The TikTok ban got delayed again, but Trump says the deal to create new, U.S.-owned app is done

If you’ve been following the long, drawn-out saga of the U.S. government’s attempt to shake up TikTok‘s ownership, then I have bad news and good news for you: The bad news is that President Donald Trump has yet again pushed back the start date for the Biden-era TikTok ban, but the good news is that this reprieve looks like it will be the last one.

As the president meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Madrid, he is informing the public that his deal to reshape TikTok’s U.S. operations is done. “We have a deal on TikTok, I’ve reached a deal with China, I’m going to speak to President Xi on Friday to confirm everything up,” Trump said.

The added negotiation time will require another legislative delay. The law that would require ByteDance to either divest TikTok or take it out of the U.S. was scheduled to take effect on September 17, but Trump’s latest extension pushes the start date back to December 16 — giving the White House more than enough time to shake on the rumored deal.

The Wall Street Journal

reported that the negotiations are indeed in the final stages, with a consortium that includes Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake set to take control of about 80% of a new app. The new company’s board is expected to be dominated by Americans, and engineers will be tasked with creating a new content recommendation algorithm that uses technology licensed from ByteDance. That would allow the White House to deliver on the “Chinese characteristics” it promised to include in the new app.

In other words, the incoming deal sounds a lot like a proposed agreement discussed in a July report in The Information. According to that article, TikTok is testing an app that is codenamed M2. After completing the app, TikTok would start ferrying U.S. users over there, with the original U.S. version of TikTok remaining active into 2026.

Though TikTok reps argued that the M2 report was inaccurate, the latest reports line up with the coverage from July. There are also similarities between the current deal framework and Project Texas, TikTok’s long-term plan to install an American watchdog to oversee the data of the app’s U.S. users. Oracle has often been cited as the company that would occupy that role, and its inclusion among the list of potential buyers has had a positive effect on its stock price.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the details of the deal could still change. Given how many twists there have been in this story — and how reticent China has seemed regarding a potential TikTok spinoff — I won’t be convinced until an official announcement comes through.