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UPDATE:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to facilitate a deal to potentially transfer ownership of the popular social media application TikTok to Americans.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said during the signing on Thursday via NBC News. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
It's not clear who the parties involved with the deal are, however, Trump confirmed that Oracle and its co-founder Larry Ellison will play a "big" role moving forward, while entrepreneur Michael Dell and media mogul Rupert Murdoch would also have involvement.
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President Donald Trump is reportedly expected to sign a deal facilitating the sale of the Chinese-based social media company TikTok to American investors on Thursday (September 25), two senior White House officials confirmed to NBC News.
The Trump administration has indicated that an agreement would be finalized between Chinese and U.S. officials for several days. A senior White House official confirmed that TikTok's U.S. operations would be run by the new joint-venture company once the deal becomes official.
ByteDance, the Chinese company that currently owns TikTok, is expected to hold less than 20% of ownership stock as part of the new deal, the White House official confirmed to NBC News. TikTok has not publicly acknowledged reports of a deal being close to an agreement.
The structure of the reported deal would adhere to a bipartisan law passed in 2024 calling for the social media application to be banned if it wasn't sold to American owners in 2025. The app had previously shut down temporarily in January, one day prior to Trump's inauguration, and went back online after the president promised not to enforce penalties against it in the law and would seek to make a deal with China to sell the platform.
Trump has extended the deadline several times in 2025 as a sale has not yet been reached, while a senior White House official confirmed Wednesday (September 24) that he will extend the pause for 120 more days in order to allow time to go through for a deal to be reached.