WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that a deal struck by Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share.
“There's no question about it,” Trump said, answering questions about the deal and various other topics as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors.
The Republican president said he will be involved in the decision about whether the federal government should approve the $72 billion deal. If approved by regulators, the merger would put two of the world’s biggest streaming services under the same ownership and join Warner’s television and motion picture division, including DC Studios, with Netflix’s vast library and its production arm.
The deal, which could reshape the entertainment industry, has to “go through a process and we'll see what happens," Trump said.
“Netflix is a great company. They’ve done a phenomenal job. Ted is a fantastic man,” he said of Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, noting that they met in the Oval Office last week before the deal was announced Dec. 5. "I have a lot of respect for him but it’s a lot of market share, so we’ll have to see what happens.”
Asked if Netflix should be allowed to buy the Hollywood giant behind “Harry Potter” and HBO Max, the president said, “Well that's the question.”
“They have a very big market share and when they have Warner Bros., you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know,” he said. "I'll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share”
Sarandos made no guarantees at their meeting about the merger if it is approved, Trump said, adding that the CEO is a “great person” who has “done one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies and other things.”
He repeated that a merger would create a “big market share” for the company.
“There’s no question about it. It could be a problem,” Trump said.
FILE - Ted Sarandos arrives at the premiere of "The Electric State" on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk the red carpet before the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 8, 2025--
The ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge successfully concluded on December 7 on the campus of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. A team from Zhejiang University emerged victorious from a field of 13 talented international squads by demonstrating exceptional fully autonomous embodied intelligence, securing the top prize of $150,000 USD.
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Organized by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and co-hosted by Advanced Technology Exploration Community (ATEC), Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and Ant Group, ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge was the world’s first intelligent robotics challenge held entirely outdoors on natural terrain—featuring rugged hills, stone steps, swaying bridges, and uneven slopes—to rigorously test robots’ ability to operate without human intervention.
Under a bold “no remote control” rule, teams were challenged to develop systems capable of completing complex tasks entirely through self-contained perception, reasoning, decision-making, and execution. This approach is aimed at driving the evolution of robots from remotely controlled tools toward truly autonomous agents.
Achieving “no remote control” requires robots to independently close the full operational loop—from environmental perception and analysis to decision-making and physical action—in highly uncertain real-world conditions. Any failure at any stage can lead to mission interruption, putting the robot’s perceptual robustness, decision-making intelligence, and overall system stability to the ultimate test.
Professor Yunhui Liu, Co-Chair of ATEC2025 and Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, noted, “This year’s competition sought to answer a fundamental question: Can robots truly leave the lab and adapt to our unpredictable world? Through this challenge, we’re exploring how robots can evolve beyond ‘demo-ready’ toward ‘deployment-ready.’”
Professor Liu’s framework of the “Three Core Capabilities of Robotics”—locomotion, manipulation, and environmental modification—served as the technical pillars of the challenge. The four tasks in this challenge were designed to test one or more of these pillars:
Despite inevitable setbacks—such as slips, misidentifications, and navigation errors—the competition encouraged teams to rely solely on fully autonomous systems. In response, participants explored diverse technical approaches and innovative solutions.
“The algorithms that work flawlessly in simulated environments often crumble under real-world uncertainties,” said Chengrui Zhu, leader of the winning team from Zhejiang University. “This competition forced us to rethink how to build robots that can really make decisions by themselves.”
ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge drew global talent, with participants from leading universities and research laboratories across North America, Europe, and Asia, including competitors as young as 19 years old. The judging panel included approximately 70 world-renowned experts, including Lihua Xie, Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering, and Masayoshi Tomizuka, Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.
“Real-world environments are full of uncertainties,” Tomizuka remarked during the competition. “ATEC2025 provides a proving ground to prepare robots and AI for real-world deployment. The true value of this event lies not only in success—but in learning from every failure and continuously evolving. This is the essential path for robotics to move from the lab to reliable, real-world application.”
As one of the founding organizations, Ant Group’s support for the ATEC2025 is rooted in a core belief that the future of artificial general intelligence lies in the deep integration of machine intelligence with the physical world. As AI advances from “data cognition” toward “environmental interaction” and “action execution,” this transition demands new fundamental breakthroughs in technology, and the competition is poised to accelerate progress.
To learn more about the ATEC2025, please visit the official website:
https://www.atecup.cn/matchHome/100009.
About ATEC
ATEC (Advanced Technology Exploration Community) focuses on real-world applications of cutting-edge technologies in the information field. It is dedicated to building an industry-university-research collaboration platform for the new-generation Internet-related technologies, accelerating the industry application research on innovative technologies, and supporting the development of application-oriented technological talents. The community is initiated by Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ant Group, among others.
About Ant Group
Ant Group is a global digital technology provider and the operator of Alipay, a leading internet services platform in China, connecting over one billion users to more than 10,000 types of consumer services from partners. Through innovative products and solutions powered by AI, blockchain and other technologies, Ant Group supports partners across industries to thrive through digital transformation in an ecosystem for inclusive and sustainable development. For more information, visit www.antgroup.com.
ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge implements a “no remote control” rule, encouraging teams to rely solely on fully autonomous systems
A Zhejiang University team wins ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge
