President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order approving a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a U.S.-led investor consortium, clearing a major legal and political hurdle that has shadowed the short-form video app’s future in the United States.

Vice President J.D. Vance said the deal would value TikTok U.S. at “around $14 billion,” though important details and approvals remain outstanding.

The White House framed the move as a national-security solution that keeps the app operating in the U.S. while shifting control to American investors. Under the announced framework, Oracle will audit and operate the U.S. algorithm, which White House officials say will be “retrained and operated in the United States outside of ByteDance’s control.”

Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund are reported to be the main investors, together holding roughly 45% of the new U.S. entity, while ByteDance-related investors and new holders would own about 35%, according to reporting cited by CNBC. ByteDance itself would retain less than 20%.

“We want this to be American operated all the way,” President Trump said at the signing, singling out Oracle and its founder Larry Ellison as playing “a very big part.”

Vice President Vance described the buyers as a “blue chip group of investors” and named Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch among those expected to participate.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said U.S. users will continue to view and share content with creators abroad and that Oracle will perform ongoing audits of the algorithm. The administration also said it expects to collect a fee for facilitating the transaction; the U.S. government will not take an equity stake.

Deal architecture, participants, and lingering unknowns

Reported ownership and governance plans leave several moving parts:

• Oracle is slated to oversee security operations and supply cloud infrastructure for the spun-off TikTok U.S. unit.
• A consortium that may include Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Silver Lake, and MGX is widely reported to be involved; President Trump also mentioned Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.
• ByteDance investors, including firms like General Atlantic, Susquehanna, and Sequoia, are expected to roll some equity into the U.S. entity.
• ByteDance itself would hold a minority stake below 20%, satisfying the statutory threshold in the U.S. divestiture law that threatened an effective ban.
• The administration said China’s leader, Xi Jinping, had “given us the go-ahead,” but Beijing has not publicly confirmed approval, and Chinese regulatory sign-off remains a necessary and uncertain step.

The executive order prevents the Department of Justice from enforcing the divestiture law until Dec. 16, buying time to consummate a deal.

Despite the publicity, no formal purchase agreement was presented at the White House signing. ByteDance did not send representatives to the ceremony and has not publicly acknowledged a transaction.

In a reported valuations conflict, Vance’s $14 billion figure sits well below prior analyst estimates that placed TikTok’s U.S. business in a $30–$35 billion range, and below earlier, larger valuations attached to ByteDance itself.

Practical questions for advertisers, employees, and the product

However, a host of operational questions remain unanswered: Advertising partners will want clarity about whether global ad buys will still route through a single platform or become siloed; marketers depend on broad reach and unified measurement. TikTok Shop and other commerce initiatives face a strategic crossroad: will new owners double down on social commerce or focus on immediate revenue generation?

Employees worry about restructuring and priorities. Some U.S. TikTok staff told BI they fear layoffs or deprioritization of teams such as e-commerce. Others questioned how a “retrained” U.S.-operated algorithm will compare to the current model developed by ByteDance engineers.

Legal and geopolitical hurdles

The deal is designed to satisfy a U.S. national-security law that required ByteDance to divest TikTok or face an effective ban. Key legal obstacles remain. China’s approval is essential; Beijing must amend or permit transactions under its own foreign-investment and export-control regimes to let a sale proceed. Negotiations over ByteDance’s retained stake and intellectual-property arrangements could be complex. The timing and terms of any Chinese sign-off will likely determine whether the transaction closes and on what timetable.

The administration’s extension of the enforcement deadline and the pledge of a facilitation fee do not eliminate these diplomatic and legal hurdles. Markets and technology partners will be watching for final purchase agreements, regulatory filings, and Chinese government statements.

If consummated, the deal would shift ownership and operational control of TikTok’s U.S. arm to an American-led investor group, addressing the core national-security argument about foreign control of the algorithm and U.S. user data. Oracle’s role as algorithm auditor and cloud provider is central to the administration’s assurances that the algorithm will be under U.S. oversight.

At the same time, a transaction that leaves ByteDance with a minority stake preserves value for existing investors and may ease Beijing’s acceptance. But it also creates an unusual governance structure: a U.S.-operated platform with continuing economic ties to a Chinese parent. That setup could spawn future frictions over data flows, content moderation policy, and product development.

For the broader tech ecosystem, the sale could set a precedent for how national-security concerns are resolved through ownership changes rather than outright bans or stricter regulatory controls. It may also reshape M&A norms for other China-origin platforms operating in the U.S.

What to watch next

• Chinese approval. Beijing’s public sign-off is both necessary and unpredictable. Officials in Beijing have yet to issue a formal confirmation.
• Definitive purchase agreement. The market needs detailed transaction documents showing price, ownership percentages, governance, and the mechanics for algorithm retraining and data custody.
• Regulatory filings and antitrust review. Federal and state regulators could review aspects of the deal, especially if it affects competition, advertising markets, or data practices.
• Employee and product roadmaps. Signals from the new owners about investment priorities—commerce, creator monetization, and moderation—will shape staff morale and advertiser confidence.
• Enforcement timeline. The DOJ’s enforcement pause runs to Dec. 16; if key approvals are not secured by then, the administration’s options will narrow.

Bottom line: The president’s executive order moves the U.S. closer to resolving a years-long uncertainty over TikTok’s future in America by signaling approval of a U.S.-led takeover. The announcement answers some political questions but raises many commercial, legal, and technical ones. The deal’s fate now depends on a complex mix of corporate negotiation, regulatory review, and international diplomacy.

British investment group Petershill Partners announced on Thursday that it will delist from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and return capital to its shareholders, citing persistent disappointment with its share price performance and valuation.

The decision, which values the Goldman Sachs-backed firm at $4.5 billion, marks another high-profile setback for London’s stock market, which has struggled to keep companies from leaving amid concerns about low valuations and dwindling investor interest.

Petershill, majority-owned by Goldman Sachs, was established in 2007 with a strategy centered on acquiring minority stakes in hedge funds and other alternative asset managers. The group went public in London in September 2021, touting the listing as a gateway for investors to access the fast-growing alternative investment industry. Chairman Naguib Kheraj described it at the time as a “unique opportunity” for public market investors to gain diversified exposure to private markets.

Since then, Petershill has expanded significantly, with assets under management rising from $187 billion at the time of its IPO to $351 billion as of June 2025. Yet its shares have consistently underperformed, trading at steep discounts to both book value and comparable listed peers. Even strong operational and financial results failed to lift sentiment, leaving the company’s valuation lagging well behind the industry it sought to showcase.

Under the delisting proposal, free-float shareholders will receive $4.15 per share in cash, alongside an interim dividend of $0.052 per share, totaling $4.202. The offer represents a 35% premium to the stock’s last closing price, prompting shares to jump as much as 34% on Thursday. Goldman Sachs-managed private funds, which control 79.49% of Petershill’s stock, will not participate in the capital return but have agreed to support the move. Approval from free-float shareholders representing at least 75% of votes cast at court and general meetings scheduled for November is required.

Analysts at Jefferies described the decision as “perfectly reasonable,” noting that Petershill had undertaken numerous initiatives over the past 18 months to close the valuation gap with little success. The delisting, they said, offers clarity for investors and acknowledges that London’s market has failed to reward Petershill’s scale and performance.

The move is part of a broader pattern that has deepened worries about London’s status as a global financial hub. Ireland-based building materials giant CRH shifted its primary listing to New York in 2023, citing the deeper capital pools and higher valuations available there. British semiconductor design champion Arm Holdings opted for a Nasdaq IPO the same year, despite heavy lobbying by UK officials to keep it in London. Flutter Entertainment, owner of Paddy Power and FanDuel, also moved its primary listing to New York this year to tap U.S. investors.

These exits, combined with a thinning pipeline of new listings, have left the LSE grappling with what many see as an identity crisis. Even after reforms to simplify listing rules, London continues to suffer from a reputation for depressed valuations compared with New York or even European markets such as Amsterdam. Petershill’s decision, despite its growth and ties to Goldman Sachs, underscores that London is struggling to retain firms even in sectors where it once held an advantage.

For Petershill, the delisting is a way to reconcile strong operating performance with a market that never seemed to buy into its promise, while it underlines the continuing exodus that risks eroding the role of LSE as Europe’s premier financial center.

Nvidia is throwing open the doors on one of its most intriguing AI tools. The company announced it is open-sourcing Audio2Face, a system that generates lifelike 3D facial animations from voice recordings.

Nvidia is giving developers unprecedented freedom to adapt and extend the technology for their own games, livestreaming platforms, and immersive applications by making the models, software development kits (SDKs), and even the training framework publicly available.

Audio2Face works by analyzing the acoustic features of speech — such as pitch, tone, and timing — and then mapping that data to lip movements and facial expressions in a 3D avatar. The result is a realistic synchronization of voice and animation that can be applied to both pre-scripted content and live interactions. Developers can drop the tool into an animation pipeline to reduce manual rigging and motion capture work, or use it in real time for interactive experiences like multiplayer games and virtual events.

Studios have already started experimenting with the tool. Farm51, the developer of Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone, has integrated Audio2Face into its production process, while Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition also leverages the technology. Nvidia has emphasized that by providing the training framework itself, it’s enabling developers to fine-tune the models — whether for specific languages, unique art styles, or performance-optimized avatars for virtual and augmented reality.

The decision to open-source marks a notable shift for Nvidia, which has historically kept its most important technologies proprietary. Its CUDA programming model, launched in 2006, remains closed-source and has effectively locked developers into the Nvidia GPU ecosystem, ensuring its dominance in AI computing. In contrast, making Audio2Face open and modifiable suggests a new approach: using open-source software as a way to drive adoption and entrench Nvidia’s broader AI ecosystem.

Industry analysts see it as part of a dual strategy. On one hand, Nvidia continues to dominate the hardware market, with its GPUs powering virtually every major AI model. On the other, it is increasingly positioning itself as a software and platform company, offering tools that make developers reliant not just on Nvidia’s chips but on its frameworks.

Audio2Face has long been a cornerstone of Nvidia’s Omniverse platform — the company’s 3D collaboration and simulation environment. By releasing it freely, Nvidia could accelerate Omniverse adoption while creating a pipeline of developers who will eventually run their workloads on Nvidia GPUs.

This contrasts with rival approaches. Epic Games, for instance, has pursued a partly open path with its MetaHuman Creator, offering advanced avatar creation tools but keeping them tied closely to Unreal Engine. Startups in the “digital human” space, meanwhile, often market their products as cloud services, limiting developer control. Nvidia’s open-source release, by comparison, hands developers full control over model training and deployment, potentially giving it an edge with studios and enterprises that want customization without lock-in.

As generative AI expands beyond text and images into video and 3D, demand for realistic avatars is rising — from gaming and film to virtual assistants and live commerce. For Nvidia, ensuring that its tool becomes the standard for AI-driven facial animation could cement its position not just in hardware but also in the emerging layer of generative AI applications.

Audio2Face is believed to have always been one of Nvidia’s most practical demonstrations of generative AI. Thus, by open-sourcing it, the chipmaker isn’t just giving developers a free tool — it’s believed to be building mindshare and ensuring that when people think about AI avatars, they think Nvidia first.

The open-source release could also accelerate experimentation across industries. Developers might adapt Audio2Face for multilingual lip-syncing, accessibility tools such as real-time sign language avatars, or even customer-service bots with more natural human expressions. With the training framework in the open, the potential use cases extend far beyond entertainment.

For Nvidia, the bet is to open up Audio2Face, which could help entrench its ecosystem just as competitors race to define the future of digital humans. While the company’s core business remains firmly rooted in selling GPUs, the open-source release signals a willingness to use software not just as a lock-in mechanism, but as a bridge to wider adoption.