Trump to approve TikTok deal this week as White House extends enforcement pause

Senior White House officials confirmed on Monday that the enforcement pause on TikTok will be extended, while President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order later this week formally endorsing the company’s pending sale, reported Reuters.

The order will declare that the deal meets the requirements of the 2024 national security law governing foreign ownership of technology platforms.

According to officials quoted by the news agency, the agreement will allow Oracle to review TikTok’s core algorithm, a step intended to address long-standing US concerns over data security and content moderation. The executive order will also put in place Oracle’s security terms once the deal is finalised.


The arrangement is projected to generate “hundreds of billions of dollars of economic activity over the next five years,” officials said.

The deal is seen as a breakthrough in the tense negotiations between Washington and Beijing, especially as a part of a broader trade pact between the two rival economies.

It follows Trump’s earlier remarks that US investors, including media executive Lachlan Murdoch, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, would be involved in the transaction, ensuring that control of TikTok’s American operations remains firmly in domestic hands.

President Trump has sought to prevent TikTok from being banned in the United States after Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring ByteDance to sell its American assets by January 2025 or face a forced shutdown.

What we know about the deal

According to an earlier Reuters report on the matter, the agreement is expected to give ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, the ability to select one of seven board members for the new US entity, while Americans would hold the remaining six seats.

ByteDance would retain less than 20% of the stock in the joint venture controlling TikTok’s US operations.

Moreover, the deal would require that all US user data be stored on domestic cloud infrastructure operated by Oracle.

TikTok’s content-recommendation algorithm would also be “secured, retrained, and operated in the United States outside of ByteDance’s control,” according to senior White House officials cited by Reuters.

This measure addresses concerns that the algorithm could be used to manipulate what Americans see on the platform. Users would still be able to access global content, but the algorithm would be retrained using US data under strict supervision.

Current ByteDance shareholders, including Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, and KKR, would maintain minority stakes, while the US board and investors would have operational and governance control.

Meanwhile, Reuters also reported that lawmakers and experts have raised questions about the details of the deal, particularly regarding whether it constitutes a full divestiture, how oversight of the algorithm will work, and how US national security will be protected.