Barbara Ortutay
Updated ,first published
TikTok has signed agreements with three major investors — Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX — to form a new TikTok US joint venture, ensuring the popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States.
The deal is expected to close on January 22, according to an internal memo seen by The Associated Press. In the communication, CEO Shou Zi Chew confirmed to employees that ByteDance and TikTok signed the binding agreements with the consortium.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued dedication and tireless work. Your efforts keep us operating at the highest level and will ensure that TikTok continues to grow and thrive in the US and around the world,” Chew wrote in the memo to employees.
“With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been—firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community.”
Half of the new TikTok US joint venture will be owned by a group of investors — among them Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, who will each hold a 15 per cent share. Oracle was founded and is majority-owned by Larry Ellison, a close confidante of Trump. 19.9 per cent of the new app will be held by ByteDance itself, and another 30.1 per cent will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, according to the memo. The memo did not say who the other investors are and both TikTok and the White House declined to comment.
The US venture will have a new, seven-member majority-American board of directors, the memo said. It will also be subject to terms that “protect Americans’ data and US national security.”
US user data will be stored locally in a system run by Oracle. The memo said US users will continue “enjoying the same experience as today” and advertisers will continue to serve global audiences with no impact from the deal.
TikTok’s algorithm — the secret sauce that powers its addictive video feed — will be retrained on US user data to “ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the memo said. The US venture will also oversee content moderation and policies within the country.
American officials have previously warned that ByteDance’s algorithm is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.
The algorithm has been a central issue in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But the US regulation passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cuts ties — specifically the algorithm — with ByteDance.
The deal is a major step toward resolving years of uncertainty about the short video app’s future in the United States since August 2020, when then President Donald Trump first tried unsuccessfully to ban the app that is now used regularly by more than 170 million Americans. The details of the deal are in line with one unveiled in September, when Trump delayed until January 20 enforcement of the law that bans the app unless its Chinese owners sell it amid efforts to extract TikTok’s U.S. assets from the global platform.
After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.
Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, continued to extend the deadline for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with US ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement. The third came in June, then another in September, which Trump said would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.
About 43 per cent of US adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published this fall.
Shares of Oracle jumped $US9.07, or 5 per cent, to $189.10 in after-hours trading.
AP, Reuters
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