“The whole thing is a crock,” says legendary internet mogul Barry Diller. “It starts, obviously, simply to say we want to protect the security of Americans from anything that could happen to them by using TikTok. It has now morphed into this kind of ludicrous game match between tossing ownership here, control there, etc. Its original aims are out the window and in has just come a whole political mismatch. The whole thing has been stirred up for no great good reason.”

Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia Group, says the entire TikTok deal is a crock:

It’s no deal. I don’t know that it means much of anything at the moment. The whole thing is a crock. It starts, obviously, simply to say we want to protect the security of Americans from anything that could happen to them by using TikTok. It has now morphed into this kind of ludicrous game match between tossing ownership here, control there, etc. Its original aims are out the window and in has just come a whole political mismatch. I have no idea how it settles. I also think it’s relatively endless. The whole thing has been stirred up for no great good reason.

Once you start tossing this grenade about protectionism and once you start turning these things into political questions vis-a-vis China… I’m not saying that China treats fairly. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have policies quote against in terms of competition and all of that and not stealing property and all of those things. However, once you say we won’t do this because of you the reciprocal out of that is going to be just as bad. Once you start it it’s inevitable that that race just keeps going up and up and up and prevents just natural commerce.