Trump signs TikTok deal after ‘very good talk’ with President Xi
WASHINGTON — TikTok will keep on ticking.
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday approving the transfer of the wildly popular video platform’s US operations to a consortium of American-based investors — noting he did so after a “very good talk with President Xi.”
Trump, who plans to meet Xi in South Korea on the sidelines next month’s APEC summit, told reporters in the Oval Office “we have great American investors” prepared to take over TikTok, but did not name all of them.
The president did highlight the role of Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison and said that Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch — the founder of News Corp, the parent company of The Post — were expected to be involved.
“I spoke with President Xi,” Trump said. “We had a good talk. I told him what we were doing and he said, ‘Go ahead with it.’”
Trump, 79, vowed that the newly American-run TikTok would treat “every philosophy” fairly — after complaints from US leaders that anti-US content got top billing while the platform was run by Chinese company ByteDance.
“If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would, but it’s not going to work out that way. Unfortunately, no, everyone’s going to be treated fairly,” Trump said.
“Every group, every philosophy, every policy will be treated very fairly.”
Vice President JD Vance, who joined Trump for the Oval Office event, said that TikTok’s algorithm in the US will now be controlled by the American investors — clarifying the “lease” of the technology outlined in the deal.
“What this deal ensures is that the American entity and the American investors will actually control the algorithm,” Vance said.
“We don’t want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government. We want to make sure that our people and our investors actually make these decisions based on what’s good for their business, as opposed to what’s good for another government’s propaganda arms.”
Former President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation in April 2024 that gave ByteDance the option of reducing its stake in TikTok to 20% or facing a blanket ban inside the United States.
The deal serves as a workaround after both Biden and Trump delayed implementation of the ban, with Trump arguing it would increase the power of US social media giants to censor political content.
The executive order asserts that “the divestiture of the applications outlined in the Framework Agreement, once its implementation agreements are executed, is a ‘qualified divestiture’ under the Act.”