President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order approving a plan to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., greenlighting a deal that Vice President JD Vance said values the business at $14 billion - far below what many analysts expected.
The order, which satisfies a national security law requiring Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. to divest its U.S. operations, paves the way for a new joint-venture company to run TikTok in America. ByteDance will retain less than a 20% stake under the deal, which still requires Beijing's approval.
Oracle Corp., Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will take roughly 45% of the new entity, while existing ByteDance investors and new participants will control the remainder. Trump said Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is part of the ownership group and that the company will "play a very big part," including managing security operations and continuing to provide cloud services. "It's owned by Americans, and very sophisticated Americans," Trump said at the signing ceremony. "This is going to be American operated all the way."
The $14 billion valuation stunned investors, who had expected a price closer to $30 billion or more for TikTok's U.S. business, its most lucrative market with roughly 170 million users. Vance acknowledged that the final purchase price would be determined by the buyers.
Critics said the valuation represented a major discount. "By every major financial metric and peer comparison, this price tag looks dramatically misaligned with reality," said Ashwin Binwani, founder of Alpha Binwani Capital. He called the transaction "the most undervalued tech acquisition of the decade."
Analysts noted that TikTok's U.S. revenue exceeds $10 billion annually, meaning the deal prices the business at a sales multiple of about 1.4 - closer to mature industrial companies than to tech platforms such as Meta Platforms or Alphabet, which trade at far higher multiples. "The suggested value looks like daylight robbery," said Vey-Sern Ling, senior equity adviser for Asia technology at Union Bancaire Privée.
ByteDance, valued at $330 billion last month, has not publicly commented on the transaction, and no representatives were present at the signing. Beijing has also not said whether it will approve the deal, leaving a measure of uncertainty over the outcome.
Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had given the agreement his blessing but admitted that Beijing had pushed back. Vance said the Chinese government put up some resistance before the agreement.
The order also extends ByteDance's divestment deadline and prevents the Justice Department from enforcing penalties under the national security law until Dec. 16, shielding app store operators like Apple and Google from liability while the deal is finalized.
