President Donald Trump’s deal to keep TikTok operating in the US may finally come together soon, with a senior White House official saying that he’ll sign an executive order later this week to approve a proposed agreement.
The official said TikTok’s US operations will be run by a joint-venture company and majority-owned by US investors, and that the company would lease TikTok’s powerful algorithm from ByteDance.
The White House official insisted the algorithm would be “secured, retrained, and operated in the United States outside of ByteDance’s control,” but the arrangement will raise concerns from China hawks. “Leasing the algorithm from ByteDance will leave it under Beijing’s control,” the Hudson Institute’s Michael Sobolik told Semafor.
The deal remains unconfirmed by the Chinese side; a Chinese readout of Trump’s Friday call with Xi Jinping said nothing about a finalized agreement. According to the White House official, Trump plans to sign an order further extending the deadline for TikTok’s sale for 120 days to “allow this proposed transaction to close.”