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After more than a year of delays and uncertainty, a joint venture has officially been formed that will allow\u00a0TikTok<\/strong> to continue to operate in the U.S.<\/p>\n The Congressional order requiring that\u00a0TikTok\u00a0be sold to a U.S.-based company or be banned, due to national security concerns, was originally supposed to take effect in January 2025 but was promptly delayed by President Donald Trump when he took office that same month. Thus followed a year of further delays with a deal finally taking shape in late September 2025.<\/p>\n Now, TikTok has announced that the TikTok U.S. Data Security (USDS) Joint Venture LLC<\/strong> has been formally established and is majority American-owned. In the end, ByteDance<\/strong>, Chinese parent of TikTok, did not have to completely sever its connection with the U.S. entity: ByteDance will retain a 19.9%<\/strong> stake in the joint venture, and the U.S. division of TikTok Global will continue to manage commercial activities on the platform, including ecommerce, advertising and marketing.<\/strong><\/p>\n The TikTok USDS Joint Venture will be responsible solely for the protection of TikTok\u2019s U.S. user data, the security of the algorithm that governs what people see on the app and content moderation on the U.S. platform. <\/p>\n The joint venture has three<\/strong> managing investors, each of which own 15%<\/strong> of the new entity: American investment firm Silver Lake<\/strong>, American tech company Oracle<\/strong> and Abu Dhabi-based technology investment firm MGX<\/strong>. The remaining portion (minus ByteDance\u2019s 19.9%) has been divvied up among a consortium of investors that includes:<\/p>\n The joint venture will operate as an independent entity governed by a seven-member, majority-American board of directors and led by newly appointed CEO Adam Presser, a current TikTok executive who was previously Head of Operations, Trust and Security. Fellow TikTok executive Will Farrell also has been appointed as Chief Security Officer of the new entity.<\/p>\n The board of directors of TikTok USDS Joint Venture includes:<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, this deal is positive news for the creator economy \u2014 above all because it finally brings clarity to a long-running threat of a U.S. TikTok ban that\u2019s cast a shadow over the industry,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Ed East, CEO and Co-founder of social marketing agency\u00a0Billion Dollar Boy in comments shared with Retail TouchPoints<\/em>. \u201cWhat matters most now is whether this new iteration of TikTok in the U.S. performs as strongly as the original. The industry will be watching to see whether any changes to data handling or algorithmic training affect reach and content performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone is a fan of the deal though: \u201cNothing about the underlying risk has changed; what changed is who captures the upside,\u201d said Dean Lyulkin, a Registered Investment Advisor and founder of investment newsletter T<\/em>he Dean<\/em>\u2018s List<\/em> as well as small business lender Cardiff, in comments shared with Retail TouchPoints<\/em>. \u201cStart with Larry Ellison [Founder and Executive Chairman of Oracle]. Oracle already hosts TikTok\u2019s U.S. data, and this structure turns Oracle into a permanent toll booth on one of the most valuable attention highways ever created. That is not a security fix. That is an annuity.<\/p>\n \u201cIf TikTok were truly too dangerous to exist, a Delaware filing would not fix it,\u201d Lyulkin added. \u201cBut once the cash flows are redirected to the right shareholders, the threat suddenly becomes negotiable. This is how modern governance works. And the biggest danger TikTok ever posed was not the algorithm. It was who was collecting the rent.\u201d<\/p>\n As per the original Congressional mandate, TikTok USDS\u2019s purpose is to \u201csecure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,\u201d according to a statement. These security and privacy safeguards will be maintained through \u201crobust\u201d trust and safety policies, content moderation, transparency reporting and third-party certifications in which Oracle will play a leading role, including:<\/p>\n The safeguards provided by the joint venture will also cover ByteDance\u2019s AI video editing app CapCut <\/strong>and social media app Lemon8<\/strong>, as well as a portfolio of other apps and websites in the U.S. that were not named.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nOracle, Silver Lake, MGX Get Largest Stakes (after ByteDance)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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TikTok USDS to be Led by TikTok Veterans<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Oracle Takes Central Role in TikTok U.S. Security<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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