Trump signs executive order supporting proposed deal to put TikTok under
US ownership
[September 26, 2025]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order
Thursday that he says will allow TikTok to continue operating in the
United States in a way that meets national security concerns.
Trump's order will enable an American-led of group of investors to buy
the app from China's ByteDance, though the deal is not yet finalized and
also requires China's approval.
Much is still unknown about the actual deal in the works, but Trump said
at a White House signing ceremony Thursday that Chinese leader Xi
Jinping has agreed to move forward with it.
Vice President JD Vance added that “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."
The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to an
Associated Press inquiry seeking confirmation of China’s approval.
President Joe Biden signed legislation passed by Congress last year that
would ban TikTok unless ByteDance sold its U.S. assets to an American
company by early this year. Trump has repeatedly signed orders that have
allowed TikTok to keep operating in the U.S. as his administration tries
to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.
The executive order itself is a declaration by the president that the
proposed deal meets the security concerns laid out in that law. And it
gives all negotiating parties an additional 120-day reprieve in order to
finalize it.
Young people especially “really wanted this to happen,” Trump said.
Any major change to the popular video platform could have a huge impact
on how Americans — particularly young adults and teenagers — consume
information online.
About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news
from TikTok, higher than any other social media app including YouTube,
Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report
published Thursday.
Asked if he’d want a U.S.-owned TikTok algorithm to suggest more content
promoting his Make America Great Again movement, Trump said he’d make it
“100% MAGA” if he felt he could, but he intends for “every philosophy,
every policy” to be “treated right.”
Vance said the deal ensures that “American investors will actually
control the algorithm” that determines the content seen on the social
media app. He said more information about the deal will be revealed in
the coming weeks.
Who will control the new TikTok venture?
Under the terms of the deal that have so far been revealed by the White
House, the app will be spun off into a new U.S. joint venture owned by a
consortium of American investors — including tech giant Oracle and
investment firm Silver Lake Partners.
Though the details have yet to be finalized, the investment group’s
controlling stake in the new venture would be around 80%. While
ByteDance is expected to have a stake in the new venture, it would be
less than 20% — a portion of the ownership reserved for foreign
investors. The board running the new platform would be controlled by
U.S. investors. ByteDance will be represented by one person on the
board, but that individual will be excluded from any security-related
matters.
TikTok’s new owners include many whose business or political interests
are tied to Trump, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Rupert
Murdoch, raising questions about whether political influence will be
exerted into the platform.
Although he stepped down as Oracle’s CEO more than a decade ago, Ellison
remains heavily involved as chairman and chief technology officer. Now
81, he could be in line to become a behind-the-scenes media power
player, having already helped finance Skydance’s recently completed
merger with Paramount, a deal engineered by his son, David.
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President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order regarding
TikTok in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Sept. 25,
2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
 Trump said Dell founder Michael Dell
will also be an investor in the new venture.
TikTok users could now “get the editorial policies of the people who
now have control of the company,” said David Greene, civil liberties
director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ”It won’t be 100%
MAGA. The question is how it will treat criticism of him and people
he likes."
What we know about the algorithm powering the platform
The recommendation algorithm that has steered millions of users into
an endless stream of video shorts has been central in the security
debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must
remain under Chinese control by law. But a U.S. regulation that
Congress passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of
TikTok must mean the platform cut ties with ByteDance.
American officials previously warned the algorithm — which is a
complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to
deliver content to your feed — is vulnerable to manipulation by
Chinese authorities, but no evidence has ever been presented by U.S.
officials showing that China has attempted to do so.
Trump's order says that a licensed copy of ByteDance's algorithm —
"retrained" solely with U.S. data — will power the new U.S. version
of the app. The joint venture will control and monitor the code and
all content-moderation decisions. Administration officials say the
retraining will nullify any risk of Chinese interference and
influence.
It's not clear if the U.S. version of TikTok would be a different
experience than what users in the rest of the world are used to. Any
noticeable changes made to a social media platform’s service raises
the risk of alienating its audience, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst
for the research firm eMarketer.
In a prime example of how a change of control can reshape a
once-popular social media platform, billionaire Elon Musk triggered
an almost immediate backlash after he completed his takeover of
Twitter nearly three years ago.
But Musk made extremely visible changes, including changing its name
to X, pulling back on its content moderation and adding exclusive
features for paid subscribers. The changes that gradually occur
while different data is fed into the U.S. copy of TikTok’s algorithm
could be unnoticeable to most of its audience.
“Social media is just as much about the culture as it is the
technology, and how users will take to new ownership and potentially
a new version of the app is still an open question,” Enberg said.
What motivated China to make this deal
Beijing once called the demand that TikTok be spun off from its
Chinese parent company an act of “robbery,” but Chinese officials
changed their tune as the U.S.-China trade war progressed.
A TikTok deal would allow China to keep the ball rolling on trade
negotiations, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the
Washington-based think tank Stimson Center. “TikTok alone does not
compare with the importance of amicable U.S.-China relations.”
Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science at
Syracuse University, argues that Beijing is more interested in
retaining access to U.S. technology and services, at least in the
short term, so it can build up self-sufficiency in semiconductor,
artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
“That is the front line of technological competition,” Gueorguiev
said. “TikTok, by contrast, is a maturing consumer app with
diminishing strategic weight.”
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