Vice President J.D. Vance expressed confidence that the Trump administration’s TikTok deal will effectively separate the app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and ensure the security of U.S. users’ data.
In a recent interview with Fox News, Vice President J.D. Vance addressed concerns about the potential vulnerability of TikTok’s U.S. spinoff to Chinese propaganda and data usage. His comments come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order approving plans to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. under new ownership.
“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,” Vance stated. “We can ensure that the algorithm is not being used as a propaganda tool by a foreign government.”
Under the terms of the deal, a new joint-venture will operate TikTok’s U.S. business, with ByteDance holding a minority stake of less than 20 percent. The remaining investors include Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi investment fund MGX. President Trump has also indicated that media mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech entrepreneur Michael Dell will be part of the takeover group.
A key aspect of the arrangement involves ByteDance leasing its algorithm to the new U.S. entity, with Oracle tasked with retraining it. Additionally, Oracle will manage a secure cloud containing U.S. users’ data, implementing controls to prevent other countries from accessing it. This move aims to address long-standing concerns about who would control TikTok’s powerful recommendation software and the associated security and data privacy risks.
Vice President Vance emphasized the role of American investors and businesspeople in determining the future of TikTok in the U.S. “The way that we’ve set up this deal from a national security perspective is that it’s the American investors and the American businesspeople who will make the determination about what’s actually happening with TikTok,” he said.
Vance also highlighted the significant American ownership in the new TikTok entity, stating, “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.”
Despite the optimism expressed by the Vice President, ByteDance has not yet publicly acknowledged the executive order or confirmed the deal’s progress. Furthermore, the Chinese government has not announced any changes to its laws that would facilitate the transaction.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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