The battle for Warner Bros. Discovery is heating up fast. Paramount Skydance $PSKY ( ▲ 0.15% ) just launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▲ 1.96% ) after months of failed negotiations, hoping to derail Netflix’s $NFLX ( ▲ 0.64% ) agreement and grab the entire company for itself.
Paramount is offering $30 per share in cash directly to WBD shareholders. That price is only about $2.25 above Netflix’s deal, but the structure is very different. Netflix is trying to buy Warner’s streaming and studio assets, while Paramount wants the whole company. Warner’s board has suggested Netflix’s proposal is effectively worth $31 to $32 per share once the cable-business spinoff is factored in.
Paramount says it made six proposals over 12 weeks and claims WBD “never engaged meaningfully.” Taking the bid straight to shareholders is its attempt to force the board to consider what it calls a “clearly superior alternative.”
This fight comes as Netflix is already under political pressure. Over the weekend, President Trump said the Netflix-WBD merger “could be a problem,” raising concerns about competition. Speaking on CNBC, Skydance CEO David Ellison said he believes the president “supports competition” and argued that letting the largest streaming platform buy the third-largest would be anticompetitive.
The market is reacting quickly. WBD shares jumped toward $27.80 after the open, still below the $30 tender offer. Paramount shares also surged, while Netflix slipped roughly 3 percent.
The bottom line: hostile takeovers rarely succeed, but this one isn’t business as usual. It is a race to stop a competing merger, and both deals now face regulatory and political headwinds that could reshape streaming’s power map.