In line with his pledge to “save TikTok,” Donald Trump is reportedly considering the launch of “TikTok America.” Although initial reports suggested an announcement on April 2nd, the deal is still considered to be in progress, according to The Information. The plan involves 50% ownership by new U.S. investors, and the leasing of TikTok’s algorithm, its key feature, from ByteDance.
Meanwhile, existing ByteDance investors are reportedly having a one-third stake in the new company. As for ByteDance itself, the source says that ByteDance would retain a 19.99% stake. This is just under the 20% limit set out by the “ban or sell” law.
Furthermore, according to NPR, TikTok America will be led by cloud platform Oracle. It already handles US TikTok users’ data as part of an initiative known as ‘Project Texas.’ NPR’s source added that this new deal “looks a whole lot like Project Texas 2.0.”
However, there hasn’t been word on what China and ByteDance make of this proposed deal. In a statement to the Washington Post, Liu Pengyu, Washington’s Chinese Embassy spokesperson, said: “China has always respected and protected the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and opposed practices that violate the basic principles of the market economy and harm the legitimate interests of enterprises.”
That sounds like a whole lot of nothing. But now that we’re in the eleventh hour, we can expect a deal announcement imminently.
Update: 03/04/2025, 11.55am EST.
In an interview on Fox News this morning, JD Vance confirmed that an announcement for the TikTok deal will be made before Saturday.
“We’ve got a couple of days to continue working on it, to finalize some things, and of course, we are going to let the president announce what we ultimately decide,” he said.
