Trump Signs Executive Order On Deal To Sell TikTok's US Assets To American Investors

US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order clearing the way for completion of a deal to sell TikTok’s US assets to mostly American investors.

“I had a very good talk with President Xi. And we talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok and he gave us the go-ahead,” Trump said during the signing event.

According to CNN, Thursday’s executive order was expected to state that the 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 enforcement of the law.

CNN quoted a senior White House official as stating that the President will likely extend the pause on enforcing the law by another 120 days so that paperwork and regulatory approvals for the deal can be completed.

Trump had recently extended the pause until December 16, which means if the deal is completed then TikTok’s assets won’t be formally transferred until next year.

The full list of investors participating in the deal has not yet been released.

According to CNN, the ownership group will have majority American investors, including Oracle and potentially private equity firm Silver Lake, Dell CEO Michael Dell and Lachlan Murdoch’s Fox Corp. ByteDance will likely have a stake no greater than 20%.

During Thursday’s signing event, Vice President JD Vance said: “We’re going to keep on working at it, but this deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than they had in the past, because their data is going to be secure and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.”