President Donald Trump has signed an executive order finalizing some of the terms of a deal to bring TikTok’s US business under American control. The new TikTok entity will be owned by a group of US-based investors, while ByteDance will maintain a smaller stake in the new company and keep the app’s algorithm.
TikTok has faced more than a year of uncertainty about its future in the United States since former President Joe Biden signed a law last year requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban. In January, the Supreme Court upheld the law and TikTok briefly went dark just as Trump took office. Trump promptly signed an executive order extending the ban deadline for the app. (He signed off on a fourth extension last week.) Today’s order declares that the plan to split off a US entity from the ByteDance-owned company will meet the requirements of the ban order.
The executive order comes after a flurry of interest in TikTok from US companies and investors. Microsoft, Amazon, Perplexity AI, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and YouTuber MrBeast were all reportedly among those vying for the business.
Under the new arrangement, US investors will have a large stake in the US entity. CNBC reported that Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX would be part of a core group of investors that own 45 percent of the business. Trump confirmed Oracle’s involvement, and also mentioned Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch as investors as part of the deal. ByteDance, TikTok’s current owner, will have a 19.9 percent stake and the rest will go to a group of investors that includes ByteDance’s previous investors. Vice President JD Vance said the new company would be valued at around $14 billion.
Oracle, which has previously partnered with the company on data security, will continue in its role overseeing the app’s algorithm and security. The fate of the TikTok algorithm has been a major question. Some lawmakers have questioned the decision to license the algorithm from ByteDance. Earlier this week, both the Republican chair and Democratic ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party expressed concerns about any arrangement that doesn’t put the algorithm squarely in American hands.
Answering questions after Trump signed the order, Vance said to reporters that the deal ensures that US investors will have “control over how the algorithm pushes content toward users.” In reponse to a question about whether the algorithm would prefer MAGA content, Trump lamented that although he would love for the platform to be 100 percent MAGA, it would in fact treat “everyone fairly.” Trump described China as “fully on board” with the deal.
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