The TikTok resolution hands the asset to allies (Ellison, MGX) after non-enforcement

After Congress passed, and Biden signed, a bipartisan divest-or-ban law (effective January 19, 2025) on national-security grounds, Trump issued five executive orders through 2025 declining to enforce it - 'without a clear legal basis,' per PBS - while his administration brokered a sale. The resulting deal (EO September 25, 2025; binding agreements December 18; closing January 22, 2026) placed the US TikTok joint venture 50% with a consortium of Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's state fund MGX at 15% each, with Oracle - founded by prominent Trump ally Larry Ellison - running the algorithm and auditing the 'national security terms.'

The outcome delivered a strategic asset to the president's allies: Ellison, whose son David controls Paramount/CBS (approved by the administration) and is bidding for Warner Bros., expanded his family's grip on American media; MGX is the same Abu Dhabi fund behind the $2 billion USD1-Binance deal enriching the family (CRY-05). Privacy and free-speech experts flagged the concentration of media power in a Trump-aligned family.

The conflict is twofold: a president unilaterally suspending a national-security law Congress passed, then steering the divested asset to allies and a foreign-state fund entangled with his own family's business.

Documented

Contested (five EOs of non-enforcement of a duly-enacted law)

EO 2025-09-25; binding agreements 2025-12-18; closing 2026-01-22