Donald Trump approves proposed deal to put TikTok under US ownership. Here’s what we know.
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 group of investors to buy the app from China’s ByteDance, though the deal is not yet finalised 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”.
President Joe Biden signed legislation passed by Congress last year that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance sold its US 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 finalise 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 per cent of US 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 US-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.”
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 finalised, the investment group’s controlling stake in the new venture would be around 80 per cent. While ByteDance is expected to have a stake in the new venture, it would be less than 20 per cent — a portion of the ownership reserved for foreign investors. The board running the new platform would be controlled by US investors. ByteDance will be represented by one person on the board, but that individual will be excluded from any security-related matters.
Source: Euronews