It has been a tumultuous year for the team at TikTok United States, who have had to navigate the uncertainty of not knowing what the ultimate fate would be for an app that has been overshadowed by controversy, political decisions, and escalating bilateral tensions between China and the United States. Much like a Cold War-era table tennis match, both governments and, of course, business groups from both countries, have been volleying relentlessly until reaching the final point that has just been achieved.
And among the winners is one of the names that had been mentioned the most throughout this period: Oracle.
After a year defined by legal uncertainty, direct intervention from the White House, and a brief but traumatic national “shutdown” back in January, the future of TikTok in the United States at last has a new identity: TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.
Yesterday, Thursday, through an internal memorandum distributed by CEO Shou Zi Chew, the company confirmed the signing of definitive agreements that will transform the social network into an entity predominantly controlled by American and global capital, distancing it from the direct control of ByteDance and circumventing the definitive ban that seemed almost inevitable only a few months ago.
As mentioned earlier, the creation of this new company is not solely a commercial event; it is rooted deeply in politics. The agreement is the culmination of the divestment law signed by Joe Biden in 2024, which required ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations due to concerns related to national security. Although the Supreme Court upheld the measure in January 2025, causing the app to be removed from app stores for several hours, the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency changed the course of events.
Through a series of executive orders and extensions that kept the app in an “operational limbo,” the Trump administration steered the company into negotiations that have now resulted in a valuation of the U.S. business of the social network at $14 billion.
The ownership structure of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC has been designed to comply with the 20% cap on “adversarial” foreign influence. Since 2024, U.S. law stipulates that any critical application (such as TikTok) cannot be under the control of an entity from countries considered “adversaries,” as is the case with China. For the U.S. justice system, control is not merely holding 51% of the shares, but having the capacity to dictate decisions.
Thus, the new entity will have the following structure:
Perhaps the most technical and controversial change relates to TikTok’s renowned, powerful, and equally contentious content recommendation algorithm. According to Chew’s memorandum, TikTok’s famed code will be retrained exclusively with data from U.S. users. The objective is to ensure that the content feed remains “free from external manipulation”.
Under this agreement, Oracle is not merely a financial partner; it will serve as the “trusted security partner”. In practice, this means that the application’s code will operate on Oracle servers located in the United States, and Larry Ellison’s company will have both the right and the obligation to audit every line of software to ensure the absence of backdoors or biases imposed from Beijing.
In the short term, the answer is “very little.” TikTok will continue operating with its usual features (such as eCommerce and advertising), which means a user in New York will still see advertisements from global brands. The agreement ensures the interoperability of these functions, so if a person in Spain uploads a video that goes viral, a user in Los Angeles must be able to view it. In addition, although the information leaked to the media does not elaborate further, the mention of eCommerce suggests that global sellers from TikTok Shop will be able to sell to American consumers and vice versa.
However, the independence of content moderation and data management will now be entrusted to a seven-member board of directors, the majority of whom will be American citizens.
In any case, and although the agreements have already been signed, the process will not officially conclude until January 22, 2026, the date set for the transaction’s closure. Through this move, TikTok does not merely survive; it becomes a true experiment in digital geopolitics: a social network of Chinese origin now operated under the supervision of American software giants and private capital.
Image: Gemini
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