Springer boss Döpfner wants to get his share of TikTok

The head of the media group Axel Springer, Mathias Döpfner, wants to get a piece of the TikTok cake. For this purpose, the European business is to be split off from the Chinese parent company. Meeting with high-ranking US officials At a meeting with the US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, the German media manager is said to have made a corresponding suggestion. That's what she reports Financial Times citing several people familiar with the conversation. The idea is based on the solution with which US President Donald Trump pushed forward a spin-off of the American TikTok business. The conversation took place in January at Axel Springer's Berlin headquarters, the business newspaper Financial Times reported. The event was officially announced as a discussion about anti-Semitism on social platforms. Döpfner had previously publicly described TikTok as one of the most dangerous propaganda machines for spreading extremist content. In addition to journalists from the media company, the meeting was also attended by a former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and several members of the Bundestag. An agreement was negotiated in the USA according to which investors around Oracle founder Larry Ellison founded a joint venture for TikTok's US business. The transaction valued the American branch at 14 billion dollars (around 12 billion euros). The new company was given more control over the algorithm and the data of US users. The background was security concerns due to the Chinese ownership structure of the platform. Döpfner has been promoting a comparable solution in Europe since 2022. At the beginning of September, he told the DPA news agency that TikTok must either be sold to democratic shareholders or banned. Of course, he primarily sees his own company as such a shareholder. At the same time, he criticized the fact that Europe had not yet taken comparable steps. EU is skeptical According to EU officials, the idea was met with little enthusiasm among interlocutors in the European Commission's technology department. The TikTok parent company ByteDance also showed no interest. The company described the representation to the Financial Times as fictitious. A possible TikTok investment would fit with Döpfner's expansion course. Axel Springer now owns large English-language magazines such as Politico and Business Insider, among others. At the beginning of the year, the group also took over the British newspaper Daily Telegraph for 575 million pounds (around 660 million euros). At the same time, Döpfner is seeking contact with the Trump administration. This year he already met with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and awarded the right-wing extremist investor Peter Thiel with an Axel Springer Prize. Meanwhile, the German Springer brands Bild and Welt recently launched their own appearances on TikTok. Research Snipers is currently covering all technology news including Google, Apple, Android, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung News, and More. Research Snipers has decade of experience in breaking technology news, covering latest trends in tech news, and recent developments. Can be reached at author1@researchsnipers.com