The White House signaled that TikTok will remain available in the US, but the framework deal may be spelling out the same national security concern the government had in the first place.
“We have a framework for a TikTok deal. The two leaders, @POTUS and Party Chair Xi, will speak on Friday to complete the deal,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. The official White House account amplified the direction of travel, quoting President Donald Trump that the “big Trade Meeting in Europe… has gone VERY WELL” and that a deal was reached on a “‘certain’ company that young people… wanted to save.”
Market-facing details emerging from deal-watchers point to a US control structure led by Oracle and private investors, including a16z’s Marc Andreessen, prompting criticisms on possible governance implications.
Beijing’s statement, however, delineates arguably the most material technical term: China keeps the TikTok recommendation algorithm. Wang Jingtao, a deputy head of China’s cyber regulator, said US and Chinese officials agreed on a framework that includes “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights,” adding that any US spin-off would use parent ByteDance’s Chinese algorithm.
The excuse for the provision is that it is ‘central’ to the app because the ranking engine determines what content reaches users and at what velocity.
Former National Security Council official Rush Doshi called the arrangement “a complete surrender,” warning it “may even be illegal,” and stressing that the deal would let Beijing influence news feeds for 180 million TikTok users in the US.
Advisers close to the talks framed the outcome bluntly: “It’s the ultimate Taco trade”—with TACO meaning Trump always chickens out—“After all this, China keeps the algorithm.”
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