TikTok came one step closer to finalizing its divestment deal to continue operating in the United States, as CEO Shou Chew revealed a consortium of American investors — including Oracle and Silver Lake — were set to take the reins next month.
In a memo to staff reviewed by TheWrap on Thursday, Chew said they had signed agreements with investors and that the deal was on track to close Jan. 22.
With the deal, Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will step in as the managing investors of a new U.S. joint venture, named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, in which 50% will be held by a consortium of new investors.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued dedication and tireless work. Your efforts keep us operating at the highest level and will ensure that TikTok continues to grow and thrive in the U.S. and around the world,” Chew wrote in the memo. “With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been—firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community.”
He went on to explain that the new venture would be “retraining the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation.”
Chew added that the joint venture would also have “ultimate decision-making authority for reviewing and approving all content moderation and related policies within the United States.”
The new agreement allows the popular app to continue operating in the U.S. as the deadline for a decision to be made was extended four times by the Trump administration. The threat of a TikTok ban in the U.S. has loomed over the Chinese-owned tech company for years. It started near the end of Donald Trump’s first term in office, with the then-president signing an executive order in August 2020 banning any transactions between U.S. companies and ByteDance, the social media platform’s Chinese parent company.
When Trump returned to office in 2025, so too did his calls for a TikTok divestment. The president presented a new deadline for the company to take action in finding new U.S. owners for TikTok. It took until nearly the end of the first year of his second term for the deal to be done.
