’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump, and win at the ballot box.
“If these corporations think that Democrats, when they come back into power, are going to play by the old rules, and say, ‘never mind, we will forgive you for all the people you fired and all the policies and principles you violated, all the laws you skirted,’ I think they’ve got another thing coming.”
The Netflix-Warner Bros acquisition has emerged as another flashpoint in the American culture wars. A segment of right-wing pundits, politicians and influencers have accused Netflix of being too “woke” or left-wing in its programming.
Trump’s social media post against Rice was in response to one from far-right activist Laura Loomer who accused Rice and Netflix of being “anti-American”. Elon Musk has previously advocated for a boycott of the company.
Trump’s post comes at the same time as the revelation that the Department of Justice is investigating the proposed merger of two major entertainment studios for being anti-competitive or monopolistic. A “civil investigative demand” was been issued on February 20, although Deadline reported the probe had been active for three weeks.
A month ago, a report from a spin-off entity of the right-wing Heritage Foundation was distributed to Republican politicians and MAGA-aligned activists, which called Netflix as “holding an outsize role in socially engineering millions of Americans into a predisposition to accept preferred left-wing ideological dogma”.
Netflix has a signed deal with Warner Bros to acquire its studio and streaming business, but the loser in the bidding process, Paramount, has launched a hostile takeover.
As part of that, Warner Bros agreed to reopen talks with Paramount for seven days for its best and final offer.
Paramount, which is owned and controlled by David Ellison and his father, tech billionaire and Trump supporter Larry Ellison, has made it a selling point for its offer that it would have a smoother path through any regulatory approvals process, the implication being that it had the favour of Trump.
Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, who has already been hauled in front of a US Senate subcommittee over the deal, has also made overtures to Trump. The US president in December called Sarandos “a fantastic man, I have a lot of respect for him”.
