The years-long saga over TikTok’s future in the U.S. is finally at its end—and American users’ access to viral dance challenges is safe for the foreseeable future.
The company announced Thursday
the creation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a new entity spun out from China's ByteDance and owned by a consortium of mostly American investors led by Oracle and Silver Lake. The announcement comes right on the January 22 deadline tied to a Trump-era executive order. The deal caps a prolonged effort by U.S. officials to force ByteDance either to sell TikTok’s U.S. business to American owners or face a nationwide ban. U.S. authorities feared the Chinese government could use the platform to collect information about American users or conduct psy-ops, something ByteDance insisted would never happen.
The new company said it will retrain, test, and update TikTok's content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data, but that U.S. users will still get the global content experience.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew will be a director of American TikTok, while Adam Presser, the current head of trust and safety, will become the U.S. company's CEO. Under the new structure, ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake in the U.S. business, while Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi–backed MGX each take 15%. Other investors include Susquehanna, Dragoneer, DFO, and Michael Dell’s family office. However, it remains unclear how much ByteDance received for the U.S. business.
– Beatrice Nolan 