Trump Says He’s Open To Musk Or Ellison Buying Tiktok

President Donald Trump says he’d beryllium unfastened to his buddies Elon Musk aliases Larry Ellison buying TikTok.

“Larry, let’s talk successful beforehand of nan media,” Trump said astatine a spot normal pinch nan Oracle co-founder, SoftBank CEO Masa Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to denote a $500 cardinal artificial intelligence infrastructure investment. “What I’m reasoning astir saying to personification is, bargain it, and springiness half to nan United States of America. Half, and we’ll springiness you nan permit. And they’ll personification a awesome partner, nan United States.”

“Sounds for illustration a bully woody to me, Mr. President,” Ellison said.

It’s still not wholly clear really each of this would work, aliases really nan US could legally tally a reside level without violating nan First Amendment. But it’s 1 of nan earliest examples of really Silicon Valley’s coziness pinch Trump could manifest complete nan adjacent 4 years.

Trump signed an executive bid connected Monday instructing his guidance not to enforce nan norm connected activity providers covered by nan forced divestiture measurement — which spot Oracle, Apple, and Google — for 75 days. But ineligible experts opportunity nan action provides hardly immoderate ineligible surface for those companies to break nationalist norm and consequence $850 cardinal successful penalties. Even so, Oracle has appeared to spot connected Trump’s assurances to thief TikTok tally successful nan US aft nan January 19th discarded deadline, though nan institution has not yet commented connected it directly.

TikTok’s China-based genitor institution ByteDance still has different offers connected nan table, including from billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and now, apparently, from YouTube creator MrBeast — whose investor group is receiving ineligible counsel from a squad that includes nan comparative of Trump’s lawyer wide pick.

As he was leaving nan briefing, a newsman asked Trump if he has TikTok connected his phone. “No, but I deliberation I mightiness put it there,” Trump responded. “I deliberation I’ll get it correct now.”