According to Trump’s executive order, TikTok and other ByteDance apps would be «saved.»
It turns out that a complete and unambiguous split between TikTok and its Chinese parent firm, ByteDance. Is not Donald Trump’s best way to counter China’s soft power intrusion into American culture through apps. Rather, it is the sale of a controlling interest in a group of workers and assets that reflect TikTok’s US operations, subject to Chinese legal limitations.
President Donald Trump approved the sale of a majority share in TikTok’s U.S. subsidiary from its Chinese parent firm. ByteDance, to a group of U.S. investors, the majority of whom support Trump, during a press conference this afternoon.
Following scandals that showed ByteDance employees in China had unrestricted access to the private information of US TikTok users and that some of them were using the app to spy on Forbes journalists in an effort to silence those who were leaking information about the company, the forced sale has been planned for years.
Trump and other White House officials answered important questions regarding the finalization of the deal during the press conference. (Vice President J.D. Vance stated that additional details of the agreement will be made public in the days ahead.)
President Trump has spent the last nine months trying to negotiate a forced sale of his more well-known sister company while ordering his Justice Department to disregard the law that would ban those apps. Two of the apps, CapCut and Lemon8, were revealed to be included in the agreement in Trump’s directive today. Additionally, the order did not rule out the new joint venture operating other ByteDance apps.
