President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday (Sep 25) declaring that his plan to sell Chinese-owned TikTok’s US operations to the US and global investors will address the national security requirements in a 2024 law.

The new US company will be valued at around US$14 billion, Vice President JD Vance said, putting a price tag on the popular short video app for the first time. 

Trump on Thursday delayed the enforcement of the law that bans the app unless its Chinese owners sell it until Jan 20, amid efforts to extract TikTok’s US assets from the global platform, line up American and other investors, and win approval from the Chinese government.

The publication of the executive order shows Trump is making progress on the sale of TikTok’s US assets, but numerous details need to be fleshed out, including how the US entity will use TikTok’s most important asset, its recommendation algorithm.
“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 also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law,” Vance told reporters at an Oval Office briefing.
Trump’s order says the algorithm will be retrained and monitored by the US company’s security partners, and the operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture.

Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated approval of the plans. 

“I spoke with President Xi,” he said. “We had a good talk, I told him what we were doing, and he said go ahead with it.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok did not immediately comment on Trump’s action.

Trump has credited TikTok, which has 170 million US users, with helping him win re-election last year. Trump has 15 million followers on his personal TikTok account. The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.

“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said.

He said that Michael Dell, the founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies; Rupert Murdoch, the chairman emeritus of Fox News owner Fox Corp and newspaper publisher News Corp, and “probably four or five absolutely world-class investors” would be part of the deal.
The White House did not discuss how it came up with the US$14 billion valuation.

TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, currently values itself at more than US$330 billion, according to its new employee share buyback plan. TikTok contributes a small percentage of the company’s total revenue.

According to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, TikTok was estimated to be worth US$30 billion to US$40 billion without the algorithm as of April 2025.

Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the executive order leaves unanswered questions, including whether ByteDance will still control the algorithm. 

“The problem is that the president has certified the deal, but he has not provided a lot of information on the algorithm,” he said.

ORACLE AND OTHERS TO OWN TIKTOK IN THE US
A group of three investors, including Oracle and private-equity firm Silver Lake, will take a roughly 50 per cent stake in TikTok US, two sources familiar with the deal said on Thursday.

A group of existing shareholders in ByteDance will hold a roughly 30 per cent stake, one of the sources said. 

Among ByteDance’s current investors are Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic and KKR.
Given intense investor interest in TikTok, the 50 per cent stake may still shift, the source noted.

Oracle and Silver Lake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

CNBC reported earlier, citing sources, that Abu Dhabi-based MGX, Oracle and Silver Lake are poised to be the main investors in TikTok US with a combined 45 per cent ownership.

MGX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the CNBC report.

Republican House of Representatives lawmakers said they want to see more details of the deal to ensure it represents a clean break with China. 

“As the details are finalised, we must ensure this deal protects American users from the influence and surveillance of CCP-aligned (Chinese Communist Party) groups,” said US Representatives Brett Guthrie, Gus Bilirakis and Richard Hudson, all Republicans.
The agreement on TikTok’s US operations includes the appointment by ByteDance of one of seven board members for the new entity, with Americans holding the other six seats, a senior White House official said on Saturday.

ByteDance would hold less than 20 per cent in TikTok US to comply with requirements set out in the 2024 law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if its US assets were not sold.

Source: CNA 

-Agencies