President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that could secure the future of TikTok in the United States.
Trump said the deal complies with a law passed by Congress last year and signed by President Joe Biden that would have forced the shutdown of the app for American users.
Citing concerns about data privacy and the potential for espionage, Congress voted in April 2024 to ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, did not sell to an American buyer. As a result, TikTok went offline briefly in the U.S. in January ahead of Trump taking office. Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline imposed by Congress for ByteDance to divest or face a ban.
Trump said Thursday he and Chinese President Xi Jinping came to an agreement that separates the app from ByteDance, allowing TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S.
At the signing, the president identified the U.S. investors poised to take over a majority — around 80% — of TikTok’s operations in the country as software giant Oracle, which will have control of the app’s algorithm and provide cloud storage of user data; private equity firm Silver Lake; Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan; and Dell CEO Michael Dell.
ByteDance and Chinese investors will retain a 20% stake, but White House officials said China will not have access to U.S. user data.
No representatives from ByteDance were present at the signing, and the company hasn’t acknowledged that a transaction is taking place. No purchase price was mentioned, and there’s no indication that the Chinese government has made changes to laws that would be necessary for a deal to take place.
According to the White House, the new version of TikTok will be controlled by a seven-member board, six of whom will be Americans.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
