February 17, 2026

"Knowing Trump responds best to visual stimuli, [Charlie] Kirk had coached [TikTok] to spin up four pages of infographics, 'Trump on TikTok'..."

"... showing his campaign's tens of billions of views on the now-threatened app. A chart... on the first page jumped out at Trump, who had backed a TikTok ban in his first term. 'I'm more popular than Taylor Swift,' he crowed. Many in Trumpworld heard he quickly called Barron, his youngest son, to savor the stat...."

From "How Trump saved TikTok: Backstory of a 2-year campaign" (Axios).
Posted by Ann Althouse at 9:28 AM
Tags: , , ,

7 comments:

Achilles said...

I am almost curious what the Billionaire that owns Axios wants us to think about Tik Tok and Trump.

If Tik Tok goes to a more authentic public square format that actually allows people who oppose the globalist left the left will hate it so I will just assume Axios is telling the retards who read Axios to hate tik tok. Connecting it to Trump is the dog whistle there.

nm got a subscribe link. Oh well.

2/17/26, 9:41 AM
Mary Beth said...

From this, it sounds like Charlie Kirk saved TikTok.

2/17/26, 10:28 AM
narciso said...

Tiktok had been on balance a platform for evil and ignorance

hes german right the owner of that and politico

2/17/26, 10:28 AM
Howard said...

How Trump facilitated his allies takeover of TikTok. The GenZ vote is becoming more important.

As with the Jesse Jackson remarks, Trump always be closing.

2/17/26, 10:46 AM
Howard said...

As of January 2026, Oracle, the tech company co-founded by Larry Ellison, is part of a consortium that acquired a majority stake (80.1%) in TikTok’s U.S. operations. While Oracle is a key investor and partner, Ellison does not solely own TikTok, but rather leads the group controlling the U.S. arm.
Key Details Regarding the Ownership Shift:
Ownership Structure: Oracle, along with investment firms Silver Lake and MGX, holds an 80.1% stake in the new U.S.-based entity, effectively taking control of the platform in the United States.
Role of Oracle: Oracle serves as the trusted technology partner, managing data security and auditing content recommendation algorithms for U.S. users.
Transaction: This deal followed a U.S. law requiring ByteDance to divest its control of TikTok in the United States, ending a long-standing national security review.
Future Operations: The U.S. version of the app is expected to continue operating under this new American-led ownership structure.

2/17/26, 10:48 AM
Kakistocracy said...

Trump's TikTok deal is a huge gift to Jeffrey Yass, one of his largest donors and along with his firm Susquehanna a 15% owner of Byte Dance.

2/17/26, 1:35 PM
cubanbob said...

Kakistocracy said...
Trump's TikTok deal is a huge gift to Jeffrey Yass, one of his largest donors and along with his firm Susquehanna a 15% owner of Byte Dance." What is your point? What were the choices? CCP controlled app with God knows what spyware to come with that? Outright ban on TikTok or a US owned and controlled US TikTok? Were you expecting him to get a consortium of TDS leftists to get the US TikTok?

2/17/26, 3:45 PM

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