Donald Trump Bought at Least $1 Million in Bonds in Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery Following Their Deal Announcement

President Donald Trump bought at least $500,000 worth of bonds in both Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery within the two weeks following the two companies’ deal, under which Netflix is to acquire WB’s studios and streaming businesses.

According to a financial disclosure form released Friday by the White House, Trump bought between $250,001 and $500,000 of Netflix bonds on two dates, Dec. 12 on Dec. 16. He also bought the same range of bonds for Discovery Communications (a WBD subsidiary) on those same dates.

On Dec. 5, Netflix and WBD announced a deal with an $82.7 billion enterprise deal. Under those terms, the streaming giant would acquire WB’s studios, HBO and HBO Max, and its games group — but not any of WBD’s TV networks, which would be spun off into a new entity, Discovery Global, to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders in Q3 of 2026. 

The financial disclosures for Trump, released through the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, most of his acquisitions were municipal bonds from cities, local school districts, utilities and hospitals, as well as bonds from other corporations including Boeing, GM, Macy’s, Occidental Petroleum and Whirlpool.

According to the White House, Trump’s financial portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions — and neither Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested, Reuters reported.

In December, Trump met with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at the White House to discuss the Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Trump, speaking last month with reporters on the red carpet of the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., said Netflix’s deal to acquire Warner Bros. studios and streaming business will require a review, and said, “I’ll be involved in that decision.” He said the market share of a combined Netflix with WB and HBO Max “could be a problem.”

Also last month, Trump said that as part of “any deal” for WBD, CNN should be sold as part of an overall deal or sold separately. “I think I think CNN should be sold because I think the people that are running CNN right now” are “either corrupt or incompetent,” he said. Trump said he didn’t want the current CNN management to be rewarded by being allowed to continue running the network “with money” from a deal.