President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday permitting TikTok to continue operating in the United States, approving a deal for the platform’s US-based operations to divest from its China-based owner, ByteDance.
The move comes in compliance with a federal law banning TikTok over concerns about its ties to the Chinese government. Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for approving the deal, saying he has “great respect” for Xi and that “to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China, the approval of China.”
Trump added his administration will be “announcing different things, but the US comes out great, and I think China comes out great because they can have a very important legacy, and they have many other deals, you know, they have deals with us, and they have deals in this country, and they want to be treated fairly also.”
Vice President JD Vance said TikTok is expected to be valued at around $14 billion in the deal and that “the most important thing is that it does protect Americans’ data security and ensures TikTok is still accessible.”
“What this deal ensures, is that the American entity and American investors will actually control the algorithm,” Vance said. “We don’t want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government. We want to make sure that our people and our investors actually make these decisions based on what’s good for their business, as opposed to what’s good for another government’s propaganda arm.”
According to CNBC, the main investors in TikTok’s US operations will be Oracle, Silver Lake, and the UAE-based firm MGX. Together, the three will hold a 45 percent stake. ByteDance will retain 19.9 percent ownership, while the remaining 35 percent will be split among existing ByteDance investors and new stakeholders.
