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Trump Wants $5 Billion From TikTok Deal for History Project

President Donald Trump said Saturday he wants $5 billion from companies creating a new U.S.-based TikTok venture directed toward teaching American children “the real history of our country.”

Trump said Saturday that he had approved a transaction between Oracle Corp.Walmart Inc. and ByteDance Ltd. to create a new company called TikTok Global to run the U.S. video-sharing app. As part of the arrangement, Trump told reporters at the White House the companies agreed to contribute $5 billion to an education foundation.

Later, during a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump said “we’re going to be setting up a very large fund for the education of American youth.”

He told his rally audience that in conversation with leaders of the companies, he said “do me a favor, could you put up $5 billion into a fund for education, so we can educate people as to real history of our country -- the real history, not the fake history.”

On Thursday, Trump delivered a speech at the National Archives in Washington, in which he attacked the 1619 Project, a school curriculum created by the New York Times that orients American history from the date the first slaves arrived in the country.

Trump said that in response, he would create “a national commission to promote patriotic education” that he calls the “1776 commission.”

The next day, Trump spoke by phone with Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison and Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon. He told them he still wanted the government to receive a payment as part of a deal, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Read entire article at Bloomberg