--- title: Trump: New U.S. TikTok Won’t Favor MAGA Over Liberals description: "If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would," Trump said, as he signed an executive order setting up the deal with China and Trump allies canonical: https://time.com/7320651/tiktok-deal-trump-china/ author: Nik Popli article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-09-25T21:26:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T08:11:29.403Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump: New U.S. TikTok Won’t Favor MAGA Over Liberals og:description: "If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would," Trump said, after signing an executive order setting up the deal with China and Trump allies og:url: https://time.com/7320651/tiktok-deal-trump-china/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a401383ba21d8c9/6998ca14d32e9384f3cd75da/GettyImages-2237006235.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump: New U.S. TikTok Won’t Favor MAGA Over Liberals twitter:description: "If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would," Trump said, after signing an executive order setting up the deal with China and Trump allies twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a401383ba21d8c9/6998ca14d32e9384f3cd75da/GettyImages-2237006235.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Insists U.S. Version of TikTok Won’t Favor MAGA Over Liberals as He Paves Way for Deal > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=4c822fc2-fdf3-4867-8759-1a49f36ac66a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: New TikTok Deal Could Lead to User Surveillance from the U.S. Government, Experts Warn VERTICAL [Watch (HLS stream): New TikTok Deal Could Lead to User Surveillance from the U.S. Government, Experts Warn VERTICAL](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zCZlLmv9.m3u8) (2:00)  _Published 2025-09-24. "If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would," Trump said, as he signed an executive order setting up the deal with China and Trump allies_  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer Sep 25, 2025 9:26 PM UTC  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer Sep 25, 2025 9:26 PM UTC President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday clearing the way for the sale of TikTok’s American operations to a consortium that includes prominent Trump backers, a move that could resolve years of [national security concerns](https://time.com/7319281/tiktok-trump-surveillance-china/) over the Chinese-owned app but also raises new questions about political bias on the platform. Among the investors are Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan of Fox Corporation, and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell—a group of Trump allies that some fear could exert their own political influence on the U.S. version of TikTok. But speaking at the White House signing ceremony, Trump downplayed those concerns and insisted that the newly structured platform would not become an echo chamber for his own political movement. “I always like MAGA-related. If I could, I’d make it 100% MAGA related,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “But it’s not going to work out that way. Unfortunately, no, everyone’s going to be treated fairly. Every group, every philosophy, every policy, will be treated very fairly.” The deal comes after years of warnings from national security officials that TikTok, owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, could be used by China to [spy on Americans](https://time.com/7319281/tiktok-trump-surveillance-china/) or manipulate what its 170 million U.S. users see in their feeds. Trump’s executive order is the latest step in a protracted battle to resolve those concerns while keeping the app available to its vast American audience. The order declares the proposed arrangement a “qualified divestiture” under a bipartisan law passed by Congress last year that mandates ByteDance sell roughly 80% of its U.S. business to non-Chinese owners or face a ban in the U.S. Under the emerging arrangement, ByteDance will retain less than 20% ownership, while the consortium of American investors would control the U.S. spin-off. But while Trump’s executive order marks a milestone in a saga stretching back years, the deal remains far from finalized, with key details—including the full investor lineup and regulatory approvals—still uncertain. Vice President J.D. Vance, who led negotiations with ByteDance, framed the agreement as a win for national security. “We wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law,” he said at the signing ceremony. “This deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than they have in the past because their data is going to be secure, and it's not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.” He added that the restructured company would be valued at around $14 billion and stressed that “American investors will actually control the algorithm,” a central demand of lawmakers who feared the Chinese government could manipulate political discourse through the app. The Biden Administration had previously pushed ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations, negotiating with the company on a plan that would have placed American user data under stricter domestic oversight. In 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan law passed by Congress that gave presidents the explicit power to ban or force the sale of foreign-owned apps deemed security risks—the authority Trump is now using to bless a deal that hands TikTok to a consortium of U.S. investors rather than shutting it down. TikTok briefly went dark in the United States in January before Trump directed his administration not to enforce a pending ban on his first day back in the White House. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration and was given a prime seating location on the dais alongside key members of his cabinet and other tech leaders. Trump spoke personally on Thursday about TikTok’s political influence, noting that he had used the app to reach younger voters during his 2024 campaign. “We got record votes with the young voters,” he said. “So I was a little bit prejudiced in that way toward TikTok—it was very good and very meaningful.” Forty-three percent of adults under 30 get their news from TikTok, [according](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/15/more-americans-are-getting-news-on-tiktok-bucking-the-trend-seen-on-most-other-social-media-sites/) to Pew Research Center. ## Transcript [00:00] Oh, so you think the dinner parties in? [00:02] You might not know its name, but I bet. [00:04] Cybersecurity experts warn that the new TikTok deal could give [00:07] the Trump administration the power to track and surveil citizens. [00:11] Here's what you need to know. [00:12] You may remember that Congress passed a bill [00:14] last year which forced TikTok's Chinese parent company, [00:17] ByteDance, to sell the app or face a total ban in the US. [00:20] There were fears that China was collecting the user data of [00:23] Americans and using the platform for surveillance and propaganda. [00:27] Now, the Trump administration is close to a deal with [00:29] ByteDance that stipulates that US user data [00:32] will be hosted on Oracle servers in Texas and managed by a group of American companies. [00:37] The white House said that Oracle will operate, [00:39] retrain and continuously monitor the US algorithm to ensure [00:43] that the content is free from improper manipulation or surveillance. [00:47] But some experts worry that giving so much oversight to [00:50] private US companies could lead to privacy risks as well. [00:53] Many of the leaders of this new consortium have close ties to President Trump. [00:57] Oracle's Larry Ellison has hosted fundraisers for the president, [01:01] while former leaders at Andreessen Horowitz are now a part of the white House. [01:05] Larry Ellison's son, David, [01:06] now runs one of the biggest media companies in the world, [01:09] Paramount Skydance, thanks to a recent merger approved by Trump's FCC. [01:13] It's unclear how much third party auditing there will [01:16] be around user data protection and the new algorithm. [01:20] Without independent verification, Trump could conceivably put pressure on [01:24] his buddies at TikTok to spread or bury certain narratives on the platform. [01:28] While the exact details of the deal remain a bit murky. [01:31] The critics I spoke with say this deal doesn't eliminate the risk of mass surveillance. [01:36] It only transfers it from the Chinese government to the American government. [01:39] I'm not saying there shouldn't be validation of people, [01:43] but giving the government more power to survey its own people, [01:46] or to do large data collections over its own people or other people [01:50] that might be leveraging it is not a good thing. 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