After years of legal limbo, the TikTok’s US deal is signed and has come to a conclusion. On Thursday, CEO Shou Chew confirmed that TikTok has entered binding agreements with a consortium of American investors to create a new entity: TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC; a new joint venture between TikTok and non-Chinese investors. The transaction is scheduled to close on January 22, 2026.
For the 170 million Americans who use TikTok, this is the moment where years of political pressure turn into an operating model. The app survives, but not quite in the form people are used to.
How We Got Here (Briefly, Because It’s Been a Long Road)
The urgency behind this deal comes from a 2024 law passed by Congress requiring TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban, driven largely by lawmakers’ concerns and concerns regarding data protection and foreign ownership. The law technically took effect in early 2025, but enforcement was repeatedly delayed through executive orders as negotiations dragged on.
In January, the Supreme Court upheld the statute, confirming that ByteDance would need to divest roughly 80% of its US TikTok business to non-Chinese ownership. By the fall, the White House made clear that a deal with American investors could qualify as a “lawful divestiture,” buying TikTok time to finalize terms.
This agreement is the result of that clock finally running out.
What the New Ownership Actually Looks Like
TikTok’s US Deal comes with a new entity, and is structured to thread a very narrow legal needle.
A consortium of American-led investors will own 50% of the joint venture. The three managing investors are:
oracle (15%), TikTok’s longtime US data partner, which already hosts American user data under “Project Texas”
Silver Lake (15%), a major private equity firm with deep tech experience
MGX (15%), an investment firm backed by the United Arab Emirates
An additional 5% will be held by other investors who haven’t been publicly named in this new joint venture.
Another 30.1% will be owned by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors; firms like KKR, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International. These are largely US and international investors who have been in ByteDance for years, brought to focus in light of TikTok’s US Deal.
ByteDance itself retains 19.9%, just below the threshold that would trigger the ban. That allows it to keep economic exposure while formally ceding control, including limited participation in price sharing tied to the platform’s US operations.
The new company will be governed by a seven-member board, with a majority of US-based directors, giving American leadership operational authority even with ByteDance still partially involved.
Why TikTok’s US Deal is bigger than the app
This deal is bigger than one app.
If the structure works, it becomes a blueprint for how global tech platforms navigate concerns regarding data protection without fully exiting major markets. Instead of bans or forced shutdowns, governments may push for localized ownership, domestic data control, and board-level oversight.
Oracle, in particular, emerges as a winner here. TikTok is already believed to be its largest cloud customer, and this deal turns the company into both infrastructure backbone and strategic gatekeeper. Other cloud providers are paying attention to the details of the Tiktok US deal and how they are structured.
Private equity is watching too. Silver Lake’s stake gives it influence over one of the most valuable and culturally powerful platforms in the US, without having to build a social network from scratch.
What Businesses Should Actually Do Now
Now that TikTok’s US deal is signed, now what? For companies that rely on TikTok, the biggest benefit here is certainty. The existential risk is gone.
Still, January matters. Brands should watch performance closely in Q1 2026, especially around engagement and conversion rates. Tikok’s US deal’s algorithm changes ripple through the platform, early signals will show up in the data.
Diversification still matters. This saga is a reminder that platform risk is real, even for the biggest apps in the world.
And teams should stay alert to policy updates. US-based oversight could mean changes (subtle or not) to moderation, enforcement, or content standards that affect the long-term value of the platform for advertisers and creators alike.
Where This Leaves Things
Now that TikTok’s US Deal is signed, what can we expect?
What emerges is a hybrid: American-controlled on paper, globally integrated in practice, and politically acceptable enough to satisfy Washington. Whether that balance holds, or whether it simply postpones the next fight, is still an open question.
For the moment, though, TikTok has a future in the US. And after years of uncertainty, that alone changes how businesses, creators, and investors can plan.January 22 isn’t the end of the story. It’s just when this version of it finally becomes real.
