The Wall Street Journal of the United States cited sources on Friday (March 13) that the Trump administration would receive $1 billion from investors for facilitating the deal to establish a joint venture for TikTok in the United States.
This amount was not paid in one lump sum. According to reports, the investor consortium composed of Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX from Abu Dhabi had already paid an initial $250 million to the U.S. Treasury at the time of the transaction in January 2026, with the remaining payments to be made in installments until the total reaches $1 billion. The report pointed out that the investor consortium involved in the acquisition has a friendly relationship with the Trump administration. For example, Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, is regarded as a long-term ally of Trump.
Trump had previously said in September last year, "The United States will receive a considerable additional payment for facilitating this transaction (TikTok establishing a joint venture in the US), and I won't give up this money."
In order to address data security and the ban crisis, ByteDance's TikTok officially announced the establishment of the "TikTok US Data Security Joint Venture LLC" on January 23, 2026. This joint venture was jointly established by ByteDance/TikTok and a consortium of non-Chinese investors (Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX).
If this news is true, it will leave a highly controversial mark in the history of American politics, business ethics, and Sino-US relations.
It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, in modern American history for the U.S. government to directly collect a "facilitation fee" of $1 billion from a specific business merger transaction.
Traditionally, the U.S. government reviews transactions through CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) to safeguard national security, and its role is that of a "regulator," not a "profit-maker." Once the government turns national security review into a "fee-based service" or a "monetization tool," it not only blurs the line between public power and commercial interests but also sets a dangerous precedent for future administrative intervention in the market.
The report mentioned that the investor consortium (Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX) has close ties with Trump. It is easy to raise questions about "quid pro quo" or "interest transfer" when the government directly takes a large profit from a transaction led by allies, even if it may have passed some special structure review at the legal level, it is difficult to justify morally and politically.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1859626658234380/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.