President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. and China have reached an agreement allowing TikTok to continue operating in America, resolving months of uncertainty around the app’s future. Three sources familiar with the matter said the deal mirrors proposals discussed earlier this year.
Under the agreement, TikTok’s U.S. assets will be shifted from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to American ownership. The decision could help ease trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, which have unsettled global markets. With more than 170 million American users, TikTok has become central to the debate over data security and foreign influence.
“We have a deal on TikTok … We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. While he offered no details, the announcement came just one day before the September 17 deadline to sell or shut down the app. Later, the White House extended the deadline until December 16, giving ByteDance 90 more days to finalize the transition.
According to reports, TikTok’s U.S. entity will be overseen by an American-majority board, with one seat designated by the government. This arrangement is modeled on a national security deal that gave Washington influence in Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel.
The proposed structure allows ByteDance to retain a 19.9% stake, just below the 20% threshold, while a consortium of investors — including SIG, General Atlantic, KKR, Andreessen Horowitz, Oracle, and Silver Lake — will collectively hold 80%. However, final details remain uncertain, with last-minute adjustments still possible.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that “the commercial terms of the deal had, in essence, been done since around March,” emphasizing that safeguards for U.S. national security were built into the framework.
