Trump Clears Way for $14B TikTok Sale

President Donald Trump signed an executive order clearing the way for a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, declaring the proposed divestiture meets the 2024 law’s “qualified divestiture” requirements and pausing enforcement to allow the transaction to proceed. The plan would leave ByteDance with under 20% of the new U.S. company, values the entity at roughly $14 billion, and names investors and partners including Oracle (Larry Ellison), Rupert Murdoch, Michael Dell and private-equity firms such as Silver Lake or MGX, with Oracle designated as a trusted security provider. The order says Americans’ data will be controlled and the platform’s recommendation algorithm will be retrained and monitored under U.S. oversight to address national-security and privacy concerns, a point emphasized by Vice President J.D. Vance. Trump said he spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who he said gave a “go-ahead,” but China has not publicly confirmed approval and key implementation details remain unresolved. The executive action sets a divestiture timetable reported at about 120 days, and TikTok U.S. employees say the move brings relief but continuing anxiety over jobs, stock implications and whether a U.S.-retrained algorithm will match current performance.