U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China
141 comments
·September 16, 2025volleyball
So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok.
Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mentioning that Ellison is a life-long zionist, friend of the IDF and close personal friend of Netanyahu to whom he even offered a post at Oracle.[3]
This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.
[1] - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...
[2] - https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/20...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&old...
spacechild1
This is just crazy. No single person should have this amount of power, in particular if they have the moral integrity of Larry Ellison...
seemaze
>moral integrity of Larry Ellison...
Don't anthropomorphize Larry Ellison
Retric
It is two people here. David Ellison who took over Paramount is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle.
SSLy
Durin I, Durin II…
null
throwawayqqq11
Thank you for providing the media take over angle. I wish the people down voting you would explain why.
Retric
He’s got the wrong guy on the paramount deal. It’s David Ellison though they’re related:
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-warner-bros-disco...
jacobolus
David Ellison is Larry Ellison's son, and Larry Ellison spent $6 billion on the Paramount deal. It's not really a stretch to imagine that the father might have some influence on the resulting operation. (According to a cursory web search, on paper Larry Ellison now has a 35.5% voting interest and David Ellison has a 64.5% voting interest.)
vincnetas
how do you know if anyone is downvoting a comment?
dfxm12
The text gets lighter in color and harder to read. People may come later and vote for it, darkening the text again.
dijit
[flagged]
dijit
[flagged]
mysecretaccount
Enough with the tone policing. The original comment is accurate: Paramount seeks to install Zionist Bari Weiss. This is uncontroversially true.
dfxm12
Can you explain the conspiracy?
churchill
We're no longer accepting this tripe as sane discourse. Anyone of sound mind has seen, over the past 3 years, that Israel's securocrats and Zionists in America and Europe shut down any views that's remotely critical of Israel by influencing the media. It's also as clear as daylight that TikTok's problems started after they gave the world a window into Israel's atrocities in occupied Palestine. Ellison is a self-confessed Zionist.
Whether it's Bari Weiss abetting genocide against Palestinians, Silicon Valley purging anyone who questions it, or actively building the weapons that enable it, you can't glue people's eyes shut or force them not to believe their lying eyes with cries of antisemitism, conspiracy, etc.
palmotea
> So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN.
That's not Larry Ellison, it's his nepo baby David Ellison.
otterley
"hostile take-over of the American mind"
You mean, to support Israel? Is that what this is about?
nineplay
> This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.
Again? People should be talking about the hostile take-over currently in progress and how it is getting exponentially worse. But the billionaire mouthpieces gave everyone a shiny new inconsequential talking point and no one cares about anything that matters.
vFunct
Don’t forget that the other proposed TikTok owner, Marc Andreeson, is also a raging genocidal Zionist.
Israelis really don’t want Americans to have nice things.
otterley
[flagged]
coffeebeqn
Oligarchs be oligarching
paxys
Nothing hostile about it. This is what the American people voted for.
slg
In 2020, 22.4% of the US population voted for Trump. In 2024, 22.7% of the population voted for Trump. I hate how people draw drastic conclusions regarding what the American people want based off the shift of less than half a percentage point of the population.
null
HackerThemAll
Oracle is then going to mandate license fees from every user, together with 22% support fees with 8% increase every year.
They'll then rewrite TikTok in Java, and migrate to Oracle Database.
1970-01-01
The Android .APK files are already Java.
palmotea
IIRC, but I read the TikTok app is mostly WebViews, which was a design choice to help keep it functioning in the face of an App Store ban.
anon1395
IIRC TikTok is built using their own framework, https://lynxjs.org/
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
To be fair, that doesn't mean they can't be re-written in Java.
lupusreal
They're going to send thugs into businesses demanding to see if any of their employees are secretly using TikTok on company time, then demand the business buy a million dollar corporate license.
elzbardico
Oracle owning TikTok is one of the most unintentionally funny things to ever happen.
polishdude20
It's like a 100 year old with hardware crypto wallet.
palmotea
> Oracle owning TikTok is one of the most unintentionally funny things to ever happen.
I'm hopeful. With any luck they'll ruin TikTok and it will die, a satisfying result.
elzbardico
First they will start launching TikTok Enterprise.
An all-buzzwords compliant subscription based solution for enterprise and professional content creators.
oldpersonintx2
[dead]
bix6
> one member designated by the US government.
Why does the board of TikTok need a gov member? Is Meta going to get a gov chaperone too? And Oracle surely needs one as well.
Is the gov putting out a call for board member civil servants? Like where does this person even come from?
duxup
Same reason they put a guy at CBS as a "bias monitor":
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-fcc-cbs-ne...
They want their guy to make sure things go their way / people say the "right" things.
piva00
Didn't expect to see the USA employing press censors in my lifetime but here we are.
In Brazil during the dictatorship it was common for newspapers to print cooking recipes in place of censored articles, now I'm waiting to see if media in the USA has the balls to play the malicious compliance game... I guess I won't see it since money is basically God in America.
xboxnolifes
One could argue they're not the same, but there has been TV broadcast censors for decades in the US. They were still least following somewhat defined laws though.
phs318u
Oracle doesn’t need one.
coffeebeqn
What do you mean - the CCP has always had someone sit on the board of major companies… oh wait which country was this again?
g8oz
TikTok dealt a serious blow to the Western consensus manufacturing apparatus. We saw that with Gaza especially. This deal is a step towards taking back control.
fullshark
Maybe these crypto-zealots who scream about decentralization will actually try and build a thriving decentralized media instead of pumping and dumping shitcoins?
cogman10
The problem is that it's hard to make these things popular.
There are several ActivityPub services that are pretty good and even have decent UXes, but they aren't super active.
A major issue is it's confusing and the funds are limited.
drewbitt
Reminds me of Yahoo buying Tumblr. Mismatched. Their best bet is to change little to nothing, but not sure the administration will let them.
barbazoo
I'm not an expert but this makes me think that it might time to turn off the screens and stop letting half-trillionaires decide what we look at.
greekrich92
>Current users of the app will be asked to shift to a new app
So it's just going to fade into obscurity then huh
Tarsul
so US users will be cut off from the rest of the world? Wow. Thats crazy.
TranquilMarmot
TikTok in China is already cut off from the rest of the world. The US is just copying China's homework.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2
This. I think people in general misunderstand the allure of power and the means to maintain it. Power centers in US are drooling at the opportunity to do what China has done in terms of controlling discourse and language. The interesting thing is that they all assume that this particular measure of control would never be turned against them.
edit: Adjusted weapon to 'measure of control'. I accept people are a little too happy to overreact lately.
lukewrites
We are doing state capitalism without China’s “serve the people” bit. Hm, maybe there’s a name for that type of government, idk.
palmotea
> We are doing state capitalism without China’s “serve the people” bit. Hm, maybe there’s a name for that type of government, idk.
Except China doesn't actually serve its people. Things are way more cut-throat there, with much less safety net. The Chinese government sees workers as grist for the mill, not something to be cared for.
rchaud
"Democratic People's Republic of America"
morkalork
Careful now, you don't want to accused of spreading hate speech
pier25
Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of global users ended up using the US app instead of TikTok.
kelipso
You won’t get the option to do it through the app stores, so pretty much no one’s going to do it.
20after4
Why would anyone want to use OracleTok?
0xcafecafe
TikTok is banned in India. OracleTok might not be.. So that's a lot of potential users.
pier25
Same way everyone uses all the other US apps?
TMWNN
More like the other way around.
US users are today 21 of the 49 TikTok accounts with the most followers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_TikTok_a...> (not including TikTok itself). When the Trump administration came close to forcing a divestment/shutdown on TikTok in 2020,[1] Americans were 10% of TikTok's user base but 50% of revenue.
[1] And boy, do Democrats who shouted Orange Man Bad back then now wish they had supported the move
duxup
I'm curious how bad the misinformation type stuff will be.
It's bad everywhere, but I found TikTok to be the absolute worst. Not even just fake news political stuff where I can guess the motivation (still bad), but just basic everyday tips and tricks, local users describing news events. I've found it to be so much worse on tiktok.
Other platforms there seems to be "more" intent by creators to provide somewhat consistent / factual content. Tiktok often feels to me like content accuracy / quality isn't a concern for most creators.
quickthrowman
Short form video is basically worthless outside of comedy and cute animal videos. The format does not allow enough information to determine whether the information provided is accurate or not, for videos that have facts in them. Every time I watch a short form video I feel an overwhelming urge not to trust what I saw and verify it elsewhere, now I just don’t want short form videos at all.
aurareturn
I think it's bad news if the US government owns Tiktok data rather than the Chinese government.
Chinese government won't prosecute me. US government might.
The State Department also said it would crack down on non-citizens who have made posts making light of the shooting.
“In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure, I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country. I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted on Thursday. “Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.” [0][0]https://time.com/7316628/charlie-kirk-death-celebrations-soc...
mothballed
I've come across at least one businessman who refuses to use anything but a Chinese phone he bought in china, with chinese sim card and chinese apps, for that exact reason.
jcarrano
When you reach the point of choosing the lesser evil, you might just as well uninstall TikTok.
rchaud
It's not about owning the data, it's about controlling the message.
ImPrajyoth
This would just make them go in a situationship.
Both are not compatible with each other in any way, but they are in a great deal, one they can't say no to.
This is where either one fails or sometimes both.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/details-emerge-on-u-s-china-tiktok-...
https://archive.ph/g7dTU