U.S., China reportedly set to confirm TikTok deal Sept. 19
President Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping will reportedly meet to approve a deal that will let TikTok continue operating in the U.S.
U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent publicly said that a framework deal has been established between two private companies that will enable TikTok to continue having an active presence on U.S. mobile and Internet platforms, according to CNBC.
In addition, Trump strongly hinted at a U.S. deal with China in a Monday, Sept. 15 post on his social media network Truth Social.
“A deal was reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our country very much wanted to save,” Trump said in the post. “They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday.”
TikTok takes winding path to remaining open in U.S.
Controversy over TikTok’s U.S. operation goes back to the first Trump administration. In an executive order issued June 20, 2025, Trump said the video-focused social media app now has until Wed. Sept. 17, 2025, to find a new owner for its U.S. business. This follows an initial extension of an April 5, 2025 deadline imposed by Congress to Thursday, June 19, 2025.
The continuing saga of whether TikTok will continue to operate in the U.S. dates back to the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was signed by President Biden in April 2024 in response to longstanding concerns over possible ties between TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party and possible risks to U.S. user privacy (ByteDance and TikTok have publicly denied the validity of these concerns).
Due to this legislation, which makes it unlawful for U.S. companies to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless U. S. operation of the Chinese-owned platform is severed from Chinese control, TikTok briefly went dark in the U.S. during the weekend of Jan. 18-19.
Suitors for U.S. TikTok business emerge
Media reports have previously indicated there is no lack of interested purchasers for TikTok’s U.S. enterprise, although no figures have been officially mentioned.
In February 2025, an executive order from the White House mandated the federal government to establish a sovereign wealth fund, which uses government assets to invest in global markets, companies, real estate and private equity and could be used for the U.S. government to partially or fully finance a TikTok acquisition.
And according to Reuters, Amazon previously placed a bid to purchase the U.S. business TikTok from ByteDance. Although Amazon, TikTok and ByteDance all declined public comment, Reuters said a Trump administration official confirmed that Amazon sent a letter to Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick requesting to make an offer to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operation.
[READ MORE: How purchasing TikTok would benefit Amazon]
Other interested bidders have been said to include Oracle, which has been storing TikTok’s U.S. data on its servers since 2022, as well as an investor group led by the founder of adult entertainment platform OnlyFans, a group of non-Chinese ByteDance shareholders, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
