On September 21, then-United States President Donald Trump announced a significant deal regarding the future of TikTok's operations in the country. The proposed agreement would see prominent tech billionaires Larry Ellison and Michael Dell, along with media owner Lachlan Murdoch, involved as investors, as detailed in a Reuters report. According to President Trump, the U.S. and China had made progress on a deal that would facilitate TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, in selling its American unit to U.S. owners, fulfilling government requirements. The inclusion of names like Ellison, Dell, and Murdoch suggested that Donald Trump's corporate allies were poised for substantial gains if the deal materialized. TikTok boasts over 170 million active users in the U.S., engaging in vital political and cultural discussions.

The expected deal outlined that TikTok's U.S. assets would be majority-owned by American investors and managed in the United States by a board of directors possessing national security and cybersecurity credentials, Reuters reported on September 20, citing a White House official. ByteDance's existing shareholders include Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, and KKR. Under the new structure, ByteDance would retain less than 20 percent of the stock in a joint venture overseeing TikTok's U.S. operations, the official added. Donald Trump publicly lauded the group in an interview with Fox News' “The Sunday Briefing” program, describing them as prominent individuals and “American patriots.” Trump stated, “I think they're going to do a really good job,” and credited TikTok with contributing to his support among young voters for the 2024 presidential election.

The individuals named for involvement in the deal bring considerable influence. Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of Fox Corp, had recently secured long-term control of his family's extensive media empire, which includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, following the resolution of a multi-year legal dispute with his siblings. President Trump also indicated that the family patriarch, 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch, might also be involved. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that any investment in TikTok US would be channeled through Fox Corp, with neither the Murdochs investing individually nor News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, participating directly. While known for their conservative viewpoints and media outlets that attract right-leaning audiences, the Murdochs had occasionally drawn Donald Trump's disapproval. The report mentioned that Donald Trump had sued The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for defamation over a July report alleging that Trump signed a 2003 birthday greeting for the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which contained a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to shared secrets. The newspaper has since defended its reporting and vowed to contest the lawsuit. Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle and a significant Republican donor, had long been associated with potential TikTok deals. Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, was also identified as a prospective investor; Dell did not immediately respond to a comment request.

This TikTok negotiation was set against a backdrop of what was termed “unusual” interventions by the Trump administration in U.S. businesses. The Trump administration had opted not to enforce a 2024 U.S. law, enacted during the Joe Biden administration, which would have required TikTok’s divestiture by January 2025 due to concerns about potential Chinese government access to its U.S. user data. Instead, Donald Trump integrated discussions over the app into broader economic talks with China. Other notable interventions by the Trump administration included acquiring a 10 percent stake in Intel Corp and granting AI chip giant Nvidia permission to sell its H20 chips to China, in exchange for receiving 15 percent of those sales. Donald Trump consistently defended these actions as being in the best interests of the U.S. economy. However, critics, including some business leaders and Republican lawmakers, characterized these interventions as a sharp departure from traditional American capitalism, warning that they risked undermining the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, as per the report. (With inputs from Reuters)