TikTok: US moves for ownership as Donald Trump signs order

TikTok: US moves for ownership as Donald Trump signs order

Donald Trump has signed an executive order on TikTok, which will allow the app to continue to operate in the United States.

The US president held talks with China’s President Xi Jinping last week – where the pair discussed the final terms of a deal.

The app was ordered to shut down for American users by January 2025 if its Chinese owner – Beijing-based tech firm ByteDance – didn’t sell its assets in the country.

The ban was delayed four times by Mr Trump.

The deal, which vice president JD Vance said was valued at around $14bn (£10.5bn), will see TikTok‘s US operations run by a new joint-venture company, with ByteDance holding less than 20% of the stock, a senior White House official said prior to the deal being signed.

“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,” Mr Vance said.

Mr Trump said: “I spoke with President Xi. We had a good talk, I told him what we were doing, and he said go ahead with it.”

American officials have previously warned that TikTok’s algorithm – a complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to deliver content to people’s feeds – is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities.

However, no evidence has ever been presented by US officials showing that Beijing has attempted to do this.

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Concerns have also been raised about user data being shared with the Chinese government – something ByteDance has said it does not and would never do.

Mr Trump attempted to ban TikTok during his first term in the White House, but has repeatedly credited the app, which has 170 million US users, with helping him win re-election.

The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.

Mr Trump said media mogul Rupert Murdoch and “probably four or five absolutely world-class investors” would be part of the deal.

This also includes Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Both Mr Ellison and Mr Murdoch have political and business ties to Mr Trump, raising fresh questions about potential political influence on the platform.

Questions still remain over how the deal works, but Mr Trump said China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has approved it.

Around 43% of US adults under the age of 30 say they regularly consume news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Centre report.

TikTok: US moves for ownership as Donald Trump signs order

Skynews