By Kevin Akor
WASHINGTON — TikTok has finalized a historic deal to launch a majority American-owned joint venture, a move designed to satisfy national security requirements and avert a potential ban of the popular social media platform in the United States.
The agreement, announced Thursday, establishes TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. Under the terms of the deal, American entities will hold an 80.1% stake in the new entity, while the original parent company, ByteDance, retains a minority share of 19.9%.
The restructure follows years of legal and political pressure that intensified under President Donald Trump, who cited concerns regarding data privacy and the platform’s Chinese origins.
“I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday. “It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice.”
The new venture will be managed by a trio of primary investors. Cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will each hold a 15% stake and serve as managing investors.
To address long-standing security concerns, the company confirmed that U.S. user data and the platform’s powerful recommendation algorithms will be migrated to a domestic environment.
“The content recommendation algorithm will be secured in Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment,” the company said in a statement.
The joint venture will also oversee TikTok’s sister applications, including the video editor CapCut and the lifestyle app Lemon8, bringing them under the same U.S. regulatory oversight.
The entity is governed by a seven-member, majority-American board of directors. Key appointments include:
Adam Presser: Appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the joint venture.
Board Members: Includes TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Oracle’s Kenneth Glueck, Silver Lake’s Egon Durban, and MGX’s David Scott.
Despite the change in ownership, the company emphasized that the 200 million American users and 7.5 million businesses on the platform will retain a “global TikTok experience,” allowing creators to remain connected to the app’s worldwide audience.
“Today, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC has been established in compliance with the Executive Order… now enabling more than 200 million Americans… to continue to discover, create, and thrive,” the company stated.
