WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday declaring that his plan to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to U.S. and global investors will address the national security requirements in a 2024 law.
The new U.S. company will be valued at around $14 billion, Vice President JD Vance said, putting a price tag on the popular short video app far below some analyst estimates.
Trump has delayed enforcement of the law that bans the app unless its Chinese owners sell it until December 16 amid efforts to extract TikTok’s U.S. assets from the global platform, line up American and other investors and win approval from the Chinese government.
The publication of the executive order shows Trump is making progress on the sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets, but numerous details need to be worked out, including who will own the new company’s most important asset, its recommendation algorithm.
“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 told reporters at an Oval Office briefing.
Trump said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping: “I spoke with President Xi. 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 a request for comment. TikTok did not immediately comment on Trump’s action.
Trump has credited TikTok, which has 170 million U.S. users, with helping him win reelection last year and has 15 million followers on his personal account. The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said.
He added that Michael Dell, Rupert Murdoch and “probably four or five absolutely world-class investors” would be part of the deal.
The White House did not discuss how it came up with the $14 billion valuation.
TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, currently values itself at more than $330 billion, according to its new employee share buyback. TikTok contributes a small percentage of the company’s total revenue.
According to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, TikTok was estimated to be worth $30 billion to $40 billion without the algorithm as of April 2025.
ORACLE AND OTHERS TO OWN TIKTOK IN THE U.S.
A group of three investors, including Oracle and private-equity firm Silver Lake, will take a roughly 50% stake in TikTok U.S., two sources familiar with the deal said on Thursday.
A group of existing shareholders in ByteDance will hold a roughly 30% stake, one of the sources said. Among ByteDance’s current investors are Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic and KKR.
Given intense investor interest in TikTok, the 50% stake may still shift, the source noted.
Oracle and Silver Lake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNBC reported earlier that Abu Dhabi-based MGX, Oracle and Silver Lake are poised to be the main investors in TikTok US with a combined 45% ownership, citing sources.
MGX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the CNBC report.
Republican House lawmakers said they want to see more details of the deal to ensure it represents a clean break with China. “As the details are finalized, we must ensure this deal protects American users from the influence and surveillance of CCP-aligned groups,” said U.S. representatives Brett Guthrie, Gus Bilirakis and Richard Hudson.
The agreement on TikTok’s U.S. operations includes ByteDance appointing one of seven board members for the new entity, with Americans holding the other six seats, a senior White House official said on Saturday.
ByteDance would hold less than 20% in TikTok US to comply with requirements set out in the 2024 law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if its U.S. assets were not sold by ByteDance.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and David Shepardson in Washington, Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis)
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