TikTok no longer in limbo as it seals US deal

After half a decade of geopolitical brinkmanship, court battles and executive orders, TikTok has finally secured its future in the US.

The short-form video platform confirmed on Thursday that it has closed a deal allowing it to continue operating across the pond, bringing an end to years of uncertainty that began during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.

The agreement reshapes TikTok’s ownership and governance in America, while drawing a clear line around its most precious asset, its algorithm.

At the heart of the settlement is a new, majority American-owned business, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, set to address long-standing national security concerns over TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Under the terms of the deal, ByteDance will retain a 19.9 per cent stake, while American and global investors will control the remaining 80.1 per cent.

Three managing investors, Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, will each hold 15 per cent of the venture.

The new entity will operate independently, overseen by a seven-member, majority-American board.

Adam Presser, a former WarnerMedia executive and TikTok’s ex head of operations and trust and safety, has been appointed chief executive.

TikTok’s global boss Shou Zi Chew will also sit on the board alongside representatives from the investor group.

The algorithm question

For US lawmakers, the issue lied within the algorithm that powered the platform.

Washington has long argued that TikTok’s powerful engine could be exploited by Beijing to influence public opinion, or else harvest data from more than 200m American users, claims repeatedly denied by TikTok and ByteDance.

The fear culminated in legislation passed under Joe Biden in 2024, forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations or face a nationwide ban.

That threat briefly became reality in January 2025, when TikTok went dark for US users for several hours following a Supreme Court ruling upholding the law.

The blackout was then swiftly reversed after Trump, then president-elect, pledged to delay enforcement while negotiations continued.

The breakthrough came last autumn, when China’s cybersecurity regulator signalled it would allow ByteDance to license the algorithm to a US-controlled entity.

Under the final agreement, TikTok’s recommendation system will be retrained solely on US user data and secured within Oracle’s US-based cloud infrastructure.

TikTok says the joint venture will operate “under defined safeguards” covering data protection, cybersecurity, and content moderation.

Oracle will oversee the storage of US user data and the retraining of the algorithm, a concession designed to ring-fence the platform from foreign influence.

A new TikTok for America

Whether the deal will fundamentally change the TikTok experience for American users remains uncertain.

Industry experts expect the US version of the app to evolve differently from its global counterpart, potentially becoming lighter, slower to adapt, or less adept at surfacing viral content.

TikTok’s algorithm, often described as the platform’s “secret sauce”, has proved notoriously difficult for rivals such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts to replicate.

Even so, the deal draws a line under one of the most contentious tech disputes of recent years and offers relief to millions of creators, influencers and small businesses whose livelihoods depend on the platform.

Trump welcomed the agreement in characteristically personal terms, writing on social media that he was “so happy to have helped in saving TikTok”.

He also thanked China’s president Xi Jinping for approving the deal.

For TikTok, the agreement delivers long-awaited stability. After years spent caught between two superpowers, the app now has a structure that allows it to remain embedded in American culture, even if the version US users see is no longer quite the same TikTok the world knows.