President Donald Trump was criticized after he demanded allegiance from the "young people of TikTok" for orchestrating a deal for China to sell the social media platform to a joint U.S. venture led by billionaire Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
Over the past five years, efforts to ban TikTok have gained bipartisan momentum. What began as a proposal under Trump’s first term eventually became law in 2024, when former President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring the app to sell its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban.
In recent weeks, Trump said that a deal—still pending final approval—is in the works following talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Under the proposed agreement, TikTok’s U.S. operations would be taken over by a consortium of Trump-aligned billionaires, including Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, and Michael Dell.
The deal is reportedly valued at around $14 billion, a number far below what analysts estimate TikTok’s U.S. operations would fetch in an open auction. Trump has framed his role in approving the agreement as “saving TikTok,” portraying it as a personal intervention to keep the platform alive in the U.S. and as a favor to its largely young user base.
He said:
“To all of those young people of TikTok, I saved TikTok, so you owe me big. And now, you’re looking at me in the Oval Office, and someday one of you is going to be sitting right at this desk, and you’re going to be doing a great job also.”
You can see the video below.
@realdonaldtrump I SAVED TIKTOK!
Many have mocked him for his remarks.
Several procedural hurdles remain despite Trump’s approval, including an antitrust review to ensure compliance with fair market competition laws. The final makeup of the ownership consortium is expected to be confirmed by the time the deal closes, potentially in early 2026.
According to Reuters, TikTok’s current parent company, the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, is expected to retain a “bigger-than-expected role” in the new U.S.-based venture.
