Trump Says US Has A Buyer For TikTok

The agreement requires TikTok’s American assets to be transferred to U.S. owners from China’s ByteDance, potentially resolving a saga that has lingered for nearly a year.

A deal for the popular social media app, which counts 170 million U.S. users, would represent a breakthrough in months-long talks between the two biggest economies as they seek to defuse a wide-ranging trade war that has unnerved global markets.

“We have a deal on TikTok … We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” Trump said at a White House briefing, without providing further details. The announcement comes a day before a September 17 deadline to sell or shut down the short video app.

While the broad terms are expected to remain the same, the sources did say they do not know what the final deal would exactly look like, given the potential for last-minute changes.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday the commercial terms of the deal had, in essence, been done since around March with just a few details left to be ironed out.

“This deal wouldn’t be done without proper safeguards for U.S. national security,” Bessent said. “It seems as though we were also able to meet the Chinese interest.”

CNBC reported Tuesday that the deal is expected to be closed within the next 30 to 45 days, and that the agreement will include existing investors in TikTok’s China-based parent, ByteDance, and new investors.

Any agreement may require approval by the Republican-controlled Congress, which passed a law in 2024 during the Biden Administration that required TikTok’s divestiture due to fears that its U.S. user data could be accessed by the Chinese government, allowing Beijing to spy on Americans or conduct influence operations through the app.

The Trump administration has declined to enforce the law due to worries it would anger TikTok’s huge user base and disrupt political communications, instead extending the divestiture deadline on three separate occasions.

Trump, who has credited TikTok with helping him win re-election last year and has 15 million followers on his personal account, was expected to extend the deadline for the fourth time. The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.

TARIFFS AND TIKTOK

Washington has said that TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance makes it beholden to the Chinese government.

But the company has said U.S. officials have misstated its ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the U.S. on cloud servers operated by Oracle, while content moderation decisions that affect American users are also made in the U.S.

As part of the plan, Oracle would have been responsible for addressing national security issues, Reuters had reported.

Oracle shares pared some gains on Tuesday following the news and were last up 1%.