US Set To Receive $10 Billion Fee For Brokering TikTok Deal (msn.com) 44
The deal to take control of TikTok's U.S. business came with an unusual condition, according to people familiar with the matter. The investors — which include Oracle, Abu Dhabi investor MGX, and private-equity firm Silver Lake — "paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the deal closed in January," reports the Wall Street Journal, "and are set to make several additional payments until hitting the $10 billion total."
The $10 billion payment would be nearly unprecedented for a government helping arrange a transaction, historians have said... Investment bankers advising on a typical deal receive fees of less than 1% of the transaction value, and the percentage generally gets smaller as the deal size increases. Bank of America is in line to make some $130 million for advising railroad operator Norfolk Southern on its $71.5 billion sale to Union Pacific, one of the largest fees on record for a single bank on a deal. Administration officials have said the fee is justified given Trump's role in saving TikTok in the U.S. and navigating negotiations with China to get the deal done while addressing the security concerns of lawmakers...
The TikTok fee extracted from private-sector investors is the administration's latest transaction involving the nation's largest businesses. Trump took a nearly 10% stake in semiconductor company Intel and has agreed to take a chunk of chip sales to China from Nvidia in exchange for granting export licenses. The administration has also taken equity stakes in other companies and has a say in the operations of U.S. Steel following a "golden share" agreement with Japan's Nippon Steel in its takeover.
Reuters notes earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by investors in two of TikTok's social media rivals, seeking to reverse the approval of the deal.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
The TikTok fee extracted from private-sector investors is the administration's latest transaction involving the nation's largest businesses. Trump took a nearly 10% stake in semiconductor company Intel and has agreed to take a chunk of chip sales to China from Nvidia in exchange for granting export licenses. The administration has also taken equity stakes in other companies and has a say in the operations of U.S. Steel following a "golden share" agreement with Japan's Nippon Steel in its takeover.
Reuters notes earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by investors in two of TikTok's social media rivals, seeking to reverse the approval of the deal.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
Less than the war (Score:5, Insightful)
According to this news site: https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
the Iran war has already cost us more than $11 billion.
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Don't worry, Trump will get his cut. We will take Iran's oil/gas as repayment for the expenses (like we did with Venezuela) and of course there will be fees for the reconstruction of the country.
Re:Less than the war (Score:5, Informative)
Vladimir Putin is making money from the war:
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
As others have noted: Trump may not be a direct Russian asset, but he sure acts like one.
The decision lifting Russian oil sanctions took place after it became clear Russia provided targeting data that lead to the first US deaths of the war [reuters.com].
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so it was well planned?
Trump will give it to himself (Score:4, Informative)
Trump will use the money to "settle" his own lawsuit:
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18... [npr.org]
Trump set to receive 10 billion dollar fee (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is nobody gives a shit about the scale of corruption going on. 20 years ago a republican even doing this shit would have such a huge scandal they would already be out the door. Now we have the Wall Street journal talking about Trump openly selling pardons to the tune of billions of dollars and we all just shrug because 40% of the country still loves Trump more than anything.
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"More than $60 million pledged toward the president's vanity project is reportedly unaccounted for."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
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Re:Trump set to receive 10 billion dollar fee (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is nobody gives a shit about the scale of corruption going on. 20 years ago a republican even doing this shit would have such a huge scandal they would already be out the door. Now we have the Wall Street journal talking about Trump openly selling pardons to the tune of billions of dollars and we all just shrug because 40% of the country still loves Trump more than anything.
Not that I think this would happen, but wait until a Democrat gets into office and tries even 1% of *exactly* what Trump is doing and see how MAGA Republicans and Fox scream bloody murder and suddenly "care" about corruption. (Like most Democrats and, to be fair, some Republicans, are doing now.)
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Not that I think this would happen, but wait until a Democrat gets into office and tries even 1% of *exactly* what Trump is doing and see how MAGA Republicans and Fox scream bloody murder and suddenly "care" about corruption. (Like most Democrats and, to be fair, some Republicans, are doing now.)
There is certainly a very low bar for future presidents now.
I fucking wish that was true (Score:5, Interesting)
And then voters get mad that the Democrats haven't fixed anything so they put a fucking Republican charge who probably invades the Middle East and crashes the economy.
I don't know what you do with voters who are that dumb. The lack of pattern recognition is astounding.
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And the republicans always point to their short term solution producing short term benefits as why they are better at governing. Democrats always get the unglamorous job of cleaning up the mess, while republicans get credit for all the free excitement. You can also tell when republicans think they will lose the next round of elections since they always seem to arrange the consequences to hit when democrats are back in charge.
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Your "1 week" cost estimate is probably off by 2 orders of magnitude. Otherwise, I pretty much agree with you.
Apparently, some of the problems created by Trump (e.g. war with Iran, high gas prices, high prices due to tariffs, the broken promises and cover-up of the Epstein Files) is making its way through the MAGA social media bubble.
But the really REALLY scary thing is the prospect of disrupting the mid-term elections. See https://www.lawfaremedia.org/a... [lawfaremedia.org] The risk here is not the actual success of an E
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The states (at least the ones with any sort of spine) could just ignore it. Executive Orders are directives the President provides to departments of the federal government over matters that are within federal jurisdiction. The constitution is so clear about elections being matters of the state that it would be foolish for anyone to even entertain the possibility that the federal governmen
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Well, when the heavily armed and masked ICE agents arrive at your polling place, I hope you are ready to tell them to go away...
Some significant proportion of states, including some with potentially close elections, have governors who would probably not resist. But the interviews I've heard with state and particularly local election officials show a high degree of concern. (Of course, it's only those who are worried who would get on the radio. But there's enough of those to justify a perception those an
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Governors could quietly ignore the orders or say they're going to follow them and then just don't. The latter would give Trump little to no time to deploy ICE to those polling places on a large scale.
That's a very sad truth and shame on those leader
need a coherent, agreed-to response (Score:2)
I believe there needs to be a coherent approach to countering this. That includes legal actions, political actions, and probably actions on the ground. The core problem is coming up with and then disseminating that approach between now and early November.
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Every 4 to 8 years of my life the voting public has done the same damn thing. They put a democrat in charge to fix the mess caused by the Republicans. The Democrats can't fix the mess fast enough because during the midterms the voters put Republicans in charge of Congress so the Democrats get two years and if they're lucky another two years before the midterms deal them a blow. And then voters get mad that the Democrats haven't fixed anything so they put a fucking Republican charge who probably invades the Middle East and crashes the economy. I don't know what you do with voters who are that dumb. The lack of pattern recognition is astounding.
To be completely fair, even when Democrats have a majority in congress they tend to twiddle their thumbs, or shove them directly up their own asses, rather than actually accomplish anything. When Democrats have majorities, they'll start parading around the need for reaching across the aisle, the need for working with their peers and on and on to avoid making any decisions, then the second they lose that majority they start whining about how obstructionist the Republicans are. We have a party of doers who ar
The difference between Republican and Democrat (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically we are all hostages of the Republican party.
Some of us have Stockholm syndrome. So it's really hard for us to escape.
The Democrats have spent the last 10 years altering funding bills to make it so that at least government shutdowns are basically useless as threats now. There are a ton of rules about funding things for several months during a shutdown. About the only thing seriously affected are the parks and airline travel.
But there are tons of things besides the budget that need to get past or the economy collapses and we all go into a Great depression. So the Republicans still have a lot of leverage because they are psychopaths who couldn't care less about you.
The Democrats are moderately corrupt but they also genuinely care about the well-being of the people of America. What makes them frustrating to the left wing is that they never seem to do enough but it's not that they aren't doing anything or don't want to it's that they won't put their lives on the line or their political careers.
The left wing meanwhile will do that but they are also completely ineffective because they act like their opposition, the billionaires, don't have tremendous amounts of power and money. It would be like if Ukraine rolled into Moscow they'd get stomped by Russia's army but it sure would make some great YouTube content until that happened
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The latest
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The latest thing I've heard though is very concerning. Rumors are starting that the white house may start playing in the oil futures market to try to push down prices using treasury money. As a few have postulated, the oil futures market is absolutely huge, and big enough to hit the US Treasury if they do a bad bet.
Trump seems to care too much about the price of oil and too little about much else - except having to be "right" about everything, whether that's actually true or not. Too much ego and unearned confidence...
All because the orange one somehow thought Iran was going to be easy. Stupid, absolutely stupid. And guess who is gonna get the bill, you and me.
Interesting post from Robert Arnold on Strategic Drift and Mission Ambiguity in Iran [instagram.com] and who will ultimately pay the price for it.
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Which, for conservatives, is entierly self consistent. Their morals are rooted in the idea of a natural order and actor based ethics, not action based. Meaning they are not outraged at democrats being corrupt because of the corruption, but that a lesser is acting above their station. this is also why they get so upset when accused of corruption, it isn't the accusation of corruption itself, but the implication that they are inferior and thus unworthy of such actions.
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Legend in his own mind (Score:2)
Administration officials have said the fee is justified given Trump's role in saving TikTok in the U.S.
Kids are leaving TikTok. They know the new owners are not their friends. Soon it will just be old people like Facebook.
My friends kids seem to like Upscrolled.
So a tax on Billionaires, GREAT! (Score:2)
just one problem, Trump will send exactly $0 of that money to the working class.
BTW Andrew Yang was just on Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: the AI Era, Solving Job Loss, and the 2028 Scenario https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I think Bernie sits in an economic bubble that is almost as irrational and dense as Trump's bubble. "Medicare for all" at current reimbursement rates would bankrupt much of the health care system. Our local hospital estimated 18 months. "Tax the rich" to pay for current spending would dive deep into the upper middle class and even middle class. And there's no Constitutional basis for a 'wealth tax'.
My friend (college classmate) who lives in Vermont has been railing about Bernie's inability to actually d
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Great Success! (Score:5, Insightful)
in other words (Score:4, Insightful)
Pay for play (Score:2)
I mean, what would it be?
Jared Kushner should get life in prison (Score:2)
Key Money (Score:3, Informative)
Key money in New York real estate refers to an under-the-table payment a tenant gives a landlord to secure a lease.
Nice company youse got here (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure would be a shame should somepin' to happen to it, like being banned in the US.
No mafia don was ever as brazen as this administration.
Leapin Lizards! (Score:2)
As $TRUMP coin, of course (Score:2)
I'll negotiate for US$1B (Score:2)
I'll negotiate for US$1B!