According to the Wall Street Journal, the factors that led to TikTok's decision to remain in the United States were...TransactionThe Trump administration is expected to reap a staggering $10 billion from this. It is rumored that the new group of investors acquiring shares in TikTok's U.S. entity has already paid $25 billion when the deal closed in January, and will continue to make payments in installments to reach the target amount of $10 billion.
An atypical transaction valued at 140 billion yuan, with the government taking a 100 billion US dollar cut.
In January of this year, a consortium of heavyweight investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX Investments, officially acquired a stake in TikTok's U.S. entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the Trump administration would receive a "billion-dollar fee" for its "efforts" in the deal.
Now, the true scale of this fee has finally come to light. Just how outrageous is this $10 billion "brokerage fee"? We can find a benchmark in previous statements by US Vice President JD Vance: Vance publicly stated that the valuation of TikTok's US entity was approximately $14 billion. This means that the fees paid by investors to the Trump administration accounted for more than 70% of the company's total valuation.
From Intel stakes to Boeing aircraft, the Trump administration's "commercialization" efforts
Charging huge fees for corporate transactions is extremely rare in American political history, but this is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated its highly "commercial" style of governance.
Looking back over the past year, the Trump administration has repeatedly and deeply intervened in the business operations of large American companies. For example, the government invested as much as $89 billion in chipmaker Intel, and through this...Acquired nearly 9% stake in IntelIn addition, among the various unprecedented "windfalls," the Trump administration also received a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the Qatari government last May.
Analysis of viewpoints
This $100 billion "toll" has completely overturned the outside world's perception of the role of the US government.
In the past, the government played the role of "referee" in antitrust or national security reviews, responsible for deciding the fate of a deal; but in this case of the split of TikTok's US business, the Trump administration not only personally acted as a "broker" for the merger, but also took a shockingly high percentage of the commission.
A company valued at $140 billion having to pay an additional $100 billion to the government to ensure the legality of its operations is undoubtedly an extremely heavy financial burden for investors such as Oracle and Silver Lake. Whether this practice of directly monetizing "national security review power" will become the "new normal" for foreign companies entering or remaining in the US market is something the global technology industry should be highly vigilant about.
