Trump’s tariffs killed his TikTok deal
Earlier this week, when it seemed as though TikTokâs fate in the US would actually be decided by April 5th, everyone â from Amazon to the founder of OnlyFans â was coming out of the woodwork to buy it.
As it turns out, none of them had a chance. And now, thanks to President Donald Trumpâs tariff war, no one may get to buy TikTok.
People familiar with the matter tell me that, despite all of the bids for the app, the White House was only seriously considering an Oracle-led consortium, which included many of ByteDanceâs biggest investors who were set to roll their stakes into a new, US entity.
The proposal, which would have licensed the appâs algorithm from China and shuffled some shareholder money around to make TikTok look more independent from ByteDance, was set to be announced before President Trump went nuclear on tariffs. As others have reported and Iâve independently confirmed, his tariff announcement on Wednesday torched any immediate chance of the TikTok proposal being blessed by the Chinese government.
On Friday, less than an hour after Trump said he was pushing back the clock on banning TikTok by another 75 days to finish working out a deal, ByteDance …