Trump's TikTok deal will satisfy 2024 law requirements, official says
China and US flags are seen near a TikTok logo in this illustration picture taken on Jul 16, 2020. (File photo: REUTERS/Florence Lo)
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will sign an executive order later this week that declares that a deal to divest TikTok's US operations from its Chinese owner ByteDance will meet requirements set out in a 2024 law, a White House official said on Monday (Sep 22).
The US is confident that China has approved the deal and does not plan further talks with Beijing about its details, the official told reporters on a conference call, but added that additional paperwork is required from both sides to approve the deal.
The official added that the valuation of TikTok's US assets will be "many billions of dollars".
The US government will not take a board seat or get a golden share in the new entity that will own TikTok US but it is unclear if the US government will get payments as a condition of approval.
ByteDance will own less than 20 per cent while TikTok US will be controlled by a mix of its existing US and global firms as well as a significant number of new investors who have no affiliation with ByteDance, the official said.
The full slate of investors is not yet finalised but will include major firms like Oracle and private equity firm Silver Lake.
Trump said on Sunday that media mogul Lachlan Murdoch and business leaders Larry Ellison and Michael Dell would be involved as US investors in a proposed deal to keep TikTok operating in the United States.
Trump is trying to keep the short video app with 170 million US users from being banned after Congress passed a law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if its US assets were not sold by owner ByteDance.
Trump has delayed enforcement of the law through mid-December amid efforts to extract TikTok's US assets from the global platform, line up American investors and ensure that the new ownership qualifies as a full divestiture needed under the 2024 law.
Trump's executive order will include a new 120-day enforcement pause to allow the investors and ByteDance to close the agreement, the official added.
Last week's progress toward a deal on TikTok marked a rare breakthrough in months-long talks between the world's two biggest economies that have sought to defuse a wide-ranging trade war that has unnerved global markets.
