'Charlie Kirk helped me a lot too!': Trump hails TikTok; credits late MAGA star for campaign use

US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order approving a deal for the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok to be taken over by a group of American investors, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, allowing the app to continue operating in the US. The signing took place in the Oval Office.

Trump emphasized the platform’s importance during his 2024 campaign, saying, “I used it myself during the campaign, and it was very successful.” He also noted the influence of former conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this month, saying Kirk “helped me a lot, too,” and encouraged him to use TikTok to reach voters, as cited by NBC.



"Charlie helped me a lot too! He said to me, 'you should go on TikTok.' And it actually helped. We got RECORD votes with the young voters!" Trump said.



Highlighting the transition to US ownership, Trump said, “it’s very good and very meaningful, but we have American investors taking it over, running it, highly sophisticated,” adding that they would “play a very big role in terms of security, safety and everything else,” as quoted by NBC.

Former President Joe Biden signed legislation last year requiring China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US assets to an American company by early this year or face a nationwide ban. However, Trump has repeatedly issued orders allowing TikTok to continue operating in the US while his administration worked toward a sale agreement.

ByteDance currently owns TikTok, but to remain functional in the US, a majority stake will shift to American investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake. ByteDance will retain less than 20 percent equity to comply with the divest-or-ban law and will have one board representative, who will be excluded from security-related matters.

Many details of the arrangement remain unclear, but Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping “gave us the go-ahead” to proceed with the deal.

Vice president JD Vance said the American company that takes ownership of TikTok will be valued at $14 billion. He also emphasized that US investors will "actually control the algorithm" of the app.

“We actually think this is a good deal for investors, but ultimately the investors are going to make the determination about what they would invest in and what they think is proper value,” Vance added, as reported by NBC News.

Neither Vance nor Trump specified the exact buyers of TikTok, but both noted that Oracle will play "a big part" in the deal.