TikTok and the U.S.’ “will they, won’t they” saga may finally be coming to an end. After nine months of kicking the can down the road, the U.S. has reportedly reached a deal with China to allow TikTok to continue operating in the States, which should come as good news for the estimated one-third of Americans who use the app.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the development in a Face the Nation appearance on Sunday. Bessent told Margaret Brennan that the U.S. “reached a final deal on TikTok. We reached one in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”
The secretary did not share any additional details of the deal, but we do know what the U.S. had in mind heading into the talks. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order outlining what TikTok’s future would look like in the U.S., assuming a deal with its parent company ByteDance and the Chinese government went through.
Per the law signed by President Biden last year, TikTok has to sell to an American company or face a ban in the U.S. According to Trump’s executive order, that represents a joint venture of different investors and American companies, namely Oracle, which will now have a majority stake in the company. ByteDance will continue to have a minority stake, controlling less than 20% of the company.
We also know from past reporting that it’s highly likely that users will need to download a new version of TikTok . This U.S. iteration of the app would look and feel the same, but would eventually ship with a new algorithm “retrained and monitored” by “trusted security partners” of the U.S. Your data would also no longer be collected and stored by companies based in China; rather, your TikTok info will be collected and stored in a cloud environment controlled by an American company.
We won’t know the specifics until the deal is public, but if the secretary is to be believed, the deal is at least official. Soon enough, TikTok will be allowed to operate in the U.S. with zero risk of being banned—though the privacy risks it poses may have just moved from one country to another.
