Johann Wilfred
U.S. President Donald Trump has said in an interview that media tycoons Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, and Dell CEO Michael Dell could be key stakeholders in the deal to buy the U.S. arm of TikTok which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
The update comes after both world leaders from the U.S. and China—Trump and Xi Jinping—were reportedly discussing final approval of the TikTok deal on Friday, according to Reuters.
The Murdochs preside as owners over a sprawling media empire that includes news companies News Corp and Fox Corporation.
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News Corp manages many prominent media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Australian, Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, HarperCollins Publishers, and Dow Jones & Company.
Lachlan Murdoch now has voting control over the media conglomerate through significant ownership of Class B shares managed under holding trust LGC Holdco—33.1% of NewsCorp’s Class B common and 36.2% of Fox Corporation’s Class B common shares. Rupert Murdoch will stay on as Chairman Emeritus, as per an official press release earlier in September.
While valuations of the social media platform are unclear, a share buyback program in August indicated a valuation of $330 billion that offered employees $200 per share. The company declared profits of $48 billion in Q2 2025. Even though the valuation and revenue are quite high, the firm’s financial position is still a loss-making one, according to Private Equity Insights.
