On Tuesday, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros Discovery Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer Bruce Campbell testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. Netflix has a pending $83 billion deal to purchase Warner Bros Discovery.
The hearing was ostensibly to discuss the potentially massive merger, but Republican lawmakers also grilled the executives about the “overwhelmingly woke” content offered on their streaming platforms.
But a lot of viewers noticed…something else.
Let’s zoom in and enhance:
Yes, that appears to be Rich Uncle Pennybags from the board game Monopoly.
Senator Ted Cruz even took a break from grilling the CEOs about “wokeness” or whatever to address the Monopoly Man in the room. Cruz said, “The gentleman sitting behind you in the Monopoly outfit. Um, in your view, are monopolies a good thing in America?” Sarandos replied, “No, sir, they’re not.”
He also attracted the attention of Republican Senator Mike Lee.
Incredibly, the Monopoly Man, aka Ian Madrigal, responded to the Senator and let him know exactly what they were doing at that hearing:
Ian is a trans and queer activist who has been popping up in the background of Senate hearings for years, seen here in 2017 stealing the spotlight as Richard Smith, former chairman and chief executive officer of Equifax Inc., testified.
And here they are again in 2018, attending a Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee hearing with Mick Mulvaney.
In 2019, Ian told the Washington Post, “Surprisingly, I’ve never been arrested for anything I’ve done. It’s like a white person superpower.”
Here, Ian stuns in a photo at the 2023 antitrust lawsuit brought against Google.
In July 2025, Ian took their Rich Uncle Pennybags look to the streets to protest the Federal Trade Commission during a workshop targeting gender-affirming care for children.
Check the memo on this giant check:
If you’re interested in stealing their look, Ian has also shared a breakdown of the cost of the full Monopoly Man ensemble in a post on Tumblr:
And in case you didn’t know, the game Monopoly has anti-capitalist origins. It was originally invented in 1903 by a progressive activist named Elizabeth Magie. She called it “The Landlord’s Game.” The game was later adapted to the version we fight with our siblings about today by Charles Darrow, seen below:
After developing the game, Magie wrote, “It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.”
I guess it’s true what they say: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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