Cybersecurity Policy Report, Deal to Wrest TikTok’s U.S. Business From Chinese Control Imminent, White House Says, (Sep 22, 2025)
A deal to transfer the U.S. assets of TikTok to a group of U.S. investors will be signed “in coming days,” and the assets to be transferred will include the valuable algorithm that recommends videos to the app’s users, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson.
“We are 100% confident that a deal is done. Now that deal just needs to be signed, and the president’s team is working with our Chinese counterparts to do just that,” Ms. Leavitt said during a Saturday appearance on Fox News.
Ms. Leavitt offered new details about the transaction, which was announced last week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent following trade and tariff talks with Chinese officials in Spain. President Trump on Friday suggested that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to the deal during a phone call (CPR, Sept. 19).
“This deal means that TikTok will be majority-owned by Americans in the United States,” Ms. Leavitt said.
“There will be seven seats on the board that controls the app in the United States, and six of those seats will be Americans. And the data and privacy will be led by one of America’s greatest tech companies, Oracle, and the algorithm also will be controlled by America,” she said.
“All of those details have already been agreed upon. Now we just need this deal to be signed, and that will be happening, I anticipate, in the coming days,” she added.
The Chinese government projected less optimism about the immediacy of the deal’s approval and didn’t confirm the details about the board’s composition or the control of the algorithm.
“The Chinese government respects the wishes of the company in question, and would be happy to see productive commercial negotiations in keeping with market rules lead to a solution that complies with China’s laws and regulations and takes into account the interests of both sides. The U.S. side needs to provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese investors,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said today during a news conference, according to a transcript.
Some members of Congress are eager to scrutinize the proposed terms of the transaction to determine if they are in compliance with the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a 2024 law that required TikTok’s owner, ByteDance Ltd., to sell TikTok’s U.S. business to an entity free of Chinese government influence or face a U.S. shutdown of TikTok.
The law required ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. assets to “qualified” buyer by last Jan. 19, but President Trump has delayed the deadline four times by executive order despite the law not allowing such delays. The current deadline set by the White House is Dec. 16.
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