According to Gizmodo, TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance have signed binding agreements to create a new U.S. joint venture, called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which will be majority-owned by American investors. The deal is expected to close on January 22, 2026, and will allow the app to continue operating in the U.S. by complying with a law that demanded ByteDance divest. The three managing investors are Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, each reportedly owning 15% of the venture. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a key ally of former President Donald Trump and the world’s sixth-richest person with a $233 billion net worth, will see his company serve as the venture’s “trusted security partner.” ByteDance itself will retain about 20% ownership, with 30% going to its current investor affiliates and 5% to other new investors. The agreement also mandates a retraining of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm to prevent outside manipulation.
The real winners here
Look, the immediate takeaway is obvious: TikTok avoided an outright ban. But here’s the thing—this isn’t a clean sale. It’s a complex joint venture that leaves ByteDance with a significant, albeit minority, stake and a lot of the technical guts of the app. The real power shift goes to the new managing partners, especially Oracle and, by extension, Larry Ellison. We’re talking about a man who is not only one of the world’s wealthiest individuals but also a vocal political figure. Giving his company the keys to the “trusted security” kingdom and a major say in content moderation is a staggering amount of influence over one of the world’s most powerful media platforms. It basically hands a Trump ally a massive lever over public discourse right before a major election cycle. Coincidence? Probably not.
What this means for everyone else
For the 170 million-plus U.S. users, the promise is that the “For You” page will be retrained to be “free from manipulation.” But let’s be skeptical for a second. Who defines manipulation? An algorithm overseen by a partnership that includes a firm deeply tied to a political faction? That’s a recipe for controversy, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on. For creators and businesses that have built livelihoods on TikTok, the stability is good news in the short term. But the uncertainty isn’t over. A retrained algorithm could dramatically shift visibility and engagement overnight. And for the broader tech market, this sets a wild precedent. It shows that with enough political pressure, even the most dominant apps can be forced into structures that hand operational control to specific corporate and political interests. It’s a new kind of tech governance, forged in the fires of U.S.-China tensions.
The long road to this deal
This saga has been going on for nearly half a decade, starting with Trump’s 2020 executive order. Congress finally passed a law in 2024, Biden signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it this past January. The national security argument has always centered on data and potential Chinese influence. But let’s not forget the other, quieter driver: content. As reporting highlighted, lawmakers like Mitt Romney explicitly linked support for the ban to the platform’s pro-Palestinian content. So, was this always about data, or was it also about narrative control? Trump’s delay in enforcing the ban gave his allies the runway to craft this specific deal. Now, with Oracle in charge of security and the algorithm in for a retune, the very concerns about “outside manipulation” might just get a new, domestic address. The whole situation is a messy testament to how technology, politics, and global power are now completely inseparable.
