The United States has reached an agreement with the Chinese company ByteDance to lease the TikTok algorithm for the American market, a senior White House official told Axios, UNN reports.
Details
According to the source, the deal will allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without a full sale of its algorithm, which is key to personalizing content.
Under the plan, ByteDance will create a duplicate of the algorithm, which will be transferred to a new joint venture controlled by American investors led by Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, and Oracle.
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Oracle will retrain the algorithm and ensure the protection of US user data, while TikTok outside the country will continue to operate under ByteDance's control.
This decision is a compromise in response to the 2024 law requiring TikTok to be controlled by Americans, otherwise the platform faced a ban. Supporters of the deal emphasize that it allows the "algorithm to function," while critics may object to any "cooperation" regarding its operation.
According to a White House official, the Chinese government approved these terms during a bilateral meeting last week in Madrid
At the same time, the US government will not have representation on the TikTok US board of directors and will not receive a stake in the company. The final management of the platform will fall to a new board, which will include American investors, some current ByteDance investors, and one ByteDance representative.
US President Donald Trump, according to Fox News, plans to sign an executive order on the deal later this week. Michael Dell, Lachlan Murdoch, and Rupert Murdoch are expected to join the investor group.
Recall
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the administration of US President Donald Trump is expected to receive a multi-billion dollar commission from investors as part of a complex deal to control TikTok's operations in the US. This deal will be the latest in a series of lucrative agreements between the US government and the private sector.
US President Donald Trump announced that agreements with China regarding TikTok had already been reached, and he planned to finalize the details during a conversation with Xi Jinping on Friday.
Trump and Xi held a phone call on Friday, September 19. The US President stated that he and Xi had made progress on many very important issues, including trade, fentanyl, the need to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the approval of the TikTok deal.