"Security from what? Unanswered questions linger over Trump’s TikTok deal"
Thursday, Sep 25, 2025, 2:00 PM (GMT+6) · 6 min read
Uncertainty grows as Trump pushes TikTok deal amid national security debate.
President Trump is scheduled to sign an agreement later this week to officially separate TikTok's U.S. operations from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.
This step initiates a series of actions, including securing China's final approval, finalizing a deal potentially valued in the tens of billions, and establishing a complex technical infrastructure.
All of this com es with the assurance that these fundamental changes will proceed in a way that most U.S. users might hardly notice.
There are three key milestones that will indicate how smooth—or rocky—that process will be. First, the new American joint venture must determine its organizational structure. Second, it needs to demonstrate how it will tackle significant technical hurdles. Third, it must address the concerns of a skeptical Congress.
Adding to the complexity, China must give its final approval, even as TikTok continues to feature prominently in ongoing trade discussions.
When asked this week if he believes the plan will succeed, Michael Sobolik of the Hudson Institute gave a straightforward answer: “I’m not sure.”
The China expert emphasized that the central issues concern Oracle (ORCL) and its role as the security provider for the U.S. spin-off of the app.
“Whenever they mention Oracle handling security, it raises the question: security from what?” Sobolik said, pointing out that the U.S. still faces significant uncertainty in fully securing the app’s algorithm and controlling the data of its American users.
This week, the White House announced plans for a new U.S.-based joint venture, fully controlled by American investors who will hold the majority of the company's ownership and board seats. The venture will be led by a U.S. investor group including Oracle, along with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and private equity powerhouse Silver Lake.
Data privacy and cybersecurity attorney Lily Li highlights that the primary concern is the exact structure of the new company.
“An initial priority should be airtight corporate controls,” she noted this week, emphasizing that the company’s capacity to provide effective oversight and security may depend largely on its organizational setup and how independently it can operate from its Chinese parent, ByteDance.
ByteDance is poised to retain significant influence. The China-based company will hold up to a 20% equity stake in the new U.S.-based entity, has repeatedly expressed its intent to remain actively involved, and will continue its role as the licensor of TikTok’s highly valued content recommendation system.
According to the White House, the plan is for the new U.S. venture to obtain a copy of TikTok’s algorithm, which will be “fully inspected” and “retrained” using U.S. user data.
Uncertainties remain around the terms of the license, particularly as ByteDance continues to run TikTok in other countries. Both versions of the app will operate simultaneously, drawing from the same underlying algorithm and, it appears, the same library of videos.
"I’d want it to be a perpetual license," says Li, founder of California-based Metaverse Law, a firm focused on global data policy, "so there’s no risk they could claw it back at any time."
So far, the White House has only outlined that six of the seven board seats will be held by Americans, without providing a full breakdown of the new corporate structure.
Trump has pledged that the new company will be "controlled by very powerful and very substantial American people," promising additional details in the near future.
Technical Challenges
Beyond corporate governance, a host of technical issues remain.
The plan envisions the US-based entity receiving a copy of TikTok’s algorithm, which will then be retrained and relaunched—all while allowing US users to continue using the app without downloading a new version.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted this week that US users would still have access to videos created worldwide on the ByteDance-controlled side of TikTok.
It’s a significant technical challenge, especially given that Oracle appears unlikely to rewrite TikTok’s underlying algorithm, serving instead more as a gatekeeper.
A senior White House official described Oracle’s role this week as ensuring “top-to-bottom security,” noting that the final arrangement for the algorithm represents a compromise between U.S. and Chinese regulations.
The official clarified that Oracle will not modify the algorithm but will “inspect it, study its behavior, and understand how it operates,” with inspections extending all the way down to the source code level.
A related challenge is keeping US user data fully separate when ByteDance continues to play a central role in supporting TikTok for American users—both through the core algorithm and by supplying much of the video content.
Winning over a skeptical Congress
Finally, there’s the political hurdle: whether lawmakers—especially those who backed the 2024 law mandating a TikTok sale—will be satisfied with this setup, including members of Trump’s own party.
It remains uncertain whether the deal would fully adhere to the law, which explicitly prohibits any cooperation with ByteDance regarding the new US app.
This comes amid bipartisan frustration in Congress over how the law they passed last year has been handled by Trump and his team. A prominent Republican critic is Michigan Congressman John Moolenaar, who has repeatedly voiced concerns about the algorithm.
“The law is clear: any deal must remove Chinese influence and control over the app to protect our national interests,” he wrote in an op-ed earlier this year.
He reiterated his worries this week, warning that the details released so far "might permit ongoing [Chinese] control or influence."
Moolenaar and other lawmakers have several avenues to intervene. However, whether a Republican-led Congress—frequently vocal about defending its authority but often ultimately yielding to Trump—will take action is uncertain.
Regardless, Sobolik emphasizes, "it's now or never at this point." Congress will have to act soon, as "we're approaching the point of no return."
Ben Werschkul covers Washington for Yahoo Finance.
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