When President Donald Trump announced that a deal had been reached with China’s Xi for  the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, it was blatantly obvious that it’s easier said than done with the deal facing multiple legal and political hurdles. 

A consortium including Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX emerged as the group finalizing control of TikTok’s U.S. operations. In that arrangement, Oracle would own 45%, ByteDance 35%, and others would make up the rest, rather than a single outright buyer. Trump then wasted no time and signed an executive order approving the sale on September 25, 2025. 

The markets breathed a sigh of relief, finally the USA and China were back to doing serious business during a relentless tit-for-tat trade war. The Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) stock price rose 7% buoyed by the likelihood of the deal, but despite the overall positive market sentiment we were highly skeptical about the likelihood of the deal getting over the line.  it. We tweeted on the official CleaRank X account on September 25, 2025:

TikTok deal will not go through, you got played. $ORCL $NVDIA @larryellison https://t.co/1vTWhX8ppG

— CleaRank (@CleaRank) September 17, 2025

Our opinion remains largely unchanged, despite Washington’s best efforts to skirt any confrontation with China. For years Washington has tried to lure TikTok out of Chinese control. Presidents have threatened bans, Congress has drafted legislation, and some of the biggest AI tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon have been on standby waiting for ByteDance to bend.

Jacob Bakshi, Senior Market Strategist at CleaRank, said:
“Currently the biggest open secret in Washington, Silicon Valley, and Beijing is that the TikTok deal is not going to happen. Not this year. Not next year and probably not ever.”

And the reasons have nothing to do with politics alone. This is a rare corporate standoff where technology, law, geopolitics, and economics all collide and every road leads to the same conclusion.

Here’s why the TikTok sale is structurally, technically, and politically set up to fail.

The Algorithm is Never Leaving China

The question of a deal was never in the hands of ByteDance (the company that owns TikTok) or its executives, it’s primarily the choice of the Chinese government, which placed TikTok’s recommendation algorithm on its export-control technology list as far back as 2020.

Here’s what it means in practice:

Jacob Bakshi, explained the far reaching implications:
“The algorithm is TikTok. If any U.S. buyer, especially names like Oracle, Microsoft, or Amazon,  can’t get the “secret sauce, then there’s definitely no chance of a deal.”

TikTok & ByteDance Too Complex to Seperate 

Selling TikTok’s U.S. operations sounds straightforward in theory but in reality TikTok is a deeply integrated node inside a massive, global AI ecosystem built and maintained by ByteDance.

Every critical part of TikTok’s functionality is tied directly to ByteDance’s central infrastructure which shares data pipelines, AI training models, moderation systems, and the recommendation algorithm which is at the core of the product

Jacob Bakshi said, “Splitting TikTok U.S. from the global ops would be less like a corporate divestment and more like an organ transplant and one where the donor insists on keeping the heart.”

According to our research and interviews with engineers who have studied the system say the requirements are staggering. It’ll take many years, not months, to build a fully independent U.S. tech stack with billions of dollars in engineering and reconstruction. It’ll also require a complete rewrite of the recommendation engine and a full rebuild of the internal data infrastructure

This makes the timelines Washington demands technically unrealistic and that’s assuming China would even permit the technical separation, which it won’t.

Three’s a Party, Not a Sale

The standard corporate acquisitions involve two parties, namely a buyer and a seller.
TikTok’s hypothetical sale involves three, and two of them are governments entrenched in a bitter trade war and global dominance.

In global geopolitics terms, where the U.S.–China tensions have hardened into long-term strategic rivalry, and neither government can afford to be the one that “gave in.” TikTok now symbolizes a political chesspiece that is too valuable to trade. 

Legal Obstacles for U.S. to Force a Sale

Thus far the First Amendment has been a solid firewall for every attempt to ban or force-sell TikTok. U.S. courts have repeatedly maintained that social media is a public square and that banning or restricting it affects speech and that any forced sale may violate constitutional rights

TikTok’s legal strategy of delay, appeal and challenge has been smart. Even with yhe new legislation, TikTok can litigate its way deep into 2027.

Jacob Bakshi said:
“No buyer can afford a multibillion-dollar acquisition waiting on a decade of court appeals.”

TikTok is Too Valuable To Sell 

TikTok is too valuable for ByteDance and if they’re separated it could cause the valuation for ByteDance to plummet. TikTok generates north of $20 billion in annual revenue, massive AI training data, and huge influence on global culture. So Bytedance has every incentive to fight until the very last courtroom and the very last regulatory avenue has been exhausted. And so far it’s working for them. 

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This analysis is provided for informational purposes only. All prices, data, and forecasts reflect market conditions at the time of writing and the latest fact-check (as of the date specified above). Investors should consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.