Media mogul Barry Diller ripped AT&T's WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, saying the company should be 'dead and buried by now'

• IAC chairman Barry Diller called the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger the "great escape" for AT&T.
• He made the comment during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
• "It's the power of monopoly," he said. "Ma Bell should be dead and buried by now."

Media mogul Barry Diller criticized AT&T's WarnerMedia-Discovery merger in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that aired on Friday, saying AT&T was using the "power of monopoly" to stay afloat.

Diller, the chairman of IAC and Expedia, called the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger the "great escape" for AT&T.

"It's the power of monopoly. Ma Bell should be dead and buried by now," he said, referring to AT&T's old nickname when the company was called Bell Telephone.

AT&T announced earlier this week that it had plans to combine its content unit WarnerMedia with Discovery to pave the way for a new streaming giant that could compete with Netflix and Disney.

The new company will be led by Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

"It's certainly in better hands," Diller told CNBC, before taking another swipe at AT&T. "How could it be in worse hands?"

"And Zaslav is the kind of creative executive...he's scrappy," Diller added. "He built Discovery from relatively nothing to something. He's exactly the right person to try and develop it.

-Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 21, 2021