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Report: Chinese government considering sale of TikTok to Elon Musk, possible X merger

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

“A potential high-profile deal with one of (returning President Donald) Trump’s closest allies holds some appeal for the Chinese government, which is expected to have some say over whether TikTok is ultimately sold”

Chinese government officials are considering the possibility of allowing TikTok to be sold to X owner Elon Musk ahead of a deadline to sever the social video platform from its Chinese government-linked ownership, according to a report published Monday by Bloomberg.

Last April, a law signed by President Joe Biden and supported by many in both parties, required TikTok to be sold by January 19 or shut down due to Chinese parent company ByteDance’s links to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its military and surveillance operations, sparking national security concerns over the Chinese regime’s access to the personal data of TikTok’s American users.

ByteDance challenged the law, but last week, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled in oral arguments that it would not block the law, although no ruling has yet been issued, with the deadline for divestment just days away.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that “people familiar with the matter” said several options are now being considered on a preliminary basis, one of which would involve Musk purchasing TikTok and possibly merging it with X. That could drastically grow the latter platform’s user base and give Musk vast troves of data with which to improve his artificial intelligence project xAI.

“A potential high-profile deal with one of (returning President Donald) Trump’s closest allies holds some appeal for the Chinese government, which is expected to have some say over whether TikTok is ultimately sold,” according to the report. Musk vocally and financially supported Trump in the 2024 election and will be advising the new administration on spending cuts.

Musk, who opposed banning TikTok, has not commented on the report. ByteDance dismissed it as “pure fiction,” but Bloomberg said that “It’s not clear how much ByteDance knows about the Chinese government discussions.”

While at first glance it appears unlikely that the Chinese government would be willing to give a new owner outside its control the opportunity to examine TikTok’s collection and sharing of user data, the report suggests the regime may see it as a “potential area for reconciliation” ahead of negotiations with the Trump administration over issues such as trade and tariffs.

American politicians on both sides have inconsistent records on support for the video app. Last February, Biden’s reelection campaign joined the app despite his own administration labeling it a national security threat. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted at the time that “there are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices and there’s been no change to our policy not to allow that,” but declined to comment on the propriety of his boss using the app.

In the final year of Trump’s first term, meanwhile, he levied sanctions against TikTok and supported banning it as well, but during his 2024 campaign reversed his position days after meeting with GOP megadonor and TikTok shareholder Jeff Yass. In December, Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay the divestment deadline until after he took office, arguing that he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government.”

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Trump says ‘nicer,’ ‘kinder’ tariffs will generate federal revenue

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From The Center Square

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President Donald Trump says the slate of tariffs he plans to announce Wednesday will be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than other countries have treated the U.S.

Trump plans to unveil reciprocal tariffs on all nations that put duties on U.S. imports Wednesday, which the president has been calling “Liberation Day” for American trade.

Trump’s latest comments on tariffs come as he aims to reshape the global economy to reduce U.S. trade deficits and generate billions in federal revenue through higher taxes on imported products.

Trump’s trade policies have upended U.S. and global markets, but the president has yet to get into specifics ahead of Wednesday’s planned announcement.

At the start of March, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he planned to put reciprocal tariffs in place starting April 2.

“Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them,” Trump said. “If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”

On Sunday night, Trump said on Air Force One that U.S. tariffs would be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than how other countries have treated the U.S.

Last week, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported automobiles, duties that he said would be “permanent.” The White House said it expects the auto tariffs on cars and light-duty trucks will generate up to $100 billion in federal revenue. Trump said eventually he hopes to bring in $600 billion to $1 trillion in tariff revenue in the next year or two. Trump also said the tariffs would lead to a manufacturing boom in the U.S., with auto companies building new plants, expanding existing plants and adding jobs.

Trump predicts his protectionist trade policies will create jobs, make the nation rich and help reduce both trade deficits and the federal government’s persistent deficits.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs come after months of talk since Trump took office in January. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called “tariff” the most beautiful word in the English language.

James Dorn, senior fellow emeritus at the Cato Institute, said Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs doesn’t match the economic reality of Americans.

“Tariffs expand the scope of government, politicize economic life, increase uncertainty, and reduce individual freedom,” he wrote. “Government officials gain arbitrary power while market participants face fewer opportunities for mutually beneficial exchanges and greater uncertainty as the rules of the game change.”

Dorn said consumers would pay the price.

“Tariffs are levied on U.S. importers as goods – both final and intermediate –subject to the tariff enter the country,” he wrote. “Importers and consumers typically end up paying the tariffs, as they cut into profit margins and drive consumer prices up.”

Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation, have urged Trump to back off tariff threats.

Trump has promised that his tariffs would shift the tax burden away from Americans and onto foreign countries, but tariffs are generally paid by the people who import the foreign products. Those importers then have a choice: absorb the loss or pass it on to consumers through higher prices. The president also promised tariffs would make America “rich as hell.”

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Biden’s Greenhouse Gas ‘Greendoggle’ Slush Fund Is Unraveling

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Michael Chamberlain

We warned you: this gas didn’t smell right from the beginning.

The Greendoggle has made the big time! Not every shady government giveaway to special interests gets its own Wall Street Journal editorial.

But how often does the new EPA administrator announce that his staff has discovered that $20 billion that had been appropriated for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF or “Greendoggle”) had been “parked” in a bank by the Biden EPA until it could be ladled out as grants to climate industry cronies? That’s what Administrator Lee Zeldin announced back in February, referencing a Biden appointee who was infamously caught on tape explaining that the agency was “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” – trying to get the unspent money out of the reach of the Trump administration. Zeldin’s “clawing back” that money, and the lawsuit by “public-private investment fund” Climate United to get the $7 billion it was awarded, has got the media paying attention. Finally.

Administrator Zeldin’s announcement that EPA is taking back the $2 billion awarded to an organization tied to prominent political figures marks another auspicious turn in the GGRF saga, which Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has followed and warned about since the beginning. Passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (Mr. Orwell, please call your office …), the GGRF was a massive spending program that would provide funds to environmentalist groups to finance green technology projects. The sheer amount of money Congress shoveled at the EPA was unprecedented. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with commensurate oversight resources – Mr. Zeldin says this was by design. The result was the Greendoggle, an environmentalist slush fund administered by insiders for insiders.

According to emails PPT obtained via FOIA request, the EPA invited a group of green activist organizations and thinktanks to a highly irregular November 2022 meeting to “provide early feedback on the RFI and ask clarifying questions.” And, as PPT foresaw, several groups with ties to EPA officials are on the invitation list. EPA’s “revolving door” with radical environmental groups spun fast in the Biden years.

PPT dug in and researched the green banks, finding multiple insider connections to the Biden administration. “With $27 billion dollars sloshing around, the American public should be on high alert for waste, fraud and abuse,” we warned in October 2023.

The next month, when the “short list” of coalitions vying to become GGRF distributors was announced, the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Nick Pope, whose reporting on the GGRF since early on has been essential in exposing the Greendoggle, revealed it featured “several organizations with considerable connections to the Biden administration, as well as the Democratic Party and its allies.” To put it mildly.

As the Greendoggle came together, the legacy media remained incurious, but for anyone paying attention, it smelled bad. There seemed to be no accountability, and given the Biden EPA’s ethical track record, that was concerning, to say the least.

One of the eight entities eventually chosen was the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC), a green bank whose mission is to “accelerate the deployment of clean energy technology throughout the US while maintaining a targeted focus on underserved markets.” CGC board member David Hayes left the organization for nearly two years to join the Biden White House Climate Policy Office as a special assistant to the president. He then went back to the CGC board. As PPT put it in a complaint it filed in June 2024 with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the EPA’s inspector general (and which the Zeldin EPA cited in its legal defense of the clawback), while at the White House Hayes “presumably worked at the highest level on the very GGRF program from which CGC sought funding upon his return. This timing is suspect considering CGC itself publicly announced his return to its board as part of its effort to obtain GGRF funding.” Not very subtle, but it worked. CGC got a $5 billion windfall out of the Greendoggle.

It just so happened that, while Mr. Hayes was in the administration, so was another CGC veteran, Jahi Wise. Like Hayes, Wise was a special climate assistant to the president, until he joined the EPA in December 2022 as … founding director of GGRF. Subtlety doesn’t seem to be among the skill sets CGC looks for in its people. Wise at least didn’t return to CGC after that. He joined a George Soros foundation.

The GGRF should become a metaphor for congressional shortsightedness, bureaucratic arrogance and the venality of special interests at the government trough. The “green” industry is an industry like any other, green special interests are special interests and the color of a taxpayer dollar doesn’t change because it’s being wasted in a nominally noble cause.

The Greendoggle stank, gas and all.

Michael Chamberlain is Director of Protect the Public’s Trust.

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