After years of heated debate, courtroom drama, and high-stakes diplomacy, TikTok’s future in the United States has finally been secured—at least for now. On December 18, 2025, TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance signed binding agreements with a consortium of heavyweight investors: Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The deal, expected to close on January 22, 2026, guarantees that the wildly popular video-sharing app will continue to operate in the U.S., ending a period of uncertainty that left millions of American users and creators in limbo.
The agreement, detailed in internal memos obtained by multiple news outlets including The Associated Press, Cybernews, and Axios, marks the culmination of a saga that began with concerns over national security and spiraled into a geopolitical tug-of-war. Under the terms, just over 80% of TikTok’s U.S. assets will be sold to a new entity—TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC—managed by the three investor companies. Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will each hold a 15% share, for a combined 45%. Another 30.1% will go to affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, while ByteDance itself will retain 19.9% of the new U.S. entity.
In a memo to employees, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew wrote that “over 170 million Americans [will] continue discovering a world of endless possibilities as part of a vital global community.” Chew also emphasized that the new venture would operate as an independent entity, with a seven-member board of directors holding an American majority. The arrangement is designed to address persistent fears in Washington about the security of Americans’ data and the potential for foreign influence over the app’s powerful content recommendation algorithm.
Oracle’s role is pivotal. The tech giant will take charge of storing all U.S. user data locally, while the joint venture will oversee content moderation and policy decisions within the country. The memo, as seen by CNBC and The New York Times, explained that TikTok’s “secret sauce”—its algorithm—will be copied and retrained on American data to “ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation.” This retraining is meant to allay concerns that the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to hand over user data or influence what Americans see on their feeds.
Still, not all questions have been answered. According to reporting from Axios and NPR, unnamed sources have indicated that while the algorithm will be retrained on U.S. data, ByteDance will still own and update it. This nuance has already sparked debate in Congress. “If TikTok U.S. is licensing the algorithm from ByteDance and retraining it, is this a one-time transfer of the source code or does TikTok U.S. have to renew it at regular intervals?” Senator Ed Markey asked, as quoted by Reuters. Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, warned that such a licensing agreement could raise “serious concerns.”
The roots of this dramatic episode stretch back to 2020, when then-President Donald Trump first tried to ban TikTok, citing national security risks stemming from the app’s Chinese ownership and its vast troves of U.S. user data. That effort faltered, but the issue never went away. In April 2024, President Joe Biden signed into law the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which required ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations or face a ban after 270 days. TikTok challenged the law in the Supreme Court, arguing it violated the First Amendment, but the justices upheld the ban in January 2025.
For a brief moment, TikTok actually went dark in the U.S. On January 19, 2025, the app was inaccessible for about 12 hours, a move that underscored the seriousness of the looming ban. The next day, as reported by Cybernews, users were greeted with a message: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” Indeed, Trump—who credited TikTok with helping him win re-election in 2024, boasting some 15 million followers—swiftly issued an executive order extending the enforcement deadline by 75 days, buying time for further negotiations. Over the following months, he extended the deadline three more times.
Negotiating the transfer of the algorithm proved to be the most challenging aspect. For the divestiture to satisfy the new law, the U.S. TikTok entity couldn’t rely on an algorithm owned or operated by ByteDance. Yet, as Axios pointed out, the algorithm is so integral to TikTok’s unique user experience that operating without it wasn’t a realistic option. Transferring control required approval from the Chinese government, turning TikTok into a bargaining chip in broader U.S.-China trade negotiations. After high-level talks in Spain in September 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a framework agreement had been reached. Trump later claimed, following a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, that Xi had agreed to the deal, though neither ByteDance nor Beijing publicly confirmed this.
By late September, Trump issued another executive order, approving a “qualified divestiture” under which the app’s algorithm would be operated and monitored by the new joint venture and retrained on U.S. data. Subsequent reports suggested the U.S. would lease a copy of the algorithm from ByteDance, but the details of this arrangement—and its compliance with the law—remain a point of contention.
The deal, valued at around $14 billion according to Business Insider, also brings together some of the biggest names in tech and finance. Trump himself mentioned Oracle’s Larry Ellison as a key player, with Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch possibly involved, and Vice President JD Vance describing the buyer group as “four or five world-class investors.” The new U.S. venture will oversee not only data security and content moderation, but also play a role in the ongoing evolution of TikTok’s business in America.
For American users, the agreement means TikTok isn’t going anywhere. For lawmakers and regulators, the deal is both a victory and a test—a blueprint for how the U.S. might handle future cases involving tech companies with foreign ownership and sensitive data. And for ByteDance, it’s a compromise that allows it to retain a significant stake in its most valuable international asset, even as it cedes operational control.
While the ink is still drying on the agreement and many details remain to be clarified, the deal represents a rare moment of consensus in an era of deepening U.S.-China rivalry and mounting concerns over digital privacy. Whether it will truly satisfy all sides—especially as questions about algorithm control linger—remains to be seen. But for now, TikTok’s American users can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to scrolling.
