Yesterday it was announced that Larry Ellison’s Oracle, a16z, and venture capital firm Silver Lake would be buying up a new spinoff entity that would take the place of TikTok in America, with ByteDance — the current owners of TikTok — retaining a 20% stake. What will this new entity look like? It’s hard to say, but what is clear is that the Trump administration negotiated the deal with the Chinese government. It makes sense that an authoritarian country would want to tell a multi-billion dollar business precisely who is allowed to run it, who it’s allowed to sell to, and when it’s allowed to sell. However, it’s shocking that while the Trump administration abandons most financial regulation and pushes for global tariffs in the face of markets it claims aren’t free enough, it’s also sending government negotiators to help takeover a Chinese company on behalf of hyper-wealthy venture capitalists and the richest man in the world. Ellison, who is a close Trump ally and has family running Paramount Skydance, will undoubtedly hope to leverage his stake in the new TikTok to “bring the country under the benevolent sway of artificial intelligence.” a16z’s Marc Andreessen, a Curtis Yarvin acolyte, Trump advisor, and early internet billionaire darling, will also likely use the purchase to pursue an AI and crypto-laden agenda. Is this what kleptocracy looks like? Regardless, it’s important to remember that China has been, and always will be, the only enemy of the American people: venture capitalists, billionaires, and hedge fund managers have never once attempted to manipulate the public through wide scale social engineering. Read more: TikTok accused of operating as crypto exchange in the UK, report Remember the Maine? The USS Maine, a naval cruiser, was sunk in 1898 off the coast of Havana, Cuba. The moment catapulted America into the Spanish-American War and the justification — that Spain had blown up the Maine in a deliberate act of war — has long been seen as induced by two of the richest social media owners at the time: Joseph Pulitzer and William Hearst. While the two publishers sought an increasingly absurd narrative, that the Maine had been purposely taken out by the Spanish Empire, the public continued to swallow the narrative. Quickly, politicians, proclaiming they were simply interested in the wellbeing of the Cuban people, ordered a blockade and total war within two months. Two of the richest US businessmen, with audiences numbering in the millions (almost 3% of the US population was buying a copy of The New York World and The New York Journal every day), accidentally coined the disparaging phrase “yellow journalism,” now more commonly known as ragebait or clickbait. Facebook and Twitter The best modern day examples of rich guys who want to influence people’s thoughts by controlling what they read, watch, and listen to are Mark Zuckerburg and Elon Musk. As much as they’d act as though their politics and ideologies are different, they’re exactly the same: how can I control more people and amass more power? Facebook has literally helped to stoke civil wars. X is filled with racism, gore videos, and is steered by an owner who algorithmically and personally pushes a far-right, anti-immigrant agenda. Time is a flat circle. Read more: Justin Sun takes on Elon Musk in race to be Trump’s top donor Can TikTok survive the world’s richest man? It’s difficult to point to many examples of when venture capitalists or hedge fund managers completely acquired anything and made it better, but perhaps therein lies the silver lining: could the incompetence of know-it-all billionaires actually hurt TikTok so much it bleeds out? Maybe. The stickiness of TikTok has, up to this point, entirely occurred under its current ownership, who have made it the QVC of the Zoomer generation: an addictive shopping network with moments of endorphin blasts in between. I don’t believe that Marc Andreessen, Larry Ellison, or Egon Durban have the staff to make something better, but I’m certain they’re going to try. It will include some new AI spin, ways to pay creators in crypto, 20 other features no one has asked for and they’ll bloat the app after forcing all current users to migrate. I’m not optimistic that TikTok can survive two venture capitalists and the richest man in the world, but there’s a chance this will actually end up freeing Americans from our worst enemy: our obsession with distracting ourselves. But I’m not holding my breath.