Inside the efforts to sell TikTok as Trump keeps sending contradictory signals, amid shouting matches between Mnuchin and Navarro in the Oval Office
Trump advisers Mnuchin and Navarro fought over TikTok as Silicon Valley dealmakers tried to get closer to Trump
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
By early August 2020, TikTok's fate had narrowed to a single negotiating table with an unstable chair: Microsoft had spent weeks in talks alongside US officials, but the progress toward a Microsoft deal kept colliding with Trump's public opposition to any sale he didn't personally bless.
Microsoft's bid hangs on whether Mnuchin or Navarro wins the internal argument — Trump's signals, not the terms on the table, are the real variable deciding whether weeks of talks survive.
ByteDance is negotiating against a counterparty that cannot state its own position: advisers court Trump directly because the formal channel can be overturned by a presidential statement.
Second-order effects
Silicon Valley dealmakers respond by routing around the process entirely, seeking proximity to Trump himself — turning access to the Oval Office into a competitive asset for bidders.
Lawmakers' security concerns collide with any structure that leaves Chinese ownership intact, forcing whatever deal emerges into a second fight on Capitol Hill.
Third-order effects
The pattern hardens into precedent: national-security tech deals get settled by presidential whim rather than negotiated process, producing the recurring confusion of later years — from the tensions over Beijing's veto role to Congress concluding that Trump's ownership proposals don't comply with the divest-or-ban law.
The trend: US decisions on Chinese-owned apps are shifting from structured regulatory review to personality-driven Oval Office bargaining, where the deal exists only as long as the president's attention holds.
Now that Trump is trying to ban TikTok by Executive Order, young people everywhere should use the app to spread the message: Register to vote, and defeat Trump in November.
TikTok is a trojan horse for #CCP data collection & espionage.@realDonaldTrump's EO puts America's national security first. A turning point in US cybersec policy! https://www.foxbusiness.com/ ...
TikTok issue is using up valuable White House bandwidth that could be used for virus mitigation, econ/trade/stimulus etc. -> Washington Post: “a shouting match broke out in the Oval Office between ... Peter Navarro [and] Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin” https://www.washingtonpo…
I also read it as being much broader than just WeChat, it would also remove QQ and a bunch of other services for iOS? Suspect Tim Apple will be lobbying hard on this one. https://twitter.com/...
“I have no comment on what is clearly a malicious leak riddled with hyperbole and misinformation,” says White House advisor Peter Navarro, essentially not denying this story about an Oval Office shouting match with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…
US platform governance: companies currying favor with some advisers to set up a deal to avoid huge problems if the boss happens to go with the totally unmoored adviser's burn-it-all-down instincts. https://twitter.com/...
At the end of the day, Minooch is more important to Trump than Navarro. The former is a real money guy who ties Trump to actual power, the latter is a crank If these are the two demons on Trump's shoulders, I think then this edges in favor of an amicable-ish outcome for Tok https…
“Zhang and his investors were confident the concerns of the [USG] could be resolved without ByteDance having to spin off TikTok. But things changed quickly after India outright banned the app at the end of June...investors started hearing a different message from the White House”…
“[owners] confident that concerns of the US govt could be resolved without ByteDance having to spin off TikTok. But things changed quickly after #India...banned the app at the end of June.” Need to ban #Huawei- will catalyse others too. #DigitalDragon https://www.washingtonpost.c…
...roll on the lawsuits. I think both Apple and Google will contest this one in the courts, and it'll get held up till after the US election. Whoever wins that will get to decide. https://twitter.com/...
WaPo: Peter Navarro and Steve Mnuchin had a “knockdown, drag-out” shouting match over TikTok in front of Donald Trump last week in the Oval Office. Navarro urged a total ban on TikTok, calling Mnuchin soft on China for advocating a sale to a U.S. company. https://www.washingtonpo…
“Throughout this year, Zhang and his investors were confident that the concerns of the U.S federal government could be resolved without ByteDance having to spin off TikTok. But things changed quickly after India outright banned the app at the end of June.” https://www.google.com/…
Peter Navarro knows as much about tech as my mom does. Actually, she knows more. What a lunkheaded menace he is as he ignore the real digital dangers from China: Trump advisers Mnuchin and Navarro fought over the fate of TikTok inside the Oval Office https://www.washingtonpost.co…
It's 11:40 am in Beijing. So far today I've used WeChat to: order an emergency shipment of morning beer and cigs, carefully look at pics of my ex without faving them, call my boss to tell him “I'm not feeling well today”, and cancel weekend plans with my friends. https://twitter.…
TikTok's fate was shaped by a ‘knockdown, drag-out’ Oval Office brawl https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Notable how Silicon Valley VCs are puppets of the CCP, have sold their souls and can't be trusted. Also how India's TikTok ban changed the calculus. https://twitter.com/...
“.. Navarro pushed back, demanding an outright ban of TikTok, while accusing Mnuchin of being soft on China, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity .. The treasury secretary appeared taken aback, they said” (via @washingtonpost) https://www.washingtonpost.com/ …
It's exactly this type of discord and process explosions with economic & national security decision making in the White House that muddies the US message overseas and makes it extremely difficult to build a multilateral coalition around internet repression. Similar story w 5G. ht…
White House remains seriously divided by how aggressively to take on China - & over TikTok, it led to a “shouting match” in the Oval Trump continues to let Navarro push for more aggressive action - but for now ultimately is deferring still to Mnuchin's more cautious approach http…
An Oval Office shouting match over TikTok preceded an executive order that threatens the Chinese social media company's future https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...