\n<\/p>\n
TikTok has reached a deal to form a joint venture that will allow it to continue operating in the US, five years after Donald Trump threatened to ban the social media platform over privacy and national security concerns, a move that further strained relations with China.<\/p>\n
ByteDance, TikTok\u2019s Chinese owner, has signed a deal with Larry Ellison\u2019s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi\u2019s MGX that will allow it to retain control of its core US operations.<\/p>\n
Under the arrangement, the joint venture will take over part of TikTok\u2019s US business, including data protection, algorithm security and content moderation.<\/p>\n
However, TikTok\u2019s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, told employees in a memo that ByteDance would continue to run US operations, including its main revenue drivers such as e-commerce, advertising and marketing.<\/p>\n
The deal ends five years of uncertainty over the future of TikTok in the US, where the platform has more than 130 million users.<\/p>\n
In 2020, during his first term as president, Trump issued an executive order threatening to ban the service to \u201csafeguard the national security of the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US, which ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok\u2019s US business, accused the platform of acting as a vehicle for the Chinese government to harvest data from American users. The company has consistently denied the allegations.<\/p>\n
During Joe Biden\u2019s administration, Congress passed legislation prohibiting ByteDance from retaining operational ties with TikTok US. However, the national security law gave the US president the power to decide whether any deal met its requirements.<\/p>\n
Trump has approved the joint venture that will control TikTok\u2019s US business.<\/p>\n
Under the new structure Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX will each control 15%. Existing ByteDance investors will take 30.1%, while ByteDance will own 19.9% \u2013 the maximum permitted under US foreign ownership laws. The remaining 5% will be held by as-yet-unnamed new investors.<\/p>\n
The US joint venture will be overseen by a seven-member board of directors, the majority of whom will be American, according to Chew\u2019s staff memo.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon the closing, the US joint venture, built on the foundation of the current TikTok US Data Security (USDS) organisation, will operate as an independent entity with authority over US data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In September, the Trump administration said a framework agreement had been reached after a breakthrough in negotiations between US and Chinese officials.<\/p>\n
JD Vance, the US vice-president, said at the time that the deal would value TikTok\u2019s US joint venture at $14bn.<\/p>\n
Under the arrangement, Oracle will oversee the algorithm that recommends videos in US users. The system will be retrained using US data to \u201censure the content feed is free from outside manipulation\u201d, Chew\u2019s memo states.<\/p>\n
China will retain control of the algorithm, with the country\u2019s cybersecurity regulator previously saying it had agreed that any TikTok US deal would include \u201clicensing \u2026 and other intellectual property rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
Quick Guide<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>Show<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.<\/p>\n If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.<\/p>\n Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/strong><\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don’t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS\/Android) and go to the menu. Select \u2018Secure Messaging\u2019. <\/p>\n SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post<\/strong><\/p>\n If you can safely use the Tor network without being observed or monitored, you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform.<\/p>\n Finally, our guide at theguardian.com\/tips\u00a0lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each.\u00a0<\/p>\n Illustration: Guardian Design \/ Rich Cousins<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n The deal is expected to close on 22 January, the day before a deadline set by Trump that would otherwise have resulted in the app being banned in the US.<\/p>\n Ellison\u2019s role in the new ownership of the most popular social media platform in the US has raised concerns about the decreasing share of media firms not controlled by pro-Trump billionaires.<\/p>\n Ellison\u2019s son David is driving sweeping changes at CBS; Mark Zuckerberg controls Instagram and Facebook; and Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. X is controlled by Elon Musk, who was briefly aligned with Trump this year before a public feud.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst Paramount\/CBS and now TikTok,\u201d Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, wrote on Bluesky in response to the news. \u201cTrump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans deserve to know if the president struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TikTok has reached a deal to form a joint venture that will allow it to continue operating in the US, five years after Donald Trump threatened to ban the social media platform over privacy and national security concerns, a move that further strained relations with China. ByteDance, TikTok\u2019s Chinese owner, has signed a deal with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2718,163,696,181,544,21050],"class_list":{"0":"post-38428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-avoid","9":"tag-ban","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-signs","12":"tag-tiktok","13":"tag-trumpbacked"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Contact us about this story<\/h4>\n