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This has been a rollercoaster year for TikTok in the US. The app was banned for less than 24 hours in January before being reinstated ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration. The president has since extended the deadline for divesting TikTok from its Chinese ownership several times, and it's happened once again amid more promises of an imminent deal.

The newest deadline for a sale is Dec. 16. On Tuesday, Trump told a group of reporters that "we have a deal on TikTok," though the White House has not provided any details. (Trump also made similar pronouncements in June and July, but nothing was announced.)

"A deal was also reached on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save," Trump wrote on Truth Social this week. "They will be very happy! I will be speaking to [Chinese] President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!!"

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that the US and China have a "framework" for a TikTok deal, CNBC reports. It could close in 30 to 45 days, and will include "proper safeguards for US national security," he says.

Multiple sources say Oracle, which has worked with TikTok on data storage, will also handle US user data for TikTok going forward. Previous reports have said TikTok will need to develop and release a new US-specific version of the app once it's sold.

The Wall Street Journal says TikTok engineers may need to re-create content recommendation algorithms using the tech from TikTok's owner ByteDance through a licensing deal. It's unclear what that will mean for the service and its algorithms.

The Journal also says the deal will include an investor consortium that owns 80% of the app. Parties reportedly include private-equity firm Silver Lake and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The other 20% would be Chinese investors.

A spokesperson for the White House told CNBC, "Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration."

This has been a five-year-long saga. Trump first moved to ban TikTok in 2020 with an executive order that prohibited US companies from doing business with TikTok and WeChat's Chinese parent companies, citing national security. TikTok sued and the ban was delayed several times. But nothing happened before Joe Biden took office in early 2021.

Biden then revoked Trump's executive order, but tasked his administration with preparing recommendations on preventing a foreign adversary, like China, from seizing consumer data from an app such as TikTok or WeChat. Ultimately, a ban was included in a foreign aid bill that Biden signed in 2024. It too required divestiture, and set a deadline of Jan. 19, 2025, for a sale—one day before Trump returned to the White House for a second term.

Trump has since softened on TikTok, mainly because he created an account during his 2024 campaign that proved popular. The White House recently launched a TikTok account, too. Technically, the law only gave the president permission to delay a ban by 90 days if a deal was imminent, but no one has formally challenged him on this point.

Don't miss out on our latest stories. Add PCMag as a preferred source on Google.

This has been a rollercoaster year for TikTok in the US. The app was banned for less than 24 hours in January before being reinstated ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration. The president has since extended the deadline for divesting TikTok from its Chinese ownership several times, and it's happened once again amid more promises of an imminent deal.

The newest deadline for a sale is Dec. 16. On Tuesday, Trump told a group of reporters that "we have a deal on TikTok," though the White House has not provided any details. (Trump also made similar pronouncements in June and July, but nothing was announced.)

"A deal was also reached on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save," Trump wrote on Truth Social this week. "They will be very happy! I will be speaking to [Chinese] President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!!"

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that the US and China have a "framework" for a TikTok deal, CNBC reports. It could close in 30 to 45 days, and will include "proper safeguards for US national security," he says.

Multiple sources say Oracle, which has worked with TikTok on data storage, will also handle US user data for TikTok going forward. Previous reports have said TikTok will need to develop and release a new US-specific version of the app once it's sold.

The Wall Street Journal says TikTok engineers may need to re-create content recommendation algorithms using the tech from TikTok's owner ByteDance through a licensing deal. It's unclear what that will mean for the service and its algorithms.

The Journal also says the deal will include an investor consortium that owns 80% of the app. Parties reportedly include private-equity firm Silver Lake and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The other 20% would be Chinese investors.

A spokesperson for the White House told CNBC, "Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration."

This has been a five-year-long saga. Trump first moved to ban TikTok in 2020 with an executive order that prohibited US companies from doing business with TikTok and WeChat's Chinese parent companies, citing national security. TikTok sued and the ban was delayed several times. But nothing happened before Joe Biden took office in early 2021.

Biden then revoked Trump's executive order, but tasked his administration with preparing recommendations on preventing a foreign adversary, like China, from seizing consumer data from an app such as TikTok or WeChat. Ultimately, a ban was included in a foreign aid bill that Biden signed in 2024. It too required divestiture, and set a deadline of Jan. 19, 2025, for a sale—one day before Trump returned to the White House for a second term.

Trump has since softened on TikTok, mainly because he created an account during his 2024 campaign that proved popular. The White House recently launched a TikTok account, too. Technically, the law only gave the president permission to delay a ban by 90 days if a deal was imminent, but no one has formally challenged him on this point.