Trump bought Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery bonds days after megadeal

WASHINGTON DC: Donald Trump quietly placed a bet on Hollywood’s balance sheet. Financial disclosures released by the White House showed the president bought corporate bonds issued by Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery in the days following the announcement of their $83bn megadeal.

The filing, dated January 14, listed purchases of debt securities worth up to $1m in each company, though exact figures were disclosed only in ranges. Trump acquired two tranches of Netflix bonds, each valued between $250,001 and $500,000, on December 12 and December 16. The bonds were set to mature in November 2029.

The disclosure also showed purchases of bonds issued by Discovery Communications LLC, a Warner Bros Discovery subsidiary, in identical ranges on the same dates. Those securities mature in 2030.

The transactions formed part of a wider burst of activity. The White House filing detailed dozens of trades with a combined value well above $100m, dominated by municipal bonds but also including corporate debt from companies such as General Motors, Boeing, Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret. Trump also picked up a similar volume of bonds issued by SiriusXM.

A White House official said the investments were designed to mirror established indices and were managed independently. Neither Trump nor his family had any role in directing trades or timing, the official said.

The timing was striking. The bond purchases began barely a week after Netflix unveiled its agreement to buy Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that was already facing regulatory scrutiny and an aggressive counter-move from David Ellison’s Paramount, which was pursuing a hostile tender offer and had floated a proxy fight.

Any merger would require US regulatory approval, and Trump had said publicly that he expected to weigh in, with the justice department likely to lead any challenge. He met Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos shortly before the deal was announced, later calling him “a fantastic man”, even as he reposted a sharply critical article titled *Stop the Netflix cultural takeover*.

Sarandos later played down the repost, saying he was unsure why it appeared and cautioning against overreading it.

For now, the politics were combustible, the regulators alert and the market watching closely. Trump’s money, at least, was already in the game.