TikTok avoids a U.S. ban by creating a joint venture with 80.1% American ownership, focusing on data protection and algorithm security. Learn about the key investors and changes.
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TikTok has officially avoided a ban in the United States after finalizing a deal to create a joint venture with predominantly American ownership. The new entity, named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, is now 80.1% owned by investors from the U.S. and other countries, while ByteDance's stake has been reduced to 19.9%.
Key managing investors include Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX, each holding a 15% share. Other participants in the deal are the Dell Family Office and entities linked to Susquehanna International Group. The White House confirmed that the agreement has been approved by both American and Chinese authorities.
The new venture will be managed by a seven-person board of directors with an American majority. Adam Presser, who previously led TikTok's global operations, has been appointed CEO, while the current CEO of the service, Shou Zi Chew, has joined the board. The joint company will handle U.S. user data protection, content moderation, and algorithm security.
The agreement places particular emphasis on TikTok's recommendation algorithm. It will be retrained exclusively on data from American users and hosted on Oracle's cloud infrastructure. Oracle will also gain "trusted security partner" status with the right to audit the source code.
This move concludes a multi-year period of uncertainty that began back in 2020. However, it remains unclear how significantly the U.S. version of TikTok will differ in functionality and content from the app's version in other countries.