The White House has announced that there is a plan to sell TikTok's US division and keep it operational in the country, though final details are yet to be resolved.

The TikTok saga and whether it will or won't be banned in the US, may shortly be concluding, according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. As first reported by CNN, Bessent has announced that a deal has been has been reached.

"We have a framework for a TikTok deal," said Bessent. "The two leaders, President Trump and Party Chair Xi will speak on Friday to complete the deal, but we do have a framework for a deal with TikTok."

Bessent declined to comment on the presumption that a US firm has bought the social media platform. "We're not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal, it's between two private parties," he said, "but the commercial terms have been agreed upon."

Reportedly, the US firm expected to take operational control of the service in the States is group led by Oracle's executive chairman, Larry Ellison. Trump has previously said he backs Ellison buying TikTok, although before that he also blocked Oracle buying it.

"We were very focused on TikTok and making sure that it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese and completely respects US national security concerns, and that's the deal we reached," Bessent continued. "And of course, we want to ensure that the Chinese have a fair, invested environment in the United States, but always that US national security comes first."

Trump several times extended his deadline for a US firm to buy TikTok. But in April 2025, US Attorney General Pam Bondi told Apple and Google that they would not be prosecuted for continuing to host the TikTok app despite a US ban.

Then in July 2025, the Department of Justice's reasoning for this decision was revealed. The DOJ believed that the ban could not be enforced because doing so would interfere with the President's management of foreign affairs.

How this all began

For some years, the US was threatening to ban TikTok — and briefly doing so in January 2025 before Trump allowed the first of multiple extensions to negotiations. It was in fact Trump who started the ban that he later kept trying to prevent, with his Executive Order started the ban">in 2020.

"As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States," Trump said in August 1, 2020. "Soon, immediately. I mean essentially immediately. I will sign the document tomorrow."

Trump's and subsequently Biden's issue with TikTok was entirely political, but ostensibly it was to do with the service being owned by China. Allegedly, the Chinese government could compel TikTok owner Bytedance to provide it with confidential data about US users.

Bytedance has consistently said that the claimed national security concerns were baseless. Its CEO, Shou Chew, took to social media to decry the move.

But before Trump's September 2020 deadline, Bytedance did enter into talks with Oracle about the US firm taking over its business in the States.

Trump publicly approved that deal, until he didn't and so scuttled it later the same month. A ban that September was delayed by a US judge, and then blocked in November 2020 as an infringement of the rights of those Americans deriving income from their TikTok work.

Then in 2024, President Biden signed a bill into law that said Bytedance must sell off TikTok within nine months, although a further three-month extension was possible.

"The path to my desk was a difficult path," President Biden said of the bill. "It should have been easier and it should've gotten there sooner."

"But in the end we did what America always does," he continued, "we rose to the moment."

The bill's deadline meant the ban would come into effect shortly before Trump's second term. In December 2024, Trump called for the ban to be paused.

There didn't appear to be any national security, legal, or technical reason for Trump's request. But it would have pushed the final deadline for TikTok into his term, meaning he could take credit for whatever deal is concluded.