⏰ Clock Is Ticking On TikTok’s Future

Word From The Editor
Apologies for all the TikTok related content lately. I’m not even a big user or content creator on TikTok, but I’m a huge proponent of the 1st Amendment’s right to free speech. When I see what’s happening I have to speak up. There’s too much at stake in our democracy to be quiet.

With any luck, or by the grace of Elon Musk, I think all this TikTok drama will be sorted out in the next few weeks. Until then, bear with me as I write about the continuous ups-and-downs of this saga.

In today’s newsletter we discuss the clock is ticking on TikTok’s future, Duolingo is winning with users signing up to learn Mandarin to be able to use Chinese apps after a TikTok ban, SpaceX and Blue Origin both launched rockets into space on Thursday, Snoop Dogg to perform at Crypto Ball for Donal Trump’s inauguration, Coinbase rolls out Bitcoin-backed loans to everyone not in New York state (including me), Larry Ellison purchased a London townhouse for $202 million dollars, and Fox is streaming Super Bowl LIX for free on their Tubi streaming service.

Scroll on!

WHAT WE’RE READING

⏰ Clock is ticking on TikTok’s future

Time has almost run out for TikTok before a U.S. ban on the app goes into effect on Sunday, January 19, 2025.

It turns out TikTok’s fate lies in a number of powerful people, entities, and country’s hands, including the Chinese government, the U.S. Supreme Court, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty, and even MrBeast (although perhaps only jokingly).

It is literally anyone’s guess what happens within the next 48 hours, but one thing is clear - expect the unexpected.

As of Thursday night Americans fully expected, although some hoped against the odds, that the ban would go into effect this coming Sunday.

Then on Friday morning, January 17, 2025 the Biden administration announced they will not be enforcing the ban on TikTok, and will instead leave it to the incoming Trump Administration to decide whether to enforce the law or seek other alternatives.

Mid-morning Friday the U.S. the Supreme Court upheld the ban on TikTok, so now it's in the incoming Trump Administration court to decide what to do.

Donald Trump, who originally signed the Executive Order on August 6, 2020 to ban TikTok, has had, shall we say, a change of heart of late. He’s now for some reason (read: $$$) against banning TikTok even though it was his idea in the first place.

Are you keeping up with all this?

Back in March of 2024 Donald Trump changed his mind on banning TikTok, now arguing that banning TikTok would make Facebook stronger. At the time Donald Trump was none too happy with Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but that’s apparently changed a little bit ever since Meta donated $1 million dollars to Donald Trump’s inauguration. So now it turns out Donald Trump may not believe Facebook is still the "enemy of the people", as he called them on Monday, March 11, 2024.

Speaking of Facebook, as it stands now, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook, and acquired Instagram, stands to benefit perhaps the most if TikTok is banned. 

In a case of irony, or perhaps cosmic karma, Shou Zi Chew the now CEO of TikTok, was once a summer intern for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook.

TikTok users and content creators are frantically trying to figure out what to do next. Some users are even resorting to downloading rival Chinese apps such as RedNote, while others are riding the meme wave with the latest TikTok trend ‘Goodbye to my Chinese spy’ becoming quite popular right now on TikTok itself. How very meta!

Without a lot of time left before a potential ban could go into effect, there is a legislative effort to postpone the implementation of a TikTok ban by 270 days, which could give enough time for the incoming Trump Administration to figure things out and perhaps find a potential buyer for the rumored $50 billion dollar asking price for TikTok.

I’m exhausted just recapping the latest 24-hours in this saga, but I imagine there’ll be more twists-and-turns in the next 48-hours, so stay tuned.

🦉 Business

Duolingo seems to be a winner in the face of a potential TikTok ban. The company’s stock price climbed 7% in Thursday’s trading, as users swarm to the app to learn Mandarin so they can begin using Chinese apps like RedNote.

🚀 Space

It’s been a busy 48-hours in the space industry. Early Thursday morning Blue Origin successfully launched their brand-new New Glenn rocket for the first time, and reached orbit without any issues. Sadly their attempt to land on a barge at sea, like SpaceX, was unsuccessful.

SpaceX wasn’t as successful on Thursday afternoon when they launched Starship 7, which successfully took off from Boca Chica, Texas. The company’s Super Heavy rocket booster ignited and propelled Starship 7 to the edge of space, separated, and returned to the launch pad where it was successfully caught by the launchpad’s chopsticks for the 2nd time in 3 attempts. Unfortunately, mission control lost communications contact with Starship 7 shortly afterward, in what the company described a “RUD”, or “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in Elon-speak.

Only days before, SpaceX successfully launched two new moon landers with their Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket lifted off Tuesday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with moon landers from Firefly Aerospace, and a Japanese company called ispace whose lander is called Resilience and also contains a small “micro rover” called Tenacious.

🪙 Crypto

It’s not a party unless it’s a Snoop Dogg party! The hiphop star who never misses a chance to make an appearance at a major event, will be performing at the Friday, January 17 Crypto Ball for Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Coinbase came through with big news on Thursday, announcing they are bringing a new product to the market (albeit for a 2nd time). Coinbase will now allow customers to take out a USDC loan, backed by your Bitcoin, without you needing to actually sell any of your ever-appreciating Bitcoin. This is great news for everyone that doesn’t live in New York state, like me, which has been hostile to cryptocurrency. You just know I’m going to have to write more about New York state’s anti-cryptocurrency policies, and the failed implementation (in my opinion) of their BitLicense program.

🎡 Real Estate

Nothing like a good story about a billionaire buying their first major UK home for $202 million dollars, but that’s exactly what Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, just did. Larry Ellison purchased a London townhouse for $202 million dollars U.S., which is roughly £165.6 British Pound Sterling.

🏉 Sports

Fox is doing something for Super Bowl LIX that has never been done before in the history of the sport - they’ll be streaming the Super Bowl for free on their Tubi streaming service.

Why would they do this? Out of the goodness of their hearts, you might wonder? Nope! Think: ad dollars.

Fox successfully sold out all of their ad inventory for Super Bowl LIX at $7 million dollars per 30-second ad. If we estimate there will be around 59 ads in this year’s 2025 Super Bowl, like the 59 ads there were in the 2024 Super Bowl, then we can calculate Fox bringing in around $413 million dollars in ad sales from Super Bowl LIX alone.

Was this email forwarded to you? Did you not hate it?

Then consider subscribing to our quick hits irl Media NEWSLETTER. The only newsletter that brings you the business behind the news, with a healthy dose of sarcasm - all delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in an easily digestible 5-minute read.

irl Media NEWSLETTER is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.