US Set To Receive $10 Billion Fee For Brokering TikTok Deal (msn.com)
- Reference: 0180986642
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/14/1733200/us-set-to-receive-10-billion-fee-for-brokering-tiktok-deal
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trump-administration-set-to-receive-10-billion-fee-for-brokering-tiktok-deal/ar-AA1YzWau
> The $10 billion payment would be nearly unprecedented for a government helping arrange a transaction, historians have said... Investment bankers advising on a typical deal receive fees of less than 1% of the transaction value, and the percentage generally gets smaller as the deal size increases. Bank of America is in line to make some $130 million for advising railroad operator Norfolk Southern on its $71.5 billion sale to Union Pacific, [2]one of the largest fees on record for a single bank on a deal. Administration officials have said the fee is justified given Trump's role in saving TikTok in the U.S. and navigating negotiations with China to get the deal done while addressing the security concerns of lawmakers...
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> The TikTok fee extracted from private-sector investors is the administration's [3]latest transaction involving the nation's largest businesses. Trump took a nearly 10% stake in semiconductor company Intel and has agreed to take a chunk of chip sales to China from Nvidia in exchange for granting export licenses. The administration has also taken equity stakes in other companies and has a say in the operations of U.S. Steel following a "golden share" agreement with Japan's Nippon Steel in its takeover.
Reuters notes earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by investors in two of TikTok's social media rivals, [4]seeking to reverse the approval of the deal .
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [5]schwit1 for sharing the news.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trump-administration-set-to-receive-10-billion-fee-for-brokering-tiktok-deal/ar-AA1YzWau
[2] https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-years-biggest-deal-could-yield-a-record-payout-for-bank-of-america-652e04bf
[3] https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ceos-trump-state-capitalism-f7111bf3
[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-bondi-face-lawsuit-over-approval-bytedance-tiktok-us-asset-sale-2026-03-05/
[5] https://www.slashdot.org/~schwit1
Trump will give it to himself (Score:4, Informative)
Trump will use the money to "settle" his own lawsuit:
[1]https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18... [npr.org]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18/nx-s1-5702503/trump-government-lawsuits-pay-himself-billions
Trump set to receive 10 billion dollar fee (Score:4, Insightful)
These kind of fees can be easily redirected into slush funds that can then be used directly by Trump. He's not so brazen yet to just pocket the money himself that's coming in his third term but what he can do is use it as a slush fund to hand out money to people who will then give some of it back in the form of bribery. He can also use it for off the books Black ops stuff like what Reagan did with the money he got from selling drugs.
The real problem is nobody gives a shit about the scale of corruption going on. 20 years ago a republican even doing this shit would have such a huge scandal they would already be out the door. Now we have the Wall Street journal talking about Trump openly selling pardons to the tune of billions of dollars and we all just shrug because 40% of the country still loves Trump more than anything.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"More than $60 million pledged toward the president's vanity project is reportedly unaccounted for."
[1]https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-librarys-missing-millions-mystery-targeted-in-new-probe/
Re: (Score:1)
third term If there's effort by Trump to claim a third term will you admit you were mistaken about that? Or will you stick to your delusions? Look, the man is a clown, but your set would have been ten times as effective at opposing him if you had stuck to reality.
Re:Trump set to receive 10 billion dollar fee (Score:4, Interesting)
> The real problem is nobody gives a shit about the scale of corruption going on. 20 years ago a republican even doing this shit would have such a huge scandal they would already be out the door. Now we have the Wall Street journal talking about Trump openly selling pardons to the tune of billions of dollars and we all just shrug because 40% of the country still loves Trump more than anything.
Not that I think this would happen, but wait until a Democrat gets into office and tries even 1% of *exactly* what Trump is doing and see how MAGA Republicans and Fox scream bloody murder and suddenly "care" about corruption. (Like most Democrats and, to be fair, some Republicans, are doing now.)
Re: (Score:2)
> Not that I think this would happen, but wait until a Democrat gets into office and tries even 1% of *exactly* what Trump is doing and see how MAGA Republicans and Fox scream bloody murder and suddenly "care" about corruption. (Like most Democrats and, to be fair, some Republicans, are doing now.)
There is certainly a very low bar for future presidents now.
I fucking wish that was true (Score:5, Interesting)
Every 4 to 8 years of my life the voting public has done the same damn thing. They put a democrat in charge to fix the mess caused by the Republicans. The Democrats can't fix the mess fast enough because during the midterms the voters put Republicans in charge of Congress so the Democrats get two years and if they're lucky another two years before the midterms deal them a blow.
And then voters get mad that the Democrats haven't fixed anything so they put a fucking Republican charge who probably invades the Middle East and crashes the economy.
I don't know what you do with voters who are that dumb. The lack of pattern recognition is astounding.
The difference between Republican and Democrat (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that the Republicans would cheerfully let the entire economy and country collapse and the Democrats won't. This means the Republicans can consistently threaten to block legislation needed to keep the country functioning and to keep you in your job.
Basically we are all hostages of the Republican party.
Some of us have Stockholm syndrome. So it's really hard for us to escape.
The Democrats have spent the last 10 years altering funding bills to make it so that at least government shutdowns are basically useless as threats now. There are a ton of rules about funding things for several months during a shutdown. About the only thing seriously affected are the parks and airline travel.
But there are tons of things besides the budget that need to get past or the economy collapses and we all go into a Great depression. So the Republicans still have a lot of leverage because they are psychopaths who couldn't care less about you.
The Democrats are moderately corrupt but they also genuinely care about the well-being of the people of America. What makes them frustrating to the left wing is that they never seem to do enough but it's not that they aren't doing anything or don't want to it's that they won't put their lives on the line or their political careers.
The left wing meanwhile will do that but they are also completely ineffective because they act like their opposition, the billionaires, don't have tremendous amounts of power and money. It would be like if Ukraine rolled into Moscow they'd get stomped by Russia's army but it sure would make some great YouTube content until that happened
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, the corruption is epic.
Legend in his own mind (Score:1)
> Administration officials have said the fee is justified given Trump's role in saving TikTok in the U.S.
Kids are leaving TikTok. They know the new owners are not their friends. Soon it will just be old people like Facebook.
My friends kids seem to like Upscrolled.
So a tax on Billionaires, GREAT! (Score:2)
This is exactly what Bernie Sanders has been calling for in many many videos: [1]https://www.youtube.com/@Berni... [youtube.com]
just one problem, Trump will send exactly $0 of that money to the working class.
BTW Andrew Yang was just on Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: the AI Era, Solving Job Loss, and the 2028 Scenario [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@BernieSanders/videos
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toE56X2h0wk
Great Success! (Score:4, Insightful)
"We've done so much damage to rule of law that we can now claim that paying a fixer with political connections $10 billion to close an M&A deal is plausible!"
in other words (Score:3)
how to get paid for something you were stealing.
Pay for play (Score:2)
I mean, what would it be?
Jared Kushner should get life in prison (Score:2)
for brokering Donald Trump.
Key Money (Score:2)
Trump knows all about Key Money, and he wants his taste. He has used the term publicly, as if it were a normal thing rather than the illegal practice that it is.
> Key money in New York real estate refers to an under-the-table payment a tenant gives a landlord to secure a lease.
Less than the war (Score:4, Insightful)
According to this news site: [1]https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
the Iran war has already cost us more than $11 billion.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/11/cost-of-us-iran-war/89082840007/
Re:Less than the war (Score:5, Informative)
> Vladimir Putin is making money from the war:
> [1]https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
> As others have noted: Trump may not be a direct Russian asset, but he sure acts like one.
The decision lifting Russian oil sanctions took place after it became clear [2]Russia provided targeting data that lead to the first US deaths of the war [reuters.com].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-issues-new-russia-related-general-license-oil-treasury-website-2026-03-12/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/russia-is-providing-iran-intelligence-target-us-forces-washington-post-reports-2026-03-06/