Overview
- President Trump told reporters he will start negotiations with China as early as July 7 to finalize a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations that is “pretty much” agreed.
- A consortium led by Oracle, Blackstone and Andreessen Horowitz is lined up to acquire TikTok’s American arm, subject to Chinese government sign-off.
- The administration issued a third executive order in June, extending ByteDance’s deadline to divest U.S. assets to September 17 under the 2024 Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
- TikTok staff are working on a U.S.-only replacement app—internally dubbed M2—aimed for an early September launch to ensure service continuity post-divestiture.
- Lawmakers maintain that U.S. ownership is essential to address national security concerns over TikTok’s recommendation algorithm and data access for its 170 million American users.