The Trump administration says it has brokered a deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., which the president is expected to sign Thursday, a White House official said.
As reported earlier this week, Oracle Corp. will serve as the app’s data and security provider, which, together with private-equity firm Silver Lake, will own a combined 80%, leaving TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese tech giant ByteDance Ltd., with just 20%.
A senior White House official said Mr. Trump will declare the agreement a “qualified divestiture,” meeting a congressional mandate that TikTok’s parent company divest or face a ban. The announcement is expected in his fifth executive order, which delays enforcement of the bipartisan law for 120 days to finalize how the app will operate in the U.S.
The official explained that under the deal, ByteDance will lose its influence over the app’s recommendation algorithm, which will now be retrained to run on U.S. servers. That could placate the app’s former critics who saw it as a threat to U.S. national security, a possible spying apparatus for the Chinese Communist Party, or an instrument of propaganda – something TikTok always strenuously denied.
Oracle will provide “top-to-bottom security” by storing American user data and reviewing TikTok’s code to verify that its algorithm functions appropriately and safely. Meanwhile, the door will be firmly closed to China, whose officials will not be able to access U.S. user data.
The new TikTok will have a seven-member board of directors, possibly including Oracle Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Michael Dell, and possibly Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch of Fox Corp. The billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen might also be involved.
“We feel 100% confident that this proposal, if it’s completed, complies with the law,” the official said. However, TikTok has yet to respond to the media about the deal, and China has also been reticent.
If the deal goes ahead, the 170 million American users and those who use it for business should be content. No U.S. leader would want to take away such a cherished toy on their watch.
Yet there has still been criticism from the press, with The Guardian asking if it’s better that TikTok is run out of Communist China or by “a consortium of Trump-supporting billionaires.” For the Atlantic, the deal is part of a “MAGA Media Takeover.” And for Reason, TikTok was never a threat in the first place, the deal merely a ”power grab for the White House… Democratic or Republican.”
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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