President Donald Trump is set to ink an executive order on Thursday, paving the way for TikTok’s U.S. assets to boogie into American hands via a consortium of mostly star-spangled investors. This procedural pirouette keeps the app’s 170 million U.S. users scrolling, but don’t pop the confetti yet—the deal’s still waltzing through regulatory red tape on both sides of the Pacific.
White House insiders, whispering like stage managers at a talent show, confirm the order will declare the sale a “qualified divestiture” under last year’s ban-or-sale law. That bipartisan brainchild, which kicked in January, demands ByteDance offload about 80% of its U.S. goodies to non-Chinese buyers—or face the digital guillotine.
Trump has hit snooze on enforcement so many times it’s basically a recurring alarm.
To keep the drama from flatlining, the president will stretch the pause another 120 days, pushing any official handover into next year. It’s like extending a Netflix binge because you’re “almost done with the season”—except here, the cliffhanger is whether your For You page survives the edit.
ByteDance, meanwhile, is slated to seal a framework pact with the new owners this week, ensuring the app’s U.S. operations—and a cheeky copy of its oh-so-secret algorithm—land in a fresh joint venture.
Picture this: a majority-American ownership squad, potentially starring private equity heavyweight Silver Lake and Lachlan Murdoch’s Fox Corp., helming a board that’s redder, whiter, and bluer than a Fourth of July hot dog eating contest.
ByteDance gets to cling to no more than 20% stake, like that awkward family member at Thanksgiving who won’t leave but promises not to hog the turkey. Oracle, the tech equivalent of a stern librarian, steps in to babysit the algorithm, data, and privacy—because nothing screams “fun” like an enterprise software giant gatekeeping your guilty-pleasure cat videos.
But hold onto your phone stands: the deal’s got more loose ends than a bad DIY haircut. Will American users need to download a bespoke “TikTok: Freedom Edition” app, complete with apple pie filters and bald eagle transitions?
Critics are already side-eyeing the algorithm’s new overlords, a mix that includes some Trump confidantes—imagine your scroll suddenly prioritizing content like “How to Build a Wall in 15 Seconds” or “MAGA Makeup Hacks.” Ironic, isn’t it? The app born from Chinese ingenuity now risks serving up feeds as curated as a campaign rally playlist.
And in a geopolitical rom-com flourish, this TikTok tango sets the stage for Trump’s first face-to-face with China’s Xi Jinping since his Oval Office encore. The duo chatted it up on Friday’s call, hashing out the handover like divorced parents negotiating custody of the family pet.
Come next month’s APEC Summit in South Korea, expect handshakes stiffer than a failed dance trend, with the fate of viral fame hanging in the air-conditioned balance.
As TikTok teeters on the edge of its all-American glow-up, one can’t help but wonder: will the algorithm start suggesting more cowboy hat challenges and fewer K-pop covers? If it does, at least we’ll all be too busy laughing at our own cringey attempts to notice the irony—proving once again that in the world of social media, the real ban is on good taste.
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