ByteDance gets 19.9pc ownership, while Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each get 15pc.
Six years in legal limbo and numerous skirted bans later, TikTok-owner ByteDance has finally struck a deal to create a majority US-owned TikTok joint venture in the country.
The new arrangement gives the Chinese parent just 19.9pc of the stake, while US and other aligned foreign investors take majority control.
The consortium of investors behind the new joint venture include managing investors Oracle, Silver Lake and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX, an AI investment firm with close ties to the United Arab Emirates political class, each of whom get a 15pc stake.
Other investors include the Dell Family Office; Alpha Wave Partners; Via Nova, an affiliate of General Atlantic; and NJJ Capital, owned by French entrepreneur Xavier Niel.
The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture claims its goals are to protect the US content ecosystem with a “comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity programme”.
As part of the deal, the US TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm, as well as security mechanisms, will be controlled by Oracle. Currently, TikTok has more than 200m users in the US.
These safeguards also apply to a portfolio of other ByteDance apps, including CapCut and Lemon8, although it is unclear how many will be covered under the deal.
The new US TikTok will be headed by Adam Presser as CEO. Presser was TikTok’s former head of operations. Meanwhile, the new seven-member board of directors will also be majority US-controlled.
It is unclear how much TikTok US is worth. Months ago, US vice-president JD Vance said the new entity would be valued at $14bn, but no details were offered as to how the administration reached this valuation. The app’s parent company ByteDance, however, is valued at $480bn.
In a Truth Social post, US president Donald Trump said, “I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok! I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”
The saga began back in 2020 when Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok in the US in 45 days, unless the app was sold by its parent company. In 2024, the succeeding administration passed a law forcing divestment from ByteDance.
What followed, however, were numerous legal losses and a short TikTok blackout in the US in early 2025 before Trump issued multiple orders throughout the year extending the incoming ban’s deadline until a deal could be reached. The US and China neared an agreement last September.
The new arrangement is, however, criticised for falling short of the 2024 law which required any TikTok divestment to end all operational relationship with ByteDance.
Meanwhile, speaking to the New York Times, Anupam Chander, a law and technology professor at Georgetown University, said: “My worry all along is that we may have traded fears of foreign propaganda for the reality of domestic propaganda.”
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