Netflix Withdraws Bid for Warner Bros., Paramount on Verge of Takeover

(Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is on the verge of winning the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix dropped out on Thursday.

Netflix said it would not match Paramount’s bid for WBD, hours after the company’s board of directors determined Paramount’s $111 billion offer was the “superior deal.”

Netflix Co-CEO’s Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters claimed in a statement that due to “the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive.”

“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match. This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the statement read.

Paramount submitted its revised bid for WBD on Tuesday after Warner Bros. Discovery reopened talks with the company last week. WBD announced an agreement to sell large portions of the company to Netflix in December, prompting Paramount to pitch hostile takeover bids in a brutal back-and-forth between the three media giants.

Sarandos visited the White House earlier Thursday to discuss the deal– and potential antitrust questions for regulators– before announcing Netflix had dropped out. Ellison will need to secure regulatory approval, including from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.

Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, became CEO of Paramount Skydance after the controversial merger between the two companies was approved by Trump’s FCC last summer, soon after Paramount settled a lawsuit with the president regarding a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

The billionaire CEO acquired CBS through the merger, installing The Free Press‘ Bari Weiss as the network’s new editor-in-chief in early October. Her tenure faced widespread media attention for her controversial decision to abruptly pull a 60 Minutes segment on deportations to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, as well as over her initial refusal to fire the newly hired wellness guru Peter Attia over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. 

The road is now open for Ellison to acquire a second legacy news giant, CNN, if regulators and shareholders approve his bid for parent company WBD. Ellison reportedly told Trump administration officials that he would implement “sweeping changes” at CNN if he successfully acquired the company.

Trump claimed last year that he would “be involved” in the outcome of the WBD deal, later indicating he would favor Paramount while also praising Sarandos as “a great person.”

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