On August 6, 2020, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order "addressing the threat posed by TikTok," the popular social network run by ByteDance, a Chinese company. According to Trump's executive order, TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," which allows "the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage." According to Trump, TikTok "may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party." As a result, Trump concluded, "the United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security."

Trump's August 6 executive order banned TikTok in the United States in 45 days if ByteDance did not sell off TikTok. On August 14, 2020, Trump issued another executive order requiring ByteDance to sell or spin off its US operations within 90 days and destroy all data it collected on American users. These executive orders were blocked by federal courts that ruled that Trump overstepped his authority. 

The merits of Trump's executive orders are debatable. There is no evidence that TikTok has used data for malign purposes. And if the Chinese government wanted to acquire data on American social media users, it would not require a Chinese-owned social network. There are few data privacy laws in the United States, and China could buy the data from third parties. Further, TikTok has already committed to housing data on American users in the United States and allowing the government to monitor the use of the data. 

But banning TikTok was Trump's clear position, and it is consistent with his hawkish views on China, including the imposition of punitive tariffs on a variety of products. Trump is pledging to impose tariffs of 60% or higher on Chinese goods if he wins a second term. Forcing a sale of TikTok's operations in the United States gained new momentum on March 7, 2024, when a House committee voted 50-0 to advance legislation requiring divestment within six months. 

Then everything changed. Hours later, Trump took to his own social network, Truth Social, and announced his opposition to legislation that would force TikTok to sell its operations in the United States or face a ban.

Trump's explanation for his abrupt change of course makes no sense. Trump's actions in 2020, while Meta was still struggling to gain its footing in short-form video, would have been a tremendous boon to Facebook as well. 

So what is going on? Follow the money. 

Trump woos potential financial savior

Trump is facing a personal and political financial crisis. Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James secured a $454 million verdict against Trump for fraud. Trump has been unable to secure a bond that would prevent James from enforcing the judgment pending his appeal. James could begin collecting on the judgment, potentially including the seizure of Trump's iconic real estate holdings, as soon as today. 

Meanwhile, his presidential campaign is struggling financially. While President Biden's campaign and the Democratic National Committee had $155 million in cash on hand entering March, Trump and the Republican National Committee had less than one-third of that amount, just $50 million. And tens of millions in political donations to Trump are being siphoned off to pay his legal expenses. 

Trump's vaunted small-dollar donor base — supporters who donate $200 or less — appear to be getting tapped out. In 2023, the Trump campaign raised "62.5% less money from small-dollar donors than it did in 2019, the year before the last presidential election," CNBC reported. Small donors contributed about half of all the money Trump raised for his failed 2020 campaign. 

This has forced Trump to directly appeal to wealthy right-wing donors. One name who is likely at the top of the list: investor Jeff Yass.

In 2024, Yass has emerged as "the biggest donor so far to outside spending groups in the 2024 election cycle, donating more than $46 million to conservative causes and PACs." Yass has a net worth in excess of $28 billion. In other words, he is the kind of person who could solve Trump's financial issues in one fell swoop. 

The vast majority of Yass' wealth is derived from his ownership stake in ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Yass personally owns about 7% of the company, a stake valued at about $21 billion. Yass' investment firm, Susquehanna International Group purchased a 15% stake in the company in 2012. And, according to the New York Post, Yass has been personally lobbying Republican members of Congress to defeat legislation that would require ByteDance to divest its American operations. The New York Post reported that Yass is saying he will pull financial support from any politician who supports the bill. (A spokesperson for Yass denied that he made these calls.)

Yass has never previously donated to Trump politically — either directly or through Super PACs. But Trump's reversal on TikTok came days after he met Yass at a March 1 donor retreat hosted by the Club for Growth. During a speech at the gathering, Trump called Yass "fantastic." Yass is a major financial supporter of the Club for Growth, which has aggressively opposed legislation targeting TikTok. Trump's appearance at the event ended a long-running feud between Trump and the organization, which spent millions trying to defeat him in the Republican primary. Trump discussed the meeting with Yass during a recent interview on CNBC, but claimed that Yass never mentioned TikTok. 

Trump was directly asked by CNBC's Joe Kernen why he changed his view on TikTok but did not respond, and Kernen did not follow up. 

Trump's $3 billion house of cards 

Another potential fix for Trump's financial crisis is on the horizon: the listing of his media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Last week, TMTG, which runs Trump's social network, Truth Social, finally secured all the necessary approvals to merge with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), a publicly traded company. Trump will own about 55% of the merged company. At its current price, Trump's stake could be worth about $3 billion. 

But Trump may have to wait quite awhile to see any of that money. And it's far from certain that Trump will see $3 billion — or anything close. One person who has influence over Trump's eventual windfall is Yass. 

It's important to understand that while Trump could enormously profit from this venture, Truth Social is a disaster by all conventional metrics. In its initial November 2021 pitch to investors, the company predicted it would collect $114.1 million in revenue in 2023 and $835 million in 2024.

In the first three quarters of 2023, the company booked just $3.7 million in revenue, while incurring a net loss of $49 million. In the third quarter, it booked $1.1 million in revenue and lost $26 million. 

Most of the revenue is based on dubious ads for "miracle cures, scams, and fake merchandise." One ad on the site featured  "a photo of former President Donald J. Trump holding a $1,000 bill made of gold, which he was apparently offering free to supporters." But the "bill was not free, it was not made of gold, and it was not offered by… Trump." As it burns through tens of millions of dollars quarterly, the company has just $1.8 million in cash on hand. 

The company does not look poised for future growth either. Its revenue projections in the 2021 pitch deck were based on having 41 million users in 2023 and 56 million in 2024. According to the most recent SEC filing, the company has "approximately 8.9 million signups" as of February 14, 2024. It is unclear how many of those people are actually using the service and the company disclosed that it has "not been maintaining internal controls and procedures for periodically collecting" any "key performance metric."

So, how is this company worth billions of dollars? Trump supporters are driving up the share price because they like Trump. 

Trump will have difficulty cashing in for a few reasons. First, the current agreement is that Trump will not sell his stock or pledge it as collateral for a loan for at least six months. The board of the new company, which includes Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump loyalists, could alter this agreement but would have to explain why doing so benefits shareholders. Second, if Trump ever attempts to sell a significant stake in the company, it could tank the stock's value. Trump would flood the market with shares that have little appeal outside of Trump loyalists.

This is where Yass comes in. Most people who currently hold stock in the DWAC, which will soon merge with TMTG, are individual retail investors who support Trump. But the stock's largest institutional investor, which owns more than 2% of the firm, is Susquehanna International Group, Yass' firm. If Yass dumps the stock quickly, it could precipitate a broader sell-off that could dramatically reduce the value of Trump's holdings. In other words, Trump has a large personal financial interest in keeping Yass happy.