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President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday authorizing a U.S.-led group of investors to purchase the American operations of TikTok, separating the popular video-sharing app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Under the agreement, U.S. software firm Oracle will lead the investor group, which also includes private equity firm Silver Lake, according to Fox News. The group will hold a majority share, while ByteDance will retain a 20 percent stake. Other existing shareholders, including global investment firms, will own the remaining shares.
“The divestiture proposed in the Framework Agreement resolves these national security concerns and complies with the Act because it removes the TikTok application and certain other applications from the ‘control’ of a foreign adversary and precludes any ‘operational relationship’ between a formerly affiliated entity controlled by a foreign adversary and the new joint venture,” the executive order stated.
Vice President JD Vance praised the deal as a way to keep TikTok available to users in the United States while addressing national security concerns over data privacy. Oracle is expected to provide security for the platform’s U.S. operations.
“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, both because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s a legal requirement of the law that was passed last year by Congress,” Vance said in the Oval Office.
Vance added that TikTok’s U.S. business is estimated to be worth $14 billion.
The deal avoids a nationwide ban on the app, which had been threatened over concerns that TikTok’s Chinese ownership posed risks to U.S. user data. The Biden administration had previously faced criticism for failing to resolve the issue during its tenure, while Trump has made it a priority in his second term.
