Jakarta, domclub Indonesia
—
Parent company
TikTok
, ByteDance, has officially signed an agreement to sell its operating entities in the United States (US) to a consortium which includes Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX.This deal leaves Bytedance’s stake in TikTok US at just 19.9 percent.
This latest move marks the end of years of legal uncertainty regarding the threat of blocking TikTok in the US.
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Quoted from
Reuters
, this deal involves the formation of a new joint venture that will take full control of TikTok’s operations in the United States.
In the structure of the newly signed agreement, majority control will shift from ByteDance to the investor.
Under the latest deal, a consortium that includes cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will hold an 80.1 percent stake in the new TikTok joint venture USDS Joint Venture LLC, while ByteDance will retain 19.9 percent.
In September, the White House said that a new joint venture would operate the TikTok app in the US, but questions remained about the deal, including the business relationship between the new joint venture and ByteDance.
In a memo, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees that the joint venture would “operate as an independent entity with authority over US data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurance.”
Chew added that TikTok’s global US entity “will manage global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising and marketing” separately from the joint venture.
Rush Doshi, who served on the National Security Council under President Joe Biden, said it was unclear whether the algorithm had been transferred, licensed, or was still owned and controlled by Beijing, with Oracle only providing monitoring.
In September, Chinese media reported that ByteDance would continue to play a leading or operational role.
Furthermore, the deal, which is scheduled to close on January 22, will end a long effort to force ByteDance to divest its business in the US over national security concerns.
Congressman John Moolenaar, a Republican who chairs the US House of Representatives Special Committee on China, has said that he will invite the head of the new TikTok entity to attend a hearing in 2026.
(lom/fea)
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