TikTok has defied the odds, even after two presidents and a majority of lawmakers called for the social media app to be banned, unless it was sold to an American company. For the Chinese-owned platform, it was a deal that TikTok initially refused, but after months of delays, an agreement may have been reached this month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Saturday.
“We are 100% confident that a deal is done. Now that the deal just needs to be signed, and the president’s team is working with their Chinese counterparts to do just that,” Leavitt explained, while adding that Americans would hold six of the seven board seats. Tech giant Oracle will control that data and privacy for the app.
More Questions Remain
The service had briefly gone dark in January, just before the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act took effect. President Donald Trump then reversed the decision after returning to the White House, and has since granted TikTok four extensions, delaying its shutdown to give it additional time to close a deal.
The first question is whether this will resolve all the security issues for lawmakers, as well as the individual states that have also banned TikTok’s use on government devices. Technology industry analyst Susan Schreiner of C4 Trends told ClearanceJobs this may be just another delay rather than the conclusive deal.
“While TikTok might finally be sold with key conditions, the question is, will these conditions be enough?” Schreiner questioned. “Will users have peace of mind regarding security, or are these conditions just ‘window dressing’ for the Administration to close another deal?
Although a coalition of investors has lined up, which includes Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, Michael Dell, and Silver Lake, 20% of the ownership could still be held by Chinese investors via ByteDance. The other question is whether, after all these changes, users will remain, especially if they feel that any deal has taken the magic out of TikTok.
“The TikTok sale is less about who owns it and more about whether the platform can sustain trust. For users, the experience will likely feel the same,” said Angeli Gianchandani, a global brand strategist and NYU faculty member.
“The real test is cultural,” Gianchandani told ClearanceJobs.
She added that ownership may solve regulatory concerns, but trust will be the real currency.
“TikTok survives only if users and advertisers believe in its responsibility,” Gianchandani continued. “Platforms thrive when they connect people authentically, lead with accountability, and transform challenges into opportunities for trust. If TikTok can show responsibility and empathy in how it manages data and community, then ownership changes won’t matter as much as cultural credibility.”
How Will It Work?
The key concern for lawmakers, the U.S. military, and others in the United States has been the amount of data access that the People’s Republic of China could gain on the American people using TikTok. That included what they post and where they post it. Security experts have expressed concerns that the app may also share other data from a user’s mobile device.
Removing Chinese ownership was meant to address those issues, but that may be easier said than done.
“Oracle would be the technical backbone by hosting U.S. user data in its cloud, ‘retraining’ or rebuilding TikTok’s recommendation algorithm under U.S. oversight, and acting as the trusted guardian of infrastructure,” said Gianchandani.”Trump is expected to finalize the deal via executive order, giving U.S. investors ~80% control and an American-majority oversight board.”
Privacy advocates have long claimed that there is a level of hypocrisy in the campaign to ban TikTok, as U.S.-based companies gather as much, if not more, data from their respective users. Gianchandani said this is about data sovereignty vs. trust, where Oracle’s role may be less about cloud servers and more about cultural sovereignty.
“Who owns the levers of influence over what we see, share, and trust,” she told ClearanceJobs, and added that the new owners will be guardians, but it has yet to be seen if they will be guardians of culture or capital.
What Does it Mean for Advertisers?
It may not matter to lawmakers, but the changes to TikTok’s ownership could still impact its survival. Making the company compliant enough to continue operating in the U.S. may change it enough that its users will notice.
“For advertisers, this deal is more than politics or ownership shuffles. It is about certainty,” warned Gianchandani. “Brands poured over $11 billion into TikTok in the U.S. last year, but that money is not guaranteed. Advertisers are not just paying for reach; they are paying for trust. If TikTok cannot prove cultural credibility under its new guardianship, those dollars will migrate quickly to Meta, Instagram, or YouTube. The real currency in this deal is not control of the algorithm; it will be about the confidence in the platform.”
