President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday declaring that his plan to sell Chinese-owned TikTok’s US operations to US and global investors will address the national security requirements in a 2024 law.
The new US company will be valued at around $14 billion, Vice President JD Vance said, putting a price tag on the popular short video app far below some analyst estimates.
Trump on Thursday delayed until January 20 enforcement of the law that bans the app unless its Chinese owners sell it 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 would 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 operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture.
Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had indicated approval of the plans. “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.”
China’s foreign ministry on Friday reiterated that the government “respects the will of enterprises and welcomes them to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules to reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and achieve a balance of interests”.
“We hope the US will provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies investing in the United States,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a press conference, without giving further details of the deal.
TikTok did not immediately comment on Trump’s action.
Trump has credited TikTok, which has 170 million US users, with helping him win reelection 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 $14 billion valuation.
TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, currently values itself at more than $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 $30 billion to $40bn without the algorithm as of April 2025.
Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the executive order left unanswered questions, including whether ByteDance would 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.
Chinese media on Friday also painted a different picture of the TikTok agreement, suggesting ByteDance would continue to play a major or operational role.
ByteDance will set up a new US company as part of the restructuring of TikTok’s US operations, Chinese media outlet LatePost reported, citing sources.
The new company to be set up by ByteDance will be responsible for e-commerce, branding operations and interconnection with international operations, the report said.
The report also said the joint venture, as described by the White House and valued at $14 billion, would be responsible for US digital security, safeguarding content and software as well as related local businesses.
Another Chinese financial magazine, Caixin, also reported, citing people close to the deal, that ByteDance planned to set up a TikTok US entity that will receive some revenue from the new TikTok joint venture.
Both reports were taken down from their respective websites later on Friday. The White House and ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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 30pc 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 50pc 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 45pc ownership.
MGX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the CNBC report.
Republican House of Representatives lawmakers said they wanted to see more details of the deal to ensure it represented 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 groups,” said US Representatives Brett Guthrie, Gus Bilirakis and Richard Hudson.
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 20pc in TikTok US to comply with requirements set out in the 2024 law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if ByteDance did not sell its US assets.
