Years of uncertainty about a possible prohibition of Tiktok in the United States can finally be coming to an end.
According to reports, the Trump administration is very close to ending an agreement with China to transfer US operations of the application to US control. The details are still murky, but at this time it seems that the giant of social networks, which has around 170 million US users, will be administered by a consortium of rich and right investors, especially the one that includes the Technological Fox and Fox company.
Yes – And it is still a Yeah -This agreement is final, it would mark the end of an Odyssey of more than five years for the American presence of Tiktok. President Donald Trump tried to prohibit the application on Conerns on his duration of Chinese property in his first mandate, without success. The Congress acted more definitely in 2024, approving a law that required Tap to sell to US operators or close. But when Trump returned to office, he had a change of opinion: young voters moved to Trump in 2024, and his campaign attributed part of his success to his presence on the platform. Since then, Trump has signed a series of executive orders (possible illegal) that delay the implementation of the ban.
Today, explained Coanfrerion Noel King spoke with the Wall Street Journal Amrith Ramkumar Wall reporter about this background story, how could an American version of Tiktok, and the discreet billionaire who meets the keys to the application.
Below is an extract of its conversation, edited by length and clarity. There is much more in the complete podcast, so listen Today, explained Wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
We are seeing a headline that suggests that the United States will get Tiktok. What will be the United States exactly?
The most important thing is that the application will operate continuous in the United States. You will be able to use it continuous. I think that is the number one step, and that is what the administration is focusing a lot, that they prevented the application from darkening and any change there.
But if you shit a little deeper, it is also very important for an US group to invest or take advantage of the operations of the United States. That is something that many people in Washington have been pressing for about five years, and it seems that they are at the door of making that happen.
What happens to what makes Tiktok Tiktok, which is the algorithm? Did the United States get it too?
That is the question of dozens of billion dollars. Essentially, the answer would be yes, based on what the administration and people around Tiktok have said. There would be a complex way to do this where the Bytedance, the Chinese parent company or TickTok, would copy the algorithm it uses worldwide and then lease it to this new [US] Entity that is being created by this transaction. The new entity would control it and execute it. It would be a specific US algorithm, Sort or.
President Trump says he will sign an executive order at the end of this week. What is in the deal? What do we know?
The treatment is not made. That is the first thing you must understand. It is a preliminary agreement, classification or a frame. This executive order that the president will signically sign will say, so we can say, that we have the contours of the agreement and satisfy the law and the national security conditions. That is a step in the process of completing things.
“It is not of financial interest to enter and make a lot of changes that review things.”
Basically, under this agreement, the investors and allies of the United States Essential and will take control of this new entity created to execute Tiktok in the United States. The understanding is that this new group of US investors, this consortium, with the private capital firm Silver Lake and the Oracle cloud computing company, would be part of this group and approximately half of this new entity would be made. Existing Bytedance investors, which include some Trump allies, would have approximately 30 percent. That is what allows the fall in the participation of the property of Bytedance just below the 20 percent described in the law. And it is also important to keep in mind that this consortium has a leg change per day.
Trump mentioned the Murdoch on the weekend. Hi, said Lachlan [Murdoch] It could be involved.
YEAH. And they tell us that basically it means that Fox would invest. He mentioned Michael Dell, who also reported this. It could be involved. But Trump loves that element, right? Because now this framework agreement has and investors call saying: We want to be part of this agreement because we know that this is a very valuable company and a lucrative opportunity.. And now you can choose who leaves.
Then Oracle has a significant participation. Others can join, others can leave, but Oracle is a real player here, and we cannot talk about Oracle without talking about Larry Ellison. Who is Larry Ellison?
How long do you have? Larry Ellison is one of the richest men in the world. Oracle co -founded. Start there. Oracle is one of the most important technological companies that most regular people have never heard. They are experts in working with large databases, which are key to the social networks industry. More important now, Oracle is now seen as one of the main artificial intelligence companies because AI infrastructure and work with companies like OpenAi.
But Larry Ellison has also expanded in other ways. His family is now prepared an offer to Warner Bros. through his company, Paramount Skydance. It has a lot of money. It is quite strategic with what it does with him. But yes, this Taptok agreement would be his last great victory.
This has done many people enough law. You have a rich old man, many old rich involved in this consortium, aligned with Trump for the most part, controlling Tiktok. Can the algorithm manipulate? Are they who are going to decide what I see in Taptok?
That is another good question and something that is still full. I think the priority one shows that they can execute the application. They still have to demonstrate the basic business case, the justification for making an agreement that is worth many billions of dollars.
It is not of your financial interest to enter and make a lot of changes that review things. These people just want this treatment to be done. Tiktok just wants to operate in the United States and users just want the experience to remain the same. Making changes or doing things that would be very harmful seems against their own interests there.