74

THE MOST FEARED

MAN IN WASHINGTON

(NOT NAMED TRUMP)

BY ERIQ GARDNER

PHOTOGRAPHED BY WESLEY MANN

O

ne day last spring, Makan

Delrahim was check-

ing in on the day’s news

when a story about the

Oscars caught his eye.

Steven Spielberg was said

to be pushing the film

Academy to ban from

eligibility any movie that premiered on a

streaming service rather than in theaters. At

the time, Netflix had just won three awards

for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and the company

was forced to defend its Oscars.

That seemed unfair to Delrahim, 50, who

in addition to leading the U.S. Department

of Justice’s powerful Antitrust Division also

happens to be a former movie producer. He

says nobody associated with the streaming

giant pressured him; he simply felt compelled

to do something, so he fired off a letter to

Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and warned her

that the discussed restriction could amount

to a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act,

which prohibits “collusive” agreements aimed

at suppressing competition. Delrahim didn’t

specify how Oscars eligibility would interfere

with the marketplace for movies, although it

was fairly clear that he saw Spielberg’s effort

as part of a plot with greater significance.

“I wanted to ensure that a group of the

establishment incumbents didn’t force

changes to those rules to disadvantage poten-

tial new distribution models that would harm

consumers or filmmakers,” says Delrahim,

speaking in his office at DOJ headquarters

in Washington, adding that he was satisfied

with the Academy’s response. “Ultimately they

kept the existing rules and did not change

them to disadvantage Netflix and Amazon or

other streaming services. I basically wanted

to remind them that the antitrust laws

could apply.”

As the entertainment industry races to

scale itself up to compete with Big Tech, and

as Apple, Google and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon

spend increasingly large sums on premium

content, Delrahim has become as potent a

business gatekeeper in Washington as anyone

not named Donald Trump. He’s refereeing

mammoth mergers, including the $105 bil-

lion tie-up between AT&T and Time Warner,

and Walt Disney Co.’s $71 billion acquisition

AS HOLLY WOOD SCA LES U P TO BATTLE BIG TECH,

MAKAN DELRAHIM, THE NATION’S TOP ANTITRUST REGULATOR

(A N D A FOR MER MOV IE PRODUCER), IS BECOMING AT LEAST

AS INFLUENTIAL AS ANY SHOWBIZ MOGUL OVER NETFLIX,

MEGAMERGERS, THE WRITERS GUILD AND MAYBE THE ENTIRE

FUTURE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS