Trump signs executive order facilitating TikTok deal

Post Reply New Topic

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday paving the way for a TikTok deal that could transfer majority ownership of the app to Americans.

While it appears the terms of the agreement are set, it will likely take some more time for the sides to close the deal as they hammer out finer legal and financial points.

“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said during the signing on Thursday. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”

Under the new framework agreement outlined in the executive order, TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance and its affiliates will own less than 20% of TikTok, while "certain investors" will retain 80% ownership. The plan would achieve the "qualified divestiture" required for TikTok to comply with federal law, according to the order.

It’s not clear who all the parties to the deal are, but Trump said during the signing that Oracle and its co-founder Larry Ellison will play a “big” role. He added that tech entrepreneur Michael Dell and media mogul Rupert Murdoch will also be involved. Vice President JD Vance said more information will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Trump told reporters last week that the investors are “all very well-known people, very famous people actually, financially.”

The deal will allow for these American investors to control the app’s algorithm, Vance said. TikTok's unique algorithm, which curates the type of content users see in their feeds, made the app’s For You page famous for its engagement-driven personalization that democratized virality and transformed online culture.

When asked whether he wants to see the new algorithm suggest more MAGA content, Trump told reporters, “I always like MAGA-related.”

“If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would, but it’s not going to work out that way, unfortunately,” Trump said. “No, everyone’s going to be treated fairly. Every group, every philosophy, every policy will be treated very fairly.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the de

The app’s future had been in limbo ever since President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill last year that required ByteDance to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban, citing national security concerns. The law, which was also upheld by the Supreme Court, was supposed to take effect on Jan. 19 this year.

But aside from the app briefly going dark in the hours before Trump’s second inauguration, TikTok has continued to operate in the U.S. as Trump used executive orders to repeatedly delay the ban. Earlier this month, the president extended TikTok’s shutdown deadline for a fourth time, giving it until Dec. 16 to complete the framework of a long-awaited deal between Washington and Beijing.

Thursday's executive order extended the ban's non-enforcement to 120 days, or until Jan. 23, in order to give the divestiture time to be completed.

In past years, efforts to ban TikTok, which is estimated to have around 170 million active users in the U.S., had come from both sides of the political aisle. U.S. officials questioned the company over whether ByteDance could share user data with the Chinese government, as well as whether China could use the platform’s algorithm to manipulate public opinion.

But by the time the ban was slated to finally kick in, many of those same lawmakers had changed their tune following popular discontent over the looming loss of the app. In January, the Biden White House stated that it would pass the responsibility for enforcing the ban to Trump’s incoming administration, and congressional leaders who had once championed the ban seemed to shy away from enforcement as well.

Trump himself has also flip-flopped on his attitude toward TikTok. In 2020, during his first term, he signed an executive order to effectively ban the app. (The order was later halted in court.) By 2024, however, he openly voiced his opposition to a TikTok ban and joined the platform himself in an attempt to reach young voters, even publishing a video promising to “save TikTok.”

On Thursday, Trump also acknowledged TikTok’s importance to the many businesses who rely on the app to advertise their products and services. He said part of why he “wanted to do the deal so badly” was because of the influx of calls he received from small business owners over the last six months.

“Small businesses have become very successful because of TikTok, and we didn’t think of that,” he said.

All these months the law has mandated that TikTok was not supposed to be available if a Chinese company owned it. Trump flouted this law all the time and nobody gave two s**ts.

At the end of the day it is better that an American company owns it. Maybe. Which Americans and for what purpose?