Hopefully it falls through. It’s pretty clear what’s going on.
Since October 7, 2023 there has been a significant lobby towards getting TikTok banned because of pro-Palestinian content. Famously, during the 2024 Republican presidential debates, Nikki Haley said “We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.”
When it did get shutdown for a brief period of time, everyone went nuts, so Trump kept delaying the ban over and over. Then steps in these US investors, led by Larry Ellison: in 2017 he donated $16.6 million to the IDF, the largest single gift in its history mind you.
They are reporting that the US investors set to make the purchase are still waiting on China to finalize a deal.
The thing about Trump saying it was a done deal*, like most other things he says, was true in the sense that the deal to find the US investors to buy the app is done. And having the "blessing" or any other uttering of China's President Xi Jinping is not the same as having the official action of China finalizing the sale. It did allow him to sign an executive order allowing tiktok to continue operating while the deal is being finalized -- and additional executive order 90 day extensions in the mean time.
With the sale going to the usual suspects, Larry Ellison, Abu Dhabi MGX, it makes this look more like Trump is being played at his own game. Or, like the other comment says about ByteDance and China mocking the US in this silly posturing. Maybe they get it done on Monday, or give it another 90 days.
*See paltering.[0][1]. It's the reason you get people saying he lied and others saying he's unfairly being called a liar. A more accurate way to describe what he says is: manipulation. Even news outlets are capable of being manipulated (and some may encourage it), which in turn causes all of them to be called "partisan hacks" and the populace loses trust -- but in the wrong things/people.
President Xi and Putin aren’t just seasoned politicians, they are experienced and know the rules of the game very well. Trump is not just naive, but he’s utterly stupid as well. Not sure why voters can’t see through his BS.
Since October 7, 2023 there has been a significant lobby towards getting TikTok banned because of pro-Palestinian content. Famously, during the 2024 Republican presidential debates, Nikki Haley said “We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.”
When it did get shutdown for a brief period of time, everyone went nuts, so Trump kept delaying the ban over and over. Then steps in these US investors, led by Larry Ellison: in 2017 he donated $16.6 million to the IDF, the largest single gift in its history mind you.
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