Trump flip flops on TikTok: Follow The Money
“Donald Trump flip flops on TikTok, now rails against a ban”
“Trump’s newfound support for TikTok, and by extension owner ByteDance, come soon after Joe Biden said he’d sign legislation making its way through Congress that could ban TikTok.
“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with TikTok said Trump who had met with Republican mega-donor Jeff Yass at a Club for Growth donor retreat… Soon after the meeting, the former president wrote on Truth Social, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better.” – The Guardian
How much is Jeff Yass holding in TikTok’s worth? How much does Yass pay in taxes? How much does Yass donate to Republicans? How do Republican recipients of his political donations help Yass get richer in return? Follow the money with this relationship map.
Jeff Yass owns $21 billion stake in TikTok
“TikTok now has many more friends, with something in common: backing from billionaire financier Jeff Yass. They’ve helped stall attempts to outlaw America’s most-downloaded app.
Yass’s investment company, Susquehanna International Group, bet big on TikTok in 2012, buying a stake in parent company ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That translates into a personal stake for Yass of 7% in ByteDance. It is worth roughly $21 billion based on the company’s recent valuation, or much of his $28 billion net worth as gauged by Bloomberg.
Yass is also one of the top donors to the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group that rallied Republican opposition to a TikTok ban. Yass has donated $61 million to the Club for Growth’s political-spending arm since 2010, or about 24% of its total, according to federal records. Club for Growth made public its opposition to banning TikTok, in an opinion article by its president, at a time when sentiment against the platform among segments of both parties was running high on Capitol Hill.” – Wall Street Journal
Trump’s flip flop on TikTok ban
- Trump stunned Republican China hawks this week when he appeared to argue against banning TikTok, the juggernaut video app owned by Beijing-based Bytedance
- Days before his TikTok reversal, Trump publicly praised Yass for inviting him to a retreat held by Club for Growth, a powerful conservative group that also opposes banning the app.
- Yass had previously donated $4.9 million to Vivek Ramaswamy, who last year became the only Republican presidential candidate to join TikTok — an app he once called “digital fentanyl.”
- One potential factor at play is Trump’s newly repaired relationship with billionaire Jeff Yass, who has a huge financial stake in Bytedance and has spent millions backing lawmakers who support TikTok. – Axios
How Susquehanna’s Jeff Yass Avoided $1 Billion in Taxes
Tax dodging billionaires have more money to spend on political donations!
“Yass consistently pays lower tax rates than his peers, even as he has risen to be one of the top 10 highest earners in the country, receiving more than $1 billion per year in income. He paid an average federal income tax rate of just 19% in recent years, far below what many of his fellow Wall Street billionaires pay. That has saved Yass more than $1 billion in taxes over six years, ProPublica estimates.
What has made this pattern all the more remarkable is the nature of Susquehanna’s business: The firm was built on high-frequency trading, which tends to produce short-term gains; these are taxed at around 40%. And yet, year after year, Yass’ income has been taxed almost entirely at the 20% rate reserved for longer-term investments.” – ProPublica
TakeAway: Stop ‘PAY TO PLAY’ politics where tax dodging billionaires get the laws they want at the expense of American security. Vote for President Biden and Democrats.
Deepak
DemLabs
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Reposted from Democracy Labs with permission.