TikTok deal finally secured: Trump claims he made it happen
The long-standing social media stalemate between the US and China has been resolved, as the TikTok deal has finally been made.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has finally secured a deal to continue the platform’s operations in the US.
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has secured a win in the form of a new US entity.
American and Emirati investors will mostly own the new US division, and ByteDance will hold less than 20 percent of the latest US entity.
Investors in the new US division include Larry Ellison, founder of the tech company Oracle, American private equity firm Silver Lake, and AI investment company MGX, which will own over 80 percent of the company, according to The Guardian.
This comes after former President Joe Biden signed an order requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a US ban in 2024.
Washington has long claimed that TikTok poses a threat to national security due to its operations in China.
Critics of the platform, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, have long said that TikTok’s algorithm and its app “scream” security concerns.
This led the US government to ban TikTok on federal government devices, and subsequently led to TikTok going dark for a short time for users.
Users experienced a short ban on TikTok in the United States, prompting social media users to flock to alternative platforms like Lemon8 and even the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, otherwise known as the Red Book.
Now that the deal has finally been struck, five years after President Donald Trump flirted with banning TikTok in the US during his first term, Trump attributes the deal’s success to himself.
In a post on his social media app Truth Social, Trump made a bold declaration stating that he is “happy to have helped in saving TikTok.”
“It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World,” Trump said in his post on Truth Social.
Trump seems to be ignoring the fact that MXG, the company that holds the majority share, as per The Guardian, is an Emirati-based investment company.
Regardless, Trump continues to say he hopes to be remembered “by those who use and love TikTok.”
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