🏛️ TikTok gets banned or force-divested and US platforms take the attention

“I do worry a lot about the precedent being set here with respect to foreign government actions on US companies in their local countries. Imagine the CCP tells Tesla they have to sell their Chinese operations and give 50% of the Chinese operations to the Chinese government because of their concerns about security”

“But at the end of the day, the president was very clear that it is completely and entirely worthless without his permit, and he wants to own 50% of this asset. Now, if you're a buyer of something, you're not going to pay $100 billion if you control whether it can exist or not. You're basically going to pay today's equivalent of one franc, which would be one dollar.”

“But I think you put it all together, you know, is 100 billion a reasonable scenario? ... And then could it be a trillion dollar asset, the way Trump has mentioned? I mean, in a world where Facebook's one and a half, right? And the penetration of TikTok in the US is 50% of what Metta is. I don't think it's unrealistic.”

“Seems like they're going to strike a deal. Chuck Schumer today is calling for a delay in the ban. I'm sure by the time this episode airs, something will have been worked out to create some space for them to get a deal done. But I think they want to get a deal done and keep TikTok active in the US. Seems like both the Dems and the Republicans are pushing for it.”

“if you think about the two biggest imports from China right now, it's fentanyl and TikTok. They want to make us addicted. They want to impact our society. They want to divide us. This is a massive psyops that's going on. It is a psyops, and it is a spyware, and it's been proven they spied on journalists. These are bad actors. It has to go.”

“So I do agree with Mark that we have to find a suitable home. And I think that we'll probably find one. And I think that it probably happens under the Trump presidency. And whoever gets their hands on it gets their hands on an incredible asset that they will be able to buy extremely cheaply. Because there is no way that there is a fair market value here deal for that asset.”

“And so I'm, the best outcome, I think, would be forced to divest and sell to another American company. But if that doesn't happen, I'm kind of nervous about a real backlash.”

“So if they'll do it to their own people, they would have no problem doing it to an adversary and, ask yourself, if the shareholders care about money, they would be willing to divest, right? No problem. They want to take the company public. So if you won't divest and get off the board as the CCP, it's because you see this as a valuable tool, right?”

“I said, you have to look at the Pegasus-like equivalent, infiltration of WhatsApp, having been done on TikTok... But there's probably 1,000 to 10,000 to 15,000 people. I do suspect that state actors are smart enough to figure out how to triangulate who.”

“You don't even have to have a conversation. In my view, TikTok is a threat to the national security of the United States.”

“I'm 100% certain that the CCP is using it, because people have tracked already journalists using it. So if they've already done it, it's 100%.”

“And I think that this idea that it's somehow a propaganda tool around programming our youth, I think that's a moral panic that's been exaggerated.”

“Looks like they gathered some reasonable data.”

“I want to see this thing banned immediately, or divest. I would prefer it be divested, because I think people love it.”

“I don't think the product is much of anything. It's probably no better or no worse than shorts or reels or some of these other alternatives.”

“if I'm bite dance, I'm very likely going to hire a bunch of bankers, run an auction process, and sell this thing, and I have a year to do it.”

“this divestiture thing is a total fig leaf because it's not clear that China is going to allow TikTok to divest ... So I don't think they're going to be able to divest. I think they're just going to get shut down.”

“the algorithm is such a key component of that TikTok experience... Shorts serves up garbage. Instagram serves up garbage.”

“I stumbled into the fact that YouTube has YouTube Shorts, and there is a lot of that content, but it's terrible and the algorithm is really bad. And so fortunately, I just stopped using YouTube.”

“100 million people are soon going to be asking. When TikTok gets shut down, 100 million people who used it every day are going to be like, why did this happen?”

“I think divestiture should not be allowed. I actually just think, unfortunately, this app should just be shut down, and the people will migrate to Instagram, and the people will migrate to YouTube.”

“Just divest. And if they won't divest, it tells you everything you need to know. This is super valuable to them, and that algorithm is so valuable that they know they can program the US citizenry.”

“If TikTok gets banned in the US it's going to benefit Metta. It's going to benefit Instagram. ... It's going to benefit a few other social networks. It's going to benefit Elon at Twitter.”

“This thing is far too powerful for the CCP to have any kind of access to it, for the Chinese government to have any kind of access to it. It has to be divested.”

“I think we saw this during, after October 7th, that there was a significant surge in pro-Hamas videos relative to Israel support videos. That's the sort of thing where you could kind of see something that sets an opinion that may be disruptive to the social fabric, to the election cycle”

“I think you have to deal with TikTok as a business issue. And I agree with Palmer Luckey, which is, they should not be able to sell to us what we cannot sell to them. And I think that that's a fair principle that we can live on.”

“Look, if it's true that TikTok is sharing data with the CCP, then I think the United States is well within its rights to either ban it or to cause it to be divested. And I personally like the divestiture option.”