Trump’s split reality: While suing Murdoch, he woos him over TikTok

1 hour ago 2

Opinion

September 22, 2025 — 3.16pm

What about the size of that elephant in the room?

When Donald Trump deliberately dropped the bombshell that Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan were part of the president’s curated team of investors to buy the American arm of TikTok, he simply ignored his $15 billion legal assault against the nonagenarian media mogul and his empire.

The Trump attack against The Wall Street Journal and its publisher and parent company, News Corp, also included Murdoch snr as a defendant. It was personal. In his legal filing, Trump said that before publication of claims he had signed a lewd birthday card sent to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, he had warned Murdoch the story was incorrect.

Trump appears to have Chinese walls inside his head.

Rupert Murdoch was a surprise guest at the state banquet for Donald Trump at Windsor Castle last week.

In naming the Murdochs as part of the team to fund a rescue of TikTok in the US, he appears to be relishing his power to garner a favour from Murdoch while simultaneously suing him.

That said, the Murdoch press is saying the media group had been working on a TikTok deal for quite a while (pre-dating the legal stoush with Trump) and it was hoping to take a small investment in a larger consortium that would acquire the US operations of the social media app.

This marries with the circumstantial evidence.

Back in February, Rupert Murdoch and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who is also touted as part of a TikTok US buyout, sat in the Oval Office when Trump signed an executive order to create a US sovereign wealth fund whose first investment would be TikTok.

At the time, Trump said the fund would be financed by “the imposition of tariffs and other intelligent things”. But he also branded the attendance of Murdoch and Ellison as “appropriate”.

We have not heard much about the sovereign fund since. US government departments have made some hefty investments in critical minerals, digital assets and semiconductors, but it is not clear whether it is the sovereign fund that is contributing to these often public/private partnerships.

In typical Trump detail-lite form, news about the how and of who will become investors in TikTok requires piecing together disparate and often conflicting presidential social media posts or interviews.

The participation by Murdoch’s Fox Corp in a heavy-hitting consortium that includes Ellison and Dell founder Michael Dell is curious.

Trump made a point of naming Lachlan Murdoch as the primary contact on TikTok within the Fox camp.

“I hate to tell you this, but a man named Lachlan is involved. Lachlan is, that’s a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch,” Trump said. “And Rupert is probably going to be in the group. I think they’re going to be in the group.”

In the same interview, Trump referred to “a couple of others. Really great people, very prominent people, and they’re also American patriots, you know. They love this country. I think they’re going to do a really good job.”

In other words, the Murdochs are among the group of wealthy and powerful people that Trump has asked to do him a favour. Whether the Murdochs feel this may mitigate the damage that Trump is trying to inflict through the defamation claim, or is merely a contribution to Trump’s favour jar isn’t clear.

There is no suggestion Trump is backing away from the lawsuit, although court filings released early last month said both parties had reached an agreement to hold off on Murdoch’s deposition until after a motion by The Wall Street Journal to dismiss the case has been heard.

The ink is barely dry on Trump’s fiery July legal filing that claimed The Wall Street Journal article “harmed and lowered Trump’s reputation” and that the publication was false and defamatory and made with malice towards the president.

“The statements were published by defendants with actual malice, oppression and fraud in that they were aware at the time of the falsity of the publication and thus, made said publications in bad faith, out of disdain and ill-will directed towards plaintiff (Trump) without any regard for the truth.”

That is a ferocious statement that would be difficult to walk back. Unless you just ignore it and carry on – like Donald Trump.

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