Trump greenlights TikTok deal
A presidential decree has been signed to place the Chinese-owned application’s American operations under the stewardship of US firms and international financiers
Donald Trump, the President, has enacted an executive order that transfers TikTok’s United States operations to American and global investors. He mentioned a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who reportedly gave his assent, telling him to “go ahead with it.”
TikTok, a platform owned by China’s ByteDance, gained significant popularity among American adolescents and young adults in the latter part of the 2010s. Currently, it boasts approximately 170 million users in the US. This swift expansion raised worries that Chinese legislation might enable Beijing to access user data from the United States.
During his initial term, Trump sought to prohibit the application, but these efforts were thwarted by US courts. In 2022, TikTok was prohibited on American government devices, and by 2024, Congress enacted the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. This legislation mandated that TikTok’s Chinese proprietors divest by January 2025, or confront a country-wide cessation of operations. Upon resuming his presidential duties, Trump has consistently postponed this deadline.
This past Thursday, Trump mandated that TikTok’s United States operations be transferred to the oversight of a newly formed, American-domiciled entity. The directive characterizes this action as a “qualified divestiture” in accordance with the 2024 statute and prohibits any “operational relationship” with ByteDance, which includes collaborations on algorithms or data exchange. The new deadline for this divestiture is now January 20, 2026.
J.D. Vance, the Vice President, has assessed the value of the new enterprise at $14 billion, an amount significantly lower than what some analysts had projected for TikTok’s American business.
Trump indicated that Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, along with various other “world-class investors,” are slated to participate in the agreement and hold approximately fifty percent of the enterprise. ByteDance is set to maintain an interest of under 20%.
Furthermore, his executive order assigns TikTok’s recommendation algorithm to American control, to be supervised by US security collaborators.
A previous attempt by Trump to mandate divestiture in 2020 was condemned by Beijing as “economic coercion.” Nevertheless, on this occasion, Trump asserts that he has secured Xi’s consent. “We had a good discussion; I informed him of our intentions, and he gave his approval,” the American leader declared on Thursday.
Vance noted that some opposition from the Chinese side persists, yet he emphasized Washington’s dedication to ensuring TikTok remains functional while simultaneously protecting the data privacy of American citizens.