The future of the social media app TikTok will be in the hands of Americans, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Six Americans will sit on the company’s seven-seat board, Leavitt said Saturday during an interview on Fox News, according to NBC.
“This deal does put America first,” Leavitt said.
“And let me just be very clear. This deal means that TikTok will be majority-owned by Americans in the United States. There will be seven seats on the board that controls the app in the United States, and six of those seats will be Americans,” she explained.
Oracle, a software giant, would handle data and protect privacy for the American version of TikTok, she said, according to The New York Times.
Leavitt said the deal will allow TikTok to continue to operate on Americans’ phones. Under a law passed last year, TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, was ordered to devise a new corporate structure that would sever its connection with the Chinese government or be banned from operating in the U.S. Lawmakers feared Americans’ privacy was at risk with Chinese ownership.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for a TikTok deal multiple times.
Leavitt said that although no agreement has been signed, “We are 100 percent confident that a deal is done.”
Trump “recognized the need to protect Americans’ privacy and data while also keeping this app open,” she said.
A representative of China’s Ministry of Commerce said a framework for a deal had been reached.
🚨 @PressSec @karolineleavitt with news on exactly what the TikTok deal will look like.
Saturday In America w/ Kayleigh McEnany @FoxNews ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/dgweGBcEOY
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) September 20, 2025
ByteDance has been proposing a plan in which new American investors would enter the picture to dilute Chinese ownership to less that 20 percent, as required by the law.
TikTok’s recommendation algorithm would be “controlled by America,” Leavitt said.
On Friday, Trump indicated that Chinese leader Xi Jinping backed the deal.
Trump said the investors who join the board are “all very well-known people, very famous people actually, financially,” according to NBC
“It’s also controlled by very powerful and very substantial American people, all American, by the way, all American people,” he said.
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