President Donald Trump of the United States announced his intention to sell TikTok’s US operations to domestic and foreign investors in an executive order he signed on Thursday.
Companies bidding for TikTok must comply with the national-security requirements of the 2024 law, which would otherwise ban the app unless its Chinese owners divest, according to a report published by Reuters on Friday.
TikTok valued at $14 billion
During Thursday’s briefing at the Oval Office, Vice President James Vance told reporters that the newly established US platform would be “valued around $14 billion.”
“We actually think this is a good deal for investors, but they will decide what they want to invest and what they think is the proper value,” he said.
The White House postponed the law’s enforcement date from Thursday to January 20 to accommodate the transaction, investor commitments, and talks with Chinese authorities.
The executive order’s publication shows that Trump is selling TikTok’s US assets.
Details are still to be finalised, such as how the American business would manage TikTok’s most valuable resource—its recommendation system.
“There was some resistance on the Chinese side, but 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,” Vance said.
US to retrain TikTok’s algorithm for security reasons
According to Reuters, Trump’s directive states that the new joint venture will operate the algorithm and that the U.S. company’s security partners will retrain and oversee it.
Trump claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping had expressed support for the proposals.
“I spoke with President Xi,” Trump said. “We had a good talk, I told him what we were doing, and he said go ahead with it.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment, and TikTok refrained from commenting on Trump’s action immediately.
Interested investors for TikTok’s deal
He stated that the deal would involve “probably four or five absolutely world-class investors,” including Rupert Murdoch, the chairman emeritus of Fox News, owner of Fox Corp, and newspaper publisher News Corp, and Michael Dell, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies.
With 170 million users in the US, Trump has credited TikTok with helping him win reelection last year. Trump’s personal TikTok account has 15 million followers. Last month, the White House also opened an official TikTok account.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said.