President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to advance a deal on the TikTok app with a group of mostly American investors. This deal would allow the app to stay online, in accordance with a bipartisan law passed in 2024 which required its U.S. operations to be divested from Chinese parent-company ByteDance for it to continue operating in the country.
U.S. officials had cited national security reasons for this law.
Under the new plan, American investors will take over the majority of TikTok’s operations and take charge of a licensed copy of the app’s algorithm. American companies are expected to own about 65% of the U.S. version of the spun-off company, while ByteDance and Chinese investors will own less than 20%. The new version of TikTok will be controlled by a seven-member board of directors made up of cybersecurity and national security experts, six of them Americans, according to the White House.
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The group of American TikTok investors will be led by software giant Oracle, which will oversee TikTok’s U.S. operations, provide cloud service for user data storage and get a license to take control of the app’s algorithm. ByteDance will not have access to U.S. user data, according to White House officials.
Other investors include media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the CEO of Dell computers Michael Dell. “Great investors. The biggest. They don’t get bigger,” Trump said in a press conference. Vice President JD Vance added that more details about who is involved in the deal will be announced over the next few days.
TikTok is a popular social media platform that allows users to create, share, and watch short-form videos, typically lasting between 15 seconds and 3 minutes. Launched in 2016 by ByteDance, it now has around 170 million users. This deal would pass on this popular app into the hands of some of the wealthiest Trump allies.
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When asked about whether TikTok will start prioritizing MAGA-related content, Trump said, “I always like MAGA-related. If I could, I’d make it 100% MAGA-related” but indicated that the app would continue recommending a wide variety of content as before, saying: “Every group will be treated fairly.”
This deal will end the months-long legal limbo that followed the passing of the divest-or-ban bill. Multiple deadline extensions had been granted, and many different parties expressed interest in the app over the months. The latest executive order also delayed its implementation by 120 days to give negotiators time to finalize the deal.