A reported $10 billion fee being collected from TikTok investors by the Trump administration is raising new questions about the deal that was struck for the social media platform to continue operating in the United States.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is demanding answers about the fee, which The Wall Street Journal reported is being paid out by a bunch of uber-rich corporations — based in the U.S. and Abu Dhabi — that have invested large sums of money in TikTok’s American operations.
Those companies include Oracle, which is led by pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal reported:
The investors include cloud-computing company Oracle, private-equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi investor MGX. They and other backers paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the deal closed in January and are set to make several additional payments until hitting the $10 billion total, the people said.
MS NOW has not independently confirmed the report, but President Donald Trump has said the U.S. was getting a “tremendous” fee for making the deal.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week, Warner requested documentation showing how the Trump administration negotiated this reported fee, what it’s being used for and how this collection comports with federal laws.
“It is critically important to determine how the President could legally permit this sale, why the $10 billion fee is being paid by the buyers (who include at least one foreign, state-owned firm), who requested the fee and who approved it, and how the money will be used” without violating the law, Warner wrote.
Warner’s letter notes the absurdity of the government collecting a $10 billion fee when the new company has a valuation of about $14 billion — a fee historians say would be nearly unprecedented, the Journal said.
Trump brazenly defied a bipartisan law last year when he repeatedly postponed a federally authorized ban on TikTok’s American operations, which was to take effect until the company was sold to a U.S.-based ownership group. During this period, Trump openly floated his desire for the app’s algorithm — already known as a major vector of propaganda and misinformation — to be “100% MAGA.” With TikTok’s U.S. operations partially under Ellison’s thumb, that may well be in the cards. Trump certainly counts his machinations around TikTok as part of his broader effort to impose his will on American media companies, given that “Saved TikTok” was listed on a graphic he posted to boast about all the things his administration has done to wield control over the media. The reported TikTok fee would mark just one of several piles of money Democrats are looking into. Others include the Trump administration’s corporate-fueled fundraising for the White House ballroom the president demolished the East Wing to build, as well as donations related to the upcoming celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary. Having seen the president raze a significant part of the nation’s most famed building and plan an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn, it’s fair to say Democrats aren’t too keen on Trump and his allies overseeing a pot of corporate donations that it can use for who knows what.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
