After years of back-and-forth, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has sealed the seemingly impossible. The company is placing its US business into a new joint venture, meeting Washington’s requirements.
Internally, Shou Zi Chew puts it this way: the new structure is meant to “protect Americans without destroying the product.”
Details
📱 The birth of TikTok USDS: A consortium of Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund MGX takes a 50 percent stake, while ByteDance retains just 19.9 percent.
🔐 Oracle as gatekeeper: Oracle becomes the official “Trusted Security Partner.” US data will be stored exclusively in US data centers. Oracle audits software, data flows, and compliance with security requirements.
🧠 Algorithm under US oversight: TikTok’s “secret sauce” will be retrained on US data to rule out any foreign influence. This fulfills a core demand from the US Congress.
🗓️ Deadline with a date: The deal is set to close on January 22. By then, remaining commercial activities such as e-commerce and marketing will be integrated into the new structure.
Background
The deal is a diplomatic balancing act between Washington and Beijing. It preserves US technological sovereignty without forcing ByteDance to give up its intellectual property entirely.
While criticism remains over ByteDance’s roughly 20 percent residual stake, board control and oversight of the code are now firmly in US hands.
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