“Larry, let’s have a talk in front of the media,” Trump said at a press conference with Oracle co-founder, SoftBank CEO Masa Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce a $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. “I think about telling someone: “Buy this and give half to the United States of America. Half, and we will give you a permit. And they will have a great partner, the United States.”
“It sounds like a good deal to me, Mr. President,” Ellison said.
It is not yet clear how all this will work, and how the United States will be able to legally operate the language platform without violating the First Amendment. But this is one of the first examples of how Silicon Valley’s friendship with Trump may play out over the next four years.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order instructing his administration not to enforce the law against service providers subject to the eminent domain law – which includes Oracle, Apple, and Google – for 75 days. But legal experts say these actions hardly give these companies legal cover for violating federal law and risking $850 billion in fines. Despite this, Oracle appears to be relying on Trump’s assurances that it will help TikTok operate in the US after the January 19 sale deadline, although the company has not yet commented directly on this.
TikTok’s parent company, China-based ByteDance, still has other offers on the table, including from billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and now apparently YouTube creator MrBeast, whose investor group is receiving legal advice from a team that includes the brother of Trump’s attorney general nominee.
As Trump was leaving the briefing, a reporter asked him if he had TikTok on his phone. “No, but I think I could get it on there,” Trump replied. “I think I’ll get it right now.”
