The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Saturday that according to the agreement reached between the United States and China regarding the short video application TikTok, out of the seven board seats for TikTok’s U.S. operations, six will be held by Americans, and the algorithm of TikTok will be controlled by the United States. The agreement is expected to be signed in the coming days.
Leavitt revealed more details about the TikTok agreement in an interview with Fox News on Saturday.
“We are 100% confident that the agreement has been reached. Now, the only thing left is the signing of the agreement,” she said.
Leavitt also emphasized that the agreement does prioritize American interests. It means that the majority of the ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations will be held by Americans.
“The board responsible for managing TikTok’s U.S. operations will have seven seats, with six held by Americans,” Leavitt said. “Data and privacy management will be led by one of America’s top tech companies, Oracle, and the algorithm will also be controlled by the United States.”
“All these details have been agreed upon, and now we just need to sign this agreement, which I expect to be completed in the next few days,” she added.
The agreement reached between the United States and China regarding TikTok means that TikTok will continue to operate in the United States. President Trump stated after a call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday that China has approved the TikTok agreement.
According to Reuters, a senior White House official said that the Chinese parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, will appoint the seventh board member.
The official also stated that the agreement requires all data of American users to be stored on U.S. cloud computing infrastructure operated by the U.S. software company Oracle.
Bloomberg reported that a senior White House official said that the American board members of TikTok will have expertise in national security and cybersecurity, while the remaining board member chosen by ByteDance will be excluded from TikTok’s security committee.
The official also mentioned that ByteDance will hold less than 20% stake in the joint venture of TikTok’s U.S. operations, and new investors will include Oracle Corp., private venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and private equity firm Silver Lake Management LLC.
White House officials stated that Oracle will serve as the security provider for TikTok, collaborating with the U.S. government to monitor the security of the application, ensuring that all data of American users will be stored in the U.S., preventing China from accessing it.
The official further added that this deal will allow American users to continue using this popular application safely.