Donald Trump’s $14 billion estimate for TikTok’s U.S. business is catching fire across financial and political circles, with critics slamming it as a ridiculous undervaluation for one of the biggest social platforms in the country.
The figure was thrown out Thursday by Vice President JD Vance as Trump continues pushing a plan for American investors to take over the U.S. arm of the app from Chinese parent ByteDance, as Cryptopolitan reported. The number is way below earlier valuations, which had TikTok priced closer to $40 billion.
The expected buyers (Oracle and Silver Lake Management) aren’t likely to argue with the lowball offer. ByteDance and its current investors, though, are seeing red. Vance made it clear the final price will be up to the buyers, but the public estimate already set the tone.
Ashwin Binwani, founder of Alpha Binwani Capital, said the suggested deal “could be the most undervalued tech acquisition of the decade.” He argued the number doesn’t come close to matching TikTok’s real value. “By every major financial metric and peer comparison,” Ashwin said, “this price tag looks dramatically misaligned with reality.”
Analysts compare TikTok valuation to oil and cereal
TikTok pulls in over $10 billion a year just from the U.S. market. That part of the business alone has 170 million active users, the app’s largest audience worldwide.
And yet the $14 billion price implies a price-to-sales ratio of 1.4 times, a number you’d expect from legacy corporations like ExxonMobil or General Mills, not a social media company dominating the short-form video space. Meta, which owns Instagram, trades at 10x revenue. Alphabet, which owns YouTube, is around 8x.
Despite how difficult it’s always been to value TikTok, partly because no one outside the company fully understands its recommendation algorithm, most analysts still agree that it’s worth way more.
The app has not only dominated the attention economy, it’s also forced competitors to launch copycats like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. But Trump’s administration doesn’t seem concerned with tech value. The focus is national security.
That’s why the sale is structured to spin off TikTok U.S. into a new joint venture, one where ByteDance will own less than 20%. The deal must close within 120 days. Trump claimed China’s President Xi Jinping gave the green light, but so far, Beijing hasn’t publicly confirmed anything. That’s left everyone guessing.
Ownership and leadership still totally unclear
The next big issue is who’s actually going to run the platform. Oracle builds infrastructure, not social apps. Silver Lake funds tech, it doesn’t operate it. Neither one knows what to do with 170 million users scrolling through videos 24/7.
Alvin Foo, venture partner at Zero2Launch, summed it up clearly: “It’s like you’re putting a gun to ByteDance and saying ‘sell or you stop.’” Alvin added, “Right now, it’s really Trump making the call, without listening or discussing with the Chinese government on whether the sale will go through.”
If the deal goes ahead, no one knows if ByteDance will license its algorithm or pull it entirely. There’s no clarity on who controls the tech, the data, or the future of the app’s performance. Without the algorithm, TikTok isn’t TikTok.
The app’s entire identity, and its success, is built around content delivery. Removing ByteDance but keeping the app intact may sound clean on paper, but the reality looks messy. And yet, this sale is being forced to happen in just four months. The clock’s already ticking.
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