Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. One of Europe's top media moguls has sought to acquire a stake in Tik Tok's European operations, pitching the politically charged plan to a well-connected member of the Trump administration. Mathias Döpfner, chief executive and co-owner of Germany's Axel Springer, proposed that his company could be part of a deal to buy the Chinese-owned app's European business during a lunch with the US ambassador to France Charles Kushner, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Döpfner, whose company owns Politico and the UK's Daily Telegraph, invited Kushner, father of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, to a gathering in the publishing giant's Berlin headquarters in January. People familiar with the meeting said the media executive proposed a plan similar to the agreement brokered by President Trump to spin off Tik Tok's US arm in response to national security concerns about the platform's Chinese owners. Under that deal, which valued US Tik Tok at $14bn, a group of investors including Larry Ellison's Oracle set up a joint venture with the Beijing-based Byte Dance.
Their new California-based entity gained more control over algorithms and US users' data. Mathias Döpfner proposed a plan similar to the agreement brokered by President Donald Trump to spin off Tik Tok's US arm, said people familiar with the meeting. The encounter between Döpfner and Kushner underlines the scale of the ambition of the German media boss, who in 2022 suggested in private messages to Elon Musk that he should buy Twitter and let him run it.
Döpfner made an unsuccessful bid to buy the Financial Times in 2015, buying Business Insider two months later and Politico in 2021. He has said in the past that he would be interested in buying Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal if it ever came up for sale. Earlier this year, the billionaire -- who rose from the role of editor-in-chief of broadsheet Die Welt to become chief executive and then co-owner of the entire company -- surprised Fleet Street by buying the Telegraph for £575mn.
The Kushner meeting also highlights Axel Springer's efforts to get closer to the Trump administration, even as the White House last month denied access to Politico journalists in response to their reporting. In February, Döpfner met with the US president's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Last month, he presented an Axel Springer award to billionaire investor Peter Thiel, a Republican Party donor and backer of vice-president JD Vance.
During the first Trump administration, he forged a close relationship with the US ambassador to Berlin, Richard Grenell. The private event with Kushner, held in Axel Springer's wood-panelled 'journalists' club', was billed as a discussion about antisemitism on social media platforms. Döpfner has publicly described Tik Tok as 'one of the most dangerous propaganda machines for amplifying extremist content', including hatred against Jewish people.
The group of attendees included prominent Axel Springer journalists, a former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and several members of the Bundestag. The talk turned to Döpfner's ambitions to spin out the European part of the Chinese-owned platform, according to three people familiar with the discussion. Charles Kushner is the father of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump.
While Döpfner has publicly stated his support for the idea as early as 2022, he has never said openly that he wanted to be one of the investors. In an interview with the German press agency DPA at the start of September, he said Tik Tok 'should either...
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing