Why Do We Assume TrumpTok Will Succeed? [View all]

Oracle has no history of creating compelling consumer-facing products. Their ability to run the most addictive algorithm in social media is questionable.

by David Dayen September 29, 2025

The first thing to say about the sale of TikTok to a still-undefined U.S. consortium is that everything about this episode has been rampantly illegal. The U.S. passed a law requiring the divestiture of TikTok from its Chinese parent company. There was a date certain for the divestiture—January 19—and one prescribed escape valve to extend the deadline a single time. Donald Trump did not use that prescribed provision, and instead unilaterally extended the deadline five times, including another 120-day delay established on September 25, essentially by saying his Justice Department would not enforce the law passed by Congress.

This isn’t a case of prosecutorial discretion, where you have some colorable justification to not prosecute someone violating the law. In this case, the law was just about Chinese-controlled social media platforms. TikTok is one, it has been for the entire time since the deadline passed, and the government made a collective agreement to just not care. The precedent of a president not enforcing laws they don’t like, and the president’s opponents deciding not to say anything about it because it’s politically inconvenient, will be quite dangerous when it’s extended to other laws.

That aside, what do we know about this deal? Not a whole lot, despite many media reports and a Trump executive order released last Thursday that effectively authorizes the new arrangement, which has yet to be formalized by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, and the U.S.-based consortium. The details are annoyingly vague, but from what we currently know, this looks like a deal designed to catapult Trump pal Larry Ellison into rarefied company among media moguls in the U.S.

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But who will control the algorithm, and the data? The “joint venture,” the executive order insists. In media reports and hints from Trump (“If I could, I’d make it a hundred percent MAGA related,” he joked recently), Michael Dell of Dell computers, Fox Broadcasting scion Lachlan Murdoch, and Oracle’s Ellison are among those on the majority ownership team. Private equity firm Silver Lake and venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz are reportedly also involved. Apparently, one member of the primarily American board will be government-selected, although the government will not get equity or a golden share. (It may have gotten a finder’s fee, however.)
https://prospect.org/power/2025-09-29-why-do-we-assume-trumptok-will-succeed/