Trump’s Assurance on TikTok’s Future

On Friday, President Trump reassured Americans that the future of TikTok in the U.S. won’t be decided by Beijing.

He announced an extension of the deadline for TikTok’s sale or ban to December 16, encouraging plans for the app to be under U.S. investors. However, he didn’t address specific questions about the relationship with ByteDance’s algorithm. When asked about accepting a deal that would allow him to influence China’s management of TikTok’s algorithm, Trump mentioned ongoing negotiations but stressed that U.S. stakeholders would dictate the terms.

“Everything is in progress. We have significant control. We have American investors who truly love our country,” he shared.

Trump also praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, highlighting what he characterized as a productive relationship.

He said, “I want to thank President Xi for being a gentleman. We’ve maintained a solid relationship, and many people here wanted to keep it open.” Reflecting on past elections, he added, “If it hadn’t remained open, I might have won even more, but we still garnered a lot of votes—especially from younger Republicans.”

The new arrangement will see a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations going to a group of investors led by Oracle, reducing ByteDance’s shares to below 20%. Reports indicate this U.S. coalition includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, with additional involvement from KKR and the Atlantic General.

Negotiators are currently discussing the possibility of either licensing ByteDance’s algorithms to U.S. applications or developing a domestic version that uses different algorithms and training data. In fact, reports suggest that TikTok has already started working on a U.S. app with independent data storage and new algorithms.