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Trump unveils his plan to Save TikTok : The U.S. Government will own half of it.
Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2025, 09:58 PM - Edit history (2)
'Congress gave the president the right to make a deal to whatever he wants.' It will cost nothing and make a lot of money.
Trump touts his plan to save TikTok during his victory rally
At a victory rally the day before being sworn into the presidency, Donald Trump extolled his plan to “save TikTok” from the law that banned it through a joint venture with the US.
Trump is proposing a joint venture where the US government owns 50 percent of TikTok. That raises a host of its own First Amendment issues since any content moderation whatsoever might be considered a government act, and the Constitution prohibits the government (not private companies) from infringing on speech.
It’s not entirely clear how Trump envisions this all playing out, but Trump says, essentially, that TikTok would have a “partner” in the US government, “and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture.” Trump claims there is “no risk” to the US because “we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works.”
It’s not entirely clear how Trump envisions this all playing out, but Trump says, essentially, that TikTok would have a “partner” in the US government, “and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture.” Trump claims there is “no risk” to the US because “we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works.”
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/24347463/trump-plan-to-save-tiktok-from-ban
Transcript - Word Salad even by his standards.
We won the youth vote by 36 points. So I like TikTok. I like it ... But [as] I said, we need to save TikTok, because we’re talking about a tremendous — who, who in this audience goes with TikTok? Many? Yeah, very popular. And frankly, we have no choice, we have to save it — a lot of jobs. We don’t wanna give our business to China, we don’t wanna give our business to other people. And I said, you know, TikTok without my approval — meaning the president’s approval because Congress gave the president the right to make a deal to whatever he wants and uh… they did that a long time ago when they have a different president. They didn’t know that I was gonna be at the president, I guess.
So I said very simply, a joint venture. So, if TikTok is worth nothing, zero without an approval, you know you don’t approve, they’re out of business, they’re worth nothing.
If you do approve, they’re worth like a trillion dollars, they’re worth some crazy number. So I said, I’ll approve, but let the United States of America own 50% of TikTok.I’m approving on behalf of the United States.
So they’ll have a partner, the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture. And there’s no risk, we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works. What do you think, good? So, whether you like TikTok or not, we’re gonna make a lot of money.
So I said very simply, a joint venture. So, if TikTok is worth nothing, zero without an approval, you know you don’t approve, they’re out of business, they’re worth nothing.
If you do approve, they’re worth like a trillion dollars, they’re worth some crazy number. So I said, I’ll approve, but let the United States of America own 50% of TikTok.I’m approving on behalf of the United States.
So they’ll have a partner, the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture. And there’s no risk, we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works. What do you think, good? So, whether you like TikTok or not, we’re gonna make a lot of money.
EDIT: The New York Times says "it was impressive politics on all sides" ( ! )
By midmorning on Sunday, Mr. Trump declared that he would in fact fix it: “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.”
Mr. Trump went on to describe, in the vaguest of terms, his newest idea: Reconstitute TikTok as a 50-50 “joint venture” between the existing Chinese owner, ByteDance, and some kind of American entity. It has a surface appeal, though it is not clear it would satisfy the mandate of the law Congress passed and President Biden signed banning the app unless the company and the algorithm are under American control.
Nor is it evident that it would address the national security problem inherent in having TikTok’s algorithms — which monitor the selections of users and pick the next thing shown to them — written in China.
But it was impressive politics on all sides. By shutting down the app for a bit of Saturday night and Sunday morning, TikTok made vivid to its loyal users what the world would be like without the app. (That shouldn’t be hard to imagine: It first came into American’s phones in 2016, just two months before Mr. Trump was elected for the first time.) And it created, for just a few hours, a standoff that Mr. Trump could then leap in and resolve, at least temporarily, on his way to the rally of his supporters in Washington on Sunday afternoon.
link
Mr. Trump went on to describe, in the vaguest of terms, his newest idea: Reconstitute TikTok as a 50-50 “joint venture” between the existing Chinese owner, ByteDance, and some kind of American entity. It has a surface appeal, though it is not clear it would satisfy the mandate of the law Congress passed and President Biden signed banning the app unless the company and the algorithm are under American control.
Nor is it evident that it would address the national security problem inherent in having TikTok’s algorithms — which monitor the selections of users and pick the next thing shown to them — written in China.
But it was impressive politics on all sides. By shutting down the app for a bit of Saturday night and Sunday morning, TikTok made vivid to its loyal users what the world would be like without the app. (That shouldn’t be hard to imagine: It first came into American’s phones in 2016, just two months before Mr. Trump was elected for the first time.) And it created, for just a few hours, a standoff that Mr. Trump could then leap in and resolve, at least temporarily, on his way to the rally of his supporters in Washington on Sunday afternoon.
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'Glad to be back on the same now. 
