TikTok’s long-delayed plan to split from Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. began to come to fruition on Thursday, when the video-sharing sensation said it is being acquired by a group of buyers led by Oracle Corp.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew told employees that the company and ByteDance had signed binding agreements to create a U.S. joint venture with majority ownership by American investors, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg.
Chew wrote that he was “pleased to share some great news” and stated that deals with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX had been signed. The deal is expected to close on January 22, 2026, although Chew added that “there is still more work to be done” by then.
Upon completion, the American joint venture will operate as an independent entity that will control U.S. data protection, content moderation and algorithm security, Chew told employees in the memo. The new U.S. entity will also be “governed by a new seven-member board of directors, mostly American,” he added. Oracle shares rose nearly 6% in extended trading Thursday.
The memo described a deal that matches what the White House announced in September, which at the time was dependent on China’s approval. Chew’s text on Thursday did not mention China’s position on the transaction, which would take some — but not all — control of TikTok in the US out of ByteDance’s hands. Under the arrangement, 50% of TikTok US investors will be new, with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX — an investment company based in Abu Dhabi — each maintaining a 15% stake; 30.1% will be with affiliates of some current ByteDance investors; and 19.9% will remain with ByteDance.
The terms outlined in the CEO’s memo appear to leave open the possibility of ByteDance maintaining oversight over key parts of TikTok in the U.S., an app used by half the country. ByteDance’s involvement has long been a sore point in negotiations and has led critics — including members of Trump’s own party — to argue that the White House-brokered deal may not withstand legal challenge. The national security law approved and sanctioned during former President Joe Biden’s government determined that TikTok US and ByteDance have no operational relationship.
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ByteDance’s coveted content algorithms are considered central to TikTok’s business. Under the version of the deal recently presented by the White House, ByteDance is expected to license its AI recommendation technology to TikTok’s new U.S. entity, which will use the existing algorithm to retrain a new system with U.S. data secured by TikTok’s cloud partner Oracle.
Oracle’s role as guardian of data security has also raised concerns. The arrangement mirrors a previous collaboration between TikTok and Oracle proposed years ago to the US government as a solution to similar concerns about Chinese ownership of TikTok. This partnership, called Project Texas, was ultimately rejected by the US government and deemed insufficient to address national security issues.
If finalized, the deal would remove a persistent problem in relations between Beijing and Washington and signal progress in broader negotiations between the two countries, which have clashed over trade disputes and other issues.
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The White House had been dominating disclosures about the proposed arrangement, which was determined for national security reasons by a law enacted last year during Joe Biden’s administration. US officials have expressed concern that TikTok is controlled by a Chinese company and fear that Beijing could use the app to collect data from American citizens or influence specific narratives through its recommendation algorithm.
By law, the sell-or-ban rule’s initial deadline expired last January, but Trump has extended that deadline several times since returning to office, most recently pushing it to January 2026.
In recent months, as the prospect of a ban under Trump has become increasingly less likely, TikTok has operated normally and further cemented its position as a dominant cultural force in the US. The same day that Chew announced that a deal had been reached, TikTok held its first Oscars red carpet-style event, the TikTok Awards, in Los Angeles.
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