U.S. President Donald Trump points a finger as he speaks to members of the media upon his arrival at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 5, 2025. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz
Pundit and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum warns the upcoming TikTok deal is likely to be just another grift for President Donald Trump to rich up his wealthy buddies.
“TikTok is more than an app,” Frum wrote in The Atlantic. “TikTok is an opportunity … to bestow great wealth — and considerable media power — on a clique of allies and insiders. The details of this gift are taking shape out of the public eye. By the time the specifics become available, it will likely be too late to change them.”
In 2024, Congress ordered the embattled Chinese app to divest its U.S. operations or be banned in America. Trump defied the congressionally-passed law and instead issued an executive order to legalize the app. But Trump’s plan leaves too many questions unanswered and opens a lot of holes for Trump’s personal friends and benefactors to further enrich themselves. Frum said the few details that have been released to the public “should alarm anyone concerned about this administration’s drive to consolidate wealth and media power in the hands of a loyal few.”
Frum said from the onset it looks like Trump is deliberately undervaluing the price of TikTok, which sets buyers up for an immediate windfall.
“The White House is apparently valuing TikTok’s U.S. business at $14 billion, 1.4 times its annual U.S. revenue. That’s a shockingly low figure for a thriving tech operation,” said Frum, who set the real-world value of the company at $40 billion. “… If Trump is undervaluing TikTok, the lucky investors who gain ownership of it may be in for a massive and immediate windfall.”
And how is the Trump administration choosing these lucky buyers, asked Frum. Well, the details are sketchy.
“TikTok’s U.S. business is not being auctioned to the highest bidder. Trump has casually thrown out the names of people he might invite to make this investment, such as the media moguls Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Dell’s Michael Dell, but he has yet to make public the complete roster of this purchasing group,” said Frum. “The main criterion for inclusion seems to be fealty to Trump.”
But then there’s the question of how much power the new owners and Trump will have over content and whether they will be able to impose their own X-style philosophical vision over the app as billionaire Elon Musk has forced onto what was once Twitter. Trump has already declared his eagerness to make the app “100 percent MAGA.”
“The TikTok deal will reportedly transfer control of its valuable algorithm to Trump’s handpicked group of investors. What this means remains hazy,” said Frum. “How much power will the company’s new owners have over what users see? Given this uncertainty, it is troubling that Trump seems to be granting these owners a hugely undervalued asset — for which they will presumably feel they owe him something in return.”
Frum said the “truly worrying aspect of the whole TikTok deal has been the absence of oversight.”
“Republican members of Congress responsible for managing the China relationship have been left to beg for fragments of information,” said Frum. “With the House recessed during the government shutdown, and with the Senate paralyzed by fights over the budget, nobody seems to have an eye on the Trump TikTok plan.”
Read the Atlantic report at this link.
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