Trump signs order allowing U.S. control of TikTok

President Donald Trump signed the “Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security” executive order Thursday afternoon, setting up an American-majority joint business venture to take U.S. control of operations for TikTok, the video-sharing social media platform. Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring ByteDance, which owns TikTok and is based in China, to divest its app or risk having it banned in U.S. markets. After delaying enforcement of the law for nine months, Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reached a deal.

How will the plan work? Vice President J.D. Vance, who has been working on the deal for months, said that the White House will release more information on investors in the coming days. Trump said that cloud software company Oracle will play a large role in monitoring a copy of the TikTok algorithm. He said that Rupert Murdoch of Fox Corp. will also have a role, along with Michael Dell of Dell Technologies. According to the White House, a U.S. version of the app will now be run by a seven-member board stocked by representatives of five American companies, ByteDance, and the U.S. government. Vance said it meets the administration’s goals of keeping TikTok operational while also keeping American users’ data safe.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Stew on the White House creating its own TikTok account.