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On Sunday, President Donald Trump hinted at the involvement of media giants Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan in the negotiations for U.S.-based owners to gain control of TikTok. These claims focus on News Corp and the Fox Corp. leadership.
“They’re very well-known people,” Trump told Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” when asked about who was involved in the TikTok deal.
“Larry Ellison is part of it. This magnificent person, Michael Dell, is also involved. I have to tell you, there’s a man named Lachlan involved. Do you know who Lachlan is? It’s a unique name—Lachlan Murdoch,” the president remarked.
Just a day before, details about the agreement were shared by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Under this arrangement, U.S. interests would retain control over TikTok’s algorithm.
“As per the deal, TikTok will largely be owned by Americans in the U.S. There will be seven positions on the board managing the app in America, six of which will go to Americans,” Leavitt stated on Fox News’ “Saturday in America.”
On Sunday, a White House spokesperson did not immediately address inquiries regarding Lachlan Murdoch’s potential role as one of the six American board members or his involvement in another capacity.
Earlier this month, Lachlan Murdoch officially assumed control of Fox Corp. and News Corp. This transition concluded a protracted succession battle among Rupert Murdoch’s children over leadership of the corporations.
The Murdoch family media empire includes conservative-leaning news organizations like Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
While Trump and White House administration officials frequently appear on Fox News, the president is currently at odds with The Wall Street Journal. He sued Fox Corp and the elder Murdoch in July for $10 billion in damages after the Journal published an article saying that Trump had sent a letter to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 that included a drawing of a naked woman.
Trump also mentioned that Rupert Murdoch could be involved in the deal, saying on Sunday: “Rupert is, is probably going to be in the group. I think they’re going to be in the group.”
Ellison’s involvement in the TikTok deal was previously known, as the software and cloud computing company that he co-founded, Oracle, will manage the data and privacy aspects of TikTok, Leavitt said Saturday.
Trump’s revelation on Sunday that Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, will also be involved with TikTok after its sale was a new detail. Neither the president nor any White House officials have revealed the names of other American business leaders who may be involved with TikTok after the sale takes place.
On Sunday, Trump said simply that there would be a “couple of others, really great people, very prominent people,” involved.
“And they’re also American patriots, you know, they love this country, so I think they’re going to do a really good job,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that U.S. and Chinese officials had reached a “framework” for a deal to facilitate the sale of the platform, which has over 170 million U.S. users, to a U.S.-based owner.
The news of a deal came after Trump has several times extended the deadline for the sale of TikTok to a U.S.-based company since he began his second term in January. The sale is required based on a U.S. law that was passed on a bipartisan basis in Congress last year and signed by then-President Joe Biden.
The law was initially set to go into effect in January, hours before Trump was inaugurated. TikTok briefly shut down in the U.S. at the time until Trump promised that he would not enforce the penalties in the law once he was sworn in.
U.S. officials have for years voiced concerns about the Chinese-based company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, saying that it could be sharing user data with the Chinese government or letting the Chinese government influence the platform’s algorithm.
