President Donald Trump signed a deal to save TikTok, which Vice President JD Vance said values the business at $14 billion.
“The company will be valued around $14 billion. We actually think this is a good deal for investors,” Vance said, “but ultimately the investors are going to make the determination about what they want to invest in and what they think is proper value.”
Enterprise tech giant Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment fund will be main investors in TikTok’s U.S. business, according to Trump.
In response to a question from The Daily Signal, Trump confirmed that there will be no operational relationship with Chinese entities or staff to execute the TikTok deal.
‘This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said. “And great respect for President [Jinping] Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
The White House has four-times extended the deadline to reach a deal with Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American-backed owner. Congress passed a law on April 24, 2024, requiring ByteDance to divest its stake in the U.S. assets of TikTok due to national security concerns.
The deal ensures Americans control the algorithm, according to Vance.
“We don’t want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government,” Vance said. “We want to make sure that our people and our investors actually make these decisions based on what’s good for their business, as opposed to what’s good for another government’s propaganda arms.”
The administration wants everyone to be able to safely access TikTok, Vance said.
“As the president said, young people love this,” Vance said. “We actually want everybody to access this, whether they’re MAGA or not. We just want it to be fair. We want it to be fair to everybody. And we think that’s what’s going to happen with this new arrangement.”
Under the deal, “every group, every every philosophy, every policy, will be treated very fairly,” Trump said.
Trump said he did not believe TikTok being owned by China was a security threat “because the people that own it are not China centric.”
“They’re USA centric, and they’re very smart people,” he said.
“I think in this case, it’s going to be as secure as you could be because of the ownership and the people, and they have a big investment. You know, it’s to their advantage to make sure it’s good and safe.”
Trump praised Charlie Kirk for helping him use TikTok to win the 2024 presidential election.
“I used it myself during the campaign, and it was very successful, because, you know how I did with the young voters,” Trump said. “And Charlie helped me a lot, too. And he said to me, you should go on TikTok and it actually helped, because we got record votes with the young voters for the election.”
