Progress Continues on Trump's TikTok Agreement

Back in September, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aiming to finalize a deal to disengage TikTok's operations within the US from its parent company. Now, after several months, this agreement appears to be inching closer to fruition.

CEO's Announcement on the Agreement

Bloomberg reports that TikTok's CEO, Shou Chew, informed staff that both TikTok and ByteDance have agreed on the terms for transferring TikTok's US business operations. The conditions closely align with those previously announced by President Trump earlier this year. In this new establishment, American investors such as Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will hold the majority stake, whereas ByteDance will retain a considerably smaller portion.

Future Operations of the US Entity

The arrangement aims to come into effect by January 22, 2026. Shou Chew, in a company memo, indicated that the newly formed US joint venture would continue basing its operations on the existing TikTok US Data Security (USDS) infrastructure, functioning autonomously with authority over data protection, algorithm integrity, content management, and software guarantees. TikTok currently hasn't issued any public response to inquiries about this development.

Uncertain Stance of Chinese Authorities

Despite earlier assurances from Trump that China was on board with the deal, the actual position of the Chinese government remains ambiguous. Since September, subsequent dialogues have led to rather non-specific declarations. In October, an official statement from China's Ministry of Commerce mentioned cooperating with the US to amicably resolve pending issues regarding TikTok.

If the agreement is completed in the coming month, it will occur almost a year after Trump's initial order, which aimed to either sell or prohibit the app, was initially postponed. Since then, there have been several extensions to this executive order.