Israel wins TikTok

Comment: Israel's attempt to control the narrative... 

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Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft

A year ago, powerful critics in Congress and the tech world were complaining that TikTok was promoting anti-Israel messaging and were suggesting it needed to be shut down.

Turns out it didn’t need to be eliminated. TikTok is a message force multiplier after all, and only requires, apparently, the right people to own it. Like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world and the single biggest private donor of the Israeli Defense Forces, who has referred to the state of Israel as his own. He has direct stakes in a head spinning galaxy of news, television and Hollywood media companies, mainly through the recent Paramount Skydance Corporation takeover, a mega conglomerate now run by his son David Ellison (who is reportedly on the cusp of making vigilantly pro-Israel journalist Bari Weiss a top exec at newly-acquired CBS). Ellison the elder also is a major stakeholder in X and Tesla.

Add Rupert Murdoch, head of media conglomerate NewsCorp (Fox News), a perennial critic of “anti-Israel bias” in the media who in 2024 said Israel is “alone on the front line of Western democratic civilization.” Also Ellison’s right-hand at Oracle, Israeli-American Safra Catz, great friend of President Trump, who has traveled to Israel several times since Oct. 7, 2023 in support of its war and continued Oracle partnerships there, and in a July appearance in Israel told an an audience that “we (Oracle) are on the side of freedom. We are on the side of democracy.” She followed that with “some of the best people in the world are here in Israel, and there’s no question about that. And everyone knows it. Some of the big winners will be here. Mark my words.”

Throw into this mix billionaire Jeff Yass, a top GOP donor and current TikTok investor whose philanthropy is connected to a carousel of pro-Israel outfits that have funding ties to the IDF and AIPAC, plus explicitly anti-Muslim campaigns that among their issues, advocate for U.S. confrontation with Iran.

All of these individuals and more are reportedly part of a mega deal to buy TikTok for $14 billion.

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