In a move poised to reshape the U.S. social media landscape, President Donald Trump is set to approve a landmark deal this week that will transfer majority control of TikTok’s American operations to a consortium of U.S. investors, while placing the app’s data security firmly under American oversight. The agreement—hammered out after months of fraught negotiations with both Chinese officials and Congress—aims to address mounting national security concerns over Chinese parent company ByteDance’s access to the data of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users.
According to a senior White House official cited by Reuters and Fox News Digital, the new joint-venture company will be based in the United States and led by a seven-member board of directors, the majority of whom must be U.S. citizens with national security and cybersecurity credentials. ByteDance’s stake will be slashed to less than 20%, in line with requirements set by a law passed last year and upheld by the Supreme Court. ByteDance will be allowed to nominate only one board member, who cannot serve as board chairman or on the data security committee.
Oracle Corp., co-founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, will serve as TikTok’s trusted security provider. The company will oversee the creation of a secure, purpose-built cloud environment in the U.S. to store all American user data, ensuring that “foreign powers, like China, will not be able to access U.S. user data,” as a senior administration official told Fox News Digital. Oracle’s responsibilities will include source code review, algorithm retraining, application development, and deployment, with continuous monitoring to guard against improper manipulation or surveillance.
At the heart of the deal lies the contentious issue of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm—the software that determines what content users see. The arrangement, as outlined by a White House official to Bloomberg, ensures that American buyers will control this algorithm in the U.S. After divesting from ByteDance, the new U.S.-based TikTok owners will lease a duplicate copy of the algorithm. Oracle will then retrain it “from the ground up,” operating and monitoring it independently to ensure it is free from foreign influence. “The algorithm will be retrained from the ground up and protected by Oracle to ensure Americans’ data is safeguarded and foreign influence is removed,” a senior official emphasized.
The agreement preserves TikTok’s global interoperability for U.S. users, meaning Americans will continue to enjoy the same global TikTok experience while their data remains securely housed within U.S. borders. “By leasing the duplicate algorithm, TikTok will be able to continue operating in the United States without disruption to users,” the White House official explained, adding that the user experience will remain uninterrupted.
President Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week to finalize the deal, extending the deadline for TikTok’s potential ban under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act by up to 120 days. This follows a series of extensions Trump has granted since taking office in January 2025, as he sought to negotiate terms that would secure both national security interests and the app’s continued presence in the U.S. Trump has been vocal about TikTok’s value—not just as a business but as a tool for political outreach, crediting the app with helping him build support among younger voters during the 2024 presidential election.
The administration claims the deal will have sweeping economic benefits. According to White House projections reported by The Wall Street Journal and Fox News Digital, the arrangement is expected to generate $178 billion in U.S. economic activity over the next four years and sustain thousands of American jobs and businesses. The government itself is set to receive a multibillion-dollar fee for orchestrating the transaction. “Saving TikTok means saving thousands of jobs and small businesses,” a senior official predicted, with the added claim that the deal could save “hundreds of billions of dollars over the next five years.”
Among the notable U.S. investors set to participate in the joint venture are media mogul Lachlan Murdoch, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. Trump praised the group as “prominent people and American patriots,” expressing confidence in their ability to steward the app’s future. “I think they’re going to do a really good job,” he said in an interview with Fox News, while also suggesting that the Murdoch family’s involvement would come through Fox Corp rather than as individual investors. Other major financial players like Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, and KKR are also involved, according to Reuters.
The deal’s structure is notable for what it does not include: the federal government will not take an equity stake or a “golden share” in TikTok, unlike recent deals involving U.S. Steel and Intel. None of the board members will be selected by the government, a senior White House official clarified during a press call reported by Bloomberg. This approach, the administration argues, respects the norms of American capitalism while still addressing bipartisan concerns in Congress about data security and foreign influence.
Those concerns were codified in a law passed last year—signed by then-President Joe Biden and surviving a Supreme Court challenge—that mandated ByteDance either divest its U.S. TikTok operations or face a ban. The law was driven by fears that the Chinese government could access American user data or manipulate the app’s powerful algorithm to influence public discourse. Trump, who says he “likes TikTok,” repeatedly extended the divest-or-ban deadline, with the latest executive order pushing the date to December 16, 2025.
Negotiations reached a turning point last week during high-level meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials in Madrid, Spain, and a phone call between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Trump announced on September 19 that Xi had “approved” the deal, though he later clarified that “we look forward to getting that deal closed.”
The TikTok saga has drawn sharp criticism from some business leaders and lawmakers, who argue that the administration’s interventions depart from traditional free-market principles and could hamper U.S. competitiveness. Still, the White House maintains that the deal strikes a careful balance between national security and economic vitality, allowing TikTok to remain a vibrant part of American digital culture while safeguarding sensitive data.
As the executive order awaits Trump’s signature, all eyes are on whether this unprecedented arrangement will set a new standard for handling foreign-owned technology platforms in the U.S.—or simply mark the latest twist in the ongoing tug-of-war over data, influence, and the future of social media.
