Ted Sarandos (Shutterstock image)
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Meeting With President-Elect Trump
December 16, 2024
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is the latest media/tech executive slated to meet with President-Elect Donald Trump, doing so on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at his Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to media reports.
Sarandos and his wife, Nicole Avant, are long-time Democrat donors. Avant was U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas during President Obama’s first term. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who gave $7 million to VP Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign, is not attending the meeting.
The meeting comes as corporate CEOs seek to curry favor with Trump, who has a long history of acknowledging business and political respect shown to him in public and private.
Trump has met with the CEOs of TikTok, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook parent Meta, and is scheduled to meet with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Dec. 18. Many have donated millions to Trump’s inauguration next month.
Disney-owned ABC News Dec. 14 agreed to pay Trump $15 million, plus attorney fees, to settle a defamation case filed against the network and host George Stephanopoulos’ statements about the president-elect to South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s “This Week” on March 10.
In the contentious interview, Stephanopoulos repeatedly told Mace that Trump had been found guilty of raping E. Jean Carroll. A jury in 2023 found that Trump had sexually abused — not raped — Carroll, according to New York state law.
ABC News and Stephanopoulos also added an apology to the online news story on the actual event.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” ABC News said in a statement.
In his first post-election media conference today, Trump said he appreciated the positive corporate business attention, and hailed his apparent popularity.
“The first term, everybody was fighting me,” he said. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know — my personality changed or something.”
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