Business

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TikTok

Opinion

Stephen Bartholomeusz Senior business columnist September 30, 2025 — 12.00pm

When Donald Trump signed an executive order last week enabling a group of largely American investors to gain control of TikTok in the US, he may have helped deliver a multi-billion windfall to a group of his closest supporters.

Last week, American and Chinese negotiating teams agreed on a framework that would clear the way for a sale of Byte Dance’s US TikTok operations to a combination of its existing, mainly US, shareholders and a consortium of new, largely – but not exclusively – American investors.

The TikTok deal was part of broader trade discussions in the midst of Trump’s trade war between the world’s two most powerful economies - but, peculiarly, this corpor

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