The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. January 23, 2026 Larry Ellison's Oracle Part of New Deal to Own U.S. Version of TikTok --------------------------------------------------------------------- A major Trump billionaire ally is now the partial owner of the social media platform Tik Tok. A group of investors including Larry Ellison's company Oracle agreed to a $14 billion deal to give them control of the U.S. version of the platform being spun off from Byte Dance, a Chinese-owned company. In 2024, Congress banned Tik Tok, claiming national security concerns over its ties to China. But Trump had allowed the platform to keep operating as a deal was worked out. Ellison is also the largest shareholder of Paramount, the parent company of CBS. .