Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday outlining the terms of a deal to transfer TikTok to a US owner.
Trump said he and China’s president Xi Jinping had come to an agreement to allow TikTok to continue operating in the US, separating the social media platform from its Chinese owner ByteDance. Trump said the deal complies with a law that would have forced the shutdown of the app for American users had it not been divested and sold to a US owner.
“I spoke with President Xi and he said, ‘Go ahead with it,’” Trump said at a press conference. “This is going to be American-operated all the way.”
Under the plan, US investors will take over the majority of TikTok’s operations and take charge of a licensed copy of the app’s powerful recommendation algorithm. American companies are expected to own about 80% of the US version of the spun off company, while ByteDance and Chinese investors will own less than 20%. The new version of TikTok will be controlled by a seven-member board of directors made up of cybersecurity and national security experts, six of them Americans, according to the White House.
The new US company will be valued at $14bn, according to JD Vance, who also spoke at the press conference, a number far lower than the valuation for ByteDance overall, which is estimated to be around $330bn. By comparison, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is valued at $1.8tn.
The group of American TikTok investors is led by the US software giant Oracle, which will oversee TikTok’s US operations, provide cloud service for user data storage and get a license to take control of the app’s algorithm. White House officials have said ByteDance and Chinese officials will not have access to US user data.
Along with Oracle and its co-founder Larry Ellison, Trump said at the press conference that other investors include media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the CEO of Dell computers Michael Dell. “Great investors. The biggest. They don’t get bigger,” Trump said. Vance added that more details about who is involved in the deal will be announced over the next few days.
When asked if TikTok would start prioritizing Maga-related content, Trump said, “I always like Maga-related. If I could, I’d make it 100% Maga-related” but indicated that the app would continue recommending a wide variety of content as before, saying: “Every group will be treated fairly”.
The deal ends months of legal limbo for one of the US’s most widely used apps, while also giving several US companies a powerful newfound influence within the social media industry. TikTok is used by about 180 million people nationwide, and Trump has credited it with helping him win the 2024 presidential election. The deal is also another foray for the Trump administration to exert influence over the tech industry, after it took a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel earlier this month and has urged companies like Apple and Nvidia to invest hundreds of billions domestically.
Trump had earlier indicated that the US government would receive a lucrative fee from the US investors for negotiating the deal with China, saying last week: “The United States is getting a tremendous fee-plus – I call it a fee-plus – for just making the deal.”
But on Thursday, when asked about this, the president simply said the US would take ordinary taxes from the new company, adding: “We’re gonna make money and we’re going to get a lot of money in taxes.”
TikTok once faced bipartisan pushback from lawmakers over concerns about data privacy, and allegations China could use the app to spread propaganda or undermine US democracy. TikTok repeatedly denied those claims, but Congress overwhelmingly voted last year to compel ByteDance to find a US buyer or face a ban in the country.
The supreme court unanimously upheld the ban in January. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order postponing the ban and has since repeatedly delayed its enforcement. The “Saving TikTok” executive order Trump issued on Thursday says the deal complies with the law passed by Congress, is a “qualified divestiture” and “resolves” national security concerns. The divestiture from ByteDance isn’t expected to be completed for another 120 days.
At the press conference, Trump said “the young people” were rooting for him to “save TikTok”. He credited the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed earlier this month, for urging him to join the social media platform.
“Charlie helped me a lot too. He said, ‘You should go on TikTok,’” Trump said.
Last week, Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, announced that the US and China had reached a framework for a deal on TikTok following a series of high-level talks in Madrid. China’s top trade negotiator Li Chengang confirmed the agreement later that day, as well as issued a warning against the US attempting “suppression” against Chinese companies.
Although Trump had also alluded to the deal last week, he declined to provide any details.
“A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much want to save. They will be very happy!” he posted on Truth Social.
