Trump Gives TikTok Deal ‘His Blessing,’ Promises It Will Involve $5B to Education Program

As the Sunday deadline nears, President Donald Trump told reporters Saturday he has approved the deal for Oracle Corp. to purchase the social media platform TikTok.

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President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he approved the deal that would let Oracle Corp. purchase the social media platform TikTok.

Speaking to reporters before departing the White House for his Fayetteville, North Carolina rally Saturday evening, Trump said he had “given the deal my blessing.” Though Trump has approved the deal, the Chinese government must now also agree.

The deal would spin TikTok off into a new company, TikTok Global, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week. Trump said Saturday that should the deal go through as planned, TikTok Global will be based in Texas. He also said that the company would make a $5 billion contribution to an education program, but he did not clarify which or how the money would be distributed.

Trump also said that the new TikTok Global company “will have nothing to do with China,” adding that it will be “totally secure, that’s part of the deal.”

TikTok is currently owned by the Chinese company Bytedance Ltd. Last month, Trump issued an executive order ordering that ByteDance either sell off TikTok in 90 days and destroy data gathered on U.S. users, or the app would be banned. Earlier executive orders banned the owners of TikTok and the instant messaging app WeChat from doing any business with American companies or users.

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WeChat is owned by the massive Chinese company Tencent, which also owns a number of video game developers like Epic Games. Trump clarified his executive order only applied to transactions involving WeChat, and that other Tencent companies and products would not be affected.

This is a developing story and will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

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