Trump administration could get $10b from TikTok US deal

The Trump administration is set to receive a roughly US$10 billion fee from investors in the deal to take control of TikTok’s US business, the Wall Street Journal reported.

ByteDance, the China-based owner of TikTok, finalized in January a deal to create a majority American-owned joint venture meant to secure US user data and avoid a US ban.

Investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX paid about US$2.5 billion to the US Treasury at closing and are to make further payments until the total reaches US$10 billion, the Journal said.

Officials cited Trump’s role in negotiations with China to justify the fee.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The fee is not a standard government charge

The U.S. government charges set fees for national security reviews of foreign investments through filings with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. government panel that reviews deals for national security risks, paid to the U.S. Department of the Treasury 1.
The US$10 billion payment sits outside the CFIUS filing-fee process and reads as a separate, unusual charge 1.
The deal forms a joint venture where ByteDance keeps 19.9%, while Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX each take 15% 2.
TikTok says the joint venture aims to protect U.S. user data, the app, and the algorithm, yet the announcement does not spell out who owns TikTok’s recommendation algorithm 2.

The deal creates a playbook for future tech standoffs

The divestiture offers a template for how the U.S. government may approach other Chinese-owned apps such as Temu and Shein that raise similar data security worries 3.
The U.S. used a method it often criticizes by pushing a foreign company into a joint venture to keep market access, similar to models China used in auto and energy 3.
After early backlash and tech issues, daily active users settled near 95% of prior levels, based on Sensor Tower figures cited by CNBC 4.