President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday, signaling a pivotal moment for the popular social media platform, TikTok. This order is designed to pave the way for a coalition of investors to establish an American-run version of TikTok, completely separate from its current Chinese owner, ByteDance. The goal is to ensure the app’s continued operation within the United States while mitigating security risks.
For months, the administration has been diligently searching for non-Chinese investors to back a U.S. TikTok company. Vice President JD Vance has indicated that this new American entity would carry an estimated valuation of $14 billion.
This initiative directly responds to a federal law enacted in January, which banned TikTok in the United States due to significant concerns that Beijing could exploit the app to access sensitive American data or disseminate propaganda. Despite the ban, Mr. Trump has granted multiple delays for its enforcement. The recent Thursday order extends the negotiation period, giving all parties until mid-January to finalize the comprehensive deal.
“This deal truly empowers Americans to use TikTok with more confidence than ever before,” Mr. Vance affirmed. “Their data will be secure, and it will not be used as a propaganda tool against our fellow citizens.”
Mr. Trump enthusiastically declared on Thursday that the prospective U.S. TikTok investors were “American investors, American companies, great ones, great investors.”
However, sources familiar with the ongoing discussions reveal that an Emirati investment firm is also expected to join the investment group for the new American TikTok company.
The Emirati firm, MGX, is anticipated to collaborate with prominent U.S.-based companies such as tech giant Oracle and investment firm Silver Lake. Additionally, Mr. Trump confirmed the involvement of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and technology chief executive Michael Dell as investors.
MGX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fox Corporation and Mr. Dell’s investment firm, BDT & MSD Partners, declined to comment.
The MGX investment serves as the latest example of the Emiratis leveraging their substantial financial resources to support Mr. Trump’s interests. In recent months, representatives of the Gulf State have pledged a monumental $1.4 trillion investment in the U.S. economy over the next decade. Furthermore, MGX reportedly deposited $2 billion into a cryptocurrency startup founded by the Trump family.
These TikTok negotiations and the MGX crypto investment unfolded concurrently with the Emiratis’ active pursuit of acquiring highly valuable artificial intelligence chips. The Biden administration had previously imposed restrictions on the Emiratis’ access to these chips, citing concerns about the Gulf State’s ties to China. However, the Emiratis had been pressuring the Trump administration to alter U.S. policy, enabling them to build massive data centers and emerge as a significant player in the AI industry.
During Mr. Trump’s trip to Abu Dhabi in May, his administration agreed to a sale of 500,000 A.I. chips to the Emiratis. These chips are intended for a data center campus projected to be one of the largest in the world.
MGX, having been involved in TikTok investment discussions for many months, stands among several companies in the deal poised to benefit from the Emirates’ ambitious data center project. Oracle, a leading cloud computing provider and TikTok investor, is slated to construct a data center costing approximately $20 billion in the Emirates. Similarly, Silver Lake, another investment company invested in TikTok, holds a stake in G42, an Emirati A.I. company and partner in that project.
While no concrete evidence suggests that the chip deal was offered in exchange for any other transactions, two Democratic senators have formally requested that inspectors general at the Commerce and State Departments investigate whether Trump administration officials violated ethics rules in these multibillion-dollar agreements involving the Emiratis.
Mr. Trump had previously indicated that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, had approved the framework for a deal. Although an official readout from a Chinese state-run news agency presented a more ambiguous stance, Mr. Xi’s comments appeared to signal support for a commercial solution regarding TikTok.