Trump signs order to facilitate TikTok deal

President Donald Trump signed an order to facilitate a deal creating a new entity to operate TikTok within the U.S.

The Sept. 25 order says under a "framework agreement" presented to Trump, "TikTok's United States application will be operated by a newly established joint venture based in the United States."

Current TikTok parent company ByteDance Ltd., based in China, and its affiliates will own less than 20% of the new entity, with the remainder held by investors not named in the executive order.

"This is going to be American operated all the way," Trump said at the White House when he signed the order.

Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. entity will be valued at $14 billion.

Vance said the administration will announce who is involved in the deal in the days to come. "Oracle is playing a very big part," Trump said. Oracle is a U.S.-based information technology company. 

The order says the U.S. attorney general will receive any information from the new joint venture on behalf of the U.S.  government.

In 2024, President Joe Biden signed a law with bipartisan support that would have banned TikTok in the U.S. on Jan. 19, 2025, unless ByteDance sold the app to a U.S. company. Lawmakers passed the law in response to security concerns about ByteDance. Since taking office, Trump has signed executive orders every few months to push back that original deadline. 

Trump's order says the framework agreement meets the terms of the 2024 law and resolves the national security concerns.

In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok, but in 2024 he changed his position, mirroring a public shift. 

"We love TikTok. I'm going to save TikTok," Trump told reporters in June 2024. 

We will revisit this promise when the companies involved announce the completion of the deal, but for now we rate this In the Works.

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