Already Saved, Donald Trump Asks

for 50 Percent of TikTok Shares

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia –President of the United States (US) Donald Trump signed an executive order regarding the postponement of blocking the TikTok application for the next 75 days.

This order was signed by Trump a few hours after he was inaugurated as President on Monday (20/1). However, Trump asked that the United States be able to control 50 percent of TikTok shares.

“I agree, but let the United States own 50 percent of TikTok shares,” Trump said, quoted from USA Today, Wednesday (22/1/2025).

“There will be many bidders. The United States will do what we call a joint venture,” Trump added.

According to a CNN report, Trump has repeatedly suggested in recent days that he is open to a US company buying half of TikTok’s shares and running it as a 50-50 joint venture with its current Chinese owner, ByteDance.

A joint venture involving a US company with a 50 percent stake in TikTok would relax a legal requirement that TikTok be blocked in the US unless ByteDance sells to an American buyer or one of its allies.

Trump has said he decided to save TikTok because the platform, used by 170 million Americans, helps him reach young voters, and shutting it down in the US would cost American jobs.

“We don’t have a choice. We have to save a lot of jobs,” Trump said at a rally on Sunday ahead of his inauguration.

“We don’t want to give our business to China. We don’t want to give our business to anybody else,” he said.

TikTok stopped working for US users on Saturday night before a law banning it on national security grounds took effect on Sunday.

US officials have warned that under the ownership of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, Americans’ data could be misused.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA