President Trump Orders TikTok Divestment; Sweeping Order Appears to Indicate a Broadening of CFIUS’s Jurisdiction

Following completion of a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, President Trump recently issued an Executive Order requiring ByteDance to, among other things, divest itself of assets and property that enable or support operation of the TikTok application in the United States within 90 days.

This was not an unexpected outcome.  We previously reported on the unusual nature of CFIUS’s review here.  The week before, President Trump issued a different Executive Order authorizing the Commerce Department to prohibit transactions involving a U.S. person or within the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance (the “Commerce Order”), with details of the restrictions to come in 45 days.  We previously reported on the Commerce Order here.  According to press reports, negotiations for a possible acquisition of TikTok continue, and it remains to be seen whether those restrictions will come to fruition and on what timetable.

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