The law, unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, leaves the interpretation of a “qualified divestiture” up to the president. In his latest post, Trump seemed to lay out what would satisfy that definition for him.
Trump said he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” and confirmed that the move would “save TikTok.” NBC News has asked the Trump transition team for clarification on whether the president-elect meant ownership should be held by a U.S.-based company or the U.S. government itself.
Even so, ByteDance has never indicated that TikTok is actually for sale and has never revealed a valuation for the platform. Since the company has been reluctant to sell, a 50% joint venture may be more palatable than losing 100% of the ownership of TikTok.
If a qualified divestiture were to take place, it would give TikTok’s service providers much more peace of mind than simply an extended period of nonenforcement.
Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday also seemingly contradicted what House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said earlier Sunday when he told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he believed Trump’s intention “is that he’s going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership” of TikTok before it’s allowed back online in the U.S.
“I think we will enforce the law,” the speaker said.
Also on Sunday, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s incoming national security adviser, told CNN that Trump’s intention was to communicate with the various stakeholders and “to get it back online and buy him some time to” save the app.
“This is about giving the tech companies, the app stores, the providers, the cloud storage and others the confidence that we are going to work toward some type of deal to not make this go dark. And I think that’s what you’re going to see in the upcoming 24 hours,” Waltz said.
He added: “We’re working, literally real time, working with the various tech companies to get it back online and buy [Trump] some time to, one, save it, but protect Americans’ data and protect Americans from any type of foreign interference.”
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