Trump Backs Elon Musk as Possible TikTok Buyer, Suggests Government Stake

[jimbobb24]

No. This is bad idea. We don’t want consolidation (although Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp) any more than we have.

And I think Musk has done an amazing job making X a free platform with community notes which are the best form of fact checking in the world. But he shouldn’t have two platforms.

Musk getting into politics is bad for my Tesla self driving. Focus focus.

 

[jimbobb24]

And also for posting misinformation, such as ivermectin will cure Covid, or FEMA will take your house if you apply for aid.

Or that the CV19 vaccine didn’t stop transmission. Ow wait it didn’t.

Or that masks didn’t work. Oh wait they didn’t.

Misinformation is nonsense. In times of uncertainty few truths are unassailable. Misinformation just became oppression by the state.

 

[masterhiggins]

With Twitter losing influence at an increasing rate I wouldn’t be surprised if Elon and his cabal were looking for a new lever to pull.

It has more users than ever before.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Watch Elon buy it and call it “S” or “E”, and bring out a third app so you can spell “SEX” with his app icons on your home screen.

Sounds about right for his 12 year old level of maturity

 

[Joshuaorange]

Conflict of interest.

 

[xander49x]

if that ever happened, I would delete my account.

 

[dypeterc]

I don’t want my tax payer dollars to be spent on buying TikTok. Also isn’t government ownership of a company a communist thing?

 

[masterhiggins]

That's all there is to it. In the first term, some TikTokers embarrassed him by causing empty seats at a speech, so TikTok is evil and must be banned. Now some TikTokers love him, so it's the greatest thing ever.

National security was never even part of the conversation. It's just a talking point.

Pretty sure it has to do with TikTok manipulating American youth into embracing mental illness and misery while showing their own country engineering vids.

 

[jimbobb24]

Any other decent country would have sacked him well before this H****er Salute and he's getting all these opportunities. Sick

Also tired of the term "free speech" being thrown around to justify everything anyone does. It completely lost its intended meaning.

Hitler salute is my new to quickly identify people so partisan and so far up their partisan news source they have lost touch with reality.

On the other side anything about Michele Obama, justifying renaming Gulf of Mexico, etc is usually enough.

 

[masterhiggins]

The problem is not social media but the fact that they can be so easily bought and manipulated by billionaires.

Fortunately, there is bluesky which is at least built to be billionaire resistant (although not billionaire proof). I suggest everyone that wants to connect with decent, intelligent, and interest human beings to head over there.

lol. The founder of Blue Cry, Dorsey, abandoned it and went back to X. It’ll go the same direction as mastodon and threads…..nowhere. They’re all trying to copy X and will fail miserably and frankly, it’s hilarious.

 

[dypeterc]

Umm you understand the last 4 years of the administration started this no?

You must get your news from… TikTok 😂

 

[surferfb]

Hitler salute is my new to quickly identify people so partisan and so far up their partisan news source they have lost touch with reality.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

 

[turbineseaplane]

It’ll go the same direction as mastodon and threads…..nowhere. They’re all trying to copy X and will fail miserably and frankly, it’s hilarious.

No they aren't

They are interested in having alternative spaces to share content and not get harassed or doxxed or just have things be generally unpleasant

They are both doing wonderfully with that intent in mind

It's always been a farce that we should have just one place for the whole world to congregate (as Twitter had sort of become). It's great to have alternatives

 

[masterhiggins]

So he can destroy another social media platform?

Yeah. Doesn’t he know that a healthy social media network should be controlled by the Biden administration and suppress damaging news to democrats?

 

[jimbobb24]

Pretty sure it has to do with TikTok manipulating American youth into embracing mental illness and misery while showing their own country engineering vids.

Also Biden admin was going to do this. I mean I know people can’t be bothered to understand things from both sides but Biden was banning TikTok as well. It’s a clear bipartisan movement. But sure it’s all because Trump got embarrassed and Biden really wanted to soothe Trumps ego…

 

[turbineseaplane]

My goodness ... I can't believe how effectively misinformation has captured so many

I was just on a trip with someone DEEP down the Trump information hole ... and he's convinced that everything is a conspiracy and just about all scientific progress of the last century is a sham ... I could go on and on. My head was hurting listening to it all

His brain has been totally fried by algorithmic holes online

 

[masterhiggins]

Absolutely. And government ownership doesn't improve that situation, especially when Trump has put a billionaire buddy in charge of every critical executive function.

I take it you had a major problem with George soros buying hundreds of radio stations, too, right? Or is he the “right” kind of billionaire oligarch?

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Think this headline actually burying the lede. Trump wants the government to own 50%? Was not aware government ownership of private companies was a well known conservative principle here in the US.

I am with you, if the government were to own a stake that seems like the far larger story.

 

[jimbobb24]

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

In this context are you saying I should accept the insane interpretation that every hand gesture which vaguely resembles a hand gesture from a past movement is in fact representative of that movement and their is no other rational simpler not insane interpretation.

I would have to ask why would Musk, who has no allegiance to anything fascist except in the mind of crazy people, would make a fascist gesture. Maybe the crazy people who imagine Musk (a left leaning moderate who is working with a big government slightly right leaning moderate) is a fascist just see fascism everywhere.

However if your intent was the opposite my apologies. Who can tell these days?

 

[Razorpit]

And also for posting misinformation, such as ivermectin will cure Covid, or FEMA will take your house if you apply for aid.

Just because you want something to be true, doesn't make it so. Per the study from the National Library of Medicine, "The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally."

Your news sources never acknowledged that they took an ungodly amount of ad revenue from the "legalized" drug cartels to push the narrative you are now repeating, even after it's been proven to be incorrect. They lied to you, and continue to lie to you.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Hitler salute is my new to quickly identify people so partisan and so far up their partisan news source they have lost touch with reality.

Are you defending Hitler salutes?

😦

 

[arkitect]

In this context are you saying I should accept the insane interpretation that every hand gesture which vaguely resembles a hand gesture from a past movement is in fact representative of that movement and their is no other rational simpler not insane interpretation.

I would have to ask why would Musk, who has no allegiance to anything fascist except in the mind of crazy people, would make a fascist gesture. Maybe the crazy people who imagine Musk (a left leaning moderate who is working with a big government slightly right leaning moderate) is a fascist just see fascism everywhere.

However if your intent was the opposite my apologies. Who can tell these days?

Wait… I am a bit slow. (Nothing new there)

You are saying that:
Musk is a left leaning moderate?
Aaaand he's working with a big government slightly right leaning moderate aka Trump?

Are you sure about that?

Holy moly. I need to go sit down and think about this… my head hurts.

 

[docbop]

Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed support for Elon Musk potentially acquiring TikTok, and also proposed a joint ownership structure with the U.S. government.

"I would be, if he wanted to buy it, yes," Trump told reporters at a White House event announcing a new AI infrastructure private sector partnership, where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son were in attendance. The comments came just days after TikTok briefly went offline in the United States following Supreme Court action.

The social media platform, which boasts 170 million American users, temporarily shut down for about 12 hours on Saturday after the Supreme Court upheld legislation requiring Chinese company ByteDance to divest its US TikTok operations. Trump subsequently issued an executive order providing a 75-day pause on the ban's enforcement.

During the White House event, where Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison was also present, Trump floated the idea of a 50-50 ownership split between any acquiring company and the US government. "They'll have something that's actually more valuable because they have the ultimate partner," Trump explained.

Trump specifically mentioned both Musk and Ellison as potential buyers during the event. Oracle already plays a significant role in TikTok's operations, hosting most of the platform's servers.

Trump originally supported banning the short-form video app over national security concerns, but his thinking has U-turned since winning the US presidential election for a second time. "We won the young vote. I think I won it through TikTok," Trump told reporters. "So I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

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Article Link: Trump Backs Elon Musk as Possible TikTok Buyer, Suggests Government Stake

Trump's tech sycophants just want the Tik Tok algorithm because none of them have been able to duplicate it. Giving Tik Tok to EM is one way to kill it off. What I hear is Tik Tok attraction is it is a fun place like early Twitter was, unlike US social media has become about misinformation, bots creating accounts and posts spreading hate. So rump et al just want to covert Tik Tok into another propaganda platform like X has become.

 

[rishey]

Why does it have to be a billionaire? Can't a group of normal people come together and clone TikTok?

 

[surferfb]

In this context are you saying I should accept the insane interpretation that every hand gesture which vaguely resembles a hand gesture from a past movement is in fact representative of that movement and their is no other rational simpler not insane interpretation.

Look - I am all for not calling people Nazis just because we disagree with them. But I studied German history in college, am sitting in my home office that has a bookshelf with over a dozen books in both English and German about the third reich (many of which I've read multiple times), and took a seminar on how fascism takes over countries and spreads at a university in Berlin as a part of my study abroad experience. A long way of saying I know a fascist salute when I see one. I don't know why he got so excited he felt the need to throw up a fascist salute, and frankly don't really care. But I'm not going to get gaslit into being told I didn't see what I saw.

But you don't have to take my word for it, a lot of fascists thought it was a fascist salute too.