Business
AT&T Wants to Get Vertical With Time Warner. Is That a Problem?
There are two kinds of mergers. One used to be better than the other. This time may be different.
Randall Stephenson, chief executive officer of AT&T Inc., and Jeffrey Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner Inc.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
You don’t have to be an ally of President Trump to have problems with AT&T Inc.’s $85 billion bid for Time Warner Inc., the owner of CNN. Some of the strongest opposition to the merger is coming from groups that ordinarily oppose the president.
Trump warned when the deal was proposed in October 2016 that if elected president he would block it “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Trump has continued attacking CNN since then, but he says he hasn’t pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to stop the deal.