The TikTok Deal Is Officially Closed. Here’s What It Means for U.S. Users.

After over a year of uncertainty, TikTok is officially here to stay in the United States.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 25, 2025 approving a “qualified divestiture” that will separate the TikTok app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and shift its U.S. operations over a new American-led ownership group, leaving ByteDance with less than a 20 percent stake. This was the president’s most detailed plan yet for TikTok, which faced the threat of a nationwide ban due to national security concerns. 

Then, on December 18, 2025, ByteDance signed and agreed to this deal to transfer a majority control of a new U.S.-based TikTok entity to American investors led by Oracle. As part of the deal, the Oracle-led investor group will control 45 percent of the new entity, about a third of entity control will be held by existing ByteDance investors and around 20 percent of control will continue to be held by ByteDance. 

On January 22, 2026, TikTok announced the establishment of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a majority American-owned joint venture created in compliance with President Trump’s September 2025 executive order. The joint venture states it will operate under defined safeguards and has a mandate to “secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures.” While it remains an independent U.S.-based entity, the TikTok joint venture will still allow U.S. users to have a global TikTok experience and ensure U.S. TikTok creators can still be discovered globally.

This ultimately prevented TikTok’s ban in the United States, and concluded years of U.S. government pressure to sever the app’s ties to China.

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What We Know About the TikTok Deal

According to Trump’s latest executive order, TikTok’s U.S. operations will be spun into a new American-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. 

The entity will be majority-owned by U.S. investors and must follow strict data security rules. Specifically, the new U.S.-based TikTok entity will have 45 percent of itself controlled by an Oracle-led investor group (with each investor holding 15 percent stake), including:

1. Oracle
2. Silver Lake, a global private equity firm
3. MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm backed by the United Arab Emirates

“It’s owned by Americans, very sophisticated Americans,” Trump said at the executive order’s signing. “This is going to be American operated all the way.”

A new board of directors was created to oversee the joint venture as well, comprising all American directors except for TikTok CEO Shou Chew. The TikTok USDS Joint Venture board of directors includes:

• Shou Chew - Director: CEO of TikTok
• Timothy Dattels - Director: senior advisor at TPG Global
• Mark Dooley - Director: managing director at Susquehanna International Group
• Egon Durban - Director: co-CEO of Silver Lake
• Raul Fernandez - Independent Director and Chair of the Security Committee: president and CEO of DXC Technology
• Kenneth Glueck - Director: executive vice president in the office of the CEO at Oracle
• David Scott - Director and Security Committee: chief strategy and safety officer at MGX

Of the seven board directors, ByteDance was reportedly allowed to choose only one. It’s also worth noting that while it was previously reported that the U.S. government would be paid a multibillion-dollar fee for the TikTok deal, and could possibly have had a hand in appointing a number of the joint venture’s board members, there is currently no direct confirmation of this fee taking place or whether the U.S. government had a decision in the joint venture’s remaining board directors. 

TikTok’s infamously addictive algorithm will also be copied and retrained using only American user data. According to Trump, this process will be overseen by cloud company Oracle, which is already responsible for managing the app’s U.S. user data through Project Texas. The deal will further expand Oracle’s role, tasking the company with storing all TikTok data for U.S. users and completely cutting off ByteDance’s access to this information. 

For American TikTok users, they will not have to download a new app to continue using TikTok as a result of the deal, according to The New York Times.

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Who Will Control TikTok?

TikTok’s U.S. operations will fall under an American-led group led by Oracle, global private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment bank MGX — altogether holding a 45 percent stake. ByteDance will retain 19.9 percent, while the remaining 35 percent will go to U.S. ByteDance backers and investors (including Dell Family Office, Susquehanna affiliate Vastmere and Alpha Wave Partners, among others).

Although the U.S. government will not own a stake in TikTok or hold a board seat, it is expected to collect a multibillion-dollar fee for facilitating this deal — however, this has yet to be publicly confirmed.

 

What Does This Mean for U.S. Users?

For American users, the TikTok experience will remain largely unchanged on the surface. They won’t need to download a new app, they’ll still have access to all the same content and the rest of the world will still be able to view what they post. However, the app’s underlying algorithm has been copied and retrained using U.S. data only, so its recommendations may have a bias toward American trends and behaviors going forward.

Behind the scenes, all U.S. user data will now be stored and managed by Oracle, cutting off ByteDance entirely. And a new U.S.-majority board of directors will oversee TikTok’s operations. Although ByteDance will maintain a minority financial stake in the company, the platform will be overseen and moderated by primarily American companies. Therefore, users can expect stricter data privacy and cybersecurity safeguards, including limits on foreign access to their personal information. 

Put simply, TikTok’s feed, engagement and creator ecosystems will not have any noticeable differences for users in the United States. But the app will operate under stricter American governance and data rules.

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What’s in it for China?

While the idea started to thwart national security concerns, an American-owned TikTok algorithm will remain a mere copy of the original — and it could be a watered-down version that ByteDance provides. This means the effectiveness behind TikTok’s algorithm remains a mystery, and ByteDance maintains its competitive edge. Meanwhile, American users may be stuck with lower-quality, less-tailored content. 

ByteDance isn’t giving up the entirety of its stake in TikTok either, as its continued 19.9 percent stake in the TikTok joint venture helps it keep a foot firmly in the American social media landscape. As a result, any Chinese tech companies that want to establish a business presence in the United States without revealing any technological secrets now have a blueprint to guide future ventures. 

The consequences of this deal could reverberate far beyond the tech sector and into the political realm as well. After all, the Chinese government may still try to leverage TikTok to win concessions from Trump on other issues, ranging from more favorable trade deals to the status of Taiwan. If Trump is desperate enough to keep TikTok’s American operations running, he might just give in to China’s demands. 

Either way, the limited presence of ByteDance in the United States still presents an opportunity for a major Chinese tech firm to continue influencing the American media and business scene — something that’s bound to contribute to national security concerns among Trump administration officials and American politicians. 

 

Why Was TikTok Banned in the First Place? 

The push to ban TikTok in the United States stems from concerns over ByteDance sharing its user data with the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party.

The trouble started back to Trump’s first term. In 2019, then-Senator Marco Rubio submitted a request that the social media app be investigated, claiming that the Chinese government was using it to “advance their foreign policy and globally suppress freedom of speech.” The following year, Trump issued an executive order banning U.S. transactions with ByteDance. He then tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to American ownership, but federal rulings stalled those efforts. 

Scrutiny only intensified after Trump left office. In 2023, tech investors and American politicians accused the app of harboring “anti-Israel bias,” calling once again for a nationwide ban. Then-President Joe Biden responded by signing the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Act, requiring TikTok to divest from ByteDance or face a U.S. ban. TikTok sued, claiming the law violated its First Amendment rights, but a federal court upheld the law and said TikTok would no longer be usable in the United States after January 19, 2025 unless it was sold. 

Things have taken yet another turn in Trump’s second term, as the president has taken a liking to TikTok after it supposedly helped him “win the election in a landslide.” Americans lost access to the app for several hours in January, but Trump signed an executive order shortly after his 2025 inauguration extending the deadline for the sale. He’s pushed the deadline back four more times since then. Figures ranging from Elon Musk to MrBeast have expressed an interest in buying TikTok, but ByteDance has never confirmed that it is willing to sell. Plus, the Chinese government would need to approve of any deal, which is a massive complication given ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions. 

Now, Trump claims this divestiture adequately satisfies the law, and shields American TikTok users from any “foreign adversary” control.

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When Was the TikTok Deal Finalized?

The agreement was signed on December 18, 2025 and was finalized on January 22, 2026, which was marked by the establishment of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC entity to comply with President Trump’s executive order signed on September 25, 2025.

No price has been announced, but U.S. Vice President JD Vance reportedly valued TikTok at about $14 billion in September 2025.

While the TikTok deal officially closed and the app is to stay for millions of American users, this still leaves the deal’s future repercussions to remain unknown. Sparing TikTok from U.S. sanctions may yield short-term benefits, but the bigger question for the Trump administration is whether this deal could jeopardize American business interests and national security at a critical moment in the global tech race.

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