Trump's Corrupt TikTok Deal Should Be a Scandal

I get it. Even by Trumpian standards, there’s a lot of news these days. The Charlie Kirk assassination — a massive and vital story. The Trump administration’s effort to use the government to silence critics like Jimmy Kimmel. The indictment of Jim Comey. A key Trump advisor caught on tape accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents. And oh yeah, the federal government is going to shut down in a week.

Even so, I’m surprised how little attention and outrage are being directed at Trump’s incredibly corrupt deal to hand U.S. operations of TikTok to an Abu Dhabi–based investment fund and several pro-Trump billionaires, possibly including Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

This should be a huge story. Democrats should be shouting from every rooftop and using whatever limited tools they have to try to block the deal.

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Why It’s a Big Deal

As you know, Congress banned TikTok unless it was sold to U.S. companies. Trump has refused to enforce that ban for nine months. No one in Congress seems to care — Republicans opposed the ban, and Democrats quickly regretted it once they saw how Gen Z voted in 2024. It feels like a million years ago, but the original impetus was concern that the Chinese government could access U.S. user data or manipulate the algorithm to influence American public opinion.

Here’s how the New York Times described the outlines of the deal last week:

The software giant Oracle will oversee the security of Americans’ data and monitor changes and updates to TikTok’s powerful recommendation technology under a new deal to avert a ban of the service, according to a senior White House official.

A copy of the algorithm, the recommendation engine that powers the app’s addictive feed of short videos, will be licensed from China to an American investor group that will oversee the app in the United States, the official said.

Oracle will also invest in the new American TikTok, as will the private equity firm Silver Lake, another senior official said.

It will be “secured” in the United States outside the control of TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, one of the officials said. The U.S.-run TikTok will work to retrain the copy on users’ data in the United States, and China will not have access to the data, the officials added.

On paper, this addresses the privacy concerns. But the algorithm is what really matters. China will still control it, even if U.S. data helps retrain it. China may have less influence, but a group of MAGA billionaires — potentially including the Murdochs — will now be in charge.