Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said the entertainment industry “certainly gets overlooked” in U.S. trade deals.
From 2020-24, Netflix contributed $125 billion to the U.S. economy, creating 140,000 production jobs across 500 productions in all 50 states, according to Sarandos, speaking at Semafor’s World Economy Summit 2025 in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “The lion’s share of our investment is in the U.S.,” he said, noting that the company has 9,000 employees in the country, with 3 million square feet of studio space and 2 million square feet of office space.
“We kind of get thrown under the bus in trade deals occasionally,” Sarandos said, adding, “You hardly ever see a sitting president photographed on a studio lot.” Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith, who interviewed Sarandos, alluded to President Trump: “You’d think this one would be into it.” Sarandos chuckled and responded, “I’m not sure.”
Sarandos noted that Netflix announced a $1 billion investment in Mexico‘s entertainment industry during a press conference with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in February. “I was thinking if we were building a plant to build a billion dollars worth of cars there, the president would certainly announce that,” he said. “So it was very exciting.”
Asked by Smith whether the Trump administration is “getting it wrong” in focusing economic policy on manufacturing rather than services industries (“Maybe young Americans are more interested in growing up to be production assistants and set builders” than factory workers, Smith commented), Sarandos responded, “I think it’s feasible that there’s an evolution in the culture around that that is more aligned with what you’re talking about.”
Meanwhile, Netflix is operating counter to the current anti-globalization trend among U.S. policymakers, with worldwide hits like Korea’s “Squid Game” and the U.K.’s “Adolescence.” Sarandos said Netflix gives local content teams “absolute autonomy” about what they program in their countries — and he said the company does not acquire TV shows or movies with the expectation they will achieve global popularity. “The more authentically local [a production] is, the more likely it is to travel,” he said.
Alluding to the steep tariffs of 145% (or more) the Trump administration has imposed on Chinese goods, Sarandos said Netflix is one of the few large U.S. companies that has no exposure to China tariffs. The company several years ago expended effort to try to enter China, through a deal with Chinese streaming platforms iQIYI. But Netflix’s shows never reached China through that pact: The content had to clear the communist regime’s censorship board, and over three years not a single episode of a Netflix original series was approved. “They had no interest in us being in China,” he said.
Netflix, the world’s leading subscription-video streamer, has more than 300 million customers worldwide.
By 2030, Netflix is aiming to hit a $1 trillion market capitalization, while doubling its revenue from $39 billion in 2023 and tripling its operating income from last year’s $10 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report, citing anonymous sources. Netflix is also targeting $9 billion in global ad sales by 2030 and hopes to hit about 410 million subscribers worldwide by then (up from 301.6 million at the end of last year), per the report. Last week, Sarandos called the report a “very disappointing” leak of internal data but said any “long-term aspirations” shared with employees were “not the same as a forecast.”
At the Semafor conference, Sarandos reiterated the point: “To be clear, the trillion-dollar [valuation] is a long-term ambition — it’s not a guidance.” Smith asked whether Netflix needs to enter a new line of business, like theme parks, to hit that target. Netflix’s current business has an addressable market of $650 billion in consumer spending, Sarandos said; the company currently captures 5% of that and garners 10% of TV viewing time in its most mature markets. “In the core businesses that we’re in, there is a linear growth path,” Sarandos said. Netflix has “enormous room to grow in just the things we do.”
While Netflix doesn’t envision building traditional theme parks, this year it’s planning to open its first two “Netflix Houses” in Dallas and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (outside of Philadelphia), set to include experiential activities, dining and retail. Is that a “baby step” to a theme park? Smith queried. Sarandos suggested those are “the next generation of what a theme park might be,” mentioning the business model of the Top Golf chain. People might visit such a venue four or five times per year “versus something you do once every five years,” he said.
For the first quarter of 2025, Netflix beat Wall Street financial expectations with revenue of $10.54 billion, up 12.5%, and earnings per share of $6.61 (up from $5.28 a year prior). It was the first quarter Netflix stopped reporting subscriber counts, as the company says it wants to focus investors on financial and user engagement metrics. For Q2, Netflix forecast revenue growth of 15% “as we see the full quarter benefit from recent price changes and continued growth in membership and advertising revenue,” it said in its Q1 shareholder letter.
Netflix’s earnings beat for Q1 came amid broader fears of a looming economic downturn that could deliver a punch to consumer spending and ad budgets. The company reiterated its forecast for 2025 revenue of $43.5 billion-$44.5 billion (up 11.5%-14.1%), which “assumes healthy member growth, higher subscription pricing and a rough doubling of our ad revenue,” Netflix said.
