The Long-Discussed US TikTok Deal Is Finally Happening

Chinese company and TikTok owner ByteDance has signed a deal to transfer the majority of its U.S. operations to a group of investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. This deal arrives after months of stops and starts, deadline extensions, and even failed deals.

President Trump had been a major instigator in legislation in 2020 to ban TikTok in the U.S., with the president and bipartisan lawmakers citing national security concerns. These concerns ultimately led to the passage of a divest-or-ban law, which required TikTok’s U.S. operations to be separated from majority Chinese control. Per the newly signed deal, ByteDance will retain a 19.9% stake in the newly organized joint venture for TikTok in the U.S.

As Reuters reports, the new U.S. TikTok venture will be valued at approximately $14 billion, per U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s remarks in September, when President Trump initially signed an order approving the TikTok deal.

While ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake in TikTok’s American operations, the remaining 80.1% is split among numerous entities, including tech giant Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the Emirati state-owned investment firm MGX.

Axios, which broke the deal, reports that Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will control 45% of the U.S. TikTok entity, while the remaining roughly one-third of the company will be owned by “affiliates” of existing ByteDance investors.

Following news late yesterday that ByteDance had signed binding agreements to transfer majority control of TikTok in the U.S., Oracle’s stock price rose nearly 6% on Friday.

Despite the impetus for this new deal being a bipartisan-supported law driven by fears that the Chinese government may use TikTok to influence and control American media, there remain concerns about China’s continued influence moving forward.

Reuters reports that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees via an internal memo that the new joint venture, which includes ByteDance, would “operate as an independent entity with authority over U.S. data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance.” The Hill adds that TikTok’s U.S. platform will be managed by a seven-person board of directors, a majority of whom will be Americans.

TikTok’s algorithm, which is the source of the app’s broad success and, likewise, concerns over how China has been able to influence users worldwide, will fall under U.S. control as part of the new deal. As reported in September, the newly signed agreement will task Oracle with security and algorithm development and control for the U.S. version of TikTok. Given how involved the Trump administration has been with orchestrating this deal, there are reasonable concerns about how the White House may itself influence TikTok’s algorithm. Oracle is, of course, run by staunch Trump ally Larry Ellison. Ellison’s son, David, helms Paramount Skydance.

Former Treasury official Jim Secreto, who worked on policy concerning TikTok in the Biden administration, tells NPR that this new deal doesn’t fully address the law Congress passed to divest TikTok from ByteDance.

“The law requires a clean break from ByteDance. This structure doesn’t meet that standard,” Secreto says, adding that the law looks “more like a franchise deal” and “sidesteps” the national security concerns that Congress wanted addressed.

“First Paramount / CBS and now TikTok. Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies,” democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Americans deserve to know if the President struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok.”

The new TikTok deal is set to close on January 22, 2026.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.