Abu Dhabi Royal Family To Buy Stake In TikTok's US Business After Trump's Order: Report

The Abu Dhabi royal family will reportedly take a stake in TikTok’s US business, according to a report, after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order clearing the way for completion of a deal to sell TikTok’s US assets to mostly American investors.

Trump approved the deal that signalled a shift towards American ownership and control of TikTok, providing a 120-day window to finalise the details “I had a very good talk with (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping). And we talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok and he gave us the go-ahead,” he said during the signing event.

ALSO READ: Trump Signs Executive Order On Deal To Sell TikTok’s US Assets To American Investors

MGX, a fund chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al

Nahyan, the national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one of the most influential businessmen in the country, will take a 15% stake and gain a seat on the board when TikTok US is finalised, according to a report by The Guardian.

Overall, American companies are expected to control just over 65% of TikTok US, while Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX will control roughly 45% of the company. Trump also named Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch as other investors.

“(TikTok US) will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary,” Trump said. “We have American investors taking it over, running it (who are) highly sophisticated, including Larry Ellison. Great investors, the biggest. They don’t get bigger. This is going to be American-operated all the way.”

TikTok US Valued At $14 Billion

TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, will retain a 19.9% stake in the US operation. The executive order was expected to state that the new deal constitutes a qualified divestiture as required by the ban-or-sale law that passed with strong bipartisan consensus last year.

The law, which went into effect in January, bans the app unless parent company ByteDance divests about 80% of its US assets to non-Chinese investors. However, Trump has repeatedly delayed the enforcement of the law.

US Vice President JD Vance said the deal valued TikTok US at $14 billion. “There was some resistance on the Chinese side. But the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we wanted to make sure that it protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law.”

However, China has not publicly reacted or made it clear whether it will approve the deal. The $14 billion valuation of the US business is far lower than the valuation for ByteDance overall, which is estimated to be about $330 billion, according to The Guardian.