Abu Dhabi’s royal family is set to secure a stake in TikTok’s American operations after President Donald Trump pushed through an executive order that paved the way for a deal valuing the platform at about $14 billion.
The investment will be made through MGX, a fund led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which is expected to acquire a 15% stake and secure a board seat once TikTok’s U.S. arm is formally separated.
Along with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX are positioned to hold about 45% of TikTok’s U.S. entity. In total, American firms are expected to own just over two-thirds of the business, with Trump also pointing to Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox as part of the investor group.
“[TikTok U.S.] will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary,” Trump said, as quoted by The Guardian. “We have American investors taking it over, running it [who are] highly sophisticated, including Larry Ellison. Great investors, the biggest. They don’t get bigger. This is going to be American-operated all the way.”
READ: Oracle, Dell, Fox News part of group to take over TikTok in the US under Trump’s push (
The agreement received formal sign-off Thursday night, when the President Trump issued an executive order granting a 120-day window to finalize the terms.
ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, will continue to hold a 19.9% share in the newly structured U.S. business.
Beijing has yet to formally signal its stance on the agreement, though Trump insisted he had “had a good talk” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who, he said, “gave us the go-ahead.”
Vice President JD Vance stated TikTok U.S.’s valuation at $14 billion, acknowledging, “There was some resistance on the Chinese side. But the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating but we wanted to make sure that protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law.”
READ: US and China to decide TikTok’s fate following decision to divest its US operations (
“This deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than in the past. Because their data is going to be secure and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens,” Vance added.
At $14 billion, the price tag for TikTok’s U.S. arm stands in sharp contrast to ByteDance’s overall valuation, which analysts peg at around $330 billion. The gap underscores how Washington’s restrictions and ownership restructuring have narrowed the app’s market worth. By comparison, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram commands a market value of about $1.8 trillion, highlighting the wide gulf between TikTok’s carved-out U.S. unit and its rival.
The future of TikTok U.S. had been in question since April 2024, when Congress passed a law requiring ByteDance to divest the platform over privacy and national security concerns. Trump repeatedly pushed back deadlines for a sale or potential shutdown in an effort to negotiate a deal.