Abu Dhabi royals to take stake in TikTok US deal
New Delhi, Sep 26: The Abu Dhabi royal family is set to acquire a stake in TikTok’s American business, after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a $14bn (£10.5bn) restructuring of the popular social media platform, The Guardian reported.
According to the deal, MGX – a fund chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan - will take a 15 percent stake in TikTok US and gain a board seat once the company is spun out.
Trump’s executive order, signed Thursday night, gives a 120-day window to finalise the agreement.
Under the new structure, Larry Ellison’s Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and MGX together will control about 45 percent of TikTok US. American companies overall are expected to hold just over 65 percent of the business.
“[TikTok US] will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary,” Trump said while announcing the move. “We have American investors taking it over, running it [who are] highly sophisticated, including Larry Ellison. Great investors, the biggest. They don’t get bigger. This is going to be American-operated all the way.”
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, will retain a 19.9 percent stake in the restructured U.S. entity. While Beijing has yet to indicate whether it will approve the deal, Trump claimed he had “had a good talk” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who he said “gave us the go-ahead.”
US Vice-President JD Vance said the agreement put TikTok US at a $14bn valuation.
“There was some resistance on the Chinese side,” Vance said. “But the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating but we wanted to make sure that [it] protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law.”
Vance added: “This deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than in the past. Because their data is going to be secure and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.”
