US President Donald Trump's executive order has its intent clearly written in its name, 'Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security', but the Thursday announcement still begs a question: Will TikTok return to India?
President Donald J. Trump and @VP Vance SAVE TikTok from a ban while protecting America's national security by removing TikTok in the U.S. from China's control. 🇺🇸
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 25, 2025
THE ART OF THE DEAL. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Khl8QRnhNi
According to this new order, China's ByteDance-owned application will be kept alive in the US through a group of investors who will buy TikTok US in accordance with American law.
The new deal, which sees the US edition of the app valued at $14 billion, will hand ByteDance roughly 50 per cent of TikTok US' profits, despite American shareholders holding a majority stake in the app, a Chinese Economic Review article said, quoting a Financial Times report.
Media moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Oracle's Larry and David Ellison, are said to be part of TikTok's new seven-member board of directors.
The new deal would also reportedly protect TikTok's algorithm by retraining a copy of it for US users, and then storing the US data in American servers itself.
The burning question
Notably, the average revenue per user (RPU) for most social media apps in the US is 5-10 times higher than in other countries, with America likely making up something close to 50 per cent of ByteDance's overall revenue, a BBC report said, citing an unnamed (former) social media executive.
TikTok accounted for $30 billion out of ByteDance's estimated global revenue of $39 billion in 2024, the report added.
This means that the average TikTok creator in the US would be able to monetise their content five times as much as a creator from India.
For both nations, the question has a political tenor, as the app faced issues in the US due to questions of national security, user privacy, and the algorithm being manipulated, whereas in India, it faced similar questions, on grounds of a deteriorating India-China relationship at the time.
Trump's order stating that the background process for ByteDance's divestiture being "qualified"—an "interagency process" involving various US agencies—has also received his approval.
This makes it quite plausible that such an arrangement for an Indian spin-off of TikTok—with adjusted RPUs that would help boost India's creator economy and safeguards for Indian data—would lead to TikTok returning to India to try dethroning Instagram Reels, especially amid a thaw in India-China ties.
