US president to sign TikTok executive order today: source

• Trump credits TikTok for his re-election last year.
• Platform has 170m users in Untied States alone.
• Biden-era law requires transfer of TikTok’s assets.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday that declares a deal being negotiated by the White House to sell TikTok’s US operations will meet requirements set out in a 2024 law, a White House source with knowledge of the matter said.

Earlier this week, the White House said Trump will declare that a deal to divest TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese owner ByteDance will meet requirements set out in a law passed by Congress that bans the short video app unless its Chinese owner is ended.

Trump has credited TikTok, which has 170 million US users, with helping him win re-election last year and has 15 million followers on his personal account. The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.

Trump has delayed enforcement of the law through mid-December amid efforts to extract TikTok’s US assets from the global platform, line up American investors and ensure that the new ownership qualifies as a full divestiture needed under the 2024 law — passed by the Biden administration requiring TikTok’s divestiture over fears that its US user data could be accessed by the Chinese government.

A further extension is expected in the executive order on Thursday (today).

Last week, the US president had said that business leaders Lachlan Murdoch, Larry Ellison and Michael Dell would be involved as US investors in a proposed deal to keep TikTok operating in the country.

Trump had earlier said the US and China have made progress on a deal requiring TikTok’s American assets to be transferred to US owners from China’s ByteDance.