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Chinese social media giant, ByteDance, has avoided the worst outcome, Reuters reports.
Five years since U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Chinese group led by Liang Rubo to sell the American operations of its TikTok app or face a ban on national security grounds, a deal that will keep the short-video app operational in the world's largest economy appears to have the blessing of both Beijing and Washington. Reuters
2025
Is that going to be post CFIUS approval or before it
The TikTok sale process is aimed at divesting ByteDance’s U.S. operations to address national security concerns under a 2024 law.
It reached a key milestone on September 25, 2025, when President Trump signed an executive order approving a framework agreement for the transaction.
This deal values TikTok’s U.S. business at approximately $14 billion and involves transferring control to a new U.S.-based joint venture.
The buyers are a consortium of American investors including
Oracle (handling data security and cloud services)
Silver Lake which will handle data security as well as license and manage the ByteDance’s prized algorithm.
Andreessen Horowitz
potentially figures like Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch, who will hold a majority stake (around 50-80%).
ByteDance and affiliated shareholders will retain less than 20% ownership to comply with the law, with the new entity’s board majority-controlled by U.S. persons.
As of October 7, 2025, the deal is not yet finalized, and no further public updates on completion have emerged since late September.
The executive order delays enforcement of the TikTok ban (originally set for January 19, 2025, and extended multiple times) by an additional 120 days from September 25, providing a window until roughly January 22, 2026, to execute the necessary implementation agreements.
The actual handover of control—including the TikTok app, its algorithm (to be retrained and monitored by U.S. partners), user data (stored in a U.S. cloud), and content moderation—will occur once these agreements are signed and operationalized.
The Committee for foreign investment in the United States (CFIUS)
This turnover will happen post-CFIUS approval. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) must execute a separate agreement with the investor parties as part of the implementation process to mitigate risks from the original 2020 Musical.ly acquisition by ByteDance. This CFIUS step, combined with the broader framework, is required to fully resolve national security issues before control transfers and the ban enforcement lifts.
What are we going to see in the meantime on TikTok?
In the interim period—between now (early October 2025) and the expected finalization of the TikTok U.S. sale and handover (likely by January 2026, pending CFIUS approval and implementation agreements)—the app will continue to function normally for U.S. users.
This means you’ll see the same short-form videos, trends, For You Page recommendations, live streams, and core features as before, with no enforced nationwide ban disrupting access or downloads from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
ByteDance remains in operational control during this window, so content moderation, algorithm-driven feeds, and user data handling (stored on Oracle’s U.S. servers since mid-2024) will proceed under existing safeguards without visible alterations.
The de jure ban from a 2024 law took effect on January 19, 2025, but President Trump’s multiple (and illegal) “executive extensions” (the latest pushed non-enforcement to December 16, 2025, with further delays tied to the deal) have kept tiktok live in violation of the law
State-level restrictions (e.g., on government devices in over 30 states) persist but don’t affect general consumer use.
Post-sale changes, such as a potential rebranded or forked U.S.-only app version (with a retrained algorithm overseen by Oracle and stricter data isolation), are slated for after the handover, not during this phase.
No widespread user-facing updates or disruptions have been reported in early October.