A new agreement between the United States and China over TikTok’s American operations will allow ByteDance to retain one of seven seats on the company’s US board, a White House official has confirmed. The remaining six board members will be Americans.
The deal is designed to prevent the short video app, which has around 170 million users in the United States, from being banned under a 2024 law. That legislation requires TikTok’s American assets to be sold by January 2025 unless a full divestiture is achieved.
Trump delays enforcement of shutdown law
President Donald Trump has postponed enforcement of the 2024 law until mid-December to give negotiators more time to finalise a restructuring deal. The talks aim to separate TikTok’s American assets from its Chinese parent, attract US investors, and create an ownership structure that meets the requirements of Congress.
According to the White House, Trump will extend the current pause for another 120 days once the new framework is confirmed, pushing the next deadline to April 2025.
Speaking on Friday, Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had discussed TikTok in a phone call and would meet in person within six weeks to continue negotiations. While Washington has presented the discussions as progress, Beijing has not provided the same level of clarity about the outcome.
The deal marks a rare breakthrough in talks between the world’s two largest economies, which have been locked in a prolonged trade dispute that has unsettled global financial markets.
Data and algorithms to be secured in the US
Under the agreement, TikTok will store all American user data on US cloud servers operated by software company Oracle. The White House official said this ensures information will remain beyond the reach of ByteDance and Chinese authorities.
The company’s recommendation algorithm, a central concern for US security officials, will also be retrained and operated domestically. “TikTok’s content-recommendation algorithm will be retrained from the ground up – reviewed and analysed under US supervision with US data that will not be shared outside of the United States,” the official explained.
American users will still be able to view and engage with global content, but the system determining what they see will be entirely controlled within the United States.
Officials had previously warned that Beijing could use the algorithm to influence public opinion in the US. Reports earlier this week suggested the technology could be licensed from ByteDance, but Washington insists it will be managed independently.
Ownership and political reaction
The restructured entity will be majority-owned by American investors and managed in the United States. Its board members will be selected for their national security and cybersecurity expertise. ByteDance will retain less than a 20 per cent stake in the joint venture. Current investors in ByteDance include Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, and KKR.
TikTok has not yet responded to the details of the agreement.
Some lawmakers remain sceptical about whether the deal goes far enough. Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat, warned: “The devil will be in the details. We cannot allow China to continue access to massive amounts of Americans’ personal data, and we cannot allow Trump to hand TikTok over to his tech bro buddies and turn it into a MAGA mouthpiece. Period.”
Trump, who credited TikTok with helping him win re-election last year, has 15 million followers on his personal account. The White House also launched an official TikTok account in the previous month, signalling its recognition of the platform’s influence.
The agreement still faces scrutiny from Congress, which will need to be convinced that the terms satisfy the legal requirement for a full divestiture.
