Ted Sarandos backed a winner in new Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, and now the Netflix co-CEO is heading to Florida to make friends in even higher places.
One day after Donald Trump bragged in a Mat-a-Lago press conference that “everybody wants to be my friend,” Sarandos will be breaking bread with the President-elect, sources close to the situation have confirmed for Deadline.
Neither Netflix nor the Trump transition team replied to requests for comment on the scheduled sit-down. If and when they do, this post will be updated.
Having scored a $15 million payout and an apology from ABC News this weekend to settle a defamation suit Trump had hit the Disney-owned outlet and anchor George Stephanopoulos with, the former and future POTUS has indicated pretty strongly he intends to sue more media organizations. “We have to straighten out our press,” he said speaking before noticeably respectful reporters Monday. “Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.”
Watch on Deadline
While Sarandos and spouse Nicole Avant, America’s Ambassador to the Bahamas during the first term ofBarack Obama’s presidency, have long been deep pocketed donors to the Democratic Party, the pilgrimage by the streaming boss follows a long line of media executives kissing the Trump ring in recent days. With the likes of former Trump antagonists like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple‘s Tim Cook and today TikTok‘s Shou Zi Chew have schlepted to Trump’s Florida residence to curry favor, First Buddy and world’s richest man Elon Musk has sat in on some of the sessions.
Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, who is set to sit with Trump before Christmas, have both donated $1 million to the 45th and 47th President’s inaugural fund, as has Musk’s ex-pal OpenAI chief Sam Altman.
For those of you who remember the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s first term, Trump had a rocky (to put it politely) relationship with MSM and Big Tech. Citing national security concerns about Chinese ownership of TikTok, Trump unsuccessfully tried to have the platform banned back in 2020. Now as TikTok asked the Supreme Court to throw them a lifeline before a January 19 sell deadline, Trump says he is considering putting the boots to an almost certain banning of the platform by the Biden administration.
Because the enemy of your enemy is almost always your friend.
With that, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, who gave big bucks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed White House campaign this year, doesn’t look like he’s heading to Mar-a-Lago anytime soon, I’m told.
CNN Media reporter Alayna Treene first reported the news of the Trump/Sarandos meeting.
The post Ted Sarandos To Meet With Donald Trump Tomorrow At Mar-A-Lago As Media Pilgrimages Continue appeared first on Deadline.
