#presidential-influence

#presidential-influence

The president's demand, first reported by Punchbowl News and subsequently confirmed by multiple outlets, explicitly linked federal funding for the now-halted Gateway Tunnel to slapping the president's name on Penn Station and Virginia's Dulles Airport - which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected outright. But the demand still left government watchdogs wary of what Trump may try to do with the transit hub reconstruction, which Amtrak's Andy Byford has said will begin before Trump's current term is up.

Will the as-yet-unnamed U.S. buyers of TikTok be paying the full market price? The White House is apparently valuing TikTok's U.S. business at $14 billion, 1.4 times its annual U.S. revenue. That's a shockingly low figure for a thriving tech operation. As Bloomberg News reported, YouTube's parent corporation, Alphabet, is valued at eight times its revenue. Instagram's parent, Meta, is valued at 10 times its revenue. The buzz among investors is that TikTok in the U.S. should be worth about $40 billion, perhaps more.