Ted Sarandos/PHOTO: Daniel Benavides (CC)
UPDATE Feb. 23, 11:00 a.m. ET: In response to President Trump’s call for Netflix to dump former Obama administration official Susan Rice from its board of directors, the company’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, commented in a BBC interview:
“Yeah, this is a business deal. It’s not a political deal. This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the U.S. and regulators throughout Europe and around the world,” he said.
When pressed again on Trump’s comments on Rice, he added: “Yeah, he likes to do a lot of things on social media.”
Trump’s full posted on Truth Social on Saturday read: “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”
Sarandos and Netflix are in a bidding war with Paramount Skydance over acquiring the assets of Warner Brothers-Discovery, a “business deal” that must be approved by the Trump administration.
Sarandos is being disingenuous by implying that Netflix is only about business. See our original post below about Rice’s contemptible political history. There is no “business” reason for Susan Rice to serve on any corporate board. Her experience and education are entirely grounded in politics and government. She is a DEI appointment to Netflix’s board for political reasons — pure and simple.
ORIGINAL POST Feb. 22, 3:20 p.m. ET: As a shareholder in Netflix, NLPC is committed to ensuring that the company’s leadership remains focused on delivering value, not settling political scores. Unfortunately, board member Susan Rice (pictured above) seems to have forgotten which job she is being paid to do.
In a recent podcast interview with Preet Bharara (who President Trump fired as a U.S. Attorney during his first term), Rice launched a blistering attack on American corporations that have chosen to work with the current administration. She warned that these companies would be “caught with more than their pants down” when Democrats return to power, promising an “accountability agenda” that sounds more like a threat of state-sanctioned harassment than a legitimate policy discussion.
The Hypocrisy of “Politicization” Rice told Bharara that she is deeply concerned about the “politicization” of the law. This is coming from a woman who was a lead strategist in the January 2017 campaign to cripple the incoming Trump administration before it even took office. From the controversial January 5 meeting in the Obama Oval Office to the subsequent unmasking of General Michael Flynn, Rice’s fingerprints are all over the very weaponization she now claims to fear.
Rice is a “political hack” in the truest sense of the word—someone who views the levers of government as tools for rewarding friends and punishing enemies. For Netflix to keep such a person on its board while it tries to navigate a sensitive merger with Warner Bros. Discovery is corporate malpractice.
To understand why Rice’s current threats of an “accountability agenda” are so hollow, one must revisit the defining moment of her public career: the Benghazi deception. In the immediate aftermath of the 2012 terrorist attack that claimed four American lives, Rice was dispatched to five separate Sunday morning talk shows to peddle a provably false narrative. She blamed a spontaneous protest over an obscure YouTube video, even as internal communications showed the administration knew it was a coordinated terrorist strike. This was not a failure of intelligence; it was a masterclass in political fabulism. For a corporate director, whose primary duty is transparency and truthfulness to shareholders, Rice’s willingness to serve as the “chief fabulist” for a political narrative should be a massive red flag.
The Benghazi affair was not an isolated incident of Rice placing partisan optics above reality. In 2014, she again took to the airwaves to defend the controversial trade of five high-level Taliban commanders for Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier who had deserted his post. Rice famously claimed on national television that Bergdahl had served with “honor and distinction,” a statement that was widely condemned by the soldiers in his own unit who had searched for him at great personal risk. This pattern of rewriting history in real-time to suit a political agenda is exactly the kind of “weaponization of truth” that makes Rice such a volatile presence in a boardroom. Shareholders deserve directors who prioritize objective facts, not those who treat the truth as a disposable tool for damage control.
Netflix often touts its “unique culture” of radical candor and mutual respect, yet it harbors a director whose own management style has been described as a “toxic” nightmare. During her tenure as Domestic Policy Advisor (2021-2023), reports emerged of Rice creating an abusive and dehumanizing workplace. Allegations surfaced that she routinely berated colleagues, including a high-profile feud where she reportedly instructed staff “not to help” then-HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. This is not the behavior of a collaborative leader; it is the behavior of a political bully. If Netflix truly values its corporate culture, it cannot ignore the fact that one of its primary overseers has a documented history of creating the very kind of hostile environment the company claims to abhor.
Finally, we must address the most serious charge: Rice’s role in the “unmasking” of her political rivals. As the Obama administration drew to a close, Rice was a central figure in a campaign to identify Trump associates caught up in incidental surveillance. While she defended these actions as routine, NLPC and other critics view them as a component of “Obama corruption”—an attempt to use the vast powers of the intelligence community to spy on and sabotage a political opponent. This history of “dirty tricks” makes her recent warnings about an “accountability agenda” against corporations particularly chilling. When Susan Rice talks about “consequences” for those who don’t align with her politics, she isn’t just speculating—she is drawing on a career spent using the levers of power to punish those she views as enemies.
A Direct Conflict with Fiduciary Duty Over the weekend, President Trump made it clear that Netflix’s refusal to address the Rice problem would have “consequences.” Whether those consequences come in the form of blocked mergers, antitrust lawsuits, or a massive loss of subscriber trust, the result for shareholders is the same: diminished value.
Rice isn’t just a political lightning rod; she is a billboard for the “woke” corporate culture that has alienated millions of families. Her recent acquisition of Netflix stock options shows that she is profiting handsomely while her rhetoric puts the company’s future at risk.
The Microsoft Mirror: Reid Hoffman The Susan Rice saga is part of a larger, more dangerous trend. While Rice uses her platform to threaten businesses with subpoenas, Microsoft director Reid Hoffman has used his to engage in even more extreme rhetoric. Hoffman’s infamous comment that he wished Donald Trump had been made an “actual martyr” is perhaps the most egregious example of boardroom radicalism in American history.
Microsoft is a tech giant with deep ties to the federal government and massive defense contracts. Having a board member who expresses such vitriol for a sitting President is a catastrophic risk to that company’s standing with the government it serves.
We agree with the President’s call to fire Susan Rice, but Reid Hoffman actually wished him dead. The tech giant has far more at stake with federal government contracts than Netflix does. The President needs to call for his removal also.
