TikTok Trump token 'bribe'? 🪙

📝 What you need to know

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order providing an additional 90 days for ByteDance to close a sale of popular social video app TikTok to an American buyer, which would enable it to continue operating in the U.S. It’s the third extension he’s provided, even rankling some Republicans due to its legal dubiousness—and one Democratic congressman teed up a flawed theory as to why.

“The law allows only one single extension, so Trump’s failure to enforce it is illegal,” wrote Representative Brad Sherman on X. “However, the Chinese owners of TikTok have announced they are buying ‘Trump Coins’ for $300 million. Trump creates ‘Trump Coins’ at no cost, meaning this is just a $300 million bribe that goes right into his pocket.”

Beyond Sherman’s apparent misunderstanding of crypto tokenomics, the bigger issue is that ByteDance has announced no such purchase of Trump’s meme coin. An official TikTok account on X called Sherman’s statement “patently false and irresponsible,” hitting back at the claims.

It appears Sherman may have confused ByteDance with a small Chinese tech company called GD Culture Group—which has a TikTok account (along with a couple billion other users), and announced a $300 million TRUMP-buying plan in May.

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