Senate Democrat asks Trump for TikTok divestiture details
Source: The Hill
11/24/25 1:06 PM ET
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Monday pressed President Trump for details about a deal to keep TikTok available in the U.S. Markey underscored that few specifics have emerged since Trump signed an executive order in September approving the deal that would see the app spun off into a separate U.S. entity. The agreement, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said was finalized in late October, seeks to comply with a 2024 law requiring TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the app or face a U.S. ban.
“I strongly support finding an alternative approach to the statutory TikTok ban, but your repeated unlawful extensions of the divestment deadline and vague comments about the deal raise significant questions about whether you have been able to secure an agreement that keeps TikTok online and addresses the national security concerns posed by ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok,” Markey wrote in a letter to Trump.
Under the TikTok deal, which took shape nine months after the divest-or-ban law was initially set to take effect, a contingent of American investors will take control of the new U.S. TikTok entity, while ByteDance will maintain a stake of less than 20 percent. Oracle, one of the U.S. investors, will also be responsible for inspecting and retraining a copy of the recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data.
Trump’s September order declared this deal met the requirements of a “qualified divestiture” under the law. It also postponed enforcement of the law for another 120 days following a series of earlier extensions.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5620329-markey-questions-tiktok-deal/
Link to Senator Markey PRESS RELEASE - Two Months After Trump Signs TikTok Executive Order, Senator Markey Demands Answers on Details of the Supposed TikTok Deal
Link to LETTER (inquiry) (PDF) - https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_trump_on_tiktok.pdf
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