
Following years of legal battles and shifts in presidential administrations, a deal has been finalized between the U.S. and China: the U.S. version of TikTok will be sold. On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on CBS’s Face the Nation that the two nations have “reached a final agreement on TikTok.” “We came to one in Madrid, and I believe that, as of today, all the specifics are resolved, and that will be for the two leaders to finalize that transaction on Thursday in Korea,” Bessent remarked. He noted that while he is “not involved in the business side of the transaction,” he was tasked with obtaining the Chinese government’s approval, which he believes has been effectively secured over the last two days.
This milestone follows President Donald Trump’s executive order issued about a month prior, which stated that the new TikTok agreement aligns with the 2024 law prohibiting TikTok from operating in the U.S. At that moment, Vice President JD Vance pointed out that the deal assesses the U.S. TikTok assets at $14 billion, according to Deadline. The renewed agreement guarantees that U.S. user data will be handled by Oracle; the U.S. algorithm will be managed locally; and TikTok’s operations in the U.S. will be governed by a board of directors that will likely include Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Fox Corp, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake Management, as reported by TechCrunch.