Because if the Chinese government actually is using it or plans to use it as a propaganda tool there is no amount of money they would accept. The fact that it wasn't sold to a US company offers credibility to the fact that the product is useless to China if it's controlled by a US company and they wanted to keep the data they learned about addiction to themselves. Also probably wanted to build some outrage among young users for the government banning their favorite app

The sell or be banned part, instead of just banned, was most certainly lobbied for by the US social media companies hoping to get it on the off chance it had served its purpose, wasn't as useful as China had hoped, or the slim chance they really did just want Americans to copy dance trends.

In a fire sale the seller has no leverage.

The seller doesn't need any leverage if there are many interested buyers

If you have to get a sale done, it will absolutely create a discount on the price. This is regardless of the interest — all parties know you have a time limit. Yes you may still do a sale quickly and the price may still be at a premium to your last funding round or whatever you want to use as a mark to market, but it will be at a discount to what you could have gotten.

if US government says who is allowed to buy and buyers collude they can easily not fight a bidding war and lowball instead

Can you give an example of how the most eligible buyers might collude in a way that benefits them all equally, so that this would happen?

For me, it's very hard to conceive of any concrete way that would work. It's a brand, some partnerships, and a network of users that would all go to whatever buyer, and would give that buyer a huge benefit over their existing domestic competitors. So under what circumstances would those domestic competitors allow that instead of aggresively trying to secure it for themselves?

I'm open to believing you, I just don't see what you have in mind.

Why do they need to benefit all equally?

Campaign with the president, offer large amounts of money to the presidents campaign, donate huge sums to a small inauguration party, and then just be picked to get it at a deep discount. The entire point of bribes is that corruption let's you get away with things at a lesser cost. You just screw over everyone else except for the bribe receiver.

only very few rich people can mobilize financial and political capital to pull off tiktok purchase.

Larry Ellison (since he is CIA/MIC friendly and tiktok is already running on Oracle cloud)

Zuck has too much conflict to acquire tiktok, but other oligarchs like Musk/bezos/gates can pull it off, given their recent meetings with Trump

> only very few rich people can mobilize financial and political capital to pull off tiktok purchase

Why do you assume only a natural person can buy TikTok? Why do you assume you need political capital?

The law doesn’t provide that much executive deference in enforcement.

Elon musk is an example of acquisition of global social network. Political capital is needed because the tiktok question is politicized heavily (national security as a reason).

Plus FTC will review the acquisition process as well.

Do you have a counter example?

> FTC will review the acquisition process as well

Why?

> Political capital is needed because the tiktok question is politicized heavily (national security as a reason)

This is entirely meaningless. You don’t need political capital to maintain the status quo.

> Do you have a counter example?

To your hypothetical? My example is the law. FACA is tightly defined. Bytedance needs to divest to a non-FAC to return to the status quo. Trump could do something else to fuck with them. But that’s true of anyone anywhere.

Hart-Scott-Rodino Improvements Act requires FTC to approve all large M&A deals + DoJ needs to do antitrust review

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

HSR is incredibly routine and politically insulated. It’s closer to a filing than actual review.

except when the government decides to intervene and reject the transaction. See, this seems like routine, but ultimately it gives the government an option to cancel transaction they dont like and they can always cite some bogus reason like "national security" and use racist pretext like ethnicity of the CEO or whatever

> it gives the government an option to cancel transaction they dont like

Delay. It’s not a deferential review.

> if US government says who is allowed to buy

It doesn’t. The courts do. TikTok could be sold to a Hungarian businessman. As long as it can’t be proved they aren’t controlled by China, they should be allowed to reënter app stores.

Are the courts not US government? Do you think there isn't any collusion between Supreme Court and the other branches of government?

> Are the courts not US government?

Generally speaking, we tend to refer to governments in countries with independent judiciaries as being separate from their courts. The same way we refer to the government in parliamentary democracies separately from their parliaments. (Or governments separately from a country’s people, even though one is a subset of the other.)

> Do you think there isn't any collusion between Supreme Court and the other branches of government?

Not super relevant here. This SCOTUS barely upheld the ban with Bytedance as the owner.

> Not super relevant here. This SCOTUS barely upheld the ban with Bytedance as the owner.

Given that the Court has been lobbied by billionaires, I find really hard to believe they wouldn't help an US company to buy it instead of a Hungarian or any other one.

How would that collusion work?

syndication. Pool political and financial capital together to win the bidding from smaller less connected buyers, and share the final ownership

That seems like it would work, but how would they portion out the final ownership? Maybe the person who bid the most could get the most shares?

Rich people can always find a common ground and negotiate deals among themselves, its what they do every day.

As a rich person I’d rather get 30% of tiktok with 99% certainty by committing 30% of capital needed, rather than 100% of tiktok with 30% certainty and committing 100% of capital needed.