In a move that signals both urgency and uncertainty in the ongoing U.S.-China tech standoff, TikTok has appointed Ziad Ojakli—a veteran of Boeing, Ford, SoftBank, and the George W. Bush White House—as its new Head of Public Policy for the Americas. According to Reuters and Axios, Ojakli will step into his new role on December 1, 2025, just as the video platform’s U.S. operations face a court-mandated transfer to American ownership. Michael Beckerman, who previously held the post, will shift to a global advisory role after his departure was announced in April.
This leadership shakeup comes as TikTok confronts a critical deadline imposed by the 2024 TikTok Ban Act, which requires parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S. business or face a ban. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law in January 2025, cementing the legal imperative for ByteDance to relinquish control. The stakes are high: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pegged the value of TikTok’s U.S. entity at roughly $14 billion, and tech giants Oracle and private equity firm Silver Lake are reportedly set to acquire about half of the U.S. stake.
Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, expressed optimism about the transition, stating, “Ziad will lead our mission to build a trusted platform through proactive communication, education, and transparency.” Chew also praised Beckerman for his role in resisting U.S. government ban measures, describing him as “a key figure in fighting against the U.S. government’s ban measures.”
The appointment of Ojakli, who brings deep experience from both the public and private sectors, is widely interpreted as a strategic move to navigate the treacherous waters of U.S. regulatory scrutiny and political pressure. As The Asia Business Daily notes, this change at the top of TikTok’s government affairs team is a clear response to the ticking clock on the forced sale of its American business.
But the TikTok saga is just one front in a broader battle over technology, security, and geopolitics. As highlighted in a recent analysis by Justin Sherman, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Trump administration’s approach to Chinese technology has been marked by dizzying reversals. The administration initially took a hard line against the sale of Nvidia’s powerful H20 AI chips to China on national security grounds, only to later reverse course and accelerate those sales in exchange for a share of the profits. At the same time, chip sales to Saudi Arabia are poised to grow, even as China’s influence in the region deepens.
This pattern of policy flip-flopping, Sherman argues, is disastrous for U.S. credibility. “Flip-flopping on U.S. policy toward Chinese tech is a terrible move. It creates long-term strategic vulnerability for the United States, undermining U.S. credibility on the security risks of Chinese technology,” Sherman writes. Allies and adversaries alike, he warns, are learning that they may only have to wait out the latest American position for a more favorable shift to occur.
The TikTok ban drama has been particularly emblematic of these mixed signals. Trump’s first administration pushed aggressively for a ban on TikTok, citing national security threats posed by ByteDance’s Chinese ownership. Congress passed a bipartisan bill to effectuate the ban, and the Supreme Court upheld it. Yet, enforcement lagged, and the administration spent months apparently ignoring the law it had championed. In September 2024, after a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump announced that a deal had been reached to sell TikTok’s U.S. business rights and signed an executive order paving the way for American investors to take over the platform’s U.S. operations.
Following a U.S.-China summit in late October 2025, Secretary Bessent declared, “The TikTok deal is essentially finalized, as it has received approval from the Chinese government,” and indicated that the sale process would proceed within weeks or months. The deal, as currently reported, would allow ByteDance and Chinese investors to retain about 20 percent of TikTok, with Oracle and Silver Lake among the major American stakeholders. However, the oversight of TikTok’s core algorithm remains murky, and critics argue that U.S. data security protections are insufficiently robust.
These policy reversals have not gone unnoticed by U.S. allies. As Sherman points out, “The United States has similarly flip-flopped on TikTok with harmful effects. After gunning for the ByteDance-owned app in the first Trump administration, senior officials have now decided that TikTok, evidently, does not pose as great a risk as originally claimed.” This inconsistency, he contends, has made it harder for the U.S. to persuade partners in Europe and elsewhere to take seriously the national security risks posed by Chinese tech firms.
There’s a historical echo here. During the 2018 campaign against Huawei, the U.S. government’s shifting rhetoric—oscillating between security warnings and trade deal overtures—undermined its credibility, even with close allies like the United Kingdom. It took years for London to join Washington in banning Huawei’s 5G equipment, a delay attributed in part to skepticism over whether U.S. security concerns were genuine or simply bargaining chips.
For Sherman and others, the lesson is clear: “Credibility is the currency that enables robust U.S. mitigation of Chinese tech risks—and flip-flopping burns credibility every day.” Without consistent, principled policies, the U.S. risks finding itself isolated in future efforts to restrict the flow of sensitive technology to China or to build multilateral coalitions against emerging digital threats. After all, if partners and adversaries alike believe that American positions are negotiable, they may hesitate to align their own policies or trust U.S. intelligence assessments.
As the TikTok sale moves forward and Ojakli prepares to take the reins of public policy for the Americas, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The outcome will not only determine the future of one of the world’s most popular social media platforms but will also serve as a litmus test for America’s ability to balance economic interests with national security imperatives in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Whether the U.S. can restore its credibility—and maintain the trust of both allies and the public—remains an open question as the world watches the next chapter of this high-stakes drama unfold.
