TikTok has secured its future in the United States by forming a new American entity, ending years of uncertainty over a potential ban that could have affected the platform’s more than 200 million U.S. users.
The social video company reached agreements with major investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Emirati firm MGX, to create a TikTok U.S. joint venture. In a statement Thursday, the company said the new operation will follow “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users.” Users in America will continue to access the same TikTok app they know.
President Donald Trump welcomed the deal on Truth Social, expressing gratitude to Chinese leader Xi Jinping “for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal.” Trump added that he hopes “that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”
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The venture will be led by Adam Presser, a former TikTok head of operations and trust and safety, who will serve as CEO. He will work with a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok CEO Shou Chew.
The announcement marks the resolution of a long-standing debate over the platform’s U.S. operations. After Congress passed a law, signed by President Joe Biden, that would have banned TikTok if it failed to find a new U.S. owner in place of China’s ByteDance, the app briefly went offline at the law’s January 2025 deadline. President Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order allowing it to resume while negotiations for the sale continued.
“China’s position on TikTok has been consistent and clear,” said Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry in Beijing, addressing both the deal and Trump’s post on Truth Social. The statement echoed previous remarks from the Chinese embassy in Washington.
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A central focus of the U.S. venture will be safeguarding user data. U.S. TikTok data will be stored locally in a system managed by Oracle. The joint venture will also retrain and test TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm using U.S. user data. This formula, which tailors videos to individual interests, has been a key concern in national security discussions, since Chinese law requires ByteDance to retain control over it. Under the terms of the agreement, ByteDance will license the algorithm to the U.S. entity for retraining, but the new law forbids “any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm” between ByteDance and the American ownership group, leaving some questions about future oversight.
“Who controls TikTok in the U.S. has a lot of sway over what Americans see on the app,” said Anupam Chander, a Georgetown University law and technology professor in an AP report.
The ownership structure gives Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX each a 15% stake as managing investors. Other participants include the investment firm of Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell, while ByteDance will retain 19.9% of the joint venture.
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