According to a senior White House official, a new proposal will move TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new joint venture based in the United States, which will feature a “majority-American board of directors.” The agreement also anticipates that Oracle will serve as a security provider.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deal will bring a copy of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm into the U.S. joint venture system. “It’s going to be fully inspected and retrained by the security provider on U.S. user data, and then it’s going to be operated by that U.S. entity,” the official added.
U.S. policymakers, including President Donald Trump during his first presidency, have warned that China could use TikTok to collect data from Americans or influence the content they see. Under President Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, Congress passed a law to force ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations or face a ban on the hugely popular platform.
On Monday, a U.S. official confirmed that the algorithm would be “continuously monitored” to ensure it is “not being unduly influenced.” These latest developments follow a telephone conversation between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, after which Trump praised the progress on various issues, including TikTok. A U.S. official said Monday that Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week declaring that the terms of the TikTok deal meet U.S. national security needs. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News over the weekend that the new board will have seven seats, with six of them held by Americans. Trump also mentioned that media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, could be among the investors taking control of TikTok in the U.S.
Trump’s TikTok Deal Aims to Meet 2024 Law Requirements A White House official confirmed that Trump will sign an executive order later this week, stating that a deal to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, will meet the requirements of a 2024 law. The official told reporters on a conference call that the U.S. is confident that China has approved the deal and does not plan to engage in further talks with Beijing on the details. However, additional paperwork from both sides is required to finalize the agreement.
The official added that the valuation of TikTok’s U.S. assets will be “many billions of dollars.” The U.S. government will not take a board seat or a golden share in the new entity, though it is unclear if the government will receive payments as a condition of the approval. ByteDance is expected to own less than 20% of the new entity, which will be controlled by a mix of its existing U.S. and global firms, as well as new investors with no affiliation to ByteDance.
The full list of investors is not yet finalized but will include major firms like Oracle and private equity firm Silver Lake. Trump said Sunday that Lachlan Murdoch, along with business leaders Larry Ellison and Michael Dell, would be involved as U.S. investors in the proposed deal to keep TikTok operating in the United States. Trump is working to prevent a ban on the short-video app, which has 170 million U.S. users, after Congress passed a law mandating its shutdown by January 2025 if its U.S. assets are not sold by ByteDance.
Trump has delayed the enforcement of the law until mid-December to allow time for the investors and ByteDance to close the agreement, ensure the separation of TikTok’s U.S. assets from the global platform, secure American investors, and ensure the new ownership qualifies as a full divestiture under the 2024 law. The official added that Trump’s executive order will include a new 120-day enforcement pause to facilitate the closing of the deal. Last week’s progress on the TikTok deal marks a rare breakthrough in months-long talks between the world’s two largest economies, which have been aimed at de-escalating a wide-ranging trade war that has unsettled global markets.
