More Details Emerge on US/China TikTok Deal

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As a TikTok deal with China draws near, more details emerge. Trump says the Murdochs could be among the investors involved in a US-based TikTok.

Media mogul Rubert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, could be among the investors involved in a U.S. deal for TikTok, according to President Trump. That would potentially bring conservative media juggernaut Fox Corporation into the fold alongside other potential investors, including software giant Oracle.

Trump also indicated that Michael Dell, founder and chief executive of computer company Dell Technologies, was involved in the deal. But the potential investors raise questions about whether TikTok’s U.S. ownership would have the power to influence the content pushed by the platform’s algorithm.

The Murdochs have run their media business for years with a firm conservative lean, while Oracle, which already provides computing resources for TikTok, was co-founded by Larry Ellison. Ellison is a longtime Trump supporter, who the president says is also interested in a TikTok stake. Ellison and his family have also become increasingly interested in media, as he helped finance a bid by his son David to buy entertainment giant Paramount.

According to a senior White House official, TikTok’s new U.S.-based entity would lease its algorithm from Chinese owner ByteDance. There had been talks about ByteDance being required to sell its algorithm to comply with the U.S. law passed last year that demands the platform be controlled by Americans. But an outright sale wouldn’t allow ByteDance to continue operating TikTok in countries outside the U.S., which it still intends to do.

At present, the plan would be for ByteDance to create a duplicate of its TikTok algorithm, which then would be leased to a new joint venture controlled by U.S. investors led by Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, and Oracle. Oracle would then verify the retraining of that algorithm to protect U.S. user data.

Notably, U.S. users would not need to download the new version of the TikTok app; the switch is expected to happen automatically for American users. The new app would continue to work with TikTok globally, without content being restricted by region.