Paramount Launches Hostile Takeover Bid For Warner Bros. Days After Netflix Deal Announced

Paramount announced on Monday that it was challenging Netflix with a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. 

The announcement comes just days after Netflix said it had reached a deal to acquire the entertainment company in a massive $82.7 billion deal.

“We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood. It is in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry,” Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison said in a statement. “We believe they will benefit from the enhanced competition, higher content spend and theatrical release output, and a greater number of movies in theaters as a result of our proposed transaction.”

Ellison announced an all-cash tender offer, which the company said “provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion” to shareholders. Paramount’s proposed deal was also expected to close in 12 months, compared with Netflix’s 18 months.

The Paramount offer includes purchasing Warner Bros. cable television assets, which Paramount said are worth about $18 billion more than the Netflix bid. The company had previously made six offers to Warner Bros., only to be rejected each time. The press release noted that Warner Bros. “never engag[ed] meaningfully” with those offers.

This news comes not long after President Trump remarked on the Netflix deal, saying it “could be a problem” from an antitrust standpoint. The president also mentioned being “involved” in reviewing the deal.

Paramount CEO David Ellison is the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who is a friend of President Trump and a major donor.

The proposed merger has had bipartisan pushback from skeptics who warn it could turn into a “nightmare” for consumers and creatives, as The Daily Wire previously reported. 

“Netflix built a great service, but increasing Netflix’s dominance this way would mean the end of the Golden Age of streaming for content creators and consumers,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote in a post on X.

“We’re highly confident in the regulatory process. This deal is pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, it’s pro-creator, it’s pro-growth,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said after the deal was announced.