China and the US have “made progress” on granting permission for ByteDance to promote TikTok to an American consortium, fulfilling a nine-months-overdue authorized requirement. After saying a tentative deal had been reached Monday and that approval would come Friday, President Donald Trump’s administration has issued an replace that leaves the present standing ambiguous and the main points bare-bones.
“I simply accomplished a really productive name with President Xi of China. We made progress on many essential points together with Commerce, Fentanyl, the necessity to convey the Battle between Russia and Ukraine to an finish, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump posted on Truth Social, noting he and Xi Jinping would meet on the APEC Summit in Korea in October. “The decision was an excellent one, we will likely be talking once more by telephone, admire the TikTok approval, and each sit up for assembly at APEC!”
“Respect the TikTok approval” makes Xi’s benediction sound like a performed deal. “We made progress,” nonetheless, doesn’t.
TikTok posted an equivocal response on X. “We thank President Xi Jinping and President Donald J. Trump for his or her efforts to protect TikTok in the US,” it stated. “ByteDance will work in accordance with relevant legal guidelines to make sure TikTok stays out there to American customers via TikTok U.S.”
The anticipated patrons are a consortium that features Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Susquehanna Worldwide Group, with ByteDance reportedly retaining a share simply shy of 20 p.c, as mandated by a divest-or-ban regulation Congress handed in 2024. They’re anticipated to develop a model of the app with a brand new suggestion algorithm walled off from Chinese language management.
TikTok customers, in the meantime, are nonetheless in the dead of night about the way forward for their app — hoping one other commerce struggle received’t throw a wrench within the settlement, with no exhausting timeline for decision in sight.