President Donald Trump has announced a completed deal for a new owner of TikTok in the United States, claiming it has received approval from Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order affirming that the agreement meets the requirements of a law stipulating that TikTok must be sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to avoid a ban in the U.S. Trump and Vice President JD Vance reported that a group of investors plans to acquire TikTok’s operations in the U.S. for an estimated value of $14 billion.
The deal relies on the contention that it satisfies national security concerns surrounding ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government, which prompted U.S. legislators to express fears over potential data access regarding the app’s approximately 170 million American users. While TikTok and ByteDance have denied these allegations, similar security concerns have resulted in bans and restrictions on TikTok in other nations. After Congress passed a bill in April 2024 requiring ByteDance to find a U.S. buyer within nine months, the deadline for negotiations was extended by Trump several times to facilitate the process.
The current plan involves U.S. investors taking control of TikTok, with key figures including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch of Fox Corporation, and Michael Dell of Dell Technologies mentioned as potential investors. Under the agreement, American investors would oversee the TikTok algorithm, with Americans retaining six of the seven director seats in the new company. The algorithm will be retrained using U.S. user data, and Oracle will continue to host American user data on its servers.
Though ByteDance and TikTok have remained largely silent on the deal, they previously expressed gratitude to both Trump and Xi for their roles in maintaining TikTok’s presence in the U.S. Chinese government commentary has emphasized a desire for compliance with market rules that respect both national and international laws.
Despite the current agreement, it remains uncertain how U.S. users will respond to the new version of TikTok, with some experts questioning whether the app will maintain the same level of user experience as before.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyng762q4eo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss