U.S. companies that have invested in TikTok are seeking and donating millions of dollars to Democrats, DailyMail.com has learned — just as President Joe Biden is pushing for the Chinese social media app to work in the U.S., despite growing concerns about the real calendar.
Top Republican lawmakers and some federal officials believe TikTok is being used to steal consumer data and spread Beijing-backed propaganda to influence the upcoming midterm elections.
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has lured politically well-connected funders into the US after plowing billions of dollars in investment into the wildly successful app that now has a billion users worldwide — including about a third of all Americans.
“If you’re curious as to why Joe Biden and the Democrats have been kicking TikTok for so long, just follow the money,” Republican senator Josh Hawley told DailyMail.com
‘A ByteDance’ [owner] hires top Democrat executives as lobbyists and their corporate allies donate millions to Democrats. This is the same company that won’t even stop sending US data to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. The Democrats’ favoritism endangers the American people.”
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has lured politically well-connected funders into the US after plowing billions of dollars in investment into the wildly successful app that now has a billion users worldwide — including about a third of all Americans.
Marco Rubio, the most senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told DailyMail.com that “anything but a complete separation” of TikTok from ByteDance “will likely leave major national security concerns related to operations, data and algorithms unresolved.”
One of the largest US investors is venture capital giant Sequoia Capital. The Chinese branch, which reportedly owns about 10% of ByteDance, has donated more than $8 million to Democrats since 2020 and has since led further investment rounds in the Chinese company.
According to Federal Election Commission data, Sequoia affiliate Michael Moritz has donated more than $9 million to political campaigns — and significantly ramped up his donations to Democrats in 2020 after Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in the US.
Michael Moritz, chairman and managing partner of Sequoia Capital, which reportedly owns about 10% of ByteDance, has donated more than $8 million to Democrats since 2020
Over the past two years, Moritz, who is neighbors of Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, has given the Democrat-backed AB PAC $6 million, $1.1 million to the fiercely anti-Trump Republican PAC the Lincoln Project, and $1.5 million. million to Pacronym, a PAC that supports Democratic groups.
Pacronym leader Tara McGowan has been accused of organizing a paid “propaganda” campaign against Trump and his ties to the January 6 riots via TikTok.
Conservative lawyer and TikTok star Preston Moore revealed this month that he was one of many influencers offered $400 by McGowan’s nonprofit the Good Information Foundation to post a video about the January 6 hearings.
Moore claimed the foundation paid for an “anti-Trump propaganda post.”
In 2018, Moritz and his wife pledged $20 million to the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a gift the executive director described as “one of the largest in our 98-year history.”
After the huge donation made through their Crankstart foundation, the ACLU then began campaigning to allow TikTok to operate in the US.
David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle, which is worth $4.6 billion according to Forbes, is a close ally of President Biden, having hosted Joe and Jill Biden twice at his $20 million, 13-acre Nantucket mansion.
After Trump issued an executive order banning the app, the ACLU said it was “an unprecedented abuse of emergency powers” and a violation of the First Amendment.
The organization also campaigned in 2020 to shut down the Justice Ministry’s “China Initiative,” which scrutinized China’s influence in scientific research and academia.
Other Sequoia employees have close ties to Biden and his administration.
Michael Ortiz, Sequoia Capital’s senior policy director, served on Biden’s transition team.
In 2020 and 2021, he was a member of the National Security Council Agency Review Team and “led the confirmation teams of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Deputy Secretary of Defense” according to his profile on the World Economic Forum website.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden walk down the steps of Air Force One as they arrive in Nantucket for the 2021 holiday
Hunter Biden wearing Beau Biden steps out of Air Force One with some of the other Biden grandchildren for the Thanksgiving holiday
An aerial view of the 13-acre site owned by David Rubenstein, the co-founder of billionaire Carlyle Group, in the Port of Nantucket
Another ByteDance investor, the private equity firm Carlyle Group, bought its $150 million stake in 2020.
David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle, which is worth $4.6 billion according to Forbes, is a close ally of President Biden, having hosted Joe and Jill Biden twice at his $20 million 13-acre Nantucket mansion: when he was vice president in 2014 and again for Thanksgiving last year, when Hunter Biden and his family were involved in the celebration.
Rubenstein is pictured with Nancy Pelosi interviewing her, Bill Clinton and George Bush for his book on leadership.
The Carlyle Group has its own PAC that has spent $689,073 since 2019, roughly split between Republicans and Democrats.
Carlyle also has other major Chinese investments, according to Yahoo Finance, including Alibaba and more than $2 billion in the Chinese consumer sector since 2000.
But the good relations between TikTok and mighty Dems don’t stop there.
According to lobbying revelations, ByteDance hired former aide to Senate leader Chuck Schumer to lobby for them this year.
Stacy Ettinger, a partner at advocacy group K&L Gates, was part of a team that paid $40,000 to defend ByteDance’s case in Washington DC.
“If you’re curious as to why Joe Biden and the Democrats have been kicking TikTok for so long, just follow the money,” Republican senator Josh Hawley told DailyMail.com
The large donor checks on executives of TikTok’s financiers have raised fears that the Biden administration could be forced to take a soft stance on the app, which has been linked to disinformation campaigns and data security concerns.
A July bulletin from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that Beijing is using economic interests to push favorable policies in Washington.
‘The PRC’ [People’s Republic of China] may leverage market access, investment or economic dependence, and openly pressure US leaders, especially those with commercial interests in China, to lobby Washington for policies that Beijing approves,” the briefing said.
And a source who has worked closely with congressional investigations into Chinese influence in the US told DailyMail.com: “The CCP is very good at making sure that the right influential US investors have a vested interest in Chinese companies like TikTok so that that investors can do. their bids in Washington.
The New York Times reported last week that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who leads negotiations over the status of TikTok in the US, “has concerns that the conditions are not strict enough for China,” according to two sources.
Hawks who have expressed concerns about the direction of US relations with China have been critical of the Biden administration’s openness to keeping the app available in the US.
In June, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, claiming it “poses an unacceptable national security risk because of its extensive data collection combined with Beijing’s seemingly uncontrolled access to that sensitive data.” ‘.
Meanwhile, TikTok is in talks with the United States Committee on Foreign Investment over national security concerns over its ties to China.