• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, September 26, 2025

Is it a done deal? President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday evening outlining the terms of the deal to transfer TikTok to U.S. owners. The transaction, per Vice President JD Vance, valued the business at approximately $14 billion.

The executive order approving the proposal keeps TikTok alive in the U.S. because it satisfies a national security law requiring China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a ban in the country, according to the executive order.

Under the terms, which China must still approve, a new joint-venture company will oversee TikTok’s U.S. business, with ByteDance retaining less than a 20% stake.

It will be interesting to see how an ownership change will affect brands that seem to adore the TikTok platform, not only for its ability to keep users on its platform, but for the types of search and performance ad tools it has developed.

As of September 2025, TikTok has approximately 170 million users in the U.S. A Pew Research Center survey also found that around one-third of U.S. adults use TikTok. 

The deal puts the valuation of TikTok at approximately $14 billion. Entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, on Fox News said a U.S.-owned TikTok could increase the company’s user base by 30%.

Trump said he came to an agreement with China’s President Xi Jinping to allow TikTok to continue operating in the U.S., separating the social-media platform from its Chinese owner ByteDance.

Had it not been divested to a U.S. owner, the deal would not comply with the law forcing the shutdown of the app for users in the U.S.

All of O’Leary’s Sharktank companies have invested in TikTok because it has the lowest customer acquisition cost and the best return on ad spend.

O'Leary said it would be a good situation if companies were able to buy a little piece of the platform. He added that the reason “you would do that is it would make it the people’s platform in terms of everyone on TikTok.”

It would also help TikTok through the transition period of the transfer, O'Leary said.

“India shut it down because it’s spyware, but what if the American TikTok calls up Modi and says hey, hey, we got your back on the spyware piece. Let’s cut a deal. We’ll run it off Oracle servers. Let’s light up TikTok in India again, a massive market.”

On CNN, O’Leary said he believes “Congress and the Supreme Court will oversee the building of the new algorithm” that Oracle’s team will rewrite. “That code, that law was written by the staffers of China hawks,” he said.

He added that Democrats and Republicans will rewrite the code, which will represent the people of the United States -- and that regardless of who is in the White House, TikTok will abide by the law and the oversight will come from the people.

“This is the law of the land on a bipartisan basis” that will oversee the rebuilding of TikTok U.S., he said, after being pressured by a CNN commentator on whether to trust a Republican-run House and Senate to oversee the company.

The TikTok deal seems a lot less complicated than the Google ad-tech monopoly trial. Just saying.