It avoids the ban that threatened to wipe out the platform from . New American company, data storage and complete redesign of , ensure that American users will continue to watch their favorite videos.
New agreement with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX
TikTok has announced the completion of an agreement to create an American vehicle company (joint venture), in cooperation with major investors Oracle, Silver Lake and the UAE investment company MGX.
The platform will operate with “certain safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software safeguards for US users,” the company said. US users will continue to use the same app.
The reaction of Donald Trump and China
Former President Donald Trump praised the deal in a post on Truth Social, personally thanking Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his cooperation and approval of the deal.
The Chinese government has yet to officially comment on the announcement, although earlier the Chinese embassy in Washington stressed that “China’s position on TikTok is clear and firm.”
The new company will be led by Adam Presser, TikTok’s former head of operations and security, in partnership with a seven-member US Board of Directors, which also includes TikTok CEO Shou Chew.
No more uncertainty about the future of TikTok
The deal ends years of uncertainty for the platform’s operation in the US. Congress had passed a law that would have banned TikTok unless its ownership was transferred from China’s ByteDance by January 2025.
The new deal involves storing US user data locally in a system managed by Oracle and reconfiguring the algorithm to work exclusively with US data.
The algorithm at the heart of the controversy
TikTok’s algorithm, which selects the videos a user sees, was the central security issue. The new legislation requires a complete disconnection of the algorithm from ByteDance, while ByteDance will license it for retraining to the US company.
As Professor Anupam Chander of Georgetown University points out: “Who controls TikTok in the US has a big impact on what Americans see.”
Investors and stocks
Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each own 15%, while Michael Dell’s investment firm also participates. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the new company.
