Fox is in talks to join an investor group poised to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, sources familiar with the situation told Deadline.
President Donald Trump signaled earlier in the day potential involvement by the company’s CEO Lachlan Murdoch and chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch. Deadline hears the investment would come from the Fox side, not a personal investment by the chief executive or from the Murdoch’s sister company News Corp. It would would be a major deal soon after Rupert’s oldest son consolidated his hold over the family media empire.
The consortium could also include Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, whose participation has been floated for months, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell.
“A man named Lachlan is involved,” Trump said told Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing. “Lachlan Murdoch … Rupert [Murdoch] is probably gonna be in the group, I think they’re going to be in the group.”
“Couple of others, really great people, very prominent people,” Trump said. “They’re also American patriots, you know, they love this country. So think they’re going to do a really good job.”
On Saturday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. will control the algorithm behind the hugely popular social video app. Data will be managed by Oracle, which already has a cloud deal with the platform owned by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance. She told Fox News that TikTok U.S. will have seven-member board with six Americans.
The comments follow a call between Trump and Xi Jinping on Friday, after which Trump indicated that the Chinese president had approved a deal.
In a readout from state-run news agency Xinhua, China said its “position on the TikTok issue is clear: the Chinese government respects the will of companies and is pleased to see companies conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance interests,” according to a translation on CNBC. “We hope the U.S. side will provide an open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies investing in the United States.”
The app’s popularity Stateside has been a national security concern with the U.S. passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell its TikTok U.S. or see it be banned. The Supreme Court upheld the law late in Joe Biden’s term. Trump declined to enforce it and has now granted four extensions to try to put a deal together.
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