President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday clearing the way for the sale of TikTok’s American operations to a consortium that includes prominent Trump backers, a move that could resolve years of national security concerns over the Chinese-owned app but also raises new questions about political bias on the platform.
Among the investors are Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan of Fox Corporation, and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell—a group of Trump allies that some fear could exert their own political influence on the U.S. version of TikTok.
But speaking at the White House signing ceremony, Trump downplayed those concerns and insisted that the newly structured platform would not become an echo chamber for his own political movement. “I always like MAGA-related. If I could, I’d make it 100% MAGA related,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “But it’s not going to work out that way. Unfortunately, no, everyone’s going to be treated fairly. Every group, every philosophy, every policy, will be treated very fairly.”
The deal comes after years of warnings from national security officials that TikTok, owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, could be used by China to spy on Americans or manipulate what its 170 million U.S. users see in their feeds. Trump’s executive order is the latest step in a protracted battle to resolve those concerns while keeping the app available to its vast American audience.
The order declares the proposed arrangement a “qualified divestiture” under a bipartisan law passed by Congress last year that mandates ByteDance sell roughly 80% of its U.S. business to non-Chinese owners or face a ban in the U.S. Under the emerging arrangement, ByteDance will retain less than 20% ownership, while the consortium of American investors would control the U.S. spin-off. But while Trump’s executive order marks a milestone in a saga stretching back years, the deal remains far from finalized, with key details—including the full investor lineup and regulatory approvals—still uncertain.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who led negotiations with ByteDance, framed the agreement as a win for national security. “We wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law,” he said at the signing ceremony. “This deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than they have 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.”
He added that the restructured company would be valued at around $14 billion and stressed that “American investors will actually control the algorithm,” a central demand of lawmakers who feared the Chinese government could manipulate political discourse through the app.
The Biden Administration had previously pushed ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations, negotiating with the company on a plan that would have placed American user data under stricter domestic oversight. In 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan law passed by Congress that gave presidents the explicit power to ban or force the sale of foreign-owned apps deemed security risks—the authority Trump is now using to bless a deal that hands TikTok to a consortium of U.S. investors rather than shutting it down.
TikTok briefly went dark in the United States in January before Trump directed his administration not to enforce a pending ban on his first day back in the White House. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration and was given a prime seating location on the dais alongside key members of his cabinet and other tech leaders.
Trump spoke personally on Thursday about TikTok’s political influence, noting that he had used the app to reach younger voters during his 2024 campaign. “We got record votes with the young voters,” he said. “So I was a little bit prejudiced in that way toward TikTok—it was very good and very meaningful.”
Forty-three percent of adults under 30 get their news from TikTok, according to Pew Research Center.
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