A TikTok Deal & Trump Cracks Down On Left Wingers

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today, we’re covering the White House’s Charlie Kirk vengeance plot, a TikTok deal, Rubio’s Jerusalem visit, more boat bombings, the end of quarterly earnings reports, the National Guard in Memphis, and Elon Musk’s Tesla deal.

“Sometimes you never realize the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr. Seuss

Charlie Kirk’s Parting Gift

You think you’ve seen everything, but the world always finds a new curveball to throw your way. Yesterday, that curveball came in the shape of Vice President JD Vance’s round head taking over “The Charlie Kirk Show” to announce that the federal government is planning a crackdown on left-wing political groups. Vance apparently became close friends with Kirk in 2017, and the deceased podcaster apparently encouraged Vance to run for U.S. Senate in 2021.

On the “show,” Vance hosted a series of guests from the Trump administration who say they knew Kirk. He used the platform to blame America’s “far left” for Kirk’s death, saying that political violence in America “is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told.” He added that the government will use all resources at its disposal to “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence” without specifying a single organization that’s part of the alleged network.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people,” said top White House advisor Stephen Miller. In a press conference later in the afternoon, the president himself chimed in, saying he would consider labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist group and is also considering going after left-wing political groups on racketeering charges. Meanwhile, conservatives are continuing their campaign of doxxing anybody they discover celebrating Kirk’s death, attempting to get people fired for mentioning their dislike of the far-right political commentator.

A TikTok Deal In The Eleventh Hour

A long-term business struggle over a short-form video platform might finally be over. On Monday, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had reached a framework agreement which might see TikTok transferred to a U.S.-based ownership group. “We have a framework for a TikTok deal,” said treasury secretary Scott Bessent after talks with Chinese representatives in Madrid. “We’re not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal. It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon.” He added that negotiators from China made “aggressive asks” during the talks without specifying what those requests were.

In case you forgot, TikTok is owned by Bytedance, a Chinese firm. The app has roughly 135 million active users in the U.S. alone, and had an estimated 1.5 billion monthly active users in 2024. Washington officials have constantly wrung their hands about the app’s ties to Beijing, claiming that China could use it to carry out influence campaigns, harvest U.S. citizens’ data, or even hack their devices – only U.S. companies like Palantir and Israeli firms like NSO Group should be able to do those things! 

TikTok’s sell-off saga really kicked into gear in April 2024, when then-president Joe Biden signed off on a law giving ByteDance 9 months to break off TikTok and sell it to an American company. Since then, Trump has given the company multiple extensions in order to get a real deal set up, and the latest deadline is tomorrow, September 17. It’s not clear at the moment who will actually be buying the social media platform, but we do know one thing – the price will definitely be eye-watering.

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Rubio Goes Rah-Rah

• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jerusalem on Sunday, re-emphasizing the Trump administration’s full-throated support for the IDF’s ongoing offensive in Gaza. “The people of Gaza,” he said, “deserve a better future. But that better future cannot begin until Hamas is eliminated.” In a speech delivered alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he also chastised Western nations including France and Canada for planning to recognize Palestinian statehood. The act, he claimed, “actually makes it harder to negotiate … because it emboldens these groups,” he said, referring to militant groups like Hamas. He went on to promise “an Israeli counter reaction to those moves,” possibly referring to Israel’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank. 

• As Rubio visited with Israeli officials, the country’s military was carrying out a bombing campaign in Gaza City. The strikes hit more than 30 residential buildings, forcing thousands of residents to flee their current shelters. According to UNRWA, Israeli strikes have destroyed 10 of the agency’s facilities over the past four days alone, including seven schools and two clinics. In total, the IDF’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 64,000 people, and the U.N. estimates that 78% of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed by the Israeli military.

Back To Bombing Boats

• For the second time this month, the U.S. has used its military to strike a Venezuelan boat in international waters. Just like the first strike earlier this month, the White House justified its extralegal attack by claiming that the boat was being used by a cartel to traffick drugs into the U.S. “The strike occurred while these confirmed narco-terroists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial without offering any evidence for his claims. Three people were killed in the strike.

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro described the first boat attack as “a military attack on civilians who were not at war and were not militarily threatening any country,” adding that it was likely an attempt to drag his country into a conflict with the U.S. He added that Washington’s goal with the strikes is to create “regime change for oil” in his country – Venezuela sits atop some of the largest oil reserves in the world, and Maduro’s government is also looking to expand its influence over the nearby oil-rich Essequibo region.

Additional World News

• 2 men sentenced to prison in Zambia for plotting to kill the president with witchcraft (AP)

• Belarus and Russia's show of firepower appears to be a message to Europe (BBC)

• Starvation and Bombs in Besieged Sudanese City As Residents Cry for Help (NYT, $)

• Gulf leaders call on Trump to rein in Israel after Qatar emergency summit (Guardian)

• The Fleeting Fantasy of a King Who Would Return to Save Nepal (NYT, $)

• Japan's Koizumi, Hayashi run for leadership of ruling party (Reuters)

Quashing The Quarterly Report

• On Monday, Trump announced his latest great idea: reworking existing regulations that require public companies to file quarterly financial reports. The president wants to cut current reporting requirements in half, with companies publishing earnings every six months instead of three. “This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” he wrote over TruthSocial. “Did you ever hear the statement that, ‘China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis???’” Not good!!!”

• Some financial analysts have expressed concerns with Trump’s plan, claiming that fewer earnings reports will hurt investors by lowering companies’ financial transparency. Proponents of Trump’s plan, though, say that the current system of quarterly earnings reports incentivizes corporations to prioritize short-term profits to boost their stock values. Others have noted that quarterly earnings reports are also largely for show at the moment, with many companies deliberately lowering investor expectations before earnings calls so they can artificially boost their stock prices by “beating” those expectations.

The Guard Goes To Grizzly Territory

• More federal troops are coming to a city near you! Yesterday, Trump announced the establishment of the “Memphis Safe Task Force,” a task force similar to the military contingent he sent to “clean up” Washington. The president also promised that another task force will soon be sent to Chicago, despite strong opposition from the city’s mayor and the governor of Illinois.

• “It’s very important because of the crime that’s going on, not only in Memphis, in many cities,” Trump said while signing off on a memo establishing the task force. “The task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here, and you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing.” Paul Young, the Democratic mayor of Memphis, said he was “not happy” about federal troops invading his city, and Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson said, “A militarized occupation of our city is not a resolution to the problems that we have. What we need is poverty eradication, not military occupation. So don’t bring the National Guard. Give us the resources that we need for our people, for our city, for our county.”

Additional USA News

• Stephen Miran: Senate confirms Trump pick to Fed board ahead of key interest rate vote (BBC)

• FBI Head Says Note and DNA Link Suspect to Charlie Kirk Killing (NYT, $)

• Trump at first says he is ‘not familiar’ with Minnesota Democrat’s assassination (Guardian) 

• The Democratic Party is in fits over Mamdani's bid for NYC mayor. Republicans are loving it (AP)

• Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions (Wired)

Taking Stock With Elon Musk

• It’s Elon Update time! Earlier this month, the Tesla billionaire was offered a new pay package by the electric car company. Under the terms of that new deal, Musk’s stake in the company will grow from 16% to over 25% in a decade – but only if he leads the company to grow from its current valuation of $1 trillion to a whopping $8.5 trillion, deploys one million autonomous taxis and one million robots, and brings the company a 24-fold increase in profits compared to last year’s. If everything goes as Musk hopes, that pay package will see Musk’s shares in Tesla hit a new peak of $2 trillion.

• In a rush to rake in even more value, Musk completed a purchase of Tesla stock last Friday. The CEO bought up 2.57 million Tesla shares at prices ranging from $372.37 to $396.54 per share – in total, the buying spree came in at just under $1 billion. Tesla’s share price jumped on the news, spiking by 7% on Friday and more than 8% in premarket trading on Monday. $TSLA closed on Monday at $410.04, well below its all-time high of $479.86, which it hit last December. How are Tesla’s robot ambitions going, you ask? Here’s a painfully awkward video to answer that question. 

Additional Reads

• OpenAI Ramps Up Robotics Work in Race Toward AGI (Wired)

• iOS 26 with Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign is out now (Verge)

• For the first time, more kids are obese than underweight (Vox) 

• The Wellness Industry Carves Out a New Niche: Pets (NYT, $)

• These Ants Found a Loophole for a Fundamental Rule of Life (NYT, $)

• How Beli Ate Yelp (NYT, $)

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