ByteDance’s TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US operation to investors in the US, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, chief executive Chew Shou said in a memo to employees on Thursday.
The deal, set to close on 22 January, will see Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment fund MGX collectively owning 45 percent of the joint venture that will control the US assets, which is to be called “TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC”, according to Chew’s memo.
Nearly one-third of the joint venture is to be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, while nearly 20 percent will be retained by Beijing-based ByteDance, Chew said in the memo, which was earlier reported by Axios.
Algorithm control
Chew said more details remain to be finalised before the deal is complete.
The joint venture is to be responsible for US data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance, he said.
It will retrain the content recommendation algorithm on US user data to ensure the feed is free from outside manipulation, a response to US lawmakers’ concerns about national security.
Oracle will audit and validate compliance with national security terms, according to the memo.
The joint venture is to operate independently and will work with TikTok global’s US entities to manage product interoperability and commercial activities including e-commerce, advertising and marketing, Chew said.
The arrangement has been in the works for more than a year, following a law signed in 2024 that ordered ByteDance to hand over about 80 percent of its US assets to non-Chinese owners, or face a ban.
Delayed deal
The ban was initially scheduled to take place in January, but was repeatedly delayed by the White House, which said several times that a deal had been reached to sell the assets.
Most recently, the White House said in September that a deal had been reached following a high-level meeting in Beijing.
