“We're excited about the opportunity to bring the franchise to market,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told reporters upon arriving at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on July 9, 2024.
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Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has refused to publicly take a side ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
Zaslav, speaking with reporters at Allen & Company's annual Sun Valley conference, said having a business-friendly president is most important to him than backing a political party or individual candidate.
“If there's an opportunity for deregulation, companies can consolidate and do what they need to do to get better,” he told Bloomberg.
Earlier this year, members of the Hollywood and entertainment industries, including George Clooney, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, media mogul Barry Diller, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and billionaire Disney heiress Abigail Disney, had called on President Biden to step aside and allow another candidate to take office as the Democratic nominee.
But Zaslav has deregulation and consolidation in mind: Warner Bros. Discovery has become a potential M&A target, especially since the two-year Reverse Morris Trust lockup period expired in April, during which the company was barred from doing any bigger deals.
The company has been mentioned repeatedly as a possible acquisition target by Comcast/NBCUniversal or as a possible partner for a partnership with Paramount Global.
Warner Bros. Discovery itself is the result of a mega-merger between Discovery and AT&T's WarnerMedia.
Regarding Paramount, Zaslav told reporters at the conference, which typically brings together billionaires and business leaders, that he would approve a takeover bid from a consortium led by Skydance Media's David Ellison.
“Get [Paramount] “It's in good hands, it's well funded, it's a great company, it has a great tradition, so I think it's good for the industry,” Zaslav said.
