The Morning Brew

I've gotta do another shout-out to Mary Mulari for recommending the "Morning Brew"

This little morning news letter explains all kind of business things I would never think about, much less understand...the writing is crisp and funny...and it covers so many topics in todays world...like, why is the Stock Market going crazy?   How will New York City ever recover?  What does the FED do, anyway?  And what is Tik-Tok, and why should I care? 

  ......this was their headline Monday morning...

 

Tik-Tok and the Party Won't Stop

And by party we mean legal action. Over the weekend, Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok confirmed reports that it'll sue the U.S. government today.

The backstory: On Aug. 6, as we all collectively wondered how it was August already, President Trump signed an executive order blocking all U.S. transactions with TikTok owner ByteDance in 45 days. The U.S. government has deemed TikTok a national security threat because of a Chinese law that could compel it to fork over Americans’ personal data to Beijing.

• As we shifted into “wait, does this mean September is next?” mode on Aug. 14, Trump stepped on the gas pedal, inking another order that gave ByteDance 90 days to divest all U.S. TikTok operations. 
• Now TikTok is mounting a defense, saying the president's executive order denied its right to due process. It has repeatedly denied it could be strong-armed by the Chinese government. 

But ByteDance still has to drop TikTok in the U.S.

And the horserace to buy it is very much still on. 

Where it stands: Early leader Microsoft is still “the favorite” at 2–1 odds, says Axios’s Dan Primack, who handicapped the race last Friday. Microsoft broke from the gate first, negotiating with the White House weeks before any of us were the wiser. Plus, it has a war chest worthy of Secretariat. 

• But Oracle (5–2 odds), another enterprise tech company, is only about a length behind. It helps that some execs are buddies with Trump. 
• Twitter (20–1) is in the mix as well, but it’s more like a colt rounding the far turn as the other two thunder toward the finish line. It would need a financial sponsor, and while being Trump's favorite platform, it isn't his favorite company.