In an interview with CNBC Friday morning, Stephenson said that AT&T was not surprised that the Justice Department appealed a federal judge's decision last month to let the merger move forward.
"This changes nothing I'm doing today, except talking about this issue on camera," Stephenson said. "This changes nothing we'll be doing over the next 30 days or 12 months. We think the likelihood of this thing being overturned or reversed is remote."
The government filed its appeal on Thursday, a month after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said that prosecutors had failed to prove the merger would hurt competition and consumers.
According to The Hill, the Justice Department has not yet revealed the basis for its appeal, but it argued in court that the merger is anticompetitive because it would allow AT&T to use its control over Time Warner's entertainment offerings to raise prices and put the squeeze on competitors.
AT&T CEO: DOJ appeal doesn't change anything, the transaction is closed and we are executing on it from CNBC.
Meanwhile, AT&T argued that it wanted to make Time Warner content like CNN and HBO as widely available as possible in order to compete for online targeted advertising revenue.
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