Trump postpones the application of the law, complaints in agreement to sell American application operations
Tiktok US is about to obtain a new property structure – and a new application for American users – if the very calm efforts of the Trump administration to conclude an agreement to comply with a law prohibiting Chinese application control.
President Donald Trump, speaking with journalists outside the White House on Tuesday, said: “We have an agreement on Tiktok. I have entered into an agreement with China.” He said there are “very large companies who want to buy it”. Trump said he was going to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday “to confirm everything”.
Given that the agreement is not yet final, Trump has postponed the application with his 90 -day Tiktok Diss -Or Ban Tiktok – the fourth time he did – with the new deadline of December 16.
Trump has not provided details on the new potential owners of US Tiktok. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Tiktok American companies are held and controlled by an investor consortium, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz. In addition, current investors in Bytedance, notably Susquehanna International, KKR and General Atlantic, would be part of the 80%property group. Chinese shareholders, including Bytedance, should hold the rest, according to the newspaper report, citing anonymous sources. The new Tiktok US company has an American predominance board of directors which includes a member designated by the United States government, according to the WSJ report.
US and Chinese officials met for commercial negotiations in Madrid on Monday, where the first Chinese commercial negotiator Li Chenggang told journalists that the two parties had reached a basic “basic consensus” for an agreement to keep Tiktok available in the United States, according to a Reuters report.
The representatives of Tiktok and Bytedance did not respond to requests for comments.
Under an American law which entered into force on January 19, 2025, it is illegal for American companies to welcome or distribute Tiktok in the country as long as it remains controlled by the Chinese parent company bytedance. The legislation was adopted last year with bipartisan support overwhelming at the congress, fearing that the links of the popular video entertainment application with the Chinese communist regime is making a risk of national security. He was promulgated by President Biden.
The Trump administration has tried to conclude an agreement to restructure ownership of the United States in a way that complies with the law while being an arrangement that the Chinese government will approve.
Bytedance said that 60% of its property is represented by global institutional investors, notably Blackrock, General Atlantic and Susquehanna, with 20% held by its Chinese founders and 20% by employees, including those in the United States. US law for disinvesting or bank prohibits the distribution of any application in which companies or individuals located in a country which is a “foreign opponent” for the United States “directly or indirectly” at least a 20%participation.
The transfer of ownership would require current American users of Tiktok to download and install a new application, which will be entirely distinct from the application as it exists in the rest of the world, according to the newspaper. The American version of the application will have a content recommendation algorithm that uses Bytedance license technology, while Oracle will continue to manage and host Tiktok American data.
Trump, in the last months of his first administration, tried without success to ban Tiktok unless his property was transferred to American companies. But after the 2024 elections, Trump said: “I have a warm place in my heart for Tiktok”, because “there are those who say”, the application helped support young voters.
