The Trump Administration Will Somehow Make $10 Billion Off the TikTok Deal

The Trump administration will receive $10 billion from investors in the deal that transferred TikTok's US operations to an American investor group led by Oracle's Larry Ellison. The fee represents about 70 percent of the new US TikTok's $14 billion valuation, with Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Emirati company MGX as lead investors while ByteDance retains a 19.9 percent stake. The arrangement concludes a saga that began in 2019 over national security concerns and follows a 2024 Biden-signed bill requiring ByteDance to sell or face a ban. Critics have raised concerns about enriching Trump allies, noting Ellison hosted a $100,000-per-person Trump fundraiser in 2020. The $10 billion government fee vastly exceeds typical investment banking fees of less than 1 percent of transaction value, with Bank of America receiving just $130 million for advising on a much larger $71.5 billion deal.