After months of stop-start negotiations, U.S. officials in Madrid said Monday they have a “framework” agreement that would move TikTok toward U.S.-controlled ownership — a development that could end one of the most unusual and geopolitically loaded corporate dramas of the decade. The announcement came from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the close of high-level trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

What they actually agreed — and whether it will survive the political, legal and technical tests ahead — remains deeply unclear. Bessent described the deal as a framework rather than a finished sale, and declined to disclose commercial terms. He said the pact would be confirmed in a call between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later in the week.

TikTok’s future in the United States has been a live political issue for years. Lawmakers and security officials have repeatedly warned that ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company, could be compelled by Chinese law to hand over user data or code — an allegation ByteDance disputes — and a 2024 U.S. law set strict new rules: unless ByteDance divests TikTok’s U.S. operations, the app could be banned under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The White House and Congress framed that law as a national security safeguard; the administration officially applied it to TikTok earlier this year.

A deadline that kept moving

President Trump had repeatedly delayed the statutory deadline, giving negotiators room to shape a sale or structural fix rather than forcing a shutdown. The most recent extension put the effective cutoff days away — a calendar pressure point that made the Madrid talks feel like a last realistic chance to nail down an arrangement that would avoid an abrupt ban. Officials in Madrid said the deadline and the political optics concentrated minds on both sides.

How close is “close”?

“Very close,” according to Bessent — but he also warned that China has pressed some “very aggressive asks” in exchange for agreeing to the transfer of control. Those asks reportedly touch on wider trade and tariff issues, meaning the TikTok question is now entangled with separate, thorny negotiations on economics and technology policy. That mix of national security, commercial terms and diplomatic concessions is precisely why a “framework” can still take weeks or months to harden into a legal, enforceable transfer — if it ever does.

Who might buy TikTok — or how it could be structured

For months, potential buyers and investor groups have circled TikTok. Reports through the spring and summer named consortia involving Oracle, private-equity firms and venture capital investors such as Andreessen Horowitz — sometimes in varying combinations — as possible partners in a U.S.-centric holding company that would run TikTok’s American operations. At the same time, TikTok reportedly prepared a separate U.S. app with a distinct algorithm and data architecture as a fallback arrangement. None of those commercial solutions had become final, and several prospective investors have publicly walked away at various stages.

What the framework might — and might not — deliver

There are a number of important technical and legal questions that flow from a framework that purports to create “U.S.-controlled ownership.”

• Control vs. minority stakes: Will ByteDance actually exit, or will it retain a minority economic stake while ceding control? U.S. law and many security officials emphasize “control” as the key risk factor, but the line between minority ownership and effective control can be fuzzy in complex corporate structures.
• Algorithms and data: Even if a new U.S. owner operates TikTok, will the recommendation engine and training data be fully separated from ByteDance? Reuters and other outlets have reported that TikTok is working on a U.S.-only version of the app with its own algorithm — a technical partial solution that may not satisfy all legal or political requirements.
• Enforcement and verification: If a deal is struck, how will the U.S. verify China’s compliance with any promises about what ByteDance can retain? And if China argues that elements of the app are “Chinese characteristics” that it wants to preserve, will the U.S. accept concessions that risk undermining the national-security rationale for a forced divestiture? Bessent himself warned his team would not “sacrifice national security for a social media app.”

The politics: a deal both domestic and diplomatic

For the U.S. administration, a deal that preserves TikTok — while staking an explicit national security firewall — would be a rare victory: a high-visibility trade concession from Beijing plus a domestic solution that keeps millions of American users online. For China, allowing an asset formerly owned by a Chinese company to be transferred or restructured in a way that leaves some elements of Chinese influence intact (what negotiators sometimes describe as “soft power” attributes) might be a way to avoid the political loss of a public sale. Both sides have incentives to spin a compromise as a win; the messy details, however, will matter hugely.

What ordinary TikTok users should expect

If the framework holds, users will likely see little immediate change: the app would continue running, creators would keep posting, and advertisers would (at least initially) face a stable platform. But creators and advertisers should be prepared for a period of instability: ownership changes, possible reorganizations of data governance, and the legal tail that may include congressional oversight, litigation, and regulatory conditions. If the framework collapses, a hard ban would create abrupt disruption for creators who have built businesses on the platform.

Next steps and the hard truth

The framework is only the start of a complicated process. Trump and Xi’s scheduled call will be a political checkpoint; any final arrangement will still need to be negotiated in detail by private parties and probably scrutinized by U.S. national-security and competition regulators. Even if leaders bless a framework, implementation could be slowed by contractual complexity, investor withdrawals, or new legal challenges. In short, the headlines may move fast; the legal and technical work will not.

For now, the most useful framing is cautious optimism. A Madrid “framework” signals meaningful progress between two adversaries that rarely agree on high-stakes tech issues. But every step from framework to finished deal will be tested by law, by technology, and by politics. For millions of Americans who use TikTok every day, the difference between an elegant, enforceable transfer of control and a messy, litigated collapse will be existential for creators’ livelihoods and the app’s broader cultural role.