Today, Explained - TikTok’s new owners

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

The US and China have a plan for American TikTok. It involves a Trump-aligned billionaire whose family is building a new media empire. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Noel King. Photo by Mike Campbell/NurPhoto via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In an age of media consolidation, family dynasties are having a moment. The Murdox, the Solzburgers, the Roy's, the Hursts, and the new kids on the block. Allison's, meet the Ellison's, the newest right-wing billionaire family. From the Silicon Valley, Larry made his money with technology. The Ellison family, Potter, Larry, Eho David, and their money just bought CBS Paramount, will soon take a big stake in TikTok and are reportedly going to bid for Warner Bros. discovery which owns CNN. It's been said that nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.

Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But is yet another Trump-aligned family having control of your grandpa's TV shows and your TikTok Algo something to worry about? Answers ahead on Today Explained. Support for the show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 used the ServiceNow AI platform didn't know that.

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We are seeing a headline that suggests America is going to get TikTok. What is America going to get here exactly? The biggest thing is certainty for U.S. TikTok users is that the app will continue operating in the U.S. That's, I think, what most people care about. They're not that worried about the complex deal that made that happen or any of the geopolitical implications for a lot of people

who are addicted to the app. Look, I don't know they're going to take TikTok from us, but can we, like, can we come to an agreement, please? I thought of it just being gone is, like, sad. Like, what? Why? Why does it have to go down a drain like that? Why is you doing this? You're going to be able to continue using it. So that's step number one, I think, and that's what the administration is focusing a lot on,

that they're the ones that prevented the app from going dark and any changes there. But if you dig a little deeper, it is also very important that a group of U.S. investors will now gain control of TikTok's U.S. operations. That's been something a lot of people in Washington have been pushing for for over five years, and it seems like they're on the doorstep of making that happen. I think that it's a deal that's going to be great, and it's also control. by very powerful and very substantial American people. What are U.S. operations? What does that mean? Yeah, U.S. operations for TikTok are basically all of the users in the U.S.

that are about 170 million of them. So it's all the content, all their data, and anything that is basically separate from the global operations. So the backstory is that there have been concerns for many years that because TikTok parent bite dance is a Chinese company that the Chinese government could potentially access U.S. user data or control the content that is used by American users. It's the fact that the Chinese government owns a company

that is collecting very sensitive information from American citizens that it can use to create an algorithm that will provide very addictive information to provide messages and videos that could mislead the American people and manipulate our elections. So the deal that is possible, being done is attempting to address both of those big concerns. Okay, and what about the thing that makes TikTok TikTok, which is the algorithm? Does the U.S. get that too in this deal?

That is the billion or tens of billions of dollars question. It's a very complex setup from what we're being told. Essentially, the answer would be yes, based on what the administration and people around TikTok have said. There would be a complex way of doing this where bite dance, the Chinese parents, company of TikTok would copy the algorithm it uses globally and then lease it to this new entity that is being created by this transaction. And so the new entity would then control it and they would run it through basically all

the users in America. So it would be a U.S. specific algorithms, sort of. And they say that lease arrangement and security provided by the cloud computing firm Oracle would make sure that there's no Chinese interference and it's totally. separate. There are definitely people in Washington who don't buy that arrangement, or they don't believe that it is fully walled off from bite dance and Chinese influence. But at the end of the day, the algorithm is a huge issue, and we don't want to make allowances for China to continue to influence, control what 170 million Americans see and their outlook on the world. So as usual,

it will see where things end up and how this gets implemented, but that's how they're selling it at this point. Can you remind us of the state of play with TikTok right up until now? What has been going on here? People have been worried about TikTok in Washington going back to the first Trump administration. We're looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok. He himself signed an executive order saying that ByteDance would basically have to relinquish control or the app would have to stop operating in the U.S. They have till September 15th to make a deal. After that, we close it up in this country. And there were deal talks involving companies like Walmart and Oracle.

Lawmakers have been worried that the Chinese could access U.S. user data or sway what content is seen by U.S. users. Of what nation are you a citizen? Singapore. Are you a citizen of any other nation? No, Senator. Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship? Senator.

And so those concerns really continued and crescendoed in the Biden administration, and they led to Biden signing into law something that was very similar to what Trump was talking about in his first term. It's going to make America safer? It's going to make the world safer? Essentially saying that Biden would have to reduce its ownership stake below 20%

or stop operating. That was sort of a key demarcation point. But as usual, Trump sort of sees all of this and he sees Biden sign this thing into law and then he's hearing from people like his son, and former advisor Kellyanne Conway, who does polling and was doing work on behalf of TikTok. And they're saying to Trump, you can win this election if you start using TikTok. If you go on more podcasts and reach young people, they basically saw an huge opportunity there

where the Biden campaign was not using those tools. And Trump was convinced of that. POV. 100 days left before President Trump delivers another knockout. And then as he's getting ready to take office and start his second term, he was hearing from a lot of users who were very upset because the line of demarcation set in the law that Biden signed was January 19th, 2025. And then Trump kind of realizes, well, I don't want to just do something

that my predecessor signed who I dislike strongly and don't want to credit him or give him this win. And I can make a lot of people happy if I just do a deal and I love doing deals. That was sort of the context for how these negotiations with China and these companies started. Okay, so ultimately a deal between the U.S. and China had to be made. And what we're hearing now is it was in fact made. President Trump says he'll sign an executive order about it later this week.

What is in the deal? What do we know? Well, first, the deal is not done. That's the first thing to understand. It's like a preliminary agreement, sort of a framework. This executive order that the president is going to sign is basically going to say, from what we can tell, that we have the contours of the deal, and they satisfy the law, satisfied the national security conditions, and that's one step on the process of finalizing things.

And so basically under this deal, U.S. investors and allies, essentially, they will take control of this new entity that's created to run TikTok in the U.S. So the understanding is that this new group of U.S. investors, this consortium featuring the private equity firm Silver Lake and Cloud Computing Company Oracle that we've talked about, they would be part of this group, and they would own roughly half of this new entity. And then existing BightDance investors that include some Trump allies, they and others would own the existing group would own roughly 30%. And then that's what lets BightDance's ownership stake drop just below the 20%. outlined in the law. And it's also important to note that that consortium has been changing by the day. Trump mentioned the Murdox over the weekend, he said, I hate to tell you this, but a man named Lachlan is involved. You know who Lachlan is? That's a very

unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch. Yes, and we're told that basically means Fox would invest, but yes, the Murdox could be involved. And he mentioned Michael Dell, who's also been reported around this and been around it for a while. He could be involved. But that Trump loves that element, right? Because now he has this framework agreement and then investors are calling saying we want to be part of this deal because we know this is a very valuable company and a lucrative opportunity. And so now he can sort of pick and choose who he lets in. Okay. So Oracle has a significant stake. Others may join. Others may drop out. But Oracle is a real player here. And we can't talk about Oracle without talking about Larry Ellison. Who is Larry Ellison? Oh, man, how much time do you have? Larry Ellison is one of the richest men in the world. I mean, he co-founded Oracle, start there.

Larry Ellison is now the world's second richest man, thanks to his stake in Oracle. His company, Oracle, makes a widely used database. It helms everything from online banking to airline reservations. And you came from such humble beginnings, grew up on the south side of Chicago, dropped out of college, now you have collections of cars, Well, I think my favorite line is I had all the disadvantages necessary for success. Oracle is sort of one of the most important tech companies that most regular people have never heard about.

They are experts at working with large databases, which are key to the social media industry, but more importantly now, they're a huge part of AI. So Oracle is now seen as one of the leading AI companies because they do AI infrastructure and they work with companies like OpenAI. But Larry Ellison has also expanded in other ways. So his family is now preparing a bid for Warner Brothers through their company Paramount Skydance, which they recently have been doing big deals in that space as well. He's sort of the most interesting man in the world kind of vibes.

He even helped the University of Michigan get the top ranked quarterback recruit last year. Now through the NIL system. So the top recruit in the nation is going to Michigan because of a rich guy's girlfriend? And Larry Ellison, they bought the quarterback. So he has a lot of money. He's pretty strategic in what he does with it. But, yes, this TikTok deal would be his latest big win. Okay, so we have the Ellison family, Larry and David,

taking big stakes in big media companies. What is their relationship to President Trump? They're seen as longtime allies. by the president. And we've been told he sort of sees Larry as an OG of sorts in the tech space. So as he's embraced Sam Altman and all of this new generation of tech entrepreneurs, he's kind of comfortable with Larry because he's 81, they're roughly the same age. Having that sort of solid foundational relationship that goes back to the first administration seems to be helping a lot. This has made a lot of people quite leery. You have a, um,

a wealthy old man, a lot of wealthy old men involved in this consortium, Trump aligned, for the most part, controlling TikTok. Will they be able to manipulate the algorithm? Are they the ones who are going to be deciding what I see on TikTok? That's another really good question and something that hasn't been fully addressed yet. We don't know a ton about the operations and who will be doing what and what the oversight will be. I think priority one, though, is showing they can run the app. They still have to prove the basic business case.

From what everyone is saying, what the investors want is for the operators to keep things roughly similar, right? To keep things the same. That's what's in their financial interest. It's not in their financial interest to come in and make a bunch of changes that overhaul things, you would think. So these people just want this deal done. They want their investment, secure. TikTok just wants to operate in the U.S. and users just want the experience to remain the same. So making changes or doing things that would be very disruptive,

it seems, is against sort of their own interests there. He's Amrith Ram Kumar, the tech policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Washington. Ahead, like father-like son. Ellison Jr. and Weird Times at CBS. thought pops up. Why am I paying so much for this? With Mint Mobile, maybe you have a different feeling when you open up your bill because they say you can get the coverage and speed you're used to, but without jaw-dropping monthly bills. Their favorite word is no, no contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, and no hidden fees. No. Right now, they're offering three months

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There is a clearing as today is explained. Ben, go ahead. Give me your full name and tell me what you do. Name is Benjamin. Sorry. I got my name wrong. Huh. Good start.

My name's Ben Smith. I'm the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Semaphore. Oh, and I co-host the Mix Signals podcast about media with Max Tani. So we're here today to talk about the Ellisons, possibly. America's newest media barons. In the first half of the show, we talked about Larry Ellison and Oracle getting a stake in TikTok. But David Ellison, Larry's son, has also been getting some media properties, yeah? Yeah, that's right. And in particular, the company that he created called Skydance has swallowed Paramount, a sort of a big, older studio that also includes the old

CBS assets, including CBS News. And so what we're going to do is restructure our business, to run significantly more efficiently. And then we're really going to invest into our growth areas like studios and streamings and sports. The hot trend in the streaming business is bundling. And that's because, as you know, you have too many damn streaming apps. And so you're only going to have three and you can't have seven. And so it makes sense sort of commercially for them to combine.

Right now, the company operates three independent streaming services on three separate stacks on multiple clouds. That is the most ineffective way to do it, and it is also the most expensive way to do it. Skydance, which purchased Paramat, is now looking to swallow an even bigger target. Warner Bros. Discovery, which is the old legendary Warner Studio, which currently operates the Macs app,

and also happens to own CNN. This is CNN. Yeah, happens to own CNN. Talk about the stakes and importance of that. Well, in ordinary times, there was a sense that you don't want to go kind of combining all your news outlets under the same ownership because somebody could wield too much political power. And it would have been unlikely, I think, for the government to approve two broadcast networks like CNN and CBS combining under the same owners. Now, I think all bets are off. and there is a world where CBS's ownership now operates CNN as well.

I should say, I mean, an important caveat here is that you, dear listener, are getting your news from a Vox podcast and may not have watched CBS News or CNN in a while. Like, these are struggling companies, and there is kind of an argument that for any of them to survive, they all need to be crunched together because the TV news business is pretty rough right now. What did David Ellison have to do to close the Paramount CBS deal? Well, he won't say. But Donald Trump said that they made a deal under which he would air a bunch of PSAs for Trump administration initiatives. Sixteen million or maybe more than that in advertising. And he also, again, says this is not some part of a deal, but he did settle an absolutely ridiculous lawsuit from the Trump administration, claiming that they had committed fraud by editing an interview with Kamala Harris and what turned out to be pretty innocuous ways

on 60 Minutes. Tonight, a $16 million settlement, Paramount, the parent company of CBS, announcing it will pay President Trump's legal fees and give money to his future presidential library. I think there's a lot of fear over there, fear of losing their job, fear of what's happening to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment. But CBS paid up for, you know, I think the glory of what will live. ultimately be like the CBS, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, presidential library to get the administration off their back and it was successful. Do we know what David Ellison's political leanings are?

No. You know, I think there, it's been reported that he is a big supporter of Israel and a big fan of Barry Weiss, a conservative columnist who left the New York Times in the kind of like anti-woke backlash. I'm Barry Weiss and today an introduction to America. America's cultural revolution. So I think it's safe to say that those are roughly his politics. But he's not, like, fundamentally a political character. I think people often, people like us, sort of pointy-headed East Coast news types, can kind of misinterpret people on the West Coast as being primarily about politics.

David Ellison's life has been primarily about making, like, big stupid movies, which I personally love, like the Jack Reacher movies, which are great. Remember, you wanted this. He did the Top Gun remake. I give you Captain Pete Mitchell. Call sign, Maverick. Big poppy action movies that some have bombed, but more recently some have been really successful.

And that's fundamentally the reason that you go and try to acquire a company like Paramount. And people said of CBS, which also, by the way, CBS is mostly primetime entertainment. You know, the news division of CBS for the executives I think represented something like 4% of the revenue and 95% of the headaches. So that's kind of how these folks see news.

Let's talk about Barry Weiss, because we're hearing news that David Ellison might want a sort of serious role for her at CBS. You mentioned her leaving the New York Times. What's her background and where does she sit today in all of this? In the first Trump term, Barry was a young editor and writer in the opinion page to the Wall Street Journal. And I think a friend and ally of Brett Stevens,

another opinion writer there, who left the journal when the journal just basically made its piece with Donald Trump and both went to the New York Times. And Barry was an editor on the opinion page and also wrote sometimes about, mostly about kind of emerging intellectual trends on the center right. And she was as the times, like I think basically every social institution in the U.S. or many of them or corporate institutions in the U.S., you know, went through these spasms of conversation around racial justice and around the limits of speech and the role of media, particularly in the summer of 2020, she increasingly felt very, you know, out of sync with the institution and finally quit in a blaze of glory and went and started her own thing.

All right, this is a big, massive media story. The now former opinion editor, Barry Weiss, leaving the paper after claiming she was bullied by her colleagues. Her scathing resignation letter reads in part, quote, they have called me a Nazi. The free press and her work there has been appealing. It's been divisive. I find myself unsubscribing and resubscribing to the free press about once every three months. What is your view of what she's doing there? How would you characterize the work? Well, A, like, that's incredible. I wish I was, like, making you unsubscribe and resubscribe. I mean, I think that she's been the most important voice of the backlash against the kind of woke politics of the social media age.

I mean, I think, you know, David Ellison obviously really likes what Weiss has done and wants to essentially put her in charge of the news division, whatever that means. He also has a bunch of television people around him who are like, wait, wait, wait, like, you can't put this kid in charge of this giant machine that makes television. That's a very, like, that's a kind of real specialized skill and it's hard. and she's just some blogger. And I've been kind of on both sides of this in my life and sympathize with both. I mean, it's an incredibly hard job, however hard it was to start, as I know it is,

a new successful news organization from scratch. I think it's harder to rescue an old one. And CBS News is a outfit that missed, not just the internet, but basically missed cable. And so they've been drifting into irrelevance for, I don't know, 30 years now. and their fundamental problem isn't that if only their politics were a little different, people would flip their antennae back on and turn back on broadcast television.

Like their core problems are the problems of every company that was disrupted by the Internet and didn't deal with it for the last 30 years. Yeah, that's a really good point. What about CNN? Do we have a sense of what Ellison Jr. wants to do there? You know, I think to the degree that he cares about news and seems to have expressed any interest internally, It's bringing it away from the, you know, the woke revolution and back to what he sees as the center. And, of course, everybody thinks of themselves in the center, more or less.

The strange irony here is that Donald Trump won the presidency really primarily by riding this wave of new media, of the sort of ascendant digital people and formats and platforms, and has kind of turned his second term into a revenge plot against the dying legacy media, which he is, I think, in some ways, trying to exert more influence over, trying to seize control over. But right now, the main outcome of that has been to spur the growth of an independent anti-Trump democratic media and to drive Democrats away from these already really very challenged legacy outlets and toward a new generation. You know, places like the bulwark, Midas Touch, Pod Save America, and a host of other influencers and YouTube channels are there to kind of, catch Democrats who feel really alienated from the mainstream media, either because they felt

it didn't fight Trump hard enough or because they're now think it's being taken over by Trumpy oligarchs. Benjamin Smith is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Semaphore. He also co-hosts the Mixed Signals podcast. It's about media. It's very good. Miles Bryan produced with an assist from Ariana Espudo Jolie-Myers edited. Patrick Boyd writes the songs that make the music.

The Whole World Sing, Adrian Lilly engineered, and Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's today explained. Thank you.