Is the TikTok Saga Finally Over?

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

The Journal. – "Is the TikTok Saga Finally Over?"
Date: September 17, 2025
Hosts: Jessica Mendoza & Ryan Knutson (The Wall Street Journal & Spotify Studios)
Notable Guest: Alex Leary, Political Reporter

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the long-running political and business battle over TikTok’s future in the United States. As a critical deadline loomed for the app's potential ban, high-stakes negotiations between the US and China led to a “framework” for a deal — not a complete resolution, but a significant turning point. The hosts and guest Alex Leary discuss how the TikTok saga unfolded, the underlying national security anxiety, and what the new framework could mean for the app, US–China relations, and American politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Deadline Showdown: TikTok Faces a Ban

• Setting the Scene: US and Chinese officials met in Madrid to negotiate TikTok’s fate as a US ban deadline approached (00:05–01:01).
• Critical Moment: A last-minute “framework of a deal” is announced, averting TikTok’s shutdown for its 170 million US users (01:03–01:10).
  • Alex Leary: “Now, the key word there is framework. That does not mean a deal. It means a framework. Sort of the outlines of a deal.” (01:10)

2. Why Has TikTok Been Such a Target?

• Ongoing Security Fears: TikTok's connection to Chinese parent company ByteDance fuels national security concerns on both sides of the aisle (03:17–03:52).
• Lawmakers’ Warnings: Fears over the app’s algorithm and Chinese government influence.
  • Speaker: “We got a Trojan horse living inside our country.” (04:01, attributed to unnamed lawmakers)
  • Alex Leary (on algorithm): “It’s so powerful and effective… the concern is that the algorithm can be tweaked or adjusted to promote certain views…” (04:22)
• ByteDance’s Pushback: The company insists US user data is siloed and denied sharing with Chinese officials, but skepticism remains (04:48).

3. How Politics Changed TikTok’s Trajectory

• Trump’s Evolving Position: Trump initially echoed national security worries, even trying to ban TikTok in 2020, but shifted as he saw its political usefulness in 2024 (05:08–05:53).
  • “The youth vote is coming into view... you could save this app. You could be the savior.” (05:53, Alex Leary on Trump’s advisors’ thinking)
  • Trump’s son Barron is credited as an influential TikTok advocate (06:21).
• Pop Culture Moment: Trump launches his official TikTok account at a UFC event in June 2024, leveraging the app’s appeal (06:32–07:09).

4. TikTok as a US–China Bargaining Chip

• Trade Tensions as Backdrop: TikTok became entangled in broader trade negotiations over tariffs and fentanyl (07:58–08:26).
  • “TikTok is tangled up in the sort of the trade wars that Trump reignited…and this is a major leverage point for China…” (07:58)

5. What’s in the New TikTok Framework?

• Major Shift in Control:
  • About 80% of the US version of TikTok would be controlled by a consortium of US investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, Susquehanna, KKR, and General Atlantic (10:21–11:18).
  • The remaining 20% stays under Chinese control.
  • Alex Leary: “It’s a massive transaction if they can pull it off.” (11:23)
• US Government Oversight:
  • US officials will have a say in board appointments for the new TikTok subsidiary (11:37–11:43).
  • Alex Leary: “They’ll have… more of a say here in choosing who sits on the board.” (11:43)
• Changing the App:
  • US users will be asked to switch to a new app, which TikTok has already built and is testing (12:00).
• Diplomatic Bonus for China:
  • China is seeking a state visit from President Trump as part of securing the deal—an important symbolic win for Xi Jinping (12:32).
  • “President Xi would love to have President Trump on Chinese soil. It’s a sign of Xi’s power and standing in the world…” (12:32)

6. The Key Sticking Point: The Algorithm

• Licensing, Not Ownership: The US side will license TikTok’s algorithm from ByteDance. Actual ownership of the tech—central to US security fears—remains with China (13:02–13:49).
  • Alex Leary: “That probably won’t satisfy a lot of critics out there… It’s like leasing a car, essentially. You have it in your control, but it’s not yours.” (13:42)
• Will It Satisfy National Security Concerns?
  • “The debate will continue. TikTok will survive, but the debate over itself, its value and its security will persist.” (13:56, Alex Leary)

7. What’s Next?

• Another Extension: Trump pushes the TikTok ban deadline to December 16, 2025, signaling the expectation that the app won’t be banned under his administration (14:35).
• Final Signing: The deal’s confirmation awaits a Trump–Xi call scheduled for Friday.
• Enduring Influence:
  • TikTok’s centrality in US politics, especially in reaching young voters, means neither party is eager to let it go (15:27–15:37).
  • Alex Leary: “It’s essential. It’s absolutely essential. Both parties know it… We can’t give this up. This is too powerful a tool to reach voters, especially young ones…” (15:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We have a framework of a deal.”
  — Alex Leary (01:03), on the outcome of emergency negotiations.
• “I’m very concerned about TikTok taking all the private information that Americans put out to them. We got a Trojan horse living inside our country.”
  — Lawmaker, paraphrased by Alex Leary (04:01)
• “You could save this app. You could be the savior, and you could also harness a very potent political force.”
  — Alex Leary on Trump’s advisors (05:53)
• “The president is now on TikTok. It’s my honor.”
  — Dan White introducing Trump’s TikTok debut at the UFC event (07:09)
• “It’s like leasing a car, essentially. You have it in your control, but it’s not yours.”
  — Alex Leary, describing the licensing deal for TikTok’s algorithm (13:42)
• “TikTok will survive, but the debate over itself, its value and its security will persist.”
  — Alex Leary (13:56)
• “It’s essential. It’s absolutely essential. Both parties know it… This is too powerful a tool to reach voters, especially young ones…”
  — Alex Leary (15:37)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:05–01:01 — Deadline pressure: TikTok faces shutdown
• 01:03 — Announcement: A “framework” for a deal is reached
• 03:17–04:22 — Why TikTok became a lightning rod for national security concerns
• 05:08–07:09 — Trump’s shift, TikTok’s political power, and his own TikTok debut
• 10:21–12:00 — Inside the new TikTok framework: ownership, control, and oversight
• 13:02–13:49 — The unresolved algorithm dilemma
• 14:35–15:37 — Political centrality of TikTok, new deadlines, and the future landscape

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Conclusion

This episode unpacks how the struggle over TikTok’s US future morphed from a tech-security issue to a high-stakes geopolitical bargaining chip and a political must-have. The proposed framework—US majority ownership, continued ByteDance control over the algorithm, and additional US oversight—may ensure TikTok’s survival for now, but leaves many thorny questions unresolved. The saga continues, but the episode closes with a consensus on one point: TikTok’s hold on the American political and cultural landscape is unlikely to loosen any time soon.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

Earlier this week, officials from the US And China flew to Madrid for yet another round of trade negotiations. For two days, the delegations holed up in a 17th century palace, discussing terms about everything from soybean imports to tariffs. But one issue quickly emerged as a focal point. TikTok. For months, TikTok's US presence has been hanging on the edge of survival as the US And China negotiated over the app's ownership. And as the two sides met in Madrid, they faced a pressing deadline. Unless they could agree on a way to sell TikTok to a US owner by today, September 17, the app would go dark for its 170 million US users.

[Alex Leary]

It's a potentially make or break moment for TikTok. Today was the day that the last Trump extension expired, so it would have forced essentially the shutdown of the app.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But at the last minute, they kind.

[Alex Leary]

Of emerged from these meetings and said, we have a framework of a deal.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's our colleague Alex Leary, who covers politics.

[Alex Leary]

Now, the key word there is framework. That does not mean a deal. It means a framework. Sort of the outlines of a deal. So one big caution here is that a lot of this is still being worked out.

[Jessica Mendoza]

What did it take to get to this framework that we're at a lot.

[Alex Leary]

Of private talks and backroom discussions, essentially high level. This is high stakes. So it's taken a lot of sort of behind the scenes wrangling among the Trump administration and leading business figures and companies.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So what's in this proposed deal and who comes out ahead? Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica mendoza. It's Wednesday, September 17th. Coming up on the show, inside the 11th hour, proposal to save TikTok in the U.S.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

For years now, TikTok has been a target for politicians and policymakers on both sides of the aisle. That's because TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is a Chinese company.

[Alex Leary]

Yeah. The US has wanted to address national security concerns for years over TikTok concerns. Whether China was monitoring users or potentially forcing or promoting what the US Calls propaganda through the platform to sway minds on a range of issues or to monitor movements, etc.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Lawmakers have been sounding the alarm for years.

[TJ Watt]

Here's the problem with TikTok as it exists now. It is owned by a Chinese parent company that has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

[Alex Leary]

I'm very concerned about TikTok taking all the private information that Americans put out to them. We got a Trojan horse living inside our country.

[Jessica Mendoza]

At the heart of the concerns was TikTok's powerful algorithm. It's what gets users so hooked on the app.

[Alex Leary]

That is what makes TikTok TikTok. It's so powerful and effective. And so the concern is that the algorithm can be tweaked or adjusted to, you know, to promote certain views or to highlight certain political points or simply to manipulate users and how they're thinking or digesting information. So that's a very powerful tool.

[Jessica Mendoza]

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, has long pushed back on the idea that the app is a security threat. It's said it doesn't share data with the Chinese government and that its US operations are firewalled off from Beijing. At first, Trump agreed with the national security concerns. In 2020, during his first term, he even tried to ban TikTok.

[Alex Leary]

We're looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things.

[Jessica Mendoza]

One alternative that had been thrown around for years was to get an American company to buy the app. Plenty of suitors had lined up. At one point, Walmart wanted a piece. Microsoft explored a takeover. Even Kevin O', Leary, the guy from TV's Shark Tank, wanted in. None of it panned out. In April 2024, under then President Joe Biden, Congress gave the app a deadline. Either find a way to put TikTok under American ownership or. Or the app would be banned in the US by that time, Trump was back on the campaign trail, running for reelection, and he started to change his tune on TikTok.

[Alex Leary]

The youth vote is coming into view and his advisors are kind of telling him, look, you should get on board with this. This is widely popular, especially among younger voters who could be persuaded to get behind you, and you could save this app. You could be the savior, and you could also har. Harness a very potent political force. And so he was convinced of that. So I like TikTok.

[Jessica Mendoza]

I like it.

[Alex Leary]

A number of people were advocating for that, including his young son, Barron Trump, who is currently 19 years old and really tapped into the sort of TikTok movement.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Can you talk about the day Trump launched his TikTok account?

[Alex Leary]

I was actually at. It was a UFC event in Newark, New Jersey.

[Jessica Mendoza]

You were there?

[Alex Leary]

I was there. So Trump was at this event in Newark, New Jersey, in June 2024. So he enters, you know, the arena to just rapturous applause. And. And right before he did that, Trump had released his first TikTok video, which was a video of him and UFC chief Dana White, who's a very popular figure himself. The president is now on TikTok. It's my honor.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Once Trump won the election, he started looking for ways to keep TikTok around. January 19, 2025, was the deadline to either sell or ban the app. And the day before, on January 18th, the app went dark for 14 hours. This message appearing on screens saying, A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution. With Trump about to take office, TikTok came back online and kept running in the U.S. in the months that followed, trade tensions between the U.S. and China escalated, with the administration going back and forth with Beijing over things like tariffs and fentanyl. And during those talks, TikTok became a bargaining chip.

[Alex Leary]

Both sides want to make a deal on larger issues. TikTok is tangled up in the sort of the trade wars that Trump reignited. And this is a major leverage point for China, that it knows how popular the app is in the US and how much. Trump has been a convert to singing its praises and seeing its value. So they're not going to be eager to give it up without getting something in return.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Along the way, Trump extended the deadline to ban TikTok to September 17th today, which brings us back to Madrid.

[Alex Leary]

We have a framework for a TikTok deal. The two leaders, President Trump and Party Chair Xi, will speak on Friday to complete the deal. But we do have a framework.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's after the break.

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[Alex Leary]

The framework as we understand it, we've reported would generally give about 80% of US control of a new sort of US based TikTok.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The idea is there would be one version of TikTok still controlled and operated by ByteDance and another version of the app would be operated by a new US Entity.

[Alex Leary]

And that control would be under US Investors. Those investors include Oracle, Silver Lake and a number of other companies that would be involved, including Susquehanna, which is already a sort of an Investor in, in ByteDance, KKR, General Atlantic or other names that are said to be involved in this. In this partnership consortium that would take 80% control of the U.S. tikTok. Now the 20% would remain under Chinese control.

[Jessica Mendoza]

I mean, 80% stake, new version of TikTok. This sounds like a pretty big deal.

[Alex Leary]

It is a big deal. It's a massive, obviously very lucrative potentially for these companies, Oracle in particular, which already does business with TikTok. So it's a massive transaction if they can pull it off.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The US Government would also get to choose someone to sit on the board of this new TikTok subsidiary.

[Alex Leary]

They will be able to name someone, essentially say this is the US Government's recommendation for a board member. So they'll have a, it's essentially saying we're going to have more of a, more of a say here in choosing who sits on the board.

[Jessica Mendoza]

This week a senior White House official said, quote, any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they're announced by this administration under this new framework existing TikTok users in the US would be asked to shift to a new app, which TikTok has built and is testing, according to the Journal's reporting. So that's what the US Would get. And for China, one of the biggest prizes would be a symbolic one. Beijing has been pushing for a state visit from Trump.

[Alex Leary]

China has extended an invitation to President Trump to visit. President Xi would love to have President Trump on Chinese soil. It's a sign of Xi's power and standing in the world on the global stage. So that would be a big coup for him. President Trump has said he will, but he hasn't also committed to when that will happen. So there's sort of a little bit of a jousting going on, but the White House said it's serious about looking to make that happen.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And then there's the core issue, the thing underpinning all of these negotiations. The algorithm in this deal, China would get to keep it.

[Alex Leary]

The deal includes some sort of licensing from ByteDance to this new US TikTok, which is probably still going to be controversial because it's not completely detached from Chinese control. That probably won't satisfy a lot of critics out there who say that, you know, that still raises concerns about what happens to user data, Right.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Cause a licensing agreement doesn't quite work in the same way as getting ownership over something like an algorithm, right?

[Alex Leary]

That's correct. It's like leasing a car, essentially. I mean, you're still. You have it in your control, but it's not yours.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Ultimately, would this new version of TikTok potentially resolve the concerns around national security?

[Alex Leary]

That's the hope. I mean, that would be the expectation. That's certainly how they will sell it, that this is sort of a good compromise. But it's hard to imagine that it will completely alleviate concerns that a number of lawmakers still have about TikTok and national security concerns, given that Beijing is still going to have a hand on things through its. The way it operates with businesses in that country. So I think the debate will continue. TikTok will survive, but the debate over itself, its value and its security will persist.

[Jessica Mendoza]

After the administration announced the new framework, Trump again pushed back the deadline for a TikTok ban to December 16th. The new date gives both sides more time to hammer out all the details of an agreement. The Treasury Secretary says the deal will be confirmed by Trump and Xi after a call on Friday. So does this framework mean that TikTok won't be banned in the US anymore? Like, that prospect is off the table now.

[Alex Leary]

It's getting there. It's getting to being off the table. I just. It's hard to fathom that the Trump administration will let TikTok wither on its watch, given how much Trump has, you know, staked. You know, he has shifted 180 degrees on the thing and, you know, it's just hard to imagine him suddenly abandoning that in the tens of millions of people that are looking to him to save it.

[Jessica Mendoza]

What does this tell us, Alex, about TikTok in politics today? Like, how important it's become?

[Alex Leary]

It's essential. It's absolutely essential. Both parties know it. The law that called for the sale or the ban of TikTok was, was widely bipartisan, and yet you've got lawmakers on both sides of the aisle embracing TikTok and, of course, other forms of social media. On the one hand, there's, you know, yes, we need to address these concerns. On the other, it's like, we can't give this up. This is too powerful a tool to reach voters, especially young ones who are sometimes elusive in politics.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Wednesday, September 17th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode from Rebecca Fung, Raphael Huang, Amrit Ramkumar and Ling Ling Wei. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.