Order recognizes proposed TikTok divestiture and pauses enforcement

The President determines that the proposed divestiture qualifies under the Act. The determination covers TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut, and related sites or applications operated by the new joint venture. The new U.S.-based joint venture must be majority-owned and controlled by U.S. persons. ByteDance and its affiliates must own less than 20 percent of the joint venture. The new joint venture must control the algorithms, code, and content-moderation decisions. Sensitive U.S. user data must be stored in an American company’s cloud environment, with trusted security partners monitoring software updates, algorithms, and data flows. The determination applies once the Framework Agreement’s implementation agreements are executed.

The Attorney General and Justice Department must pause enforcement of the Act and must not impose related penalties. The pause covers entities involved in distributing, maintaining, updating, or enabling access to covered foreign-adversary applications. The Attorney General must issue written guidance and letters to appropriate providers describing the pause and lack of liability. The Justice Department may not later enforce the Act or impose penalties for conduct during the 120-day period or before this order, including conduct since January 19, 2025. The 120-day pause starts on September 25, 2025, the date of the order; the protection for earlier conduct has no separate end date in the order.

The President revokes the 2024 delegation memorandum and changes the 2020 divestment order. The changes concern ByteDance, Musical.ly, TikTok, the proposed investors, and CFIUS, the federal committee that reviews foreign investments. The 2020 order’s prohibition ends if CFIUS makes an agreement with certain investors that follows this order. The Attorney General, consulting with CFIUS, may take steps to check compliance with that agreement. The order preserves the President’s authority to issue further national-security orders. The CFIUS agreement may be made after or together with the Framework Agreement’s implementation agreements.