Overview

• President Trump said his administration has lined up a “group of very wealthy people” to acquire TikTok’s U.S. arm but declined to identify them until mid-July.
• He indicated any sale will require approval from Chinese authorities and predicted President Xi Jinping would likely endorse the transaction.
• A bipartisan 2024 law obliges ByteDance to divest TikTok’s American assets by September 17 or face a nationwide ban on national security grounds.
• This announcement follows Trump’s third executive order extension in June, which paused enforcement of the divest-or-ban law through mid-September.
• Lawmakers have cited concerns over data privacy and potential foreign influence for the divestiture requirement affecting more than 170 million U.S. users.