The Daily: Very specific, but highly unlikely predictions 2025, part 1—TikTok’s ban, X and Truth Social’s alliance, and who TikTok Shop might team up with

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss what actually ends up happening to TikTok, what an X and Truth Social alliance might look like, and who TikTok Shop might enter a joint venture with. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Vice President and Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg, and Vice Presidents of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson (00:00):

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Jasmine Enberg (00:22):

But without the algorithm that's surfacing that content, and also without those creators, without those users, and without that culture in one place, I don't know that it's still the same thing, right? And I have a hard time believing that creators are going to start migrating to a Nordstrom.

Marcus Johnson (00:44):

Hey gang, it's Monday, December 16th. Suzy, Jasmine, Paul, and listeners, welcome to the Behind the Numbers Daily, an e-marketer podcast made possible by LiveRamp. I'm Marcus. I'm joined by three folks. Let's meet them. We start with our vice president and principal analyst covering everything social media based in California. It's Jasmine Enberg.

Jasmine Enberg (01:04):

Hey Marcus. Hey everyone.

Marcus Johnson (01:06):

Hello there. We're also joined by our vice president of content, also heads up our retail and e-commerce desk. She's based in New York City. It's Suzy Davidkhanian.

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:16):

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (01:18):

Of course. Of course. And we're also joined by another one of our vice presidents of content. He covers pretty much everything else and he's based in Maine now, and we refer to him as Paul Verna.

Paul Verna (01:28):

Great to be here. And when I say here, I mean in the New York studio right alongside Suzy. If this were a video podcast, you would actually see us together.

Marcus Johnson (01:37):

Yes, indeed. Thank you so much for all of you for being here for this episodes as the predictions one. So we get to hang out with these three folks and myself again in tomorrow's episode. We'll have more predictions, but we start of course, with the fact of the day. The largest concert ever. This is according to Guinness World Records is, you guys know this? No one knows this.

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:58):

Woodstock?

Marcus Johnson (01:59):

No.

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:59):

Oh, it must be Taylor Swift.

Marcus Johnson (02:01):

No. Nope. French composer Jean-Michel Jarre, playing Moscow State University in 1997 and with an almost identical number of people attending their concert. English singer-songwriter Rod Stewart plays New Year's Eve, 1993 at Copacabana Beach in Rio. Guess how many people attended each of those respective concerts?

Paul Verna (02:24):

I'd have to guess over 500,000 because Woodstock was somewhere close to that vicinity.

Marcus Johnson (02:30):

3.5 million people. How is that possible?

Paul Verna (02:33):

Yeah. How is that possible?

Marcus Johnson (02:35):

That sounds super dangerous.

Jasmine Enberg (02:39):

Wow.

Marcus Johnson (02:39):

That's too many people gather in one place, but yeah, apparently. So tomorrow we'll talk about ticketed concert numbers. I've got some of those for you for tomorrow's episode, but let's get to today's real topic. We've got for you some very specific but highly unlikely, as a result, predictions for 2025 Shark Tank Style part one. All right, so how's this episode work? Each person, Paul first will have 60 seconds to pitch a very specific but highly unlikely prediction for 2025. Then the rest of us, me, Jasmine, Suzy, and folks listening will decide if they're going to "invest" in this prediction. Basically do believe in it. Then we move on to the next contestant and repeat. So Jasmine's next, me, Suzy, and Paul become the new panel. Each of our guests have one prediction for today and then another each for tomorrow's episode. So quickly to check in on some of the predictions we thought might come true this year.

(03:31):

Paul, you're crushing it. Your publisher, AI Gold Rush prediction that there'd be a lot more licensing deals made between publishers and AI companies in the second half of the year is doing incredibly well. Since you said that Time Magazine signed a licensing deal with OpenAI. Condé Nast signed a multi-year partnership with OpenAI. Perplexity is now into revenue sharing deals with the LA Times, Adweek, The independent, et cetera. That definitely continued. Suzy, less so.

Suzy Davidkhanian (03:31):

I know.

Marcus Johnson (03:56):

You said Starbucks would be piloting drone deliveries, however, they did get a new CEO, so maybe that was in the works and he killed it.

Paul Verna (04:02):

Well, also they deliver him to the Starbucks headquarters every day by private jet. So there's that.

Marcus Johnson (04:09):

Technically it is drone delivery, just big drone. And Jasmine, every prediction Jasmine's ever made apparently comes true. So never bet against her. That's how we've been doing. Let's get some new predictions in for you. We start with Paul, what do you expect to happen in 2025? A very specific but highly unlikely prediction.

Paul Verna (04:28):

I think it's very specific and frankly, highly likely, that's why I'm making it, but we'll let time be the judge of that. I predict that TikTok will succeed in delaying the January 19th deadline to divest from its Chinese owner and either the incoming administration or the Supreme Court will then intervene essentially to preserve the status quo and nothing will happen in terms of a TikTok ban. And I say that partly because the motivation for banning TikTok is complicated, but when it comes to the incoming administration, which obviously will have a lot of weight in this decision, a lot of the motivation was punitive, not just against TikTok, but also there's the punitive aspect of helping TikTok can harm Meta and Meta has been in the crosshairs of the administration, so it's hard to untangle these sort of personal aspects from the threat assessment, but I just don't get the sense that we're going to end up with a TikTok ban in the US for just the way things are going.

Marcus Johnson (05:36):

So I want to get Jasmine on this because you cover social for us, but just to catch folks up. So Federal Appeals Court just upheld a law banning TikTok in America unless it gets sold off by its Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance by January. TikTok was claiming that the ban violates free speech rights of its users. The court says TikTok's ownership by a Chinese based company represents a national security threat that surpasses those free speech concerns TikTok raised. Incoming president-elect, Donald Trump said that he will save TikTok. However, he did try to ban them four years ago, so we're not quite sure there's appeals and Reexaminations and the Supreme Court could get involved. TikTok did say, could you please freeze this ban until the new administration gets into office. They were getting to office the day after the ban is to take effect, which is January 19th. So that's where we are right now. Jasmine, what do you make of all this?

Jasmine Enberg (06:21):

I was nodding while Paul was talking because I do agree that I think TikTok will succeed in delaying past the January 19th deadline, but I also think relying on Trump to save TikTok is a really shaky strategy. He is a wild card. He's flip-flopped on TikTok before. If you look at a lot of the people who he is picked for his administration, many of them are anti TikTok, and actually stopping this law is a lot easier said than done. There's a lot of hurdles that he would have to go through in order to be able to halt the enforcement of it. And so I am honestly 50/50 on this because while I do see Paul's point and I think there is a strong desire to preserve the status quo, especially among the American public, it's a law. And that's hard now to change.

Marcus Johnson (07:12):

Yeah, you said preserve the status quo among the American public. The opinion polling on this has been all over the map, but to your point, it's now come back down closer in favor of opposing the ban. So support for the ban a year ago, so a year and a half, March 2023, 50% of people said they supported banning TikTok. I mean US adults. That's dropped from 50% to 32 in basically the last 15 months or so from that date. Oppose has gone up a little bit. So almost they're almost neck and neck now. So it does seem as though people are starting to gravitate much more towards keep it.

Jasmine Enberg (07:50):

And that's true for people on both sides of the aisle. And so while republicans are more likely to support a ban and Democrats are more likely to oppose it, the number of people who support a ban has declined over the past couple of months for both Republicans and Democrats.

Marcus Johnson (08:06):

Yep. Yep. Those numbers for me, were in pure research. Suzy, what do you think of Paul's prediction?

Suzy Davidkhanian (08:09):

So I'm obviously based on my own prediction thinking that it is going to get the ban, and part of that is because I think six weeks is not enough time during the holiday season to move anybody to action. I don't know that it means that it'll be a forever ban, but I think January 19th is truly around the corner and it'll be hard for them to make any big movements. And I think the US is doing a lot of fear mongering. And so there are some folks, although I heard the stats around people are not as opposed to it this year as last year, I still think there might be enough momentum for people to just let it die. The one thing that is the new part is that there's so much around money and influencer marketing and dollars that are attached to it that that's probably why it would be okay.

Jasmine Enberg (08:56):

The other thing is there's still a chance for TikTok technically to sell and to find a US buyer.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:04):

Well-

Jasmine Enberg (09:04):

That is... Am I encroaching on one of your predictions Suzy?

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:09):

No, not at all. But I feel like you're setting me up pretty well.

Jasmine Enberg (09:12):

All right, well I will leave it until I hear your prediction. Let's do that.

Marcus Johnson (09:17):

All right, let's get the thoughts on investments. Jasmine, are you investing in this prediction from Paul, but TikTok will succeed in delaying the January 19th deadline to divest from its Chinese owner?

Jasmine Enberg (09:27):

I'll invest. Sure can go either way.

Marcus Johnson (09:29):

Okay. She's gone one point. All in. Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:32):

Well, no, because my prediction is the exact opposite.

Marcus Johnson (09:36):

Okay. Suzy says no.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:37):

So I can't it.

Paul Verna (09:38):

I won't take it personally, and I guess I'm half betting against Jasmine, which means I'm half crazy and that's actually a lot better than I thought I was.

Marcus Johnson (09:49):

Means you're [inaudible 00:09:49] wrong is what that means. But I think I'm half in. I could see a world where they do get banned because all that means is disappear from the app store. It doesn't mean that you can't use them on your device. So I could see a world where they get banned because they can't push the deadline, but then the day after Mr. Trump's like, "All right, I'm bringing them back." And so it'll pop up again on the app stores. So I'm going to say half in. Let's move to our second prediction. Jasmine, you have one for us. What do you think is going to happen next year?

Jasmine Enberg (10:15):

I'm so excited to share the prediction. It is more specific than highly unlikely, although it's unlikely as well. Anyway, I think X and Truth Social will form an alliance next year. So incoming president, Donald Trump, of course owns right-wing social network Truth Social. Elon Musk owns X. He was a major advocate, major donor in Trump's campaign. He's also one of the two heads of the newly formed department of Government efficiency, and that means that Trump and Musk are competitors in business even as their partners in politics. And that competition between them in business has intensified a lot as we've seen the content on X, the use cases and the user bases become more similar to Truth Social.

(11:05):

Truth Social's user base though is a lot smaller X's. User base is declining, but it's really resilient. And so I think there is a strong possibility that they could join forces and if they did, they could become a much bigger and better business for both of them. The catch here is that Trump and Musk are both wild cards, and while they're clearly in a bromance right now, all of this could fall apart if they fall apart first.

Marcus Johnson (11:33):

Yes, that seems very possible. Sarah Kreps, professor of Law and director of tech policy at the Cornelius Brooks School of Public Policy, is too long a title, Sarah, but she thinks differences will inevitably emerge. Angrej Singh of Axios was pointing out, there already are points of tension. You've got Mr. Musk who actually backed Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis and his failed bid for the GOP's 2024 primary. So there's that. There's Trump's hawkish stance towards trade with China, which could harm Musk's EV business, specifically Tesla's Shanghai mega factory. So there's already some points of tension. It doesn't take too big of a leap for you to think that maybe they do fall out and maybe that all of this does unravel.

(12:15):

And then also there was an article from The Economist noting there's no historical precedent for Mr. Musk's influence over Mr. Trump, but they were saying presidents and their business backers do tend to fall out. They had William Hurst of the newspaper guy quickly became disillusioned with Franklin Roosevelt, whose first campaign for president. He had enthusiastically backed Andrew Carnegie, the steel guy was the world's richest man at the time. Him and Theodore Roosevelt were falling out over foreign policy. So there's a bunch of examples in history of very powerful president, a very powerful business person falling out and things that unraveling. Paul. Suzy, what do you guys think?

Paul Verna (12:49):

Ladies first.

Suzy Davidkhanian (12:50):

Thank you. I had not given it that much thought. Unbelievable. What I would say upon first blush is that I don't know the size of Truth Social, but would this qualify as monopoly and not monopoly? And you know how the government might come in and say, oh no, you can't have two people coming together, companies coming together to form.

Paul Verna (13:11):

Trump is the government.

Jasmine Enberg (13:15):

Yeah, Trump is the government.

Marcus Johnson (13:15):

That's a good question.

Paul Verna (13:15):

And so is Musk.

Suzy Davidkhanian (13:17):

Yes, totally. But at some point there's got to be other folks that are going to come in like federal courts and say, oh no, we can't have this. So I don't know. That was my only,-

Marcus Johnson (13:27):

It's a good question, but true social is not that big and X user base is shrinking, right, Jasmine? So it shouldn't definitely.

Suzy Davidkhanian (13:27):

It could be okay.

Marcus Johnson (13:33):

Yeah, I think so. Right, Jasmine? What do you think?

Jasmine Enberg (13:35):

Yeah.

Paul Verna (13:35):

Exactly. It's going to be compared to social overall, not just whatever you call what used to be microblogging or-

Jasmine Enberg (13:45):

And I think to your earlier point, Marcus, I mean Trump is the government and there's a lot of signs that indicate that companies across the board think that this new administration is going to be much more favorable to acquisitions next year. So it's certainly not inconceivable. But I do want to share one stat because this kind of blew my mind as I was researching our report on politics and the creator economy. If there was any doubt on how much influence Musk actually had in getting Donald Trump elected, there was a poll by Harvard Caps and the Harris Poll that asked voters which celebrity endorsement had the biggest impact. And 71% said Elon Musk, which was way ahead of everybody, including Taylor Swift. That's wild.

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:26):

Wow. Wow.

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:27):

He was so vocal though, right? Taylor Swift had her one Instagram picture that was an underlying sort of support.

Jasmine Enberg (14:34):

And Musk was vocal because he has his own microphone, which is X.

Marcus Johnson (14:39):

And is Truth Social. I mean, I'm assuming that they would be happy to sell. I mean, they're valued at a fair amount, but in terms of turning a profit, that's not going terribly well. So I imagine they wouldn't be opposed to it.

Jasmine Enberg (14:52):

I imagine the same. That is why I'm predicting this.

Marcus Johnson (14:57):

I'm in.

Jasmine Enberg (14:58):

Yes.

Paul Verna (14:59):

Me too. And I'm in also with the caveat that I want to put dibs in for a prediction that the whole thing falls apart.

Jasmine Enberg (15:08):

Yes.

Paul Verna (15:09):

After they come together, at some point, I want to be the one to make the prediction that the bromance ends and the business arrangement, whatever it is, if it's a licensing deal or partnership or a merger, that also gets untangled.

Jasmine Enberg (15:24):

I second that prediction and I have a continuation of that, which I will not share on this podcast just yet. But either way.

Marcus Johnson (15:33):

Oh, cliffhanger.

Jasmine Enberg (15:33):

Stay tuned.

Marcus Johnson (15:35):

Very nice. Very nice. Suzy, are you in?

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:37):

Yes, I'm in.

Marcus Johnson (15:37):

Three, four points. All right. Everyone's in on that one. It makes sense. Jasmine's never wrong. Okay, Suzy, you are going to finish off the episode with giving us your prediction for 2025.

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:46):

Sure. So mine is equally specific and probably unlikely, but I do love it personally.

Marcus Johnson (15:53):

Giving a track record possibly.

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:54):

Yeah. Okay. Let's be honest, it's not going to happen, but I do think that it's food for thought and it is worth considering. Should TikTok get banned in January, I think that ByteDance will look to spin it off and form a joint venture with a retailer. And the one I pick is Nordstrom, because Nordstrom is trying to go private, so it's going to have less sort of scrutiny and needs to be public with their investor information. There will be less government hands on it if it's private. Nordstrom is known for fun, fashion, cool sort of factor, but it needs to bring in a younger customer, which obviously TikTok has, but Nordstrom has been trying to push its live stream shopping since 2021. I think there is some interesting synergies for Nordstrom and for TikTok shop, in addition to needing an American owner, that is maybe not in the public eye.

(16:42):

I think Nordstrom will bring some sort of, like a foundation that is rooted in good customer service and don't be worried, and we'll get you what you need when you need it. It'll still leverage TikTok's inventory prowess, but it'll bring the Nordstrom name that I think is a stamp of approval. What I have not solved for that maybe we will solve for right now is should this happen, does that mean that TikTok shop will just move into the Nordstrom live stream platform? That seems unlikely because we know that there needs to be a network effect which TikTok has. So I'm not really sure where the app would sit. Would it be co-branded? Will the government not care if it's called TikTok, if it's owned by Nordstrom? I don't know.

Marcus Johnson (17:20):

That was going to be my question, which you've posed a question about my question, which is-

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:26):

See how smart I am?

Marcus Johnson (17:27):

Don't know where we go from there. But yeah, if it does get wrapped, if they can't use TikTok name, I mean, how much does that dilute the-

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:35):

Can they not though?

Marcus Johnson (17:36):

I'm not sure, but say they can't, for example, do you think Nordstrom carries enough weight where that doesn't dilute the TikTok shop brand, so to speak?

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:43):

I mean, we should ask Jasmine, but from my perspective, I would say Nordstrom carries enough weight if like TikTok shop provided by Nordstrom or Nordstrom's TikTok shop or something. There has to be some kind of co-branded, which was why I was like a joint venture. So it wouldn't be an outright merger, it would have to be some sort of co-branded activity. The tricky thing is that not everybody's obviously going to Nordstrom's live streaming. There's no reason to go there, but everybody's on TikTok all the time. So it's maintaining that stickiness, which is why I think... It's a bit semantic-y. Right. So it would still be TikTok shop in partnership with Nordstrom, and that would hopefully clear the airwaves of the Chinese-owned.

Jasmine Enberg (18:23):

So the tricky thing about selling TikTok to a US buyer or spinning off part of TikTok or one of the tricky things really is that ByteDance would need approval from the Chinese government. And the Chinese government has said that it won't allow companies to sell with their software, meaning that TikTok's algorithm likely wouldn't be included in the deal. My perspective is that TikTok without the algorithm probably isn't going to be TikTok. And I don't really know how that would affect your prediction particularly, but would that change things for you? Maybe I'm asking you more than anything else.

Suzy Davidkhanian (19:06):

The reason I also picked Nordstrom and not an Amazon or a Walmart is because I think it's less threatening for the Chinese government, but can Nordstrom replicate and use the algorithm? I agree. The algorithm is what makes it different and all the people that are there that are already surfing the platform. So can TikTok shop survive without people that are already scrolling on TikTok? That part I'm not really sure about. But if people are as sad about it going away, will they change their behavior to make it worth it for Nordstrom to do this? Potentially. Will the Chinese government give them the algorithm? Probably not. But will the government figure out a way to have some sort of Chinese wall between sort of algorithm and operations? Maybe.

Paul Verna (19:48):

Yeah. I wonder if the TikTok brand is powerful enough without the algorithm to be licensed or bought by... Could be a retailer, although I just don't see Nordstrom fitting into this. I see. Maybe Target.

Jasmine Enberg (20:01):

Walmart.

Paul Verna (20:02):

Or Walmart.

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:02):

I think those guys are too big. I think that the government, Chinese government's not... And I think that Nordstrom is trying to go private is also a really big... I don't know that TikTok shop could sell to another American retailer.

Jasmine Enberg (20:16):

Well, so to Paul's point, I think the TikTok brand is strong enough. There's a lot of love for TikTok. And one of the things that I talk to creators about all the time that's frustrating on the platform is that the love that consumers have for the content on there is really directed at the platform rather than the creators. And that's a problem overall with short form video, but without the algorithm that's surfacing that content and also without those creators, without those users, and without that culture in one place, I don't know that it's still the same thing. And I have a hard time believing that creators are going to start migrating to a Nordstrom. And I don't know, we have another set of predictions coming tomorrow, I think.

Marcus Johnson (20:58):

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Jasmine Enberg (21:00):

And I'll talk to you about where I think live shopping is going then.

Marcus Johnson (21:03):

All right, perfect. All right, gang. Investments. Are you in on this one, Jasmine?

Jasmine Enberg (21:09):

I'm not. I'm sorry, Suzy.

Marcus Johnson (21:10):

Not in. She's out. Unbelievable. Paul.

Paul Verna (21:13):

Sorry, Suzy. Can't do it. Can't do it.

Marcus Johnson (21:16):

Suzy, I will give you a quarter of a pity investment point.

Suzy Davidkhanian (21:19):

No, I don't want a pity investment point. That's worse.

Marcus Johnson (21:24):

That is definitely worse. All right folks, that's all we've got time for this episode. The three predictions we had were Paul saying TikTok will succeed in delaying the January the deadline to divest from its Chinese owner. Jasmine says that X and Truth Social will form an alliance and Suzy thinks that TikTok will be spinning off TikTok shop in a joint venture with Nordstrom. We have three more very specific, very in tomorrow's episode. That's all we've got time for today. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Paul.

Paul Verna (21:50):

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (21:51):

Thank you, Jasmine.

Jasmine Enberg (21:53):

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (21:53):

Thank you to Suzy.

Jasmine Enberg (21:54):

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (21:55):

And thank you to Victoria who edits the show. Stuart who runs the team and Sophie does our social media. Thanks to everyone for listening in. We hope to see you tomorrow for the behind the Numbers Daily. Any Market podcast made possible by LiveRamp.