After months of rumors and political back-and-forths, we finally have some more concrete details about a TikTok sale.
On Monday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the US is endorsing a bid from a consortium of majority US investors who will own and operate TikTok in the US. On Sunday, President Donald Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing” that a slew of billionaires are expected to be involved in the deal, including Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and, potentially, the Murdochs.
After the sale, which is expected to be finalized this week, TikTok users in the US will still be able to see videos from the rest of the world, and vice versa, Leavitt said.
Oracle will serve as the data and security provider for TikTok in the US, which it’s already doing. After a sale, Oracle would also oversee a carved-off version of TikTok’s algorithm in partnership with the US government. The algorithm would be “retrained and operated in the United States outside of ByteDance’s control,” Leavitt said.
On Friday, Trump said the US government expects to receive a fee for facilitating the TikTok sale. The US will not receive an equity stake.
TikTok came up for sale this year due to a divest-or-ban law that passed in 2024 and required ByteDance to separate from its US app. ByteDance was founded in China, a country the US has deemed a foreign adversary. US lawmakers have worried that TikTok could be compelled to share US user data with the Chinese Communist Party, or that it’s algorithm could be wielded for CCP propaganda.
TikTok has previously said it doesn’t share information with the Chinese government and that its content-moderation team “operates independently from China.”
On Friday, Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping spoke about allowing the sale of TikTok’s US assets to go forward. Following the call, ByteDance issued a statement thanking the leaders “for their efforts to preserve TikTok in the United States.” The company said it would “work in accordance with applicable laws to ensure TikTok remains available to American users through TikTok US.”
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