In a move that’s turned heads across both Wall Street and Washington, Donald Trump has orchestrated a high-profile deal allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States—albeit under a new American-led ownership structure. The agreement, which was formalized by an executive order Trump signed on September 25, 2025, represents a dramatic twist in the ongoing saga over the popular video-sharing app’s fate. With Oracle, Silver Lake, and a cadre of Trump-aligned investors at the helm, the deal promises to reshape not only the future of TikTok but also the broader landscape of U.S. media, technology, and geopolitics.
According to the Associated Press, the executive order grants a 120-day reprieve for all parties to finalize a deal that would see a consortium of American investors acquire a controlling stake—roughly 80%—in TikTok’s U.S. operations. ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, would retain less than 20%, a stake reserved for foreign investors. The board of the new joint venture would be controlled by U.S. investors, with ByteDance holding just one seat, notably excluded from any security-related decisions. Trump announced at the White House signing ceremony that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had agreed to move forward with the plan, though as of the article’s publication, the Chinese embassy in Washington had not officially confirmed this.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking at the event, emphasized that the deal was crafted to “keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law.” He added, “American investors will actually control the algorithm” that determines what content users see on the app. This is a central concern for U.S. officials, who have long warned about the potential for Chinese authorities to manipulate TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm, though no direct evidence of such interference has ever been presented.
Under the terms laid out by the White House, the new U.S. TikTok will use a licensed copy of ByteDance’s algorithm, but it will be “retrained” solely with American data. The joint venture will oversee both the code and all content-moderation decisions, a move the administration claims will nullify any risk of Chinese influence. “The fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law,” Vance reiterated, according to AP.
Yet, the deal’s details remain fluid. While Trump and his allies tout the arrangement as a win for American security and business, some analysts and commentators are skeptical. As the South China Morning Post notes, the agreement may look like a victory for the United States, but it still leaves China with significant leverage over TikTok. The deal, the paper argues, could be “President Xi Jinping’s biggest strategic triumph yet,” as ByteDance remains the single largest shareholder in the U.S. operation and global investors already own a majority of ByteDance itself.
Adding another layer of intrigue: the financial windfall the deal brings to the Trump administration. The South China Morning Post reports that the settlement includes a multibillion-dollar payment from investors, effectively serving as a fee for brokering the deal with the Chinese. This aspect, while not the primary focus of U.S. national security concerns, underscores the transactional nature of the negotiations and the high stakes involved for all parties.
For Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), the TikTok deal marks a potentially transformative moment. As reported by Simply Wall St, DJT stock has experienced a rollercoaster year—climbing 15% over the past twelve months, yet dropping 5% year-to-date and nearly 6% in the last three months. The recent news has given shares a bump, but analysts caution that the company’s current valuation may be running ahead of its fundamentals. DJT trades at a Price-to-Book ratio of 2.1x, well above the U.S. Interactive Media and Services industry average of 1.4x, suggesting that investors are paying a premium in anticipation of future growth or profitability. However, the company is still posting net losses and lacks consistent revenue growth, a combination that raises red flags about whether this optimism is justified.
According to Simply Wall St, the fair value estimate for DJT is $16.93, indicating that the stock is currently overvalued. The firm’s discounted cash flow (DCF) model could not provide a reliable fair value “due to insufficient data,” highlighting the uncertainty that still surrounds DJT’s business prospects. The analysis concludes that, “continued net losses and the absence of consistent revenue growth remain key risks that could present challenges to optimism around DJT’s current valuation.”
Despite these financial headwinds, the TikTok deal could give DJT a powerful new platform—one that already commands the attention of millions of young Americans. According to a Pew Research Center report cited by AP, about 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 regularly get news from TikTok, a higher share than any other social media app, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Any major change to TikTok’s ownership or editorial policies could have a huge impact on how Americans, especially young adults and teenagers, consume information online.
Trump, for his part, has hinted at the potential for TikTok to amplify his own political messaging. Asked whether he would want a U.S.-owned TikTok algorithm to promote his Make America Great Again movement, he quipped that he’d make it “100% MAGA” if he could, but insisted that “every philosophy, every policy” should be “treated right.” Civil liberties advocates, such as David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have raised concerns about how the new ownership might handle criticism of Trump or his allies. “It won’t be 100% MAGA,” Greene said. “The question is how it will treat criticism of him and people he likes.”
The deal also brings together some of the biggest names in American business and media. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Silver Lake’s Michael Dell, and media moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are all reported to be investors in the new TikTok venture. Ellison, now 81, could become a behind-the-scenes media power broker, having recently helped finance Skydance’s merger with Paramount, a deal engineered by his son, David.
Still, the road ahead is anything but clear. As Jasmine Enberg, an analyst for eMarketer, told AP, “Social media is just as much about the culture as it is the technology, and how users will take to new ownership and potentially a new version of the app is still an open question.” She pointed to Elon Musk’s tumultuous takeover of Twitter as a cautionary tale, noting that even subtle changes to a platform’s algorithm or moderation policies can spark backlash—or go largely unnoticed.
Meanwhile, the broader context of U.S.-China relations looms large. Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, suggested that Beijing’s willingness to approve the deal may be driven by a desire to keep trade negotiations on track. “TikTok alone does not compare with the importance of amicable U.S.-China relations,” she said. Dimitar Gueorguiev, a political science professor at Syracuse University, argued that China is more focused on retaining access to U.S. technology and services, seeing TikTok as a “maturing consumer app with diminishing strategic weight.”
For now, the TikTok deal stands as a testament to the tangled web of politics, business, and technology in the 21st century. Whether it marks a new era of American media dominance or simply a temporary truce in the U.S.-China tech rivalry remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: the eyes of the world will be watching as the story continues to unfold.
