TikTok Stays Alive In US Under New Deal Forged By Trump — But Critics Warn Of A Backroom Power Play

• TikTok U.S. will be acquired by a consortium that includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX; parent ByteDance and its investors will retain stakes.
• The deal raises concerns as the President is known to be close to Oracle founder Larry Ellison; Microsoft and Elon Musk were also in the fray to acquire TikTok U.S.
• This year, Trump has plugged himself into the media industry, frequently opining on Big Media deals, and attacking outlets and anchors he sees as hostile. 

In a major development, China’s ByteDance has finally struck a deal to sell its U.S. operations after more than a year under the threat of a forced shutdown, amid a prolonged standoff between Washington and Beijing that repeatedly turned TikTok into a bargaining chip in broader trade negotiations.

However, the transaction – while ensuring the continuity of TikTok in the U.S. and safeguards the thousands of influencers and businesses that depend on it – has also raised several concerns. 

Is Trump Helping His Friends?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) argued that President Donald Trump is meddling in Big Media – an industry that plays a powerful role in shaping public opinion – and, in TikTok’s case, handed “over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies.”

“First Paramount / CBS and now TikTok… Americans deserve to know if the President struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok,” she said in an X post.

Rush Doshi, who served on the National Security Council under President Joe Biden, said on X that the deal’s fine print still raises questions about “who controls the algorithm.” He noted that while the companies say it will be trained on U.S. data, it remains unclear whether the algorithm has been transferred or licensed — or if it is still owned and controlled by Beijing, with Oracle merely providing “monitoring.”

TikTok US Deal — The Fine Print

On Thursday, the media reported an internal memo from TikTok CEO Shou Chew confirming the deal. The U.S. operations of TikTok will be transferred to a new joint venture entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. Axios reported that Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX would collectively own a 45% stake in the JV, existing ByteDance investors would own a 33% stake, and ByteDance would own approximately 20%. The deal is expected to close on Jan. 22.

The new U.S. company will be valued at around $14 billion, Vice President JD Vance said in September. The enterprise value has remained unchanged, Axios reporter Dan Primack confirmed in an X post. ByteDance, Trump, and the Chinese government have yet to issue an official statement on the TikTok U.S. deal.

Trump Builds Media Influence

The development underscores the growing influence of Trump in media businesses. In his second term, Trump has plugged himself into the industry, often opining directly on Big Media deals, criticizing outlets and anchors he finds hostile, and engaging in media lawsuits, while building influence through his social media venture, Truth Social.

He’s been directly involved in the TikTok deal, extending the deadline several times to implement a government order to ban or divest the app in the country. Earlier, he sued Paramount’s CBS network over a misleading “60 Minutes” segment about Kamala Harris. Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement and made additional concessions that reportedly helped secure the President’s informal sign-off for its subsequent merger with Skydance.

Trump is also known to be close to the Oracle founder’s family (Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, who runs Paramount Skydance) – the connection Warren probably alluded to when mentioning Trump’s “billionaire buddies.” Now, Trump is said to be involved in talks about the Warner Bros Discovery sale, which Paramount is aggressively pursuing even after Warner Bros formally decided to sell to Netflix.

What About TikTok’s Core Algorithm? 

Meanwhile, some critics say the current TikTok deal failed to address the national security concerns at the center of the government's order against it. Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said that if ByteDance still controls the underlying TikTok algorithm, as has been reported in the media, the “deal is illegal and unsafe for Americans.”

“We cannot leave control of the TikTok curation algorithm in China’s hands. This deal, therefore, does not work for America,” said Gordon G. Chang, author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America.”

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