Toward the end of Donald Trump’s first term, he had effectively banned the use of TikTok in the United States.
Over the course of the Biden administration, the Chinese-owned app faced a massive assault to have it permanently banned unless ownership changed hands to a US investment group.
Trump has effectively cleaned up the milk he spilled, as reports are breaking today that the deal to sell to U.S.-based ownership has finally been completed, saving the app here in the United States.
In August 2020, Trump signed an order that gave ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, 45 days to sell or be banned from use in this country.
The order sent a shockwave through the influencer community, as there are millions of people in this country who use that platform to make their living.
TikTok said it was “shocked” when Trump made the announcement, claiming that he "paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses."
From that moment forward, Trump got involved to try to find a US-based ownership group, then he kept putting off his own ban to try to keep the app active while a deal could be worked out.
I honestly believe TikTok was the beginning of the end of the relationship between Trump and Sen. Rand Paul, as the two had gotten along fairly well to that point, but Paul immediately spoke out against banning the app, claiming it was a violation of the First Amendment.
Paul continued that fight during the Biden administration and revived it again after Trump took office once more. In January, Paul stated, “I do believe that banning a social media app like TikTok is a violation of the First Amendment.”
He continued, “One hundred seventy million Americans express themselves on TikTok on a daily basis, and it’s just wrong for the government to ban it. Most of the reasons the government banned it were based on accusations, not proof. They’ve never been tried and found guilty of sharing information with the communist government or any of that.”
Paul is right, and even people who backed the ban had openly admitted that this was a preemptive move, as the Chinese government could, at any time, compel ownership to share its data, and nothing could be done to stop them.
Thursday night, it was announced that ByteDance had come to terms to sell its business to a US-based investment group.
The three investors were named as Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, all obtaining a 15% stake. The Guardian reported, “The new TikTok US joint venture will be 50% held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX with 15% each. Another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors and 19.9% will be retained by ByteDance, according to the memo.”
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew reportedly told his staffers that the new venture would be “majority owned by American investors, governed by a new seven-member majority-American board of directors, and subject to terms that protect Americans’ data and U.S. national security.”
This takes a major headache off Trump’s plate, and might even buy him some goodwill with liberals who use the platform.
