Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Following years of wrangling and political uncertainty, TikTok announced Thursday that its China-based parent company, ByteDance, has sold its majority stake in the U.S. business rights of its social media platform to a group of non-Chinese investors.
The announcement was made a day before the deadline set by the Trump administration for the sale of TikTok's U.S. business rights or for the service to be pulled from smartphone application shelves and go dark in the United States.
TikTok has been a target of President Donald Trump since his first administration, due to its mass collection of data on U.S. users and fears ByteDance could be compelled to hand it over to China, representing a national security threat.
A divest-or-ban bill was then passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2024, spurring negotiations for TikTok to sell its U.S. operations. Once Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he extended the deadline four times to allow TikTok divestment negotiations to continue, with the most recent deadline set for Friday.
Coinciding with the sale was the creation of a joint venture with a legal obligation to protect and secure U.S. data.
