Vice President JD Vance expressed confidence this weekend that TikTok can continue operating in the United States without posing national security risks. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Vance said he believes the platform has been effectively separated from its China based parent company ByteDance.
“I feel very confident that we have successfully separated this company from TikTok global and actually made it so that we can control people’s data security. We can ensure that the algorithm is not being used as a propaganda tool by a foreign government,” Vance said.
Concerns over TikTok’s ties to ByteDance and data collection practices have long fueled political debate. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that approved a proposal for TikTok’s U.S. operations to move under a new joint venture structure. The deal would limit ByteDance’s stake to less than 20 percent, with the majority ownership going to American investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi based MGX fund. ByteDance backers like Sequoia, Susquehanna, and General Atlantic are also expected to participate in the equity shift.
Vance noted the new arrangement values TikTok’s business at around $14 billion and emphasized that American business leaders will be the ones making decisions about the platform’s data use and algorithm oversight. “At the end of the day, I believe that north of 80 percent of the company will be owned by the American investors and their partners. This is not something where the Chinese or any Chinese entity has a large stake of the table,” he said.
Trump has stated that Chinese President Xi Jinping gave the deal a green light, though Vance acknowledged there was some pushback from Beijing. ByteDance itself has not confirmed the transaction, nor has the Chinese government signaled that it will alter laws that could be necessary for the agreement to move forward. For now, TikTok continues to operate while the details of the restructuring remain under review.