As Paramount moved Monday to sweeten its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery,
a high-stakes political battle is playing out behind the scenes.
Paramount's latest offer enhanced its earlier $30-a-share bid, valued at $108 billion,
said a person familiar with the process who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Details of the revised proposal, first reported by Bloomberg, were not immediately available.
The firm is leveraging both the dynastic wealth of #Larry #Ellison’s empire
and his ties to the Trump administration
to dismantle Netflix’s rival $82.7-billion deal for Warner,
which owns CNN, HBO and the premier Hollywood film and television studios,
according to people close to the auction.
Over the weekend, President Trump turned up the heat,
demanding that Netflix "IMMEDIATELY" fire #Susan #Rice
— a former Obama and Biden administration official
— who serves on Netflix's 13-member board
or "pay the consequences."
Trump, in a Saturday night social media post, called the former ambassador
"deranged ... She’s got no talent or skills — Purely a political hack!”
Trump previously said he would not get involved in the pivotal Warner Bros. auction,
instead leaving the matter to the Department of Justice,
which is investigating whether a Netflix takeover,
or Paramount's alternative bid,
would harm competition.
Trump has been an outspoken critic of CNN and many of its on-air hosts.
Netflix won the bidding for the storied studio and HBO in December,
prompting the spurned Paramount executives to launch a multipronged strategy to scuttle the Netflix deal.
Netflix co-Chief Executive #Ted #Sarandos sought to downplay the latest controversy, saying during a BBC interview Monday:
"This is a business deal, it's not a political deal."
But Paramount, which declined to comment for this article, has not been shy about playing its political cards.
https://www.aol.com/articles/politics-center-stage-paramount-submits-011031325.html
