A ton of posts have been made about this deal already but I think people need to take a step back and look at the clear political signals. This morning a Senior Trump Official said that the White House views the deal with “heavy skepticism” and there is a couple of reasons for this.

First and foremost at the beginning of this week Paramount Skydance sent letters to Netflix raising antitrust concerns given Netflix’s size as well as questions over how the sale process had unfolded. There were some big names involved as Paramount Skydance’s controlling owner and CEO is David Ellison the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison a huge Trump ally.

The second reason is much much more interesting and deals with the political ideology between Vice President Vance. When VP Vance was a Senator he was one of a few Republicans that was very very outspoken about his disdain for big business mergers. He was a SUPPORTER of President Biden’s Federal trade Commission Chair Lina Khan who fought against almost every single merger or buyout big business was connected to. Having someone that high up in the White House who is known to have issue with big business mergers makes it much harder to get through in the US regulators.

When you also see that Netflix wasn’t the top offer as well compared to Paramount Skydance, who offered $2.25 more a share it’s a tougher sell to investors. Netflix expects this deal to close in 12-18 months or they pay a $5.8 billion breakup fee. Paramount offered a $5 billion breakup fee if they couldn’t get approval in 10 months.

I just don’t see this going through and I’d be amazed if Discovery Warner Brothers investors voted in favor for it given the less money involved.