TikTok might not finalize its deal to sell its US operations for at least another month. Sources tell CNBC’s David Faber that the US and China might close on an agreement within the next 30 to 45 days, while Oracle will remain the app’s cloud partner, allowing it to continue routing US user data on American servers.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that the US and China have reached a “framework deal” for TikTok. He added that President Donald Trump would confirm the deal on Friday — two days after TikTok’s latest deadline to divest expires. Trump has already given TikTok three extensions to negotiate a deal, and it’s unclear whether he’ll grant TikTok another while the company finalizes an agreement.
TikTok’s future in the US became shrouded in uncertainty after the federal government passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which mandates that TikTok must divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a ban in the US due to national security concerns.
On Tuesday, The Information reported that the US and China have reached an agreement on the “licensing of TikTok’s algorithms and other intellectual property rights.” Previous reports suggested that TikTok could launch a separate version of its app for US users. As noted by CNBC, a group of investment firms, including some existing ByteDance shareholders, could gain control of TikTok’s US operations. Trump confirmed on Tuesday that “we have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” according to Reuters.
“’I’m hearing it’s [the deal] actually going to be relatively small in terms of the actual size of the checks that are written for the entity itself, and it will not be something that is going to go public at some point,” Faber said during CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.
Update, September 16th: Added a statement from Trump.
