Alan Rosenstein

Some truth social post that Trump made directing future Attorney General Pam Bondi not to enforce the law. So I don't think that's going to be good enough. So the third thing Trump can do, and this is, I think, if he wants to help TikTok, this is probably how he's going to do it, is to just declare that the law no longer applies. And the reason he can do that is because the law...

bans TikTok unless ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner, performs what the law calls a qualified divestiture, basically a qualified sale. And then the law also defines what a qualified divestiture is. And it says, qualified divestiture is when the president determines after an interagency process that, and then there's a bunch of language about what's supposed to actually happen.

bans TikTok unless ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner, performs what the law calls a qualified divestiture, basically a qualified sale. And then the law also defines what a qualified divestiture is. And it says, qualified divestiture is when the president determines after an interagency process that, and then there's a bunch of language about what's supposed to actually happen.

bans TikTok unless ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner, performs what the law calls a qualified divestiture, basically a qualified sale. And then the law also defines what a qualified divestiture is. And it says, qualified divestiture is when the president determines after an interagency process that, and then there's a bunch of language about what's supposed to actually happen.

TikTok is no longer owned by ByteDance. TikTok is no longer owned or controlled by a Chinese entity and so on and so forth. But if you just focus on the first few words of that definition, the president determines, well, that does give the president some power.

TikTok is no longer owned by ByteDance. TikTok is no longer owned or controlled by a Chinese entity and so on and so forth. But if you just focus on the first few words of that definition, the president determines, well, that does give the president some power.

TikTok is no longer owned by ByteDance. TikTok is no longer owned or controlled by a Chinese entity and so on and so forth. But if you just focus on the first few words of that definition, the president determines, well, that does give the president some power.

Now, one way you can read that is to say that the president gets some amount of discretion, maybe a little bit of discretion, maybe a lot of discretion to determine what counts as a qualified divestiture.

Now, one way you can read that is to say that the president gets some amount of discretion, maybe a little bit of discretion, maybe a lot of discretion to determine what counts as a qualified divestiture.

Now, one way you can read that is to say that the president gets some amount of discretion, maybe a little bit of discretion, maybe a lot of discretion to determine what counts as a qualified divestiture.

And it's not clear who would be able to challenge that kind of determination, specifically, who would be able to challenge if Trump just declared that ByteDance has performed a qualified divestiture. And so there's a scenario in which... ByteDance could move some papers around, shift some assets from one corporation to another corporation, do some fancy legal work.

And it's not clear who would be able to challenge that kind of determination, specifically, who would be able to challenge if Trump just declared that ByteDance has performed a qualified divestiture. And so there's a scenario in which... ByteDance could move some papers around, shift some assets from one corporation to another corporation, do some fancy legal work.

And it's not clear who would be able to challenge that kind of determination, specifically, who would be able to challenge if Trump just declared that ByteDance has performed a qualified divestiture. And so there's a scenario in which... ByteDance could move some papers around, shift some assets from one corporation to another corporation, do some fancy legal work.

And that would give Trump enough basically cover to declare that TikTok is no longer controlled by ByteDance. The question ultimately, however, is, is that going to be enough for the apples and oracles of the world to continue to do business with TikTok? And we just don't know the answer to that question.

And that would give Trump enough basically cover to declare that TikTok is no longer controlled by ByteDance. The question ultimately, however, is, is that going to be enough for the apples and oracles of the world to continue to do business with TikTok? And we just don't know the answer to that question.

And that would give Trump enough basically cover to declare that TikTok is no longer controlled by ByteDance. The question ultimately, however, is, is that going to be enough for the apples and oracles of the world to continue to do business with TikTok? And we just don't know the answer to that question.

It's a great question. I think it would definitely have value. The question is how much value. So there's no question that TikTok became very popular because it had a better algorithm, right? ByteDance built a better mousetrap than the American social media companies when it came to short form video and the market rewarded them as the market ought to.

It's a great question. I think it would definitely have value. The question is how much value. So there's no question that TikTok became very popular because it had a better algorithm, right? ByteDance built a better mousetrap than the American social media companies when it came to short form video and the market rewarded them as the market ought to.

It's a great question. I think it would definitely have value. The question is how much value. So there's no question that TikTok became very popular because it had a better algorithm, right? ByteDance built a better mousetrap than the American social media companies when it came to short form video and the market rewarded them as the market ought to.

At this point, it's actually not clear to me how much of the value of TikTok is in the algorithm and let's say how much better that algorithm is to the other comparable algorithms. Because, of course, Meta's TikTok competitor has its own algorithm. Google's TikTok competitor has its own algorithm. And all these algorithms, they're pretty similar.