There were rumblings about this for a while, but it looks like the Trump TikTok deal is done, and it’s somehow the worst of all possible outcomes, amazingly making all of the biggest criticisms about TikTok significantly worse. Quite an accomplishment.
The Chinese government has signed off on the deal, which involves offloading a large chunk of TikTok to billionaire right wing Trump ally Larry Ellison (fresh off his acquisition of CBS), the private equity firm Silver Lake (which has broad global investments in Chinese and Israeli hyper-surveillance), and MGX (Abu Dhabi’s state investment firm), while still somehow having large investment involvement by the Chinese.
It wasn’t subtle that the goal was always for Trump’s buddies to just basically steal a big ownership chunk of a Chinese short form video company that U.S. tech companies couldn’t out innovate. Offloading the company to his friends at Oracle and Walmart was Trump’s stated goal during the first administration, only thwarted because he lost the 2020 election. Everything else was decorative.
Oh no! Anyway
You may not like tiktok or use it but a lot of people do. And now it’s in the hands of a bunch of nasty bastards.
When has it not been in the hands of a bunch of nasty bastards?
Fair but I’m going to hazard a guess that these guys are worse. For all the hand-wringing about Chinese influence I never saw proof of anything nefarious.
Oh no! Etc
You know what else is in their hands? Their phones, so they can put them away.
Oh no! Anyway