📱 The TikTok Coup: How Israel, Biden, Trump, and Zionist Billionaires United to Control the Narrative on Gaza
Congress said TikTok was a Chinese national security threat. The real threat was Palestinians exposing genocide — and billionaires like Ellison and Murdoch swooped in to silence them.
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Gaza Made TikTok Dangerous
For the past two years, Washington told us TikTok was a Chinese spy app. Lawmakers claimed Beijing was harvesting data from American teenagers and plotting mass mind control. Headlines screamed about “digital fentanyl.” Members of Congress made dramatic speeches about “national security.” And then — quietly, methodically — with bi-partisan support, and the bill signed into law by then President Joe Biden, they forced ByteDance to sell 80% of TikTok’s U.S. operations.
But that was never the real story.
The crackdown on TikTok wasn’t about China. It wasn’t about data privacy. It wasn’t even about protecting kids. It was about Gaza.
By the spring of 2024, TikTok had become the place where young Americans were bearing witness to the genocide in Gaza. It wasn’t polished New York Times reports or sanitized CNN coverage — it was raw, horrifying video of emaciated children, families bombed out of their homes, hungry crowds being attacked at food distribution sites. It was voices from the ground, refusing to be erased. It was American teenagers doing long-form explainer videos of the genocide to their peers in real time.
Sarah Jeong, writing for The Verge, put it plainly: “The war in Gaza has become an inescapable facet of the public consciousness” because TikTok delivered those images, those truths, directly into the hands of millions. Even Trump himself had to admit: “Some of those kids are — that’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake that.”
And that was the problem. Not the genocide. Not the starvation, but that apps like TikTok were informing the entire world, of the atrocities.
When the Algorithm Became a Weapon
For decades, the U.S. has insisted that the free flow of information favors democracy. America bragged about the “marketplace of ideas.” But when the Gaza genocide flooded feeds — particularly for young people — suddenly that free flow of information became a threat. That’s literally why I am banned from Instagram and suppressed elsewhere.
Congress didn’t care that Facebook and Instagram collected just as much data as TikTok. They didn’t care that the Chinese Communist Party had actually banned TikTok in Hong Kong for being too freewheeling. What terrified Washington was that TikTok’s young user base was overwhelmingly pro-Palestine, and the app’s algorithm let those truths rise to the surface.
Republican hawks like Josh Hawley called TikTok “digital fentanyl.” Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi insisted it was “brainwashing our youth.” Marco Rubio claimed the platform was “downplaying Hamas terrorism.” And Mitt Romney admitted the obvious in May 2024: “If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites — it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.”
In other words: TikTok’s crime was letting America’s youth see Gaza for what it really was — a U.S.-funded extermination.
Information-Nationalism: America’s New Religion
Jeong calls it information-nationalism: the belief that information itself is a weapon of war. For China, that means censoring Tiananmen Square. For the U.S., it means crushing Gaza solidarity online.
Think about it. Videos of Uyghur detention camps? A win for America. Videos of Palestinian starvation — funded with American aid? A win for China. No conspiracy is required. The very fact that millions of young Americans were scrolling past proof of genocide meant TikTok had become an “enemy asset.”
That’s why Congress voted 352–60 to force a sale. That’s why the Supreme Court upheld it. That’s why Democrats and Republicans locked arms. Not because TikTok was unsafe — but because TikTok was unsafe for Israel. Unsafe for empire. Unsafe for a government terrified of its own children seeing the truth.
Crushing the Movement
And here’s the darkest part: once dissent was crushed in the streets, TikTok stopped being a threat at all.
By 2025, student activists were being arrested, deported, or silenced. ICE was given billions to expand its dragnet. Graduate students were detained in Louisiana. Protest encampments at Columbia and across the country were bulldozed. Non-citizen protesters scrubbed their names from the internet in fear.
As Jeong wrote: “You don’t need to take TikTok away from the kids once you’ve got jackboots on their necks.”
Trump could extend TikTok’s “ban deadline” over and over again — blatantly illegal — because by then, it didn’t matter. The antiwar movement had been strangled. Public media was defunded. Dissent was contained. And TikTok’s operations in the United States hired IDF vets to run so much of their operation. And the images from Gaza, however horrifying, were less a threat than ever before.
Family, This Was Never About China
So let’s strip away the lies:
TikTok wasn’t banned because it was Chinese.
It wasn’t banned because of data.
It wasn’t banned to protect democracy.
It was targeted because Gaza broke through. Because the youth of America refused to look away. Because truth itself became a national security risk.
And once the government cleared TikTok off the battlefield, Trump’s billionaire allies were waiting to buy it up.
That’s where we go next.
Trump’s Oligarch Dream Team
Once Congress did the dirty work of forcing TikTok’s sale, Donald Trump had a choice: would this platform, used by nearly 170 million Americans, be turned into a public trust? Would it be given over to independent stewardship, shielded from political influence?
Of course not.
Trump did what autocrats do: he handed it to his billionaire allies.
From the very beginning, he bragged about it on Fox News. “You know, they’re very well-known people,” Trump said. “Larry Ellison is one of them. He’s involved. He’s a great guy. Michael Dell is involved. A man named Lachlan [Murdoch] is involved. Rupert Murdoch is probably going to be in the group.”
Think about that lineup. Larry Ellison — Oracle founder, Trump mega-donor, one of the richest men in human history, and a massive donor directly to Israel and the IDF. Michael Dell — the computer magnate whose company has Pentagon contracts. Lachlan Murdoch — CEO of Fox Corp., heir to Rupert, whose network built the MAGA machine.
These weren’t neutral investors. These were Trump’s oligarchs, handpicked to seize control of the app that had once been the primary engine of Gaza solidarity.
The Murdochs Smell Blood
Deadline’s reporting confirmed that Fox Corp. itself — not just Lachlan as an individual — was in talks to join the TikTok investor group. That matters. It means this isn’t just a family hobby. It’s a corporate power play by the empire behind Fox News.
For Rupert Murdoch, this is a full-circle moment. When he bought the New York Post in 1976 and launched Fox News two decades later, it was about reshaping American politics through mass media. Now, at the twilight of his career, his son Lachlan is positioning the family to dominate the digital space where the next generation actually lives.
The Murdochs already command cable TV. Now they’re moving on the world’s most powerful short-form video platform. That’s not an investment. That’s a conquest.
Oracle’s Double Game
Larry Ellison is the quiet giant here — and maybe the most dangerous. His company, Oracle, already holds TikTok’s U.S. user data through a 2020 deal. Oracle is literally the gatekeeper of TikTok’s American servers.
Ellison has always wanted more. His politics are naked: he hosted fundraisers for Trump, peddled election denial, and poured money into Israel, the IDF, and MAGA causes. As FAIR reported, this isn’t just business — it’s about controlling the narrative.
Ellison isn’t content being the world’s richest man. He wants to be Rupert Murdoch on steroids — controlling not just a news outlet or a social network, but an entire ecosystem of media. TikTok is his crown jewel.
Selling Out Democracy
Let’s be clear: Congress forced ByteDance to sell TikTok by screaming “national security.” Then Trump turned around and handed the app to the very people most invested in silencing dissent.
What does “security” even mean here? It means Ellison, Murdoch, and Dell controlling what young Americans see on their screens. It means Fox Corp. shaping the TikTok algorithm. It means Oracle mining data and deciding who gets amplified.
This isn’t about protecting kids. It’s about protecting Trump. It’s about protecting Israel. And you know it.
Do you feel safer with your data knowing these are the men that will control it?
The Myth of Neutral Capital
Mainstream coverage frames this deal like it’s a neutral market solution: the Chinese sold, the Americans bought, business as usual. But who are these “Americans”?
Rupert Murdoch: built Fox into a propaganda machine that demonized Muslims, immigrants, and Black Lives Matter.
Lachlan Murdoch: steering Fox even further right, echoing Trump’s talking points daily.
Larry Ellison: funding Trump, positioning Oracle as a surveillance empire, and now consolidating media power.
Michael Dell: backing the play to expand influence over young audiences.
This is not neutral. This is the consolidation of power by one faction of billionaires aligned with one president.
Trump’s Fingerprints Everywhere
Notice how Trump himself bragged about making the calls, brokering the deals, blessing the players. This isn’t an open market transaction. It’s a state-managed handoff of a media platform to regime loyalists.
And it’s not just about money. It’s about loyalty. Trump doesn’t trust institutions. He trusts men he can call directly. Men who owe him favors. Men who will bend when he needs them to.
TikTok, in Trump’s hands, is no longer just an app. It’s a tool of statecraft.
The Cost of Silence
Family, ask yourself this: Why are these billionaires lining up to own TikTok? Why are they so eager to pay billions for a platform that, just months ago, Congress called a “national security threat”?
Because they know control of media is control of politics.
Ellison knows it. Murdoch knows it. Trump knows it.
And while the headlines frame this as a routine business deal, the truth is far darker: it’s the privatization of censorship, the outsourcing of authoritarianism to billionaires who share Trump’s agenda.
Family, Look Closer
Here’s the through line: TikTok was punished for amplifying Gaza. Now it’s being rewarded to Trump’s allies.
The Murdochs bring the propaganda machine.
Ellison brings the infrastructure and surveillance.
Dell brings the corporate legitimacy.
Trump brings the raw power to make it all happen.
Together, they are building something unprecedented: a billionaire-owned, regime-aligned media empire with reach across television, film, news, and now the app most used by America’s youth.
And if that doesn’t terrify you, you’re not paying attention.
From Murdoch to Ellison
For decades, Rupert Murdoch was the singular media mogul shaping America’s politics. From the New York Post to Fox News, he normalized a poisonous style of tabloid cynicism and right-wing propaganda. But what’s happening now is bigger — much bigger.
Larry Ellison, at 81 years old, is positioning himself as something Murdoch never achieved: the undisputed master of both legacy and digital media, news and entertainment, politics and culture.
William Cohan warned in The New York Times that Ellison could soon become “one of the most powerful media and entertainment moguls America has ever seen.” This isn’t a vanity play like Bezos buying the Washington Post or Benioff buying Time. Ellison is building an empire to consolidate political power.
The Ellison Empire
Let’s map it clearly:
TikTok: 170 million U.S. users, overwhelmingly young, politically engaged, with massive influence on culture.
Oracle: the infrastructure behind TikTok’s U.S. data — surveillance and cloud control baked in.
Paramount Skydance: includes Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, CBS, MTV, and more.
CBS News: now drifting hard right under Ellison family control, installing Bari Weiss and Hudson Institute operatives.
Planned Warner Bros. Discovery bid: CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. studio — the largest content machine in the world.
If the Warner Bros. deal goes through, Ellison would command:
200 million+ streaming subscribers (Paramount+, HBO Max, Pluto).
More news reach than NBC, ABC, MSNBC combined.
A near-monopoly over both old media and new.
Dan Rather, no radical by any measure, said it flatly:
“Americans have to be concerned about the consolidation of huge billionaires getting control of nearly all of the major news outlets. It’s pretty hard to be optimistic.”
Buying Every Microphone
What does this look like in practice? It looks like Ellison’s CBS striking a $7.7 billion deal to broadcast UFC, a Trump-aligned sports brand. It looks like Bari Weiss — an anti-“woke” crusader — being courted to run CBS News. It looks like Kenneth Weinstein, a conservative think tank boss, appointed ombudsman to make sure CBS journalists stay in line.
This is how censorship works in America. Not by pulling plugs or burning presses, but by putting the right billionaires in charge.
As FAIR reported, the Ellisons are “reshaping CBS News to the right,” aligning with Trump’s agenda just as they pursue CNN and HBO. Combine that with TikTok, and you don’t just shape coverage — you shape the algorithm, the soundtrack of an entire generation.
A Pattern of Capture
Look around. This isn’t happening in a vacuum.
Elon Musk gutted Twitter and rebuilt it as X, a far-right megaphone.
Mark Zuckerberg bent Facebook’s moderation to be friendlier to MAGA.
Jeff Bezos moved the Washington Post away from any real confrontation with Trump.
Patrick Soon-Shiong forced the Los Angeles Times to become more Trump-friendly.
And now Ellison is putting all the pieces together: broadcast, streaming, social, print. One-party media.
The Silence on Gaza
Notice what all these billionaires share: silence or complicity on Gaza.
Ellison and his son David have openly condemned Hollywood boycotts of Israel. Musk has promoted far-right Zionist propaganda on X. Zuckerberg’s Meta has been caught systematically censoring Palestine content. Bezos’ Post watered down coverage to avoid offending Trump and Netanyahu.
The effect is clear: as Gaza burns, as Palestinian children starve, American billionaires are racing to make sure their platforms either look away or twist the truth.
And TikTok, the one place where the truth slipped through, is being folded into that machine.
Authoritarianism by Checkbook
Family, this is what authoritarianism looks like in the United States. It’s not just ICE in the streets. It’s billionaires writing checks to buy every microphone, every news desk, every app, every algorithm.
This isn’t a “free market.” This is state-sanctioned consolidation. Trump is granting licenses, approving deals, naming names. Congress and the courts provided the legal cover. The billionaires are cashing in.
The result? A media ecosystem where dissent is algorithmically buried, where Gaza disappears, where Trump’s narrative rules.
We’ve Seen This Playbook Before
This playbook isn’t new. In Russia, Putin consolidated media by handing outlets to loyal oligarchs. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s allies bought up newspapers until opposition voices were smothered. This is how authoritarians control the narrative.
Now it’s happening here. Larry Ellison isn’t just another rich guy buying toys. He’s part of a global trend: strongmen partnering with billionaires to strangle democracy by controlling what people see and hear.
Family, Do You See It?
Here’s the blunt truth:
TikTok was the first domino.
Gaza was the trigger.
Trump was the broker.
Ellison, Murdoch, and Dell are the beneficiaries.
And democracy is the casualty.
We are not watching random business transactions. We are watching the construction of a one-party media state — with Trump in power, and billionaires like Ellison holding the levers.
Back to Gaza
We cannot end this story without returning to where it began: Gaza.
The genocide there is not just a backdrop. It is the reason this TikTok coup happened at all. It was Palestinian children, emaciated and starving before our eyes, that broke through the algorithm and forced America to reckon with its complicity. It was TikTok’s young user base — millions of students, activists, and everyday people — who refused to look away, who flooded feeds with truth the White House could not contain.
That’s what made TikTok dangerous. Not Beijing. Not spyware. Palestine.
Crushing the Movement at Home
When students at Columbia and across the country set up encampments to demand divestment from Israel, TikTok carried their voices. When ICE detained a Columbia graduate student for protesting, TikTok amplified his story. When police in city after city arrested students, beat them, and deported them, TikTok broadcast it.
By mid-2025, the student movement was battered and bruised. Public media was defunded. Journalists were censored. Protesters were imprisoned or exiled. And so, when Trump extended the TikTok ban deadline again and again, it didn’t matter. The threat wasn’t TikTok anymore. The threat had been neutralized in the streets.
Protests on college campuses are less and less - because students are literally afraid of being doxed or deported. The crackdown offline has clearly worked and the crackdown online is nearly complete.
Trump’s Cynical Admission
Trump himself let the mask slip. On television, he looked at images of Gaza’s starving children and said: “Some of those kids are — that’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake that.”
Think about that. The President of the United States acknowledged the reality of genocide, then shrugged, because he knew nothing would come of it. He knew the antiwar movement had been crushed. He knew the media was falling into the hands of his loyal billionaires. He knew the algorithm would soon belong to Murdoch and Ellison.
Democracy in Critical Condition
We are now living in a moment where democracy is in critical condition. The space for dissent is smaller than it has ever been in modern American history.
Public broadcasting? Defunded.
Independent newspapers? Silenced or bought.
Social media? Captured by Trump’s allies.
Students? Arrested, deported, surveilled.
This is not theoretical. It’s not looming. It’s here.
And TikTok — once the last uncontrolled outlet for young people to tell the truth about Gaza — has been folded into the empire of billionaires aligned with Trump.
The Coup in Slow Motion
Family, this is the coup. Not tanks in the streets. Not generals in uniforms. But billionaires buying platforms, students silenced, Gaza erased from the timeline, and a President who openly mocks the suffering of children while rewarding his cronies with the spoils.
It’s a coup in slow motion. And unless we call it what it is, unless we resist, it will be complete.
What This Means for Us
So what do we do?
First, we name it. We tell the truth: Gaza was the trigger. Trump was the broker. Ellison and Murdoch were the buyers. TikTok was the prize. Democracy was the casualty.
Second, we resist silence. We keep amplifying what they want buried. We keep telling the stories of Palestinians, of students, of anyone crushed by this machine. Anywhere we can.
And third, we truly need to build our own platforms of truth. That’s why I am here with you. That’s why The North Star exists. Because we cannot rely on billionaire-owned media to tell the truth about genocide, about repression, about the coup unfolding before our eyes.
Family, This Is the Moment
I’ve said this before, but it feels truer now than ever: silence is not an option.
Our children, our students, our brothers and sisters in Gaza — they are counting on us not just to witness, but to act.
And while Trump’s billionaires consolidate their grip on media, while they try to erase Palestine from the algorithm, we will not look away.
✊🏽Membership Appeal
Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun
📚 Because Silence Is Not an Option
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