January 19, 2025
We’re back. TikTok is back up and running after president elect Trump posted this morning asking the tech companies to “not let TikTok stay dark” exclamation point.
There is some important context to this next part – I’ll tell you about in a second – but first what the president elect said…”I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will confirm that there will be no liability for any tech company that helped keep tiktok from going dark before my order.”
Now – here’s what you need to know about that statement. First – an executive order by trump once he takes office will not lift the ban. That’s not what that does. A 90-day extension just delays the ban for that time. So the ban is still going to be hanging over all of our heads.
The second bit of context you need to understand is — prior to this morning – Trump has been sort of vague about what he will do about TikTok. Of course on the campaign trail he was like “I’m going to save TikTok” but then after he became president elect he sort of stepped back from that. Just yesterday he was sort of vague about it telling NBC news saying he would “most likely” give TikTok a 90 day extension. He said “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” trump said in the phone interview.” Do you see the difference between Saturday’s statement and today’s statement?
So why did he do this? Just look at the next line of his statement today he said “Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration on Monday as well as other events and conversations.”
But as I have bene reporting in order to stick around tiktok is likely going to have to concede something. So what does that look like?
Well – Trump put out his thoughts. Literally he was like these are my initial thoughts. He said I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this we save TikTok keep it in good hands and allow it to stay up. Without us approval there is no TikTok. He goes on to say he wants this joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners where by the us gets a 50-percent ownership in a joint venture set up between the us and whichever purchase we so choose.”
Ok – there’s a lot in there. The part about “whichever purchase we so choose” we knew that part was coming because that’s what the law says. The law says the president of the United States is the only person who can decide what a qualified divestiture looks like in order for the TikTok ban to be lifted. And trump is saying – at least right now – clearly this is his opening bid – in order to have a qualified divestiture he things the United States should have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. We will have to see what Bytedance says. We will have to see who that 50% US ownership is and we are going to have to wait.
