President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order approving a landmark divestiture of TikTok’s U.S. operations, transferring majority control to a newly formed U.S.-based joint venture. The decision ends months of political brinkmanship over the wildly popular app, which boasts nearly 170 million American users, and follows a bruising national security fight with Beijing-based parent company ByteDance Ltd.

Trump declared that the deal “adequately addresses national security concerns” raised by lawmakers and intelligence officials. His order emphasized that U.S. partners will control TikTok’s algorithms, source code and content-moderation powers, cutting off China’s direct influence over the platform.

ByteDance Reduced to Minority Role

According to the order, ByteDance will hold less than 20% of the new entity, while a coalition of American investors—reportedly including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz—is expected to take the dominant share.

Safeguards embedded in the deal mandate that all U.S. user data be housed on Oracle’s cloud servers, with rigorous government oversight of software updates, algorithmic adjustments and data flows.

“These safeguards,” Trump wrote, “will protect the American people from misuse of their data and foreign influence, while allowing creators and businesses that rely on TikTok to thrive.”

The divestiture extends beyond TikTok, also sweeping in ByteDance-owned apps Lemon8 and CapCut, which will now be subject to the same U.S. oversight.

From Shutdown Threats to Survival Deal

The move follows Congress’ April 2024 passage of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which gave ByteDance a deadline to sell or face a total U.S. ban. The Supreme Court upheld the law, setting January 2025 as the make-or-break date.

In January, TikTok, Lemon8 and CapCut went dark for 12 hours, signaling ByteDance’s compliance as Trump weighed his options. A string of executive orders from Trump postponed enforcement, culminating in Thursday’s dramatic greenlight.

Vice President JD Vance said the new U.S.-led company will be valued at roughly $14 billion, underscoring the scale of the transfer.

The Global Stakes

The White House confirmed earlier this week that Oracle will safeguard personal data and help retrain TikTok’s recommendation algorithm to ensure independence from Chinese engineering teams.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week in Madrid that the U.S. and China had agreed to a commercial framework paving the way for the deal before the extended deadline.

For Trump, the decision was framed as a win-win: TikTok survives for millions of American fans and creators, while Washington claims a firewall against Chinese influence.

“The proposed divestiture,” Trump concluded in his order, “will allow the millions of Americans who enjoy TikTok every day to continue using it while protecting national security.”