The Wall Street Journal reported, citing informed sources, that President Donald Trump’s administration will receive fees estimated at about $10 billion from investors in the recent deal to acquire TikTok’s business in the United States.
Last January, the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, reached an agreement to establish a joint venture in which the American side owns a majority of the shares, with the aim of protecting user data in the United States and avoiding banning the application used by more than 200 million Americans.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture will secure US user data, apps and algorithms through measures to protect data privacy and cybersecurity. The company did not reveal many details about the mechanism of this waiver.
In September, US Vice President J.D. Vance said that the value of the new American company would reach about $14 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the $10 billion allocated to the Trump administration is part of the agreement under which investors close to the US administration acquired TikTok operations in the United States from ByteDance, according to what was reported by Reuters.
This amount is in addition to the investments previously pumped into establishing a new entity to operate the application in the United States.
According to the newspaper, the investors, namely Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX Abu Dhabi Fund, and other backers, paid about $2.5 billion to the Treasury Department upon completion of the deal, and are scheduled to make subsequent payments until the total amount reaches $10 billion.
Administration officials explained that these fees are justified, pointing to Trump’s role in saving TikTok’s operations in the United States and directing negotiations with China to complete the deal, while addressing representatives’ concerns about national security, according to the newspaper.
Earlier this month, individual investors in two social media companies competing with TikTok filed a lawsuit against Trump and the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, with the aim of canceling the US President’s approval of the deal concluded with the Chinese company ByteDance, owner of TikTok, to form a joint venture owned by an American majority.
