TikTok announced on Thursday that it had closed a deal to establish a new entity in the US, which will allow it to bypass a ban and end a long legal battle.
He deal finalized by ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, creates a majority American-owned company, with investors including Larry Ellison’s Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. possess 80.1% of the new entity, while ByteDance will own 19.9%.
The announcement comes five years after Donald Trump first threatened to ban the popular platform in the United States during his first term.
TikTok’s future in the United States was unclear, a saga that began after Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass a law that would ban the social media app in 2024 unless it found an American buyer. The Supreme Court upheld the law in January 2025, but on Trump’s first day in office he signed an executive order postponing the ban.
Since then, it has continued to repeatedly delay its implementation while the United States, the company and potential American partners negotiated a deal.
In September, Trump signed another executive order, which outlined a plan for American investors to take over most of the company’s operations and for the new version of TikTok to be controlled by a seven-member, mostly American board of directors of cybersecurity and national security experts.
Adam Presser, who previously served as general manager and global head of operations and trust and safety at TikTok, will serve as CEO of the new company, the company said Thursday.
The US joint venture is overseen by a seven-member board of directors, including executives from Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX and TPG, as well as Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok.
The US entity “will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software safeguards for US users,” the announcement said. The content recommendation algorithm will be retrainedtested and updated based on data from US users, the firm added.
A White House official said the Chinese and US governments had signed the agreement. A Chinese embassy spokesperson told Politico that “your country’s position on TikTok has been consistent and clear” and that it did not have “any new information to share at this time.”
in a mail On social media Thursday night, Trump thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping “for working with us and ultimately approving the Agreement.” “I am very happy to have helped save TikTok! It will now be owned by a group of great American patriots and investors, the largest in the world, and will be an important voice,” the president wrote.
US lawmakers and officials’ concerns about TikTok center on the security of user data, with fears that the Chinese government could use the platform to collect data from US users, claims the company has repeatedly denied.
Legislation passed in 2024 under Joe Biden’s administration prohibited ByteDance from maintaining operational ties with an American TikTok company, but the law gave the president authority to decide whether a deal meets its requirements.
The threat of a ban had sparked widespread backlash in the United States from influencers and creators who rely on the app.
Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX will each have 15% in the new company, the company said. The investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies, is also an investor.
Under the agreement, Oracle will oversee the algorithm that recommends videos to US users. The system will be retrained using US data to “ensure the content is free of external manipulation,” Chew said.
China will retain control of the algorithm, and the country’s cybersecurity regulator previously said it had agreed that any TikTok deal with the United States would include “licensing… and other intellectual property rights.”
