White House outlines TikTok deal that would give US control of algorithm

The White House has announced that US companies will now control TikTok’s algorithm and Americans will hold six of seven board seats for the app’s US operations in a much-anticipated deal with China.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a deal could be signed “in the coming days”, but Beijing is yet to comment.

The US has sought to take the video-sharing app’s US operations away from Chinese parent company ByteDance for national security reasons.

TikTok was previously told it had to sell its US operations or risk being shut down.

But US President Donald Trump delayed implementing the ban four times since it was first announced in January, and earlier this week extended the deadline again to December.

Leavitt said that data and privacy for the app in the US will be led by tech giant Oracle, which is owned by Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people and a Trump ally.

“The data and privacy will be led by one of America’s greatest tech companies, Oracle, and the algorithm will also be controlled by America as well,” she told Fox News.

“So all of those details have already been agreed upon. Now we just need this deal to be signed.”

Mr Ellison’s son, David Ellison, recently acquired media company Paramount, which owns CBS News, making the Ellisons one of the country’s most powerful families in media.

Trump said on Friday that he and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping approved a deal on the future of TikTok’s US operations during a phone call, although there was no confirmation from Beijing.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the call was “productive” and he “appreciated” Xi’s approval of deal, which would reportedly see TikTok’s US business sold to a group of US investors.

China’s official state news agency Xinhua left the outcome of their discussion less clear, with Xi quoted as saying that Beijing “welcomes negotiations over TikTok”.

A sticking point in negotiations appears to have been over who will own the powerful algorithm that pushes content to TikTok’s 170 million American users.

Speaking alongside British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the UK on Thursday, Trump sidestepped a question from a reporter about whether an American buyer would need to build a new algorithm, or if they could continue to use the current algorithm.

While Trump initially called for TikTok to be banned during his first term, he has changed course. He turned to the hugely popular platform to boost his support among young Americans during his successful 2024 presidential campaign.

In January, the US Supreme Court upheld a law first passed in early 2024, banning the app unless ByteDance divested from its US operations. The app went “dark” only briefly at the time, before the ban was delayed.

The US Department of Justice previously expressed concerns that TikTok’s access to the data of US users posed a national security threat of “immense depth and scale”.