The president has signed a decree to put the Chinese-owned apps US operations under the control of American companies and global investors

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order transferring TikTok's US operations to American and international investors. He said he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who reportedly told him to "go ahead with it."

TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, became widely popular with American teenagers and young adults in the late 2010s. It now counts around 170 million American users. Its rapid growth sparked concerns that Chinese law could allow Beijing to access US user data.

Trump attempted to ban the app during his first term but was blocked in US courts. TikTok was banned from US government devices in 2022, and in 2024 Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which required TikTok's Chinese owners to divest by January 2025 or face a nationwide shutdown. Since returning to office, Trump has repeatedly delayed the deadline.

On Thursday, Trump ordered that TikTok's US business be put under the control of a new American-based company. The order designates the move as a "qualified divestiture" under the 2024 law and bans any "operational relationship" with ByteDance, including cooperation on algorithms or data sharing. The divestiture deadline has been delayed to January 20, 2026.

Vice President J.D. Vance has valued the new company at $14 billion, a figure far below estimates by some analysts for TikTok's US business.

Trump said Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, and several other "world-class investors" would be part of the deal and control about half of the venture. ByteDance would retain a stake of less than 20%.

His executive order also places TikTok's recommendation algorithm under US control, with oversight by American security partners.

Trump's past divestiture attempt in 2020 was denounced by Beijing as "economic coercion." However, this time, Trump claims to have received Xi's approval. "We had a good talk, I told him what we were doing and he said go ahead with it," the US leader stated on Thursday.

Vance has said there is still some resistance from the Chinese side, but stressed that Washington is committed to keeping TikTok operational while safeguarding American data privacy.

(RT.com)