The Trump administration is reportedly set to collect about $10 billion from investors involved in the deal that transferred control of TikTok’s U.S. business into a majority American-owned joint venture, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Reuters.
The arrangement raises fresh questions about whether the White House acted as a national security broker or as a political gatekeeper with a financial stake in the outcome. ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent, finalized the restructuring in January in an effort to avert a U.S. ban on the app, which is used by more than 200 million Americans.
Under the deal, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is meant to secure U.S. user data, apps and algorithms through privacy and cybersecurity controls, but the companies have disclosed little about the terms of the divestiture. Reuters reported that Vice President JD Vance had previously said the new U.S. company would be valued at around $14 billion.
The Wall Street Journal said investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX paid roughly $2.5 billion to the Treasury Department when the deal closed and are expected to make additional payments until the total reaches $10 billion. Administration officials have defended the fee as payment for Trump’s role in preserving TikTok’s U.S. operations and steering negotiations with China.
That explanation is unlikely to quiet critics. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi were sued by retail investors in rival social media companies seeking to reverse the president’s approval of the ByteDance transaction, adding another legal and political challenge to a deal that already looked unusually entangled with executive power.